Jizhou City still had three of its gates standing open. Perhaps this was the stubborn pride of that great city — the last shred of its dignity.

After emerging from the city, Dantai had divided his forces into three groups. One hundred scouts in all — he led thirty out the west gate himself, while Yu Jiuling and Jia Ruan each took several dozen men through the two gates on the north side.

They carried signal flares. Whichever group found the two northern steppe women first would immediately send up the signal to alert the others.

Dantai had taken the west gate because the direction from which those two had fled was closest to it, and because the northerners had entered through the west gate the last time as well.

Not long after the force left the city, the sky began to darken. If they couldn’t capture the women before nightfall, the search would become far harder in the dark.

Those two needed only to find somewhere to hide. Out on the vast open plains beyond the city walls, looking for a person was like dredging the sea for a needle.

Just before full dark, Dantai spotted a large burst of signal fire bloom in the northeastern sky. He immediately led his men charging in that direction.

Jizhou City’s gates closed before nightfall, as though the act could somehow shut the darkness out beyond the walls.

It couldn’t shut the darkness out — but it did shut Dantai and his men outside the city.

At that moment Li Chi and the others were on the third floor of Yannian Tower, seated by the window, and they too saw the flare light up the sky to the north.

Tang Pidi gave a small smile.

Li Chi let out a quiet sigh.

“My idea,” Tang Pidi explained. “You told Yu Jiuling to go back and have Dantai pursue them — I’m the one who told Yu Jiuling to tell him not to wait two hours. Even if they catch those women tonight, they can’t get back before morning, and spending the night out in the open beyond the city walls — who knows what other troubles might come up. So I also told Yu Jiuling: if they’re caught, kill them on the spot. No need to bring them back.”

“That signal means they’ve probably found those two already. Between Dantai, Jia Ruan, and a hundred elite scouts, taking two people down shouldn’t be a problem. As long as they don’t run into any trouble camping outside tonight.”

Li Chi made a sound of acknowledgment, and said with a trace of resignation, “So you deceived me twice.”

Tang Pidi smiled. “That part was a deception, fine. But the dinner — how can you call that a deception?”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “I’m already thinking… what shall we eat tomorrow?”

Li Chi looked at Ye Zhangzhu. “Elder Ye, am I going to be deceived again tomorrow?”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “By no means, by no means — I couldn’t deceive you again tomorrow. But I could blackmail you. Suppose I went back and told Miss Gao that the moment Li Chi heard she’d cooked the meal, he immediately dragged me and Tang Pidi out to eat somewhere else…”

Li Chi said, “Vicious!”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “All this just to wrangle a meal.”

Tang Pidi said, “Elder Ye, now that’s going a bit far — you already swindled one meal out of us today, and you want another one tomorrow… well, in that case you’d better call me along too. I’ll go with you to see Gao Xining and give a thorough account of how Li Chi snubbed her cooking. I’m willing to lay a brick for the great cause of tomorrow’s dinner as well.”

Li Chi said, “Does your conscience not ache at all?”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “If yours doesn’t ache, then ours doesn’t either — because seven or eight tenths of these shameless tricks of ours were learned from you.”

Tang Pidi said, “And the remaining two or three tenths?”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “Born with them.”

Tang Pidi said, “Can I deny that…”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “If you deny even this, then yours must be six or seven tenths innate, and what you learned from Li Chi isn’t much.”

Tang Pidi said, “Elder Ye must have spent the first several decades of his life without ever realizing what he’d been born with — until he met Li Chi.”

Ye Zhangzhu actually considered this with some seriousness, then said, “I’d say three or four tenths of mine is innate — one or two tenths of that I only discovered after meeting Li Chi. Before him, I met Xiahou Zuo, and that fellow had already made me dimly aware of that one or two tenths…”

Li Chi said, “There — the case is solved. It’s all Xiahou Zuo’s fault. Before I came to Jizhou, I was pure, gentle, studious, and eager to help others. I was nothing but the radiant light of human virtue…”

Tang Pidi sighed. “Do you see that? This man was born with ten tenths of shamelessness.”

—

At the same time, at the Luo Estate.

Luo Zhijie, who had hurried back from Youzhou, stood before Luo Geng and said, “The general has already sent men to contact Cui Yan and Liu Li. Barring the unexpected, the main army will have Jizhou surrounded in about ten days.”

Luo Geng nodded. “If Zeng Ling had harbored no ill intent toward me, I would truly have treated him as a bosom friend and helped him where I could. Since he wants me dead, he can hardly blame me for wanting to take his Jizhou.”

He looked at Luo Zhijie. “You’ve only just returned, so you don’t know the situation inside the city. Li Chi has discovered an underground palace. He proposes that we join forces — conceal troops inside the palace, and when the armies outside begin their siege, I will lead the assault on the gates and coordinate with my father’s force from the inside.”

Luo Zhijie said, with some concern, “If Li Chi is with Yanshan Camp, might he be using the general?”

Luo Geng smiled. “If Yanshan Camp’s army arrives, perhaps he could use me. But if they don’t come, what could he use me for? Besides, right now inside Jizhou City, Li Chi has no more than two or three hundred men, while I have three thousand Tiger-Leopard cavalry. Even if he wanted to use me, could he really not be killed by three thousand Tiger-Leopard riders — he and his few hundred men?”

Luo Zhijie thought it over and had to admit that was sound reasoning.

Li Chi had too few men. Even if he had a thousand, what could he do? The Tiger-Leopard cavalry were not some gang of mountain bandits. In a direct engagement, one Tiger-Leopard charge would reduce Li Chi’s few hundred to dust.

“While we can still get out of the city,” Luo Geng said, looking at Luo Zhijie, “arrange tomorrow for trusted men to slip out in disguise and wait beyond the walls for my father’s army. Tell my father: when it comes to attacking the city, don’t put in your full force at first — let the Qingzhou and Yuzhou armies carry the initial assaults. Today is the first of the month. On the night of the fifteenth, the full moon, I will launch a sudden attack on the east gate in the dark. Have my father hold his troops in readiness that night.”

He paused, then continued, “If I attack the gates in daylight, the Qingzhou and Yuzhou armies will all rush to contest the gain. My father’s forces are outnumbered — that could be costly. But if I make a surprise attack at night and throw open the gate, my father can break through and take the city. By the time the Qingzhou and Yuzhou armies arrive, at least half the city will already be in our hands.”

“Most importantly — tell my father to seize the granary first.”

Luo Geng said, “Once the granary is taken, we have a seven or eight in ten chance of holding Jizhou. Even if we can’t hold it in the end, we can still carry off a large supply of grain.”

Luo Zhijie bowed. “Young General, rest assured — I’ve memorized every word. Tomorrow morning I’ll arrange several groups to slip out. No written messages — word of mouth only.”

Luo Geng smiled. “You are careful and steady in everything you do — that’s why my father had you follow me. He told me more than once to learn from you.”

Luo Zhijie quickly replied, “The Young General flatters me. It is I who have truly gained from these years at your side.”

Luo Geng waved it off. “Enough of that. Go rest first. Tomorrow, once you’ve sent the men out, go call on Li Chi and ask him when we can move into the underground palace.”

Luo Zhijie clasped his fists in acknowledgment.

Luo Geng leaned back and murmured to himself, “This Great Chu of ours — everyone wants a piece of it. Most of them think there’s an advantage in moving later rather than sooner. But what they’ve forgotten is this: if you truly have the strength, it makes no difference whether you move first or last. Once Jizhou is taken, my father can hold the northern frontier — advance south when ready, hold firm when not. At the very least, he becomes king of the north.”

“If my father has the will to contest the realm, I will be his vanguard — hewing a path through every obstacle.”

Luo Geng closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “The Central Plains…”

His hand curled into a fist, as though something had already been grasped within it.

—

The following morning, not long after the city gates opened, Dantai returned with his force — they must have been waiting outside before the gates were even raised.

Li Chi and Tang Pidi were in the rear courtyard training with the soldiers when Dantai and Yu Jiuling came through one after the other — the former with a darkened expression, the latter looking even worse.

Jia Ruan did not come; he had apparently gone straight back to the warehouse.

When they were not far off, Yu Jiuling spoke first. “It’s all my fault.”

Li Chi paused, looking behind them. He didn’t see any prisoners. He thought perhaps they’d been killed — but then he caught Yu Jiuling’s expression, and began to wonder if they’d gotten away.

Yu Jiuling said, “We caught them. My men spotted the two women and sent up the signal. Dantai and Jia Ruan converged on our position, and we enclosed them in a three-way net. Dantai said to kill them then and there — but I wanted to ask them where their other accomplices were hiding. I remembered them mentioning people still waiting at Dafang Town.”

Li Chi understood what had happened from there.

Yu Jiuling said, “We did get them to talk. There were indeed confederates in Dafang Town. We couldn’t get back into Jizhou, but Dafang Town wasn’t far. I discussed it with Dantai, and we decided to press on overnight with the prisoners, hoping to have them identify the others. But when we got there, we found nothing — their confederates had evidently already fled.”

Dantai said, “It wasn’t all Jiuling’s fault. I thought the plan was sound too. We tied up the prisoners and rode hard to Dafang Town — but when we swept the courtyard, it was empty. Their people must have cleared out in advance.”

Yu Jiuling picked up where Dantai left off. “What I failed to anticipate was that while we were surrounding that courtyard, those two women managed to break loose. We’d only left four or five men to watch them. They must have had blades hidden somewhere — in their hair, in their collar lining. They got free, and they killed several of our brothers in the escape.”

He looked stricken — guilt and remorse written plainly across his face.

“Those women were bound hand and foot. I never imagined they could still slip free. After examining the brothers’ bodies, Dantai said they must have held the blades in their mouths.”

Dantai said, “We searched through the rest of the night and found nothing.”

Li Chi reached out and clapped a hand on Yu Jiuling’s shoulder, then stepped forward. “Let’s go clean their faces and change their clothes first.”

Dantai said, “I came back to tell you — I intend to take my men north after them. They’ll certainly be heading back to the northern steppe, and I’ll chase them to the steppe if I have to.”

Li Chi shook his head. “They won’t go back to the northern steppe.”

Dantai blinked. Tang Pidi said to him, “Those two women are wolves. Elder Ye said it himself — women like them will always come back to take their revenge.”

He glanced north and said, “If I’m not wrong, they’ll find a way to get to Yanshan Camp — to see the eighth master.”

Dantai understood immediately.

Tang Pidi looked at Yu Jiuling. “We still have one tied up in the rear courtyard. When you bury the brothers tomorrow, bring him to the graveside and kill him there.”

Yu Jiuling gave a firm nod.

His eyes had turned faintly red as he said, “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t thought so much, the brothers wouldn’t have…”

Tang Pidi clapped him on the shoulder as Li Chi had, and Dantai reached out and placed a hand on Yu Jiuling’s other shoulder.

In that moment, Yu Jiuling could not hold back. Tears broke through and streamed down his face.

—