The two small figures sat by the edge of the grove beneath the moon. Gao Xining ate with her cheeks puffed out, cheeks working busily. She had gone an entire day without eating and was absolutely starving. She’d managed to sneak only half a steamed bun from the kitchen before Li Diudiu’s chop had sent it tumbling to the ground.
“Eat slowly,” Li Diudiu said, unhooking his canteen and handing it to her. “Don’t choke.”
Gao Xining nodded and took a swallow of water. Things went down much more smoothly, and she smiled: “Tomorrow during the day I’m still not eating. At night, bring me food again. You don’t have to come into the courtyard — just tie a little rope to the wall and lower it down. I want to see how many more days I can hold out before Grandfather starts to worry.”
Li Diudiu smiled: “How about you just eat normally starting tomorrow? I have something important and need to be away for a stretch.”
Gao Xining immediately looked at him: “Where are you going?”
This was something Li Diudiu hadn’t dared tell even Yan Qingzhi, and hadn’t dared tell his master. But in front of Gao Xining, he felt there was nothing he needed to hide. He told her everything from beginning to end.
Gao Xining listened, fell into deep thought for a long while, and then asked: “Can you not go?”
Li Diudiu shook his head: “It was a matter of trusting me with a life. I can’t not go.”
“You’re still just a child,” Gao Xining said. “You’ve never gone on a long trip alone before. What if bad people catch you?”
Li Diudiu smiled: “You’re really underestimating me. Don’t worry. I figure I’ll be back in about seven or eight days. When I come back, I’ll bring you some local specialties from Laihu County.”
Gao Xining went silent for a while again.
Then she raised her hand. “Pinky promise.”
“How childish,” Li Diudiu said. “No one over seven years old does pinky promises.”
Thwack.
Gao Xining knocked him on the head: “Pinky promise!”
Li Diudiu had no choice but to reluctantly extend his finger and hook it with hers. Gao Xining said very, very solemnly: “Go safely, come back safely. Whoever breaks this promise is a pig.”
Li Diudiu asked: “Usually isn’t it supposed to be ‘whoever breaks it is a puppy?'”
Gao Xining dismissed this: “Puppies are so adorable — that’s hardly a serious oath. Besides, you already used a dog-oath last time. We need to switch it up.”
Li Diudiu: “You think this counts as a serious oath?”
Gao Xining couldn’t be bothered arguing with him. She stood and headed back: “If you don’t come back on time… I won’t find you a wife anymore. I’ll go find someone else a wife — ten of them.”
Li Diudiu: “And that’s a serious oath?”
—
After leaving the grove, he went to Xiahou Zuo’s place. Xiahou Zuo had known he’d come. The door was unlatched and the room was still lit. When Li Diudiu entered, Xiahou Zuo was making a show of sitting there reading.
When Li Diudiu got close enough to see what the book was, his expression immediately changed.
“What kind of vicious martial technique is this? Why do two people have to be tangled together like that? They must have a deep and terrible grudge — one pinning the other down…”
He muttered to himself. Xiahou Zuo jolted awake, saw Li Diudiu staring at the book, and his face went scarlet. He snatched the book and flung it across the room.
“What do you think you’re looking at?!”
Xiahou Zuo stood up: “No shame at all!”
Li Diudiu was thoroughly baffled.
“What martial technique is this? Why do one man and one woman have to be so closely intertwined to cultivate?”
Xiahou Zuo said with great sincerity: “It’s not cultivation. It’s immortal cultivation.”
“You’re not from a Daoist order,” Li Diudiu said. “And the Daoist methods my master showed me have nothing like this. That book has barely any text — it’s almost entirely illustrations!”
Xiahou Zuo waved a hand: “That’s not the point!”
He hastily changed the subject, pointing toward the table: “I figured you’d come back and see me, so I prepared everything you’ll need for this trip. While you were off seeing Gao Xining, I went to see Teacher Ye and practically cleaned him out.”
Li Diudiu looked at the table. On it lay a great many things: a longsword, a short sword, a saber, a dagger, grappling hooks, split-water finger blades, a grappling rope, even a repeating crossbow, and more besides…
“Teacher Ye… lives here?”
“In the small courtyard out back. He’s here most of the time.”
Xiahou Zuo said with some satisfaction: “Take a look, bring whatever you need.”
Li Diudiu said: “If I bring any one of these, I won’t get through the city gates.”
Xiahou Zuo snorted: “Already taken care of.”
He pointed at a metal tablet on the table: “That’s Prince Yu’s manor token. With this, ordinary people won’t give you trouble. Won’t dare to. So take what you like.”
Li Diudiu brightened, turned around, and walked straight toward Xiahou Zuo’s bed. Xiahou Zuo startled: “What do you think you’re doing?!”
Li Diudiu yanked the bed sheet off, piled everything on the table onto it and bundled it all up.
“Only children make choices. Obviously, I’ll take everything.”
He tied the bundle up, hoisted it onto his shoulder — heavy with all those weapons — and the weight sent him spinning half a circle on the spot.
Xiahou Zuo was not pleased.
“Stealing my things is one thing. But then you dance?!”
“Nonsense…” Li Diudiu looked at him seriously: “I’ll be gone for seven or eight days. Keep an eye on my master for me while I’m away. He’s always worried about me going out to earn money. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him — who knows what he might get up to. Watch over him.”
Xiahou Zuo nodded: “Don’t worry, go in peace—” He caught himself: “Nonsense!”
Li Diudiu: “Given your youth and ignorance, I won’t hold it against you.”
He walked toward the door with his pack: “One more thing I’d like to ask you to look into — what happened to Wang Heita’s remains. If you find out, I want to go burn some paper offerings for him when I get back.”
Xiahou Zuo said: “Say thank you!”
Li Diudiu walked and spoke over his shoulder: “We are sisters bound by deep affection. No words are necessary.”
Xiahou Zuo let out a scoff into the air.
—
Early the next morning, Li Diudiu seized the time before the main-course classes started — knowing Yan Qingzhi was too lazy to arrive early — to dash to the cafeteria for breakfast, then slung his pack on his back and headed out.
Though he planned to hand over all the banknotes to Wang Heita’s family, he couldn’t literally just walk the whole way. The road there and back was long, and he felt his young and tender feet would have strong objections. So he first checked at a carriage house to find out how much hiring a ride for the trip would cost.
“Carriages come in three grades. First grade, given the distance you’ve described — roughly ten days — will cost you two taels, plus a ten-tael deposit left with me, since my carriage is worth more than that.”
“Second grade, one tael and eight qian for the round trip. Third grade, one tael and five qian. Deposit is the same for all grades.”
Li Diudiu heard this and thought it sounded expensive. He looked troubled.
“If none of those suit you,” the shopkeeper said, “I also have a premium-grade carriage — absolute luxury. And if you worry about getting bored, I can arrange for a young lady to accompany you. Round trip would only run you fifty taels.”
“What would I want a young lady for?!” Li Diudiu said sternly.
“Oh, that’s quite alright,” the shopkeeper said.
Li Diudiu froze: “What’s alright?”
“Well, I thought the young master was asking— never mind. Young master’s age — probably not up to it anyway.”
Li Diudiu asked: “Anything cheaper?”
The shopkeeper turned, pointed at something off to the side: “This one. Deposit of five taels, one tael for the round trip.”
It was a donkey.
Li Diudiu looked at it: “Why is it so much cheaper?”
The shopkeeper gave Li Diudiu a sideways look.
Li Diudiu figured — cheap is cheap, this’ll do. So he paid the deposit and led the donkey out. The donkey’s pace was actually not bad. He slung his pack over its back, climbed on, and actually felt a certain breezy sense of triumph.
As it turned out, the donkey was simple enough to operate. He somehow managed to ride it all the way to the city gates without incident. The soldiers on duty stopped him, as was standard procedure.
“Open your pack for inspection.”
Li Diudiu held out Prince Yu’s manor token: “I’m from the manor. Running an errand.”
The soldier examined it and immediately became respectful: “Safe travels, young master.”
Li Diudiu urged the donkey forward. The donkey, in a fit of temper, refused to budge. The soldier, being helpful, gave the donkey a smack. The donkey jumped — and the pack fell off, crashing to the ground with a great clatter, scattering an entire arsenal of blades and blades and poles and hooks across the ground.
The soldiers stared at the weapons covering the ground, then stared at Li Diudiu. Li Diudiu’s expression showed not the slightest hint of awkwardness. He climbed down and, with complete calm, gathered the weapons one by one back into the pack, then said to the soldier: “Manor business. Hard to explain.”
The soldier nodded repeatedly: “Of course, of course…”
Li Diudiu climbed back up on the donkey and murmured in its ear with gentle warmth: “If you won’t walk, tonight I’ll have you skewered and roasted.”
The donkey seemed to understand. It broke into a lively trot and headed out.
“Manor people really are something,” one of the soldiers muttered. “Don’t look that old, and yet bringing all those weapons…”
“Stop overthinking it,” said his sergeant. “Even if a manor person hauled out a whole cartload of weapons, we couldn’t stop them. Besides, this big wide world is full of wonders. You think a young lad with a pile of weapons is strange? Just this morning I ran into old Chen and the other patrol officers — and they had something even stranger to tell.”
He lowered his voice: “Old Chen’s group ran into a ghost on patrol last night. The ghost spotted them and was going to take their lives, but then said it still had three hundred souls to collect and didn’t bother with them. And you haven’t heard — there was a fight last night at the Changxing Gambling House between their people and the Qingyi Formation. Between both sides… three hundred people died.”
He trailed off and gave a shudder himself.
Li Diudiu hadn’t gone far yet, and when he heard that, something stirred inexplicably in his chest.
Three hundred lives.
—
Not long after Li Diudiu passed through the city gates, at the Jizhou Prefecture’s government office:
Lian Gongming heard what his subordinate reported and slammed the table in fury: “Hundreds of men searched all night and found no ledger at all? What use are you?! Go back and keep looking. If you don’t find it, none of you need come back.”
A one-eyed man among his subordinates bent forward: “My lord, we truly turned everything over. Even dug up three feet of ground beneath the Changxing Gambling House — no ledger anywhere. It’s possible Wang Heita gave it to someone.”
Just then someone came in from outside and said: “My lord, word just came in that the one called Li Chi has left the city. He had a pack with him, carrying a great many weapons.”
Another said: “Not long ago, one night, Wang Heita apparently met with Li Chi. When Wang Heita’s subordinates were questioned, they said Wang Heita sent them all away at that time — so no one knows what he and Li Chi discussed. He may have passed something along.”
Lian Gongming’s brow furrowed.
“I don’t care whether or not it’s on that child. But they cannot be left to roam free. Li Chi — and Li Chi’s master — bring them both back to me.”
“Yes, my lord!”
The assembled men bowed in unison.