“Have you decided where you want to go?”

Cao Lie asked Li Shangong.

Li Shangong shook his head. “No. I’ve never once decided in advance where I want to go, so for me, there’s never anything difficult about choosing.”

Cao Lie gave a quiet sound of acknowledgment — he was just curious.

Li Shangong had said before that if there was one person in this world who could be called a true sovereign, it had to be Prince Ning of Jizhou — yet he had no intention of going to offer his service. This had left Cao Lie somewhat curious.

Even though at the time Cao Lie had said “that’s nonsense,” in his heart he knew Li Shangong was right.

“Why won’t you go to Jizhou?”

Cao Lie asked directly.

Li Shangong was suddenly reminded of Xu Ji — an old classmate of his — and so he simply shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

He asked Cao Lie in return: “And you? Now that you’ve left Cloud-Hidden Mountain, have you thought about where you’d like to go?”

Cao Lie laughed: “What, are you trying to shake me loose?”

Li Shangong burst out laughing. “Then let’s just wander wherever our feet take us. Walk until wherever you stop no longer feels like a place you need to leave — and by then, your heart will have settled.”

Cao Lie thought it over and shook his head. “A heart like mine doesn’t settle.”

He couldn’t stop thinking about his father.

“He…”

Li Shangong sat in silence for a moment before speaking. “This is only a guess, and I may be wrong… You once told me that the reason you won’t offer your allegiance to Prince Ning is because your father may have died at Prince Ning’s hands. That was all you said — I don’t know the details. But I find myself thinking: if Prince Ning felt toward you the way you feel toward him, perhaps he would not have killed your father.”

Cao Lie was startled.

Li Shangong asked him: “Why are you so certain your father has already been killed?”

Cao Lie had no answer.

And so Li Shangong answered for him: “I know this isn’t easy to hear — it may come across as harsh, coming from someone who doesn’t really know you but already considers you a friend. Even so, I think it needs to be said… You didn’t see with your own eyes your father die at Prince Ning’s hands, and yet you remain convinced that Prince Ning has already killed him. Is it because… your father deserved to die?”

Cao Lie looked at Li Shangong and found he could offer no rebuttal.

Li Shangong pressed with one more question that cut straight to the bone.

He asked: “Deep down, you yourself believe your father deserved to die, don’t you? That’s why you’ve convinced yourself he must already be dead.”

Cao Lie still had no rebuttal — he could barely find words at all.

His father had not directly committed many evils with his own hands, but all the affairs surrounding the Shanhe Seal — it would not be unfair to lay them at his father’s feet.

Li Shangong let out a long sigh and placed a hand on Cao Lie’s shoulder. “I would never try to talk anyone out of hatred — especially not hatred rooted in the bonds of blood. I only hope that going forward, you don’t let it make your life harder than it needs to be. I count you as a friend, though I also know we are not traveling the same road…”

He gave Cao Lie’s shoulder a firm pat. “Let’s go. Never mind the destination for now — just start walking.”

Cao Lie made a sound of agreement.

Then suddenly reached a decision: “I want to go back to Yuzhou.”

He looked at Li Shangong and said: “If you’re willing to come with me, I’ll tell you a story — a story about certain people who believed they could control the fate of an entire kingdom.”

Li Shangong asked: “Believed they could, or actually could?”

Cao Lie thought for a moment and answered: “Once could.”

Li Shangong asked: “Is it a long story? If it isn’t long enough, I’m afraid I won’t be able to last all the way to Yuzhou — that’s quite a road ahead of us. If the story’s too short, how are we going to pass the time… You know I tend to lose interest in places I’ve already been.”

Cao Lie smiled. “Over a thousand years long — will that do?”

Li Shangong laughed. “I half-expected you to say, ‘long as a forearm — will that do?'”

Cao Lie’s eyes narrowed. “……”

He let out a long breath. “I had no idea you were this kind of Li Shangong — hahaha… You’re not some woman, so why would I be spinning that kind of yarn?”

Li Shangong said: “Let’s go. We have a story, we have wine, we have a friend… and we have ten thousand li of road. What a fine thing this is. For a man, about the only thing that could make it finer would be if, now and then along the way, there happened to be a woman — just now and then.”

He looked at Cao Lie with great seriousness and said: “The main thing is that you’re still very wealthy, so that occasional matter shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange.”

Cao Lie smiled and nodded: “That’s right — fortunately, I’m still quite well off.”

The two of them had arrived together, just the pair of them, and before reaching Cloud-Hidden Mountain had already sent Li Shangong’s young page-boy and Cao Lie’s attendants ahead to find somewhere to lodge, since Li Shangong knew Elder Li had an odd temperament and disliked seeing too many people.

After leaving Cloud-Hidden Mountain they would go and reunite with the others, and this road stretching out toward Yuzhou seemed, all of a sudden, to take on a weight of tremendous significance for Cao Lie.

Would he — on account of friendship — have refrained from raising his hand against a friend’s father?

Two months later. Jizhou.

Sitting on top of the city wall, Yu Jiuling asked Gui Yuanshu: “How does it feel being here?”

Gui Yuanshu replied: “If you just wanted to ask me that, did you really need to drag me up onto the city wall to do it? This makes me feel like if my answer isn’t satisfying enough, you’ll shove me off.”

Yu Jiuling grinned: “I came because I want to discuss something with you. Something important.”

Gui Yuanshu asked: “How important does something have to be that you need to be this secretive about it? Is it enormously important?”

Yu Jiuling said: “Get lost…”

Gui Yuanshu burst out laughing. “Alright, alright, go on then — you actually look like you’re being serious for once. I’m not quite used to seeing you like this.”

Yu Jiuling said: “You’ve been here long enough now that you must know what position I hold in the Ning Army?”

Gui Yuanshu asked: “A rebel?”

Yu Jiuling: “……”

He gave Gui Yuanshu a glare, then explained: “I am the Grand Commander of the Ning Army’s intelligence corps. All the agents embedded across every region fall under my authority — but I know… I am not suited for this role.”

He looked out into the distance and said with feeling: “I was one of the Chief’s earliest companions. The Chief treats me like a brother, so naturally the Chief looks out for me. The Chief can entrust important positions to me — but I need to know myself.”

“What kind of person am I, really… I’m just a tavern hand from a little wine shop. I’m someone with nothing to offer except a bit of street-smarts.”

He looked toward Gui Yuanshu. “The Chief can spoil me and indulge me — but I can’t go ahead and spoil and indulge myself. I can’t actually start taking myself seriously.”

Those words moved Gui Yuanshu deeply.

Yu Jiuling said: “I’ve already made up my mind and reached a decision — I want to hand over the position of Grand Commander of the intelligence corps to you.”

Gui Yuanshu shook his head. “No.”

Yu Jiuling said: “Never mind whether it’s acceptable or not — just answer me honestly: for this seat, who is the stronger candidate — you or me?”

Gui Yuanshu found himself at a loss for words.

Yu Jiuling said: “You see? You people are actually worse than me at this — you can never separate public matters from private feelings. Official matters are official matters. Personal feelings are personal feelings. They cannot be mixed together…”

He drew his gaze back from beyond the city walls and looked at Gui Yuanshu. “You walked all the way from Daxing City to Qingzhou, and then all the way from Qingzhou to Jizhou. The changes you saw along that road — you took them all in with your own eyes. The efforts the Chief has made so that the common people can live well — others may not know, but we do…”

He spoke with absolute sincerity: “A person needs to know themselves. If I had the ability, I wouldn’t hand it over to anyone — not you, not anyone. I’d hold onto it myself, and no one could take it from me, because I also know: there are very few people as loyal to the Chief as I am.”

Having said that, he let out a breath of relief — because saying something like this out loud, regardless of whom one was saying it to, was never easy.

For a person to see themselves clearly, and then to say it plainly in front of others — that requires real courage.

“I know how much I’m worth… And so, from the very beginning until now, my ideal has never changed.”

Yu Jiuling smiled: “To be the Chief’s shadow. His happy little tail. That’s pretty good.”

Gui Yuanshu let out a heavy breath and gave Yu Jiuling a firm pat on the shoulder. “The reason Prince Ning is so powerful and unrivaled is because all of you are powerful and unrivaled.”

Yu Jiuling said: “Don’t go overboard… Even if that’s true, you can’t just say it so bluntly. Be a little more subtle.”

Gui Yuanshu burst out laughing too.

For the first time in his life he felt that serving in the same court as others could actually be a deeply comfortable, deeply pleasant thing.

In Daxing City, that entire court full of ministers and officials had been utterly repellent.

Yu Jiuling said: “I’ve already spoken with my older brother about this — my brother agreed. I’ll go back and hand over all the intelligence corps archives and dossiers to you.”

He stepped back a pace, stood at attention, and with great gravity said: “Now, Gui Yuanshu — please commit to memory what I am about to say.”

Gui Yuanshu straightened his robes and stood at attention as well.

Yu Jiuling said loudly: “The Chief has said it — our brothers out there in the intelligence corps live with extreme caution, day in and day out. Their lives are not entirely their own. They’ve already got it hard enough. If those of us at the rear don’t treat them with proper regard, what does that make their lot?”

Gui Yuanshu answered: “I’ve committed it to memory.”

Yu Jiuling said: “The Chief has also said — the brothers of the intelligence corps are like family members sent far from home. Their only anchor is the people back here. The brothers of the intelligence corps must never be made to feel wronged.”

Gui Yuanshu answered: “Also committed to memory!”

Yu Jiuling said: “The Chief said — we cannot tolerate the enemy causing our brothers and their families to suffer any injustice. And far less can those at home make their brothers feel wronged. Whoever wrongs their own people is no longer one of their own.”

Gui Yuanshu answered loudly for the third time: “Committed to memory.”

Yu Jiuling shook his head. “Follow my lead.”

Gui Yuanshu nodded: “Understood.”

Yu Jiuling called out loudly: “Huu!”

Gui Yuanshu: “Huu!”

Yu Jiuling laughed, and gave Gui Yuanshu a pat on the shoulder. “Welcome, formally, to the ranks.”

Gui Yuanshu nodded: “Thank you, brother.”

Yu Jiuling grinned: “Of course you should thank me — thank me you most certainly should… Hahaha, you have no idea how great it is being the Grand Commander of the intelligence corps — every month you get to go out on official expenses and live it up. You know what I mean.”

Gui Yuanshu: “This…”

Yu Jiuling said: “You look like you’re struggling with that?”

Gui Yuanshu said: “Only because I hadn’t imagined… it would be this great. Hahahahaha.”

The two of them walked off the city wall with arms slung over each other’s shoulders. Yu Jiuling talked as they went: “Earlier you asked me why I needed to bring you up on the city wall to say all this. Now I’ll answer you…”

“The Chief has said — there is no place more dignified and solemn than a city wall. Even compared to the golden throne hall of an emperor, a city wall is more solemn, more awe-inspiring. A throne room projects an atmosphere that is staged and performed. A city wall does not…”

“I entrusted the brothers of the intelligence corps to you on this city wall, and you made your promise here on this city wall. Here, there can be no failures.”

Gui Yuanshu gave a sound of acknowledgment. “There will be no failures.”

Prince Ning’s residence.

Li Chi looked toward Gao Xining. “Ninth Sister… Jiuling has been shortchanged.”

Gao Xining said: “He isn’t shortchanged at all. He is very content. Nobody is more content than he is, because he knows exactly what matters most to him. If you didn’t have me, you would still have Master. If I didn’t have you, I would still have Grandfather. If Dantai didn’t have us, he would still have his father and his family. If Xiahou didn’t have us, he would still have his mother and his sister… If Ninth Sister didn’t have us, he would have nothing left.”

Li Chi gave a deep, solemn nod.

Gao Xining said: “So I agreed to what Ninth Sister asked. If I hadn’t, he would only feel worse. He is someone who ought to be happy — so let him be happy in his own way.”

Li Chi nodded again. “Alright.”

—