Li Sanzhou’s wound on his shoulder had been treated — not out of any wish to let him live, but simply to let him die a little later.

Cao Lie looked at this man whose complexion was frighteningly pale, and suddenly smiled. It was the smile of someone who had seen through something and found peace with it.

He asked: “So, that is to say — you never spoke a single true word to me.”

Li Sanzhou glanced at him, then shifted his gaze away. “The part about your father not being dead — that was true.”

Cao Lie said: “Someone has already told me as much.”

Li Sanzhou asked: “Your new companion?”

Cao Lie smiled again. “Thank you.”

Those three words left Li Sanzhou utterly stunned — so much so that Li Sanzhou assumed Cao Lie must have been driven to such extremes of anger that this strange reaction was the result.

What he could not possibly know was that the events of Liaoyang City had led Cao Lie to completely abandon his last remaining expectations of the Shanhe Seal.

Even when Cao Lie had first arrived in Liaoyang City, he had still been thinking — if at all possible, he would do his best to protect more of their people.

In the rear courtyard of Jingtai’s tea house, Li Sanzhou had asked him: Young Master, I ask only this — will your decision save more of our people? If so, then do it without hesitation.

At the time, Cao Lie had been deeply moved. In Li Sanzhou, he had seemed to see what a true companion should look like.

When he said thank you — he meant: thank you for letting me see you clearly, all of you.

Cao Lie rose and walked toward the door. At the threshold he saw Zhang Tang standing outside waiting for him, and he smiled with easy relief: “Your turn.”

Zhang Tang asked: “Do you have nothing more to say to them? After all, this is a farewell — saying a little more is fine. It does not have to be for their ears. It can be for yourself.”

Cao Lie said: “Words said for ourselves — what right do they have to hear them? They have no right to count as those I am saying farewell to. The one I am saying farewell to… is also a part of myself.”

Zhang Tang gave a slight nod. “Understood.”

Cao Lie suddenly grew curious. He asked Zhang Tang: “Back in the rear courtyard of Qingyuan, when your forces had me surrounded — why was it that the moment I called out my name, Cao Lie, you ordered no one to kill me? Was it a command from Prince Ning, Li Chi?”

Zhang Tang said: “Prince Ning said — if you encounter a person named Cao Lie, you may curse him, strike him, spit at him, and you may even hang him upside down and spit at him in that position — but do not kill him.”

Cao Lie was taken aback for a moment — and then burst into laughter like an idiot.

After quite some time, Cao Lie asked again: “Then why didn’t you curse me and strike me? Why didn’t you hang me upside down and spit at me?”

Zhang Tang said: “I’m not that foolish.”

He breathed out slowly, then smiled: “Also because I sensed… you were about to become one of us.”

Cao Lie: “Pfft!”

He stepped forward — long strides, yet light and easy.

Walking, he said: “Please tell me what there is to be mindful of as one of yours — for instance, forbidden from chasing women, forbidden from drinking — that sort of thing. Let me go and break every one of your restrictions first, and then I will become one of yours.”

Zhang Tang said smiling: “There are only two things to be mindful of with us.”

Cao Lie stopped, turned back and asked: “What are they?”

Zhang Tang answered: “Loyalty to Prince Ning… and the lives of yourself and your companions.”

Cao Lie was silent for a moment, as though he found it somewhat hard to believe. He narrowed his eyes and asked: “Just these two things?”

Zhang Tang said: “Just these two things — because as for everything else, whether it results in one’s head being removed depends on how severe the circumstances are.”

Cao Lie: “Pfft!”

He turned and walked away: “Truly shameless, as I suspected.”

Zhang Tang sighed: “You are not yet accustomed to it?”

He watched Cao Lie walking off into the distance, thinking that the greatest gain of this venture had turned out not to be the capture of Xie Jingran and the others, but the capture of Cao Lie — a kind of capture entirely unlike the capture of Xie Jingran and the others.

He stepped into that room, looked up at the two people hanging on the wall, and then raised a hand and pointed at Xie Jingran. “This one is no longer of use. Drag him out and cut off his head.”

Xie Jingran’s eyes flew wide open. He instinctively cried out: “You hunted me for so long, went to such lengths to catch me, and now that you have me you say I’m no use?!”

Zhang Tang asked: “Why does that still matter to you?”

The question left Xie Jingran momentarily at a loss.

Zhang Tang said: “Your question is especially idiotic, but I am in a particularly good mood today, so I will explain why you are no longer of use. First — you are nothing but a stray dog without shelter. There is nothing more of value to extract from you. As for the whereabouts of those under your command who have not yet been caught within the city — it makes no difference whether I ask you or not. Second…” He paused. “Do you have a great deal of money?”

Xie Jingran stared at Zhang Tang with wide eyes, unable to produce a single word.

Zhang Tang looked toward Li Sanzhou. “He has a great deal of money. I like people with a great deal of money… We all like people with a great deal of money.”

If Cao Lie were here to hear this, he would certainly curse under his breath: like master, like man.

—

Within Liaoyang City.

Tingwei Army centurion Gu Qixi looked at the dense mass of people arrayed before him. Not one of them could be counted as a good person — taken one by one, the number who might genuinely have been wrongly accused could be counted on one hand.

“Mazi Wu is dead. Daochai is dead. Li Sanzhou is dead. Ma Qingzhi is dead. Li Chunfeng is dead as well.”

Gu Qixi said: “The big ones among you — they are all dead. As for the smaller ones — what of you?”

The crowd immediately began to stir. Some had already steeled themselves for a fight to the death. They had the numbers, and this was still their Liaoyang City.

Yet Gu Qixi paid their reaction no mind. He continued after a pause: “But your good fortune lies in the fact that there are truly many of you. Not that the law cannot touch a crowd — rather, the Tingwei Army simply cannot kill you all. And so I am prepared to offer you two pieces of counsel.”

He raised his first finger: “One — from this day forward, think carefully about what kind of person you wish to be going forward. The future realm of the central plains will be Prince Ning’s realm — a stable realm governed by law and order. You may flee and change your identities. But once your identity is discovered, your children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren after them, will carry a mark that can never be washed away.”

The crowd gradually fell quiet, listening to Gu Qixi speak.

“Second.”

Gu Qixi continued: “There are those within this city we have not yet fully apprehended. If you flush out every one of these people, the Tingwei Army can say a word on your behalf in times to come — that you once assisted the Tingwei Army in the conduct of its affairs.” He paused. “What follows is of utmost importance. If I were in your position, I would give serious thought to what I am about to say.”

He swept his gaze across the assembled crowd and raised his voice: “General Tang Pidi is currently engaged in battle with Yang Xuanji along Yuzhou’s southern front. The general is short of soldiers. Men such as yourselves — unafraid of killing, and each and every one martial in body — if you can manage to survive, battle by battle, perhaps your futures may yet hold something worth looking forward to.”

Having said his piece, he turned and descended from the platform, walking away under the watching eyes of the assembled crowd.

Cao Lie happened to witness this. He asked Gu Qixi: “Why do this?”

Gu Qixi let out a sigh and said: “We only brought a few hundred people into the city this time.”

Cao Lie asked: “So?”

Gu Qixi answered earnestly: “We genuinely cannot kill them all.”

Cao Lie thought it over — it did seem to make sense.

—

At the same time. Fengzhou.

General Luo Jing’s twelve thousand Ning Army troops had already encamped outside the city of Fengzhou. Though they numbered only twelve thousand, every last rebel soldier inside Fengzhou was terrified.

They all knew who Luo Jing was — that man who had carved out his fearsome reputation in Yuzhou, the so-called Savage Luo. A true butcher of men.

The Fengzhou prefectural office.

Xu Ji sat looking at Yin Ke. Yin Ke was also looking at him.

After the two had held each other’s gazes for quite some time, Yin Ke’s anger broke. He said loudly: “The state of things now — all of this is because of you!”

Xu Ji did not respond. He was fairly certain his death could not be far off. From the moment of his return to Fengzhou, Xu Ji had known that death was the inevitable outcome of this situation.

But dying just like this — the reputation left behind would truly be ugly.

Something had to remain. If he could not leave behind a towering legacy for others to look up to in later days, then at least he might leave a name in history that people would remember.

And so Xu Ji suddenly thought of something. He was, after all, a man of exceptional cleverness, rare among men.

“Open the city gates and surrender.”

Xu Ji said.

Yin Ke’s expression twisted with fury. He marched up to Xu Ji in great strides, seized him by the front of his robe, and demanded: “You led us all to Fengzhou deliberately — so that we would surrender to the Ning Army?”

Xu Ji regarded him coolly, in a tone of unconcealed disdain: “Will your anger and bewilderment be enough to defeat the Ning Army?”

Yin Ke said: “So you want to surrender?!”

Xu Ji said: “Surrender is merely a means to an end. You still have more than thirty thousand soldiers — nearly forty thousand. I am the prefectural governor of Fengzhou; I carry sufficient authority here. If I were to go out and make my case to the people, I could bring far more people to our side — mobilizing tens of thousands more would be no problem at all.”

Yin Ke suddenly understood. He released Xu Ji’s robe and asked: “Your meaning is — that we feign surrender and invite Luo Jing into the city?”

Xu Ji nodded: “What is the Ning Army’s greatest strength? Open-field battle on level ground. But urban fighting is different. Once they are inside the city, divided among its streets and alleyways, we have the advantage of numbers. We can isolate them, surround them in sections, and then destroy them piece by piece. This is the only path to victory.”

Yin Ke’s gaze flickered with uncertainty. He thought it over for a long while, then asked Xu Ji: “What do you think the odds of success are?”

Xu Ji said: “If nothing goes wrong, Prince Ning’s main force is coming from Jizhou — it will not be long now. Can you guess why Luo Jing is in no hurry to storm the city? He is waiting.”

Xu Ji rose to his feet and began to pace as he spoke: “He can afford to wait. We cannot. You ask me what the odds of success are — I do not know. I can only tell you this is the only method that carries any odds of success at all.”

Yin Ke returned to his chair and sat down. It was clear he had been persuaded.

Xu Ji said: “Given what authority I carry in Fengzhou, there is some chance this will work. If you do not dare try it, then you may as well simply surrender for real.”

Yin Ke immediately asked: “How many people can you bring in?”

Xu Ji said: “I do not know that either — but one must try. Even if the chance of winning is one in ten, is that not better than a certainty of defeat?”

Yin Ke deliberated at length. He too understood now that this was truly the only option remaining. They were trapped, unable to either advance or retreat. Hold the city? If Prince Ning’s main force truly arrived, could they hold? Break out and fight? Twelve thousand Ning Army battle-hardened soldiers would cut through them and leave them dead to the last man.

So the only chance was to eliminate Luo Jing’s force first — and then immediately flee Fengzhou.

“Go.”

Yin Ke looked toward Xu Ji and said: “But if you try to play any tricks, I will grind you into ten thousand pieces.”

Xu Ji sighed: “Do you think, if the Ning Army were to storm into the city, they would not grind me into ten thousand pieces?”

One day later, every figure of standing in Fengzhou received an invitation delivered by Xu Ji’s people.

Xu Ji intended to host them all at a banquet two days hence — at his own residence, for there were simply too many invited guests for any single establishment in the city to accommodate.

At his home it would also be easier to discuss matters, and safer than at a tavern.

When word of this spread, every person in Fengzhou was bewildered. They did not know what the prefectural governor intended.

At a certain inn.

Gui Yuanshu listened to Zheng Shunshun’s report and smiled faintly. Others could not guess it — but he seemed to have guessed.

After all, he too was a man of exceptional cleverness, rare among men.

—