Those two dark-clad figures were talking quietly as they ran, each shouldering two large bundles — they looked exactly like ants hoisting flies, scrambling along at a surprising clip.

The girl in the long skirt stepped sideways into the road, blocking their path. She said nothing; speaking, she felt, was a very troublesome thing. Better to just fight and be done with it.

“Out of the way.”

The one in front glanced at her, then paid her absolutely no mind and kept going — caught in the act of carrying stolen goods and still demanding that she step aside, as a matter of course.

So the girl grew even angrier. One kick, sweeping sideways.

Beneath the long skirt, that slender straight leg carried a faint trace of fragrance as the hem swirled up — the kick came very fast. The one in front was obviously caught off guard; then he dipped his head and shoved the big bundle on his shoulder forward, so the kick swept across the bundle.

The bundle-carrying thief had not expected this small girl’s kick to have such force.

The small girl had not expected what was inside the bundle to be so hard.

*Clang!* The small girl was immediately flung back, landing on one foot, the corner of her mouth twitching faintly.

The bundle-carrying thief glanced at her, did not press the advantage, exchanged a look with the other man, and the two of them shouldered their bundles and kept running.

The small girl stared at their retreating backs, somewhat bewildered. If they weren’t thieves, why were they running through the night with stolen goods? If they were thieves, how did they have absolutely none of a thief’s vicious ferocity?

The one running ahead with the bundle stopped after a few paces and turned back. By now the small girl was crouched over, rubbing her foot in pain. He jogged back to her, and the small girl immediately stood up on guard, thinking: *so they do want to fight after all.*

Instead the man rummaged in his pocket, produced a handful of copper coins, and tossed them down beside her.

“Go buy yourself some bruise ointment.”

Then he shouldered his bundle and ran off again.

The small girl was even more bewildered. *What kind of thief is this?*

“Who are you people!” she called after him.

The man looked back and said, “Never mind who we are. Please remember — this is our act of heroic generosity.”

The small girl was more confused than ever.

Half an hour later, at the small courtyard of the Liu Yingyuan family property, the yard was piled high with large bundles — inside them, leather armor and standard Dachu infantry blades. For a rebel army, the significance of such a find needed no words.

The vast majority of soldiers in rebel armies were of peasant origin. Proper armor and weapons were nearly nowhere to be found. Across all of Jizhou, the combined forces of the various rebel groups at their height had numbered in the hundreds of thousands — and among them they could not muster even a few thousand sets of proper leather armor, nor even a few hundred proper long blades.

This was no exaggeration; this was the unvarnished truth. Their weapons were a motley assortment, the most common being cheaply made long spears — and the great majority of those had no iron tips whatsoever, just wooden staves sharpened to a point.

Mattocks and hoes, implements with at least some iron in them, counted as decent armaments by comparison.

Against this backdrop, it became clear just how well-equipped Yanshan Camp was. Yu Chaozong had been building for the long term, so Yanshan Camp had most of what it needed — squads dedicated to collecting iron materials, smiths dedicated to forging weapons.

Even so, Yanshan Camp’s weapons were mainly long spears, and the speartips were small ones at that.

This night’s raid on the garrison storehouses yielded three hundred standard infantry blades and two hundred sets of leather armor.

Yu Jiuling had initially told Li Chi not to come along — worried that something might go wrong with Jiang Ran’s people and that it would be dangerous for Li Chi. But Li Chi insisted on going. Coming back, Yu Jiuling admitted: *good thing you came, or we’d have brought back a lot less.*

After wiping the sweat from his forehead, Yu Jiuling asked Li Chi, “Where did that little girl come from?”

Li Chi shook his head. “I caught a whiff of wine. Probably some young mistress from a household who had too much to drink and wandered out to make a scene.”

Yu Jiuling said, “And you went back to give her money?”

Li Chi made a sound of acknowledgment. “She put on a decent enough show. Deserved a tip.”

Yu Jiuling let out a snort of laughter. He opened one of the bundles and looked inside — then his expression shifted slightly. He picked up one of the blades and handed it to Li Chi. “Bad deal.”

Li Chi took it, looked it over, and sighed. “Indeed. A bad deal.”

That girl’s kick, which had looked like nothing but decorative flailing, had somehow destroyed several of the blades — the wooden scabbards snapping was unsurprising, but the blades themselves had broken too.

If that kick had landed on Li Chi, it would likely have cracked his ribs.

“I want those coins back.”

Li Chi stared at the broken blades, wearing an expression of genuine heartache.

The next day happened to be a rest day from the academy. Li Chi had the carriage house brothers prepare two large carts, and he and Yu Jiuling took the carts over to haul away the previous night’s take back to the carriage house.

The morning weather was fine — spring breeze on the face, fresh and pleasant.

Li Chi and Yu Jiuling sat at the front of the cart as was their habit, chatting idly. There were also a few more earnest scholarly discussions, such as whether the legendary Divine Woman’s techniques were truly as profound as claimed, and whether she was good-looking, and whether her legs were long.

They passed the Cloud Study Teahouse again. As they talked, Li Chi glanced in by instinct; it was too early and the teahouse hadn’t yet opened. He had developed a genuine fondness for the place, truth be told.

Just then a small girl came out through the door, opening it and stretching in the doorway — she seemed to adore the morning air, to adore the sunlit street.

Li Chi’s cart rolled past; the small girl’s gaze was not turned in his direction. No intersection at all.

But at that moment, a child came sprinting out of an alley and appeared right in front of the cart. Li Chi and Yu Jiuling both startled — and in the next instant, Li Chi had already leaped from the cart and seized the reins, hauling the horses to a hard stop, while Yu Jiuling had already swept the child up and run to the side.

Yu Jiuling set the child down and shot a glare at the child’s mother — then noticed she was quite pretty and well-figured, and promptly un-glared.

He came back to the cart and said to Li Chi: “A hero — the strength to uproot mountains, the spirit to fill the world. Truly inspiring. May I ask, hero, your honored name?”

Li Chi waved a hand. “No need to ask who I am. I only act out of heroic generosity.”

The small girl’s eyes flew wide open.

She looked toward Li Chi, but those two had already climbed back onto the cart and were rolling away. The small girl stepped forward to give chase — her foot ached terribly; she couldn’t catch them.

Yu Jiuling happened to glance back — not to look at the small girl, but because he was reluctant to stop gazing at the just-barely-avoided child’s mother.

He saw the small girl hobbling along a few steps, and he felt a small pang of sympathy.

“Nice figure — pity she’s a girl with a lame leg.”

Li Chi heard him and looked back. He recognized the girl who had been singing at the Cloud Study Teahouse yesterday, and said with some compassion: “No wonder she sat so still when she was singing yesterday. Can’t move easily, poor thing.”

Even as he said it, a vague sense that something was off nudged at him. He looked back again — the small girl had disappeared; she had likely gone back into the teahouse.

Li Chi thought: could it be her?

He thought: surely it couldn’t all be coincidence. Though he hadn’t gotten a clear look at the woman last night, he had the impression that the figure and build had seemed roughly similar.

Add to that the limp, and the location near the Cloud Study Teahouse — Li Chi felt this warranted further investigation. A young woman with respectable martial skill turning up at a place like the Cloud Study Teahouse to sing for a living had to have some purpose.

What worried him was Madam Sun and her husband. Madam Sun had been kind to him; at first it was a mutually convenient business arrangement, but later Madam Sun had genuinely treated him like a younger brother.

Li Chi felt this was not something he could ignore. What if someone from the jianghu was scheming after Madam Sun’s assets? It wasn’t so uncommon. Many solitary rogues in the jianghu, or husband-and-wife pairs of swindlers, would enter a wealthy household under false pretenses, earn the owner’s trust, and then murder them for their valuables.

Meanwhile, in the Cloud Study Teahouse, the small girl was hiding behind the window, watching the cart roll away, thinking to herself: *that has to be the same bastard from last night.*

And he’d given her copper coins for bruise ointment!

She hadn’t been drinking then, and even now, she had half a mind to beat him into the ground — and then throw a handful of copper coins down beside him, telling him to buy bruise ointment. Two portions!

“Stealing at night, stealing in the daytime…”

The small girl muttered to herself: “What a vigorous thief.”

She turned and called softly: “Yun-gu, have someone outside follow them — those two on the two carts. Track them and keep eyes on them.”

Yun-gu had heard the sounds of fighting the night before and gone out, but by the time she arrived it was already over — she had been the one who helped the Little Mistress back inside. Examining her afterward, she’d found that the Little Mistress’s foot had swollen up like a bun.

“It was the person I ran into last night.”

The small girl bit her lip and said: “Someone like that — if you don’t teach him a lesson, there’s no justice in this world.”

Yun-gu sighed helplessly, and went out to send someone to follow them.

Li Chi was still mulling over whether the small girl might be some jianghu villain when he suddenly spotted two very familiar figures up ahead, and his eyes went wide immediately.

He leaped from the cart and called back to Yu Jiuling: “You go on — I have something to take care of.”

Yu Jiuling looked in the direction Li Chi had run — and saw Gao Xining and Ruoling walking hand in hand, apparently out for breakfast.

Li Chi ran up to meet them at a clip, almost bouncing.

Yu Jiuling made a face and muttered to himself: “Look at him — running along swinging his hips like a shar pei.”

Gao Xining had spotted Li Chi too; her eyes lit up.

“What are you doing here?”

Li Chi ran up to her and asked.

Gao Xining said, “I’ve barely been out in so long. Grandfather said it’s been unsettled in the city and told me to stay in, but I talked him into letting me come out for breakfast today.”

She asked Li Chi: “Have you eaten yet?”

Li Chi patted his stomach and shook his head. “Not yet.”

*Good thing I hadn’t eaten much just now,* he thought. *Just had three bowls of noodles.*

“How about the little place across from the Cloud Study Teahouse?”

Gao Xining smiled and said: “It’s been so long since I’ve had it. Before, if I wanted anything from there, you were the one who brought it to me — but then Grandfather wouldn’t let me come find you anymore…”

Li Chi said, “Whatever you want to eat, that’s where we’ll go. Their minced-pork rice noodles and their sour bean rice noodles are both really good.”

The three of them walked back the way they’d come, talking all the while. Across from the Cloud Study Teahouse was a small eatery, already open for business at this early hour.

The small girl was still standing at the window, waging an internal battle — she wanted to go across for breakfast, but she didn’t want to be seen in her current state. Yet the fragrance of the rice noodles was genuinely too enticing.

Just then she saw that man come back — and now he had two young women with him. One small girl, one older girl.

The child whose near-accident Li Chi had just prevented spotted Li Chi again and told his mother, who hurried over to thank him properly — she hadn’t had the presence of mind earlier and felt embarrassed.

Li Chi waved it off: “Think nothing of it. Just my daily act of heroic generosity.”

Gao Xining asked what had happened; Li Chi gave a suitably embellished account of his own heroics.

Gao Xining giggled and looked at him: “You’re that impressive?”

In the Cloud Study Teahouse, the small girl let out a sharp *hmph*, biting her teeth together as she thought:

*Still a thief-husband and thief-wife after all!*

—