Li Chi turned to look at Zhang Yuxu, who had followed him in, and gave a small shrug. “By rights, this man should have been killed by you.”

Zhang Yuxu thought about it — that did seem right.

This man had an undying enmity with Dragon Tiger Mountain. For someone from Dragon Tiger Mountain to give this feud its ending was also a kind of ending, a closing of the circle. As common folk always said: debts of gratitude and grievance come full circle, all things have their reckoning. If Zhang Yuxu had killed him with his own hand, it might have felt more complete.

“Too much trouble,” Li Chi said.

He turned toward the seventy-two graves and bowed, saying quietly: “It’s a bit late today. I’ll come at dawn tomorrow to offer incense for each of you.”

Then he turned and walked out, speaking to Zhang Yuxu as he went: “If you were going to kill him, you probably would have had a long speech to deliver first — starting from your grandmaster, to your master, then to you. I get tired just thinking about it.”

Zhang Yuxu considered: would he have done that?

He decided he probably would have.

“The venerable ones here are resting,” Li Chi said. “No need to bother them with the petty grievances of those who come after.”

“But,” Zhang Yuxu said, “isn’t that the proper thing to do? When I see people pay respects and offer incense to their departed elders, they have plenty to say.”

Li Chi said: “Let’s say hypothetically — if the departed elders could hear what the living say when they offer incense, what do you think they’d want to hear?”

“I’ve… never posed myself that question.”

“Think about it,” Li Chi said. “The person has already passed on — and still you trouble them? You tell them how hard things are, how difficult life is? In my view, when burning incense, don’t say anything trivial. Especially not who has a grievance against whom, who is dissatisfied with whom — that’s pointless. Just burn the paper money.”

He talked as he walked. “If you must say something, say this: ‘Ancestors, take the money and spend it. Go on, spend every last coin.’ They’d love to hear that.”

Zhang Yuxu thought it through carefully and finally understood something.

He looked at Li Chi with great seriousness and said: “No wonder Dantai calls you a cult — you truly are a cult.”

Li Chi burst out laughing.

He looked over Zhang Yuxu’s wounds. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” Zhang Yuxu said.

They walked back to the front courtyard. Everyone was waiting there. The Eastern Mound Way followers who were dead lay facedown on the ground; those still living knelt on the ground.

Magistrate Liu Shengchun and the somehow-still-alive Deputy Magistrate Gao Youxin stood side by side, both trembling, and when they saw Li Chi and Zhang Yuxu emerge, they immediately stepped forward.

“Sir…”

Liu Shengchun began, “As for this matter, this official truly…”

Before he could finish, Li Chi waved a hand. “No need to say anything. You’re all tired — go home.”

Liu Shengchun heard those words and understood at once that things were bad for him. This was someone who had nothing left to say to them.

But Li Chi gave them no opening, simply gathered his people and left, leaving Liu Shengchun and the others standing there in awkward, anxious silence, exchanging helpless glances.

Back at the post-station, Li Chi had barely sat down when he was startled by a figure in a red gown walking in behind him.

“Holy—! Where did this creature come from?!”

Yu Jiuling extended a hand. “Pay up.”

“Pay what?”

“We agreed — once I finished playing my part, you’d give me back my share.”

“What share?”

Yu Jiuling raised both hands, lifting the two thoroughly squashed buns inside the gown.

“This old lady is going all in!”

Li Chi frantically waved his hands. “No no no — what’s yours will be returned, just don’t — you’re Dantai’s person, you’re my sister-in-law, conduct befitting your station, befitting your station!”

“…”

Yu Jiuling came charging forward, buns hoisted: “This old lady is throwing conduct to the wind tonight!”

In the doorway, Gao Xining came in carrying a late-night snack. She stepped through and heard that line — she paused for a moment, mildly surprised, then her eyes went wide, and a look of keen interest spread across her face.

“The way Yu Jiuling is holding herself,” Gao Xining said with a smile, “it’s not so much throwing conduct to the wind as it is removing the words ‘to the wind’ entirely.”

Dantai Yajing leaned against the wall, laughing, saying between laughs: “Starting tonight, Yu Jiuling has a new nickname.”

Zhang Yuxu said: “‘Without the wind’?”

“This is a very striking nickname,” Li Chi said, still struggling and trying to get away, “and when famous heroes make their names in the jianghu, they all have titles — things like Cloud-Climbing Dragon, River-Lurking Jiao. Yu Jiuling, whenever you announce yourself in the future, you have to say it like this — get away from me!”

And thus this hero became the jianghu’s most renowned Discards the Wind, Yu Jiuling.

Dantai Yajing said: “What about the county yamen officials — how are they to be dealt with? None of them are anything good. No use keeping them.”

Li Chi, having finally extricated himself from Yu Jiuling’s clutches with a kick to the backside, said:

“Leave them for now.”

Li Chi said: “I’ve had a good look at them. Liu Shengchun and his people are no saints, but they’ve done most of what needed doing. Killing them now would leave the yamen without anyone in charge, and the people would be thrown into panic.”

Dantai Yajing said: “Then wait until we’ve seen my father in Liangzhou and have him send proper people over. Liu Shengchun and his lot were frightened badly enough — they won’t dare cause trouble for the time being.”

Li Chi made a sound of agreement, then said: “People are actually quite easy to satisfy. These officials, even if they take a cut for themselves, as long as they genuinely do the work for the people, the people won’t hold it against them.”

“More importantly, officials serve as the backbone of public order. It’s the busy farming season now. When we leave tomorrow, I’ll give Liu Shengchun instructions: before the autumn harvest, we will come back for another inspection.”

Finished saying this, Li Chi looked at Yu Jiuling, then grinned: “Go change out of that outfit.”

Yu Jiuling said: “You told me to put it on, so I put it on. Now you want me to take it off? I had no choice going in, and I have no choice coming out?”

Dantai Yajing asked Li Chi: “Are you hearing voices in your head? Two of them arguing with each other?”

Li Chi said: “One says hit him, one says keep holding back?”

Dantai Yajing shook his head. “One says hit him, the other says — what are you waiting for?”

Yu Jiuling, sharp as ever, turned and bolted immediately — swaying his hips and shaking the gown, feeling absolutely magnificent.

The next morning, just as Li Chi had expected — Liu Shengchun and the county yamen officials were already standing outside the post-station waiting at first light.

Li Chi made a show of giving Liu Shengchun a thorough dressing-down, then charged him with investigating the Eastern Mound Way matter, urging the people not to follow heretics, and to farm in peace.

Yu Jiuling stood to one side, rolling his eyes, thinking: he calls other people a heretic cult — you’re the biggest heretic cult leader under heaven.

Liu Shengchun took the scolding and made repeated pledges that he would handle everything as the Inspector directed.

Then, not forgetting his concern, he asked: “How is the General’s wife? Is she well?”

Li Chi looked at Yu Jiuling, then said with an expression of some gravity: “Not well. She was badly frightened — nothing serious, but the fall gave her some injuries.”

He did not add the line he had also thought of: …her chest got squashed completely flat.

Yu Jiuling instinctively reached up and cradled his chest with both hands. This gesture left a great many people puzzled.

The matter at Gujing County settled, Li Chi’s group went to Zhengqing Temple to offer incense and add earth to those seventy-two graves.

Just as Li Chi had said to Zhang Yuxu the night before, he burned a great quantity of paper money at each grave.

Li Chi said: our venerable predecessors — we will not let you down. I simply do not yet have the ability, but when I do, when I can command the world, I will not only ensure you do not go unrewarded in death — you will be honored in this life as well.

He also said: if this paper money we burn truly reaches your hands, venerable ones, do not begrudge spending it.

Buy wine, buy tea as well. Watch over the children who came after you. See how we bring peace to the world.

Li Chi had Fang Yuzhu’s body buried directly across from the seventy-two graves — as if he knelt in perpetual confession. No burial mound was made; the earth was tamped flat and pressed down smooth.

Li Chi took Fang Yuzhu’s sword from someone who had brought it over, looked at it once — a fine blade, not common, probably worth something — but he had no intention of keeping it.

The sword left its sheath; the blade caught the light.

He drove it into the earth, and struck the hilt with his palm.

A muffled sound — the force of his palm drove the sword deep into the ground, plunging it straight into the place where Fang Yuzhu was buried.

“I’ll be merciless about this.”

Li Chi said, his tone mild. “If one sword can strip you of your next life, then I’ll pin you here for ten thousand ten thousand years.”

Before, Liu Shengchun and the others had been acting somewhat frightened — some of it performance. But for no reason they could clearly name, these quiet words sent a genuine shudder through them.

The company left Gujing County and continued toward Liangzhou City. With home drawing closer, Dantai Yajing grew visibly more restless — a feeling he could not hold down. If he had never made this journey far from home, he might never have understood this feeling. It turned out that what he felt for his father was not only awe.

And at that same time, within Liangzhou City.

A diplomatic delegation from the Maoli Kingdom had settled into the official guest quarters. Contrary to expectations, they had not been made to suffer any particular difficulties.

The delegation’s chief envoy, Sandin, had anticipated that on account of the relationship between Dantai Qi and the old Maoli king, they would be subjected to pressure and harassment — but it seemed no one here considered them worth any great concern.

“Any news?” Sandin asked his subordinate.

The accompanying military officer, named Duomuzhan, bowed his head and replied: “General, we’ve made contact with our people here. No findings as yet.”

Sandin gave a slow nod. “Word says that Lidun and Tike Huaqing did make it to Liangzhou. Our people were placed here as merchants a long time ago, but they’ve never been able to discover anything…”

He looked at Duomuzhan and asked: “Do you think those two might actually be hiding inside General Dantai’s commandery mansion?”

Duomuzhan said: “If that’s the case, it will be very difficult. The only opportunity to look inside will be when we enter the mansion for the birthday celebrations.”

Sandin nodded. “Go and tell the Feiyun Crossing people to make ready. When the day comes to enter the General’s mansion, they’ll be the ones we’re counting on.”

In the Western Regions there was a sect called the Feiyun Crossing. It was said that its members could communicate with spirits, and that every one of them possessed supernatural arts. But this was merely rumor. In truth, it was a band of people who had trained in brutal methods from earliest childhood, mastering techniques that appeared miraculous to ordinary eyes.

Some had mastered the bone-compression technique, able to fold themselves inside a small clay jar, squeeze through a cat door, extraordinarily light and silent, passing without detection.

Some were masters of disguise — a thousand faces in one person, with not a single flaw in bearing or speech; when transforming, indistinguishable between male and female.

Others were skilled in the art of assassination, expert at imitation, able to remain hidden in one position for a full day and night without moving, as still as grass and wood.

And there were women who had perfected the art of seduction, able to bewitch the mind with no defense against them.

The Feiyun Crossing was considered heterodox even within the Western Regions, yet they had maintained their tradition for hundreds of years. They charged extraordinarily high fees, but were rumored never to have failed.

This time, the Maoli emperor Qihuali had spared no expense, calling in a considerable number of the Feiyun Crossing’s finest, precisely to eliminate the threat at its root.

The Feiyun Crossing’s members bore no names — only code designations. Men were all called Shenshe, women all called Guimu.

Sandin paced back and forth in the room, thinking: if all they accomplished was killing Lidun and Tike Huaqing, bringing in this many elite agents seemed like something of an extravagance.

If they could also, by the way, dispose of Dantai Qi — then the great western gate of the Central Plains would effectively be kicked open.

If Dantai Qi were truly killed, the emperor would surely look upon him with extraordinary favor, and perhaps even grant him a title of distinction.

Thinking this, Sandin found himself smiling despite himself.