**Longtou Pass.**

Old Zhenren packed his belongings, glanced at the packet of poison he’d set aside, and after a moment’s thought, found himself rather impressed with his own audacity — old as he was, going out in a blaze of glory.

The poison was a precaution: if death truly came for him, he’d die on his own terms, not at someone else’s hands.

He hadn’t brought much to begin with, so packing was simple enough. An old man who’d come here prepared to die, and hadn’t — naturally, he was in good spirits.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door. Old Zhenren turned his head, and Zhuang Wudi appeared at the threshold — same as ever, that cold, blank expression frozen on his face.

Old Zhenren’s eyes instinctively darted back to the poison. *Could I still be needing that?*

“May I come in?”

Zhuang Wudi asked.

Old Zhenren let out a quiet breath of relief. *I really am both a coward and a brave man at the same time…*

That icy look on the man’s face — it was simply habit, not coldness of heart. If Zhuang Wudi harbored any ill intentions, would he really have bothered to ask permission to enter?

“Something on your mind?”

Old Zhang Zhenren asked.

Zhuang Wudi stepped inside, looked at the chair, but said nothing. Old Zhenren thought to himself: *This one is a purebred, oversized sealed jug.*

So Old Zhenren nodded. “Sit down.”

Zhuang Wudi settled into the chair and looked up at Old Zhenren, as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

Old Zhenren had no choice but to keep guessing. “Are you here to say something for me to carry back to Prince Ning?”

Zhuang Wudi gave a quiet sound of agreement.

Old Zhenren exhaled slowly and sat down across from him, waiting in silence for Zhuang Wudi to begin.

After a long, strained silence, Zhuang Wudi finally found his opening. He looked at Old Zhenren and asked with complete sincerity: “Would you like to hear a story?”

Old Zhenren: *”…”*

Zhuang Wudi saw that expression and felt the awkwardness himself. He truly hadn’t known how to begin, and had just thought of the way Old Zhenren himself had opened a conversation not long ago — so he’d borrowed the approach on the spot.

Seeing the man’s discomfort, Old Zhenren sighed in resignation. “Go on, then.”

Zhuang Wudi relaxed slightly, then said with a trace of self-doubt, “I’m not good with words. I may not tell it well. Do you still want to hear it?”

“Stop asking me questions,” Old Zhenren said. “Just tell your story.”

Zhuang Wudi took a deep breath. Then another. Then another — as if bracing himself for something difficult.

“It’s true that I was placed into Yanshan Camp by someone else. I was put at Elder Brother Yu’s side. The story was a story designed for me — Elder Brother Yu saved my life, so I willingly stayed by his side.”

Old Zhenren thought: *He actually strung that many words together. Remarkable.* He offered encouragement: “A good start. Keep going.”

He genuinely worried that without encouragement, the man would seal the story right back up inside himself.

“But I didn’t know I was a person of Shanhe Seal.”

Zhuang Wudi looked at Old Zhenren and asked with the utmost seriousness: “Do you believe me?”

“I told you,” Old Zhenren said. “Don’t ask me questions. Just tell your story.”

Zhuang Wudi froze.

Old Zhenren let out a low chuckle. “You really aren’t a likable person, you know — nowhere near as charming as my disciples… Though provoking someone like you has its own appeal. My disciples are little rascals; teasing them has lost its novelty long ago.”

He chuckled a moment longer, then sat up straight and looked Zhuang Wudi in the eyes. “I believe you.”

Something lit up in Zhuang Wudi’s expression.

He said: “The person who truly saved me — it wasn’t Elder Brother Yu. It was someone whose name I still don’t know to this day…”

He paused, then said apologetically: “Let me close my eyes while I talk. When I’m looking at someone — or being looked at — the words won’t come out straight.”

Old Zhang Zhenren said: “Lie down and tell it, tell it standing on your head, or tell it with clappers for all I care — *bamboo clappers, give them a knock, now don’t you praise me for just this talk…* Just speak. Don’t mind me.”

Zhuang Wudi closed his eyes and took another long breath.

“He saved me. Then he went a long time without contacting me. I wanted to repay the debt. Before he left, he said: if you truly want to repay the kindness, then wait until I find you again — and when that day comes, I only hope you won’t refuse me.”

“Later, he really did come back. He told me to go to Yanshan Camp. He said Yu Chaozong was a man worth serving — someone capable of great deeds, of building something lasting, of saving the common people. I believed him.”

Old Zhenren’s thoughts ran ahead: *What a skilled liar that person was. He knew exactly how to handle someone like Zhuang Wudi.* If he had tried to buy Zhuang Wudi with gold and silver, or dangled some other rich reward, Zhuang Wudi would never have agreed to act as a spy for such reasons.

Instead, he had seized on Zhuang Wudi’s sense of obligation — taking advantage of the man’s simple honesty. He hadn’t said: *go spy on Yu Chaozong for me and help me when I need it.* He had said: *go and serve Yu Chaozong — he is a man who can save the people.* And so the honest ones were always the easiest to deceive.

Zhuang Wudi continued: “As more time passed with Elder Brother Yu, I came to understand that he truly regarded me as a brother. He could entrust me with matters of life and death — and I could entrust him with mine.”

At this point he opened his eyes. Old Zhenren immediately said: “I believe you. Keep going.”

Zhuang Wudi gave him a look of thanks — more than thanks, something that approached true gratitude.

“That person,” Zhuang Wudi continued, “never once asked anything of me. He only told me to serve Elder Brother Yu well.”

Old Zhang Zhenren suddenly cut in: “A moment.”

He asked Zhuang Wudi: “I know Shanhe Seal positioned four agents in the north — the Four Nothings. Your name is Zhuang Wudi. Are you one of them?”

Zhuang Wudi shook his head. “No.”

Old Zhenren gave a small sound of acknowledgment. “Continue.”

He had suspected this; he’d only been seeking confirmation. The so-called Four Nothings were all people of standing — whether Mei Wujiu or Lü Wuman or the other two, none of them came from humble origins. Zhuang Wudi did. A man of his background could only ever be a small pawn — placed on the board, useful when useful, disposable when not, neither a life worth preserving nor a death worth mourning.

But at that moment, Zhuang Wudi’s expression shifted strangely. He opened his mouth, then seemed to have lost his place in the story.

Old Zhang Zhenren sighed. “My fault for interrupting. Don’t ask me anything — I won’t pry again. You were just saying that he never demanded anything of you.”

Zhuang Wudi looked at him again with that grateful expression. He gathered his thoughts and went on.

“All the way until Diudiu’er and the others appeared — that person still hadn’t contacted me again. It was as though he’d forgotten I existed.”

Old Zhang Zhenren heard those words and sighed inwardly. *Poor child. He didn’t just seem to forget you — he probably truly had forgotten you.*

When Old Zhang Zhenren had first arrived, he had genuinely suspected Zhuang Wudi of being one of the Four Nothings, possibly even someone of higher rank. Now it was clear: Zhuang Wudi was nothing more than a minor, disposable pawn — not the least bit important.

Zhuang Wudi continued: “Until… after Diudiu’er made me a general under Prince Ning — one day, out of the blue, I received a letter from that man.”

Old Zhang Zhenren thought: *Of course he wouldn’t dare come in person. You were already a pawn nearly out of his hand. He couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t turn on him — and even if he was sure, a man that careful wouldn’t risk showing himself without first sending a letter to test the waters.*

“The letter didn’t say much else — only that he knew how I’d been getting on, that seeing my success made him glad and content, and that when he’d saved me back then, he was glad he’d saved the right person.”

Old Zhang Zhenren could not interrupt, so he could only process it all internally.

*What a transparent trick,* he thought. A letter evoking old debts, reminding Zhuang Wudi: *you owe me your life.* And it was exactly the kind of trick that would work on someone as guileless as Zhuang Wudi — who would simply think the man still cared about him.

“When I read that letter,” Zhuang Wudi said, “I thought — after all these years, he’s still thinking of me. My heart was full of gratitude.”

Old Zhang Zhenren couldn’t stop himself: “That’s exactly what I’d have expected!”

Zhuang Wudi: “Hm?”

“Nothing, nothing — go on, don’t mind me.”

Zhuang Wudi gave a small nod and continued: “In the letter, he told me to serve Prince Ning faithfully. He said Prince Ning was a man destined to save the world, that he would achieve great things…”

Old Zhang Zhenren thought: *This man is truly lazy — he didn’t even bother changing his lines.*

“He said he wasn’t living particularly well at the moment, and that perhaps one day he would need to call on me — he hoped I would be willing to help when that time came.”

Old Zhang Zhenren groaned inwardly. *What a tiresome, worn-out trick.*

Zhuang Wudi went on: “After that, he again went a very long time without contacting me — as if he’d forgotten me once more — until I was sent by Diudiu’er to the eastern reaches of Jizhou to command troops stationed there.”

Old Zhang Zhenren instinctively asked: “Did he come with another act of kindness?”

“He had someone deliver a letter saying that after years of searching, he’d finally located my mother’s elder brother — my uncle — and that he would arrange for us to meet.”

Old Zhang Zhenren nodded. *Exactly what I’d have expected.*

“About two months ago, he sent someone to Longtou Pass. He said the time was nearly right and that I should prepare to be reunited with family.”

“A few days later, he sent someone again — not a letter this time, but a verbal message. The person said that my uncle and his son — my cousin…”

At that point Zhuang Wudi glanced at Old Zhang Zhenren.

Old Zhang Zhenren had had enough: “I know what a cousin is — you don’t have to look at me like you’re wondering if I’ll follow along. Your maternal uncle’s son — elder than you, he’s your older cousin; younger than you, your younger cousin. Can you not just say it plainly?”

Zhuang Wudi looked at him with genuine admiration — a sincere, honest look that said: *you really are something.*

Old Zhang Zhenren: “What are you staring at? Just keep going, will you?”

Zhuang Wudi said: “Right, right… The man told me that my uncle and my cousin had been wandering through Yanzhou, and that he’d moved heaven and earth to find them. He saw that my cousin showed promise, personally took him under his wing, and trained him until he flourished. My cousin is now embedded within the Shanhai Army. The plan was for him and my cousin to work together — eliminate the current commander of Shanhai Bay, Mei Yan, then lead their forces into Jizhou and defect to Diudiu’er, as a grand gift of introduction to Prince Ning.”

Old Zhang Zhenren had not known that Li Chi’s childhood name was Diudiu’er, but his comprehension was sharp enough to follow along regardless.

Old Zhang Zhenren waited, but Zhuang Wudi showed no sign of continuing. So he asked: “And then?”

Zhuang Wudi: “And then?”

He had assumed the story was finished at that point. Seeing Old Zhang Zhenren ask, he even let a hint of disdain show.

Old Zhang Zhenren looked at that expression and thought: *You half-wit — what in the world do you have to be disdainful about?*

“And then… I didn’t believe him. I knew he was lying.”

Old Zhang Zhenren exhaled. *Thank heaven and earth — you can still tell when you’re being lied to.*

But curiosity got the better of him. “How did you see through it?”

“Because my cousin was simple-minded as a child,” Zhuang Wudi said. “Even more so than me. There’s no way he could be a man of promise.”

Old Zhang Zhenren sat in stunned silence for a good moment.

“Later, he sent more people. He said everything was ready and gave me a date — I was to open Longtou Pass on that day and let the Shanhai Army through. I beat the messenger he sent until the man couldn’t hold out…”

He trailed off again, sitting there with that blank look, because he had decided the story was over once more.

“And then what?!” Old Zhang Zhenren demanded.

Zhuang Wudi’s look of disdain this time was even more pronounced. Old Zhang Zhenren no longer cared.

“The man I beat talked. He said the one who’d sent him was the Shanhai Army’s strategist — Mu Fengliu.”

—