The convoy had now been stopped on the official road for half a shichen. Proprietor Su was pacing in circles. The young proprietor of Yongning Tongyuan had vanished — and he had taken the pig with him.

Su was tempted to simply leave Li Chi’s people behind and press ahead with his own convoy, but Li Chi’s carts were blocking the road in a thorough mess. He told Zhuang Wudi to sort them into order and let his convoy pass first. Zhuang Wudi said no.

Why not, asked Proprietor Su. Zhuang Wudi said: the formation cannot be disturbed.

What formation?! What in the blazes was there to form a formation about?!

Fortunately, less than half a quarter-hour later, Li Chi came back — riding the pig.

Proprietor Su, face dark as iron, stopped him. “Young proprietor,” he said with barely contained fury, “this is rather inexcusable. You abandoned the convoy and vanished. I require an explanation.”

“An explanation — absolutely, I’ll give you a complete account.” Li Chi patted the pig beneath him. “My intention was simply to take it somewhere to relieve itself — the pig has been raised with very delicate sensibilities, and it truly cannot perform with an audience. So I took it somewhere out of the way.”

He spread his hands. “Who could have guessed that once it left the road it would go completely mad? I ran myself ragged chasing it. It bolted all the way back to Jizhou — ran home to do its business there, then came back. I didn’t dare waste any more of your time, so I just rode it back.”

Proprietor Su’s expression was beyond description.

“It’s entirely my fault,” Li Chi continued, “I was too strict with it from the beginning — it’s been going in one spot its whole life, and apparently it now refuses to go anywhere else.”

He had barely finished speaking when Shen Diao let out a few grunts and, right there in full view of Proprietor Su, produced a substantial deposit on the road.

Proprietor Su: ????

Li Chi said: “This is probably… from all the running? The old saying goes that running shakes the bowels. Running always does this.”

Proprietor Su was too exhausted to comment. He knew something was wrong — he just couldn’t say what. At any rate, Li Chi was back, and so he said with evident frustration: “Can we move now?”

“In a moment.” Li Chi turned around. “Did anyone bring a shovel? I ought to clear this up. If someone walks by and steps in it, that’s unpleasant enough — but what’s worse is if they think it’s dog droppings and try to console themselves by saying it means good luck’s coming. At that point it’s not just a matter of bad manners. It verges on fraud.”

Proprietor Su nearly shouted: “Young proprietor, what is it exactly that you are trying to do?!”

Li Chi glanced over his shoulder and saw that Yu Jiuling had, at some point, rejoined the group. He said quickly: “Never mind, we don’t want to waste any more time. Just everyone mind the horses in the back — watch where you step.”

The convoy set off again. Yu Jiuling moved alongside Li Chi and quietly relayed everything he had seen in Pingchang County. Li Chi’s expression shifted.

“A man that good shouldn’t die.”

He asked Yu Jiuling: “Think of a way to hold back Proprietor Su’s part of the convoy.”

Yu Jiuling asked: “Have you used the Shen Diao move yet?”

“Just used it,” Li Chi answered.

Yu Jiuling glanced up at the Dog circling overhead and said regretfully: “That won’t work for this.”

At the mention of the Dog being useless, something lit up in Li Chi’s eyes.

He raised his hand and whistled. The Dog banked once overhead and then flew off toward the south.

Shen Diao, seeing the Dog fly away, needed no further encouragement — it put all four trotters into motion and bolted after it. It was, in every sense, the Dog’s devoted follower.

“When Proprietor Su asks,” Li Chi said, “just tell him I went chasing Shen Diao.”

Yu Jiuling asked: “But how do we actually hold the convoy back?”

Li Chi was already charging ahead. His voice drifted back: “Didn’t I just ask you to think of something?”

Yu Jiuling thought: what exactly can I think of?

He patted himself down — a purely instinctive gesture — and his hand found the deer-skin pouch at his side. He reached inside and felt around, and his eyes brightened.

He lay across the edge of the cart and waved at Zhuang Wudi. “Brother Zhuang — cover me.”

Zhuang Wudi leaped directly from the saddle of his horse onto the cart and positioned his body to block the view. He asked: “Where has Li Chi gone?”

Yu Jiuling explained the situation in Pingchang County while he prepared a small bamboo tube and loaded a needle into it.

“I’m thinking of the method Li Chi used to deal with Xu Qinglin’s father.”

Yu Jiuling said: “Though I can’t guarantee I’ll hit as small a target as he did, so I’ll need a few tries. You shield me — I’ll startle the draft horse and hopefully flip the cart to block the road. That should buy us some time.”

Zhuang Wudi turned and pulled the tarpaulin from the cart bed. “Use this as cover. I need to go after Li Chi.”

Yu Jiuling said: “No rush — stay and watch me blow one shot. I’m telling you, even though I’ve never used one of these, I can’t possibly do much worse than Li Chi.”

He slid the bamboo tube out from under Zhuang Wudi’s arm. Zhuang Wudi pretended to scratch his hair with a raised hand. Yu Jiuling aimed carefully for a considerable time, then puffed his cheeks and blew.

The needle sailed out of the bamboo tube and appeared to fall into an ocean — not a sound, not a trace.

Zhuang Wudi spat and said he wasn’t waiting any longer, he had to catch up with Li Chi.

“Just one more,” Yu Jiuling said. “If I miss this one, you go ahead — I’ll get it eventually.”

Zhuang Wudi, resigned, said: “Fine. One more shot. Whether you hit or miss, I’m going after Li Chi.”

Yu Jiuling made a sound of agreement, narrowed his eyes, took careful aim, held his breath, puffed his cheeks, and blew the needle out.

At precisely that moment, Proprietor Su jumped from one cart to the next. He was on the heavy side, but moved with surprising lightness — clearly a man with some training. He was apparently coming to the front to keep an eye on Li Chi’s people.

He launched himself in a broad, spreading arc, then tucked his wings and landed — followed immediately by a reflexive clapping of his hands over his lower person, all three movements flowing together.

Yu Jiuling’s needle had been accurate. Just not in the intended location. It had found Proprietor Su’s intended location instead.

Proprietor Su let out a sharp cry and collapsed onto the cart.

Yu Jiuling covered his face, then quietly slid the bamboo tube under the edge of the tarpaulin and lay back, the picture of innocence.

Zhuang Wudi said: “You blew Proprietor Su in a tender spot.”

Yu Jiuling: “Oh no—”

“That’s not quite right either,” said Zhuang Wudi. “You blew one into Proprietor Su’s tender spot.”

Yu Jiuling: “If I could beat you I’d pin you down and thrash you right now—”

Zhuang Wudi had already seized the moment of confusion to leap to the cart ahead, take a horse from one of the riders, and gallop off.

Proprietor Su, face green with pain, pulled the needle out, a murderous look passing briefly through his eyes. He snapped his gaze forward — and saw Yu Jiuling lying there snoring.

Fighting through the pain and humiliation, Proprietor Su called out. Yu Jiuling performed a convincing impression of a man startled from sleep, rubbed his eyes, and asked: “What is it, Proprietor Su?”

Proprietor Su asked: “Where has your young proprietor gone?”

Yu Jiuling said: “Did Proprietor Su not see? A good while ago, the young proprietor went chasing the pig again.”

Proprietor Su felt more certain than ever that something was off. He ordered Yu Jiuling to speed up the convoy. Yu Jiuling agreed immediately and called out for everyone to pick up the pace.

Once Proprietor Su went to the back to tend to his wound, Yu Jiuling quietly retrieved the bamboo tube and thought to himself: this truly is a matter of skill.

He tried several more times. Missed every one.

The driver of the cart beside him — one of Zhuang Wudi’s men — could no longer watch. He pulled a slingshot from inside his robe and said to Yu Jiuling: “Come take the reins. I’ll handle this.”

Yu Jiuling said: “At least aim straight.”

“You were blowing,” the driver said. “I’m shooting.”

He lay flat on the cart, took brief aim, and launched the stone. It didn’t strike the intended point — but it hit the draft horse square on the inner thigh.

That was probably quite painful too. The horse let out a shriek and bolted sideways, taking the cart with it into the ditch.

Fortunately, the driver of that particular cart was also one of Li Chi’s people. The occupants, who had been chattering away, were not.

The driver had seen Yu Jiuling’s failed attempts and already knew when his companion pulled out the slingshot that things were about to go wrong. The moment the cart tipped he jumped clear, rolled smoothly, and came up without a scratch.

Proprietor Su was furious. He could not understand these people. His suspicion of Li Chi’s operation had not faded — but the fact that Li Chi had noticed a missing cart actually reduced his suspicions slightly.

—

Meanwhile, on the official road, Li Chi astride Shen Diao found himself genuinely reevaluating the pig. He had underestimated it thoroughly. The creature, when it ran, appeared to outpace a horse — the wind roared past his ears at a pitch that was almost painful.

Far ahead in the sky, the Dog flew point. Over the past year or more, Li Chi had trained the Dog with whistles — nothing elaborate, but simple commands it could execute reliably.

The whistle he had blown told the Dog to fly ahead and scout. Shen Diao couldn’t decode a whistle, and perhaps assumed the sound was no different from Li Chi urinating. But it had concluded that the Dog was abandoning it, and was in furious pursuit.

Li Chi gripped the pig’s head with both arms and pressed himself flat against Shen Diao’s back. The problem was that Shen Diao ran exactly like a dog — a genuine galloping dog — which produced a bone-rattling bounce.

His upper body could stay pressed against the pig because his arms were locked around it. His lower body could not. He simply couldn’t grip with his legs.

Up went the backside on one bounce, down it came on the next. Shen Diao’s speed was genuinely formidable, and the frequency of the bouncing was accordingly ferocious. Li Chi’s lower half was being thrown around like a length of wet noodle.

Each landing was not pleasant.

Anyone watching Li Chi’s face at that moment would have noticed his eyes rolling upward with each impact.

How fast was Shen Diao running? Fast enough that Zhuang Wudi, on a warhorse, spent two full quarter-hours behind them eating dust without ever closing the gap.

On and on they ran. Li Chi looked ahead and saw the walls of Pingchang County come into view. Even from a distance he could see a crowd bottled up just inside the city gate.

He thought about urging Shen Diao to charge straight through. In the bouncing chaos, he reached back to slap the pig’s rump. The intention was correct; the execution was not.

At the moment he swung his arm back, his own backside bounced upward.

The slap landed on himself. Quite loudly.

The critical point: Shen Diao heard it, recognized it, let out a few grunts, lowered its head, and charged straight through the city gate.

How the pig interpreted that particular sound as a valid command, even Li Chi could not explain.

—