When Chedi came to, he found himself tied to a wooden post. Through bleary eyes he saw someone sitting across from him, watching.

His first instinct was to rub his eyes. His arms were bound fast — no possibility of breaking free — but he made several attempts anyway, just to confirm: indeed, no breaking free.

“Who are you!”

Chedi roared.

Sitting in the chair across from him was the chubby little Daoist monk Zhang Yuxu. He looked at this ugly, bellowing fellow, thought of the woman from the steppe who’d cursed at him on the road, and felt a fresh surge of irritation.

“Where’s your woman?” Zhang Yuxu asked.

Chedi ignored the question entirely. “Who are you!”

Zhang Yuxu glanced back at Li Chi. Li Chi’s expression said: I have the flowers and I have the dung ready for you — take your pick.

Somehow, without knowing Li Chi at all, Zhang Yuxu could perfectly read the message on that face. Flowers and dung together, whips and candle wax available for all preferences.

He didn’t know why — he just understood.

That face was practically narrated.

So Zhang Yuxu turned back to Chedi and said, in a tone admitting no argument: “Stop shouting. Do you still not understand your situation?”

Chedi’s eyes burned with ferocity. Even now, in these circumstances, the urge to lash out and kill was still simmering in him.

“Why do you have something from Longhu Mountain?”

Zhang Yuxu held up what had been found when they searched Chedi — a travel certificate of remarkably fine craftsmanship, practically indistinguishable from genuine. The style and form matched Longhu Mountain’s Daoist temple exactly. Only someone intimately familiar with Longhu Mountain could have produced something so convincing.

And yet this steppe man had clearly never been to Longhu Mountain. That was deeply suspicious.

“Are you a Daoist from Longhu Mountain?”

Something seemed to settle in Chedi — as if he’d suddenly gone calm. He fixed his gaze on the young Zhenren, and Zhang Yuxu, whose jianghu experience was still quite shallow, flinched slightly under that stare.

“Allow me,” Peng Shiqi stepped up to Zhang Yuxu’s side. “Asking him in that scholarly, polite way of yours — you think that frightens him? This fellow is clearly no decent person. You need to be fierce. Can you manage fierce?”

“You do it then!” Zhang Yuxu said.

Peng Shiqi cleared his throat, walked up to Chedi, and put on the most terrifying face he was capable of.

To Chedi, Peng Shiqi’s laboriously ferocious expression was roughly equivalent to that of a very young puppy.

A large dog being fierce looks like: *I will bite you.*

A puppy being fierce looks like: *Feed me.*

“You want a beating?” Peng Shiqi rolled up his sleeve and waved his fist menacingly. “I hit hard. I’ll make you cry.”

Chedi looked at Peng Shiqi — and spat at him.

Peng Shiqi took two steps back. “He spat at me!”

Watching this, even Yu Jiuling felt secondhand embarrassment. Though he thought about it and reasoned: what could you expect Daoist monks to know about this sort of thing?

He glanced to the side, grinned, and trotted over to the training formation to drag out a wooden practice dummy, which he set up in front of Chedi.

Chedi looked at the dummy, then at Yu Jiuling, and gave a contemptuous snort.

“First a little Daoist monk with zero blood on his hands tries to scare me, and now you’re bringing a wooden dummy? Are these the best intimidation methods the Central Plains has to offer? Oh no, a wooden man — how terrifying!”

Yu Jiuling didn’t bother responding. He adjusted the dummy’s position, then lifted the rope that controlled its mechanisms.

He pulled. The dummy began to spin — its upper body whirling like a top, its two wooden palms cycling like a windmill across Chedi’s face.

*Slap slap slap slap slap…*

After a good while, Chedi’s face was visibly swollen, blood at the corner of his mouth.

Yet he still glared at Yu Jiuling with undiminished ferocity. “That all you’ve got?”

So Yu Jiuling pulled a second rope. One of the dummy’s legs immediately lifted up, knee driving into a certain sensitive area of Chedi’s anatomy.

Yu Jiuling pulled — pulled — pulled — pulled…

The knee struck — struck — struck — struck…

Across a dozen or more repetitions, Chedi let out a howl on the first impact. After that came shouts and cries. By the end, he was enduring it through clenched teeth.

Not out of any particular hardiness — it was more that by the end, there was no longer enough left to cry out with.

Zhang Yuxu watched the wooden dummy, then looked back at the training formation, and felt a shock go through him. What kinds of punishments does the Yongning Tongyuan Horse-and-Carriage Depot have in its collection — and why are there so many, and why are they all so horrific…

What kind of place is this!

When Yu Jiuling finally stopped, he looked at Chedi. Chedi’s face had twisted completely — eyes blood-red, which made him look even more like a beast ready to erupt.

“Still very arrogant,” Yu Jiuling said.

He pulled the ropes again. Once — twice — a few more times…

After several more applications, nothing remained in Chedi’s expression except pain. Pain like a mask of suffering plastered to his face.

“Stop… please stop.”

Chedi rasped out a plea.

Yu Jiuling said: “Now you can answer his questions.”

He looked over at Zhang Yuxu — and found the young Daoist had gone pale. The slight twitching at the corner of his mouth made it clear: he had, at some point, begun imagining himself in Chedi’s place, and was currently in considerable phantom pain.

“Hey!”

Yu Jiuling called out, and Zhang Yuxu jolted back to himself.

“You can ask now.”

Zhang Yuxu swallowed. In his current estimation, Yu Jiuling was certainly the most ruthless and cruel person in the depot — the kind who could destroy even a flower without remorse. He resolved to keep his distance from this person going forward.

He looked at Chedi. “Why do you have a Daoist travel certificate from Longhu Mountain?”

“Forged. To make entry easier.”

Chedi’s answer was hoarse.

“Why did you enter the pass?”

“To make a living.”

The answer came fast.

“Then why use the identity of a Daoist?”

“Convenient.”

Not only fast — also very brief.

Zhang Yuxu looked back at Li Chi. *Now what?*

Li Chi said: “Tell him you don’t believe him.”

Zhang Yuxu turned back to Chedi. “I don’t believe you.”

Chedi snapped: “Is it *you* who doesn’t believe me or is it *him* who doesn’t believe me!”

Zhang Yuxu glanced back at Li Chi again. Li Chi said: “It’s you who doesn’t believe him.”

Zhang Yuxu turned back. “I don’t believe you!”

Chedi, fighting through the pain, bellowed: “If *you* don’t believe me, why the hell are you asking *him?* If you don’t believe me, what do you need to ask him for?!”

Zhang Yuxu considered this, and it did seem to have a certain logic. Before he could turn to look at Li Chi again, Li Chi had already picked up his little stool and settled himself right beside Zhang Yuxu with characteristic thoughtfulness.

Li Chi said: “No matter what he says — you don’t believe him.”

Zhang Yuxu immediately lifted his chin and declared loudly: “No matter what you say, I simply don’t believe you!”

At this point, Chedi felt he might cry. He didn’t know what kind of people he had fallen among — every single one of them seemed wrong in some way.

“You fake being a Longhu Mountain Daoist — there’s obviously a scheme involved. Tell me your scheme, right now!”

Chedi looked at Zhang Yuxu again. Some of the dark cunning had crept back into his eyes.

“So you really are from Longhu Mountain.”

He said, something like composure returning to his voice. “Release me right now and fight me properly. If you can beat me, I’ll tell you everything we’re planning.”

Zhang Yuxu said: “Do you think I’m afraid to fight? The only reason Master sent me down the mountain was because I’m the best fighter at Longhu Mountain.”

He started to stand, ready to go. Li Chi pulled him back. “He’s in this state — beating him now doesn’t prove anything. And it won’t look dignified. A Daoist monk should preserve his dignity.”

Zhang Yuxu looked at Chedi’s sorry state, decided Li Chi had a point, and turned back to Chedi. “I feel that fighting you now would be an unsatisfying victory.”

Chedi roared: “Is *that what you feel?!*”

Then he looked at Li Chi and shouted: “Can’t you just ask me yourself!”

Li Chi gave a light sigh. “If I’m the one asking, it might not be very friendly. Think carefully about whether you’d rather have him ask, or me.”

Chedi’s voice had given out into a broken rasp. He screamed at Li Chi: “You ask!”

So Li Chi rose, took the rope from Yu Jiuling’s hands, and began pulling. One stroke at a time.

Some tens of breaths later, Chedi — trembling with pain — said through chattering teeth: “Would you just… ask already.”

Li Chi replied, with perfect sincerity: “I don’t actually have anything to ask you.”

In the midst of his agony, Chedi’s mind went blank for a moment. Unbidden, a phrase his master used to repeat surfaced in his memory.

*The Central Plains people are far more cunning than any of you.*

Li Chi said: “Personally, I genuinely have nothing to ask you. Personally, I genuinely would very much like to beat you. I’ll give you one more choice: I can ask questions on his behalf, or I can fight on his behalf. Which do you prefer?”

Zhang Yuxu asked, curious: “Weren’t you the one saying it’s not dignified to fight?”

Li Chi said: “I’m not particularly concerned with that myself.”

Zhang Yuxu: “…”

Chedi finally broke. He begged: “Ask on his behalf. Be direct about it.”

Li Chi: “You came into the Central Plains to go to Longhu Mountain. To kill someone there. Correct?”

Chedi nodded. “Yes!”

Then, somewhat despite himself, he asked: “How did you know?”

Li Chi thought: this fellow’s mind isn’t terribly nimble either. It had been that obvious, and he was still asking how you knew.

If I say I guessed, he’ll be astonished. So let me say exactly that.

“I guessed,” Li Chi said. “From your speech and manner.”

Chedi’s eyes slowly widened. His whole face worked hard to express his astonishment.

Li Chi thought: entirely unimpressive.

Absolutely nothing to it.

He continued: “You have a grievance with Longhu Mountain.”

Then he looked at Zhang Yuxu. “And you have never met them before in your life — you have absolutely no idea who they are.”

Zhang Yuxu nodded. “Longhu Mountain almost never opens its gates. The people who have ever come to the sect are so few they can be counted on one hand. I have certainly never seen these people.”

Li Chi said: “So it likely isn’t a grudge from your generation. This should be your master’s generation’s enemy — someone who sent them here on your master’s behalf.”

At those words, Chedi’s eyes flew wider still. His expression grew even more astonished.

Unable to help himself, he blurted out: “How do you *know* that?!”

Li Chi sighed, then said: “Villain — could you please compose yourself? Do you not realize you haven’t told me anything yet, and you’ve already reacted like this? I was talking to him. At this rate, by the time I actually get to question you, there’ll be nothing left for you to confess.”

Chedi stared at Li Chi. “What does that mean?”

Li Chi said: “Summon some courage. Don’t talk yet.”

Chedi’s chin went up. “No — I’m going to talk right now!”

Li Chi turned to Zhang Yuxu with great seriousness. “If this is your master’s enemy — does your master have any enemies who are… not very bright? The kind with something wrong upstairs?”

Chedi yelled: “Who are you calling that?!”

Zhang Yuxu thought about it, looked at Li Chi, and said: “He seems to be answering for me — he’s saying that my master does indeed have that kind of enemy…”

……

—