Teacher Yan Qingzhi taught quickly. If you didn’t understand something, you could ask him after class — but he would never repeat himself during a lesson. For the most part, his attitude toward Li Diudiu remained cool and distant, likely because Li Diudiu had repeatedly ignored his warnings to stay away from Xiahou Zuo.

Did he really need to stay away from Xiahou Zuo?

Li Diudiu didn’t particularly care what others thought. Stay away from Xiahou Zuo? Sure — next year.

When classes broke at midday, Li Diudiu headed for the dining hall. Sun Rugong quickened his pace to catch up with him.

“Li Chi.”

Li Diudiu turned. “What is it?”

Sun Rugong’s tone had softened somewhat. “I only have one request: don’t take first place. I’ve already confirmed that all four of us will advance to the advanced class — no one is being eliminated. So the ranking doesn’t really matter. Consider it a favor I owe you — one you’ll be able to call in someday.”

Li Diudiu smiled. “You’re being almost reasonable.”

“There was no need for us to become enemies,” Sun Rugong said. “Once we’re in the advanced class, we’ll all be among strangers — so we’ll still need to watch out for each other, won’t we?”

Li Diudiu considered this. “You’re right. But I won’t agree to it.”

He looked at Sun Rugong steadily. “If you’d said these things to me before you had Sun Biehe ambush me, I would have nodded right away. I’m genuinely not the competitive type — I have no burning desire to be ranked first. But it’s too late for that now.”

He turned and walked on. Sun Rugong stood watching him, his expression shifting through several emotions, until at last he murmured to himself: “You’ll regret this, Li Chi.”

The next day was another rest day. Li Diudiu was up early with his things ready to go out when Xiahou Zuo, forever at his own easy pace, came sauntering over in the distance, stifling a yawn.

“Did it have to be this early?”

He glanced at Li Diudiu and then held his hand flat against the top of Li Diudiu’s head and slid it over to his own height. He looked genuinely surprised.

“Did you get taller?”

“Is that so strange?” Li Diudiu said.

“You’ve only been here twenty days.”

“Do the math,” Li Diudiu said. “Relative to your food intake, I’ve basically eaten eighty days’ worth of meals.”

Xiahou Zuo considered this and had to admit it made a certain amount of sense. Li Diudiu had grown noticeably — the first time they met, he remembered Li Diudiu’s head coming to somewhere below his shoulder. Now he had clearly passed it.

“You said you’d take us somewhere. Where are we going?”

“No fixed destination, really.” Xiahou Zuo walked with his hands clasped behind his head. “Jizhou City doesn’t have many interesting places. We’ll wander and see.”

Li Diudiu suddenly understood why Xiahou Zuo had insisted on coming with him today and made a point of saying he’d show him somewhere fun. It was because Sun Biehe and his people would certainly know Li Diudiu would be leaving the academy.

“You’re afraid they’ll beat me to death?” Li Diudiu asked.

Xiahou Zuo clicked his tongue. “Killing someone outright — they probably don’t have the nerve for that. Crippling you, though — that they’re capable of.”

In truth, Xiahou Zuo had had a specific place in mind for Li Diudiu. But he’d had second thoughts at the last moment. It was still too early.

Not long after Li Diudiu and Xiahou Zuo left the academy, Sun Biehe led his group out as well. As he walked, he gave his orders: “Keep your eyes on him. I don’t believe he doesn’t have a moment alone. And if you can’t find an opening — tonight we go after his master.”

“Yes, boss!”

“Whatever you need from us. We’re all brothers here.”

“Right, right — just say the word.”

A pack of followers trailed behind Sun Biehe, agreeing with everything he said. Perhaps they didn’t even realize how ugly their own faces looked in that moment.

Out on the street, Xiahou Zuo bought two skewers of candied hawthorn and held one out to Li Diudiu. Li Diudiu accepted it, but didn’t eat.

Xiahou Zuo realized immediately. He turned and called back to the vendor, then bought the entire rack of hawthorn skewers — and carried it himself as they walked.

“Saving them for your master?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Next time I overlook something like that, say something.”

Li Diudiu shook his head. “How is this your oversight? You had no reason to buy more.”

“Shut up,” Xiahou Zuo said. “I don’t like that face you make when you’re being so precise about everything.”

Li Diudiu smiled. “My master says: know right from wrong; know when to advance and when to hold back.”

“And which part of that have you actually learned?” Xiahou Zuo said.

Just then, at the mouth of a side alley, several men in blue clothing gave Xiahou Zuo a subtle nod. While Li Diudiu wasn’t looking, Xiahou Zuo gave a quick wave of his hand, and the men in blue stepped back out of sight.

Li Diudiu was still looking at his hawthorn skewer and had noticed nothing.

“You’ve never had one before?” Xiahou Zuo asked.

Li Diudiu nodded. “I’ve watched other people eat them.”

Xiahou Zuo sighed. “Why are you like this.”

“What am I like?” Li Diudiu asked.

Xiahou Zuo thought about it for quite a while and couldn’t find the right words. He genuinely found Li Diudiu puzzling. Everyone knew Li Diudiu was poor — put plainly, as Xiahou Zuo himself had said, he and his master competed for the title of Jizhou City’s most destitute residents, a tie for last place.

And yet Li Diudiu had no air of poverty about him.

That was what Xiahou Zuo finally understood. No air of poverty.

Everyone carries a quality — some there from birth, some developed over time, and different circumstances give people different qualities. The quality Li Diudiu had wasn’t something he had gained since coming to the academy. It had always been there. There was no trace of the humble, lowly quality that poverty tends to leave on a person.

Even the way Li Diudiu said “I’ve watched other people eat them” — with no food to eat, watching others — there was nothing self-deprecating about it.

Xiahou Zuo suddenly asked, “If I were to think of a way to make sure those people didn’t dare to come after you easily — would that make you owe me an enormous debt of gratitude?”

“Too large,” Li Diudiu said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“I don’t want you picking up that poor, beaten-down air,” Xiahou Zuo said. “So when I can avoid helping you, I try to. I don’t want you thinking you can always go to someone for help — that as long as you lower yourself enough, everything will be fine. A person can’t always lower himself. I don’t want you losing your backbone.”

He turned to look at Li Diudiu seriously. “But this matter is important for both of us. I need you to owe me. Because only if you feel it as a debt will you do it properly.”

“Didn’t you say you’d help me with something?” Li Diudiu asked. “How did it turn into me doing something?”

“Because once I’ve helped you, I’ll need you to repay the favor.”

Xiahou Zuo smiled. “But there’s no rush. I’m not leaving Jizhou City until next year. I’ll tell you what it involves then.”

Li Diudiu nodded. “Fine. But I’ve been curious about something.”

“Ask.”

“How did you get hurt that time?”

Xiahou Zuo was quiet for a moment. “Everyone has a weakness. I don’t have many friends in the academy, but before I knew you, there was someone I thought I could trust. His name was Wang Yunhai — we used to talk about everything.”

“His family wasn’t particularly well off — certainly not as well off as mine. But when I make friends I don’t look at those things. I was the wealthiest and best-connected person in that academy, anyway.”

“That day, Wang Yunhai came running to tell me he’d passed a clinic on his way to the academy and seen my mother going in — looking unwell, like she’d fallen ill suddenly. I rushed to that clinic without telling anyone.”

“When I walked through the door, someone hit me from behind and covered my head.”

He paused. “Unfortunately for them, they weren’t capable enough. Even after being hit and having my head covered, I still outfought several of them at once. But what I didn’t expect was that those street thugs were only a test.”

He glanced at Li Diudiu. “I told you I’m a child born out of wedlock, didn’t I?”

Li Diudiu nodded.

“And I told you they want me dead,” Xiahou Zuo continued. “Because my father has shown me a degree of favoritism, and they’re terrified I’ll take what they see as their inheritance. My father knows what his other children are thinking — not just them, either. Their mothers are all the same. The street thugs that day were just a test. Once they’d confirmed that no one was secretly following me, the real assassin appeared. He was there to kill me.”

“But just at that moment, the men protecting me in secret caught up and killed the assassin. The street thugs had already scattered by then. I could have had my people kill them too, but I stopped it. Not worth it.”

Xiahou Zuo raised a hand and rubbed his temple, as though struck by a headache.

“That’s the rough shape of it.”

He smiled at Li Diudiu. “People like me have weaknesses, but there’s also far more power behind me to guard against those weaknesses. You’re different. My weakness is my mother. Yours is your master.”

Li Diudiu understood immediately. “If they can’t get to me directly, they’ll go after my master.”

Xiahou Zuo shrugged. “Hasn’t that always been how people with bad intentions work? Nothing surprising about it — you just haven’t encountered that much of the world’s cruelty yet, so it wouldn’t naturally occur to you.”

“What should I do?” Li Diudiu asked urgently.

“Promise me what I just said,” Xiahou Zuo told him. “Then I’ll guarantee your master won’t be harmed.”

“I promise!” Li Diudiu said immediately.

Xiahou Zuo tilted his head. “Just like that, anything at all? It might not be something good. Then again, it might be.”

“Whatever it is, I promise!”

Li Diudiu’s answer was unequivocal.

Xiahou Zuo smiled. He held out a finger. “Let’s hook pinkies. As a pledge.”

Li Diudiu looked at Xiahou Zuo holding out his pinky with such solemnity, and instinctively asked, “Just a pinky swear? Isn’t that a little casual?”

“Because I trust your character,” Xiahou Zuo said. “And you should trust mine.”

Li Diudiu extended his finger and hooked it with Xiahou Zuo’s. “All right. Pinky swear!”

Xiahou Zuo laughed, then raised his other hand up, as if pointing toward the sky. Li Diudiu wasn’t quite sure what the gesture meant.

From somewhere nearby, several men in blue, upon seeing Xiahou Zuo raise his hand, turned at once and left.

Shortly after, about half a li behind Xiahou Zuo and Li Diudiu, Sun Biehe’s group had been quietly shadowing them. Just as they turned the corner of the alleyway, a swarm of blue-clad men poured in from outside and pulled every one of them into a sack, delivering a thorough beating.

At the same time, outside the inn where Li Diudiu’s master was staying, two young men who had been keeping watch on the building were dragged into a side alley and beaten until their faces were unrecognizable.

—