The following morning, Prefect Cui — having prepared a substantial quantity of ready silver — sent someone to request an audience with Li Chi. He did not dare seek out General Xiahou, but calling on Young Master Li should pose no problem, seeing as the Young Master had never said he disliked being disturbed.
Prefect Cui had concluded that Li Chi was a good man — the kind of good man who welcomed interruptions at any hour, so long as the interruption came with money.
The messenger said that Prefect Cui invited Li Chi to come to the prefectural office. Li Chi replied that he understood, and told the man to inform the Prefect he would be there shortly.
Then Li Chi strolled off in search of Xiahou Zuo.
Xiahou Zuo was in the courtyard practicing his exercises — mid-winter, stripped to the waist, lifting a stone lock in each hand.
Li Chi walked over and said as he approached: “Put those down for now — there’s something on.”
Xiahou Zuo nearly dropped both stone locks. He glared at Li Chi and said: “Can you please not use that particular phrasing? Use ‘set them aside,’ or anything else — is there a reason you have to say ‘put those down’?”
“Fine. Set those down for now.”
Xiahou Zuo picked up the stone locks and started chasing him. Li Chi circled the pillars.
“It looks like Prefect Cui has taken the bait,” said Li Chi as he moved. “He sent someone just now to invite me to the office. My guess is he’s figured it out.”
Xiahou Zuo set the locks down, accepted the towel his aide handed him, wiped his face and said: “How much silver do you think we can squeeze out of this?”
Li Chi counted on his fingers. “Liu Wenju’s operations in Xinzhou are, conservatively, taking in a fortune every day. Of that, no less than a third will have been flowing into Cui Hansheng’s pockets. Conservatively, Liu Wenju has ten thousand taels in silver. That puts what Cui Hansheng holds at no less than fifty thousand — and Liu Wenju isn’t the only one who’s been paying him.”
Xiahou Zuo did the arithmetic. Fifty thousand taels — at ten taels per man as death compensation, it wouldn’t cover all the fallen soldiers.
He looked at Li Chi. Li Chi read his expression and nodded: “I’ll make an effort.”
Xiahou Zuo raised a fist. “Believe in yourself!”
Li Chi: “…”
Before long, Li Chi arrived at the Xinzhou prefectural office. Prefect Cui had been pacing back and forth in a state of frantic agitation, and the moment he heard Li Chi had come, rushed out to receive him.
“Young Master Li, I’m truly sorry to trouble you to come all this way — I should have been the one to call upon you, but feared disturbing the General’s rest…”
Li Chi waved him off. His expression was dark — very dark — which caused Cui Hansheng’s heart to clench.
Li Chi’s face was terrible. Genuinely terrible. The look of a man who had just encountered a great many problems, multiple and none of them small.
“Young Master Li?”
Cui Hansheng didn’t dare raise his own concerns yet, and ventured carefully: “Has something happened to trouble you?”
Li Chi sat down and said nothing. He sat in silence for a long moment, and then — a crack — his palm came down hard on the table.
“That useless wretch Liu Wenju!”
The table immediately collapsed, the tea things on it scattering to the floor in pieces.
Li Chi turned to look at Cui Hansheng. “Is this the man you recommended to me?! This Liu Wenju — after arriving at Daizhou Pass, he first managed to infuriate General Xiahou. Xiahou let it go, given that he had brought military funds. Then Liu Wenju found out Prince Wu had arrived at Daizhou Pass and, bypassing General Xiahou entirely, went to seek an audience directly with Prince Wu!”
A shockwave went through Cui Hansheng. Even in those few words there was enough to turn a man pale with fright. Bypassing General Xiahou to seek out Prince Wu directly — even before considering whether he would be received, this was precisely the kind of violation that could end a man at court. How had Liu Wenju dared?
“I understand now,” said Li Chi, “why General Xiahou was so cold toward you. It all traces back to that Liu Wenju — a mere merchant, and he had the audacity to behave this way. Yet you told me he was capable and reliable?!”
Cui Hansheng raised a hand to wipe the cold sweat that had sprung up instantly on his brow and said hastily: “Liu Wenju was truly unconscionably bold.”
Li Chi said: “And that’s not all. You think it ends there? General Xiahou, upon hearing that Liu Wenju had gone to seek an audience with Prince Wu, killed him in a fury.”
“Ah!”
Cui Hansheng’s face went instantly white.
“I spent most of last night trying to calm the General,” Li Chi said. “He still hasn’t cooled off. You think he was merely being cold toward you? Last night as we drank, he asked three or four times: *What should I do about this Cui Hansheng?*”
With a thud, Cui Hansheng dropped to his knees.
He was a prefect, a full official rank, and he knelt — just like that.
He wiped his sweat and said, “Young Master Li, please save me.”
“Get up first,” said Li Chi. “I managed to keep Xiahou in check last night — for now — but his anger is still there. You must know this already: before General Xiahou arrived, Liu Wenju dispatched another train of carts from his household toward Daizhou Pass. That silver was not sent on behalf of the General — it was Liu Wenju’s offering to Prince Wu.”
He pointed straight at Cui Hansheng. “What sort of man did you put to use?! He tried to establish himself directly with Prince Wu, not knowing that he had no chance of being received — and those carts of silver were stopped by some minor aide in Prince Wu’s retinue without the Prince himself even being aware. He never reached Prince Wu. He only lost his life.”
“He couldn’t even attach himself to Prince Wu, and he died for it — which matters little enough; he was the sort of man who bites the hand that feeds him. But in failing to attach himself to Prince Wu, you and he managed to offend General Xiahou together. What do you propose to do about that?”
Cui Hansheng said: “I’ll do whatever you say. Young Master Li, please, you must save me.”
Li Chi let out a breath and his tone softened slightly.
“It’s not too late to recover.”
“While Prince Yu has yet to arrive,” Li Chi said, “you must move quickly to pacify General Xiahou and extinguish his anger. If you fail to do so, when the Prince reaches Xinzhou and General Xiahou tells him about you, your future will be over — your life along with it.”
Li Chi leaned forward, looking Cui Hansheng directly in the eyes. “If I didn’t think you were a man of some sense, if I didn’t give weight to the fact that you’ve shown yourself willing to learn — would I have come to tell you all this? General Xiahou is still furious. I should be keeping well away from you. The decent thing would be to avoid all association.”
Another crack — Cui Hansheng’s head struck the floor.
“Young Master Li. Save me, Young Master Li.”
Li Chi reached down and lifted him. “Look at you — frightened half out of your wits, not a single idea in your head. How have you managed to hold office all these years?”
He raised Cui Hansheng up and said: “Let me ask you something. The General’s anger — is it directed at you?”
Something lit up faintly in Cui Hansheng’s mind. He ventured carefully: “It… should be that Liu Wenju is the one who provoked him.”
“Exactly.”
Li Chi clapped him on the shoulder. “Liu Wenju has spent years in Xinzhou City deceiving his superiors and oppressing those beneath him, doing harm in the shadows — over all these years, how many families has he ruined? You are Xinzhou’s chief official, and long before this, you had heard rumors and quietly dispatched people to investigate. And now, at precisely this moment, you have gathered evidence of Liu Wenju’s many crimes…”
Li Chi gave Cui Hansheng a meaningful look. Cui Hansheng understood at once — if he failed to grasp Li Chi’s meaning now, he truly was past all help.
“I understand — I understand completely!”
Cui Hansheng’s expression brightened with excitement. “I’ll send people at once to seize and search Liu Wenju’s household. That damnable wretch — oppressing the people, murdering the innocent, that’s not even the worst of it — he’s been conspiring with rebel forces!”
Li Chi nodded. “How astute of you, Prefect Cui.”
“I will personally lead the men to seal all properties under Liu Wenju’s name,” Cui Hansheng continued, “and confiscate everything. Since General Xiahou is in Xinzhou, it would be appropriate to transfer the entire matter to the General for his handling — along with all confiscated assets.”
Li Chi dropped his voice and leaned close to Cui Hansheng’s ear. “Do you understand why I’ve been giving you all these hints?”
Cui Hansheng said: “Because Young Master Li is saving me — such generosity.”
Li Chi gave a short derisive sound. “Nonsense. Liu Wenju has been sending you silver for years. Your dealings with him are surely not clean. I’m handing you this case — you handle it yourself, and by the time you pass it to General Xiahou, you’ll have separated yourself from it completely. You walk away clean. And so do I.”
Cui Hansheng’s eyes actually lit up.
“Young Master Li,” he said, “you are nothing less than the one who gave me a second life.”
He bowed again deeply.
Li Chi smiled. “I’ve been worrying myself raw over your situation. Last night, once I understood where the General’s mind was, I immediately sent people out to find evidence — and as it happens, certain matters involving Liu Wenju have come to light…”
He paused, then looked at Cui Hansheng. “There is a man named Liu Shanshen imprisoned in Liu Wenju’s household — correct? This man once served as an official in Jizhou and later came to Xinzhou to join Liu Wenju. Liu Wenju coveted the beauty of his daughter and had him set up for disposal. I’ve already had Liu Shanshen and his family of three freed and brought to General Xiahou’s side.”
The cold sweat Cui Hansheng had only just dried broke out again all at once.
Li Chi said: “You had nothing to do with any of this, Prefect Cui?”
“Nothing — nothing whatsoever!”
Cui Hansheng waved his hands urgently. “I truly had no knowledge of it — none at all. That Liu Wenju really was unconscionably bold!”
“I’ve settled the matter of that witness for you,” said Li Chi. “What happens next is up to you.”
He rose and turned to leave. “General Xiahou was going to send men to arrest you this morning. I held him off. Get the Liu Wenju case closed within two days. If you don’t — when Xiahou decides to kill someone, no one can stop him. He killed Liu Wenju right in the middle of Prince Wu’s army. Do you think he’d hesitate over you? Don’t forget — whatever their differences may be, Prince Wu and General Xiahou are uncle and nephew by blood. What was Liu Wenju? Nothing.”
Li Chi walked away. Cui Hansheng bowed and escorted him out in person, and it was only after Li Chi had disappeared from view that the Prefect realized his clothes were nearly soaked through.
He walked back to the study and sat heavily in his chair. He felt cold all over. The damp clothes clung to his skin, unpleasant — though that was far less unpleasant than the feeling inside him.
“Summon everyone!”
After a moment’s thought, Cui Hansheng rose to his feet and called out: “Send word — assemble every constable in the prefecture. Requisition three hundred garrison soldiers. Tell Deputy Prefect Han to come here at once. We ride together and search Liu Wenju’s household!”
The order went out, and before long Deputy Prefect Han Tong and Chief Constable Qi Dian had both arrived.
Three officials led their men at a fierce march straight to Liu Wenju’s compound. On the way, Cui Hansheng laid out Liu Wenju’s crimes. He had long harbored resentment toward Liu Wenju, and feared him gaining the upper hand — now that the chance had come, he struck without mercy.
“Anyone with knowledge of the accounts between him and myself: kill them without exception.”
Cui Hansheng ordered: “You two divide the work — Deputy Han, take men to search the gambling dens and brothels. Seal all the silver.”
“Qi Dian, you come with me to Liu Wenju’s household directly. Anyone with knowledge of our dealings: not one left alive.”
He turned to look at Qi Dian. “The ledgers. You must find the ledgers.”
—
Meanwhile, at Li Chi’s residence.
Xiahou Zuo asked Li Chi: “You went to see Cui Hansheng — what do you think he’ll do?”
Li Chi gave a slight shrug. “Dog bites dog; ghost devours ghost. Let them kill each other.”
He was quiet for a moment, then seemed to speak almost to himself: “There is no such thing as dirty silver in this world. There are only dirty people.”
—