Li Diudiu walked alongside Xiahou Zuo, glancing at him every so often until Xiahou Zuo, somewhat bewildered, finally said, “Why do you keep staring at me like that?”

“I think you’re carrying a big secret,” Li Diudiu said.

Xiahou Zuo folded his arms across his chest. “Got me. I have two of them.”

Li Diudiu was too young to catch what Xiahou Zuo was implying — which was precisely why Xiahou Zuo found it completely unsatisfying. He shifted his chest, sighed, and muttered, “Saying that kind of thing to you is like playing a lute for a cow.”

Li Diudiu genuinely hadn’t understood, but that didn’t stop him from being a diligent sort of person — and a moment later it clicked. He burst out laughing.

Xiahou Zuo stared at him the way you’d stare at a simpleton — or rather, the way you’d feel when you tell someone a joke and they show absolutely no reaction, leaving you convinced the joke wasn’t funny at all, only for them to burst into inexplicable laughter a good while later and declare that you had killed them…

As if.

“Let’s go to Phoenix Cry Mountain,” Xiahou Zuo said.

When they reached Li Diudiu’s inn, he stopped and said to Li Diudiu, “Go get your master. I’ll wait here. We’ll head up Phoenix Cry Mountain together.”

“Is it fun?” Li Diudiu asked.

“Depends what you’re there for,” Xiahou Zuo said.

Li Diudiu had a feeling there was another layer to that answer.

While Li Diudiu went inside to find his master, Xiahou Zuo turned into the alley next to the building. The two men who had been beaten into a sorry state were still there, being held down — and when they saw Xiahou Zuo, the color drained from their faces even further. Apparently one or both of them had lost control of their bladder, either from terror or from the beating, because the lower parts of their clothing were damp and dripping steadily.

Xiahou Zuo crouched in front of them. “Do you know who I am?”

Both men nodded rapidly. Their eyes held nothing except fear. He straightened and said, “Then we understand each other. Go back and tell Sun Biehe: if anyone keeps watch on Li Diudiu or his master again, I’ll guarantee they get thrown into the mass graves outside the city — where the wild dogs go to feed on corpses.”

He stood and patted one of the men on the shoulder. “I never joke with people like you. You know who I am. Do you know what these blue garments mean?”

The two men shook their heads — they were genuinely ignorant of that, and not foolish enough to pretend otherwise.

“Then do you know the blades they carry?”

At Xiahou Zuo’s words, the blue-clothed men turned as one. Each had a long saber hanging across his back, all in identical scabbards — two characters inscribed on each.

*Lie Zhen.*

“The Lie Zhen blades!”

One of the beaten men’s eyes went wide. Clearly the name “Lie Zhen” frightened him considerably more than the name “Xiahou Zuo.”

*The Blue-Clad Lie Zhen. Provoke them — and die.*

“Off with you,” Xiahou Zuo said, waving a hand. “Don’t forget what I said.”

The two men scrambled to their feet with the relief of men reprieved from execution and bolted.

Xiahou Zuo turned to his men. “All of you, head back as well. I’m going to keep my little brother company. He’s someone worth trusting. Starting today, for the next year, I’ll do my best to train him to be my successor.”

“Yes, sir!”

The blue-clad men bowed as one, said nothing further, and departed immediately — the discipline evident in every movement.

When Xiahou Zuo returned to the inn entrance, Li Diudiu was just coming down the stairs with his master. Changmei the Daoist saw Xiahou Zuo and quickly clasped his hands in a bow. The fact that an elder had bowed to him first made Xiahou Zuo feel as though he were committing a transgression — he returned the bow at once.

The three of them left the inn and set off for Phoenix Cry Mountain. As they walked, Xiahou Zuo told the master and apprentice about the place.

“You both know the story of how Dachu was founded?”

He spoke as he walked. “Our Dachu imperial family first raised their banner right here in Jizhou. According to legend, Dachu’s founding emperor heard the cry of a phoenix guiding him from this mountain. He went up and was received by a seven-colored divine phoenix, which transmitted to him a book of military strategy by Heaven’s will — after which he launched his rebellion against the Zhou dynasty.”

Li Diudiu looked at him curiously. “Is that true?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Xiahou Zuo said flatly. “Who has ever seen a phoenix?”

Changmei was startled and quickly said, “Please don’t say such things. The founding emperor received Heaven’s guidance before raising his banner — that’s something all of Dachu’s people deeply believe. It’s not good to speak carelessly about these things.”

“Daoist, do you actually believe all of Dachu’s people truly believe that? I am, after all, something of a—” Xiahou Zuo stopped himself. “Actually, forget it.”

He shook his head. “Better left unsaid.”

The present state of Dachu was one of popular resentment and seething unrest. The emperor placed his trust in corrupt favorites — particularly the palace eunuchs, whose power had surpassed that of the court itself. The officials of the Six Ministries and the Nine Offices had to perform the full prostration before a eunuch named Liu Chongxin and cry out “long live the Five Thousand Years!” It was a preposterous state of affairs.

And it wasn’t only the ministry officials — even the princes of the imperial family had to step forward and pay their respects when they encountered Liu Chongxin. Imperial princes were no different. The proper order between ruler and subject had long since collapsed into ruin.

Liu Chongxin’s favored eunuchs had been seizing land at a frenzied rate across Dachu. Liu Chongxin himself was from Jizhou — from Laiyue County — born into a life of hardship. No one could have imagined that he would enter the palace as a young eunuch and develop such a close bond with the current emperor.

The emperor had been about ten at the time, and Liu Chongxin was the same age. The two of them grew nearly inseparable. When the emperor ascended the throne at twenty-one, Liu Chongxin was appointed as the Imperial Secretariat’s writing brush attendant — a position with authority equal to the Grand Secretariat’s Chief Minister.

Later, if the Chief Minister wanted any memorial to reach the emperor, it had to pass through Liu Chongxin’s hands first. If Liu Chongxin allowed it, it got through. If he didn’t, it sat — no matter how critical the matter.

The current emperor was forty-six years old and had stopped attending to court matters some five or six years ago. All affairs of state had since been handled by Liu Chongxin.

And so, five or six years ago, the entirety of Laiyue County had been designated as Liu Chongxin’s private domain. At his ancestral home back in Laiyue, more than ten thousand garrison troops were stationed — their sole duty being to guard his family estate, with strict orders not to concern themselves with anything else.

As a result, Laiyue County was the only place that had seen no civil unrest. Every other county had been struck by roving gangs, not once but many times over. At first the gangs had been cautious, but after realizing the garrison forces never stirred to respond to trouble anywhere except Laiyue County, they grew bolder and bolder.

The emperor was the Ten Thousand Years. Liu Chongxin was the Five Thousand Years. A prince of the first rank was the Thousand Years. And so princes of the first rank also had to bow to Liu Chongxin first.

They reached the foot of Phoenix Cry Mountain and were about to start up when the several Daoist monks who had been sitting and chatting at the path’s entrance immediately stood aside to let them pass — they had been blocking the trail.

Xiahou Zuo sighed and pointed to the academy uniform on Li Diudiu’s body. “You see that? That’s the world we live in.”

Phoenix Cry Mountain was only a small hill — it was a mountain within the city, after all, not a city built on a mountain, so its scale could only be so grand. The only reason ordinary citizens were charged an entry fee to the local Daoist temple was because of the founding legend attached to it.

At the mountain’s peak stood an observatory called the Near-Heaven Temple. Legend had it that this was where Dachu’s founding emperor received his divine revelation — and so the entire mountain now belonged to the Near-Heaven Temple.

This was the first time Li Diudiu had felt any discomfort about wearing the academy uniform.

As the three of them climbed the stone steps, Xiahou Zuo spoke as he walked. “Dachu is sick. Gravely, mortally sick. Over in Laiyue County there are more than ten thousand elite garrison troops. With the combat power Dachu’s garrison forces command, every rebellion throughout Jizhou could be suppressed. But without Liu Chongxin’s orders, no one can mobilize those troops.”

This alarmed Changmei so much that he nearly choked. “Young Master Xiahou, please — say no more. These are words worth a beheading.”

“I’m not afraid, and you don’t need to be either. There’s no one else up here.”

Xiahou Zuo pressed on regardless. “Do you know why the civil unrest throughout Jizhou has grown so severe, while Youzhou — not far off at all — hasn’t seen a single uprising?”

Changmei knew something about this, but didn’t dare speak. Li Diudiu, young as he was, asked, “Why?”

His master immediately rapped him on the head. “Don’t go asking things like that!”

“Because Youzhou has the Yanyun Iron Cavalry,” Xiahou Zuo said, walking as he spoke. “North of Youzhou is the border — and there you have the Dachu border army, whose combat power is without equal. Besides which, General Luo Geng of Youzhou has a bloodthirst that nobody wants to provoke.”

“Jizhou is different. Our military governor has actually been counting on those rebel leaders to send him money. Li Chi — you don’t actually think Jizhou can’t put down these rebellions, do you? The military governor commands sixty thousand elite troops, and including the county and district garrisons, the total comes to a hundred thousand strong.”

“Our military governor is deliberately looking the other way. The rebel leaders pay him, so he lets the unrest continue — and since those people don’t dare attack Jizhou directly, he has nothing to worry about.”

“What if they dared?” Li Diudiu asked.

Xiahou Zuo was silent for a long time after hearing this. He shook his head. “Then Dachu wouldn’t be mortally ill. It would already be a corpse.”

This nearly sent Changmei into a dead faint on the spot. He was half an inch from reaching out and covering Xiahou Zuo’s mouth — the only reason he didn’t was that if it were Li Diudiu saying these things, he would already have launched a flying kick.

“I’ll say no more, I’ll say no more.” Xiahou Zuo saw how frightened Changmei looked and let out a sigh. “The reason this world grows more chaotic with every passing day is precisely because there are so few people left who dare to speak.”

But in the Dachu of today, daring to speak carried a price.

Five years ago, a Censorate minister known as Inspector Lai had knelt at the palace gate and refused to leave. He enumerated seventy-two capital offenses against Liu Chongxin — any single one of which was sufficient to exterminate Liu Chongxin’s nine family lines. Inspector Lai pressed his forehead to the ground until it bled, begging for just one audience with the emperor. The emperor sent Liu Chongxin to deal with the matter himself.

The result: Inspector Lai’s entire family was condemned for treason. A wandering swordsman managed to rescue Lai’s one son and one daughter, but more than forty other members of the Lai household were executed by slicing.

The swordsman who rescued them was hunted for a long time afterward. Wanted notices still hung on the city gates of every prefecture and county, yet he was never caught.

That swordsman called himself the Second Leisure Man of the Rivers and Lakes. He said his family name was Li, and that his ancestor was the celebrated First Leisure Man of the Rivers and Lakes.

Beyond the Lai case, three years ago there was also the matter of Master Yuan, Minister of Works. Liu Chongxin had diverted over a million taels from the ministry’s river control funds to renovate his ancestral estate in Laiyue County — causing the southern canal to fall into disrepair and ultimately burst its banks, flooding four counties.

Master Yuan refused to be made a scapegoat. He intercepted the emperor’s procession during a royal outing and threw himself to the ground before the imperial carriage, speaking the truth aloud. The emperor didn’t believe a word of it and handed the matter to Liu Chongxin to resolve.

Master Yuan’s fate could be imagined. He was condemned for the extermination of three family lines, charged with embezzling the Ministry of Works’ funds for personal gain.

And yet when his household was searched, the agents who carried out the search found just over twenty taels of silver. Even the Imperial Brocade Guards who conducted the raid could not bring themselves to watch.

The three of them climbed to the higher reaches of Phoenix Cry Mountain, where they could look out over the whole of Jizhou City spread before them.

“Li Chi, look.”

Xiahou Zuo pointed toward the peaceful, prosperous scene below and said, “A city like Jizhou is just a garment Dachu uses to hide its shame. Strip it away, and there is nothing beneath but ruin and holes.”

Changmei made a strangled noise in his throat and nearly passed out from sheer fright.

“And yet I am still a person of Dachu.”

The pain on Xiahou Zuo’s face was plain to see.

“That’s why I want to go to the frontier. To do whatever I can.”