The affairs in the capital of Daxing were grand and thunderous; the affairs in Jizhou City were furtive and skulking.

Prince Yu still dreamed his grand dream of glory. Crown Prince Yang Jing had already ascended the throne in the capital — yet Prince Yu’s subordinates busied themselves with their scheming and conniving, dreaming their own dreams of ruling over all under heaven.

If what had occurred in the capital was a great storm — a roaring, rolling storm — then many of the people in Jizhou City were a different kind of storm entirely: a madness.

Li Chi and the others had no way of knowing yet about the tremendous upheaval in the capital. By the time word reached them, at least several months would have passed. In those months, there was every reason to fear that Prince Yu would have already marched out with glad heart and solemn purpose.

Prince Yu’s eldest son and heir, Yang Zhuo, was not thinking about any of that right now. He only wanted to kill Xiahou Zuo, and every person connected to Xiahou Zuo.

He wanted Xiahou Zuo to lose his closest people one by one, and to feel what it meant to be utterly consumed by grief.

So a certain old man by the name of Shi Ci arrived at the Yongning Tongyuan Carriage Company, entrusting the company to escort his master safely back to their ancestral home in Yanzhou.

On the very same day Emperor Yang Jing executed Liu Chongxin, the city gates of Jizhou were finally opened by Prince Yu’s command. Forces that had converged from every direction had already gathered tens of thousands strong outside the walls — leave them locked out any longer, and there was real risk of a mutiny.

Prince Yu was desperate to march. But he also feared that people would say he was raising an army to rebel while his wife’s body was barely cold. To use a rough comparison, he wanted to play the lead performer at a brothel while still preserving the reputation of a virtuous woman — that back-and-forth, will-he-won’t-he attitude of his left even his own subordinates thoroughly exasperated.

At any rate, the gates were at last open. Those outside were desperate to get in; those inside were desperate to get out. Traffic at the city gates became so hopelessly jammed that within a single day, countless brawls had broken out.

In the end, Prince Yu’s order came down: all incoming forces were barred from the city. Everyone was to wait outside the walls in orderly fashion.

The forces that had answered the summons from every corner were mostly rebel troops, and none of them acknowledged the authority of any other. Everyone wanted to ride over everyone else.

Over here, one group accidentally crushed a clod of dirt; over there, another group came striding over to say the dirt was under their protection — pay up or face the consequences. The clod-crushers said: do I look afraid of you? I just had a fight with those boys over there who were guarding a pile of dog excrement.

The dog dung is stuck to my shoe already — what’s a little dirt to you?

Then they all went at each other hammer and tongs. After a while, the bosses of the two groups came out to look things over: one recognized the man across from him as Brother Wang, and the other immediately said, isn’t this my old friend Li? They clapped each other warmly on the back and struck up easy conversation, while the men lying on the ground below them could only die with their eyes open.

This was no exaggeration — that was exactly how chaotic it was outside Jizhou City.

Li Chi had already said that the first day the city gates opened, they could not leave the city. By the look of things, the second and third days were no guarantee either. Not until order was restored among the forces outside could anyone pass through them without harm. A convoy of several dozen carriages would make every one of those rebel troops’ eyes go red with hunger.

Shi Ci was eager to move quickly and deal with Li Chi’s group before they left the city. He was also worried about the convoy being blocked by rebel forces the moment they set out. If Li Chi escaped harm and the convoy was lost in the bargain, that was poor arithmetic.

—

On a tea stall along the main street of the city, Li Chi sat watching the chaos outside and couldn’t help but slowly shake his head.

Xiahou Zuo understood what made him shake his head. A force like this, wanting to contend for all under heaven? Nothing but a joke.

“Look at those people out there — have they gone mad? They haven’t even followed the army out on campaign yet, and they already think of themselves as regional governors. Not one of them can wait to call himself king, and the least ambitious among them thinks he’s at minimum a great general.”

Xiahou Zuo sighed. “The character for ‘wind’ — a lovely character. So why does enclosing it in the ‘sickness’ frame change its meaning so thoroughly?”

Li Chi answered, “Because wind has no fixed nature. Add the sickness frame, and a wind that is ailing becomes even more erratic.”

Xiahou Zuo smiled slightly. “Put that way, you have a point. Those fellows out there are exactly that — people of no fixed nature. Today they say they’re riding with my father to purge the corrupt officials around the throne; tomorrow they’ll have changed their minds and headed back to their mountain strongholds.”

They had been sitting here drinking tea since the moment the city gates opened, because Li Chi suspected that somewhere out beyond those walls, Yanshan Camp would have sent someone. After the city gates had been sealed for so long, Yanshan Camp would have feared for him and Zhuang Wudi and would certainly be trying to get someone inside as soon as possible to gather information.

But now — with the scene out there as it was — Prince Yu’s orders barred all incoming forces, and the gates were crammed so impossibly tight that even someone who had nothing to do with any rebel group would find it nearly impossible to get through.

These people had truly gone mad. When they saw anyone shoving toward the city gates, they’d go over and beat the man. They seemed to have decided that everyone outside was part of one rebel force or another — why should you be allowed through when we can’t get in?

They didn’t care if you were an ordinary civilian. Getting into the city had nothing to do with them. They simply could not tolerate anyone else getting through when they couldn’t.

Xiahou Zuo looked outside again and sighed. “If Yanshan Camp’s people want to get in, it looks like there’s no chance.”

Li Chi nodded. “No rush. Let’s have a couple more cups of tea.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “I have no problem with that, but my little brother is about to give out.”

Li Chi was baffled for a moment. He looked around. There was no other familiar face nearby — he had never heard Xiahou Zuo mention having a brother.

Xiahou Zuo sighed. “It seems your little brother is not in a hurry. Mine, on the other hand, simply cannot hold out any longer.”

He stood up. “I need to find somewhere to relieve myself.”

Li Chi finally understood what Xiahou Zuo had meant, and cast him a sharp look. “That little brother of yours is quite the worthy man. Let us hope he stays worthy always. And when you’re done — give a few extra shakes on his behalf.”

Xiahou Zuo asked, “Why?”

Li Chi said, “Let him enjoy it on my behalf too.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Get lost…”

He went to find a place to relieve himself, and Li Chi sat there sipping his tea, glancing toward the city gates, worrying that if Yanshan Camp’s people tried to force their way in, something might go wrong.

Just then, Yu Jiuling came running over from a distance. He reached Li Chi’s side and caught his breath. “That Shi Ci has been to the carriage company again. He says his master has already arranged an escort through connections — there will be a militia unit leading the convoy out tomorrow morning, so it won’t get blocked by the rebel forces outside.”

Li Chi nodded. “They’re in a hurry to move before Prince Yu marches out. So whoever is coming to deal with me is someone who will be riding south with Prince Yu. Nine’er — if you were making a blind guess, what family would you say?”

Yu Jiuling said, “A blind guess? The Xu family.”

Li Chi smiled. “Why?”

Yu Jiuling said, “You’ve only ever crossed them.”

Li Chi suddenly felt that his thinking had been far too complicated. That one sentence of Yu Jiuling’s cut right through it all — approaching the problem from the most complex angle only made things more and more convoluted, but Yu Jiuling’s simple observation, you’ve only ever crossed the Xu family, gave Li Chi a sense of sudden clarity.

Yu Jiuling said, “Though we’d also need to consider whether their real target is you or someone else. What if their purpose is to drive the tiger from the mountain?”

Li Chi nodded — he had considered this too. If the true target was not him but someone else, then luring the carriage company’s full force out of Jizhou City under the pretext of business would leave no one in the city to worry about when they moved.

He asked Yu Jiuling again, “Make another blind guess — if they’re targeting someone other than me, who would it be?”

“Xiahou Zuo, obviously.”

Yu Jiuling said it as if it were self-evident. “The number of people who want him dead is only a few hundred times greater than the number who want you dead… You’ve crossed one family. Xiahou Zuo — you can’t even count how many he’s crossed.”

Li Chi smiled. “Actually, following your line of thinking, Xiahou Zuo has really only crossed one family too.”

Yu Jiuling asked, “Which family is so unlucky?”

Li Chi sighed. “His own.”

Yu Jiuling was still for a moment, then understood. “Those brothers of his by blood really are willing to spend money on killing him. Two thousand taels…”

Li Chi said, “So why don’t we just take Xiahou Zuo out? He’s genuinely worth something.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Let’s hold onto him for now. What if he appreciates in value?”

Xiahou Zuo sat down beside Li Chi, casting a sharp look at Li Chi, then at Yu Jiuling, and then said with considerable displeasure, “I’m only worth two thousand taels? That is a rather low assessment. If someone offered ten thousand taels and guaranteed they could kill me, my dear brothers would sell the pots and pans off the stove to scrape together the money.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Your brothers really don’t have it easy… Look at you — reduced them to scraping together money by selling their cookware. What kind of person would it take to be worth selling all your pots to fund the job? It turns out Prince Yu’s residence is in the business of manufacturing pots.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Get lost…”

Yu Jiuling was still muttering to himself: “If they make pots, wouldn’t it be better to just sell new ones? Why do they have to smash them first?”

Li Chi said, “The principled stand. Can’t be decisive enough otherwise.”

Xiahou Zuo stared in silence.

Just then, a unit suddenly entered the city from outside, which piqued the curiosity of all three of them. Once they made out the dress and bearing of those men, the puzzle was solved: they were garrison troops.

The unit was not large — three or four hundred men — each riding two horses, dressed in the deep grey military uniform of Great Chu, every man armored in leather, equipment complete and orderly, their bearing imposing. No wonder the rebel forces outside hadn’t dared stop them.

Li Chi glanced at them, then looked away — and then his gaze snapped back.

The officer at the front, clad in iron armor, bearing the rank insignia of the Fifth Grade — he looked uncannily like Yu Chaozong. Li Chi blinked. His heart skipped. Walking this brazenly into Jizhou in broad daylight… only the Heavenly King himself could manage something like this. And sure enough — it was the Heavenly King. No one but the King of Heaven could have pulled this off.

Li Chi tugged at Yu Jiuling’s sleeve and pointed toward Yu Chaozong. “See that mounted officer?”

Yu Jiuling said, “I see him. Why?”

Li Chi said, “Go sweep his horse’s legs out from under it.”

Yu Jiuling started to get up, then sat back down. He stared at Li Chi. “Have you lost your mind?”

Li Chi said, “What’s to be afraid of? Just go. Sweep him off that horse.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Sweep a horse’s legs… my legs aren’t long enough to sweep four legs.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “A three-legged man afraid of four legs — what sense does that make?”

Yu Jiuling said, “If you put it that way, the horse has five legs.”

Xiahou Zuo thought about it and found it surprisingly hard to argue with.

Li Chi stood up. “Let’s go. Find somewhere up ahead where no one’s watching and do this right. That leg-sweep is happening today.”

Yu Jiuling said, “You really have lost your mind.”

Two quarters of an hour later, Yu Chaozong led his unit further into the city. They already knew that Li Chi had set up a carriage company, but it was their first time in Jizhou City and they weren’t sure of the location. Besides, they still needed somewhere to change out of these uniforms — the garrison dress was far too conspicuous. If they were summoned to the Prince’s residence and asked which unit they belonged to, things would get genuinely complicated.

They moved along the main street, thinking how inconvenient a large city was compared to the mountains — couldn’t even find a sheltered spot. If you needed to relieve yourself in the mountains, the worst that could happen was you watered the earth god’s face. Here on Jizhou’s main street, if you dared relieve yourself in the open, you’d water at least six people’s shoes.

They were still looking for a suitable spot when a fool stepped out and planted himself squarely in the middle of the road, looked at them with complete gravity, and said:

“This mountain was planted by me; this tree was raised by me — if you wish to pass, a full-body soak and foot massage with all the trimmings would be appreciated.”

The officer leading them — Yu Chaozong — looked at the person blocking his path, and then he smiled.

—