Yu Jiuling’s reaction was anything but that of a normal person. The move of offering to chop off his own head had genuinely caught Yuwen Dian off guard.

Yuwen Dian had already sensed that something was off about the Ning Army’s style, and now, looking at Yu Jiuling, he thought to himself: *if someone this unhinged doesn’t even qualify as crazy by their standards, what does that say about the rest of them?*

As if reading his thoughts, Yu Jiuling gave him a look that said: *someone like me doesn’t even count as a problem case in the Ning Army.*

That look seemed to be saying: *the Ning Army has plenty of people far more unhinged than me — more than you could count.*

Yuwen Dian said, “So… should I continue?”

Yu Jiuling said, “Go ahead and speak.”

The unspoken meaning was clear: *you can say whatever you like — whether I listen is my business.*

Yuwen Dian cleared his throat with two coughs and continued. “As long as the General Commander treats me well, and treats my soldiers well, everything else can be discussed.”

Yu Jiuling said, “What you call ‘treating well’ depends on how you define it. Since you would be serving under Prince Ning, you would be on equal footing with the rest of us — whatever we are entitled to, you will receive as well, and whatever we are expected to do, so will you.”

Yuwen Dian understood that the conditions were coming now, and so he arranged his expression into one of attentive listening.

Yu Jiuling said, “But if you want a standing above the others in the Ning Army, General Yuwen would first need to render some merit.”

Yuwen Dian said, “Does leading my troops over to surrender not count as merit? If I am the first to defect to His Highness Prince Ning, others will surely follow my example. Anyang City would fall into Prince Ning’s hands without a fight.”

“Since you bring up Anyang City.”

Yu Jiuling smiled and said, “Then let us be candid. The matter I have been sent here by the General Commander to discuss — the most pressing issue — is the fall of the city. If General Yuwen can assist the General Commander in taking the city, then your merit would truly stand above all others. Prince Ning would certainly reward you handsomely upon hearing of it.”

Yuwen Dian pretended to sink into thought for a moment, then said, “Could it be that the General Commander wants me to open the city gates?”

Yu Jiuling smiled. “That would be ideal.”

Yuwen Dian said, “If I do that, I become a traitor to the Yuwen clan!”

Yu Jiuling said, “If you do that, you become a meritorious subject of Prince Ning!”

Yuwen Dian rose and began pacing back and forth across the room. After a moment, he looked at Yu Jiuling and said, “This matter is of great consequence. I cannot decide it alone — I need to consult with my subordinates. General Yu, please rest in the lodging I have prepared for you. Once we have reached a decision, I will inform you immediately.”

Yu Jiuling rose. “Then lead the way. I am tired as well.”

Yuwen Dian immediately ordered someone to escort Yu Jiuling and his men to their quarters — rooms within Yuwen Dian’s own commander’s residence.

Once inside, Yu Jiuling closed the door and looked at his handful of personal guards. “Yuwen Dian will almost certainly rush off to find Yuwen Shangyun right now. I need to slip out for a while. Keep up the normal watch rotation. The rest of you — don’t move around.”

After mentally working through how to get out, knowing that the place was likely under surveillance on all sides, Yu Jiuling went over his plan once and confirmed it was workable.

A short while later, Yu Jiuling and one of his personal guards swapped clothing. Inside the room, he called out, “All of you, head out and stand guard. I need to rest for a bit.”

With that, he and several of the soldiers walked out of the room and took up positions just outside the door.

The guard who had swapped clothes with him got into bed to rest.

After waiting a while, Yu Jiuling said, “Change of watch. Stay sharp.”

The others acknowledged, and Yu Jiuling turned and walked away. The dozens of personal soldiers he had brought were housed in the side rooms flanking the courtyard. The ones keeping watch on those soldiers would logically be fewer than those assigned to monitor Yu Jiuling’s own room.

Once he reached the soldiers’ quarters, he waited briefly, then sent a man to the latrine. Yu Jiuling was lean and wiry — he stripped off his outer armor until he was down to his undergarments, then clung to the back of a broad-shouldered soldier and concealed himself beneath a cloak.

In the deep of night, with the lanterns dim and several men walking alongside as cover, they were unlikely to be spotted.

At the latrine, Yu Jiuling climbed off the soldier’s back and was about to leave when he turned back. “If any of you breathe a word of this, I’ll dock ten years of your military pay. If ten years isn’t enough, I’ll make it twenty.”

The soldiers looked at him, all doing their best to stifle their laughter.

In order to stay concealed, he had stripped off everything he could. He was down to a single pair of shorts, bare-chested in the night air — hardly a dignified sight.

Yu Jiuling vaulted over the back wall of the latrine, crouched low, kept to the shadows, and quietly slipped out of Yuwen Dian’s commander’s residence.

As he crept through the streets, Yu Jiuling thought to himself: the story of him roaming Anyang City in the dead of night, practically naked, must never get out. If it did, his comrades would have enough material to mock him for twenty years.

Moving through the darkness, following the directions given to him by the Judicial Guard soldiers Li Chi had assigned, he located a hidden safe house within the city.

When the Judicial Guard had withdrawn from Anyang earlier, it had not been because the enemy posed a particular threat — rather, after Luo Jing took control of Anyang, having too many Judicial Guard operatives remain in the city would have been inappropriate. Later, when the plan to hand Anyang over to Yuwen Shangyun was set in motion, the Judicial Guard had intended to leave more people behind, but Li Chi worried that Yuwen Shangyun might learn of their presence and mount a thorough manhunt.

As a result, only three or four hidden safe houses remained in the city, with no more than twenty or thirty Judicial Guard members total.

When Yu Jiuling arrived at the location, he spotted two lanterns hanging by the door in the moonlight — the pattern on their upper and lower edges was the Judicial Guard’s signal.

He had the right place. Just as he was about to knock, he sensed something amiss and looked back. Two figures in black were staring at him, expressions of utter disbelief on their faces.

“General… General Yu?”

One of them whispered.

These were the Judicial Guard’s hidden sentinels. Yu Jiuling had only just approached when they spotted him, but they had not moved rashly.

Having now recognized Yu Jiuling, their greatest challenge was summoning every ounce of willpower they had to keep from bursting out laughing.

“General, your… attire is, to say the least, unexpected.”

Others who moved through the night wore black infiltration gear. He had infiltrated the night without any gear at all.

“How is it that General Yu has come to appear here like this…”

One of them began to ask, but had barely gotten the question out before Yu Jiuling shot him a glare. “Shut up. Get inside.”

A short while later, Yu Jiuling had gathered the information he needed about where to go next — but the Judicial Guard men refused to let him go.

“General Yu, it is simply too dangerous. If anything goes wrong, there will be no way to escape.”

“This needs to be thought through carefully.”

Yu Jiuling shook his head. “The entire army outside the city is waiting on word from me. What does one man’s risk amount to? Pick two of your people to go with me. The rest don’t need to follow. Talk it over and decide who comes — but know this: if I get killed, you two don’t get to walk away either.”

The Judicial Guard men conferred briefly and selected two with the sharpest skills to accompany Yu Jiuling. One was named Che Tuo, the other An Qingshu.

The three of them set out immediately, heading straight for a grand estate in the heart of the city.

It belonged to Cui Kuoyuan — a man of immense local wealth in Anyang, who held no official position. But he was far from a simple merchant.

Anyang City had changed hands repeatedly, yet this man had always come through unscathed, his family’s interests barely touched. That alone said a great deal about his influence and acumen.

Wherever the Cui surname was found in the Central Plains, people would invariably claim descent from the Cui family of Longxi. It was the same here.

The three men did not knock — they went straight over the wall. The moment they landed in the courtyard, dogs began barking. Several large, fierce hounds charged at them.

The two Judicial Guard members instantly drew their blades, moving to shield Yu Jiuling — but Yu Jiuling’s response gave even them a fright.

As the hounds lunged, Yu Jiuling immediately threw himself down flat and began barking back at them. The hounds barked. Yu Jiuling barked right back.

The hounds, one could only imagine, were bewildered.

In a barking contest, they had somehow come out behind.

This was their mother tongue — and they had been outplayed by someone speaking it as a foreign language.

Before long, household guards came rushing out and surrounded the three of them.

“Who are you thieves, daring to break into the Cui estate? Beat them to death and ask no questions!”

A man who appeared to be a steward gave the order, and the guards surged forward with clubs and weapons.

Yu Jiuling stood up and spoke directly to the steward. “You had better tell them to stand down. I am here to save the lives of everyone in the Cui household — hundreds of people. I have come from outside the city. From the Ning Army.”

The moment those words landed, the assembled men visibly startled, their expressions shifting between shock and skepticism.

A short while later, inside the main hall.

Yu Jiuling studied Cui Kuoyuan — the target he had carefully and deliberately chosen.

Cui Kuoyuan was wealthy but held no title or degree. Yet he was far more than a merchant.

Anyang City had changed masters time and again, and yet this man had always survived intact, his family’s holdings essentially undisturbed. That spoke volumes about his reach and his judgment.

He was looking at Cui Kuoyuan. Cui Kuoyuan was looking right back at him.

After a moment, Cui Kuoyuan asked, “You claim to have come from the Ning Army outside the city — to be a Ning Army general. What proof do you have?”

Yu Jiuling handed over his Ning Army general’s iron token and looked at Cui Kuoyuan steadily. “In truth, Master Cui should understand — if I were an imposter, why would I have come to your estate?”

Cui Kuoyuan took the token and examined it. He did not actually know what a Ning Army token looked like.

He asked, “Then what is the General’s purpose in coming here?”

“I told you already. To save the lives of your entire family — hundreds of people.”

Yu Jiuling said, “I have only one night, so I cannot give you much time to think. I will say this only once. If you agree, take me somewhere else immediately.”

He held Cui Kuoyuan’s gaze, and spoke with absolute seriousness. “It is not difficult for Prince Ning to take Anyang. But for Prince Ning to destroy Yuwen Shangyun’s Chu forces, he needs your cooperation.”

Cui Kuoyuan began to respond, but Yu Jiuling shook his head. “I said — I don’t have much time.”

“Yuwen Shangyun’s forces have no more grain. A while ago, General Commander Tang Pidi was here in Anyang and transferred every last grain out of the granaries. So barring the unexpected, within the next few days, Yuwen Shangyun will almost certainly begin requisitioning grain from wealthy households in the city.”

Cui Kuoyuan’s expression shifted.

Yu Jiuling said, “What I am about to say next is the crux of everything — remember it well.”

“If Yuwen Shangyun forces you to hand over your grain, you become collaborators with the Chu Army. When the city falls, Prince Ning will not spare you. But if tonight you take me to persuade the other families — I guarantee that when the city falls, anyone who is willing to submit to Prince Ning and who meets with me tonight will be kept safe. Not merely safe — Prince Ning will reward them handsomely.”

The expressions shifting across Cui Kuoyuan’s face came quickly. To throw in his lot with Prince Ning on the strength of a few sentences seemed rash.

Yet with his level of knowledge, he naturally knew the truth about the Chu Army having no grain.

He hesitated only briefly, then asked Yu Jiuling, “If I help you — and thereby help Prince Ning — what reward should I expect?”

Yu Jiuling asked, “What do you want?”

Cui Kuoyuan said, “I seek no office, no title. What I want is a single exemption from death for every member of the Cui household. Beyond that — when Prince Ning reclaims Anyang, the Cui family’s business interests must not be harmed.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Agreed.”

Cui Kuoyuan narrowed his eyes. “Does General Yu’s word hold?”

Yu Jiuling said, “Before I came, Prince Ning said: whatever I agree to, he agrees to.”

Cui Kuoyuan rose. “Come. I will take you to seek out Elder Gao. He commands great respect in this city — to quietly summon the other families in the dead of night requires him to take the lead.”

Yu Jiuling immediately stood. “I must be back in Yuwen Dian’s camp before dawn. Please move quickly.”

What Cui Kuoyuan demonstrated next genuinely impressed Yu Jiuling.

Without needing Yu Jiuling to say a word, Cui Kuoyuan called on a retired court elder named Gao Fenglai — a man of great prestige who had previously served the court — to take the lead. He sent word to the wealthy and prominent households of the city, inviting their representatives to the estate. In just over an hour, representatives from thirty or forty families had quietly slipped in.

—