At the Tingwei offices.

Li Chi paced back and forth at the entrance to the front courtyard. When he saw Cao Lie emerge while wiping sweat from his brow, Li Chi burst out laughing.

“There’s something wrong with you. Right here.”

Li Chi stopped Cao Lie and pointed seriously at his own chest.

Cao Lie said, “You’re the one with something wrong.”

He pointed at his own chest. “Right here.”

Then pointed at his own head. “And here too.”

Li Chi laughed. “Not as wrong as you. A carefree, roguish devil of a man like yourself — getting scolded by a woman and not even daring to breathe out loud. That’s a serious problem.”

Cao Lie said, “Then tell me — why do I even get scolded…”

Li Chi bumped Cao Lie’s shoulder with his own. “You two — are you…?”

He grinned meaningfully as he spoke.

Cao Lie: “Don’t guess wildly. You’re talking nonsense. There’s nothing going on!”

Li Chi: “Hmm. A textbook triple denial. If nothing were actually going on, that would be strange… Didn’t you say the Cen family has always been under your Cao family? And you, being frightened into this state by a woman from a subordinate family — that kind of thing only ever points to one possibility…”

Cao Lie was already glaring at him.

Li Chi laughed heartily. Not wanting to embarrass Cao Lie too much, he shifted the subject. “But from the look of it, this Miss Cen should be able to restore those two blades, shouldn’t she.”

Cao Lie said, “I’d advise you not to go see her for the time being. She broke those two divine artifacts — she won’t care whether you’re the Prince of Ning or not. She’ll still give you an earful.”

Li Chi said, “I know. That’s why, when I reached the doorway just now, I immediately turned and left. Although I didn’t leave right away — I stood there and watched you get scolded for a bit first.”

Cao Lie: “…”

Inside the room, Cen Jianjia stood before the two broken blades, perfectly still and unmoving, without picking them up again — as though she had become a statue.

After a very long while, she let out a long, slow breath.

The problem was that she would need to melt down both weapons, and at her home, her furnace clearly lacked the capacity for that.

She could see plainly that the Great Zhou Son of Heaven Blade had been reforged at least twice over — but that was an entirely different situation from what she faced now. Heating a blade to red-hot and reshaping it was not especially difficult. But fractured blades needed to be fused back together, and two divine artifacts like these — what temperature of flame would even be needed to melt them?

“Cao Lie!”

Cen Jianjia suddenly called out.

Cao Lie was in the middle of a conversation with Li Chi, saying with great seriousness, “When it comes to women, I’m not afraid — as a man of refinement, showing appropriate deference to women is a mark of good character. Don’t you know what they call me in Yuzhou? The Little Devil King, if you please—”

At that moment he heard Cen Jianjia call out, and immediately turned. “Coming!”

He turned and sprinted back. The sound of his footsteps went *tap-tap-tap* against the ground.

Li Chi laughed so hard his chest muscles shook.

Inside the room, Cen Jianjia pointed at the two broken blades. “I need to borrow the use of the armory workshop. I need an extremely high-temperature furnace. Yours is the only one with what I need.”

Cao Lie sighed. “You’ve been shut inside your home all day — you don’t know this, but the armory workshop is no longer ours.”

Cen Jianjia was taken aback. She looked at Cao Lie. “Has the family fallen on hard times?”

Cao Lie nodded, deliberately teasing her. “I’m working for someone else now.”

He gestured around the courtyard. “Plum Garden has been rented out too. Life has gotten somewhat difficult.”

Cen Jianjia genuinely hadn’t known any of this. She was someone who remained apart from worldly affairs — she rarely left the private courtyard where she lived.

Cao Lie had long since given instructions that under no circumstances was anyone to disturb Miss Cen’s peace and quiet.

She was only Cen Jianjia. Cao Lie had devoted his every effort to ensuring that she would always be only Cen Jianjia — not a member of the Mountain-River Seal, not a member of the Cao family, not even his Cao Lie’s person.

On these matters, Cao Lie was extremely strict. Anyone who so much as casually disturbed Cen Jianjia would face his thunderous anger.

And she didn’t live inside Yuzhou City either — she lived at the Yuwan Villa, roughly twenty li outside the city walls. Her food, clothing, lodging, and daily needs were all attended to without requiring any effort on her part.

Had it not been for the destruction of these two divine artifacts, Cao Lie would not have gone to disturb her.

Now that he had brought her here, he had to let her know what the current state of affairs in Yuzhou was.

What man did not harbor, deep in his heart, something sacred and inviolable?

Cen Jianjia was silent for a long moment, then said earnestly to Cao Lie, “Then I’ll be more frugal from now on. Two meals a day at home is perfectly fine.”

Cao Lie quickly said, “Although things are somewhat straitened, they’re not quite that straitened…”

Cen Jianjia’s brow furrowed slightly. This was not the kind of thing she would normally give any thought to — her only obsession was the craft of weapon-making.

Cao Lie said, “The armory workshop has been requisitioned by the Prince of Ning. I’ll have to go speak with him about it.”

Cen Jianjia frowned. “The Prince of Ning again? He destroys two such divine artifacts, and he’s also seized your family’s holdings?”

Cao Lie thought to himself: I shouldn’t have run my mouth.

He hastened to explain, and Li Chi, watching from afar as Cao Lie gesticulated frantically in a flustered rush, felt the corners of his own mouth curve involuntarily into the kind of smile — the warm, fond smile — that others wore when watching him and Gao Xining together.

Cao Lie explained at length before Cen Jianjia finally understood that he was now serving under the Prince of Ning — that he had, in a manner of speaking, found his way onto the righteous path. The main difficulty in this explanation was that Cen Jianjia could not bring herself to believe that a man capable of ruining two divine artifacts could be any kind of upright individual.

When Li Chi heard that the armory workshop’s furnace was needed, he immediately agreed — but he expressed, in a roundabout way, his notion of charging Cao Lie a bit of rent. After three withering glares from Cao Lie, he gave up the idea.

If Cen Jianjia had known about this, she would no doubt have been even more convinced that the Prince of Ning was utterly beyond redemption — having seized Cao Lie’s armory workshop, and now, when Cao Lie wished to borrow it back, demanding rent.

—

After nightfall.

In the study, Gao Xining was poring over various records and documents concerning the Master.

If in this world, throughout all of history, there had ever been only one true sage — then in the hearts of the common people, throughout a thousand years, that one sage had never wavered: it was the Master.

The etiquette and rites now in use had been established by the Master. The primers taught in schools today had been composed by the Master. From culture and ceremony to the governance of the people and the ordering of daily life — every facet bore the imprint of the Master’s foundational work.

Yet his aged reverence could never have imagined what his descendants had become.

Then again, one couldn’t say they were wrong. In a time of chaos, anyone with the strength and the will to contend for the realm could not be called wrong — not Li Chi, not Yang Xuanji, not Li Xionghu, not any of the other rebel commanders.

Look at it from another angle: Li Chi’s people thought of all other rebel factions as supporting players. And to those other factions’ members, Li Chi’s people looked exactly the same way.

“My lord.”

Zhang Tang called out softly from beyond the study door.

Gao Xining looked up. “Come in and speak.”

Zhang Tang entered, bowed again, and said with his head lowered, “The woman has confessed. The Sacred Blade Sect is located on a mountain outside Anyang City. It would have been better if the Prince of Ning hadn’t released the one called Jieyi — we could have moved first.”

Gao Xining shook her head. “The Prince of Ning released Jieyi because striking here is far preferable to striking at the Sacred Blade Sect’s own ground.”

Zhang Tang considered this, and understood.

Gao Xining asked, “And the woman — what is her condition now?”

Zhang Tang raised his head and looked at Gao Xining without answering. And from that, Gao Xining already knew the answer.

She let out a quiet sigh.

Zhang Tang bowed. “This is what I do, my lord.”

He understood that the Chief Tingwei’s sigh was not reproach for how ruthlessly he had dealt with the woman — she was grieving for him, for taking all of these things upon himself.

Heaven only knew what a fearsome and vicious reputation Zhang Tang would carry in the years ahead.

Gao Xining nodded. After a moment of silence, she said to Zhang Tang, “There is something I’ve never told you — because the Prince of Ning forbade me from telling you.”

Zhang Tang raised his head. “My lord — what is it?”

Gao Xining said, “You know that the Prince of Ning might be considered a disciple of the Daoist path.”

Zhang Tang replied, “I am aware.”

Gao Xining continued, “But precisely because the Prince of Ning has walked the rivers and lakes since childhood alongside Master Changmei, he also knows — there are no miracles or divine workings in this world. He has never believed in such things. Never.”

Zhang Tang didn’t yet understand what the Chief Tingwei was telling him, nor could he guess what it had to do with him.

Gao Xining said, “But before you departed southward, the Prince of Ning went to seek out Elder Zhenren Zhang — and asked him to open a ritual altar, invoke a talisman, and light a perpetual lamp on your behalf.”

Zhang Tang’s expression changed.

Gao Xining said, “The Prince of Ning does not believe in such things. But as long as there is any method that might protect his people — whether he believes in it or not — he will go and do it.”

Zhang Tang pulled back his robe and knelt. “My deepest gratitude to His Highness the Prince of Ning. My deepest gratitude to the Chief Tingwei.”

Gao Xining said, “In truth, the Prince of Ning also asked Elder Zhenren to do one other thing… and he forbade me from speaking of this as well.”

Gao Xining rose and walked to the doorway. She looked out at the moonlit night beyond and said, “When the Prince of Ning asked Elder Zhenren Zhang to open the altar, he had a ritual formation constructed. Elder Zhenren Zhang asked the Prince of Ning what kind of formation it was. The Prince of Ning said: one that allows conversation with Heaven.”

Zhang Tang listened with intense focus. His heart was already shaken beyond measure.

Gao Xining said, “Elder Zhenren Zhang performed the ritual. The Prince of Ning stood within the formation, raised his head toward Heaven, and said: ‘My people — whoever they are — whatever karmic debts of killing they accumulate, let it all be borne by me. If Heaven has punishment to deliver, let it fall upon me alone. I am the Human Emperor. I will contend with you.'”

In that moment, Zhang Tang found himself at a loss for words. The surge within his chest could no longer be contained.

Gao Xining said, “I’m telling you these things the Prince of Ning forbade me from saying — because your state of mind has been growing darker and darker. You worry that you will come to no good end. You worry that you will be punished by the laws of Heaven and Earth…”

She turned to look at Zhang Tang. “I am like the Prince of Ning — I don’t believe in any Heaven or its laws. But if such a thing exists, I also believe it cannot withstand the Prince of Ning. I hope you will remember these words.”

Zhang Tang bowed low. “I will remember, my lord.”

Gao Xining said, “Go and rest. Don’t think too much. Between the human world and whatever lies above — the Prince of Ning will handle it.”

“Yes!”

Zhang Tang answered with great force.

In truth, there was something Gao Xining had not told Zhang Tang. On that day, Li Chi had raised his head toward the sky and said, word by word:

*I do not believe in these things myself. But my people do — and so I am here today. The life and death of the human world is a matter of the human world. You need not involve yourself. Because if you do — I will fight my way through the human world and then fight my way to Heaven. I can revere the Dao and ascend to Heaven, or I can extinguish the incense fires of the human world altogether.*

These words had thoroughly frightened Elder Zhenren Zhang at the time — for he was a believer. He had come close to regretting that he had performed this ritual for the Prince of Ning.

—

And just as Zhang Tang was reporting to Gao Xining, Li Chi stood atop Yuzhou City’s walls, gazing into the distance as though in a daze.

Within his line of sight: a sky of ten thousand stars, the Milky Way hung across nine heavens. Yet for all its brilliant and eternal brilliance, it was no match for the human world below.

He was, as always, like this — when deep in thought, he liked to stand somewhere high and gaze out into some open expanse.

Yu Jiuling was also, as always, like this — when Li Chi was deep in thought, he stood some distance away and watched Li Chi.

He found himself thinking: every time the Prince of Ning needed to make a decision, he would come to a high place like this and stand in thought for a good long while.

The Prince of Ning… was calculating the moves of the human world.

—