Shen Shanhu and her female soldiers followed the carriage from a distance, waiting for an opportunity to act. But the carriage kept moving without stopping, and if they wanted any chance to make their move, they had no choice but to keep following.
How long they had been walking by now was impossible to say. Long enough to make one question the point of existence.
Every one of them had legs aching to the bone, ankles throbbing and sore.
The carriage didn’t stop until nearly sundown — and when it did, it had stopped right back in front of the Youzhou General’s Residence.
The same place they had started from when they first set out to tail Yu Jiuling. The girls were already on their last legs.
One of them crouched down, rubbing her ankles. “That son of a dog — did he go out just to circle the entire city of Youzhou?”
“He did it on purpose, didn’t he?”
“How could he have? He shouldn’t have noticed us following.”
“Then what was the point? He left, circled the whole city of Youzhou, and came right back. Was he airing out his carriage?”
The girls glared at her: “You’re the one who needs airing out!”
Shen Shanhu gritted her teeth. “If I don’t beat him senseless, my name isn’t Shen Shanhu.”
Another female soldier said, “My dear lady, hide — that man’s coming over.”
Shen Shanhu looked up, and sure enough, the man had gotten down from the carriage but instead of heading into the General’s Residence, was walking in their direction.
Shen Shanhu spotted a roadside tea stall nearby and immediately sat down. “Proprietor, bring us some tea.”
The proprietor hurried over with large bowls of hot tea. It wasn’t anything refined — brewed from tea fragments, the cheap kind, strong and thirst-quenching.
All of them had their backs to Yu Jiuling’s direction, desperately thirsty, drinking in big gulps, pretending to look at anything else.
Yu Jiuling, however, also sat down, and called to the proprietor: “A bowl of tea.”
The proprietor trotted over to serve him as well, delighted with the business — even if each customer earned him only a few coins.
Yu Jiuling asked with a smile, “Proprietor, this tea you’ve brewed is quite good — I taste a faint sweetness. Did you put something in it?”
The proprietor quickly replied, “That must be because you’re very thirsty, sir. When the mouth is parched, the aftertaste of tea comes through more clearly.”
Yu Jiuling nodded. “Parched indeed. Anyone would be parched after circling the whole of Youzhou.”
At that moment, Li Chi strolled over unhurriedly and sat down across from Yu Jiuling.
Yu Jiuling said, “Come, my lord — let me treat you to tea.”
Li Chi smiled and asked, “How did it feel?”
Yu Jiuling said, “General Xiahou’s new carriage is excellent. More test drives will be needed to give a proper assessment.”
Li Chi said, “In our line of work, we must always consider the client’s satisfaction. General Xiahou’s newly commissioned carriage must be evaluated with the utmost care and diligence.”
Yu Jiuling said, “Don’t worry, boss. A few more rounds and I’ll have identified any problems. If there aren’t any, we can hand it over to General Xiahou.”
Shen Shanhu sat nearby, listening, and thought: what is going on?
She was fairly certain she had seen the guards bow to that man and address him as General when he left the residence.
And it was on that basis that she and her group had followed him at all.
Then she heard Yu Jiuling continue: “My lord, General Xiahou is a strange man.”
Li Chi asked, “Why do you say that?”
Yu Jiuling said, “Ever since General Xiahou returned from that trip to Yanzhou, he’s been a different person.”
The moment those words left his mouth, Shen Shanhu’s eyes went wide.
Not just hers. Every one of the girls went wide-eyed, put down their cups, and quietly turned an ear.
Li Chi sighed. “I heard there was an incident in Yanzhou.”
Yu Jiuling lowered his voice. “What kind of incident?”
Li Chi made a hushing sound, glanced ostentatiously left and right, then leaned in and murmured, “I’m told he got into a fight before he came back, and he was surrounded and shot with crossbow bolts. He was injured.”
Shen Shanhu’s eyes went even wider — and somewhere in her expression, without her realizing it, something like worry had crept in.
Yu Jiuling said, “Surely not — General Xiahou’s martial arts are excellent, and he has a soft armor underlayer. Ordinary crossbow bolts shouldn’t be able to hurt him.”
Li Chi said, “You’d think so, but sometimes even soft armor isn’t enough.”
He let out a quiet sigh. “As I heard it, General Xiahou managed to block every bolt he could see in time. But… ahem…”
Yu Jiuling said urgently, “My lord, stop drawing it out. But what?”
Li Chi said, “But… he took a bolt in the groin.”
Yu Jiuling: “Ugh!”
He was genuinely startled. This was not a scripted reaction — the two of them were improvising freely. Li Chi had taken the subject somewhere that even Yu Jiuling’s expression said: my lord, this has gotten out of hand.
There was also a look that said: my lord, if you’re going to take it this far, don’t blame me for running with it.
The moment Yu Jiuling let out that startled sound, several of the young women behind him couldn’t hold it in.
“Ugh…”
Four or five girls involuntarily let out quiet, low sounds of dismay before immediately looking down.
Shen Shanhu was gripping her large tea bowl with both hands, knuckles showing faintly through the skin.
Li Chi pressed on: “He didn’t dare stay at the time, left in a hurry. Later a physician was found to take a look, and the physician turned out to be incompetent…”
Yu Jiuling’s eyes went round as eggs, staring at Li Chi, thinking: my lord, if you keep going, this is going to be impossible to walk back.
Li Chi said, “It should have been a simple matter of a few stitches, but the physician bungled it, making things worse, and so they had no choice but to cut.”
Yu Jiuling: “Ugh!”
Behind him, the young women again failed to restrain themselves: “Ugh!”
Yu Jiuling felt a phantom pain somewhere he couldn’t quite name, and couldn’t understand why they seemed to feel it too.
He glanced at Shen Shanhu. The hands gripping the bowl were pressing harder than ever, her fingernails going white.
Yu Jiuling discreetly nudged Li Chi’s foot under the table — the message being: my lord, perhaps that’s enough.
Li Chi showed no sign of stopping.
Li Chi said, “Think about it — what misfortune. For a simple wound closure, you lose one. But losing one doesn’t mean the other one can’t still function.”
“Yet that incompetent physician apparently decided there was no saving it, and just went ahead and… alas.”
Yu Jiuling said, “My lord, maybe we should change the subject.”
Li Chi said, “Very well. It’s just — thinking about it on General Xiahou’s behalf, it was such a waste. He went to Yanzhou and came back not a man.”
At this point even the tea stall proprietor was clenching his fists, as though the pain had somehow reached him too, and was fighting hard not to show it.
Li Chi leaned in and continued in a hushed tone: “And it left a lingering condition. Every seven days, General Xiahou must go to the Shen Medical Hall in Youzhou for treatment. Otherwise… otherwise he might gradually turn into a woman.”
Yu Jiuling: “Ugh!”
Smack — Shen Shanhu’s bowl hit the ground.
Smack — the tea stall proprietor’s bowl hit the ground at the same moment.
Li Chi said, “He went a few days ago. The day after tomorrow it seems he’s due again — time to go back.”
He added, his voice full of solemn sympathy: “You don’t know what it’s like — General Xiahou’s beard is false. He has to paste it on himself every morning. It’s really quite sad.”
Yu Jiuling nodded gravely. “Truly… truly sad.”
At this, Shen Shanhu stood up. “Proprietor, settle up.”
She paid and led her group away, disappearing quickly from Li Chi’s line of sight.
When they were well out of earshot, the tea stall proprietor walked over and knocked Li Chi on the head. “Cut it off?”
He knocked again.
“Cut it off?”
Li Chi let out a laugh that twisted his whole face.
The story was this: earlier, Xiahou Zuo and Li Chi had been sitting here watching those young women.
Then Yu Jiuling took them on a circuit of Youzhou in the carriage, while Xiahou Zuo sent away the actual proprietor, changed his clothes, and took his place at the stall. The idea was to get a closer look and figure out whether he actually recognized these women.
What he hadn’t anticipated was that Li Chi would take things quite this far.
Sitting down across from Li Chi, Xiahou Zuo shot him a dark look. “I’ll be honest, my body actually started hurting listening to that.”
Yu Jiuling said, “Same.”
Li Chi laughed helplessly. “From the looks of them, they seemed to feel it too.”
Yu Jiuling said, “But now that we’ve made General Xiahou out to be so pitiable, they should drop the matter, right? Otherwise he’ll be on edge all the time.”
Xiahou Zuo said, “I haven’t wronged anyone here… When Old Tang finally comes back from the south, there’s a reckoning to be had.”
Li Chi said, “That’s right. Have him cut. See how he likes the pain.”
Yu Jiuling: “Ugh!”
Xiahou Zuo said, “Even if I don’t have him cut, I’ll at least have him bound hand and foot and shoved into the Flowing Cloud Formation.”
Li Chi said, “That merciful?”
Xiahou Zuo: “Ten times. Ten shoves.”
Yu Jiuling said, “Binding his hands before shoving him in, I understand. But binding his legs too? Is that necessary?”
Li Chi said, “What, you think it’s inappropriate?”
Yu Jiuling said, “Of course it’s inappropriate — shouldn’t you be shoving him in by the legs?”
Li Chi and Xiahou Zuo exchanged a glance, then both looked at Yu Jiuling simultaneously, until Yu Jiuling started feeling embarrassed.
—
About half an hour later. Inside an inn somewhere in the city.
Shen Shanhu let out a long, heavy breath.
She stood by the window looking out at the people passing in the street below, her expression troubled.
“I didn’t think I’d end up actually injuring him.”
One of her soldiers frowned. “That doesn’t add up. We had the arrowheads blunted.”
Another said, “Maybe… maybe just bad luck. What if one of them was… not quite as blunt?”
Shen Shanhu shook her head. “Regardless, this is our fault. We owe him an apology. We came to make him answer for what happened, but now that I know what condition he’s in… let it go.”
The girls all nodded, agreeing that going to confront Xiahou Zuo now would genuinely be going too far.
One of them said sympathetically, “An injury somewhere else would be bad enough. But why did it have to be there.”
Shen Shanhu said, “At this rate, the family line must be finished…”
Everyone nodded, sympathy deepening all around.
Shen Shanhu said, “He… the day after tomorrow he’s going to the Shen Medical Hall. I plan to go to the Shen Medical Hall as well.”
The girls all nodded again.
“We really ought to go see him. Given that we’re connected by what happened.”
“Right. And bring him something. Something to help him recuperate.”
“But what to bring?”
“Well… something appropriate? I’ve heard the saying — you are what you eat.”
“Ugh, you think eating something can grow back what’s already been cut off?”
“Well… just in case.”
At that, the girls all went red in the face.
Shen Shanhu let out another long breath, still looking out the window. “If he… if he really doesn’t forgive me, I’d like to ask whether I could stay and serve him. Consider it paying a debt.”
A woman like her — impulsive and fierce — had arrived ready to take Xiahou Zuo apart. But now, heavy with guilt, she was thinking about staying to look after him…
Then one of the young women thought of something. It seemed to her like the most pressing question in the world, and though she felt it was perhaps not entirely appropriate to ask, she felt it was, after all, a matter of fundamental importance.
“General Xiahou… does he have to… does he also now need to… squat?”
Everyone stared at her.
Even Shen Shanhu turned her head instinctively to look at her.
A silence settled over the room.
A silence so awkward it seemed to curdle the very air.
—