The underground vault had been sealed from the carriage depot side, and could not be opened from the Shen Medical Hall. All Li Chi could do was wait.

Fortunately, Tang Pidi arrived the next day with people to unseal the barrier, bringing along several physicians from Shen Medical Hall.

The physicians went to examine Yu Chaozong while Li Chi sat some distance away, staring blankly into space.

Earlier, when Li Chi had been scanning the group coming through, Gao Xining had not been among them. He had thought, at the time, that it was probably just as well she hadn’t come — there was a great deal of blood around, and if she arrived and was frightened by the sight, that wouldn’t do. And yet a part of him quietly longed for her.

He had barely been sitting for a moment, however, when a peculiar sound came from behind him. Li Chi glanced back — and his eyes went wide.

Gao Xining was pushing a wheelbarrow toward him, laboring with the effort, but clearly unwilling to trouble anyone for help, pushing it all the way over herself.

When she saw Li Chi looking, Gao Xining broke into a smile at once, her eyes growing bright. When she smiled, they naturally narrowed a little, but even narrowed, those eyes could not conceal the particular radiance that appeared in them only when they found Li Chi.

Li Chi hurried over. Gao Xining had pushed three wooden buckets, the water inside them still steaming.

“I brought you a change of clothes too.”

She gave a small grin, her expression carrying that look of *well, can you believe you’ve managed not to start praising me yet?*

Li Chi took the wheelbarrow from her. Once Gao Xining stepped aside, she leaned her head lightly against him, rubbing her forehead against him to wipe away the sweat.

Li Chi parked the barrow somewhere, then looked at her: “Why didn’t you get someone to help you?”

“Oh please!” Gao Xining said. “I want to watch a man bathe, and I should announce that to someone else? This is not the kind of joy one shares with others.”

Li Chi: “What if I *wanted* to share it?”

Gao Xining: “Wanted to what?”

Li Chi: “Share the joy.”

Gao Xining: “I’d still go first.”

She settled onto a nearby stone bench and made a welcoming gesture: “Go ahead then. Start from taking the clothes off.”

Li Chi: “You’d actually look if I actually took them off?”

Gao Xining: “If you’re planning to bathe without taking your clothes off, I’ll push the water right back. I hauled that all the way here — am I supposed to have done it just to wash your clothes?”

Li Chi: “This makes me think of a folk song… *Cherries are sweet but hard to grow — without putting in the bitter work, the flowers won’t bloom…*”

Gao Xining thought about it carefully, then squinted at Li Chi: “I was clearly the one teasing *you*. So why do I feel like I’m the one who got teased?”

Li Chi: “Impossible. I’m the flower.”

Gao Xining: “Then where are your cherries.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, her face went suddenly red. She stood up, clasped her hands behind her back, and walked away at a quick pace, as though very much afraid Li Chi might press her further on that particular subject.

Li Chi smiled to himself, took up the wheelbarrow again, and found a secluded spot to bathe. This was, naturally, not a joy to be shared.

After washing up he went to put on his new clothes, and only then noticed that everything was new — he had never seen any of it before.

It must have been Gao Xining quietly making them for him in secret. He picked them up and looked them over. The outer robe and trousers were all quite proper, and the handiwork was actually rather good.

Except that the undergarments were somewhat… off.

The shorts had words embroidered all over them — front and back, some large and some small, all manner of auspicious phrases.

Apparently the girl had decided to fashion this pair of shorts into a talisman — not just an amulet either, but a prayer charm as well — so she had embroidered every lucky phrase she could think of onto them. That she had managed to get characters both large and small and thoroughly crooked all across the fabric was sufficient testament to the standard of her needlework, yet somehow they looked charmingly improper in their own way.

Li Chi looked at the front of the shorts. The larger characters were especially prominent: *a lifetime of peace, ten thousand matters as wished, misfortune transformed to blessing* — and right in the center, the four large characters: *divine power guards the body*.

Li Chi burst out laughing, then flipped the shorts over to look at the back. The characters there were just as varied in size, and of course the larger ones stood out all the more. There were many phrases — *may wealth bloom like flowers, may the body be indestructible* — and there, in a fairly central position, Li Chi found four characters that had no business appearing in that particular location:

*Gold flows in daily*.

Li Chi stood there studying these shorts for a good long while. Then he looked at the front again. The biggest characters: *divine power guards the body*.

Flipped over: the biggest characters at the back: *gold flows in daily*.

He thought for a moment, then turned the shorts around — the back now in front, and the front now in the back.

That felt somewhat better.

He had the faint and hazy sense that, now that he was wearing these shorts — which combined protective talisman and prayer charm in one — he could stride through the jianghu world with something to show for himself.

He had washed up and changed into fresh clothes, and found that both his strength and his spirits had recovered considerably. He made his way back to the outer area of the stone chamber where Yu Chaozong lay, where many people stood waiting.

Seeing Li Chi return, Shen Rujian spoke to him: “As matters stand now, the chief has had a deep-seated illness for a great many years, from the look of it. His constitution was never strong to begin with — only his cultivation-channeled energy, far greater than an ordinary person’s, had been suppressing the condition. Now that he has been wounded and his energy has scattered, the old illness has recurred…”

She did not continue with what came after, but only gave Li Chi a slight shake of her head.

Li Chi understood.

Having been through such upheaval — the rise and fall of it — this would have broken down even a man in his prime. For a person whose health had never been good, it was all the more devastating.

“Let him rest as much as possible. My people will work out a prescription. For now, all I can think to do is provide him with restorative care.”

Shen Rujian tilted her head, gesturing toward somewhere more private. Li Chi followed her to a spot a little further from the stone chamber.

Shen Rujian looked at him for a moment, then said: “His wounds are treatable. The illness is not. If his luck holds and the treatment goes well, he may yet have a few years. But even so much as losing his temper or growing agitated could trigger a relapse — and each relapse will be worse than the last. Given his current condition, one more episode and even a divine healer could not save him.”

Li Chi nodded: “None of us are healers of that order, but I want to do everything we can while there’s anything to be done.”

Shen Rujian said: “What I just told you was the most optimistic estimate. Given his current state of mind — this depression, this despair — he may not even have those few years.”

Li Chi fell silent.

After a moment, Shen Rujian said: “If there is still anything you want to say to him, go and say it.”

With that, she turned and walked away.

Li Chi stood where he was, staring blankly for a long time. He wasn’t sure whether he had been thinking about something, or simply in a daze.

Yu Jiuling came running over from somewhere and said: “The chief has come to. He’s asking for you. He wants to talk.”

Li Chi hurried over at once.

In the stone chamber, Yu Chaozong had been helped into a sitting position, leaning back against the wall. When he saw Li Chi come in, a visible improvement came over his face.

“Elder Brother.”

Li Chi addressed him.

Yu Chaozong motioned for Li Chi to sit beside him, made an effort at a smile, and said: “I remember we were still talking a moment ago, and somehow I dozed off.”

Li Chi kept his own tone as light as he could: “You’ve been wounded, and you haven’t really slept these past two days. A little drowsiness is only natural.”

Yu Chaozong nodded, and Li Chi asked: “Are you hungry? I’ll have someone make you something.”

“I am actually a little hungry. I want… dumplings. The ones you mentioned to me before — the ones your Auntie Wu makes. You said they were delicious, and you could eat a great many of them.”

“I’ll go tell Auntie Wu right now.”

“Send someone else. You stay here and keep me company for a while.”

Li Chi had already started to rise; he sat back down.

Yu Chaozong leaned back, as if drifting into some recollection. After a long silence, he gave a gentle laugh and said: “When I was small, I thought dumplings were the least appetizing food in the world. Not only dumplings — anything filled and wrapped, I had no interest in.”

He looked at Li Chi: “Later I came to know many people, and they all loved to eat them. The brothers at the stronghold loved them too. It was only afterward that I understood why I hadn’t…”

He let out a slow breath: “When I was young, I had never once gone without food. I had eaten every good thing there was, and so dumplings seemed nothing special. But then the brothers around me were people who could only afford dumplings on the festivals and the new year — and even then, without much meat in them.”

“Every time they brought it up — said how wonderful that one meal of dumplings had tasted — I couldn’t imagine it.”

Yu Chaozong paused for a long while, then looked at Li Chi and said with great seriousness: “That is why I lost.”

Li Chi took Yu Chaozong’s hand: “Elder Brother, don’t let your mind wander to those things. As long as a person is still alive, victory and defeat are no great matter.”

“And for those who did not survive?”

Yu Chaozong asked.

Li Chi was struck silent.

“Don’t try to console me,” Yu Chaozong said. “I know I am a man who has done wrong. If I had not harbored private desires, so many of my brothers would not have lost their chance to ever eat dumplings again…”

He closed his eyes. Tears slid silently from the corners.

“I spent so much effort trying to make people believe I was fair, that I looked down on no one — that I truly regarded every person in Yanshan Camp as a brother. But the harder I tried, the more clearly I knew in my own heart that it wasn’t true. If it were, I wouldn’t have needed to try so hard.”

“I thought of myself as a man of letters. I thought my birth was better. And so I believed that, since I was treating brothers of lesser birth well, I was already doing something quite excellent.”

Yu Chaozong’s tears traced a path down his face, gathered at his chin, and fell in drops.

“I was so hollow.”

Yu Chaozong slowly opened his eyes and looked at Li Chi with great, grave sincerity: “Third Brother, every path I walked was a wrong path. If I can still help you in some way, it is this: all the wrong paths I walked can help you see more clearly — do not walk them again.”

Li Chi gave a quiet sound of assent, his own eyes reddening.

“That is the first thing I can still think of to offer you,” said Yu Chaozong. “The second is this: Yanshan Camp’s stores are kept in three places — grain, weapons, and money. When you return, distribute all the money to the brothers. That will help them accept you much faster.”

Li Chi was about to speak, but Yu Chaozong gave a small shake of his head: “Just listen to me. Old Seventh, Golden Armor — he follows only me. If you return to the stronghold, he probably will not listen to you. Apart from me, the only person who can earn some of his trust is Second Brother. Find Wudi first, then have Wudi accompany you back to the stronghold. If Wudi is already there, it will naturally be easier.”

“Xilizi is loyal to me, but he and I share a similar background, and he too harbors ambitions in his heart. He will neither follow you nor be open to persuasion. Just remember not to let him command troops.”

After these words, Yu Chaozong said to Li Chi: “I’m tired. I’ll leave it here for now. Go and check on the dumplings — see when they’ll be ready.”

Li Chi quickly agreed and rose: “Elder Brother, rest well. I’ll go take a look. I’ll be back soon.”

After Li Chi left, Yu Chaozong turned to look at the physician beside him: “The young woman just now — she is your proprietor?”

“Yes,” the physician replied, “she is the proprietor of our Shen Medical Hall.”

“Might I ask her to come in again?”

The physician went out immediately. A moment later, Shen Rujian returned to the stone chamber. She asked: “What is it the chief wished to ask?”

Yu Chaozong looked at her, then at the other physicians in the room. Shen Rujian understood at once and sent the others outside.

The stone chamber held only Yu Chaozong and Shen Rujian now. “I only wanted to ask,” Yu Chaozong said, “whether there is some medicine — not too bitter, preferably — that could help me die a little more quickly. Nothing too unpleasant to drink would be best. I’ve been afraid of medicine since childhood, and my mother scolded me for it once. But medicine really does taste dreadful. Also, the effect shouldn’t be too swift — I would very much like to taste those dumplings.”

Shen Rujian was startled: “Chief, what do you mean by this.”

Yu Chaozong smiled — a smile full of release: “I have said everything I needed to say to Li Chi. There is nothing left to hold me here. So it is time to go.”

“If I do not die, how will he ever bring himself to seize Yanshan Camp?”

—