It was a story that took a full hour to tell. Five pots of wine were drunk. The one telling the story was mildly tipsy; the one listening had shed tears.

Tang Pidi sighed inwardly and silently said: Xiahou, I’m sorry.

This was Xiahou’s story, not his.

As a friend, he should not have used this story to manipulate people or events.

But he knew that time was running short, and in that moment, the only method he could think of was to use someone to lure Di Chun back.

“Then why did you come to Yanzhou?”

Shanhu asked him.

The female soldiers who had gathered around to listen — every one of them had cried.

Shanhu held herself together better than most. Her eyes had grown quite red, yet she had not let the tears fall.

“I was originally serving as a general on the northern frontier.”

Tang Pidi exhaled a long breath.

“My commanding officer — the Northern Frontier Military Suppression General Zheng Desheng — was determined to have me killed. So I had no choice but to leave.”

“I came to Yanzhou,” Tang Pidi said, “but my actual target isn’t Yanzhou.”

“Then where are you trying to go?” Shanhu asked.

“The Bohai Kingdom.”

“To kill the Bohai King,” Tang Pidi said.

Shanhu was startled.

Those words — they couldn’t possibly be a lie.

Because everyone knew that the White Mountain Army had close ties with the Bohai Kingdom. To say such things to her face was practically courting death.

“You must know,” Shanhu said, “that if you want to reach the Bohai Kingdom, you shouldn’t be working for the White Mountain Army.”

“Earning a bit of silver from your people, then going to kill your allies — that’s a rather amusing thing to do,” Tang Pidi said.

“I have no travel funds. I need to earn some silver before I can reach the Bohai Kingdom and kill the Bohai King — and stop the Bohai people from invading Yanzhou.”

“Why do you think the Bohai people are going to push in?” Shanhu asked.

“Because I don’t trust you.”

“I didn’t trust you before I came,” Tang Pidi said, “and I trust you even less after being here.”

He rose to his feet. “Thank you for the wine. If you wish to have me killed, you may give the order now.”

He looked at Shanhu and said: “Di Chun will eventually let the Bohai people through. I suspected as much before I arrived, and I’m certain of it now. You have known this longer than I have.”

Tang Pidi was making a gamble.

Before this, he had already learned of the strange and fraught relationship between Shanhu, Shen Dongxia, and Di Chun.

Because Di Chun intended to let the Bohai people into Yanzhou, Shen Dongxia had found it intolerable, had a fierce argument with Di Chun, and in anger left Shelu City to take his troops to Tiger Head Mountain.

Shanhu had not left — but her reason for remaining in Shelu City was precisely to stop what her brother-in-law intended to do.

“I won’t kill you. But I can’t keep you here either. You should go.”

After a long silence, Shanhu shook her head. “If my brother-in-law returns, you’ll certainly die.”

“If you don’t kill me,” Tang Pidi said, “I may well go and kill your brother-in-law.”

Shanhu’s expression changed sharply.

The faces of the female soldiers changed too. Some were so startled they let out soft, involuntary gasps.

To say such things on White Mountain Army territory — was that not the same as seeking death?

“Go, just go. Leave now.”

“I’ll have someone escort you back to Jizhou,” Shanhu said. “You can’t go to the Bohai Kingdom, and I won’t let you kill my brother-in-law.”

Tang Pidi looked at her and thought: gambling on someone sacrificing family for the greater good — that was always a long shot.

He turned. “I understand your kind intent. Thank you. I’ll leave shortly.”

Then he stepped forward.

He returned to his room and sat thinking for a while.

During the conversation with Shanhu just now, his thinking had shifted several times.

If he had not known that Shanhu also wanted to stop the Bohai people from entering Yanzhou, Tang Pidi would have killed her too.

When Tang Pidi judged that someone deserved to die — whether man or woman — he would naturally show no mercy in acting.

He would never hold back his hand, or even soften, simply because the person he needed to kill was a woman.

He had always been different from Li Chi in this regard. Li Chi wore a harmless smile — and in some genuine sense, Li Chi truly was harmless.

Whereas he himself always wore a sunlit, brilliant smile on his face. A more elaborate disguise than Li Chi’s.

He had always been a very cold and hard person. Toward family and sworn brothers and friends, this quality slept. But toward any enemy, it was immovable.

When it came to enemies, he did not even need to deliberate over methods.

The first shift in his thinking during that conversation had been the decision not to kill Shanhu. He could see that she was deeply conflicted, deeply troubled.

So he had changed course and laid bare his intention to kill Di Chun directly.

This particular gamble had not been graceful. To flip over your cards at the outset like this was genuinely not how a skilled player should bet.

But the reason was the same as always… time.

Borte Tengo should have reached Tiger Head Mountain by now. Barring any unexpected complications, Shen Dongxia would immediately raise his troops and march back toward Shelu City.

There was no way Tang Pidi could reach Borte Tengo now to change the plan.

So at the latest three days from now, at the earliest on the third day, Shen Dongxia would arrive.

Knowing Borte Tengo as well as he did, Tang Pidi was certain he would follow the troops back.

If Di Chun were already dead, Shen Dongxia would be consumed with seizing power and taking control of the White Mountain Army — he would have neither the time nor the inclination to concern himself with a single messenger.

But if Di Chun were still alive and Shen Dongxia returned to find he had been deceived, the first person he would want to kill would be Borte Tengo.

So Tang Pidi had no choice left. Bet on Shanhu — if that bet failed, it would simply mean going directly to the White Mountain Army’s mountain stronghold.

That was the backup plan. Over the past several days, Tang Pidi had quietly gathered quite a bit of information about the stronghold from roundabout questions.

Though he generally preferred to settle things on the battlefield, this didn’t mean he lacked the means to kill Di Chun alone.

Assassination, to Tang Pidi’s mind, was crude and inefficient.

But since the bet on Shanhu had not come through, the backup method would have to do.

He packed his few belongings, thinking at least that Shanhu probably wouldn’t send word to Di Chun.

He picked up a small bundle and stepped out.

As he left, there was a new waist token tucked at his belt — Zhao Qingyu’s.

He walked through the rear courtyard gate and stepped forward. A voice reached him from behind.

Shanhu was leaning in the doorway, watching him.

“Stop.”

“Mm?”

“Do you know — whether you’re going to assassinate the Bohai King or kill my brother-in-law, you’re going to die either way.”

Tang Pidi didn’t turn around. He was silent a moment, then replied: “There are no absolutes in this world.”

“So I suppose there is some possibility I might die. But not a large one.”

Tang Pidi kept walking.

Shanhu’s voice came again, gone slightly hoarse. “Knowing full well that Di Chun is my brother-in-law, why did you tell me those things?”

“I wanted to use you.”

Tang Pidi turned to look at Shanhu, his tone perfectly calm. “I wanted to use you to lure your brother-in-law back here and kill him inside this mansion.”

Shanhu’s eyes grew faintly red. She did not answer immediately.

After a moment, she looked at Tang Pidi and said: “You’re a bastard.”

“You may come to understand someday,” Tang Pidi said, “that I’m a bit more of a bastard than you think.”

He said it with such equanimity, as though without a trace of guilt.

This woman’s heart must be caught in an impossible tangle right now. When her brother-in-law had once shouted at Lao Yi — *I follow you, I’ll help you take all of Yanzhou* — she had actually understood him, even as a girl of fourteen or fifteen.

She knew that her brother-in-law hadn’t wanted to die, hadn’t wanted them to die.

Faced with the brutal savagery of the White Mountain Army, that choice had been made out of desperation.

But ever since Di Chun returned from Jizhou, she had grown less and less able to understand him.

That incomprehension had in truth begun much earlier.

It had begun when his obsession with war grew ever heavier. When his hunger for victory grew ever more consuming.

At first it had been no choice at all. But later, Di Chun had begun to relish this life.

In a little more than a year, he had transformed from an ordinary man into a blood-soaked demon.

Di Chun’s thirst for killing grew heavier and heavier. His hunger for power became impossible to suppress.

After he became the White Mountain Army’s second chief, that hunger could no longer be contained.

Even at this point, Shanhu had still been able, somehow, to push down her incomprehension.

She and her older sister had spoken at length more than once, and both ultimately chose to believe that even this version of Di Chun was still acting out of necessity.

Until Di Chun returned and began a massacre within the White Mountain Army.

And now, his growing contact with the Bohai Kingdom.

Shanhu also knew that the Bohai Kingdom had already offered her brother-in-law terms he could almost not refuse.

All Bohai Kingdom forces sent across would be placed entirely under Di Chun’s command.

This way, Di Chun could let those Bohai forces into the passes, and use them to fight and bleed out the other rebel armies within Yanzhou.

Then Di Chun would wait for the Bohai forces and the other rebel armies to exhaust each other, and strike decisively to seize all of Yanzhou.

Shanhu had even considered that once this plan succeeded, her brother-in-law would kill off all the Bohai forces and block them outside the passes again.

But she also knew: that was impossible.

Once all of Yanzhou was taken, it wouldn’t be long before Di Chun led his forces into the Central Plains.

She had heard Di Chun say it more than once: in a time of chaos, every powerful man had the potential to become a powerful emperor.

“Even if you kill him,” Shanhu said, “it won’t stop anything.”

“The White Mountain Army’s second chief — my brother-in-law’s sworn brother Chen Xiao — has exactly the same ambitions.”

“I even suspect that Chen Xiao is a Bohai agent, who deliberately approached my brother-in-law, catered to his inclinations, and earned his trust.”

“Someone like Di Chun,” Tang Pidi said, “would suspect everything you suspect — and already has.”

Shanhu blinked.

“You mean — if Chen Xiao really is a Bohai agent, my brother-in-law has known from the very beginning?”

Tang Pidi nodded. “A man who appears to trust no one completely, yet defers entirely to Chen Xiao in all things.”

He said to Shanhu: “I believe it’s precisely because he knew Chen Xiao’s identity from the start.”

“He needs someone like Chen Xiao to carry messages to the Bohai people — and to create the appearance of complete Bohai trust in him.”

Shanhu was quiet for a long time.

“Kill Di Chun, kill Chen Xiao,” Tang Pidi said. “Your brother returns with his troops from Tiger Head Mountain and takes control of the White Mountain Army.”

Shanhu’s eyes snapped wide open.

She stared at the man before her as though she were looking at a devil.

“Three days from now,” Tang Pidi said, “your brother will be here. But he believes I have already killed Di Chun.”

Shanhu charged at Tang Pidi, her palm swinging toward his face.

A sharp crack.

Her wrist was caught in Tang Pidi’s grip.

Tang Pidi looked into Shanhu’s eyes and said: “So I must go and kill Di Chun. Whatever method I use. Otherwise, when your brother returns to Shelu City, Di Chun will grow suspicious.”

Shanhu glared into Tang Pidi’s eyes through gritted teeth. “You really are a bastard!”

Tang Pidi nodded. “I am.”

Shanhu wrenched her hand back and turned away.

After six or seven steps she paused. She assumed Tang Pidi would at least say something to console her, at least offer an apology.

But when she turned around, Tang Pidi had already walked quite a distance.

“Stop right there!”

Shanhu called out.

Tang Pidi made no response whatsoever.

“You’re leaving because you couldn’t use me?!” Shanhu cried.

“Using you would have made killing him easier,” Tang Pidi said as he walked. “Without using you, he still dies all the same.”

Shanhu sank down where she stood, as though all the strength had drained out of her in an instant.

“I… I’ll send someone to bring him back. I’ll tell him we’ve captured the son of a Dachu prince.”

After saying those words, Shanhu turned and ran.

Tang Pidi turned to look at her, and stood in silence for a long moment.

—