Most of the Cloud Study Teahouse’s guests came, as they always had, to see the Young Mister. Over a year on and his popularity hadn’t faded — if anything, more people came now than before. Not entirely because of how he looked, but looks like his did have a way of making people overlook other things.

In the main hall downstairs, the name “Young Mister” rang out in waves. Up in the second-floor private room, Li Chi sat drinking tea with Ye Zhangzhu and listened to the sound. The corner of Ye Zhangzhu’s mouth curved slightly.

“Strange,” Ye Zhangzhu said, looking at Li Chi. “Someone with your temperament — I’d have thought you’d dislike this kind of attention.”

Li Chi smiled and shook his head. He couldn’t say he disliked it, couldn’t say he liked it either.

He had come to the Cloud Study Teahouse to tell stories and sing originally because he needed money. But over time, a kind of feeling had taken root here. The warmth of the people below, accumulated over the months, had become something like pride.

“Mister Ye is a strange one too,” Li Chi said.

“How so?”

“Yesterday, when I had Yu Jiuling go to find you on my behalf — it was a rather sudden request. I didn’t have much confidence it would work.”

“Because I’m Azure Formation, and the Azure Formation serves the Military Governor?” Ye Zhangzhu asked.

Li Chi nodded.

“If you weren’t confident, why did you send someone?”

Before Li Chi could answer, Ye Zhangzhu said: “Because before Xiahou left, he told you — if you ever run into serious trouble, come find me. Wasn’t that it?”

Li Chi nodded again.

“I knew Xiahou first,” Ye Zhangzhu said, “and through him I came to know the Azure Formation. But I joined the Azure Formation first, and through it I came to know Xiahou. So — do you understand what I meant just now?”

Li Chi understood.

Whatever the order of events, in Ye Zhangzhu’s eyes: Xiahou came first. The Azure Formation came after.

Ye Zhangzhu lifted his teacup and took a small sip. The hot tea carried a faint fragrance as it settled into his chest, pleasantly warming. Talking for a few moments with someone of like mind was warmer than the tea.

“You and Xiahou are cut from the same cloth — but you’re not the same kind of person.”

Ye Zhangzhu’s voice was even. “What Xiahou holds in his heart is the desire to dare to go first in all things under heaven — yet he doesn’t seek to be known by all the world. His words about you were: in years to come, Li Chi will be someone all the world recognizes.”

He paused briefly, then added: “Xiahou also said: he is the one who goes first beneath heaven. You are the one who goes before heaven itself.”

Li Chi didn’t know what to say. The praise was too heavy to receive.

“Do you know why I joined the Azure Formation?”

Li Chi shook his head. “I’m not quite sure. Weren’t you from a military background, then assigned to the Azure Formation?”

“I wasn’t from a military background. I’ve spent so many years in those circles that most people assume I once wore armor… My father did. My elder brother did. Both of them died on the northern frontier. My father fell first. My brother took his place — garrison militia, hereditary military household, as the custom goes. I was still young when my father left home. He told my mother: if I die, the eldest son takes my place. If the eldest dies, the second son. My mother asked — and what about the family? Does the family not matter?”

Ye Zhangzhu paused, then said: “My father said: we are a military household. This is what military households do.”

He took a sip of tea, as if to settle himself. He had always seemed a composed man, a confident one — but he was still a man, and men have feelings. No one can be truly unaffected by the deaths of those they love.

The composure was learned. Time had been long enough to teach the art of concealment.

“My brother died in battle. My mother, already broken by one loss, stood before my father’s honorary grave and wept until she couldn’t speak. She said she had never once defied my father in her life — but this once, she truly could not send another son to the frontier.”

Li Chi exhaled heavily. He understood that feeling. His own master felt the same — but the longing Changmei felt, compared to what Ye Zhangzhu’s mother had felt, was a different thing entirely. She had already let go twice — her husband first, then her eldest son. The refusal to let go a third time, after having done it twice already, was a grief that had no floor.

Ye Zhangzhu looked at Li Chi. He smiled — still calm, to all appearances.

“In those days, Prince Yu was not yet the Prince Yu of today. He hadn’t yet been enfeoffed in Jizhou, hadn’t yet received a prince’s title. He was still just an imperial prince — and unknown to most, he had gone to the frontier incognito to fight, and with his own hands killed more than a dozen of the enemy. I saw it myself.”

He looked down at his teacup, pausing for a long moment. “Strange, perhaps — my mother had forbidden me from going to the frontier. How did I come to witness Prince Yu killing enemies in battle?”

“The Black Wu forces had attacked. My brother died. The conscription order arrived at our home. My mother knelt before the men who brought it and begged them not to take me away. The team commander wept alongside her, and then said… but we are a military household.”

“Jizhou City — nine hundred and seventy military households within the walls. Jizhou Prefecture — thirty-six thousand military households in total. Was there a single one that wasn’t white-haired parents burying black-haired children? Was there a family that wasn’t…”

Ye Zhangzhu clenched his fist. The tendons on the back of his hand rose, then slowly released.

“With the Black Wu to the north — thirty-six thousand military households in Jizhou — was there a single one that wasn’t losing all their sons.”

Those four words landed in Li Chi’s chest like a blade.

“Prince Yu happened to be passing through. When he saw what was happening and my mother’s wailing, he took me into his service as an attendant — in his capacity as an imperial prince — so that I wouldn’t have to go to battle directly. But I went anyway. He went to the front himself. How could his guard not follow?”

He exhaled slowly. “The Prince of those days was not the Prince of these days. Twenty years will change a person greatly. Xiahou is like what the Prince was at seventeen — that’s why the Prince treated him so well. The resemblance really is striking.”

“Later I told the Prince I wanted to enlist. He said: I made a promise to your mother. I will never send you to the battlefield again.”

Ye Zhangzhu poured himself another cup of tea, then forgot to drink it. It cooled slowly, untouched.

“Jizhou is unlike other places. Due north is Black Wu. Northwest is the steppe. Northeast is the Bohai. The military households here bear the heaviest burden of any.”

He looked at Li Chi. “I respect Xiahou the way I respected the Prince at seventeen. In those days I called the Prince a brother. Now I call Xiahou a brother. Twenty years and I’m still the same, no wiser — and now here I am, knowing you as well.”

Ye Zhangzhu pointed north. “At the front, soldiers half die and half survive.”

He pointed down at the floor below. “In the tents of beauty, song and dance play on.”

He stood and walked past Li Chi, patted him on the shoulder, and paused with his head bowed. “Xiahou knows you, so I trust you. Xiahou dares to go first beneath heaven. The day you go before heaven itself — I will still be myself, Ye Zhangzhu.”

He walked downstairs and was gone.

Li Chi sat in silence for a long, long time. The voices from below kept rising — they were still waiting for the Young Mister to tell a story, to sing a song.

Li Chi felt his face burning.

Ye Zhangzhu hadn’t said anything explicit. But the meaning had been clear enough. Xiahou says you can stand before heaven itself — and this is your standing before heaven?

Li Chi rose slowly.

In the main hall downstairs, the crowd spotted him coming down from the second floor and the energy lifted. Li Chi lowered his head and walked to the stage as he always had, bowing politely as he always did. Then he returned to the storytelling table and stood there for a long time without speaking.

The room went quiet. Everyone waited for him to begin. They wondered what story the Young Mister would tell today, what song he would sing.

“I am grateful,” Li Chi finally said, “for the warmth you have all shown me.”

He bowed again, then paused.

The crowd sensed that today’s atmosphere was different. The silence deepened.

“Today,” Li Chi said, “I would like to speak about a few people. I have told the story of Xu Qulü many times — today I will leave him aside and speak of others.”

He stopped, then let out a long breath.

“One hundred and twenty-six years ago, the Black Wu forces raided the frontier. Do you know the name of the border garrison north of Youzhou?”

From below, someone called out: “Shanyue Pass.”

“That year, the garrison commander at Shanyue Pass was named Yang Wumo. When the Black Wu launched their assault in full force and orders came down to abandon the pass and fall back to Youzhou, Yang Wumo said: if we retreat even one step, tens of thousands will live or die by it. I will not retreat. He held out for twelve days. Three thousand six hundred soldiers died. Yang Wumo died at the city gate.”

“Both hands gripping the gate. When the Black Wu breached the walls and reached the gate to open it, they found Yang Wumo already dead — and his hands had not let go. He had bled out from his wounds, but his grip held even in death. When they tried to open the gate, they could not pry his fingers loose. In the end they cut off both his arms with a blade.”

“Later generations said Yang Wumo was foolish — why didn’t he follow his orders and retreat? He had time to leave. But if he hadn’t held those twelve days, how would the hundreds of thousands of people in Jizhou have had time to flee?”

Li Chi continued: “Seventy-two years ago, the Black Wu broke through the frontier passes and laid siege to both Jizhou and Youzhou, until those two cities were like islands in a sea of bodies. East and south of Jizhou there was a county called Dengmen County. The county deputy, a man named Gao Jiubao, led three hundred and sixty garrison soldiers toward Youzhou to reinforce it. Halfway there, they met refugees fleeing in the other direction, who told them that Youzhou was lost — the Black Wu had it surrounded completely. They could not get in.”

“Gao Jiubao said: when a country faces danger, there are three kinds of people who may retreat — the old, women, and children. There are two kinds who may not: soldiers and men. I am both a soldier and a man, and so I march to die.”

Li Chi looked out at the faces before him, paused, then continued: “And so he died. He led those three hundred and some soldiers in an assault against the Black Wu besieging Youzhou. This man, decades later, was called a fool by some.”

“Three months ago, the Black Wu came again. Twelve hundred soldiers inside Daizhou Pass. All dead within three days.”

He paused.

“One hundred and twenty-six years later, I still know Yang Wumo’s name. Seventy-two years later, I still know Gao Jiubao’s name. Three months later, I am standing here telling you stories.”

He stepped back one pace, then bowed deeply.

“This will be my last visit to the Cloud Study Teahouse. There is no need to come looking for me here anymore. I intend to apply myself fully to my studies, and when I have learned what I must, I will go and see whether I can become a man who wears armor. If the Central Plains sees prosperous days again, and people sit in teahouses listening to stories — and if one of those stories is about a man named Li Chi — I think it should be a story worth hearing.”

He turned his back to the audience and faced north.

“I did not come from a military family. But today I wish to give a salute.”

Li Chi raised his hand and placed it over his chest, facing north. Then he lifted his right foot and brought it down hard.

The sound rang out like a strike of thunder. The floor seemed to tremble.

No one quite knew why — but everyone in the hall rose to their feet. Every person raised a hand to their chest. And then, as one, every person stamped hard.

The floor shook.

*Today I stand as a storyteller — I will not let these people be failed by their country.*

*The day I wear armor — I will not let this country be failed by me.*

—