The Surveillance Bureau men returned to Zhiyinjiu tavern, but it was already empty. They asked around among people passing nearby, and someone said they had seen people come out of the tavern and get into a carriage headed in the direction of the East Gate.

The Surveillance Bureau men immediately mounted up and gave chase, galloping toward the East Gate.

In the carriage, Li Diudiu looked at Yu Jiuling. This young man a few years older than himself had tears in his eyes, because they all knew — the innkeeper might not be coming back.

The Surveillance Bureau were demons who devoured men without leaving a single bone. Once they took someone away, that person was never coming back. So when the innkeeper left, he had waved his hand at Yu Jiuling and the others — meaning: don’t worry about it — and then told Yu Jiuling to look after the guests…

In truth, “look after the guests” was his way of telling Yu Jiuling: don’t do anything rash. There are guests here. Don’t drag these people into this.

Then he had looked toward the counter and said to take care of the place. At first Yu Jiuling thought the innkeeper was referring to the money in the drawer behind the counter. But when he went over, he found several letters in the drawer — correspondence between the innkeeper and his family in the capital over the past two years.

Only then did Yu Jiuling understand. The innkeeper didn’t want to implicate his own family either. By taking the letters away, the Surveillance Bureau would have a harder time finding out where his family lived in the capital.

The money too was to be taken — it would provide for the innkeeper’s wife and children in the days ahead.

Along with the letters and money, there was a booklet: the recipe for brewing Shaodaozi.

“Is the innkeeper really not coming back?”

Yu Jiuling murmured the words, not asking anyone in particular — he himself didn’t know who he could ask.

Xiahou Zuo nodded and said, “Though I also hope he’ll come back, most likely he won’t. The Surveillance Bureau doesn’t take people without purpose. From what I know of the Surveillance Bureau, they’re looking for a scapegoat. Master Yuming escaped; if he reaches the capital, the Emperor will at least take notice. The Surveillance Bureau took the innkeeper most likely because they found out Master Yuming used to come to Zhiyinjiu.”

He was silent a moment before continuing, “My guess is they’ll say innkeeper Lu colluded with jianghu bandits — because Master Yuming had let something slip about his wealth while drinking at the tavern, and Lu was tempted by greed…”

He said with genuine regret, “I’m truly sorry. This matter is beyond our power to do anything about.”

Xiahou Zuo was not wrong. Even if his father were a Prince who could wield enormous influence in the region, he was no match for Liu Chongxin — yet Liu Chongxin could wield power against him. This was one of the great absurdities: the Emperor did not trust his own brothers. He trusted only a eunuch.

If Xiahou Zuo insisted on intervening and demanded that the Surveillance Bureau release the innkeeper, even if he succeeded in getting him out, it would bring catastrophe down on Prince Yu’s household.

Liu Chongxin was a petty man who never forgot a grievance. Xiahou Zuo dared not take the risk.

“I can’t be angry at you for failing to save my innkeeper. That wouldn’t be right.”

Yu Jiuling said, “But I can’t go north with you to the frontier for now. The innkeeper surely means for me to go to the capital, Daxing, and find his family. I have to make that trip… I’ll hand over what he left to his family, and if they need help, I’ll stay there and not come back.”

Xiahou Zuo nodded. “That’s fine. Do what you feel you must.”

The atmosphere was truly oppressive. Li Diudiu felt that leaving like this was cowardly and stifling — he couldn’t even stay a little longer to see if the innkeeper might return. He felt like a deserter, filled with shame and guilt.

But Xiahou Zuo had said: staying to wait for news was pointless and would only drag everyone else into it. To act on soft-hearted sentiment and keep meddling would eventually implicate the Prince’s household and the academy, and far more people would die.

Fleeing with that shame and guilt, Li Diudiu felt as though he had no strength at all in him.

When it came to fighting evil men — street thugs, jianghu bandits — Li Diudiu felt that his martial arts training had a purpose, that he had a body of use and could put his skills to work.

But what they faced today was the Surveillance Bureau, a ministry of absolute power. His martial arts became utterly meaningless.

Kill one in ten steps, then what?

Blood on the ground would eventually include his own. After he fell, others would continue to fall because of him.

For the first time in his life, he thought with complete seriousness about the relationship between the court and the common people. With his current identity, his current abilities, he was no more than an ant before a ministry like the Surveillance Bureau.

He went further, thinking: his master had said he wanted him to enter the Four-Page Academy to buy him a different fate — to purchase a life unlike his old one. Now his master had gotten his wish, and he did appear more distinguished, having met a well-connected friend like Xiahou Zuo.

But was it truly distinguished? Had his fate truly changed?

Xiahou Zuo was a Prince’s son. Even a Prince’s son did not dare offend the Surveillance Bureau. A Prince did not dare offend a eunuch. And he, merely a disciple of an academy — what power did that grant him over anything?

When something like this happened, all one could do, as Xiahou Zuo said, was to protect one’s own life first and worry about the rest later.

What Xiahou Zuo said was undoubtedly right. Beyond question.

Xiahou Zuo, who feared nothing and no one within the Four-Page Academy and indeed throughout all of Jizhou City — even he began to hesitate and hold himself in check before the Surveillance Bureau.

Xiahou Zuo noticed Li Diudiu spacing out and couldn’t help asking, “What are you thinking about?”

Li Diudiu suddenly recalled what Xiahou Zuo had said to him that day on Phoenix Cry Mountain: that the court was sick, that Dachu was sick, and that it had nearly reached the point of being beyond remedy.

Xiahou Zuo waited for Li Diudiu’s answer.

After a long while, Li Diudiu replied, “Sick.”

His master immediately grew alarmed, grabbed Li Diudiu’s arm, and looked into his eyes asking, “What’s wrong? What’s the matter? Does something hurt?”

Master hadn’t understood.

Xiahou Zuo had.

And so Xiahou Zuo let out a long breath, his face full of grief.

He didn’t say it aloud, but in his heart he thought: even a child knows that Dachu is sick, that the court is sick… How much longer can our Dachu hold on?

The carriage left the city gate and continued along the official road. A troop of Surveillance Bureau cavalry caught up from behind. Spotting the wine banner of Zhiyinjiu still flying from the carriage, they shouted and galloped forward to block it.

The coachman’s face went white with fright. He jumped down from the driver’s seat and fell to his knees.

“Where are they?!”

The Surveillance Bureau men saw that the carriage was empty and immediately flew into a rage.

The coachman answered that he had no passengers — a young waiter from Zhiyinjiu had seen him driving past and asked if he’d be willing to go pick someone up. He asked who, and the waiter said to drive to the gate of the Recordkeeping Bureau office in Jizhou City; the person waiting there would recognize the carriage by the wine banner and know it was there for them.

The coachman’s voice trembled as he said, “He… he gave me two taels of silver as hire, and told me to get to Jizhou as fast as I could without any delays.”

“Damn it!”

A Surveillance Bureau man swore. “We’ve been fooled!”

Li Diudiu and the others had not left through the East Gate. They had left through the North Gate.

The reason they decided to take the roundabout route was that just as they were preparing to leave, Li Diudiu had suddenly felt that simply walking out might not be safe. So he had Yu Jiuling go hire a carriage.

The carriage with the wine banner went out the East Gate, and people all along the way had seen it. Li Diudiu and the others slipped out through the back door, hired a different carriage, and left through the North Gate.

After leaving the city they had traveled about ten-odd li before reaching a village. Li Diudiu whispered a few words to Xiahou Zuo, who nodded. Xiahou Zuo got out and told the coachman to stop once they entered the village and then return to Tang County city.

Li Diudiu and the others found the village headman, said they admired the scenic little village and asked whether there might be a vacant room to rent, offering a good price. The headman thought to himself: if there isn’t one, I’ll have to make one. He rented his own house to them.

After Xiahou Zuo paid, he told the headman to go tidy up the rooms — they were going to look around first — and gave him a hundred copper coins for his trouble. Naturally the headman was delighted.

Once Li Diudiu and the others were out of the courtyard, they left directly. They changed clothes and took back roads to return to Tang County city.

By then it was afternoon. They waited outside the East Gate, and Ye Zhangzhu entered the city alone to hire another carriage. Everyone boarded and traveled east along the official road.

Shortly after they left the county town, the Surveillance Bureau men chased all the way to the village north of the city. They found the headman and questioned him; the headman was startled but said those people were coming back to stay that evening. The Surveillance Bureau set up hidden watches inside and outside the village.

They waited through the whole night with no one returning. The headman got a beating for absolutely no reason, a complete injustice.

Meanwhile, Li Diudiu and the others had paid the coachman extra to travel through the night, covering half a day and a full night. When dawn broke, Jizhou City was already visible in the far distance.

After another half-shichen or more of travel, they entered the city. Rather than heading straight back to the Four-Page Academy, they picked a random inn and checked in, washing up and resting.

“This trip…”

Yan Qingzhi sighed and said, “Not a single thing went the way we originally imagined. We thought we’d be going out to relax and enjoy ourselves for a few days, and instead ran into all of this. At least everyone came back safely.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “It was unavoidable.”

Li Diudiu made a sound of agreement.

Yan Qingzhi sat in thought for a moment, and then suddenly remembered: when the Surveillance Bureau men came to take innkeeper Lu, he had identified himself as a teacher at the Four-Page Academy in Jizhou City — and Li Diudiu was still wearing his academy uniform…

“It doesn’t matter though.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “If the Surveillance Bureau people come looking, just say we were indeed having a meal at Zhiyinjiu and knew nothing else of the matter. There’s a difference between being caught on the spot and being found later.”

He looked toward Li Diudiu and said, “Rest here for now. I’ll go back for a bit and see whether I can find a way to deal with this.”

With that he got up and headed out. “Brother Ye, stay here for the moment.”

Ye Zhangzhu nodded. “Understood.”

Xiahou Zuo said nothing more and left the inn directly. In truth, the Surveillance Bureau people might not necessarily make things complicated. They had already detained the innkeeper and would fabricate a story. If they found out that the people eating at Zhiyinjiu that day had included academy people and people from Prince Yu’s household, they would have no desire to add to the trouble either.

No benefit to be gained, yet offending people into the bargain — the Surveillance Bureau weren’t fools.

Still, Xiahou Zuo was uneasy. This matter had to be brought to the attention of someone with real weight. He didn’t go home to look for his father; instead he went directly to the Military Governor’s residence.

Liu Chongxin might not care about a Prince with no real power, but he would not lightly offend a Military Governor commanding a heavy army — a great official holding a frontier domain. For someone like a Military Governor, Liu Chongxin would find it far more useful to win him over than to antagonize him.

Whatever the case, having returned to Jizhou, no one in the inn felt at ease.

Yu Jiuling looked at Li Diudiu and after a long silence said, “I want to leave Jizhou for the capital first thing tomorrow morning. I want to advise the innkeeper’s wife — see whether it might be possible to sell the property in the capital and move somewhere else to live quietly.”

Li Diudiu made a sound of agreement. After a moment he said softly, “I’m sorry.”

Yu Jiuling was taken aback and quickly said, “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

Li Diudiu shook his head, and what shone through in his eyes was the powerlessness he felt inside.

Such absolute, overwhelming powerlessness.

—