Xiahou Zuo had never once asked Li Diudiu how many people he had killed, nor how it felt to kill.

Xiahou Zuo knew that for Li Diudiu, being asked such a question even once was being hurt once — however composed and undisturbed he appeared on the surface.

And he was only twelve years old. A few days shy of it.

Xiahou Zuo had no patience for that kind of question that passes itself off as concern. He had seen too many examples of it. Last year, for instance, a heavy snowfall in Jizhou City had collapsed quite a few old and decrepit homes, and one family had everyone except their child crushed to death inside. Lian Gongming — that noble parent-official of Jizhou City — had, for reasons known only to himself, gone to offer condolences. Perhaps he had wanted to show the common people his caring and sympathetic side.

Like a kind and gentle elder, he had crouched before the child and asked: “Your mother and father are dead — are you sad?”

When Xiahou Zuo heard about this afterward, he thought that if he had been that child, he would have picked up a brick and smashed it across Lian Gongming’s face — actually, no. Across the mouth.

Li Diudiu was only pretending to be unaffected. No amount of pretending could change the fact that for someone his age, an event this bloody would take a very long time before he could truly settle. Not just at his age — the grown men of Dachu’s garrison troops who took up a blade and killed someone for the first time on the battlefield, which of them didn’t shake afterward with fear?

So all the way along the road, even though they were moving in a hurry, Xiahou Zuo kept finding light-hearted topics to talk about with Li Diudiu, and Li Diudiu would laugh until he swayed back and forth.

Yet Xiahou Zuo could see it — he wanted to comfort Li Diudiu, and Li Diudiu was playing along with him. And wasn’t that playing-along itself a way of comforting him in return?

The better Li Diudiu played along, the more a gentle ache grew in Xiahou Zuo’s chest.

Li Chi — how early he had learned to be this way.

He had been this sensible since the age of four or five.

For no particular reason, Li Diudiu suddenly asked Xiahou Zuo a question that left him momentarily bewildered.

“I didn’t lay a hand on Wang Heita myself — will the Azure-Robed Order hold me accountable for anything? What I mean is — will I be penalized?”

Xiahou Zuo thought it over for quite a while before responding with a smile: “Don’t worry — no fines.”

Li Diudiu nodded with evident satisfaction: “That’s good then.”

Xiahou Zuo made a sound of disdain: “Small ambitions.”

Li Diudiu replied: “Very grand ones, actually.”

Ye Zhangzhu had been observing the two of them throughout. Beside them, Xiahou Zuo was mature in a way that didn’t match his seventeen or eighteen years at all — he seemed more like a man with countless years of life experience behind him.

Yet when Xiahou Zuo was with Li Diudiu, it was as though his intelligence were suddenly dragged down to somewhere around age seven.

Six years too many, short by a little over one.

At first Ye Zhangzhu didn’t understand it. Then he realized — it was fine. It was fine, actually. In fact, it was very good indeed.

And so eventually Ye Zhangzhu started joining in as well, and the three of them talked about all manner of far-flung and fantastical topics along the road, laughing uproariously like three cheerful fools.

Xiahou Zuo had already mentioned it to Ye Zhangzhu several times — after he left Jizhou City the following year, he hoped Ye Zhangzhu would keep a watchful eye on Li Chi from the shadows. Ye Zhangzhu had once asked Xiahou Zuo why he valued this young man so highly.

Xiahou Zuo had thought carefully for a good while before answering with a smile… Li Chi? He’s like me.

He had looked into Ye Zhangzhu’s eyes and said earnestly: “He’s headstrong. He refuses to bow. He looks like someone obedient who goes along with things — but he was born a rebel. He will not take anything lying down. He doesn’t submit to what comes at him — he pushes back.”

“But he’s not the same as me. What kind of background did I come from? By the time I could barely walk, I already knew there was almost no one in Jizhou City who could touch me. I was throwing my weight around while I still smelled of milk — I was a tyrant before I was even weaned. But him? He’s like me, and because of that every step is a struggle against the current.”

He finished saying all of this and let out a long breath, then was quiet for a long time before saying: “If one day the world grinds off all of Li Chi’s edges and makes him smooth — how sad that would be.”

Ye Zhangzhu had thought of himself in that moment. Had he not also been someone whose edges were ground smooth by the world far too early?

Two days later they reached Laihu County. Traveling with several dozen warhorses was a somewhat ostentatious sight, but the weight of Prince Yu’s estate tablet was more than enough — at every checkpoint along the way, the garrison soldiers would eye those warhorses with covetous longing, yet one look at that tablet was enough to push their greed back down into the depths.

These horses were nothing exceptional in terms of breed, but Dachu was desperately short of horses — good horses especially — which was why the famous Youzhou Iron Cavalry, said to be the sharpest force in the realm, had never managed to sustain a force of more than five thousand riders.

A man like Luo Geng — give him five thousand good horses and five thousand heavy cavalry, and he wouldn’t give the Black Wu border troops a second glance. Give him fifty thousand heavy armored horsemen, and he’d dare to drive straight into the Black Wu capital of Red City.

After arriving in Laihu County, Li Diudiu and Xiahou Zuo went to find Wang Heita’s family, while Ye Zhangzhu led the several dozen warhorses to the garrison camp of Dachu’s local troops. Prince Yu’s estate tablet still carried weight — going to a garrison camp in broad daylight to sell horses raised no eyebrows at all.

In a small village of modest population, Li Diudiu and Xiahou Zuo asked around and found Wang Heita’s family. When the woman appeared — not particularly beautiful, already somewhat worn beyond her years — holding the hands of two children, one older and one younger, Li Diudiu saw only two words written on her.

Hardship.

“Heita…”

Tears appeared in the woman’s eyes. She looked at the silver in her hands, and the rest of her words wouldn’t come.

“Don’t let your imagination run away with you, sister-in-law.”

Xiahou Zuo managed a smile, unclasped the tablet of Prince Yu’s estate from his belt, and held it out for her to look at: “Do you recognize this?”

The woman smiled with a touch of bitterness and shook her head: “I don’t — country folk, not much learning.”

Xiahou Zuo said: “This is a tablet from Prince Yu’s estate. Big Brother Heita was recognized by our Prince more than a year ago, his crimes were pardoned, and he was brought directly into the army. It just so happened — by quite a coincidence…”

Xiahou Zuo felt his own lies turning on him; he paused, forced another smile, and pressed on: “General Luo Geng of Youzhou came to visit the Prince’s estate, took one look at Big Brother Heita, and decided on the spot that he had the makings of a fine commander. He claimed Big Brother Heita without asking anyone’s leave, and Heita is now serving on the northern frontier. He’s actually…”

Li Diudiu quickly added: “Yes — you should see how impressive he looks in armor.”

The woman’s eyes brightened. There were still tears in them, but those tears now looked like stars in a night sky — shining with joy and relief all at once.

“Big Brother Heita has always been good to us — we’re close friends of his, just too young to follow him north. He left all of this in our hands.”

Xiahou Zuo smiled: “Now, sister-in-law — please don’t spread word of this. These banknotes are money Big Brother Heita had put away before. None of us who were close to him know, except for a few. He went north under military orders — he himself wanted so badly to come back and see you, but there was nothing to be done.”

Li Diudiu nodded: “That’s right. Such a big man, like an iron tower — and when he talked about not knowing how many years it might be before he could see you again, he actually cried.”

“Really?”

The brightness in the woman’s eyes grew more brilliant still.

“Heita really said he missed us?”

She asked, urgent and earnest.

“Of course,” Xiahou Zuo said. “He also said — once he’s made it to a fifth-rank general he can come back to bring you with him. Sister-in-law, you probably don’t know, but in our Dachu, once a man reaches fifth rank he’s permitted to bring his family to be with him.”

“That’s wonderful, that’s wonderful.”

The woman smiled and wept at the same time.

“Then I’ll raise these two children well and wait for him. I’ll wait until he comes to bring us home.”

Trembling hands clutching the banknotes, she suddenly seemed to remember something and hurriedly thrust them all back toward Xiahou Zuo.

With some anxiety she said: “He has a proper standing now — who knows how much money he’ll need. You take all these banknotes back and give them to him. He can use them. We three can manage on very little, and even if we run out — I can take on day labor for people, we won’t go hungry.”

“Sister-in-law!”

Li Diudiu had been about to say something to dissuade her, but the words wouldn’t come. He turned his head abruptly and flung the tears from his eyes, then pretended to sneeze, raising his hand to scrub at his face.

When his hand left his face, there was nothing on it but a smile, and nothing else.

Li Diudiu said with complete composure: “Sister-in-law, Big Brother Heita had a feeling you’d say that. What you don’t know is — the frontier army has iron discipline. Money is useless there. And if anyone found out you sent money, they’d charge you with bribery, a grave offense — the kind they behead people for!”

Those last words gave the woman a fright, and she quickly took the money back.

She looked flustered: “I’m just a woman, I don’t know about these things. Please don’t think poorly of me, young masters. I couldn’t do anything to help Heita — the least I can do is not bring him trouble. Alright, I’ll keep the money then…”

Xiahou Zuo thought for a moment, then said: “Sister-in-law, before Big Brother Heita left he said — this amount of silver is enough to buy a proper house in Jizhou City. There’s not even a money-changer’s shop here, so banknotes can’t be exchanged. He wanted you to move to Jizhou City, where our brothers can keep an eye out for you.”

Li Diudiu said: “Exactly. Now that Big Brother Heita has a proper standing, there’s no need to hide away anymore. Just one thing though — once you’re in Jizhou City, don’t tell anyone you’re Wang Heita’s wife. There’s still the matter of his old record — the Prince has given his grace and said it’s pardoned, but you can’t say that to ordinary people. If you did, it would look like we’re undermining the rule of law — so it can’t be mentioned.”

“I understand, I understand.”

The woman nodded repeatedly: “I’ll do everything you say — everything Heita says. But if the Prince said he has no crimes, can we truly not worry?”

Li Diudiu gestured with his hands: “The Prince is this big — of course his word is final.”

Xiahou Zuo made a sound of agreement: “This big — very, very — yes, that big…”

Xiahou Zuo and Li Diudiu looked at each other. In both their eyes was a mingled sense of release, and a mingled sense of heaviness.

“Sister-in-law, go and pack your things. We’ll wait outside.”

Xiahou Zuo said. The woman said yes at once and pulled her two children inside to start packing. One could see clearly that life in this village hadn’t been easy for them.

In this world, a widow with young children and no local roots — it would be strange if the village folk hadn’t found ways to take advantage.

“I can look out for them for one year,” Xiahou Zuo said.

Li Diudiu nodded, then said: “I can look out for them for five years.”

Xiahou Zuo made a sound of assent, then looked at the older of the two boys and murmured to himself: “In five or six years’ time, he’ll be a grown man himself.”

Just then Ye Zhangzhu came riding back, wearing a broad grin — clearly he hadn’t skimped on pocketing a cut.

“How much did you get?” Xiahou Zuo asked.

Ye Zhangzhu lowered his voice: “Twenty-six horses — I skimmed eighty taels per horse from the garrison.”

Li Diudiu moved to take off his shoe. Xiahou Zuo was baffled: “What are you doing?”

Li Diudiu said with excitement: “I’ve run out of fingers — I need to take my shoe off to count how much that is in total.”

In an earlier era when horses were scarce, one decent warhorse would be worth a hundred taels. Inferior ones might go for seventy or eighty. After Dachu was founded and the grasslands were brought under control, horse prices dropped by more than half — a warhorse running around thirty taels during Dachu’s prosperous years. But that was when Dachu was strong. The grasslands had long since stopped answering to the court, no longer heeding the Dachu emperor’s commands. The army was short of horses now; sixty or seventy taels for a warhorse was perfectly normal. Ye Zhangzhu had gotten eighty taels a head because he’d been trading on the status of Prince Yu’s estate.

Could just anyone go selling warhorses without that backing? No matter how many heads they had, it wouldn’t be enough to lose.

Li Diudiu said excitedly: “Three ways — one share each.”

Ye Zhangzhu smiled: “I don’t want any. You two split it between you.”

Xiahou Zuo said: “I was only half-joking on the road. The money’s all yours.”

But Li Diudiu refused. He insisted on three equal shares — even though the horses had been taken by him, without Xiahou Zuo’s and Ye Zhangzhu’s identities to back them, he could never have sold the horses at all.

Eventually, after much back-and-forth, Xiahou Zuo and Ye Zhangzhu each took thirty percent, and Li Diudiu took forty — after a long negotiation that finally persuaded Li Diudiu to accept, since he had been insisting on splitting it into three equal parts.

This one thing alone was enough to tell Ye Zhangzhu: Li Chi was someone worth keeping as a brother for life.

Xiahou Zuo asked with a grin: “Now that you’re a man of means, how about treating us to a proper meal when we get back to Jizhou?”

Li Diudiu said: “What’s the fun in just treating? Let’s bet on it.”

He took out a copper coin: “We’ll let fate decide who pays. I’ll toss this — I’ll call it myself. If I call wrong, I treat. If I call right, you two treat.”

Xiahou Zuo said: “Fine, toss away. But we each call a different side, so you can’t win — do you think even a clever little fox like you has a moment of being foolish?”

Li Diudiu flipped the coin: “Guess whether it’ll shatter when it hits the ground. I say it won’t shatter. If it shatters, I treat; if it doesn’t, you treat.”

Xiahou Zuo: “You’ve got to be kidding me!”