At the gate of the Yu Province prefectural yamen, the Gate Master of the Sacred Blade Sect walked directly up to the guards and asked: “Is Prince Ning here?”

The soldiers standing watch looked at him. They found him somewhat unusual — but not so unusual, because they received visitors like this every day.

What made him somewhat unusual was that this man’s face showed not the slightest deference or awe. If anything, it carried a cool arrogance.

“What business do you have with Prince Ning?”

“So he is here, then.”

The Gate Master said four words, and then stepped forward to walk inside. The soldier immediately stepped across to block him: “This is the prefectural yamen — you may not enter uninvited. Furthermore, Prince Ning is not here.”

“Not here?”

The Gate Master looked at the soldier. “Then where is Prince Ning?”

The soldier had already grown alert. His comrades nearby were beginning to converge. He looked at the Gate Master and said: “First tell me — why do you wish to see Prince Ning? And where have you come from?”

The Gate Master glanced at the soldiers. He did not take them seriously. In his eyes, they were all ants.

But at that moment, Master Ye emerged from the yamen, and the Gate Master’s gaze slid briefly toward him.

Master Ye asked: “What is the matter?”

The soldier quickly bowed and replied: “Master Ye, this man wishes to see Prince Ning, yet won’t say who he is or where he has come from.”

The Gate Master said to Master Ye, in a detached tone: “My name is Chaoge. I am from Jizhou. If Prince Ning is not here, I will return to seek an audience another day.”

Master Ye said: “If you have some matter, you may speak it to me. Perhaps I can help.”

The Gate Master looked Master Ye over once more, then shook his head: “You cannot help me.”

With that, he turned and left.

“What a strange one.”

The soldier glanced toward Master Ye.

Master Ye smiled. “Are there few strange ones? You must have seen quite a few of them by now.”

His words made the soldiers laugh. Standing guard at the yamen gates, they had indeed encountered more than their share.

Just two days ago, a man had stood at the gate hollering at the top of his lungs, declaring: “Prince Ning, come out! I am sent from Heaven to help you! I can grant you three wishes — you only need to take me as your master!”

When the soldiers moved to stop him, the man shouted back: “You dare be disrespectful! I am a divine emissary from Heaven, here to guide your Prince Ning. If he refuses to see me, Heaven itself will be wrathful!”

The soldiers said Prince Ning was not here and told him to go home. The man shot back: “You think you can fool me! I can pinch my fingers and divine Prince Ning’s whereabouts. You people know nothing of celestial arts.”

The soldiers exchanged glances, thinking: you can divine with your fingers all you like — you still pinched wrong.

Others had come and knelt at the gate and refused to move, declaring they would serve Prince Ning through ten thousand deaths. Some arrived with cool arrogance, standing at the gate and demanding in lordly tones that Prince Ning come out to meet them.

And then there was one man who declared he possessed talents to span heaven and earth, and that if Prince Ning refused to see him, Prince Ning would suffer misfortune for three years.

The earlier lunatics had simply been driven off, but the “three years of misfortune” man was actually escorted into the yamen — where he was handed over to the Tingwei forces. Zhang Tang had three of his teeth pulled.

When Zhang Tang told him — one tooth per year — the man secretly considered himself lucky that he’d said three years rather than thirty, or he’d have had no teeth left. But the man left clutching his mouth, and before he’d gone far, a horse-drawn cart ran him over and sent him sprawling. The driver rushed him to a physician’s hall in a panic; two men carried him inside, but one stumbled, and the man was thrown, with impeccable timing, into a doorstep that knocked out yet another tooth.

At the physician’s hall they treated him and kept him for observation. The next day he went to the privy and somehow slipped, toppling headfirst into the cesspit — fortunate to be found in time, or he would have had quite the full meal.

When a person rises to a certain height of power and influence, all manner of peculiar people come circling around.

How else would the Heavenly Fate King Yang Xuanji have accumulated five thousand retainers? Of those five thousand, if half had genuine talent, that was generous.

Li Chi had once said that if those people knew how stingy he was, they probably would have defected before even setting foot through the door. Yu Jiuling said that this just goes to show how truly rare his own loyalty was — one in ten thousand. Li Chi said: what if I cancelled your special allowance? Yu Jiuling said: I’d be reaching for my blade…

—

After the Gate Master left the yamen gates, he walked without any hurry. His mind kept returning to the middle-aged man who had come out just now.

That man was not imposing — if anything, he was refined and courteous, like a learned scholar. Yet the Gate Master had seen it with a single glance: that man was formidable.

Still, not as formidable as himself.

Because when Master Ye had descended the steps, his heel had not come fully down — only the ball of his foot touched the ground, so that he could launch into motion at any moment.

Others hadn’t noticed. But the Gate Master caught it immediately.

He found an inn not far from the prefectural yamen and rented a room, specifically requesting one that faced the street.

From the second-floor window he had a clear view of the yamen’s main gate. If Li Chi returned, he would see it.

—

Several days later.

Li Chi returned to Yuzhou City with his column. The moment he entered the city, he began making arrangements — organizing everything for Luo Jing’s eastern campaign.

First he went to the treasury, to check the stored silver and grain. Then to the Yuzhou camp, to assess the available troops.

By the time he returned home, the sky had gone completely dark — and he had not gone near the prefectural yamen at all.

Yu Jiuling had been running around with Li Chi all day and was eager to get home. He bid Li Chi farewell and hurried off at a trot. His wife was with child, and Yu Jiuling found himself with one more thing to worry about these days.

Walking along the main street, he suddenly felt something cold on the tip of his nose. He looked up and found it had begun to rain again.

Yu Jiuling had always found it oddly strange — why did rain always manage to land a drop right on the tip of his nose?

If it wasn’t deliberate, how could it be so accurate every time? And if it were deliberate, even aim wasn’t this precise.

He lowered his head and quickened his pace. He thought: had he known it was going to rain, he would have had someone send him in a carriage.

Just then, Yu Jiuling’s sharp instincts told him something was off. As he had jogged past the mouth of an alley a moment ago, he thought he had heard something unusual.

Rain falling on the road made one sound. Rain on a rooftop made another. Rain on a straw hat or a bamboo rain cape — yet another.

But an ordinary person — how could they have such finely tuned awareness?

Yu Jiuling ran on, but up ahead swiftly ducked to the side of a building, then floated lightly up onto the roof.

His movement arts were nothing remarkable in terms of technique — but in terms of pure practicality, few could match him.

Lying flat on the roof, he eased his head out and looked down. Sure enough, in the alley below, he could see several figures wrapped in rain capes standing in the shadows.

These people had a furtive look about them. Yu Jiuling decided to keep watching to find out what they were up to.

Yuzhou City these days was not as settled as Jizhou City. And the threats to Prince Ning could not possibly be confined to the open battlefield.

Even Emperor Yang Jing of Dachu had faced repeated assassination attempts. Now that Li Chi had become a dominant power in his own right, such threats would naturally fall on him as well.

The vast majority of assassination attempts were snuffed out by the Tingwei forces before they ever took shape.

Even in Jizhou, which now appeared stable and at peace, there was no telling how many people were quietly harboring plans to kill Prince Ning.

Those who hated Prince Ning throughout the realm were legion.

Because Prince Ning had cut into their profits. Had uprooted their foundations.

Jizhou had them. And then there were those from Yan Province, from Qing Province, from Yu Province itself, and from Yang Xuanji’s side on top of all that…

In truth, when it came to assassination attempts on Prince Ning, the Tingwei forces handled at least one case per month on average.

“What are you watching?”

At that moment, a voice spoke up right beside Yu Jiuling.

Yu Jiuling’s scalp nearly flew off his head.

He had been able to detect, in a flash of running past a dark alley, something off in the sound of the rain. Yet he had not sensed someone approaching to within less than half a zhang of him.

Whoever had spoken was close enough that if they had meant to kill him, Yu Jiuling would already be dead.

He snapped upright. “Who are you?! What are you plotting?!”

The person who had spoken stood there looking at Yu Jiuling. After a moment, they asked: “Are you an official of the Yu Province government?”

Yu Jiuling nodded. “I am. You had better answer me right now — who are you, and what are you here for?”

At that moment, Yu Jiuling became aware that behind him a tall, lean figure had appeared, cutting off his retreat, while on the other side a short, stocky figure had taken up position and cut off his path to the front.

But Yu Jiuling was not particularly worried. He had never been a man distinguished by his fighting ability.

“You have some nerve — plotting trouble right here under Prince Ning’s rule.”

Yu Jiuling sized up the three of them, and slowly slid his hand toward the back of his waist. “The three of you — all at once, or one at a time?”

The one facing him seemed to take no notice, as if he considered Yu Jiuling beneath his attention.

Yu Jiuling lunged forward. “Come at me then!”

The moment he moved, the two figures behind and to the side moved simultaneously.

Yu Jiuling had been waiting for exactly that. In the instant those two shifted position, Yu Jiuling feinted and leaped clear.

In mid-air, Yu Jiuling glanced back — and found that the one who had spoken first still had not moved.

*These people are absolutely suspicious,* Yu Jiuling thought. *I can’t go home just yet. I need to go to the Tingwei forces and get backup.*

Still airborne, turning these thoughts over in his mind, his body suddenly went rigid — and he lost all control.

The tall figure and the short one had both simultaneously given a tug. A rope-like thing snapped taut in mid-air, and suddenly there it was, coiling around Yu Jiuling and cinching him tight.

The rope snared his waist. Before he could react, both men broke into a sprint in the same direction, and Yu Jiuling was yanked off his feet and sent flying.

Yu Jiuling had never encountered anyone who fought this way. His mind raced for some means of escape — but what he had not anticipated was the sheer speed of those two men.

For the first time, Yu Jiuling encountered people whose speed was a match for his own. Two of them!

Dragged and pulled through the air, he couldn’t even think of breaking free — so much as a moment’s slower reaction and he would have been slammed into a rooftop, a wall…

Yu Jiuling’s reflexes were that fast. The two men seemed equally taken aback.

Any other opponent they had ever handled would have been dashed into something and killed long before now.

“Strangle him!”

One of them shouted.

In perfect unison the two men came to a dead stop. This sent Yu Jiuling hurtling forward with tremendous force. If he had been flying one way and the rope suddenly stopped, not only would he slam into something — with a rope around his waist and the momentum carrying him forward, the sudden jerk would be enough to snap his spine, rupture his organs.

But in the instant he was sent flying, Yu Jiuling had already drawn the dagger Li Chi had given him and sliced through the rope. Using the force of the throw to carry himself forward, he shot through the air and landed on the opposite rooftop.

That move genuinely shook those two men.

Yu Jiuling looked back: “The audacity of you people — you actually tried to kill Yu Jiuling your grandfather!”

*Bang.* His body came to a sudden stop.

The man who had not moved this entire time — somehow, inexplicably, had appeared ahead of him.

He seized Yu Jiuling by the back of the neck. Yu Jiuling lost all his strength in an instant — he couldn’t even struggle.

—