Though Luo Jing found Li Chi thoroughly entertaining, his terms had not changed — Li Chi would fight him again.
No matter how entertaining something was, another bout was more entertaining still. A man like Luo Jing, who lived only to win, could not abide the idea of someone walking away undefeated beneath his hands.
Li Chi’s answer was: once my injuries heal.
Not out of fear — but sincerity.
His wounds had improved considerably. After more than two months, it wasn’t as though he couldn’t fight now, but he certainly wouldn’t be performing at full capacity.
When Luo Jing heard Li Chi’s reasoning, his response was: this contest between them must be fought with everything they had, so he would wait.
“Come at me with nine-tenths of your ability and I still won’t fight you. Only when you’re back at your peak will beating you mean anything.”
The carriage moved at an easy pace along the broad street. Since a fight wasn’t happening anytime soon, they turned to the second matter.
“Buy me a meal.”
Luo Jing said: “I don’t want your hundred thousand taels of silver. But if you’re too tight-fisted to even stand me a meal, then I suppose I’ll just have to go and make trouble at your carriage depot — and I imagine making trouble will make your life quite difficult.”
Li Chi said: “I can buy you a meal. But I pick the place.”
Luo Jing nodded: “Your choice, then.”
So when the carriage pulled up in front of a very small, very humble little food stall, Luo Jing stepped down, took one look at the meager little shop, and couldn’t help but throw a jab at Li Chi.
“Is money really that important? More important than dignity?”
Li Chi replied: “It’s a meal we’re eating. What matters is the food.”
Luo Jing followed Li Chi into the place — three small rooms in total — and his brow furrowed even deeper once he was inside.
One room was the kitchen; the other two were for diners. The rooms were too cramped for more than four or five tables, and the space felt a little crowded.
What struck Luo Jing as curious was that this narrow little place was packed. And the people who looked humble and rough-and-ready were, somehow, all entirely at ease.
They talked loudly and coarsely. The whole atmosphere felt grating, yet strangely novel.
A man of Luo Jing’s background had never set foot in a place like this.
“No room.”
The cook and proprietor looked toward Li Chi and called out, with a hint of apology.
Li Chi replied: “We’ll wait.”
Luo Jing frowned: “You expect me to wait here in a place like this? And then eat at a table that those people have sat at — in all this filth?”
Li Chi shook his head: “You’re fine in every way, except you’re too lofty.”
Luo Jing didn’t immediately understand what Li Chi meant. By the time he worked it out, he assumed it was a dig.
Just then, a table of diners rose to leave. Out of some apparent consideration for having occupied the spot too long, they actually collected their own empty plates and carried them into the kitchen themselves, then on their own initiative placed their payment on a small table by the kitchen door.
That small table held quite a few copper coins. The diners who had eaten didn’t ask how much it cost — they counted out their coins, set them down, and left. The proprietor didn’t so much as glance at it.
This made Luo Jing even more curious.
In his mind, people with no money were low — even dirty. They would bicker red-faced over a single copper coin, and squabble endlessly over the most trivial things.
Honesty and integrity, it seemed, were things that belonged to well-dressed, proper people — nothing to do with common folk in plain cloth.
This was the first time he had seen ordinary people from an entirely different angle.
“This place has no meat dishes — only vegetables.”
Li Chi introduced this in one sentence, then stepped over, wiped the table himself, and as he did so said: “Bringing you here for a meal should cost only a few hundred copper coins. If you’re unsatisfied after eating, we’ll go find the finest restaurant in the city and order the most expensive food and wine.”
Because of that sentence, Luo Jing sat down across from Li Chi — he simply wanted to see what kind of trick Li Chi was about to pull.
“Order.”
He said.
Li Chi shook his head: “There’s no ordering here. Master Chen takes one look at how many people are eating and he arranges it himself. Which means — he cooks what he cooks and we eat what he brings, because in his view, ordering from a menu wastes time, and he says he doesn’t have time to be held up because someone can’t make up their mind.”
Luo Jing smiled again — not as disdainful and mocking as before, but still not convinced the food here could be any good. Yet there was something faintly, almost imperceptibly reasonable in what he’d just been told.
After a moment, the cook Master Chen came out and set two dishes in front of Li Chi and his companion — vinegar-braised cabbage and stir-fried bean sprouts.
“Start with these.”
Master Chen said.
Li Chi got up, fetched two jugs of wine himself, sat back down and said: “The wine isn’t fine, but it’s pure. Master Chen doesn’t permit anything adulterated.”
Luo Jing knew well that wine sold to common people in many taverns was heavily watered down and reportedly thin and flavorless.
Luo Jing picked up his chopsticks and took a bite — a very small bite, just enough to avoid seeming too unguarded.
He looked down at the dish, and paused almost imperceptibly.
Then came a second bite. A third…
Master Chen’s kitchen was fast. Before long, two more dishes arrived — it was clear he had sized up Li Chi’s appetite.
Ordinarily, for two diners, Master Chen would put out at most three dishes, not one more regardless of how much money was offered. He called that waste.
“A cup?”
Li Chi asked.
Luo Jing shook his head, looking somewhat puzzled: “Why is it that… I have no interest at all in drinking, and all I want right now is a bowl of white rice?”
Li Chi replied: “Grain is scarce. No white rice, but there are steamed buns.”
He knew because the grain here was grain he had supplied — sold to Master Chen at cost. No profit.
Li Chi felt that somewhere in Jizhou City there should be a place like this, and that someone like Master Chen should be able to live by his craft.
He rose, and after a short while returned carrying a steamer tray — plump, white, piping-hot steamed buns, twenty-four of them.
Luo Jing reached over and took one and ate. Li Chi didn’t speak either. The two of them ate one and reached for another, both moving at a steady clip.
When they finally stopped, between them they had eaten twenty-four buns and nine dishes, mopping clean the last of the sauce with the buns.
Luo Jing was silent for a long moment, then broke into a laugh.
“If I hadn’t come here with you, a man like me might never have known that this is what eating is supposed to feel like.”
Luo Jing looked at Li Chi: “My treat.”
He stood and took out a silver ingot, setting it on the table. Master Chen glanced at it and said: “Make your own change.”
Luo Jing replied: “No need.”
Master Chen’s face shifted very slightly.
Li Chi went over, counted out copper coins, and handed them back to Luo Jing: “Master Chen doesn’t accept tips. He says a dish is worth what it’s worth — short him and he won’t have it, overpay him and he won’t take it.”
Luo Jing stared.
Li Chi said: “Master Chen also says, it’s one for one. The person eating shouldn’t feel they’ve lost out, and neither should he.”
Luo Jing thought for a good while, then nodded: “I understand. One for one. No wonder you brought me to this place.”
He looked at Li Chi and said: “You don’t lose out. Neither do I.”
Li Chi smiled and nodded.
An hour later, at the carriage depot.
Tang Pidi sat looking at Li Chi, full of curiosity. Even knowing Li Chi as well as he did, he still felt he had never truly seen through him. After a long while he let out a soft breath and said with a smile: “What you’re capable of, I probably could never do. If it were me, I certainly wouldn’t have brought Luo Jing to Master Chen’s to eat.”
Li Chi said: “Even the finest restaurant in Jizhou — would Luo Jing actually think it good? If I treated him to the most expensive food and wine at the most prestigious place, he’d probably think it only natural, and nothing special.”
Tang Pidi said: “So he’d look down on you, because he’d figure you’re just another ordinary man.”
Li Chi said: “I am an ordinary man… Though the food at Master Chen’s is genuinely cheap. If I’d known Luo Jing would be picking up the tab, I’d probably have chosen somewhere expensive after all, and brought back two jugs of wine besides…”
Tang Pidi burst out laughing. He knew Li Chi was perfectly capable of it. Li Chi had never cared what kind of eye anyone turned on him — whether they thought him generous or tight-fisted.
In Li Chi’s own words: save a few copper coins and it might be enough to buy a soldier an extra mouthful of grain one day.
“He understood what you meant?”
Tang Pidi asked.
Li Chi nodded: “He should have. One for one…”
Tang Pidi sighed: “You really are a scoundrel.”
Li Chi laughed.
After thinking it over, he said: “Luo Jing isn’t genuinely dim. Of course he knows Zeng Ling’s interest in him is nothing but exploitation. So first, I needed to let him know I’m not Zeng Ling’s man. Second, I needed to show him what kind of trade one for one actually is.”
Tang Pidi said: “Keep Li Chi, swap out Zeng Ling.”
Li Chi said: “Our elder brother Yu is probably getting anxious. Given the situation, the Yanshan Camp should wait a while longer — what worries me is whether he can hold out. So I need to find a way to stir Jizhou into even greater chaos.”
Tang Pidi said: “Now that Luo Jing knows what Zeng Ling is really after, he’ll never trust him wholeheartedly again — and beyond that, he’ll want revenge. The most direct way to take that revenge is to take Jizhou.”
Li Chi said: “Youzhou’s Luo Geng has strong soldiers and strong horses. He won’t sit idly and watch Jizhou fall into the hands of Cui Yanlai or Liu Li.”
The two of them spoke back and forth, quick sentences that connected without a gap.
Tang Pidi said: “So you want Luo Jing to know you’ll back him.”
Li Chi said: “Luo Geng enters the game. Zeng Ling leaves it.”
Tang Pidi said: “The Youzhou army, the Qingzhou army, the Yuzhou army — first allies, then adversaries.”
Li Chi said: “The Yanshan Camp enters the game.”
Tang Pidi laughed: “Then those three leave it.”
The last few exchanges came even faster.
One for one on the surface meant Li Chi trading away Zeng Ling — but what Li Chi actually wanted Luo Jing to understand was: the Yanshan Camp will not be your enemy.
Tang Pidi let out a long breath and said: “As long as Yu Chaozong can hold his patience for six months, Jizhou is the Yanshan Camp’s.”
Li Chi said: “Six months at the earliest. What worries me is…”
Tang Pidi said: “Why not take advantage of the fact that you can still leave the city and go back to the Yanshan Camp yourself? If you talk to Yu Chaozong in person, he’ll probably be persuaded. Without you at his side, those people who can’t see past their own noses will wear him down. One person urging him, he can resist. Ten, a hundred, all urging him — he’ll get swept up by it.”
Li Chi fell silent for a moment, then shook his head: “I’ll write another letter. Set out the plan in detail. If I leave Jizhou, the round trip alone is at least three months…”
Tang Pidi went quiet.
Three letters in succession — Yu Chaozong should come to understand the depth of Li Chi’s care.
Several weeks later, in Youzhou.
Luo Geng looked once at Luo Zhijie, and said nothing. His eyes shifted and flickered — it was clear he hadn’t yet made up his mind.
After a long while, Luo Geng said to Luo Zhijie: “Go back and tell my son, I’ll take Jizhou. Tomorrow I’ll send men to Cui Yanlai and Liu Li separately. Zeng Ling humiliated my son — I will kill him.”
Luo Zhijie bowed: “Great General, I understand.”
Luo Geng said: “Tell my son to play along with Zeng Ling for now. Don’t let Zeng Ling grow too suspicious. Once I’ve brought Cui Yanlai and Liu Li around, we march from three sides and encircle Jizhou. When we do, he’ll receive us from inside the city.”
Luo Zhijie acknowledged the order.
Luo Geng waved a hand: “Go as fast as you can… wait.”
He gave an instruction: “Take my personal guard battalion of three hundred with you. They’ll enter the city in small groups. Remember — my son’s life, I am placing in your hands.”
—