The young man performing the Three Monkeys act suddenly snapped the peach apart and drew a dagger from within it, driving it straight at Prince Yu’s heart.

Prince Yu’s expression changed. He thrust both hands forward — and with a sharp crack, caught the dagger between his palms.

The young man hadn’t expected Prince Yu’s reflexes to be so fast, nor his martial skill to be this formidable. Prince Yu had led armies in the field, yes — but that had been many years ago, and there had been no stories circulating about any great martial prowess.

With the dagger caught between Prince Yu’s hands, the young man turned the blade in that instant — forcing Prince Yu’s hands apart.

He surged forward. The dagger drove toward Prince Yu’s heart again.

A sharp scraping sound rang out. Prince Yu’s chair — heavy sandalwood — slid backward. The chair legs dragged against the floor with a jarring screech.

A large hand seized the back of Prince Yu’s chair and wrenched it back, sending both man and chair flying behind his defender.

The young man looked up, and found himself staring at what seemed like a tower.

A warrior in iron armor stepped forward from behind Prince Yu, having pulled him clear. After that single saving motion, the armored warrior swung one enormous palm — wide as a fan — straight down at the young man’s head. He had no weapon drawn; that palm was his weapon.

The young man’s dagger arm was still extended and couldn’t be pulled back in time. He had no choice but to drop into a crouch to dodge.

But the iron-armored warrior’s strike turned out to be a feint. He lashed out a kick instead, and with a heavy thud, the young man was sent flying backward.

Yet this wasn’t over.

Sent flying by the kick, the young man was still airborne when the armored warrior lunged forward in one great stride, hand shooting out to snatch the young man from midair — seizing him by the ankle, swinging him around, and driving him headfirst into the ground.

The force of the impact was enough to instantly rob him of any will to resist.

Up on the stage, the elderly woman leapt into the air. She drew back the strings of her erhu — and they served as a bow, releasing two short bolts hidden within the instrument.

These two bolts were not aimed at the armored warrior. They were aimed at Prince Yu.

The armored warrior stepped sideways to block. Both bolts struck him and glanced off with two sharp cracks, sending sparks flying — the iron armor seemed immensely thick. Both were deflected.

He bent and picked the young man up, looked him over. The young man was bleeding from the mouth where he’d been slammed into the ground.

The armored warrior studied him — as though finding the whole thing somewhat dull. He cast a contemptuous glance, then drove him into the ground again.

A crash. The young man’s head struck the stone flags. His skull cracked open, streaming blood.

The armored warrior slammed him again and then picked him up once more to look, and slammed him again, and as he swung the body, blood was flung in every direction.

He tossed the corpse aside and turned to look at the elderly woman.

She looked at the young man’s body. Her eyes had gone crimson. He was not her son — but her companion. They had come together for one purpose alone: revenge.

Countless armored soldiers swarmed in, surrounding her on all sides.

Then Prince Yu cried out — a single sharp exclamation — his eyes flew wide, his pupils seeming nearly to bulge from their sockets.

He raised a trembling finger.

Not far away, the steward Song Chunming was slowly drawing a blade from the Princess’s heart. He looked at Prince Yu, his eyes full of grief and defiant resignation.

In that moment, no one had noticed him drive a knife into the Princess.

On the stage, the young woman Xia Xiruo had gone white. She hadn’t expected this sudden turn of events. The kindly elderly woman who had comforted her, the young man who had smiled at her so openly — they had come to kill Prince Yu.

What she had not expected even more was that the steward Song Chunming would kill the Princess with a single thrust.

She had been the first to see it happen, because the moment the young man made his move, she too had been about to move — to kill the Princess. While everyone else’s attention was fixed on Prince Yu, only hers had remained fixed on the Princess.

In the very instant she stepped forward, she saw the man who had always seemed so cringing and servile — Song the steward — move. A short blade slid from his sleeve. He spun hard, and drove it into the Princess’s heart.

The Princess instinctively reached up to grab his wrist, but she was utterly unable to stop the blade from turning several times inside her chest. In that moment, the steward who had always been no better than a slave in her eyes became a demon.

A heartbeat later, the Princess’s arm fell limp.

Dozens of armored soldiers closed in, training repeating crossbows and long spears on Song Chunming. He exhaled a long breath — a breath thick with regret and bitter resignation.

“And yet I failed to kill you.”

He looked at Prince Yu and shook his head. “Heaven has no eyes.”

“Who are you?! Why did you kill her — why?!”

Prince Yu’s voice came out hoarse and raw.

“The Prince has likely forgotten — or perhaps never thought to remember. I am from Pingchang County.”

Song Chunming exhaled once more, slowly. He stepped forward — not toward Prince Yu, but toward the woman who was similarly surrounded. He moved toward her.

The armored soldiers on all sides still had their spears and crossbows trained on him. Without the Prince’s order, they could not yet kill them.

Song Chunming walked to the woman’s side and gave her a small nod. She returned it.

He looked at Prince Yu and said, “Did you ever think a person like me — greedy and lecherous, gutless and fawning, a shameless flatterer — would be willing to risk death for someone who was nothing to me?”

He paused, then suddenly raised his voice: “Prefect Yue was killed by people like you! It was because of him that the people of Pingchang County could survive — could have a meal to eat. I am not a good man. But I still know what it means to repay a debt of gratitude. I haven’t forgotten where I come from!”

“The first time you tried to move against Prefect Yue, it was I who sent someone back to warn him in advance. He could have fled — but he didn’t, because he feared that if he left, the people of Pingchang County would starve to death. He chose to die rather than abandon them and open the granaries so the grain could be distributed.”

Song Chunming shouted, “From the day I learned that Prefect Yue was already dead, I have been planning how to avenge him. He may have looked down on me — a man who sold his conscience to serve in Prince Yu’s mansion, living like a dog. But that doesn’t stop me from revering Prefect Yue. It doesn’t stop me from avenging him!”

He leveled his short blade at Prince Yu. “I couldn’t kill you today — but I at least killed your wife. I know how much you value the Princess, because if you want to become Emperor, you can’t do it without the Yuwen family’s support. Now that she’s dead, your grand dream ought to wake.”

He said this, then turned to the woman beside him. “That we didn’t succeed — that is our failure to you and yours. Let me send you off first. I won’t let them dishonor you.”

The woman nodded.

Song Chunming drove his blade into her heart. She sank slowly to the ground.

“Seize him!”

Prince Yu’s voice came out in a roar.

Song Chunming raised his hand and drove the blade forcefully into his own neck. Blood immediately welled and surged outward. Two bodies lay on the ground, blood spreading slowly across the stones.

Everyone on the stage was paralyzed with shock.

Wells Yanli, standing at Prince Yu’s side, shouted, “Seize everyone on the stage! See who else among them is a co-conspirator!”

A mass of armored soldiers surged toward the stage.

Then came the sound of a horse’s cry.

Two people on a single horse came thundering through from the front courtyard. The mansion was heavily guarded — under normal circumstances, no one could ride through like this. But the person riding was Xiahou Zuo. The guards all recognized him. Not one dared to stop him.

Xiahou Zuo rode through from the front courtyard to the rear, crowds scattering before him.

When he reached the stage, Xiahou Zuo leapt from the saddle before the horse had stopped. In the air, he snatched the horse-saber hanging from the saddle.

He landed. The horse-saber came up in a flick, catching the straight sword hanging there and sending it spinning free. Li Chi reached out and caught it.

A clean rasp — the straight sword left its scabbard.

Xiahou Zuo walked forward in long strides. The armored soldiers didn’t dare raise a hand against him, and fell back on all sides. The two of them strode toward the stage together.

On the stage, the moment Xia Xiruo saw Xiahou Zuo, she burst into open, heaving sobs.

However strong a young woman might be — she who had once walked a thousand li alone, who had spent years of hard training, who had dared to come to a prince’s mansion intending to kill — in the moment she saw Xiahou Zuo, every bit of that strength vanished.

“Yuli, don’t be afraid. Your big brother is here.”

Xiahou Zuo walked forward in great strides. A commander among the mansion’s armored guards stepped forward, looking conflicted. “These people may all be accomplices in the assassination of the Princess—”

Before he finished, Xiahou Zuo struck him across the face with a flat palm.

“Get out of my way!”

The crack rang out, and the man was sent flying sideways.

Prince Yu’s eyes had gone crimson as he watched. The Princess had just been murdered. Every person on that stage was a potential conspirator — and even if they weren’t, he wanted them dead as an outlet for his rage.

But then his son had arrived. His son was heading straight for the stage. In the very moment he was about to erupt in fury, he heard Xiahou Zuo shout — *Yuli, don’t be afraid.*

Prince Yu’s eyes snapped wide. He looked toward the stage.

The Princess’s son, Yang Zhuo, was at that moment clutching his mother’s body and wailing. At the sight of Xiahou Zuo, his grief seemed to tip over completely into madness. He threw himself screaming at Xiahou Zuo.

“Xiahou Zuo! Get out! Get out of here!”

He’d barely reached Xiahou Zuo’s side before Xiahou Zuo seized him by the throat with one hand, and with a single motion of his arm, sent him flying.

Xiahou Zuo hadn’t even glanced at him. He walked to the base of the stage and extended his hand up to Xia Xiruo.

“Come down. Brother will take you home.”

Xia Xiruo was still crying. She nodded, and jumped down from the stage. Xiahou Zuo caught her, took her hand, and turned to leave.

Li Chi held his sword out to Xiahou Zuo. “Switch — you guard her.”

Xiahou Zuo threw the horse-saber over; Li Chi tossed the straight sword across; they swapped weapons. Li Chi gripped the horse-saber and turned to walk at the front, that blade ready at any moment to cleave a path through.

Prince Yu called out, “Zuo’er — who is she?”

Xiahou Zuo glanced back at Prince Yu. His voice was cold.

“You don’t deserve to know.”

Wells Yanli was not well acquainted with Xiahou Zuo — by the time he arrived, Xiahou Zuo had already gone north. He only knew that Prince Yu had a son somewhere outside. He was already beginning to wonder whether this entire assassination had been Xiahou Zuo’s scheme. He had no idea at all who Xiahou Yili was.

Now, seeing Xiahou Zuo leading people away, he stepped toward Prince Yu. “Your Highness, we cannot let them go — if they might be co-consp—”

A sharp crack. Prince Yu struck Wells Yanli across the face.

“Out!”

Prince Yu spat the word, then moved quickly forward himself, trying to catch Xiahou Zuo, speaking as he walked: “Zuo’er — she — is she truly Yuli?”

Xia Xiruo looked at this man — the man who bore the name of her father — and said nothing.

He didn’t even recognize her anymore.

Xiahou Zuo paid him no attention. He held Xia Xiruo’s hand and walked forward in long strides. Everyone gave way. The three of them walked out of Prince Yu’s mansion just like that.

And Prince Yu stood there motionless — hollow, as though he had lost his very soul.