Li Chi studied the marked positions on the map, intending to commit them to memory — but after a moment, he let out a soft sigh.

Hearing the sigh, the figure on the beam could not help but laugh.

“How many people have you killed this way by now?”

Li Chi spoke as he turned to look up at the beam.

The man in black seized his broadsword and dropped down from the rafters.

He seemed quite self-assured. He did not call for help, nor did he rush to strike — instead, he regarded Li Chi with unhurried curiosity.

“Eleven. You would be the twelfth.”

“But you are different from the others,” the man in black said.

Li Chi pointed at the map. “A trick like this nearly caught me too. If he’d put any thought into it rather than marking things completely at random, you might have had me just now.”

While studying the map, Li Chi had quickly noticed that it was entirely a decoy — at least three or four of the marked positions were wholly unsuitable for stationing troops.

The man in black said: “Men as composed as you are rare. The others who came before all crept in, frantically scribbling notes in whatever paper and ink they had brought. You looked for only a few moments before spotting the deception. So you are not working for any of the various self-proclaimed lords within Qingzhou. Where are you from?”

Li Chi said: “You talk too much.”

He swept toward the rear window.

The man in black smiled. “No one has ever escaped from me.”

The sword stroke came from behind. It was still some distance away, yet Li Chi already felt a chill pressing against his back.

In that instant, Li Chi assessed: this man’s strength exceeded that of every opponent Li Chi had ever faced.

He could never have imagined that someone of Gan Daode’s caliber would have a fighter of this level hidden in his study.

It was fair to say Li Chi had been careless this time.

As he surged forward, he made his decision and immediately shifted sideways. At the precise moment he dodged, the blade flew past him.

Had he kept going straight for the rear window, the sword would have gone through him entirely.

In the instant of his dodge, Li Chi also saw it: a thin chain connected to the sword’s hilt. The blade had been thrown.

While Li Chi paused for that fraction of a second, the sword was pulled back. A man wielding a long, flexible weapon — a chain-spear, for instance — would normally keep the striking head small; a chain-spear’s head is already smaller than a standard spearhead, to make it manageable. But this man was wielding a heavy broadsword, somewhat larger than the standard Dachu infantry blade. How much strength and control that required was almost beyond imagining.

The man in black was visibly startled that Li Chi had evaded.

The eleven intruders he had killed in this room before had followed the same pattern. He had expected Li Chi to be the twelfth — yet this intruder was plainly something else.

Li Chi turned to face him. His right hand turned over, and a dagger appeared. When the man in black saw that Li Chi’s only weapon was a dagger, he could not help but laugh.

He sent the broadsword forward again, straight for Li Chi’s heart. Li Chi raised the dagger to deflect — but at the very moment the blade was nearly upon him, the man in black pulled back, then snapped his wrist. The sword halted in midair, and Li Chi’s block met nothing.

In that same lightning instant, the man flicked the chain with a small motion of his hand. The chain rippled forward in a wave, impossibly fast, and struck the sword’s hilt — the blade, which had been hanging nearly suspended in the air, shot forward again.

This bewildering combination broke Li Chi out in a cold sweat.

This was not only the most dangerous opponent Li Chi had ever faced — it was the most inscrutable.

The broadsword flew. Li Chi threw himself sideways with everything he had. The blade still caught his shoulder, slicing open his clothing.

At the same time, Li Chi plunged his left hand into his deerskin pouch and flung a handful of powder outward.

The man in black’s expression changed. He cursed under his breath, yanked the sword back, and retreated rapidly.

He was afraid the powder might be poisoned, and dared not press forward.

Li Chi snapped his arm up and hurled the dagger — a bolt of light driving straight for the man in black’s heart.

The man in black seemed to have anticipated it. In the instant the streak of light crossed through the powder cloud, his broadsword was already back in his hands and raised before him.

A sharp crack rang out — the dagger’s impact actually drove the man in black one step backward. He was astonished.

A heartbeat later, he heard movement at the rear window. He circled wide to avoid the powder and sent his blade flying through the window in advance of himself.

In the moment he came through the rear window, he heard a creak from the front door.

The man in black was furious. He wrenched himself to a stop and wheeled back around. By the time he looked — the front door was open. The intruder must have gone out that way.

The powder. The noise at the rear window. All of it had been a feint.

The man in black was incandescent with rage. This was the first time anyone had ever escaped from him. The fury was almost more than he could contain.

He barely hesitated before charging through the front door. Outside, two guards lay on the ground.

“Some ability,” he muttered.

He accelerated forward, crossing the courtyard in moments and bursting out through the gate.

Behind the door, Li Chi stepped out — and immediately turned back into the study. Rather than fleeing, he calmly resumed searching the room.

After escaping the study earlier, Li Chi had quickly blended back in with Zheng Shunshun and the others. Before coming, he had already thought ahead, and had Zheng Shunshun wear two long robes — one layered underneath the other.

His original plan had simply been that if someone spotted him during the infiltration, he could switch into one of Zheng Shunshun’s robes on the way back. He had not anticipated actually being struck. Fortunately, he never prepared for only one contingency.

Li Chi looked carefully around the desk. Every book on the enormous shelves was arranged in perfect order, nearly all of them pristine and unopened. Finding anything unusual among them would be far from easy.

Yet Li Chi was certain: if there were secrets here, they were in this bookcase. Because in the instant the man in black had rushed out, he had glanced back at the shelf.

In that vanishingly brief moment, Li Chi’s mind had already run through several moves.

First: throw the powder, let the man believe Li Chi was frightened and only wanted to flee. Second: hurl something at the rear window to make it rattle, drawing the man in black through it in pursuit. Third: dash to the front door, take out the two guards there with all possible speed — but then not flee through the front. Instead, step behind the door panel.

The man in black would never think Li Chi had stayed. His first instinct would be to give chase outside the compound.

Now, standing before the bookcase, Li Chi examined it for a moment and spotted the anomaly.

One book — new, its cover intact like the rest — had faint fingerprints on it. More accurately, it had been handled so many more times than the others that it was ever so slightly dirtier.

Li Chi pulled the book out immediately. The weight was wrong.

The book was thick — roughly the width of a hand laid sideways — but noticeably lighter than it should be.

He tucked the book into his robes and made for the rear window.

At that moment, the man in black — having realized the deception — came charging back through the front door. When he saw Li Chi still in the room, his eyes went wide.

“Thief!”

He bellowed and came at the room at full speed.

Li Chi looked back at him with a smile. The dark cloth covered his face, so the man in black could not see the curve of his mouth — but he would certainly have seen the smile reach Li Chi’s eyes.

“I am no petty thief.”

Li Chi made the correction, then swept through the rear window.

He had barely cleared it when the broadsword came flying. In the moment he leapt, Li Chi swept both hands backward and pulled the window shut.

A crash — the blade shattered through the rear window. Li Chi shot out his hand and seized the sword’s hilt. He turned his wrist, and the sword severed the chain with a sharp ring.

Li Chi then flung the blade back inside. The sword shot back into the room. The man in black was still gripping the chain; he had no time to react — the blade opened a gash across his shoulder.

In that moment, genuine shock ran through the man in black. His scalp prickled.

He turned and looked at where the sword had landed. It had driven clean through the wall, the entire blade buried in the stone. What force had been behind that throw?

—

Before long, the Slayer King’s Army locked down the Prince of Qingzhou’s residence entirely. No one was permitted to enter or leave at will. Beyond those already inside, everyone else in the vicinity was detained and rounded up.

Gan Daode returned shortly after. In the courtyard, several hundred people had been gathered — Li Chi’s group among them, alongside many of the craftsmen who had been repairing and decorating the residence in preparation for the coronation ceremony.

“Are they all here?”

Gan Daode looked at the man in black, who nodded. “Everyone who could be found. But it cannot be confirmed whether the intruder has already fled. However…”

He looked at Gan Daode. “As long as he is among these people, he cannot escape. I wounded his left shoulder.”

Gan Daode immediately ordered: “Search them. Every one, carefully.”

Gui Yuanshu looked at Zheng Shunshun and the others — also standing in the crowd — and his heart climbed into his throat.

“Lord Gui.”

Gan Daode looked at Gui Yuanshu and gestured toward Zheng Shunshun: “Those are your people?”

He had recognized Zheng Shunshun.

Gui Yuanshu bowed. “Yes, my Prince. I sent them back to fetch something.”

“To fetch what?”

Gan Daode pressed the question immediately.

Gui Yuanshu replied: “Thick red cord. It could not be purchased in the market, so over the past several days, the five of us have made it ourselves — weaving it from red cloth, working nearly without sleep. The ceremonial hall requires it. Afraid of delaying the great occasion, we have been pressing hard to finish. It was completed only yesterday. Today they came to collect it.”

Gan Daode blinked, then ordered: “Open the cases. Let me see.”

His men rushed forward and opened them. Inside were red-cloth braided ropes — every one of the crates was full of them.

Gan Daode was, in that moment, genuinely moved.

He looked at Gui Yuanshu. “That was… truly painstaking work.”

Gui Yuanshu’s real anxiety was for Li Chi. If the wound on Li Chi’s shoulder were discovered, all the red rope in the world would not save them.

“Check them,” Gan Daode said, turning to Gui Yuanshu with a measure of apology. “I must ask Lord Gui to understand.”

Gui Yuanshu had already steeled himself for a fight to the death — but the moment had not yet come to show his hand, so he bowed and replied: “The Prince may proceed without concern. My men will cooperate fully.”

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Li Chi and the others showed no sign of discomfort at all. They each opened their robes. Gan Daode’s men looked carefully — not one of them had a wounded shoulder. Not a mark. And nothing suspicious was found on any of them.

Li Chi’s shoulder was flawless — not even a trace of a scar. And his clothing showed no signs of damage.

The rest of the crowd was also checked. No wounds. No suspicious items found on anyone.

Gan Daode looked at the man in black. The man’s expression turned guilty. “That intruder was full of tricks. He must have already escaped. But my cold blade wounds as it strikes — the cut does not heal. As long as he is somewhere in Wulai City, he will be found.”

Gan Daode frowned. “How could you have let him go?”

The man in black lowered his head. “I was careless. But I will find him. My cold blade marks a man — the wound will not close. As long as he remains in Wulai City, I will track him.”

Gan Daode nodded. “Find him.”

As he spoke, he glanced at the man in black’s shoulder wound. It was no longer a clean cut — there was a chunk of flesh missing on either side of the gash. The man in black had carved it out himself.

Gan Daode lowered his voice. “Everyone except Lord Gui’s people — kill them.”

Gui Yuanshu’s expression changed.

“My Prince,” Gui Yuanshu said, voice low and urgent. “The coronation ceremony is days away. Bloodshed now would be an ill omen, and would also damage the Prince’s reputation.”

Gan Daode paused, then nodded. “Then wait until after the ceremony.”

—