The residence was spacious enough, but three courtyards housing over a hundred people would still be a squeeze — and the rear courtyard was where Liu Yingyuan’s family of three was lodging, which made things additionally inconvenient.

Fortunately, none of this was a problem that Xiahou Zuo and his men needed to concern themselves with. The as-yet-unaware Prefect Cui would handle all of it.

It wasn’t long before Prefect Cui Hansheng came hurrying over, dressed in a freshly pressed set of official robes — the fold-lines from their packaging still visible in the fabric.

Before leaving, he had glanced down at the two new rings on his fingers, hesitated for a moment, and tucked them into his pocket.

As he approached the residence, still some distance away, he caught sight of the general who had not yet removed his armor. The smile began building on Cui Hansheng’s face well in advance — an official’s smile was a discipline in itself, requiring genuine warmth over a foundation of mild anxiety, courteous deference threaded through with humility. The expression worn at court was a field of study all its own.

“Your subordinate, Cui Hansheng.”

At about ten feet away he was already prostrating himself on the ground. “I greet General Xiahou!”

Xiahou Zuo glanced at him and said in a cool, flat tone: “Please rise, Prefect Cui. Given your rank, such an elaborate greeting is unnecessary.”

“Your subordinate is… moved.”

Cui Hansheng genuinely looked it.

He had just drawn breath to say a few words in praise of General Xiahou’s valiant defense of the pass, when Xiahou Zuo spoke first.

“Where is the food?”

All the flattery Cui Hansheng had ready deflated back into him. He answered hastily: “Over twenty cooks have been summoned from the restaurants across Xinzhou City. Please allow a moment, General — all the ingredients are on their way. It won’t be long before a meal worthy of the general and his brave men is prepared.”

Xiahou Zuo frowned slightly. An operation of this scale would take at least an hour before anything appeared on the table.

He turned to look around and noticed that Li Chi had vanished — had been right there a moment ago, laughing and talking beside him, and had slipped away entirely without Xiahou Zuo noticing.

“Where’s Li Chi?”

He then noticed that Yu Jiuling was also gone.

“He was just here,” said Mister Yan. “I didn’t see when he left.”

Xiahou Zuo gave a brief sound of acknowledgment and walked back inside the compound. Cui Hansheng, still with a stomach full of undelivered praise, could find no opening to release any of it. He told himself it was fine — after all, this was the son of Prince Yu, a newly promoted Senior Fourth Grade general. Was this not entirely normal behavior?

He followed behind Xiahou Zuo toward the courtyard, and Xiahou Zuo turned to look at him: “Something else?”

“I thought I might stay close and attend to the General,” said Cui Hansheng quickly. “Whatever the General requires, your subordinate is here at hand.”

“Whatever I instruct, you can carry it out?” Xiahou Zuo asked.

“Yes, yes,” said Cui Hansheng. “The General’s arrival is an honor to all of Xinzhou and to this subordinate personally. Whatever you instruct, I will do everything in my power to fulfill it.”

“Then go home,” said Xiahou Zuo.

“Ah…”

Before Cui Hansheng could form a response, Xiahou Zuo had already stepped through the door into the main hall. To follow him in would be awkward; to not follow him in was unsatisfying.

In the end, fear of irritating the general won out, and Cui Hansheng retreated in embarrassment — only to step back outside and find Li Chi returning with a small crowd, each person carrying a load on their shoulder poles, easily a dozen people in all.

Li Chi looked at Cui Hansheng and asked: “Leaving already, Prefect Cui?”

Cui Hansheng immediately poured out his grievances, explaining why General Xiahou had treated him with such cool indifference.

Li Chi looked at him for a moment, then said with an expression of deep disappointment: “Because you’re foolish.”

Cui Hansheng hardly cared how bluntly Li Chi spoke to him anymore. He pulled Li Chi aside and pleaded with fawning intensity: “Please, Young Master Li — guide me.”

Li Chi glanced down at Cui Hansheng’s hands. All ten fingers were bare. Not a single ring. Li Chi’s expression shifted at once to something approaching mild dismay.

The moment he caught that look, Cui Hansheng understood. He immediately produced two rings from his pocket, slipped them onto his fingers in a single fluid motion, and extended his hand. The sequence had the gravity of ceremony and the fluency of long practice — a deeply pitiful sight.

Li Chi stripped one off and said: “First — I told you that General Xiahou dislikes being disturbed. Without a summons, don’t seek an audience. I told you this just now, and you’ve already forgotten. Then you wonder why the General was cold toward you? You should be grateful he didn’t have you thrown out.”

“I thought… that when General Xiahou mentioned the food, he meant he wanted to see me.”

“That brings us to the second point,” said Li Chi.

He took the second ring. “How can you be this obtuse? General Xiahou has ridden hard all day without eating. What does a man need most at that moment? Not to wait another hour or two while you assemble a brigade of cooks to build fires and start dishes from scratch.”

He turned and called back: “Bring everything to General Xiahou and the soldiers first.”

Yu Jiuling led the group forward.

Li Chi pointed at them and said: “Do you see? The moment I spotted those cooks of yours I knew things had gone wrong. You have spent years in official posts — how do you lack even this much judgment? Those are street vendors I just went out and found. I called over every stall selling steamed buns in the area. Soldiers need to be filled up, not presented with elaborate food that won’t satisfy a stomach.”

“And that brings us to the third—”

Cui Hansheng waved his hands hastily. “No more — there is no third.”

“I’ll put it on account,” said Li Chi. “You can make it up to me later.”

Cui Hansheng raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and asked in a tone of miserable anxiety: “Then what should I do to recover the situation?”

“General Xiahou was born to rank and distinction,” said Li Chi. “You’ve managed to irritate him, which means I’ll have to spend considerable effort finding ways to smooth things over. Quite a headache. Go home and wait for word — if there’s news, I’ll send someone to let you know.”

Cui Hansheng pleaded: “I beg Young Master Li to put in a good word with the General on my behalf. I have truly learned my lesson this time.”

Li Chi said, “Three days ago I called you a perceptive man, and now I find you aren’t all that perceptive after all… You’re still worse than Liu Wenju.”

He let out a long breath of resignation, hands clasped behind his back, and walked away.

Cui Hansheng wiped his brow again and thought: so this must be what people mean when they say attending on the powerful is like walking beside a tiger. He could see now why even those officials who seemed to have it all together must spend every day in exactly the same state of trembling vigilance as he felt right now.

But he was only a local official. He had no means, no connections, to continue climbing. To have reached the position of prefect of Xinzhou — barring some extraordinary event, this was likely the ceiling of his life.

Which was precisely why this was a rare opportunity.

He suddenly recalled that a few days ago, more heavy carts had departed from Liu Wenju’s estate, presumably heading toward Daizhou Pass with more silver. Liu Wenju had already sent twenty thousand taels, and this second shipment meant — evidently — that General Xiahou had asked for more. And an open request for funds meant that Liu Wenju had already established his connection.

He had already fallen behind Liu Wenju. If he didn’t find a way to compensate soon, Liu Wenju would be climbing over his head before long.

Then he thought back to that last thing Li Chi had said to him… *Three days ago I called you a perceptive man, but now I find you aren’t all that perceptive — you’re still worse than Liu Wenju.*

In that instant, a beam of light flooded through Cui Hansheng’s mind. In it, Li Chi seemed to be standing there — a halo of radiant saintly light around his head — looking down at him with benevolent serenity. He raised his hand, and pressed three fingers together — thumb, middle finger, and forefinger — and rubbed them.

*Money.*

The light burst inside Cui Hansheng’s head, and the realization detonated like a thunderclap.

He immediately snapped an order: “Quickly — where are my horses and carriage? Get me back to the office!”

Li Chi, for his part, had not anticipated that Cui Hansheng’s mind had gone through quite so many elaborate philosophical twists before arriving at the concept of money — nor that by the time it got there it had ascended to the level of sacred revelation.

He had simply meant to nudge the man. He had not expected it to require such a grand scenic detour.

Li Chi walked back inside the residence and stepped into the main hall to find Xiahou Zuo already working through a large steamed bun, cheeks puffed out on both sides. There was nothing remotely dignified or imposing about it.

“Such a waste,” Xiahou Zuo said, somewhat muffled.

“What is?”

“They’re all vegetable filling.”

Li Chi sighed. “The people of this city may not have seen meat for quite some time. That I managed to find this many vegetable buns at all was no small feat. Count your blessings.”

He held out his hand. “I spent fifteen taels of silver. Friendship price: twenty.”

“That Cui Hansheng seems to have money,” said Xiahou Zuo. “I’ll collect it from him for you tomorrow.”

“What for?” said Li Chi. “I already collected it just now.”

Xiahou Zuo: “…”

Li Chi grabbed a bun and began eating. Xiahou Zuo was still on his second bite when Li Chi finished his first.

Cabbage and glass noodle filling — modest enough ingredients — yet made into something that tasted genuinely satisfying. That clean vegetable fragrance, savory and warming. You ate one and felt a kind of ease settle through you.

“Slow down,” said Xiahou Zuo. “You’ll choke.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Li Chi said. “Don’t you know me by now?”

“Pfft — can you not hear that I’m complaining about how much you eat and how fast?”

“Mmm…”

Another one gone.

Li Chi had already eaten earlier, and so he stopped naturally after seven. Xiahou Zuo finished six and felt stuffed — those were not small buns, and in the northern style, steamed goods were made to be filling. Three or four would be plenty for most people.

But those vegetable and glass noodle buns were the finest thing the soldiers had eaten in the past ten days or more.

What Li Chi did not know was that the men outside ate until every single one of them could take no more — and still felt full of contentment. Full of happiness.

“So. How do we go about this?”

Xiahou Zuo set down his tea and asked.

Li Chi walked him through the situation with the brothels and gambling dens. Xiahou Zuo thought it through carefully and concluded that if the operation went smoothly, the sum that could be extracted would be staggering.

“Let’s start with how to divide it.”

“Brothers settle accounts clearly,” Xiahou Zuo said. “I need money. The funds to build the memorial garden and monument are sufficient, but the death compensation for the fallen soldiers has not yet been arranged.”

“You take what you need,” said Li Chi. “The rest is mine.”

Xiahou Zuo smiled. “Fine by me.”

He let out a long breath, then after a moment said: “What do you plan to do with your share?”

“All this trouble you cause your elders,” Li Chi said, “and the silver isn’t still being saved up for you to take a wife?”

Xiahou Zuo’s eyes narrowed slightly. Li Chi had already taken two steps back, carrying himself now in the manner of Xiahou Zuo to Li Chi, Li Chi to Yu Jiuling.

This was the food chain.

“Set it aside for later,” Li Chi said.

“I’ve been thinking,” he continued, “about whether it might be possible to acquire some horses from the steppe in the future.”

“Mares or stallions?” asked Xiahou Zuo.

“Hmm?”

“Tch,” said Xiahou Zuo. “You have no sense of humor whatsoever.”

Being good sworn brothers, it seemed, meant both being perfectly willing to sacrifice everything to be the other one’s father — and sustaining that effort indefinitely.

—