When Shen Rujian had left Yun Yin Mountain, she had caught sight of the young woman named Gao Xining. She had believed then that she was the one putting pressure on the girl — because she had seen the expression shift on the girl’s face.
She had thought at the time: this girl must be quite self-assured, or she wouldn’t have reacted that way at all. Someone without confidence wouldn’t have the courage to measure herself against a woman like Shen Rujian.
And it wasn’t just this particular young woman. Shen Rujian knew perfectly well that she had this effect on women in general — in some degree or another, she made them feel the weight of her presence. She didn’t think of this as aggressive. She enjoyed it. The alternative would mean she herself was unremarkable.
Shen Rujian would never — not ever — accept that she was unremarkable.
This was the first time a girl so young had made her feel the pressure. Even a faint trace of fear.
“Mistress,” Lü Qingluan said, “even if she guessed at your intent, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Shen Rujian shook her head. “You’ve missed the point of what I said. If my strategy of lowering before raising has been seen through, it no longer serves its purpose.”
Lü Qingluan thought it over and understood.
He was, by his own reckoning, a simple man. The single principle that had governed his life was: whatever Shen Rujian tells me to do, I do — nothing more. He did not trouble himself with deep analysis. His sole aim was to follow orders — unconditionally.
“So what do we do now?” he asked. “Should we change our approach?”
Shen Rujian smiled a little. “That’s exactly why I can’t sleep…”
“Mistress,” Lü Qingluan said, “even if Gao Xining tells Li Chi what she saw through, it won’t change how he treats us — after all, we’re the ones he came to, not the other way around.”
“Again you’ve misunderstood me,” Shen Rujian said. “I can’t sleep — not because of any impact on my plans or on our earnings — but simply because a girl that young saw through something I had arranged. I refuse to accept that.”
The words carried no resentment. She wasn’t angry — she just refused to concede.
She continued: “And besides, we’re not here to help Li Chi. We’re here to invest. You could call it an investment — or more bluntly, a gamble.”
Lü Qingluan felt, not for the first time, that his mind genuinely couldn’t keep pace with Shen Rujian’s. He wasn’t troubled by this. He knew what he was good at and what he wasn’t.
As long as he could use what he was good at to help his mistress as much as possible, the rest didn’t matter. That wasn’t his own wisdom — it was something Shen Rujian had once told him.
He had used to torment himself over it, always feeling that what he could offer was too little — that he was failing her, failing many people. Then Shen Rujian had said those words, and they had become the guiding principle of his life.
To do no wrong to others is to do no wrong to yourself.
“Coming back to what I said,” Shen Rujian went on, “at the most fundamental level, I am a merchant. The reason I was willing to leave Yun Yin Mountain was not only because of the Immortal Crane Divine Palace — the bigger reason was that I wanted to make a gamble.”
She looked at Lü Qingluan directly. “I want to convert what I invest in Li Chi — resources, money, supplies — into far greater returns for Shen Medical Hall in the future. That is what comes first.”
She exhaled slowly, and the thought of the young woman came to her again — and she smiled.
She had never been someone who let not conceding become resentment. She was someone who, when she refused to concede, made certain she won.
“Tomorrow I’ll pay a visit to Yongning Tongyuan Carriage and Horse Agency.”
She turned and walked back into the building, waving a hand behind her. “Go rest. Come with me tomorrow.”
—
At that same moment, at the Military Commissioner’s Residence.
Zeng Ling sat in long silence, until at last he let out a helpless laugh and said: “I refuse to accept it.”
This was the first time Jinzu had ever seen helplessness in the Military Commissioner’s face. Helplessness was the expression of a man who felt his strength beginning to fall short.
The Military Commissioner had built himself up step by step, from nothing, from some minor role in the world, to the post of a governor holding an entire region. In this age of upheaval, a regional governor was one of that very small — very small — number of men with the best chance of climbing all the way to the top. Because they held power, troops, and territory.
Every one of the thirteen governors across the thirteen provinces thought in exactly those terms. And yet here was such a man, feeling faint and helpless — and, alongside that helplessness, a stubborn refusal to yield. A desire to win.
But consider this: the moment a man of Zeng Ling’s stature began feeling a need to compete with someone like Li Chi — he had already lost.
“I’ll go pay him a visit myself tomorrow.”
Zeng Ling smiled. “Since Li Chi used you to tell me he’s thinking of leaving Jizhou, I may as well go ask him directly — are you leaving, or aren’t you?”
Jinzu nodded. He could tell the Military Commissioner was rattled by Li Chi’s maneuvering, and that the feeling had some heat to it. It wasn’t going to pass quickly.
There were two ways out of it. He could win back a round, cleanly and impressively — more impressively than anything Li Chi had pulled off, which was a higher bar given the difference in their positions and available tools. Anything short of a decisive, stunning win would still count as a loss.
Or he could accept it.
But no one who had stepped onto the stage was willing to concede so soon. Those who were willing to concede that easily were still in the audience. They called themselves spectators — but really, the stage simply had no place for them.
—
The Carriage and Horse Agency.
Li Chi handed Tang Pidi a lollipop. Gao Xining had been in a good mood today, apparently, and had made a fresh batch — something she hadn’t done in a long time, those little sweet things she and Li Chi had invented together.
In this particular moment, one such small sweetness was in Li Chi’s mouth.
Tang Pidi tilted his head and gave Li Chi a look, then said with great earnestness: “My grandmother told me once that eating too many sweet things gives you a stomachache.”
Li Chi said: “My stomach may ache — but I think right now you’re aching with envy.”
Tang Pidi pointed at a cloud drifting through the moonlit sky and said: “See that cloud? Doesn’t it look like the character for ‘contemptible’?”
Li Chi said: “It’s more subtle than that. I’d say it looks like the character for ‘greedy.'”
Tang Pidi said: “Me? Greedy for something this childish and shallow with such a single, unremarkable flavor? Please don’t try to drag me down to your level. Even if you’ve already put considerable effort into dragging me to—”
Li Chi reached into his pocket and produced a fresh lollipop, holding it out to Tang Pidi.
Tang Pidi glanced at it, took it, unwrapped it, put it in his mouth. He smacked his lips. “You actually managed it.”
The two of them leaned back together, looking up at the moonlit sky and its drifting clouds, tasting the maddening, simple, deeply satisfying sweetness of the lollipops.
“Tomorrow might be a bit busy,” Tang Pidi said, still smacking his lips.
Li Chi asked: “Why are you doing that with your mouth?”
Tang Pidi replied: “It’s a form of respect for the candy.”
Li Chi began doing it too. Then he said: “Strange — the flavor of respect I’m tasting seems different from yours. More like two people’s worth. A shared portion. Isn’t that something?”
Tang Pidi: “Are you trying to challenge Yu Jiuling’s position in my heart? You’re overestimating his position. I don’t particularly want to kill him — but I do want to kill you now.”
Li Chi shook his head and laughed. He laughed for a moment, then said: “Which do you think happens first tomorrow — the Military Commissioner cracking, or Shen Rujian cracking?”
Tang Pidi replied: “Those two aren’t the same kind of people, but what they need to do right now is more or less the same.” He smiled. “Whoever comes first, it’s all the same to me. You’ve got a two-person flavor that happens to be suited for two very different people.”
Li Chi sighed. “Could we at least lose with some dignity?”
Tang Pidi said: “As if you’re dignified.”
Li Chi said: “I’m not dignified at all — I’m a man who already has someone he cares for, mocking a man who doesn’t. That in itself is not dignified. But I’m insufferably pleased about it.”
Tang Pidi glanced back — probably scanning for the location of his iron spear — but Li Chi had already bolted.
“You deal with Zeng Ling tomorrow,” came Li Chi’s voice from a distance.
Tang Pidi shouted back: “Why should I be the one?”
Li Chi called back: “Because I have no shame.”
Tang Pidi paused, then said to himself: “Well. You win.”
—
Youzhou.
Luo Geng still hadn’t gone to sleep either. The replies had come back from the letters he’d sent to Qingzhou Military Commissioner Cui Yan and Yuzhou Military Commissioner Liu Li — exactly as he’d anticipated, but it put him in an even worse mood.
A three-way siege of Jizhou City was a tempting prospect on its face. But once the city fell, whoever got to keep it would be determined by force — and that was where things would become very ugly indeed. The situation waiting for him on the other side of that victory would be more complicated than anything Zeng Ling was dealing with now, and the realization had begun to make him regret entering this game at all.
Would he have been better off staying out?
But if he stayed out, this standoff could drag on indefinitely.
He took his eyes off the map and let them settle on his desk. Three letters lay there. Two were the replies from Cui Yan and Liu Li.
The third letter — the one set apart from the others — was the main source of tonight’s trouble, because Luo Geng genuinely had not expected Yanshan Camp’s chief, Yu Chaozong, to write to him.
The contents were simple — so simple that when Luo Geng finished reading, he had a strange sense of familiarity. Because the letter’s content was more or less the same as the letter he himself had written to Cui Yan and Liu Li. He had been trying to convince them to join forces against Jizhou City; Yu Chaozong was writing to convince him to do the same.
The difference was that Yu Chaozong’s terms were far more generous — so generous that Luo Geng found it nearly impossible to refuse.
Yu Chaozong’s offer: if they joined forces and took Jizhou City, the city would go to Luo Geng entirely. Yu Chaozong wanted Youzhou. And he made Luo Geng a further promise — regardless of whether the operation succeeded, if Luo Geng sent troops, all the necessary provisions and supplies would be furnished by Yanshan Camp. If Jizhou fell, Yu Chaozong would add a second full shipment of supplies as a bonus. If the attack failed, Yanshan Camp would withdraw immediately, and would make no move against Youzhou.
Luo Geng was caught. Deeply caught.
On one side were Cui Yan and Liu Li — men who had all once served the court and still styled themselves its loyalists, even while competing to look more like faithful ministers. But at the core they were all ruthless, and when it came to betrayal, none of them would hesitate for a heartbeat.
The arrangement looked like natural allies on paper. In practice, they would sell each other out without a second thought.
On the other side were rebels — yet somehow with a far better reputation than any of the court’s own men.
Whether Yu Chaozong meant to enter the game or overturn it, having Yanshan Camp as an ally could only benefit Youzhou’s forces. And yet the shape of the world never stayed fixed.
After a long silence, Luo Geng made his decision.
“Send for people to come to Youzhou.”
He turned and issued the order. “Dispatch three separate messengers — one to each — and invite Cui Yan, Liu Li, and Yu Chaozong all to come to Youzhou to discuss matters with me. Whoever among those three dares to come is who I will ally with.”
Luo Geng finally found something to smile at.
This great game was never meant to be played by just one or two people. The more players on the board, the better — the more, the more interesting.
He tapped the desk lightly and thought: Yu Chaozong… if you think about it honestly… you and the rest of us are really the same kind of people. You couldn’t keep the act up, could you?
—