Gao Xining stood in the covered walkway, watching Li Chi. Li Chi sat at the far end of the corridor watching the rain—the rain very heavy, Li Chi very still. She did not know how long he had been sitting there, nor what he was thinking.

Gao Xining held a long robe in her hands, intending to bring it to him, but seeing him deep in thought, she could not bring herself to interrupt.

So she too became part of the scene—Li Chi’s eyes fixed on the rain yet seeing none of it, while her eyes were fixed on Li Chi, and full of nothing but Li Chi.

Some time passed. Li Chi let out a long slow breath, rose to his feet, and walked to the edge of the walkway. He reached his hand out beyond the eave and felt the rain falling into his palm.

Gao Xining walked up behind him. She smiled before she even reached him, the curve at the corners of her mouth full of warmth and admiration for him.

People are like that—when someone fills your eyes and your heart, everything about them becomes exceptional, first-rate: their face, their manner, all of it.

“Our man just came back to report—it sounds like the Qingzhou army attacked the city in the rain.”

Gao Xining held the robe out to Li Chi. He took it with a smile and draped it over her shoulders instead. She was slightly startled, then her smile grew even brighter.

“I just heard,” Li Chi said.

“I thought,” Gao Xining said, “that once you knew, you’d be rushing off to the city walls.”

“No need.”

“Xiahou and Pidi are both up there,” Li Chi said. “If those two still can’t hold Jizhou against a Qingzhou attack, the only explanation would be that the rain washed the walls down.”

“So what are you thinking about?”

Even as she asked, Gao Xining was already working through the answer. If it was not the city defenses he was worried about, then what was it?

She had barely finished asking when she already had it.

“The Cui family?”

“Yes.”

Li Chi nodded. “The Qingzhou army attacking in the rain—they want to catch the Jizhou garrison off guard. They were stung at the Hutuo River and want to return the hurt. A pretty thought, but no one in the world can match Old Tang when it comes to surprise attacks.”

He looked at Gao Xining. “Because it was so sudden, there was no response from the Cui family inside the city. But the next time the Qingzhou army attacks—or at some other appointed moment—the Cui family will certainly make their move.”

“Setting fires in the city,” Gao Xining said, “making a feigned assault on the granaries and the armory, while concentrating most of their strength on seizing a gate. Something like that.”

“We can guess the broad shape of it,” Li Chi said, “but we cannot guard against everything. Even if there were a hundred points of action, only two or three of them would actually matter.”

He paused, then continued: “What I was just thinking about is why Cui Tai took such a personal interest in me. Old Tang humiliated him at the Sanyue Tower—and yet he still came to us. It doesn’t quite feel like he simply wanted to use me to get at Xiahou.”

Gao Xining frowned slightly at that.

“Then what else is he after?”

She looked into Li Chi’s eyes. “Could it be that he knows about the underground palace beneath the ancient city of Bao?”

“No.”

“If the Cui family knew,” Li Chi said, “they would have moved to seize this ground by every means available long since—they would not have left it to fall into our hands.”

He shook his head. “Leave that for now. What needs thinking about is how to stop the Cui family from working in concert with the Qingzhou army outside.”

Meanwhile, at the Sanyue Tower.

Cui Tai hurried up to the top floor of the Sanyue Tower. This room was normally his personal quarters, but a few days ago he had vacated it—for a very important member of the Cui family had moved in.

The head of the Cui family was a man named Cui Yan, but given how vast the family’s holdings were, there were several senior figures who each managed different domains.

The most influential man in the family, after Cui Yan himself, was Cui Yan’s younger brother, Cui Qing.

In truth, a little over a month ago, the Cui family’s people had already been quietly slipping out of the Cui compound one after another. Jizhou City was the ancestral home of the Cui family—they had been rooted here for hundreds of years, and they had far too many places to conceal themselves. The Cui family had been in Jizhou since the founding of Dachu; it would have been a sign of several centuries of incompetence if they had not made preparations.

Within Jizhou City, how many hideouts the Cui family maintained, how many shops, how many merchant operations, how many people living as ordinary citizens in all manner of trades—no one but the family head knew the full extent of it. That list existed only in Cui Yan’s hands.

Cui Tai entered and said to Cui Qing: “For reasons I cannot fathom, the Qingzhou army just attacked directly in the rain.”

Cui Qing’s expression shifted. He got to his feet and took a few steps, then stopped again, his face passing through several different looks in quick succession.

After a moment’s thought, Cui Qing said: “They were only probing. Win or lose hardly matters. We must not lose our composure—everything continues according to plan.”

Cui Tai nodded. “That is my assessment as well. I heard that the Jizhou army won a victory at the Hutuo River not long ago—the Qingzhou forces were probably burning to avenge that, and so attacked in the rain.”

“Once the Commissioner arrives before the walls,” Cui Qing said, “he will proceed as agreed. We wait for our signal.”

He looked at Cui Tai. “How stands the matter with Li Chi?”

Cui Tai shook his head. “That man is impenetrable. These commoner-bred types—once they get a taste of power, they think nothing in heaven or earth is bigger than they are. He has some genuine ability as well, which makes him all the harder to bring over.”

“You are certain he has ties to the Yanshan Camp,” Cui Qing said.

Cui Tai turned and called out: “Gong Tieliang—come in!”

A middle-aged man entered from outside, immediately bowing and scraping in a manner that suggested nerves. “The man you see here,” Cui Tai said, “was the operative we planted in the Yanshan Camp—he worked directly under their second-in-command. That is why we were kept so thoroughly informed about Prince Yu’s efforts to court the Yanshan Camp.”

“He recently recognized one of the people in Li Chi’s company as a Yanshan Camp man—and not just any man: one of the Yanshan Camp’s chiefs, by the name of Zhuang Wudi.”

“Yes, yes, that’s right…”

Gong Tieliang spoke quickly. “I spent over a year embedded in the Yanshan Camp. Because I gave considerable sums of gold and silver to their second-in-command, Bi Datong, he trusted me well enough that I had knowledge of every approach made to him by Prince Yu’s envoys.”

“This man called Zhuang Wudi is one of the Yanshan Camp’s chiefs—and he is personally close to Yu Chaozong. His presence at Li Chi’s side is proof enough that Li Chi and Yu Chaozong have been in secret contact, and that the relationship is a close one.”

Having heard Gong Tieliang out, Cui Qing began pacing the room, speaking as he walked: “My original thought was that if Li Chi was an operative planted in Jizhou City by the Yanshan Camp, then once we take Jizhou, we would need to cultivate a working relationship with Yu Chaozong. After all, Yu Chaozong now commands upward of one hundred thousand men. Take Jizhou, bring Yu Chaozong over, and the entire northern borderland is firmly in hand…”

He paused and looked at Cui Tai. “You say this man is impossibly arrogant. That is most likely because he comes from the Yanshan Camp—those mountain outlaws are all rough-bred types with no sense of propriety. No matter what else he may be, he is no gentleman.”

Cui Tai made a sound of agreement. “Roughly so. The man is difficult to deal with. I have been thinking about how to approach him further.”

“Handle it as you see fit,” Cui Qing said. “The Yanshan Camp is formidable—if we cannot bring Yu Chaozong over, the Cui family cannot advance further even if we do take Jizhou. So we must find a way to draw this man in.”

“The man is greedy for money,” Cui Tai said. “That may be an avenue. I have already reached an impasse with him, so someone else needs to make contact—ideally someone with no visible connection to the Cui family.”

“What about through Administrator Gao at the Four-Page Academy?”

“Difficult.”

Cui Tai said only that single word, then continued: “I will keep working on this. The day we agreed upon with the Qingzhou army is not far off. I will do my best to reach a settlement with Li Chi’s side before the city falls.”

Cui Qing sighed. “Just who exactly is this Li Chi? How does he manage to maintain such a balance—on one side Xiahou Zuo, who is the son of Prince Yu, which means the official establishment; on the other side Yu Chaozong, who is the greatest outlaw in the north. This Li Chi walks between the court and the bandit world and seems perfectly at ease.”

“I was too careless at the outset,” Cui Tai said with a sigh. “I regret it now.”

“At the end of the day,” Cui Qing said, “you are the one who knows the situation best. You must make the judgment call.”

“Then let me go and think on it further.”

He turned and went out, taking Gong Tieliang with him as he descended the stairs.

As they went down, Cui Tai asked Gong Tieliang: “How well do you know Zhuang Wudi?”

“He is cold and proud by nature,” Gong Tieliang said. “Doesn’t care to talk to people. In the Yanshan Camp, he takes orders only from Yu Chaozong himself. But the one thing about him is that he loves wine above all else. In the camp, everyone called him Half-a-Day-Sober.”

“Half-a-Day-Sober?”

Cui Tai paused. What manner of name is that, he thought.

“Given his love of wine, that is the angle to approach from. The wine shops and taverns in the city—half of them are Cui family businesses. Go and find out yourself which establishments supply the Yongning Tongyuan Carriage House with its wine. If any are not Cui family properties, buy them and make them so.”

“Yes, sir!”

Gong Tieliang assented. “I will go at once.”

—

At the carriage house.

Li Chi had been sitting in the walkway deep in thought for some time. The Cui family was genuinely difficult to guard against. Li Chi had dealt with families like them before—but compared to the Cui family, even the Xu family had been like a child’s opponent. Even the Xie family could not match the Cui family’s centuries of cultivation in Jizhou. The Cui family had been here for hundreds of years, and only they knew the true extent of their holdings in the city. On the surface, the Cui family had no one in the local government and not a single man in the Jizhou military—but that was only the surface.

“When things go wrong inside the city,” Li Chi said, “the number of points where it can happen may be too many even to count.”

He let out a slow breath. “So…”

“So since we cannot determine how many points there are,” Gao Xining said, “we focus on guarding the ones that matter most. Out of a hundred points in motion, only two or three will be decisive.”

Li Chi laughed. “Brilliantly said.”

Gao Xining gave a pleased little laugh. Being praised by Li Chi sent a warm glow through her—that fine, beautiful face brightening with a small, slightly smug delight.

She continued: “The most important points: one is the granary, one is the armory. The most important of all, naturally, is the city gates. But Jizhou has six gates—they cannot attempt all of them. And yet the garrison inside the city is limited; if too many troops are dispersed to guard so many points, the walls could be in danger when the Qingzhou army attacks in full force.”

“We don’t need to cover all six gates,” Li Chi said. “The two south gates are under heavy guard—they wouldn’t dare attempt those. The four gates to the east, west, and north are their real targets.”

He paused. “If the Qingzhou army arrives and surrounds the city on all four sides, then it truly becomes impossible to judge.”

“Let’s start with the granary and see what we find.”

Li Chi stood up and said to Gao Xining: “All of you stay here at the carriage house. Best to go down to the underground palace. Leave Master Ye, Ruan Chen, and Ruan Mu to watch over things above ground—and have Elder Brother Zhuang stay as well. I will take Yu Jiuling and Jiang Ran with me to see what luck we can find.”

“Be careful,” Gao Xining said.

Li Chi grinned. “I know.”

And he strode quickly away.

—