At dusk.

Tang Pidi glanced at the courtyard wall, and for some reason found himself thinking of Li Chi’s habit. He smiled without quite meaning to.

On an impulse he couldn’t quite account for, he leaped up and settled himself on top of the wall.

Among the people of this world, some live burdened lives, and some live indulgent ones.

Those who live burdened — it is because their hearts hold all manner of lines they will not cross. Not merely the legal boundaries any country sets, but moral ones. And the great majority of people live somewhere between these two kinds of lines.

More difficult still than observing both kinds of lines are those drawn by love — family, friendship, and devotion.

Humanity coined two words to describe the two forms of crossing those lines without restraint. Crossing the law was called crime. Crossing family, friendship, and devotion was called betrayal.

Such as Shanhu, at this very moment.

Tang Pidi sat watching the last light of the setting sun, and he could imagine how much turmoil churned inside her.

Di Chun was her brother-in-law.

Many people would say: one must put the greater good of one’s people first.

When it actually falls to them, it is just as agonizing all the same.

Tang Pidi thought: perhaps long, long into the future, when people face choices between feeling and reason, they will still lean more toward the former.

Which was precisely why people who could truly be called selfless and just were so vanishingly rare.

The opposite was equally true. Those with fewer inner lines suffered far less of this particular anguish.

Some people swindled others for money, and the first targets were relatives, friends, even family — and among the worst, the first targets were their own parents and children.

Some people sold out those around them for ambition without a second thought.

Some people sold their own children for personal gain, or stole other people’s children to sell.

Tang Pidi let out a slow breath.

Shelu City’s evening glow was beautiful. Mountains in the distance, towers nearby, and in the faintly reddening light — the living and breathing people of this world.

Shelu City’s evening glow was also just that. It shone on the full spectrum of human life. What it could not illuminate was just as much of the same.

“You’re going to leave, aren’t you.”

Someone spoke to him from not far away.

Tang Pidi nodded. He was looking out into the distance, his back turned to whoever had spoken.

He did not turn around, yet he sensed clearly: the person behind him had a crossbow leveled at his back.

Shanhu stood with one arm raised, the crossbow in her hand pointed at Tang Pidi’s spine.

Tang Pidi did not turn. From the sound of her voice alone he knew what she was doing.

And this — was the utter extremity of conflict and grief.

She knew, in some sense, that her brother-in-law Di Chun deserved to die. She had even thought that if this kind of brother-in-law were to die, everyone would be better off.

She also knew, in some sense, that the man in front of her deserved to die. And trapped between these two forms of anguish, she could not decide who she would kill first.

“Why did you have to come!”

Shanhu’s voice had gone hoarse.

Tang Pidi still did not turn around.

A sharp sound. The crossbow was thrown to the ground. Shanhu turned and walked away.

Tang Pidi’s gaze remained on the setting sun. An expression of what might have seemed like indifference.

Able to see the suffering of all living things — and so, unmoved by it.

If she had actually loosed that bolt just now, she might well have died herself.

Which was precisely what made Tang Pidi who he was.

Beneath Li Chi’s laughter and warmth, the people around him all seemed as open and bright as Li Chi himself.

Brash. Insufferably cheeky.

But Tang Pidi was not. Had never been — not in his bones.

He had always been a cold and hard person. Toward family and brothers and friends, this quality slept. But it would not move for anything else.

—

Night fell. Tang Pidi calculated the time; he had eaten a little over an hour ago, just enough — about sixty percent full.

From Shelu City to the White Mountain Army’s mountain stronghold was thirty li. Even over rough roads, the round trip, counting everything, was just about sufficient.

Tang Pidi stepped out of his room and saw the courtyard standing full of female soldiers.

Their expressions as they watched him were complicated. Even in the dimly lit night, Tang Pidi could feel it.

They must hate him right now.

Calm as still water, Tang Pidi moved through the crowd.

He walked into the room across the way. Inside was already someone waiting — Shanhu.

The room held a heavy wooden rack with iron chains hanging from it.

Tang Pidi walked over and stood with his back against the rack.

Shanhu raised a hand. Two female soldiers came in from outside and wrapped Tang Pidi in the chains.

They did not lock them, however. They only appeared tightly wound.

“Give me the whip,” Shanhu called out.

The female soldier beside her shifted slightly, with a moment’s hesitation.

Shanhu’s expression hardened. “The whip! Now!”

The soldier quickly fetched a leather whip and handed it to Shanhu. Shanhu raised it without a moment’s pause and lashed out — three, four strokes in quick succession.

The force was considerable. The whip cut through Tang Pidi’s clothing where it landed, raising blood almost immediately.

Yet Tang Pidi remained impassive throughout. He looked at Shanhu’s eyes. After the first few strokes, Shanhu glared back at his eyes in return.

The two stared at each other for a long time. Finally Shanhu threw the whip to the ground and walked out.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, the sound of hoofbeats came from the courtyard — no small number of horses.

White Mountain Army head chief Di Chun vaulted off his horse and cast a glance over the female soldiers in the yard.

“Where’s the Little Mistress?” he asked.

A female soldier bowed. “The captive provoked her. She beat him and has gone back to her room.”

Di Chun frowned slightly.

If this really was the son of a Dachu prince, it would make a fine banner — something useful.

He didn’t care for Shanhu’s high-handed manner, but he loved his wife deeply, and so had been patient with Shanhu.

A significant part of why he disliked staying in Shelu City was precisely that Shanhu kept such a close eye on him.

But he also knew — what Shanhu wanted to manage was exactly what his own wife didn’t want him to do.

Di Chun felt no guilt. Only a certain inconvenience. And a resigned helplessness.

In his view: women just had no understanding of the larger picture.

Without going to find Shanhu, Di Chun went directly into the room where Tang Pidi was being held.

He looked Tang Pidi over from head to toe, then settled into the chair across from him.

“You claim to be the son of Prince Yu, Yang Jixing?”

Tang Pidi glanced at him and said nothing.

Di Chun said: “What I can’t work out is why you’d impersonate a dead man’s son. Yang Jixing has been killed for years now. Prince Yu’s influence faded long ago.”

He looked into Tang Pidi’s eyes. “Why pretend to be someone like that? What did you come here hoping to gain?”

Tang Pidi still said nothing.

Di Chun let out a cold laugh and rose to stand before Tang Pidi.

“The son of Prince Yu, Xiahou Zuo, served as a general on the northern frontier. If you were really him, even a man in flight would have loyal subordinates following him. Why are you completely alone?”

As he spoke, his hand rested on the hilt of his blade the entire time.

Though Tang Pidi was wrapped in chains and looked thoroughly bound, Di Chun remained on guard.

At any unusual movement from Tang Pidi, he would draw and strike instantly.

His martial skills were formidable.

“Not speaking?”

Di Chun narrowed his eyes slightly, as though Tang Pidi’s face stirred some faint recognition — yet no matter how he tried, he was certain he had never met this man.

An odd feeling. Enough to make him want to kill.

He had a keen instinct that this person posed a threat, even though nothing about him appeared threatening.

“Kill him,” Di Chun ordered.

His personal guards stepped forward immediately. Two men. Two blades, raised high.

In one breath, those blades would come down on Tang Pidi’s neck — one from the left, one from the right.

At that moment, Tang Pidi let out a quiet sigh.

“There really are far too many loops.”

Di Chun frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Tang Pidi said, “that while the chains aren’t locked, there are so many loops wound around that pulling my arms free isn’t particularly easy.”

Di Chun’s expression changed. “Kill him!”

Bang.

Tang Pidi wrenched the wooden rack apart with his bare hands.

If the chains were wound too many times for his arms to pull free, then he would simply tear the rack off.

With the rack broken, Tang Pidi’s left arm swung forward, and the chain flew out like a striking serpent.

At the same instant he leaped up, both feet kicking the White Mountain Army soldiers to either side.

When he landed, the chain he had flung found no purchase on its target.

Di Chun stepped back, drew his blade, and brought it down with full force.

The chain met the blade with a ringing crash and was cut in two.

In the next instant, Di Chun’s blade swept toward Tang Pidi’s neck.

Tang Pidi did not dodge. He raised his left arm — two loops of chain still wound around it.

Di Chun’s skills were formidable. He had calculated what Tang Pidi’s next move would be if he evaded this slash.

But he had calculated the man. Not the chain.

The blade struck the chain. Another sharp metallic clang. Sparks flew.

Tang Pidi’s right arm extended. From the cuff of his sleeve slid a flat iron spike, less than two chi in length.

With a soft, wet sound, it pierced through Di Chun’s throat.

Tang Pidi killed — whether on the battlefield or in a place like this — and almost always in a single strike.

Because in this world, Tang Pidi’s opponents came in roughly three categories.

Those inferior to him — even if only by a narrow margin — he would kill in one strike without fail.

The second kind: those who could fight him to mutual destruction. The third: those who could kill him in a single strike.

The latter two, he had not yet encountered.

Two fighters not separated by a great gap in skill might go back and forth a good while in a proper duel.

But this was not a duel. This was killing.

The spike went through. Tang Pidi released his grip and left it in Di Chun’s throat.

The White Mountain Army soldiers outside erupted at once. Every voice cried out in alarm.

They surged forward. Tang Pidi bent down and picked up Di Chun’s long blade.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, fifty or sixty bodies lay inside and outside the room. Every personal guard Di Chun had brought was dead.

It was a fine blade. But the edge had taken some damage by now.

Whether from other weapons or from bone, it was hard to say.

Tang Pidi stepped through the door.

In the courtyard, dozens of female soldiers had bows and crossbows trained on him.

Shanhu stood at the front. Her eyes were red as blood.

“Now this makes sense.”

Tang Pidi said those three words quietly.

He had killed Di Chun. And now Shanhu would kill him. From Shanhu’s perspective, this would be the cleanest outcome, leaving the least behind to haunt her.

This was also the kind of choice a ruthless person should make.

Shanhu stared at him. “You genuinely aren’t afraid of dying?”

“The people who fear death in this world fall into two kinds,” Tang Pidi said. “The first kind fear death but can do nothing about it — and so they fear it.”

“The second kind fear death, and so they become the kind of person no one in the world can kill.”

Shanhu called out: “Loose your arrows!”

Dozens of female soldiers released their bolts and arrows all at once.

The distance was only a few zhang — those arrows could reach him in an instant.

But in that same instant, Tang Pidi bent low, seized two corpses and hauled them up as shields, then charged forward with brutal force.

His feet drove off the stone steps. The stone cracked.

Those several zhang, Tang Pidi crossed in two strides.

The bodies flew outward and knocked several female soldiers down.

Tang Pidi moved through the crowd like a shadow slipping left and right — one punch, one punch, another punch.

Any female soldier who took one of his punches had no hope of staying on her feet. All of them went down.

In the next instant Tang Pidi was before Shanhu, the two of them close enough to reach each other.

“Another time.”

“In all this, I’ve made only one mistake,” Tang Pidi said. “Not killing you.”

He brought the edge of his palm down on the side of Shanhu’s neck. She collapsed instantly.

Looking down at the woman on the ground, Tang Pidi said: “Next time you come to kill me, I’ll kill you then.”

Then he walked forward.

—