Yu Jiuling had assumed this trip might be the end of him. Even though that she-devil appeared to have drunk herself into a stupor, barely conscious — a creature who killed without blinking could still, for all he knew, put a blade in him at any moment. A man only has one life, and falling into the hands of this sort of woman, even nine lives might not be enough.

So in the moment he knelt there kneading Que Nan’s legs, Yu Jiuling’s heart was a tangle of grief and indignation — his hands were working, but his mind was churning.

He crouched there massaging her legs in a posture that grew more exhausting by the minute, and the more exhausted he became, the more he felt death drawing near. Because fatigue broke his rhythm, and the next moment this she-devil might open her eyes, fly into a rage, and cleave him in two.

Either he was pressing too hard, or not hard enough — really, if she wanted to kill him, any excuse would do.

She might not even bother with an excuse.

The more he thought along these lines, the deeper his grief and indignation ran, and the more he felt that dying like this would be a genuine waste.

And so a thought surfaced in that scoundrel’s head.

*I’m going to die anyway. Might as well buy some time for Peng Shiqī. Hopefully that fellow manages to get out.*

*After that, Peng Shiqī can remember me fondly and burn a few nicely-shaped paper maidens at my grave.*

With that, Yu Jiuling abruptly stood up, swept Que Nan into a bridal carry, and strode in broad steps toward the rear hall.

Que Nan opened her bleary eyes, glanced at him, and paid him no further attention. Yu Jiuling thought to himself: *serves you right for drinking yourself stupid at a time like this.*

He carried her to the rear hall and, finding no one about, thought: *while she’s dead drunk and insensible, I stab her and run — that ought to work.*

Wait.

Yu Jiuling froze. He’d just had a sudden flash of reckless courage — but that wasn’t what he’d come for. What had he been thinking a moment ago, exactly?

In that moment of hesitation, his hands had already, of their own accord, settled Que Nan onto the bed.

*Am I truly such a shameless person?*

He began casting about for a knife, working hard to prove he was not, in fact, a scoundrel.

Just then, Que Nan woke. She took one look at Yu Jiuling and snarled: “What are you doing in here? Get out!”

Yu Jiuling startled, but his reflexes were quick. “I saw the Grand Priest was drunk and helped you inside — I was going to pull the blanket over you.”

“Out!”

Que Nan cursed at him and yanked the blanket over herself, muttering, “In a moment I’ll have someone chop you to pieces and feed you to the dogs.”

*If not now, when?*

Yu Jiuling turned and bolted. Even after he’d cleared the rear hall his heart was pounding so hard it felt ready to leap from his throat.

There was a wild, giddy elation of having cheated death — and yet, inexplicably, threaded through that elation was a vague, undefined sense of… disappointment.

*Ptui!*

Yu Jiuling spat at himself. *Yu Jiuling, you lecherous, reckless idiot.*

He ran out of the county yamen at full tilt. Still no one stopped him. After a few strides he spotted Peng Shiqī standing at the roadside — and thought: *this fool didn’t run?*

Peng Shiqī’s face lit up when he saw Yu Jiuling emerge. He jogged over. “How did it go? You’re alright?”

“My divine might is peerless and unrivaled — what could happen to me?” Yu Jiuling said. “I gave my tiger’s frame one shake and that she-devil was frightened to her very core.”

“Have you heard the story about Lady Zhen and the basket-weaving?” Peng Shiqī asked.

Yu Jiuling glared at him. “If Lady Zhen can weave one, so can her old man, right? Come on, let’s move.”

“Ah, the version I heard was a bit different,” Peng Shiqī said. “In my version it wasn’t about whether her old man could weave — it was that her old man’s baskets were so big, he could really pack things in.”

Yu Jiuling landed a kick on Peng Shiqī’s backside. “When we get back I’m telling Tang Pidi you insulted him.”

The two walked and bickered. But just slipping out of the city felt somehow inadequate — they had come to gather intelligence, after all. They couldn’t very well flee like beaten dogs.

So they steeled themselves and made a circuit of the Eastern Mausoleum Way’s divine soldier encampment to look the place over before finally leaving the city.

The Eastern Mausoleum Way was, for all its apparent power, with believers seemingly everywhere, in truth little more than loose sand — its growth had been too rapid to be properly organized or controlled. Many of its members had never laid eyes on one another; they relied entirely on the grey robes to identify their comrades. The two made it out of the city without incident.

Wearing those grey robes, they didn’t even skirt the villages on their way back, but rode straight through. The villagers they passed bowed deeply at the sight of them.

They galloped back to where Li Chi and the others were waiting. Li Chi had spotted them coming from a distance; when they drew up, he looked over their clothes, then looked at Peng Shiqī’s midriff-baring state, and for a moment was at a loss for words.

Zhang Yuxu gazed at Peng Shiqī and sighed. “Knowing you’d been to a den of outlaws is one thing. Not knowing, you’d think you’d been to the Western Regions.”

Peng Shiqī gave his waist a little shimmy. “Are there men of my caliber out in the Western Regions?”

Zhang Yuxu said, “Stay still, don’t move — that big exposed navel is… dazzling… truly lecherous and strange… truly strange and lecherous… truly…” He spat. “Just truly lewd.”

Yu Jiuling went over the situation in the city in full detail. Li Chi listened carefully throughout, analyzing as he went.

“Their encampment probably holds a thousand or so. No discipline — men wandering freely, not a trace of military order.”

“And those soldiers were all transferred in from elsewhere,” Yu Jiuling added. “The local people don’t recognize them.” He looked at Li Chi. “The Grand Priest in Linbing County — that’s that woman. The one who escaped. She was a junior disciple.”

Li Chi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Fang Yuzhou and his disciples? Then the sect master isn’t Xilizi?”

“We didn’t dare interact with the divine soldiers — afraid of being found out — so we still don’t know whether the sect master is Xilizi or not.”

“Since they’re this disorganized, our odds are good,” Li Chi said. “Tonight I’ll go in and take that woman.”

“I just had a thought,” Yu Jiuling said.

“What thought?”

“I think that woman may have taken a liking to me. She didn’t kill me, which clearly means she has feelings for me…” He said it with great sincerity. “What if I go back first, and see whether I can use the honeytrap on her? Lure her out and get some information.”

Dantai Qi, seated nearby, glanced at Yu Jiuling, then turned to Li Chi. “He’s lewder than that fat one.”

Li Chi nodded. “I can see that. Like a sheep in heat.”

“Why won’t any of you believe me?” Yu Jiuling protested. “I’m really not boasting. If my charm can get the job done, why do we have to resort to fighting?”

Li Chi asked Peng Shiqī, “Did something get into him?”

“That’s… all my fault!” Peng Shiqī said.

Everyone looked at him, wondering how he could possibly have sent Yu Jiuling off the rails like this.

Peng Shiqī sighed. “I never should have told him a story on the road. One of those stories — the sort explicitly forbidden by imperial law — that kind of story. He probably heard it and got inspired. Thought, if even a female ghost can… then surely a she-devil is no different.”

“I’ll wring your neck,” Yu Jiuling said.

Peng Shiqī turned and ran.

“Is this the time for this?” Li Chi said, genuinely. “How can you two have no sense of occasion or priority? Do you not know what matters right now?”

Yu Jiuling was just opening his mouth to explain when Li Chi raised a hand to stop him — then turned to Peng Shiqī. “What are you waiting for? Tell everyone the story!”

“Right,” said Dantai Qi. “The details! We want details!”

—

That night, Li Chi had Dantai Qi lead the scout unit to remain outside the city as backup. If they saw the signal, it meant exposure — ride in and pull them out.

Linbing County, like Gao County they’d visited before, had long since had its gates torn down. Charging through on horseback wouldn’t be too difficult.

Li Chi gathered Yu Jiuling and the others and spoke in a low voice. “Master Ye and I will handle the actual work. You three wait outside the yamen for the handoff. Once we have her, we move immediately. Keep noise to a minimum. Rabble they may be, but these so-called divine soldiers still number over a thousand, and the civilians are all their believers too. Speed is everything.”

“Speaking of speed…” Yu Jiuling began.

“Don’t,” Li Chi said.

“Alright then…”

“You and Peng Shiqī get us in — say we’re newly recruited divine soldiers being brought to the Grand Priest — no one should be suspicious. Once inside the city, find a place to lie low. We move in the dead of night.”

Everyone nodded. “Understood.”

The sky had not yet darkened. Li Chi and the others went over the finer details once more, then set off toward the county seat. They passed through the village openly, the two grey-robed divine soldiers leading the way, drawing no suspicion from the villagers.

At the gate they were stopped, but Yu Jiuling and Peng Shiqī already had the technique down — they slipped the guard a gratuity, said it was a gift from Li Chi’s group, and after a brief once-over, the guard waved them through.

Once inside, rather than heading straight to the yamen, they found a place to go to ground — as planned.

Before long, one of the gate guards rushed to the yamen, saying he had something urgent to report.

But Que Nan was asleep, and no one dared disturb her. The small unit commander had no choice but to wait.

He waited two full hours. By the time Que Nan stirred, it was nearly the hour of the Rat. She had drunk far too much and woke with a splitting headache, unable to recall how she’d returned to her room.

Shortly after, the unit commander came before her, dropped to his knees, and reported: “Grand Priest — several people entered from outside the city. They don’t look like honest folk. I suspect they’re spies from elsewhere.”

Que Nan’s brow furrowed. “If you suspected them, why didn’t you detain them?”

“Two of them were wearing our divine soldiers’ grey robes,” the man said. “And before I took over the gate, I was at the yamen — I saw one of those men kneading your legs, Grand Priest.”

Que Nan’s expression shifted sharply. “Nonsense!”

The unit commander thought to himself: *I hadn’t gone to the gate yet — I saw it with my own eyes. That fellow was kneading your legs, Grand Priest, and you were enjoying it, making little sounds…*

But he valued his life, and said none of this aloud.

“He really was at the yamen,” the commander carefully explained. “I didn’t suspect him at first. But then he brought three people back with him, said they were new recruits wanting to be presented to the Grand Priest. You issued the order only yesterday — temporarily halting new recruitment until the divine envoy’s inspection arrives. If they were truly our people, they couldn’t be ignorant of your order.”

Que Nan seethed inwardly. *I shouldn’t have drunk so much — letting some odious man knead my legs…*

She racked her memory and found absolutely nothing.

“Then why didn’t you keep watch on them?”

She demanded furiously.

“I did. But…” The unit commander’s expression soured. “We lost them. My men reported that those people twisted and turned through the streets until the tail fell off.”

At that moment, someone came striding through the yamen gate, speaking as they walked: “Grand Priest! Something urgent to report!”

Que Nan looked toward the entrance. A grey-robed divine soldier came rushing in, his expression seemingly urgent.

The unit commander turned as well — and recognized him immediately: “That’s him! The one who kneaded the Grand Priest’s legs — that’s him right there!”

Que Nan instinctively looked the man’s features over. The lamplight was enough to see by clearly.

And her heart gave a sharp lurch.

*The things you’ll do when you’re drunk…*

—