A father does not necessarily produce a son in his own image. Much of Xiahou Zuo’s character took after his mother, while the legitimate heirs of Prince Yu’s household had failed to inherit the Prince’s temperament at all.

This was one of Prince Yu’s ongoing frustrations — the capable son did not resemble him; the one who did resemble him was not capable.

Prince Yu’s eldest son Yang Zhuo was particularly galling: the man would stoop to anything for petty gain, without the slightest trace of magnanimity.

Prince Yu had said more than once that Yang Zhuo should treat Xiahou Zuo more generously — a man of Xiahou Zuo’s character, if you treated him well, would surely treat you no worse. But human hearts were different. Yang Zhuo saw Xiahou Zuo only as a threat; his peace of mind depended on eliminating him.

Besides, Yang Zhuo knew perfectly well that his father’s relative tolerance toward him came down to one thing: the Prince currently needed the backing of his mother’s family. The Yuwen clan’s influence was so vast that whomever they supported gained a meaningful edge in contending for power. Yang Zhuo was under no illusions — if his mother were not the principal consort, if she were not of the Yuwen family, there would be no indulgence from his father at all.

This contradictory stance of Prince Yu’s was precisely what had turned his sons into irreconcilable enemies.

Yang Zhuo, sheltering behind his mother, had never taken Prince Yu’s words to heart. He only pulled back slightly after Xiahou Zuo left for the northern frontier — after all, there was always the chance that Xiahou Zuo would die at the hands of the Black Wu forces without Yang Zhuo having to do anything.

As for Xiahou Zuo, he had no capacity for forgiveness where Yang Zhuo was concerned. To speak honestly: were it not for fear of worrying his mother and grieving his father, he would have killed any number of Yang Zhuos by now.

Whatever could be called brotherhood — in Xiahou Zuo’s heart there was only one person who held that place: Li Chi.

As for those with blood ties — to hell with them.

That night, Prefect Cui Hansheng arrived with his subordinate officials in tow, every one of them wearing expressions of studied deference. They were the sort of people who would drop to their knees the moment Xiahou Zuo so much as coughed too loudly.

And yet — was there a single genuinely humble person among them?

They were all performing. If they truly understood humility, would someone like Liu Wenju have ever risen to prominence in Xinzhou? All the broken families, all the people ruined and reduced to nothing in Xinzhou — the blame lay with Liu Wenju, yes, but at its root, it was men like Cui Hansheng who bore responsibility.

With Liu Wenju gone, there would be someone else — a different Liu Wenju, a Wang Wenju, a Zhao Wenju. As long as Cui Hansheng remained prefect of Xinzhou, such people would keep appearing, because Cui Hansheng needed them.

After a while, when Xiahou Zuo still said nothing, Cui Hansheng instinctively glanced at Li Chi. Li Chi gave him a small nod.

Cui Hansheng let out a slow breath, stepped forward, and bowed. “General, in the matter of Liu Wenju, total confiscated proceeds amount to over eighty thousand taels. From Liu Wenju’s household alone, over fifty thousand taels in silver have been sealed. From the brothels, restaurants, and gambling dens, over thirty thousand taels have been confiscated.”

He glanced back. In the courtyard, towering stacks of large chests rose high — all of it white silver. Such a sum truly pained him. If only, with Liu Wenju out of the way, all of it could flow into his own hands.

“Understood,” said Xiahou Zuo. “You were thorough enough.”

With those words, something in Cui Hansheng’s chest finally eased. He looked again at Li Chi and found him smiling faintly — and understood that things were, more or less, settled.

Xiahou Zuo began pacing slowly back and forth across the room, speaking as though to himself. “Over eighty thousand taels. Before I came, Prince Wu told me that securing the defenses at Daizhou Pass would require substantial funds — at least two hundred thousand taels.”

At these words, Cui Hansheng’s legs nearly buckled beneath him.

Two hundred thousand taels?!

Xiahou Zuo continued: “Fortunately, Liu Wenju previously contributed seventy thousand taels, and there are eighty thousand here. Together that makes one hundred and fifty thousand.”

Cui Hansheng’s mind was racing. *This fifty-thousand shortfall — surely they don’t expect me to cover all of it?*

Xiahou Zuo looked at Li Chi. “The Prince sent you to Xinzhou specifically to gather military funds. How do you propose to handle this fifty-thousand shortfall?”

Li Chi looked at Cui Hansheng. “That, I’m afraid, we must trouble the Prefect to arrange.”

Cui Hansheng’s face went slightly pale. Fifty thousand taels. Confiscating Liu Wenju’s money was one thing — painful, but it wasn’t literally carved from his own flesh. He had made preparations the day before, but only to the tune of twenty thousand taels.

“Your subordinate faces genuine difficulty,” Cui Hansheng said. “Yesterday I called on the city’s wealthy households to make contributions, and together we managed to raise just over twenty thousand taels. For a sum of fifty thousand…”

He looked at Li Chi. Li Chi’s expression darkened.

He looked at Xiahou Zuo. Xiahou Zuo’s expression was darker still.

Li Chi turned to Deputy Prefect Han Tong. “It seems the Prefect truly has no recourse. One cannot accuse him of insufficient effort — it is a matter of capability. Deputy Prefect, might you have any ideas?”

Han Tong felt a jolt of alarm.

Li Chi’s words had effectively placed him on a blade’s edge. If he said he had no ideas, Xiahou Zuo would make an example of him — he would be the chicken, Cui Hansheng the monkey watching the lesson. But if he said he had ideas, not only would it mean offending Cui Hansheng, it would mean making a mortal enemy of him.

And yet Li Chi’s words seemed to carry some secondary implication beneath them. Han Tong turned it over in his mind — and then it came clear.

If he could produce fifty thousand taels, what further use would Xiahou Zuo have for Cui Hansheng?

But he didn’t dare agree. Cui Hansheng had been rooted in Xinzhou for years. If Han Tong lit up with enthusiasm today, by nightfall someone would be in his home killing his entire family.

At the thought of this, Han Tong instinctively glanced toward Cui Hansheng — and found Cui Hansheng already watching him from the corner of narrowed eyes.

Their gazes met for a fraction of a second. Han Tong immediately looked down.

“In… in reply to the General, in reply to Young Master Li — fifty thousand taels is genuinely a sum that cannot be assembled quickly. It is not for want of diligence. Though we hold official positions, the court’s stipends have not been paid out in several years now…”

He watched Xiahou Zuo’s expression carefully. Xiahou Zuo gave a short nod. “If neither of you has a solution, I won’t press the matter. You may all withdraw.”

He gestured with a wave of his hand. “See them out.”

Li Chi rose. “Gentlemen, the hour is late — please go and rest. Whatever needs discussing can wait until tomorrow.”

He followed behind Xiahou Zuo toward the inner room, not saying another word, not even sparing Cui Hansheng a glance.

Cui Hansheng had been about to say something as Li Chi passed, but Li Chi paid him no notice whatsoever and walked away behind Xiahou Zuo without a backward look.

Cui Hansheng and Han Tong exchanged another glance. Both of their expressions were deeply unpleasant.

On the road home, the two men rode together in the same carriage. Han Tong put on a show of irritation and said: “Xiahou Zuo and Li Chi have quite an appetite — they’ve already extracted a hundred and fifty thousand taels from us, and they still want more!”

Cui Hansheng said: “What I keep thinking about is why they’re pressing so hard. Are they testing us?”

“Testing what, my lord?” Han Tong asked.

“Loyalty.”

Cui Hansheng sat in thought for a moment, then said: “What if this is Prince Yu’s intent? A test to see whether we will commit to his cause. If we balk at a few tens of thousands of taels and refuse to board the ship…”

Han Tong’s face went slightly pale. “Then Prince Yu will replace us.”

“The court has already issued orders for Prince Wu to march his army back to Jingzhou to guard the capital,” Cui Hansheng continued. “It’s only the Black Wu invasion from the north that has detained him for now. Once Prince Wu withdraws — within all of Jizhou, who would remain to restrain Prince Yu?”

He raised his voice toward the outside of the carriage: “Stop!”

The carriage halted immediately. Cui Hansheng said: “Turn around and go back.”

The carriage had barely begun to turn when Cui Hansheng called out again: “Stop!”

He sat inside, his expression shifting and changing for a long time, and then at last said: “If we go back now with the money, it will look as though our sincerity just now was false — which is not the impression we want to leave. So we cannot go back tonight. We wait until tomorrow. And we cannot offer the full fifty thousand. This is what we do: I will produce twenty thousand, you fifteen thousand, and we’ll have Qi Dian put in ten thousand. Together that makes forty-five thousand. We send it to them and say it represents our absolute limit.”

Han Tong nodded. “Very well, my lord. I’ll follow your lead in all of this.”

—

Meanwhile, Xiahou Zuo glanced at Li Chi and smiled. “Those men would practically forfeit their lives for silver.”

Li Chi said: “They won’t get far before they turn around. If they don’t come back tonight, they’ll have the money ready by tomorrow and send someone to invite us over.”

Xiahou Zuo said: “The way I see it, I could just bring my men in and cut them all down. Who could stop me? You’re making this far more complicated than it needs to be.”

Li Chi shook his head. “Not good for your reputation. Kill them tomorrow — I’ve already arranged it.”

He smiled and added: “You can write a letter to Prince Yu and have it dispatched at once. Tell him that the Xinzhou Prefect Cui Hansheng and the others were found to be utterly corrupt beyond redemption and that you have already had them executed; request that Prince Yu send men to take over the administration of Xinzhou. Handled that way, your father won’t be too displeased with you.”

Xiahou Zuo looked at Li Chi for a moment, then sighed. “How is it that you’re like some ancient cunning spirit?”

Li Chi smiled. These were simply the methods of the rivers and lakes — his master knew them all. He had merely transplanted them into the arena of officialdom.

Beyond that, of the materials left to Li Chi by the man called Teacher Li in the Shulin Pavilion, several scrolls had proven exceptionally useful: two volumes on military strategy, two on statecraft.

The following afternoon, near dusk, Deputy Prefect Han Tong arrived in person to report that they had pooled everything at their disposal and gathered forty-five thousand taels — they simply could not raise the full fifty thousand.

Along with the silver, he relayed a message: Prefect Cui had not slept in three days and three nights and was presently engaged in preparations for a banquet in their honor; they humbly invited General Xiahou and Young Master Li to grace the prefectural office with their presence.

Li Chi and Xiahou Zuo accepted.

When they arrived at the prefectural office, Xiahou Zuo’s eyes went wide.

Gathered throughout the entire rear courtyard of the compound were no fewer than several hundred young women, filling every inch of the space. They were the women from Liu Wenju’s brothels — and every one of them stood with a face drained of color, trembling with fear.

This had been Li Chi’s instruction to Cui Hansheng, delivered earlier: tell the Prefect that General Xiahou has a keen appreciation for beauty, and to summon all the women from the brothels for him to select from. A banquet of this kind, surely even Xiahou Zuo could not remain unmoved.

Xiahou Zuo walked through the midst of those women, looking at them as he passed. None of them dared meet his eyes. For these women, the prospect of what might lie ahead was something none of them could bear to contemplate.

They had no power to resist — and no courage to try.

Whatever others arranged, they could only accept.

They had escaped Liu Wenju’s clutches only to fear falling into the grip of another monster. In this Dachu of theirs, they had come to feel that the higher a man rose in power, the greater a monster he became.

Li Chi caught Cui Hansheng’s eye and gestured for him to step forward and speak.

Cui Hansheng immediately came forward. He first offered an elaborate apology for his lack of diligence the day before, and then expressed profound regret for failing to produce the full sum of silver.

Then he lowered his voice and said to Xiahou Zuo: “General, these women have all been gathered here for you — and for the Prince. When His Highness arrives, he may choose freely from among them.”

As he said this, a self-satisfied expression crept onto his face, as though he had scratched precisely where Xiahou Zuo most needed scratching.

“How dare you!”

Xiahou Zuo erupted in fury. “You would frame Prince Yu in this manner?! If word of this were to spread, what would the people say? What would the court say? What would the Emperor say?! You have devised a scheme of this vicious and deranged nature — you are utterly without conscience!”

Cui Hansheng stood completely dazed.

Xiahou Zuo gave a single command: “Seize every one of these wretched criminals! Anyone who resists — cut them down on the spot!”

His hundred aides, fierce as wolves and hungry as tigers and ready for this moment, surged forward immediately. The prefectural officials and constables were no match for these battle-hardened soldiers. Within moments, they were overwhelmed.

Shortly after, every official in the Xinzhou prefectural office had been swept up in one stroke.

Xiahou Zuo’s voice rang out: “Effective immediately, I am taking over the administration of Xinzhou. Men who destroy the nation and harm its people cannot be allowed to remain. Take them all out — and in full view of the city’s populace, have them beheaded!”

Watching this unfold, Yu Jiuling leaned close to Li Chi and said in a low voice: “A phrase just came to my mind. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to mention.”

Li Chi said: “Don’t.”

“I can’t hold it in,” Yu Jiuling said. “Does this count as using up the donkey after the grinding is done?”

Li Chi said: “Not the most flattering phrase, but not inaccurate.”

Yu Jiuling said: “There’s another one — killing the hen to get at the eggs, would that apply?”

Li Chi gave him a look. Yu Jiuling laughed awkwardly. “Let me try again — pulling out the firewood from under the pot?”

—