To act contrary to what your enemy expects — that is what it means to move against the current.

Far from putting up any pretense of defending the granary, Li Chi had instead assembled two thousand soldiers disguised as civilians to storm it — and as a result, everyone inside was momentarily thrown into complete disorientation.

These soldiers were carrying no proper weapons: iron forks, cudgels, large iron ladles, and in one particularly inspired case, what appeared to be a pair of cymbals that the man was clanging together as he advanced. One could reasonably infer the nature of his family trade.

The business of white-cloth affairs, most likely.

“Distribute grain!”

“Distribute grain!”

“Distribute grain!”

The crowd gathered before the granary gates, shouting their slogan continuously — but deliberately staying just outside the range of the defenders’ arrows. At first they only surrounded the compound, pressing no actual assault, simply sustaining the demand for grain distribution.

Gao Shengda climbed the wall and bellowed down at them. “Listen carefully, all of you! Storming a military granary is a capital offense — it means extermination of your entire family! If you do not fall back at once, do not blame me for ordering my men to shoot!”

In the crowd, a fifth-rank general glanced back to find Li Chi. Seeing him stationed at a distance, the general reached beneath his long robe and produced a repeating crossbow. He moved slowly forward through the press of bodies, quietly urging his men to push ahead.

Li Chi had made it clear: if Gao Shengda didn’t appear, the men inside might simply order arrows loosed to drive the crowd back — in which case there would be nothing further to attempt. If Gao Shengda showed himself, it meant he wasn’t yet willing to massacre what appeared to be civilians, and they could keep pushing forward.

And so the soldiers advanced, roaring as they went.

Atop the wall, Gao Shengda watched the crowd close to roughly thirty paces and knew they could not be permitted any closer. He bellowed:

“Archers!”

The wall’s defenders raised their bows and trained them on the crowd below — and the advancing mass came to an immediate halt.

“We have nothing to eat — open the stores and give the people grain!”

“Open the granary — relieve the suffering of the people!”

“Distribute food!”

The soldiers shouted with considerable commitment. Li Chi had been clear: without a signal, no actual charge on the granary — that would cost lives. Wait for the signal and act accordingly.

As for this fifth-rank general — he was a man Prince Yu had left as a resource for Xiahou Zuo. Originally a trusted officer under Military Governor Zeng Ling, he had been promoted to his generalship by Prince Yu just before the army’s departure, moved from the shadows into the open.

His name was Jinzu.

Jinzu took shelter behind the bodies around him and measured the gap. Thirty paces — no challenge at all for a repeating crossbow.

Using his men as a screen, he raised the weapon and loosed several bolts in quick succession at Gao Shengda on the wall.

Multiple bolts flew in without warning. Gao Shengda had no time to react, and the roaring of the crowd swallowed the sound of the crossbow completely.

Gao Shengda was a civil official. His martial skill was entirely ordinary. Caught unguarded, he was struck by several bolts — but he had, fortunately, put on armor beneath his official robes, complete with a breastplate. The bolt that struck him squarely over the heart hit the plate with a sharp metallic clang.

But his armor was not full coverage. A bolt drove into his lower abdomen, and he toppled backward.

“Everyone charge!”

Jinzu’s shout from within the crowd set the men at the rear lighting the torches they had prepared and hurling them over the wall. The granary compound erupted into chaos as everyone scrambled to smother the flames.

Further back, the men passed shields forward to deflect the arrows raining down from the wall.

From their vantage point, Yu Jiuling watched with his heart hammering.

“Li Diudiu — you’re not actually planning to burn the granary down, are you? With that many torches going over the wall, if something actually catches, the whole city will be in chaos.”

Li Chi smiled. “I went into the granary before and looked the layout over carefully. The area where the torches are landing can’t set anything substantial alight. The only effect is to throw the men inside into a panic — and they should start sending people out for reinforcements.”

Yu Jiuling finally understood. When Li Chi had gone into the granary with Jiang Ran, it hadn’t only been to test Gao Shengda’s attitude.

Li Chi had been scouting the terrain. He had had his plan ready from the very beginning.

Once the men outside produced shields and began passing proper weapons forward through the crowd, everyone inside the granary knew this situation was not simple.

Gao Shengda, wounded, turned to Cui Qing. Cui Qing’s expression was ugly in the extreme — this was something he had utterly failed to anticipate from his opponent.

The granary was not something the Cui Family could afford to lose. The hundreds of thousands of Qingzhou troops massed outside the walls depended on these stores. If the granary burned, it wasn’t simply that the Qingzhou army would have nothing to eat — even the city’s own civilians would erupt in revolt, and Jizhou would become a ruin.

This was Li Chi’s wager: that the Cui Family valued Jizhou more than anything else.

“Send men out. Recall the supply convoy. Have them attack these people from the outside.”

Cui Qing gave the order after brief thought.

It was not impulsive — he knew that the supply convoy had never actually intended to seize the city gates. That had been a feint designed to make the enemy believe that was the plan. His men slipped out through secondary exits and ran to catch the convoy.

By this point all four supply columns had reached the city wall sections and were mid-offload. The wagons were not yet fully unloaded when the messengers from the granary arrived. On hearing the granary was under attack, the convoy men abandoned their wagons to the garrison soldiers and came running back.

When they arrived, the crowd that had surrounded the granary had already withdrawn. The compound was a mess, but nothing had been lost.

Every torch thrown inside had been extinguished. A scare — nothing more.

Roughly a li and more from the granary, Li Chi and the others were watching from elevated ground through the spyglass.

“Jinzu’s men have eyes on every approach — any further attempts to send men out will be spotted.”

Li Chi kept his eyes on the granary as he spoke. “The Cui Family may be starting to lose their composure. They’ll summon their principals to discuss the situation. If no one comes hurrying in from outside, it means whoever’s in charge is already inside the granary.”

Yu Jiuling asked, “Kill their leadership?”

Li Chi nodded. “If someone comes from outside, we take them down before they enter. If no one comes, then whoever’s inside won’t be leaving.”

—

Inside the granary, Cui Qing paced back and forth, his face a mask of iron. He turned to Gao Shengda. “How serious is the wound?”

Gao Shengda said, “Nothing too bad. The medicine has been applied.”

Cui Qing made a brief sound of acknowledgment. “Their sudden assault on the granary was designed to force the convoy back. So they still believe we intend to seize the city gates. Whoever devised this calculated the timing precisely — they staged a feigned siege of the granary, forced our convoy back, and cost us the wagons besides, which means we can’t use them as cover if we push on the gates.”

Gao Shengda worked through it as he spoke. “That appears to be right. They couldn’t determine whether we actually planned to go for the gates, and they couldn’t know which gate we’d target — so they used this method to pull our people back. On one hand, to block any gate seizure. On the other, to pen our people up inside the granary. They’ve also worked out that we won’t destroy the grain.”

Cui Qing nodded. “A clever man. But not quite clever enough. They think we were going for the gates? Let them keep thinking that. Let them believe they’ve already outsmarted us.”

He continued, “Tell our people to tighten security. Let the outside see we’ve dug in for a last stand. And furthermore — send no one else out.”

He paused, swept his gaze over the assembled faces, and let his voice fall heavy. “I told you last night: no great cause is achieved without sacrifice. Today is the day we give that sacrifice for the family’s future.”

“We may all die. The enemy knows who we are — they will commit everything they have to storm this granary. We must hold this position until dawn tomorrow. That is what we must do.”

“If any of us survives to see that dawn, we will see our great army enter Jizhou. We will see the Cui Family banner flying from this city’s walls.”

Cui Qing raised his voice. “Today I stand and die with every one of you. I will send no one to call for aid. If any among you is unwilling to fight and die at my side, you may leave now.”

“Fight to the death!”

The assembled Cui Family men roared and raised their fists.

“Our family has worked toward this day for more than a decade. It cannot be allowed to fail.”

Cui Qing picked up a long saber and walked outside. “When our family sees that we have not called for aid, they will understand our resolve — and they will fight with every ounce of strength they have to take Jizhou. If we die today, then let me die first.”

He stepped up onto the wall. The Cui Family men seized their weapons and followed him. For them, this was not merely a matter of their own lives — it was the life or death of their family itself.

—

Two hours later.

A messenger from Jinzu found Li Chi and reported: not a single person had broken out of the granary. The people inside had clearly prepared for a fight to the death.

Li Chi listened, then nodded. “Tell General Jinzu: hold the appearance of an assault, but don’t expend our brothers’ lives. A show of attack is sufficient. The outcome is not decided here.”

“Yes!”

The soldier acknowledged and ran off.

By now Yu Jiuling had worked out what Li Chi’s plan was, and he finally understood how what Li Chi had sent him to investigate connected to the granary situation.

“So tonight is when the Qingzhou army launches its full assault.”

Yu Jiuling looked at Li Chi. “Shouldn’t we go tell Xiahou and Pidi now?”

Li Chi said, “They already know. They’re already prepared. Tonight will be a brutal fight — but the winner won’t be the Qingzhou army. It won’t be the Cui Family.”

Yu Jiuling was still troubled. He wavered a moment before asking, “But what if something unexpected happens?”

“It can’t.”

Li Chi said, “The Cui Family has been planning to take Jizhou for years. But I want Jizhou too. I’ve only wanted it for a short while — but since I want it, it can only be mine. The difference between us is simple: the Cui Family is impatient, and I am not.”

Li Chi turned and went downstairs. “Time to eat. After eating, we wait for dark. The elders always said that demons and monsters reveal their true faces after nightfall. I want to see whether the one truly in charge will show his face once darkness comes.”

Yu Jiuling was quiet for a moment, then smiled. “But if nightfall makes everyone reveal their true form, what if you reveal yours? I’ve always thought you might be some kind of monster yourself.”

Li Chi shrugged and smiled. “If I reveal my true form, I’ll be the biggest, most fearsome kind of monster there is.”

He said it offhandedly, without thinking — but Yu Jiuling took it seriously and began to ponder what the biggest, most fearsome monster in the world actually was.

His eyes went distant. Li Chi noticed and smiled. “You’re wondering what the most fearsome monster is, aren’t you? So — what do you think?”

Zhuang Wudi found, without meaning to, that his mind had offered him the image of a dragon. Exalted above all other creatures — and yet, when it came down to it, a dragon was still a monster.

At that very moment, Yu Jiuling delivered his verdict with full conviction.

“The Great Mountain Ape!”

He said, “It has to be the Great Mountain Ape. When old people wanted to frighten children, the Great Mountain Ape was always the most terrifying thing they could threaten. Nothing beats it.”

Li Chi: “……”

Zhuang Wudi paused, then clasped his hands in a respectful salute. “Magnificent.”

—