The transport company.

Yu Jiuling stared at Li Chi in disbelief. He really hadn’t expected that when Li Chi said he wouldn’t go back to the Cloud Study Teahouse, he actually meant it. Whatever you might say, they had been there long enough to have developed real feeling for the place.

“Not going is not going. I just think it’s a bit of a shame.”

Yu Jiuling looked at Li Chi in all sincerity. “I’ve watched you tell stories and heard you sing. Honestly, your skill is not far below those so-called masters of the craft — the only gap between you and them is about fifty or sixty years. If you were an old man, you’d already be counted as a true master.”

Li Chi gave him a withering look. “If I were gone from this world, I’d probably be a legendary figure in the profession.”

“Not at all,” Yu Jiuling said. “You never say anything off-color. Can anyone be a master without a few raunchy jokes? And you won’t take disciples — especially female disciples. How can you be a master without that? You’re really just lacking in years and lacking in lewdness. As they say, ginger gets sharper — and yellower — with age.”

“I’ll give you yellow, you— “

Li Chi glared at him, and then suddenly paused.

“Jizhou Prefecture Chief Constable Jiang Ran seems to have been dismissed and sent home.”

Li Chi looked at Yu Jiuling. “Yesterday when I saw Mister Ye, he said Military Governor Zeng Ling is feeling somewhat hemmed in these days. Prince Yu has grown excessively reliant on the Yuwen family’s influence and treats the people they send with extraordinary indulgence. If Jiang Ran has been dismissed, that man from the Western Regions — Jing Yanli…”

“He’s an official,” Yu Jiuling said. “Why should we care whether he lives or dies?”

Li Chi shook his head. “He helped us. He saved people. Granted, I deceived him from the start and used him — but in that jail, if he hadn’t ordered his men to loose their arrows, Brother Zhuang and I would never have gotten out.”

Yu Jiuling looked at Zhuang Wudi. “I for one have no interest in caring about the life or death of officials. None of them. Brother Zhuang — what do you say?”

Zhuang Wudi was quiet for a moment. “We should care.”

Yu Jiuling was completely thrown. This was not the Zhuang Wudi he knew — a man whose hatred for anything connected with authority had been ground into his bones. How was he willing to involve himself in something like this?

Zhuang Wudi glanced at Yu Jiuling. “Debts and grievances must each be settled.”

Li Chi smiled and stood. “I’ll go take a look myself. If nothing’s wrong, I’ll leave him word to get out of Jizhou quickly. If something is wrong — if I can lend a hand, I will.”

Yu Jiuling sighed. “I’d better come with you then. This house is full of uncles and elders and fathers and grandfathers — not right to send a child out alone.”

Li Chi launched a kick.

Yu Jiuling stuck out his backside to receive it.

—

At the same moment. Jiang Ran’s home.

Jiang Ran had expected they’d wait until dark at the earliest. He hadn’t expected that the people coming to kill him would come in broad daylight, without any hesitation whatsoever. Then again — men like Jing Yanli, who acted on the strength of their backing — what did they care about daylight or dark, law or no law?

The gate was open. Jiang Ran hadn’t bothered closing it. If he couldn’t escape anyway, he might as well meet it head-on.

When Jing Yanli walked in with a crowd of men, Jiang Ran’s roasted chicken was still half-eaten. He raised his head and looked at the men with undisguised contempt.

“Some backbone,” Jing Yanli said.

He waved a hand. The men behind him closed and barred the gate.

He walked slowly up to Jiang Ran, looked down at him with the gaze of someone surveying lesser beings, and said: “I told you. Cross me, and there’s no good end.”

“You step on a dog,” Jiang Ran said, “and you learn to watch out for the dog next time.”

Jing Yanli gave a short sound and looked Jiang Ran up and down.

“I expected someone like you to cling to life. Every official I’ve ever dealt with from the Central Plains — which of them isn’t desperate to survive? You’ve surprised me. I’d been planning to cut you into pieces. Now I’m thinking I’ll just kill you quickly and be done with it.”

Jiang Ran tossed the half-eaten chicken down at Jing Yanli’s feet. He licked his thumb, smacked his lips once, and stood.

“Your grandfather served in the army.”

He rose, wiped the oil from his hands on his armor, took up his long pike with a grin, and said: “My forebears rode with the western expeditionary armies and saw your ancestors on their knees begging for mercy. Today your grandfather would like to see that again.”

“Kill him,” Jing Yanli said.

His men began to advance. The foremost attacker suddenly accelerated, long blade raised high.

Jiang Ran stepped forward with his left foot, waist and stance rooted like stone, the long pike sweeping out sideways. The blade tip passed through the attacker’s throat. As the tip cleared, one drop of blood came with it — and behind that drop came a spray like a fountain.

The corpse’s momentum carried it forward and it pitched down to the ground, twitching, blood spreading slowly from beneath it.

From the side, another attacker fired a repeating crossbow — several bolts in quick succession. Jiang Ran’s iron armor held; the bolts failed to punch through, but struck sparks off the metal.

Jiang Ran surged forward, drove the pike point through that man’s chest, then heaved upward with both arms and lifted the body off the ground.

He brought the pike down with a crash. The body swung off the point and flew outward, bowling two men off their feet.

Jiang Ran caught his breath. Two men killed, and already he felt his strength flagging. The killing technique was still there, but the stamina was not.

“Damn it all…”

He spat.

“Should’ve drunk less wine and slept with fewer women.”

He stepped back. The pike pressed down, the tip hammering a man’s skull in front of him — the man dropped. The tip drove down again, through the back of the neck. The bone cracked.

More closed in from all sides. Using a long weapon was his advantage here, but the space was growing too crowded. He retreated one step for each kill — but the pike was heavy, and it wasn’t long before both arms began to ache and the blade tip began to tremble.

A kick from the side caught him in the ribs and sent him stumbling. Only the pike shaft, braced against the ground, kept him upright, but the pain contorted his face.

Jing Yanli watched him. “You could try begging for mercy. It won’t help, but you could try.”

“Beg for mercy?”

Jiang Ran laughed. “I stayed here alone and waited for you. Did I look like a man who planned to bow his head? I spent too many years as an official bowing and scraping. Today — your grandfather is done bowing. If I’m dying, I die on my feet!”

He straightened up again, pike leveled at Jing Yanli: “Whatever else my life has been, I’ve lived it more like a man than you have. I sent all my people away — I wasn’t willing to drag them down with me. You hide behind your subordinates and send them in to die one by one. What face do you have to stand in front of me?”

Jing Yanli said: “So you’re just an idiot.”

He gave the order: “What are you waiting for? Keep going!”

The attackers pressed in again. Jiang Ran fought as he retreated, step by step, back to the doorway of the main hall — a narrow point, like a small mountain pass, where he needed only to face what was in front of him. He felt, for a moment, like the thing he had wanted to be as a boy — a great general holding a pass alone against ten thousand men.

“Come on!”

Jiang Ran’s shout thundered.

The pike swept across. Another man fell.

But there were too many of them. And this was no mountain pass.

Someone smashed through a window to the side, came through the room, and struck at his back. The blade plunged in — but the chain armor beneath held. Not pierced through, but blood ran freely from the impact.

Another blade hacked into his shoulder. The shoulder plate was cut open. The shoulder beneath it too.

With enemies pressing from all sides now, the long pike had become a liability in close quarters — he couldn’t swing it freely.

A kick from the left struck his ribs and sent him stumbling. A blade from behind struck his iron helmet, knocking it away. His head bled.

A blade from the right cut his thigh. Blood poured at once.

Jing Yanli watched from the side the entire time, making no move himself. He simply watched Jiang Ran die.

“Look at you,” Jing Yanli said, shaking his head. “You thought you had some heroic quality in you.”

He seemed to find Jiang Ran simply foolish.

An arrow flew in from nowhere. The attacker who had just raised his blade to finish Jiang Ran took the shaft in the back, lurched forward in his pain, and the blow went wide.

Someone came over the outer wall. They wore the uniform of the Military Garrison Command.

“The guard is here — protect the General!”

A middle-aged man came over the wall and immediately started shooting arrow after arrow.

Seven or eight men in Military Garrison uniforms dropped into the courtyard and ran toward Jiang Ran. When Jiang Ran saw them, his eyes went wide.

“Liu Shan — you bastards, I told you to go! I told you to protect my wife and son!”

Liu Shan was Jiang Ran’s personal guard commander. When Jiang Ran had been transferred to the post of Chief Constable, they had shed their Garrison uniforms and become prefecture constables. Of all who had followed him in those years, only seven or eight had stayed.

Today, they had put their uniforms back on.

“A guard exists to protect the general.”

Liu Shan kept shooting as he spoke. “General, rest easy. Your wife has been safely escorted out of the city. We came back to fight at your side.”

Jiang Ran’s nose pricked. He raised a hand and wiped his face — but only smeared blood across it.

“I told you all to get lost.”

Liu Shan shook his head. “If the General dies, the guard does not live.”

His arrows were spent. He drew his blade and moved forward.

“Kill the enemy!”

“Kill!”

Seven or eight men cut a path through sheer force and reached Jiang Ran’s side, forming a solid shield before him.

“You bunch of idiots!”

Jiang Ran cried out urgently: “Do you think the people trying to kill me are these Western Regions fighters? It’s Prince Yu who wants me dead. We can’t win this. I just wanted to die without being humiliated — why did you come back? Now you’ll all die too!”

Liu Shan grinned. “We spent the General’s silver. Drank the General’s wine. The General even gave us money for the pleasure houses. We’ve had every good time with you there is to have, General. Dying — we’ll have that too.”

He looked at Jiang Ran. “General — do you still remember the Arrow Formation?”

“Of course I remember!”

Jiang Ran stooped and picked up a fallen blade. He struck it against his chest plate. “Great Chu Arrow Formation. I’m the General — the General is the arrowhead. Follow me and break their line!”

Liu Shan roared: “Kill!”

*Kill!*

Jiang Ran, soaked in blood, charged forward — he was the arrowhead, and his guards became the shaft of the arrow, driving ahead.

Jing Yanli gave a dismissive sound. He reached back casually, took his own weapon when it was handed to him, and walked forward to meet the Arrow Formation head-on.