Prefect Cui’s face was a picture of bewilderment and visceral pain. As each ring was stripped from his fingers one by one — the red jade archer’s ring, the green jade ring, the gemstone ring — it was as though the flesh itself were being gouged away.
Li Chi glanced down at his own hands and felt, in an instant, that they looked considerably more distinguished.
He picked up the jade pendant and turned it over in his fingers. To be honest, Li Chi had never been particularly skilled at judging the value of such things. He had learned a little — Changmei the Daoist had taught him something of it — but it had never amounted to much in practice.
With precious objects, you cannot claim experience merely from what you’ve read in books or heard from others’ mouths.
A man who has never laid eyes on a treasure and presumes to appraise one is only inviting ridicule. A man who holds forth with great confidence on things he has never seen, while the man whose rooms are filled with such treasures listens — that man is probably laughing to himself.
So Li Chi had no intention of troubling himself over what precisely the thing was made of. He only cared whether it was worth money.
And the way Li Chi typically gauged that was simple: he watched the face of the person losing it. Take Prefect Cui, for instance — if one were to grade his expression of distress on a scale from one to ten, the prefect was currently somewhere between five and six, climbing steadily toward seven or eight.
So the thing was worth quite a lot. Li Chi felt a small measure of satisfaction.
He took a sip of wine and said, “Prefect Cui is a rare and perceptive man, and the Prince is particularly fond of perceptive men. You’re different from me, my lord — though Xiahou and I are sworn brothers, my own standing is ultimately what it is, and I’m still young. Who can say what the future holds.”
“But you, my lord — you’re in the prime of life, with talent and learning, bearing and shrewdness alike. Follow the Prince, and you’ll have a brilliant career ahead of you. A year or two from now, when we meet again, I may well have to bow to you.”
These few words sent Prefect Cui’s heart blooming with joy. The moment his spirits lifted, he stopped minding about the rings Li Chi had just stripped from his fingers.
“It is all thanks to your support, Young Master Li,” said Cui Hansheng. “Without you, how could I ever have met General Xiahou? How could I have met the Prince? Whatever happens in the future, you are my benefactor.”
Li Chi smiled. “You mustn’t say that. We’ll all be people of the Prince’s household from now on — we look after one another, and life goes more smoothly for it.”
“Quite right, quite right,” said Cui Hansheng. “We look after each other, and things only get better and better.”
Li Chi shifted the topic abruptly. “Speaking of things getting better — I must confess I’m rather troubled…”
Cui Hansheng thought to himself that something unpleasant was likely on its way, but he braced himself and asked anyway: “Is there something weighing on the Young Master’s mind?”
“Life in Jizhou at the moment is genuinely difficult,” Li Chi said. “There’s a young woman I was on the verge of marrying, but my circumstances are truly impoverished. Her family has asked for a wedding residence — nothing less than a front-and-back three-courtyard property — as well as a fine carriage for travel. Prefect Cui, you have no idea how valuable property in Jizhou has become.”
Cui Hansheng raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow and ventured carefully: “A front-and-back three-courtyard property in a place like Jizhou — roughly how many taels of silver would that require?”
“Ah,” Li Chi sighed. “The truth is, it’s my own fault for talking out of turn. The Prince said he’d give me a residence, and Xiahou said the same — but I told them that a man who sets out to make his own way in the world should naturally do so by his own means. Yet doing it myself… a property worth several thousand taels? How could I possibly afford that?”
“Actually, the Young Master could rely on the Prince’s…”
“Hmm?”
“No — what I mean to say is, the Prince means it kindly, does he not? It is a sign of how much he esteems you. Not just anyone receives such generosity from the Prince. In any case, it’s only a matter of several thousand taels…”
“Only a few thousand taels?” Li Chi raised an eyebrow.
“This sum — I will cover it,” said Cui Hansheng. “Though I serve as a local official and keep both sleeves clean, there are modest reserves at home. Several thousand taels is not so much. If I may ask, precisely how many thousands? I’ll have it sent to your residence shortly.”
“Nine thousand nine hundred taels.”
Cui Hansheng: !!!
His heart ached.
Terribly.
The other side — the side without a heart — ached too.
Both sides ached.
“Nine thousand nine…”
Cui Hansheng bit his teeth and said, “Never mind. Even if I must borrow, I will gather this sum for the Young Master. I cannot let something like this stand in the way of your lifelong happiness.”
Li Chi pressed his hands together in a bow. “On behalf of my not-yet-wedded wife, I thank the Prefect!”
And Cui Hansheng still had to wave it off and say it was nothing, a small matter.
He felt deeply ashamed of himself.
All he could hope now was for the Prince to arrive quickly, so he could get himself properly connected. This Li fellow was unreliable — and from Liu Wenju’s attitude earlier, he had concluded that Liu Wenju was unreliable too. That man, if he managed to attach himself to the Prince first, would kick Cui Hansheng — the very prefect — straight out of the picture.
So if the opportunity arose, he had to move first. Liu Wenju had originally been no more than a money tree for Cui Hansheng — one that grew toward him, not the other way around. Liu Wenju had bowed and scraped to flatter him. That had been satisfying.
But if Liu Wenju gained influence, that sort of petty man would transform overnight into Cui Hansheng’s superior. All the ways Cui Hansheng had squeezed money out of Liu Wenju over the years — Liu Wenju would repay it tenfold. That was a deeply unpleasant prospect.
Li Chi smiled and said, “The wine here is good, and so is the food — better, I think, than the restaurants back in Jizhou. If you have a free moment, Your Excellency, I’ll come and share another drink with you.”
Cui Hansheng laughed along and said, “Anytime, anytime at all.”
In his heart, he thought: *I am begging you — this meal I hosted you for was the worst mistake I ever made. Please, for the love of all things sacred, don’t come back. Other people drink to liven the mood; you come to drink my blood. My blood.*
So agitated was he that the word “please” rang out in four tones.
With great effort he finally saw Li Chi back to the residence — and still had to present the property deed with both hands and a bow, along with ten thousand taels of silver. Had he given exactly nine thousand nine hundred, he had little doubt Li Chi would have made things difficult for him before the Prince.
The moment Li Chi stepped inside, he spotted Shen Diao rooting around in the dirt. It seemed that not uprooting the ground for a single day made the creature profoundly uncomfortable.
The sight irritated him. He walked straight over and gave Shen Diao a kick in the rump.
“You’ll root at anything!”
Mister Yan said mildly, “Come now, why the temper? Is it not a pig’s nature to root?”
“It’s a courtyard of blue flagstones,” said Li Chi. “Solid stone paving, everywhere.”
“That,” said Mister Yan, “is precisely where you fail to understand. Stupidity is also a pig’s nature.”
Li Chi paused, then felt unexpectedly persuaded.
Meanwhile, the Dog continued lounging on Shen Diao’s back in its usual fashion — like a self-righting toy, perfectly steady no matter how much the pig rooted and shifted beneath it.
Shen Diao rooted away and grunted, as though puzzling over why the ground here felt somewhat different.
The Dog, apparently having lost patience, let out two short barks and flapped its wings. The implication seemed clear enough: *you fool — why not try a different spot?*
Shen Diao appeared to understand completely. It moved to a new spot and resumed rooting. That spot was also blue flagstone.
Li Chi reflected that these two creatures couldn’t possibly take after him in their foolishness. When he thought about it, most of the time it was Gao Xining who fed them — which meant their stupidity probably came from her.
This thought settled something in him.
Both Shen Diao and the Dog were male. Males were sons. And sons, in all likelihood, took more after their mothers…
Li Chi then thought: if Gao Xining was their mother, then wasn’t he their father?
A warm feeling spread through him.
Mister Yan watched the expression on Li Chi’s face shift from worry to quiet satisfaction and felt genuinely baffled. *What on earth was he thinking? Could Shen Diao and the Dog really have given him such profound insight?*
Li Chi noticed Mister Yan looking at him, laughed awkwardly, and changed the subject to ease the tension.
“Master, these two are so stupid — they definitely don’t take after me.”
“You could always try a blood-bond test,” said Mister Yan.
Li Chi: “…”
Changmei the Daoist, reclining in his rocking chair, sighed and said, “Thank the heavens I’m only his master and not his father. If Li Chi and these two creatures actually matched with blood, it would taint my legacy by association.”
Mister Yan looked puzzled. “Could it even taint you? If it matched, wouldn’t that mean he has nothing to do with you anyway?”
Changmei froze.
“You two are elders,” Li Chi said plaintively.
“Exactly,” Mister Yan replied with complete sincerity. “We are the elders, you are the child. And aren’t children there to be teased?”
Changmei nodded. “Precisely.”
“Pah!” Li Chi spat.
He handed the property deed to Changmei and said, “I’ve squeezed this residence out of Cui Hansheng for you.”
Changmei the Daoist took it, looked it over, then looked at Li Chi — the look of a master whose disciple has surpassed him, warm with pride.
“In all my years wandering the rivers and lakes,” Changmei sighed, “I never imagined the day would come when we’d squeeze this much from an official of this rank.”
“You sound rather proud of yourself,” said Mister Yan.
Li Chi pointed to the chest. “There’s ten thousand taels inside. My master gets the property and no share of the silver. The money we split among ourselves.”
“I find I’m becoming quite proud myself,” said Mister Yan.
“Wretched creature,” murmured Changmei.
Li Chi suspected that Liu Wenju would not fare well once he reached Daizhou Pass. Yu Jiuling would explain everything to Xiahou Zuo, and if Liu Wenju somehow survived Xiahou Zuo’s hands, then Xiahou Zuo wasn’t really Xiahou Zuo.
But rescuing the women held in the brothels — Li Chi knew that would be difficult for him to manage alone.
Even if he raised the matter with Cui Hansheng, the prefect would certainly refuse. And on what authority could he even raise it? Would people from the Prince’s household concern themselves with such things? Saying anything at all might cause Cui Hansheng to grow suspicious of him.
To resolve the situation with the gambling dens and brothels in Xinzhou City, he would have to wait for Xiahou to arrive.
“You’re confident Xiahou will come?” asked Mister Yan. “After all, the battle lines at Daizhou Pass are drawn tight — surely holding the pass ought to be his priority.”
Li Chi shook his head. “Once Prince Wu’s army arrives, what role is left for Xiahou in holding the pass? My guess is that Prince Wu will offer him some form of promotion, then send him off to rest and take over the defense. The glory of repelling the Black Wu forces — that goes in the history books. Prince Wu won’t be giving that away.”
Mister Yan listened, paused, then let out a long sigh.
“Daizhou Pass has the elite Left Martial Guard holding it,” Li Chi continued, “and Xinzhou Pass has the Yanshan Camp. The Black Wu forces won’t find it easy to break through. They’ll likely come away empty-handed — but given the temperament of the Black Wu people, would Kuokedi Dashi order a retreat without anything to show for it?”
Mister Yan thought for a moment. “The steppe?”
Li Chi hummed in agreement. “A Black Wu army of a million marches south, fails to take the Central Plains, and returns home — Kuokedi Dashi would feel his face was unfit to be seen. He’d sweep through the steppe on the way back… The steppe is different from the Central Plains. The Central Plains have fortified cities to hold off invaders; the steppe is open flatland with nothing to stop the Black Wu forces.”
“If they slaughter their way across the steppe,” Mister Yan said, “the steppe people will hate the Black Wu with a burning passion. They won’t help them in the future.”
Li Chi looked at Mister Yan and was silent a moment before asking: “Will they? Truly?”
Mister Yan seemed caught off guard by the question. He thought again, then sighed. “I was thinking too simply. Those who are beaten into fear kneel faster the next time. The difference is that we are not like that.”
Li Chi shook his head. “Master, we are all the same.”
Mister Yan went still.
“Those who suffer pain submit,” Li Chi said. “Those who suffer enough fear kneel.”
Mister Yan fell into silence, drawn in by Li Chi’s words. *Are we truly different from the steppe people?*
No.
We are all the same.
And so the only answer is this: we must not be beaten into fear and pain. Only then can we refuse to kneel.
—