The Underground Palace.

Yu Jiuling returned from deep within and found Li Chi, saying: “All of Luo Jing’s men are resting on the far side. Everyone is keeping as quiet as possible, and no one has been sent out — so they must have already agreed with Luo Geng on when to make their move.”

Li Chi nodded. “More or less what I’d expected.”

They had been given quarters in the underground palace arranged for Luo Jing’s use, and in a concealed spot they had left a peephole through which they could observe Luo Jing’s side.

“What is Luo Jing doing?”

Li Chi asked.

Yu Jiuling said: “He seems quite bored. His soldiers are barely moving at all — even the horses have been bitted, and only come back to their handler at feeding time. But Luo Jing himself has been pacing back and forth without stop.”

Li Chi immediately understood. Luo Jing’s nerve was not steady.

“We just wait like this?”

Yu Jiuling asked.

Li Chi said: “We just wait like this.”

Yu Jiuling pressed further: “But if Luo Jing launches a coordinated attack from inside and outside and takes Jizhou, won’t we still be unable to get out?”

Li Chi smiled. “Three men. One peach. And all three are starving as they stare at it — they’re not friends, mind you. Do you think any of them is going to politely step aside?”

Yu Jiuling thought it over carefully, and understood.

He couldn’t help but feel a particular admiration for someone like Li Chi — admiration that went bone-deep, a kind that made him feel the urge to drop to his knees and bow. Because the move Li Chi had used was truly the finest expression of using four ounces to move a thousand — no, not a thousand, ten thousand, tens of thousands of pounds.

How many men did Li Chi have? A few hundred at most.

Was Li Chi some grand figure capable of bending the will of powerful lords? He was nothing more than the head of a transport company.

And yet with the lightest of nudges, he had pushed four regional lords onto the same chess board. If word of this got out, who would believe it?

Luo Geng of Youzhou, Cui Yanlai of Qingzhou, Liu Li of Yuzhou, Zeng Ling of Jizhou… Of the thirteen prefectures of Great Chu, the military governors of four had been placed on Li Chi’s board.

A young man barely into his teens — and yet he was commanding the tide of events from behind closed doors.

Yu Jiuling thought to himself: damn it all, if only I weren’t a man. If I were a woman, I’d go toe-to-toe with Gao Xining for him — pulling hair and fighting over the man.

If Li Chi were out of reach, there was always Tang Pidi. That one was every bit Li Chi’s equal, and no woman had managed to win him over yet.

If both of those were out of reach, well — Dantai Qi wasn’t bad either. That jade-faced little dragon was devilishly handsome.

And if all of those were beyond reach… Mister Yan?

The image of Miss Ruoling surfaced in Yu Jiuling’s mind and gave him such a fright that he shuddered, immediately relegating Mister Yan to the category of men no other woman would want.

Then Yu Jiuling caught himself. What in blazes am I thinking?

This was only the first day in the underground palace, and he’d already come to this?

Heaven only knew how many more days they’d be hiding down here. The days ahead would all probably be this dull and uneventful.

Li Chi had prepared for this day with at least several years’ worth of food and supplies — this underground palace had even developed something resembling a livestock operation.

If they just kept living here like this, wouldn’t they end up like the last emperor of the old Youshan Kingdom?

Sealed in an underground palace, with no knowledge of what the world above was becoming — an enormous Jizhou City being built right over their heads, and they hadn’t even caught a single glimpse of it.

Thinking about all this, Yu Jiuling felt a pang of melancholy.

Dantai Qi was sitting nearby, polishing his weapons with careful attention. Yu Jiuling shifted over and sat beside him, blinking, hoping Dantai would say something to him.

Dantai Qi glanced at him, and at last satisfied that expectation.

“Nine-mei, what were you thinking just now? You looked completely lost.”

“I was thinking — in this grand scheme Li Chi has laid out, where’s the flaw?”

Dantai Qi let out a snort of laughter. Perhaps feeling a little awkward about it, he offered a somewhat perfunctory explanation: “I’m not laughing at you — I’m just laughing… forget it. Yes, I’m laughing at you.”

Yu Jiuling pursed his lips. “You think I’m not capable of careful thinking? I’ll have you know — I’ve actually found the single biggest flaw in the whole arrangement.”

Dantai Qi grew genuinely curious. He set his weapon aside and asked: “Then tell me — what’s the flaw?”

Yu Jiuling declared with great moral seriousness: “He didn’t move the Twin Star Pavilion in here!”

Dantai Qi stared at him.

Yu Jiuling said: “If the Twin Star Pavilion were in here too, it would be perfect. If you can’t move the building, you could at least move the people.”

Dantai Qi slid sideways — putting some distance between them.

Yu Jiuling said: “What are you doing?”

Dantai Qi said: “You smell. I’m getting away from you.”

Yu Jiuling put on an expression of great compassion for all living things, heaved a long sigh, and said: “Those girls in the Twin Star Pavilion, all soft and delicate and gentle — in a war like this, with no one to protect them, what on earth will they do?”

Dantai Qi said: “The people here all need your protection. Put your mind to that.”

Yu Jiuling said: “You want me to protect Li Chi or you want me to protect Tang Pidi? If it really came down to a fight to the death, I couldn’t even beat Daoist Changmei — he’d be the death of me. The best I could do is yank his beard.”

Dantai Qi: “…”

He thought for a moment, then said: “I could teach you some martial arts, if you like. It’ll give us something to do down here — I might as well treat it as a pastime.”

“I don’t want to learn.”

Yu Jiuling looked at Dantai Qi’s great lance — though it was already damaged, it remained enormous and heavy. He decided it was beyond him.

He said: “That thing of yours is too big.”

Just then, Li Chi and Tang Pidi came over from the direction of the sand table. Both of them heard what Yu Jiuling had said and stopped in their tracks.

Li Chi said: “You two… what exactly are you comparing?”

Tang Pidi looked at Dantai Qi: “Who knew this was the kind of person you were, Dantai. You’ve become a disreputable Dantai.”

“Oh, come on!”

Dantai Qi said: “The two of you, that’s enough—”

Li Chi shook his head, sighed, and walked away. Tang Pidi followed, matching exactly Li Chi’s rhythm of head-shaking and sighing as he went.

—

In the city. The Transport Company.

Gong Shu Yingying stood in the rear courtyard, looking at the empty space around her, and felt wave after wave of dejection.

She hadn’t even begun her plan — and now it seemed there was no longer any need to begin it. The transport company’s people had all gone into hiding, wherever they’d hidden themselves; the location didn’t really matter. What mattered was that she might have lost her chance to kill Tang Pidi with her own hands.

She walked a circuit of the courtyard, sat down in the pavilion, and gave a self-mocking little smile.

Gong Shu Yingying thought about how she really was cursed with a jinx’s fate. First she’d followed Xu Yuanqing, and the Xu family had crumbled — the whole clan wiped out. Then she’d followed Cui Tai, and the Cui family had crumbled the same way, their clan utterly destroyed. After that, she’d followed Military Governor Zeng Ling — surely, she’d thought, nothing could go wrong this time. He was a governor, the most powerful figure in Jizhou.

And yet it seemed Zeng Ling was going to crumble too. The hundreds of thousands of troops outside the city hadn’t completed their encirclement yet, but that was only a matter of time.

Gong Shu Yingying gave a hollow laugh and glanced around one more time, then murmured to herself:

“I hope I get to see you again — that fair-faced young man who made me feel something.”

She rose and left.

One could only wonder what Tang Pidi would have made of those words, had he heard them.

—

Half an hour later.

On the city wall.

Gong Shu Yingying made her way to stand behind Military Governor Zeng Ling, looking out at the army already dimly visible beyond the city. She said nothing for a long while. In the distance, troops advanced like a tide rolling in from the horizon — a sight that struck the heart with overwhelming force.

Zeng Ling turned his head and looked at her, mildly surprised.

“Why haven’t you fled yet?”

Zeng Ling asked.

Gong Shu Yingying said: “I was on my way — but I came to say farewell to the Governor. Even if I haven’t been of any real help, we’ve at least known each other. When it’s time to leave, saying goodbye is only proper.”

Zeng Ling gave a small smile. “I didn’t take you for that kind of woman — one who knows what it means to see things through to the end.”

Gong Shu Yingying smiled with a hint of self-deprecation. “Perhaps no one understands beginnings and ends better than I do.”

Zeng Ling had neither the time nor the inclination to puzzle out what she meant by that. If he had, he might well have cursed out loud — and quite colorfully at that.

Gong Shu Yingying said: “I’ll just wish the Governor success in holding Jizhou — and hope that you rise high and far afterward, ideally to rule over the Central Plains. If that day comes, I’ll be back to seek the Governor’s shelter.”

Zeng Ling said: “Go while you can.”

Gong Shu Yingying nodded. “Our deal still stands. Sooner or later, I will kill Tang Pidi.”

With that, she tied the rope she had brought around a battlement, gripped it in one hand, and leapt from the city wall.

The rope paid out rapidly, then snapped taut. She landed outside the city, waved up at Zeng Ling, and ran off northward.

The great army in the distance was still some thirty or forty li away, but enemy cavalry scouts had already spotted her and came spurring in her direction — presumably thinking she was going for reinforcements, or carrying orders of some kind, and not willing to let her go.

Several scouts gave chase. While still well out of range, they began firing with their repeating crossbows in short bursts. Gong Shu Yingying went down in mid-sprint — she appeared to have been hit.

The scouts from the Qingzhou forces rode up and reined in around her.

From the wall above, Zeng Ling watched and shook his head. That woman, he thought, did she really believe that everyone outside the city was blind? She was going to die like this for nothing — better she hadn’t gone at all.

But just then, as the scouts closed in, Gong Shu Yingying suddenly burst upright. In mid-air, she flung out a scattering of cold glints — the scouts were cut down by hidden projectiles in an instant.

She landed on one warhorse, grabbed the reins of a second in the same motion, waved farewell one more time up at Zeng Ling on the wall, and galloped north.

Zeng Ling stood in silence for a moment, then turned to the guard captain beside him: “A woman like that — what do you make of her?”

The guard captain said: “Not fit to be a wife.”

Zeng Ling asked: “Why?”

The guard captain said: “Too afraid to die.”

Zeng Ling burst out laughing. He reached out and began drawing the rope up hand over hand. Looking at it, a thought suddenly struck him.

Was she trying to tell him — that he could leave too?

The thought landed, and Zeng Ling glanced almost involuntarily after the woman’s retreating figure. She was already just a black speck in the distance.

On horseback, Gong Shu Yingying thought: leaving a rope like that — surely the Governor would understand. A man alive is worth more than anything. Making a comeback from nothing wouldn’t be so difficult for someone like Zeng Ling.

But she thought she understood men, when in truth she didn’t understand them at all.

Zeng Ling drew the rope all the way up — and then drew his blade and hacked it to pieces, cut by cut. The men around him watched, and understood exactly what their Governor was saying.

“This is our Jizhou!”

Zeng Ling raised his blade and shouted.

“Our Jizhou!”

The soldiers on the wall took up the cry, calling it out with him.

Galloping hard across the open ground, Gong Shu Yingying heard the shouts and looked back once. She thought that every one of those men on the wall was a fool.

Then she thought — perhaps for men like Zeng Ling, women could never truly come first.

Power and position. That was what they pursued, without end.

Zeng Ling was like that. Cui Tai was. Xu Yuanqing was. Every man who had once tasted power was.

She put from her mind these people who were no longer her concern, and wondered instead — where should she go?

—