Mu Fengliu called out toward the door: “Was what I said accurate, Prince Ning?”

Li Chi, standing at the doorway, inwardly let out a long sigh. He finally understood why this man had allowed himself to be captured.

He still held a half-eaten candied hawthorn skewer in his hand. Appearing like this might seem a touch undignified.

After all, he was now Prince Ning — lord of Jizhou and Yuzhou. Of Dachu’s thirteen provinces, two were nominally already in his hands.

With a status and standing like that, appearing before Mu Fengliu holding a candied hawthorn skewer… Li Chi didn’t care, of course.

When had he ever cared about such things?

So Li Chi walked into the interrogation room with his half-eaten skewer in hand. Under Mu Fengliu’s somewhat startled gaze, he dangled it in front of Gao Xining and asked her: “We were eating together on the way here — where’s yours?”

Gao Xining pulled her own half-eaten skewer from her sleeve and waved it in front of Li Chi: “Haha! I hid it.”

Mu Fengliu’s face was a picture of pure bewilderment.

*What are these two?*

*Prince Ning?*

*Chief Tingwei?*

Li Chi handed his half-skewer to Gao Xining: “Hold this for me a moment — and don’t you dare eat mine.”

Gao Xining curled her lip: “I have my own. Why would I eat yours?”

As she said this, her expression was that of a cat peering into a fishbowl at little goldfish inside.

She took the skewer, then rose and yielded her seat to Li Chi.

Li Chi pulled a chair over and sat down directly across from Mu Fengliu — close enough that their knees were nearly touching.

Li Chi waved a hand, and the four Tingwei officers holding blades immediately stepped back. A series of crisp sounds rang out as longswords were sheathed.

Li Chi looked at Mu Fengliu: “Without a blade at your neck, does that feel a bit more comfortable?”

Mu Fengliu nodded: “It does…”

*Crack!*

Before he could finish the sentence, a fist connected with his face. His head snapped back so hard it nearly broke his neck.

When his head came back forward, his skull was ringing, and his vision was filled with swirling golden stars, dense and spinning wildly.

Li Chi said in a flat tone: “I had the blades put away because I was worried they might nick my hand while I was hitting you. A scratch would be inconvenient.”

He grabbed Mu Fengliu’s collar and pulled him upright.

The corner of Mu Fengliu’s mouth had split open. Blood trickled down his chin.

Li Chi asked: “Ready to answer my questions now?”

Mu Fengliu sighed: “I never expected Prince Ning to be a man of so little refinement.”

Li Chi smiled: “If you truly knew me as well as you seem to think, you’d know I’ve never been a man of refinement.”

“What does your intelligence say about me? Does it mention that to earn money, I’ve eaten in front of large crowds, performed storytelling at teahouses, sung at wealthy families’ birthday banquets? Setting aside selling my own body, there was a stretch where I spent considerable time calculating how much I might get for my master — and if he hadn’t hit me with his walking stick, I’d have sold him off to some old widow. Do you believe that?”

Gao Xining burst out laughing, hastily clapping a hand over her pursed lips, thinking: *Close call — I nearly sprayed candied hawthorn all over Li Chi’s back.*

He smiled: “So in your view, what sort of refinement could a person like me possibly have?”

Mu Fengliu froze momentarily. He seemed to have genuinely forgotten this.

Not forgotten, exactly — overlooked. It was a natural reflex. When a person rises to high station, as Li Chi had in becoming Prince Ning, people unconsciously forget who he once was.

Li Chi asked a second time: “Now then — can you answer my questions?”

Mu Fengliu nodded.

Li Chi raised a finger and pointed to his own face: “Tell me — did I get any bits of candied hawthorn stuck on my face just now?”

Mu Fengliu was bewildered.

He’d just punched him, and *this* was what he asked?

Mu Fengliu shook his head: “No… is that all Prince Ning wished to ask?”

Li Chi sat up straight: “There isn’t much else to ask, really. Right now I just want to kill you.”

“What you said to her just now was simply intended to tell me that Dean Gao might also be one of the River-Mountain Seal’s people — and that *she*, in all likelihood, was placed beside me at the River-Mountain Seal’s instruction, arranged through Dean Gao.”

“You also said that Old Yan knows you, that Liu Yingyuan’s father knows you, and that many others know you.”

“The purpose of saying all this was simply to make me feel that everyone around me has long since been infiltrated by your River-Mountain Seal.”

Li Chi suddenly thought of something, and leaned closer to Mu Fengliu: “Have you been listening to too many storytelling performances?”

Mu Fengliu stared at Li Chi, his expression complicated.

He genuinely couldn’t read Li Chi’s reaction for a moment.

Li Chi said: “I mean the kind where a warlord grows suspicious of the people around him — like the King of Wei during the old turmoil in the heartland.”

“He was always worried someone would kill him in his sleep, so he kept a sword beside him and would deliberately pretend to kill people in his dreams — just so no one dared approach him at night.”

“Is that what you thought? That after you said all this, I’d start suspecting Dean Gao, suspecting Old Yan, suspecting Liu Shanwen, suspecting everyone?”

“Especially Old Yan — he’s now the Military Commissioner of Jizhou, holding enormous power. If he were truly one of yours, I’d effectively already be under your control.”

Li Chi smiled slightly: “Are you here to lay your cards on the table with me?”

Mu Fengliu drew a long breath, and smiled back.

“Prince Ning plays the part of unconcerned very convincingly.”

Li Chi said: “As I mentioned, your intelligence gathering has been insufficient.”

He held Mu Fengliu’s gaze: “First, you want me to suspect those close to me, provoking me into rash action — pushing away my inner circle. Second, you want me to understand that you can kill any of these people at any time, because your arrangements have been in place for years — including the fact that the Four-Page Academy was essentially founded with River-Mountain Seal funding through Dean Gao.”

He paused, then asked: “That about captures it?”

Mu Fengliu did not answer this time — because it was, in fact, exactly right.

He knew how terrifying it was when suspicion took root in a person’s heart — especially someone of Li Chi’s ambitions.

How could someone with such ambitions not value those close to him?

Once suspicion took hold, once he began to doubt the people beside him, that would be the beginning of slaughter — and the beginning of being abandoned by all.

Killing a man merely ends a life. Poisoning his heart ends countless lives.

Mu Fengliu thought carefully for a long while. He still didn’t believe Li Chi was truly unmoved.

Li Chi said: “First — regarding the people around me, I’ve actually been quite eager to push them away. After all, they eat dinner without saving me any, they’ll be in the middle of a conversation and suddenly turn and definitely fart in my direction, and they’re always scheming to borrow money from me.”

“Second — regarding the matter of the Four-Page Academy being established with your funding: on behalf of myself personally, I thank you. The dining hall was free, and I genuinely ate quite a lot back then.”

He asked: “Is Prince Ning truly broad-minded, or putting on a performance?”

His gaze shifted slightly to one side, settling on Gao Xining: “If Dean Gao is one of ours, and Prince Ning’s wife is one of ours, and the senior official under Prince Ning’s own master is also one of ours — does Prince Ning not find that pitiable?”

Li Chi turned to look at Gao Xining and smiled: “You’re very beautiful.”

Gao Xining curled her lip, then let out a small “hmph”: “I know.”

Li Chi suddenly landed another punch across Mu Fengliu’s other cheek — with nearly the same force as the first — sending his head snapping backward again, a sound like cracking coming from somewhere in his neck.

Li Chi said: “This punch has, roughly speaking, two reasons behind it.”

When Mu Fengliu’s head returned upright, his eyes appeared to be rolling back.

Li Chi inspected the placement of both punches with careful attention, then gave a satisfied nod.

“I hit you not because of what you said about sowing discord — but because certain words you spoke just now had no shame to them at all.”

He turned to look at Gao Xining: “Specifically — those lines about ‘lips that need no cinnabar to shine red, brows that need no paint to arch green.'”

Gao Xining burst out laughing: “You memorized them!”

Li Chi: “Act normal.”

Gao Xining: “You actually memorized them!”

Li Chi: “Could you act normal, please?”

Gao Xining: “Quick — say them to me now.”

Li Chi: “Absolutely not. There is no version of reality in which I have the face to stand here and say you have a beauty that makes fish sink and geese land, that eclipses the moon and shames the flowers — even if you do, I must pretend to be too restrained to say so aloud.”

Gao Xining giggled with delight: “Brilliant!”

Li Chi clasped his hands: “You flatter me.”

Mu Fengliu’s head was still ringing, still somewhat dazed — but he couldn’t help thinking: *These two people are complete idiots.*

*If not idiots, then at least not normal. Their heads must have been kicked by something. How did a person like this become Prince Ning?*

Li Chi turned back to Mu Fengliu: “I just explained the reason for the first punch. As for the second — I have something of an obsessive streak. When I saw that side of your face was swollen and the other side wasn’t, the asymmetry was unbearable to me.”

With that, Li Chi stood and called out: “Zhang Tang.”

Zhang Tang hurried in and bowed: “Your servant is present.”

Li Chi asked: “Those instruments of punishment you invented — have you used any of them yet?”

Zhang Tang bowed: “In reply to Prince Ning — not yet.”

Li Chi said: “Use them on him. No need to ask him anything — not a single question. Consider him a willing volunteer helping you test your instruments.”

Mu Fengliu’s eyes shot wide open. A particular profanity surged up from somewhere inside him.

*Go to hell with your volunteer.*

Having said this, Li Chi pulled Gao Xining out the door. Gao Xining murmured with a grin: “Those two punches you landed — really dashing.”

Li Chi looked down at her hands: “So flattering me is useful… You ate both skewers already? That fast?”

Gao Xining’s little cheeks were still puffed out, packed full. While Li Chi had been asking questions and delivering punches, she hadn’t stopped — eating the entire time.

As though rushing to finish before Li Chi could reclaim his half.

Because of all this, Mu Fengliu found himself falling into deep doubt about his own plan.

If Li Chi were truly a warlord of grand ambitions, then these words intended to poison his heart should have worked.

If Gao Xining were truly as clever as rumor had it — having built the Tingwei forces herself, possessed of exceptional foresight — then she would surely have been afraid of those words, afraid Li Chi would grow suspicious and distant from her.

But looking at her now, she wasn’t afraid of a single thing.

The only thing she feared was Li Chi stealing her candied hawthorn.

Watching those two walk away, still talking and laughing, Mu Fengliu’s doubts about himself grew heavier.

*It shouldn’t be like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.*

Zhang Tang watched him, his eyes filled with something resembling sympathy.

After a long silence, Zhang Tang quietly sighed: “You people truly… understand our Prince not at all. You understand our Chief Tingwei not at all. You thought that scheme of yours could work against our Prince and our Chief Tingwei — what got kicked inside your heads?”

Mu Fengliu erupted in fury. He screamed: “It’s *their* heads that got kicked!”

He screamed, but the louder he screamed, the deeper the sympathy in Zhang Tang’s eyes grew.

In the courtyard, Li Chi walked along, talking: “You promised to hold it for me — why would you be so cruel as to eat every last one? Did you not think for even a moment how heartbroken those poor little candied hawthorns would be, being taken from me?”

Gao Xining laughed: “Nothing I could do — they were too sweet.”

Li Chi said: “Then share half with me.”

Gao Xining: “How am I supposed to share that now?”

Li Chi said: “I don’t care. I simply cannot accept those little hawthorns departing from me like this — *hey!*”

Before he could finish, Gao Xining grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the corner by the wall. She pressed both palms against his chest and pushed him back against it.

She tilted her head slightly: “*Nom.*”

And then she bit down gently on Li Chi’s lip — and something small brushed lightly against it.

She stepped back: “This scoundrel has now shared with you. So — are you at least a little scared of this scoundrel?”

Li Chi looked at her: “Scoundrel nothing.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her close, pressing his palm against her chest and pushing her back against the wall instead.

Then Gao Xining froze. She looked down at Li Chi’s hand.

Li Chi: “This… I learned from you. All learned from you — you can’t blame me.”

Gao Xining: “You learned from me?!”

Li Chi also looked down: “Hmm — I got it wrong. You used your left hand.”

So he lifted his right hand from Gao Xining’s chest and replaced it with his left.

“There. Now it’s correct.”

Gao Xining: “??????????”

—