Mei Garden, the Tingwei Mansion.
Li Chi sat looking at the young shop assistant before him and said nothing, as though he was trying to understand why a person as steady and calm as this man had suddenly become so reckless.
When something behaves abnormally, there is always a reason. The person in front of him was a creature of cunning, and cunning people doing cunning things was normal — a cunning person suddenly turning foolish was decidedly not.
Li Chi did not ask. Liu Yanggong did not speak. The two of them sat facing each other in complete silence.
After a long while, it was Liu Yanggong who cracked first. He smiled and asked: “Is Prince Ning weighing whether to interrogate me or not?”
Li Chi pulled his chair forward, leaned in, and asked: “Did you truly spend every night in Xingchen Lou being that… indulgent?”
This question left Liu Yanggong momentarily stunned.
He had never anticipated that Prince Ning’s first question would be this one.
He had already thought it through — what Prince Ning would be most curious about would likely be his true identity, whether he was truly the shop assistant Liu Yanggong or Young Master Yu, and perhaps also how he had managed it: being Young Master Yu in Xingchen Lou while simultaneously being a shop assistant at Yunbao Zhai.
Before Liu Yanggong could answer, Li Chi followed immediately with a second question: “Do you have some kind of medicine?”
Liu Yanggong: “……”
After a long pause, Liu Yanggong sighed: “I thought Prince Ning would ask how I managed the double identity.”
Li Chi said: “That isn’t particularly difficult. Triple identity, quadruple identity — none of that is particularly difficult. What’s difficult is spending every single night being indulgent. If you’re going to tell me it’s natural talent, don’t bother answering. But if there’s a medicine involved, you could share the formula with me — I could make some money off it.”
Liu Yanggong stared at Li Chi with wide eyes. Li Chi’s words had not only overturned Liu Yanggong’s understanding of Prince Ning — they had overturned his entire worldview.
The double identity had not truly been difficult to maintain. Working as a shop assistant at Yunbao Zhai during the day and as Young Master Yu at Xingchen Lou at night — there was no contradiction.
It only required establishing a rule from the beginning, or letting people develop a habit. In the early days, when anyone came to the door during the day, he had shouted abuse at them.
After a few times, everyone knew he almost never slept at night, sleeping through the entire day instead, and so no one came to disturb him.
As for whether he was truly in that private courtyard or not — the people of Xingchen Lou would simply assume he was there, out of sheer habit of mind.
With his lightness technique, coming and going from Xingchen Lou at night was no difficulty at all — after all, before Xingchen Lou came under any scrutiny, there had been no exceptional fighters stationed there.
Li Chi said: “In this world there are a few kinds of money that are comparatively easy to make. One is women’s cosmetics, powders, and clothing — another is medicine. The medicine trade is something of a windfall business.”
“But extracting money from men through medicine is actually not so easy. There are only one or two angles that actually work.”
“No man is willing to admit he’s not quite up to the mark — but if there’s a way to be better, why not spend a little to find out? And if it doesn’t work, at worst nothing changes — but what if it does? And what if someone already good becomes even better?”
Liu Yanggong let out a slow breath: “In his prime, Prince Ning — if it had been during the height of Great Chu’s power — would have made a successful merchant as well.”
Li Chi said: “I already am one.”
Li Chi sat up straight and suddenly smiled: “What I just said, at the very least, made you lower your guard. And for a moment, you couldn’t help but think — what if he really does have the formula, what if he really does tell me, could that be traded for my life?”
Liu Yanggong was silent. He had, indeed, thought exactly that for a brief moment.
Li Chi said: “So — do you?”
Liu Yanggong shook his head: “No.”
Li Chi sighed with a touch of regret, and rose: “Then I won’t waste any more of my time here.”
Li Chi had come in person precisely to ask this one question.
The question was a delicate one. Had Li Chi told Zhang Tang to go ask this man whether he had any medicine, Zhang Tang’s reaction alone would have been something to see.
People who understood Li Chi would think he was probably trying to make money off it. People who didn’t understand Li Chi would wonder if Prince Ning was perhaps… not quite up to the mark.
And wanting to make money and not being quite up to the mark were not, after all, mutually exclusive — which made it awkward, you see.
Liu Yanggong couldn’t help asking: “Prince Ning, you are already Prince Ning. Why would you still…”
Before he could finish, Li Chi cut him off. “Why do I bother making money? As long as I can make money without harming anyone, do you know how many people I can save?”
Liu Yanggong was struck silent.
Li Chi smiled and said: “Making money is not beneath anyone’s dignity — no matter what position one holds. As long as it’s like me — making money for the sake of the people — then it’s fine.”
Liu Yanggong said after a brief pause: “Isn’t it also to win?”
Li Chi nodded: “What else?”
He turned and left.
Liu Yanggong sat there and fell once more into silence. Li Chi’s words had shaken him somewhat — but not to the point of making him submit then and there. That was the sort of thing that happened only in shallow storybooks: a protagonist delivers a few high-minded words, and the enemy falls to their knees in conversion, thereafter loyal unto death.
—
The Tingwei Mansion, the Chief Tingwei’s study.
Li Chi entered and saw Gao Xining cooking noodles. He couldn’t help smiling: “You timed my return exactly, did you?”
Gao Xining said openly: “No, I was hungry and making some noodles for myself.”
Li Chi glanced at the noodles going into the pot: “That’s enough noodles for ten of you. And you say you’re not making them for me?”
Gao Xining sighed, and gestured to one side. The Divine Eagle — that magnificent creature — was lying on the ground half-asleep, making small grumbling sounds.
Gao Xining said: “Awkward, isn’t it? I was thinking — if the noodles come out well, I’ll eat some and give the rest to the Eagle. And if they come out badly, they all go to the Eagle.”
Li Chi: “You don’t need to explain in that much detail.”
Gao Xining said with great seriousness: “I was worried that without a detailed explanation, you’d end up snatching food from the Eagle.”
Li Chi sighed: “Just you watch — I’ll eat some in a moment and we’ll see.”
Gao Xining: “So you really are going to steal from the Eagle.”
The Divine Eagle seemed to have had enough of silence. It stood up and let out several cries at Li Chi — as if to say: can you not act like a person? Stealing food from a pig? Do you have any self-respect?
Li Chi looked at that thoroughly ugly creature, and at the Eagle’s expression of refusal, and understood at last what “ugly rejection” truly looked like.
With ordinary rejection, it was: I’m sorry, you’re too unattractive for me. With the Eagle, it was: I’m this ugly, and I can still reject you — shouldn’t you reflect on yourself?
“Don’t you find this strange,” Gao Xining said, picking up the dossier that had just been delivered to the table. “Our people dug up the floor inside the courtyard at Xingchen Lou and found a large quantity of gold and silver — no less than five hundred thousand taels.”
That was strange indeed.
Li Chi nodded: “Unless he wanted to die. Unless he wanted everything to be found by us. Otherwise there was no reason at all for him to return to Xingchen Lou in the guise of Young Master Yu.”
Gao Xining sat down: “Since we don’t know why he did something foolish, let’s not try to figure out why he did something foolish. Think about it from a different angle.”
Li Chi asked: “What angle?”
Gao Xining asked: “You’re a man — so think: what would a man do something foolish for?”
Li Chi said: “To get you.”
Gao Xining pursed her lips: “Say something harder.”
Li Chi said: “That’s not hard enough already?”
Gao Xining said: “Getting me is far easier for you than settling things with those three old ones.”
Li Chi: “……”
Gao Xining said: “A shrewd man who suddenly acts foolishly — as you said, either he wants to die, or he has something to gain. One: money and power. Two: family and loved ones. Three: a woman?”
Li Chi said: “If it were money and power, there was no need to throw his life away. He has no family or loved ones in Yuzhou City.”
Gao Xining: “Then it was a woman.”
Li Chi: “He’s a eunuch.”
Gao Xining: “What the — I completely forgot.”
Li Chi: “Have some restraint.”
Gao Xining chuckled: “I forgot, all right?”
Li Chi: “I’d prefer the other phrase.”
Gao Xining thought for a moment and then said: “Can a eunuch not have a woman he loves? Besides — you said it yourself — the people we think of as villains are villains from our perspective. From the villain’s own perspective, they naturally see themselves as normal people.”
She looked at Li Chi: “So they too have loyalty, convictions, people they love and care for, and things they feel compelled to protect.”
Li Chi said: “So your meaning is that the only reason he did all this was to protect someone — yet if it were that easy to guess, would that not make him seem rather naive? He’s a man the Cao family couldn’t unearth. He wouldn’t be that naive.”
Gao Xining: “Unless he was confident we would never find the person he wanted to protect.”
—
Meanwhile, in the interrogation room.
The person now sitting across from Liu Yanggong was Zhang Tang.
“I have no desire to make trouble for myself.”
Liu Yanggong smiled: “I know you are Zhang Tang. I also know you have ten thousand ways to make a person suffer. Fortunately, I have no intention of making you use them.”
He was remarkably composed.
“My official identity is Senior Officer of the Inspector’s Office — I should properly be called Yu Yue. I am the adopted son of the Seal-holding Eunuch Yuenzetze. However, my original name is Liu Yanggong — the name I had before I took Yuenzetze as my adoptive father.”
Zhang Tang nodded: “Continue.”
Liu Yanggong said: “I had grown tired of the game. So I decided to use my own life to saddle Prince Ning with a foul reputation — burning Han Huamei and the others to death in Yunbao Zhai. Prince Ning would not have been able to explain it away, and those scholars would not have believed a word spoken by those in power.”
Zhang Tang’s eyes flickered slightly, as though that remark had touched something in him.
Liu Yanggong said: “You understand as well — scholars all believe themselves clever. The common people, who have no comprehension of life, accept things at face value. The sages have seen through everything. And scholars have understood just enough of life to be dangerous — half-knowing is the most treacherous of all.”
Zhang Tang said nothing.
Liu Yanggong continued: “Questioning anything said by those in power is the reflex of a scholar who believes himself clever. They won’t question a common person who says dung smells foul. But if someone in authority says dung smells foul, they may not dare say it openly, yet in their hearts they’ll think — you say it’s foul, but have you tasted it? And even if you have tasted the dung of Central Plains people, have you tasted foreign dung? You haven’t. So your words have no basis.”
“Han Huamei and the others burned to death in Yunbao Zhai — you go and tell the scholars throughout the city that it was the Inspector’s Office that burned them. Will they believe it? They won’t. They’ll say Prince Ning wanted to plunder the treasures inside Yunbao Zhai. All it takes is someone to nudge public opinion slightly — rest assured, my people are already doing exactly that. A pity Han Huamei and the others weren’t actually burned to death.”
Zhang Tang still said nothing, but nodded.
Liu Yanggong said: “All right — next question.”
Zhang Tang said: “Why did you do all this?”
Liu Yanggong started: “Didn’t I just explain at such length?”
Zhang Tang said: “You explained. But I don’t believe it.”
Liu Yanggong was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled: “What does it matter whether you believe it? Go ahead and use torture if you like.”
Zhang Tang looked at him, and after perhaps four or five counts of silence asked one more question: “You know they call me a devil on the outside. Do you know why?”
Liu Yanggong: “Ruthless and cruel.”
Zhang Tang said: “Ruthlessness and cruelty are merely methods. A devil doesn’t act with ruthlessness and cruelty without purpose. Let me tell you: the reason they call me ruthless and cruel is that I am very intelligent.”
He reached out and pinched something — a small residue — from Liu Yanggong’s body, held it up, and examined it in the light. “What pastries do you like to eat?”
Liu Yanggong’s heart gave a violent jolt.
Zhang Tang said: “It doesn’t matter if you won’t say. How many places in Yuzhou City sell pastries, after all?”
Chapter 918: Young Master Yu
Li Chi and Xiahou Yili hurried back to the inn. Li Chi’s curiosity about the seal had been thoroughly ignited by Han Huamei’s words.
When Han Huamei had said that Songming Xiansheng was not human, there had been no exaggeration in his expression whatsoever — on the contrary, it was clear he believed it completely.
And in that moment, Li Chi had immediately thought of Li Xiansheng, and an idea inevitably surfaced in his mind.
Xiahou Yili, seeing how urgent he seemed, couldn’t help asking: “Do you actually believe there are gods and spirits in this world?”
Li Chi shook his head: “No.”
Xiahou Yili: “But your expression looked like you believed it.”
Li Chi said: “I don’t believe Songming Xiansheng isn’t human — but I believe that humans are not all the same.”
Xiahou Yili didn’t quite follow.
Back at the inn, Li Chi immediately retrieved the real seal. He had not carried it on his person precisely because he feared that if Yunbao Zhai turned out to be a den of wolves and some mishap occurred, it would be lost.
Moreover, when he had walked the rivers and lakes in his youth, his master Changmei Daoren had drilled into him: in all matters, not the slightest room for wishful thinking.
Master had said: suppose you sell someone a fake, but you still have the real one on you — even if there’s only one chance in a hundred thousand that the real one falls out, wouldn’t that be just a little awkward?
Li Chi took out the seal, sat down, and began to examine it carefully.
The seal was very small. Even if it could open to reveal a stone case, that case would be no bigger than a thumb at most — what could possibly be hidden inside something that small?
Li Chi thought it over and decided it was worth trying. Faced with the choice between satisfying curiosity and prudently preserving a seal worth several hundred thousand taels, Li Chi chose to satisfy his curiosity. After all, he was a spendthrift by nature — and he had some confidence in his own abilities.
He produced his tools and prepared to take the seal apart.
Xiahou Yili watched him reach back with one hand and produce items from seemingly nowhere, and instinctively looked behind Li Chi to see where they were coming from. How on earth did he conjure things like that?
Then she looked again and saw that Li Chi had also, at some unknown moment, produced a great many candles, which he had arranged densely across the table and lit.
Xiahou Yili’s eyes went wide. In that moment, Li Chi looked more like the supernatural entity.
Only under sufficiently bright light did Li Chi begin to work. First he used a small pair of tweezers to scrape through every engraved groove and crevice on the seal, then he wiped it carefully clean with cloth.
Some time later, Li Chi pressed gently on the top of the seal and applied a little force…
Click — sure enough, a mechanism engaged.
Li Chi’s eyes brightened. He increased the pressure slightly, and with another click — the seal did indeed spring something open. The seal also broke apart.
Li Chi was stunned. Xiahou Yili was stunned.
This was a seal worth at least five hundred thousand taels. Had it truly been taken to Han Huamei, Han Huamei would really have bought it.
Li Chi stared at the broken seal, and for a moment his chest ached — extraordinarily so. Even the side without a heart ached. Both sides ached.
Inside the seal there was only one tiny object, no bigger than the tip of a little finger, with a pin on the back. Turned over, there were characters on it.
Li Chi examined it carefully, and grew even more bewildered.
XX Agricultural University.
What was this?
What great secret could this thing represent?
Li Chi sat there in a daze, as though his soul had left his body — not because this object appeared to be of little monetary value, but because the seal was broken.
After a long while, Li Chi let out a slow, long breath…
To think I would throw money aside just out of curiosity. I’ve really gotten carried away.
Xiahou Yili also sat in a stupor for quite some time before turning away. Li Chi noticed the movement and instinctively asked: “Where are you going?”
Xiahou Yili said: “I’m going to boil some paste — see if we can stick it back together…”
Li Chi smiled bitterly: “How could paste possibly hold it together… You’ll make yourself look a bit pastey in the head, is what you’ll do.”
—
After midnight, in the small pastry shop.
Auntie Mei — Liu Gumei — sat at the table mending clothes. Her life was not particularly comfortable; she was always patching garments rather than throwing them away.
She seemed to have grown accustomed to this kind of life, having long forgotten the fine silks and rich food of her days in Daxing City.
The late emperor had once said: all under heaven may despise Liu Chongxin, yet I cannot despise him.
Liu Gumei was the same. All under heaven may have hated Liu Chongxin to their core — yet in her heart there was only gratitude.
Who could have imagined that a man like Liu Chongxin would have been moved to compassion by an abandoned infant?
That year, Liu Chongxin had led his retinue out of Daxing City for a hunt and outing when one of his mastiffs retrieved this infant in its mouth.
The child was completely unharmed — hadn’t even been frightened into crying — and simply lay there looking at everything with wide, curious eyes. Her survival against such odds struck Liu Chongxin in some way he could not explain, and he was moved to mercy.
He ordered that the child be taken home and properly cared for, that she not be mistreated — and then promptly forgot about the matter entirely.
He forgot about it for ten years. And that is exactly how absurd it was.
Ten years later, when the eunuch Wen Qiuteng had risen to become a trusted confidant of Liu Chongxin’s side, he finally brought up the matter of Liu Gumei.
Ten years before, Wen Qiuteng had been only a minor eunuch — it had been he who had brought that child before Liu Chongxin.
When Liu Chongxin had said to take care of the child and not let her want for anything, Wen Qiuteng had taken those words to heart. He had arranged for someone to raise her, ensured she had the best of everything, and arranged for her to be taught.
Yet Liu Chongxin had forgotten not only the child, but Wen Qiuteng himself — for at that time Wen Qiuteng had truly been a person of no consequence whatsoever.
He had forgotten, but Wen Qiuteng dared not be remiss. In order to please Liu Chongxin, Wen Qiuteng had continuously had the child told: it was Chief Liu Chongxin who saved your life. Everything you have now was given to you by the Chief.
And so the child had grown up holding that truth in her heart: Liu Chongxin was her benefactor.
The ten-year-old Liu Gumei was brought before Liu Chongxin, who thought to himself that this was perhaps Heaven’s will — Heaven had sent him such a clever and spirited child.
And so Liu Chongxin gave the personal order that she be properly cultivated.
That alone took another ten years.
When Liu Chongxin sent Liu Gumei to Yuzhou, he told her: wait for my word. Secure the Prince Wu’s Consort and the son of Prince Wu.
Prince Wu’s Consort had long been living in the Cao household. Prince Wu’s only son was the same. Should there ever be a need to control Prince Wu, these two were the only way — they were Prince Wu’s sole vulnerabilities.
Yet Liu Chongxin’s orders never came. Tang Pidi had led the Ning Army to Yuzhou City.
And Tang Pidi had ordered the Ning Army to escort Prince Wu’s Consort back to Jingzhou.
With that, Liu Gumei’s mission lost its target entirely.
—
The lamplight in the room was dim and yellowish. After Liu Gumei finished mending her clothes, she looked toward the doorway — Liu Yanggong had been standing there for some time now, not daring to interrupt.
“How have you arranged things?”
Liu Gumei asked.
Liu Yanggong said: “I have already directed Prince Ning’s people toward Young Master Yu.”
Liu Gumei’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly, but she quickly composed herself again.
Liu Gumei was silent for a long moment, then said: “Then be careful.”
Liu Yanggong made a sound of acknowledgment, and seemed almost overwhelmed with gratitude at this small gesture of concern. His eyes were full of her — but her gaze remained ever cold.
Liu Yanggong said: “Once something happens to Young Master Yu, Prince Ning’s people will simultaneously move on Yunbao Zhai. When that happens, you can slip out of the city safely. This time we go our separate ways — I take my route, you take yours. It may be difficult to meet again afterward, so I wanted to look at you a little longer.”
Liu Gumei made a sound of acknowledgment again, seeming as before unwilling to say much more to him.
Liu Yanggong stood in the doorway in a daze for a moment, then smiled: “You look so beautiful.”
Liu Gumei’s shoulders trembled very slightly. She still said nothing.
Liu Yanggong turned: “I’ll go make arrangements.”
This time Liu Gumei did not even make a sound — she simply gave a small nod, and Liu Yanggong turned and left.
Liu Gumei sat there for a long time in silence, then lowered her head and looked at the clothes she had been mending — those clothes that were not, in truth, old clothes at all. They were a new garment.
And yet the clothes remained in her hands, needle and thread still in place.
—
Xingchen Lou.
Senior Officer Zaoyunjian looked at the empty little courtyard, his expression not particularly pleasant.
The Tingwei officers had already searched the courtyard inside and out without finding anything of note. They had indeed found some silver, but nothing that could be called great wealth. A rough calculation put everything in the courtyard at perhaps thirty to forty thousand taels in total.
Had they found several tens of thousands of taels anywhere else, it would certainly have been cause for celebration. But found in the home of a target of this magnitude, it was hardly worth celebrating.
“Where’s the person?”
Zaoyunjian looked at the proprietor of Xingchen Lou: “Didn’t you say he never left?”
The proprietor was equally baffled. After returning from Cao Lie’s side, he had added more men to watch discreetly — and it was true that he had genuinely never seen Young Master Yu go out.
And yet the place was now empty. There was no explanation except that his men were truly incompetent.
This left him feeling ashamed. He wanted to explain, but didn’t know how.
Yu Hongyi pulled Zaoyunjian aside and signaled with her eyes not to be too harsh — after all, this was Cao Lie’s territory, and these were Cao Lie’s people.
Zaoyunjian exhaled heavily: “They say he practically never comes out during the day and sees no one — but at night he opens his door and lets the women in. Tonight there’s no one here, yet we were the ones who opened the door.”
He glanced back. In the distance, several young women were watching curiously.
He said with a rueful smile: “The one thing that turned out to be accurate — the women really did show up.”
The proprietor of Xingchen Lou said: “I truly spoke no falsehood. Today I genuinely never saw him leave. Last night the women came as usual, and he drank for a while before driving them out in the small hours.”
Zaoyunjian said: “I’m not blaming you. I just feel that something isn’t right about this.”
Yu Hongyi said: “It seems the person has already fled. That day when the shop assistant from Yunbao Zhai came, it was to give him advance warning — not to consult him about anything.”
Zaoyunjian made a sound of agreement — that was the only reasonable explanation now.
“Let’s pull back.”
Yu Hongyi said: “There probably isn’t much to show for this. At least there’s a little silver to bring back.”
The proprietor of Xingchen Lou thought to himself: a little silver? You call tens of thousands of taels a little?
How big-hearted are Prince Ning’s people — every one of them like the young Marquis, tens of thousands of taels barely worth a glance.
Just as the Tingwei Army was preparing to pull out, a young man in a purple brocade robe suddenly appeared at the entrance.
He arrived at the doorway like a phantom — the Tingwei officers posted outside had not noticed him at all.
This alone testified that this person’s lightness technique was at the very least extraordinarily powerful.
Purple robes were not something just anyone could wear. They were a symbol of rank and status — only officials of the third rank and above in the Great Chu court were permitted to wear purple.
This young man stood at the doorway with a dark expression and looked at the Tingwei officers: “You thieves — why have you broken into my home?”
Zaoyunjian almost laughed. Yu Hongyi almost laughed as well.
Yet before long, they discovered that this was not so funny after all.
—
# Chapter 919: Men
“How dare any of you be so insolent in my presence?”
Young Master Yu said this with a dark expression on his face.
“It is only that the times have changed. The authority of Great Chu has crumbled from within. Had I still been in Daxing City a few years ago, you would not be worthy of carrying my shoes.”
The purple robe on his body was his last attachment.
A man like Young Master Yu had been, just a few years ago, one of those at the very pinnacle of power in Great Chu.
His adoptive father was the Grand Eunuch Yuenzetze, the man second in influence only to Liu Chongxin — even common people knew that Liu Chongxin had been the true ruler of Great Chu in those days.
The emperor never left the palace. All affairs were put to the Chief.
Military authority and governmental power were largely in Liu Chongxin’s hands. Not just officials of the third rank and below — even first and second rank officials had to kneel and bow before Liu Chongxin.
A single Bailiff of the Inspector’s Office leading his men down the street was enough to make a fourth-rank general hurriedly dismount and salute.
A single Flag Officer of the Inspector’s Office could, on his own authority, have a county magistrate beheaded in the local area — and could even arrest and charge every person in the entire county yamen.
When people in the streets caught sight of an Inspector’s Office banner, they either hid immediately or dropped to their knees at the roadside.
Wherever the Inspector’s Office went, pandemonium followed — people’s hearts trembling with fear.
As the most favored adopted son of Yuenzetze, this Young Master Yu had once served as a Senior Officer of the Inspector’s Office — and the Inspector’s Office’s Senior Officer was the sole special exception in all of Great Chu, a position of the fourth rank that was nevertheless permitted to wear purple.
Zaoyunjian was so irritated by Young Master Yu’s words that he almost burst out laughing. Looking at that expressionless face, he smiled and said: “Since you yourself know that is all in the past, what pride remains?”
Young Master Yu slowly exhaled: “Those who show disrespect to the Inspector’s Office — kill them.”
Then he stepped forward.
There were hundreds of Tingwei Army soldiers here, plus two Senior Officers, and he showed not the faintest trace of fear.
At this moment, Zaoyunjian and Yu Hongyi had yet to register the wrongness of the situation.
A man who had hidden away for so long, suddenly emerging of his own accord — and doing so this brazenly — was plainly wrong.
But at this moment both Zaoyunjian and Yu Hongyi had only one thought: subdue him as quickly as possible.
Zaoyunjian drew his long blade and swept a slash toward Young Master Yu’s chest.
Young Master Yu’s body arched backward — his waist bent to an inconceivable degree, his body not toppling over yet leaning back until it was nearly parallel to the ground.
Had he bent both knees deeply, the difficulty would not have been so great — ordinary dancers could manage something like that. What made it remarkable was that his legs were barely bent at all.
Having dodged the slash, Young Master Yu flipped a short blade into his hand and cut toward Zaoyunjian’s abdomen.
Zaoyunjian rotated his body and evaded the cut, then stepped back in and brought his long blade down in an arc toward Young Master Yu’s back.
Young Master Yu dropped low — his head nearly touching the ground — and raised his foot behind him, landing a precise kick on Zaoyunjian’s wrist.
He was as though he had eyes in the back of his head, anticipating Zaoyunjian’s moves with uncanny accuracy.
Zaoyunjian’s wrist was kicked and he could barely hold his blade; his arm was thrown upward.
According to Little Zhang Zhenren’s reckoning, if high-level fighters were to be ranked, the Senior Officers of the Tingwei Army were at bare minimum second-tier fighters.
Zaoyunjian, Yu Hongyi, Fang Xidao, and Shang Qingzhu were all very young, with enormous room to grow — already at the upper reaches of the second tier, with every likelihood of ascending to the first tier in time.
But this world was vast. Among Great Chu’s hundreds of millions of subjects, how many hidden masters were there who never revealed themselves?
This world held so many temptations — and the shortcut to fulfilling those temptations was wealth and power.
And so the Inspector’s Office had gathered an enormous concentration of high-level fighters, far surpassing the Tingwei Army.
As long as one could hold even a minor position in the Inspector’s Office, life ascended to an entirely different level — with the common masses beneath one’s feet.
Those who had made their names in the martial world were therefore especially eager to join the Inspector’s Office. Those who could not join would rack their brains trying to demonstrate their loyalty to the Inspector’s Office, in exchange for the Inspector’s Office issuing them a patronage warrant.
Sects that held such a warrant rose considerably in status.
Young Master Yu was himself one of the most exceptional figures in the Inspector’s Office. Of the eighteen adopted sons that Yuenzetze had taken in, not one had risen by looks alone — those without ability were eventually weeded out.
As the strongest among the eighteen, Young Master Yu’s capabilities naturally commanded respect — and so he had every right to his arrogance.
Zaoyunjian’s wrist was kicked wide, his body rocking backward, and with such a glaring opening before him, how could Young Master Yu let it pass?
His body already pressed extremely low, he braced a palm on the ground and launched himself backward, his feet landing two rapid consecutive kicks to Zaoyunjian’s chest.
Zaoyunjian reacted with lightning speed — taking the first two kicks, he brought his left arm up to block further hits to his chest, while his right hand brought his blade slashing toward Young Master Yu’s lower back.
Young Master Yu had already anticipated the move, borrowing the momentum of the kick to roll forward.
Yu Hongyi stepped forward. Zaoyunjian waved her back: “Stay out of it!”
Youth and pride — who among the young didn’t have that?
Yu Hongyi raised her hand in signal, and the surrounding Tingwei soldiers immediately lowered the repeating crossbows they had already drawn to aim.
The Tingwei Army’s repeating crossbows were far superior to the standard-issue crossbows of Great Chu’s garrison troops.
Using blueprints provided by Li Xiansheng, Li Chi had improved upon Great Chu’s garrison crossbow design — giving the Ning Army’s repeating crossbows a faster rate of fire and a simpler mechanism for reloading and changing bolts.
Li Xiansheng’s universal genius was on full display in this as well.
Stung by the series of exchanges in which Young Master Yu had held the upper hand, Zaoyunjian’s fighting spirit rose. His long blade swept out in a wide arc showering silver light, pressing toward Young Master Yu once more.
Young Master Yu still wore that ghostly expression — his pallid complexion lending him an unsettling, almost sinister air.
As the long blade swept in, Young Master Yu spun in a full circle, flicking his short blade toward Zaoyunjian’s wrist.
Zaoyunjian abruptly released his grip and withdrew the hand — the short blade cut through empty air. In that instant, Zaoyunjian’s hand shot out and seized Young Master Yu’s wrist, while he kicked at the blade’s handle, sending the long blade spinning back to slice toward Young Master Yu’s arm.
Young Master Yu’s brow furrowed — finally some expression registered on his face.
He raised his knee sideways, using it to knock the long blade aside, then swung the knee back to drive into Zaoyunjian’s abdomen.
Zaoyunjian’s left hand pressed down, catching Young Master Yu’s knee, while his foot shot out in a side kick aimed straight at Young Master Yu’s midsection.
Young Master Yu twisted his wrist and wrenched free of Zaoyunjian’s grip; his short blade jabbed into Zaoyunjian’s thigh.
Zaoyunjian’s expression changed. His right leg was still mid-air — but his left foot also leapt off the ground, using a jumping kick to send Young Master Yu tumbling backward.
That move, Young Master Yu had not been able to predict.
Zaoyunjian ripped the short blade from his own thigh and drove it toward Young Master Yu’s chest. Young Master Yu touched a foot down and glided backward.
“Someone like you wouldn’t make Senior Officer in the Inspector’s Office.”
Young Master Yu had returned to that expressionless state — and it was precisely that expressionlessness that constituted the deepest contempt.
Zaoyunjian was a proud young man. How could he endure such contempt?
And so he drove forward, ignoring the blade wound in his leg to press close again, meeting Young Master Yu’s short blade with attacks of his own — slash after slash, fast as lightning.
Young Master Yu used his left hand to deflect continuously, each time striking Zaoyunjian’s wrist with precise accuracy.
Waiting for the right moment, his right hand suddenly seized Zaoyunjian’s collar, his foot swept Zaoyunjian’s leg, and with a one-armed throw he hurled Zaoyunjian into the air.
In midair, Zaoyunjian forced his body to twist, slashing a blade across Young Master Yu’s shoulder — cutting a deep gash that opened at once.
Young Master Yu glanced sideways at the wound on his shoulder. For the first time, what appeared to be a flicker of anger crossed his face.
Yu Hongyi called out: “He’s deliberately stalling for time — take him down quickly.”
Zaoyunjian made a sound of agreement, braced a hand on the ground, and swept both legs in a wide low arc at Young Master Yu’s lower body.
Young Master Yu gave a cold sound: “You only understand this now?”
He leapt upward, sweeping toward the courtyard wall. Yu Hongyi launched herself into the air and intercepted with a slash.
Just then, someone came running in from outside: “Yunbao Zhai is on fire!”
Young Master Yu struck Yu Hongyi’s blade away with his palm, using the recoil force to pivot and jump toward the outside of the courtyard wall.
But just then a flash of white swept past.
Two sleeves unfurled in midair, striking Young Master Yu full in the chest with a thunderous impact. Young Master Yu went flying like a kite with a cut string, his back slamming into the wall — and the wall itself burst open with the impact.
Young Master Yu’s expression did not change — but his eyes filled with fear.
When that white-robed figure had appeared, there had been no way to block, no way to dodge, and so he knew who had come.
He struggled up and squeezed through the hole in the wall, stumbling and staggering forward.
But he had not gone far before he saw, arrayed across the street in the darkness, the Tingwei Army black cavalry — like soldiers of the underworld.
Black leather armor, black cloaks, black warhorses — emanating in the darkness an aura that was suffocating.
Young Master Yu turned and bolted in another direction. He had barely gone a few steps before the air beside him suddenly erupted like a blast wave, and countless fragments of brick and rubble came pelting down upon him, sending him flying sideways.
A breath earlier, Ye Xiansheng had stood on the inside of the courtyard wall. Seeming to sense Young Master Yu’s position, he had simply pressed one hand against the wall.
The force released — and the wall collapsed, bricks flying in all directions.
Young Master Yu was pelted to the ground. The blow to his chest just moments before now made itself fully felt, the pain in his chest becoming unbearable — he could not hold it back, and a mouthful of blood sprayed from his lips.
Meanwhile.
Li Chi’s men had already surged into Yunbao Zhai — with a speed that left Yunbao Zhai’s people with no time to react at all.
How could they have known that several days ago, the surrounding residences around Yunbao Zhai had already been quietly filled with large numbers of Tingwei Army soldiers?
The fire had barely started before the Tingwei Army extinguished it in a manner that left onlookers gaping.
Each man came rushing in with a bag of soil. When they reached the burning structure, they each heaved their bag — and the burning building was, through sheer force, smothered.
It was clear the Tingwei Army had long since anticipated that Yunbao Zhai would be set on fire.
Li Chi pushed the door open. In that room with one corner already burned away, he found Han Huamei and the others, bound and tied.
These literary luminaries had every one of them gone pale with fear — terrified and helpless.
Had the Tingwei Army not managed to extinguish the fire in time, someone might have spread the story that Prince Ning had burned Han Dajia and the others to death in Yunbao Zhai.
The Inspector’s Office never left any loose ends. Human lives were, to its people, entirely worthless.
Whether Han Dajia or a common commoner — all were equally insignificant blades of grass.
When Han Huamei, trembling, looked up and saw Li Chi walk through the door in that moment, he could not help but burst into tears with a great sob.
—
Xingchen Lou.
Ye Xiansheng stepped forward, looked for a moment at Young Master Yu’s face, then reached out and grasped — pulling away a mask of human skin.
Beneath the mask, the face was still deathly pale. He was gravely wounded, yet showed not the faintest trace of fear. In his eyes, in fact, there was a faint, quiet satisfaction.
Liu Yanggong.
—
# Chapter 920: The Most Terrifying Thing About a Devil Is His Intelligence
Mei Garden, the Tingwei Mansion.
Li Chi sat looking at the young shop assistant before him and said nothing, as though he was trying to understand why a person as steady and calm as this man had suddenly become so reckless.
When something behaves abnormally, there is always a reason. The person in front of him was a creature of cunning, and cunning people doing cunning things was normal — a cunning person suddenly turning foolish was decidedly not.
Li Chi did not ask. Liu Yanggong did not speak. The two of them sat facing each other in complete silence.
After a long while, it was Liu Yanggong who cracked first. He smiled and asked: “Is Prince Ning weighing whether to interrogate me or not?”
Li Chi pulled his chair forward, leaned in, and asked: “Did you truly spend every night in Xingchen Lou being that… indulgent?”
This question left Liu Yanggong momentarily stunned.
He had never anticipated that Prince Ning’s first question would be this one.
He had already thought it through — what Prince Ning would be most curious about would likely be his true identity, whether he was truly the shop assistant Liu Yanggong or Young Master Yu, and perhaps also how he had managed it: being Young Master Yu in Xingchen Lou while simultaneously being a shop assistant at Yunbao Zhai.
Before Liu Yanggong could answer, Li Chi followed immediately with a second question: “Do you have some kind of medicine?”
Liu Yanggong: “……”
After a long pause, Liu Yanggong sighed: “I thought Prince Ning would ask how I managed the double identity.”
Li Chi said: “That isn’t particularly difficult. Triple identity, quadruple identity — none of that is particularly difficult. What’s difficult is spending every single night being indulgent. If you’re going to tell me it’s natural talent, don’t bother answering. But if there’s a medicine involved, you could share the formula with me — I could make some money off it.”
Liu Yanggong stared at Li Chi with wide eyes. Li Chi’s words had not only overturned Liu Yanggong’s understanding of Prince Ning — they had overturned his entire worldview.
The double identity had not truly been difficult to maintain. Working as a shop assistant at Yunbao Zhai during the day and as Young Master Yu at Xingchen Lou at night — there was no contradiction.
It only required establishing a rule from the beginning, or letting people develop a habit. In the early days, when anyone came to the door during the day, he had shouted abuse at them.
After a few times, everyone knew he almost never slept at night, sleeping through the entire day instead, and so no one came to disturb him.
As for whether he was truly in that private courtyard or not — the people of Xingchen Lou would simply assume he was there, out of sheer habit of mind.
With his lightness technique, coming and going from Xingchen Lou at night was no difficulty at all — after all, before Xingchen Lou came under any scrutiny, there had been no exceptional fighters stationed there.
Li Chi said: “In this world there are a few kinds of money that are comparatively easy to make. One is women’s cosmetics, powders, and clothing — another is medicine. The medicine trade is something of a windfall business.”
“But extracting money from men through medicine is actually not so easy. There are only one or two angles that actually work.”
“No man is willing to admit he’s not quite up to the mark — but if there’s a way to be better, why not spend a little to find out? And if it doesn’t work, at worst nothing changes — but what if it does? And what if someone already good becomes even better?”
Liu Yanggong let out a slow breath: “In his prime, Prince Ning — if it had been during the height of Great Chu’s power — would have made a successful merchant as well.”
Li Chi said: “I already am one.”
Li Chi sat up straight and suddenly smiled: “What I just said, at the very least, made you lower your guard. And for a moment, you couldn’t help but think — what if he really does have the formula, what if he really does tell me, could that be traded for my life?”
Liu Yanggong was silent. He had, indeed, thought exactly that for a brief moment.
Li Chi said: “So — do you?”
Liu Yanggong shook his head: “No.”
Li Chi sighed with a touch of regret, and rose: “Then I won’t waste any more of my time here.”
Li Chi had come in person precisely to ask this one question.
The question was a delicate one. Had Li Chi told Zhang Tang to go ask this man whether he had any medicine, Zhang Tang’s reaction alone would have been something to see.
People who understood Li Chi would think he was probably trying to make money off it. People who didn’t understand Li Chi would wonder if Prince Ning was perhaps… not quite up to the mark.
And wanting to make money and not being quite up to the mark were not, after all, mutually exclusive — which made it awkward, you see.
Liu Yanggong couldn’t help asking: “Prince Ning, you are already Prince Ning. Why would you still…”
Before he could finish, Li Chi cut him off. “Why do I bother making money? As long as I can make money without harming anyone, do you know how many people I can save?”
Liu Yanggong was struck silent.
Li Chi smiled and said: “Making money is not beneath anyone’s dignity — no matter what position one holds. As long as it’s like me — making money for the sake of the people — then it’s fine.”
Liu Yanggong said after a brief pause: “Isn’t it also to win?”
Li Chi nodded: “What else?”
He turned and left.
Liu Yanggong sat there and fell once more into silence. Li Chi’s words had shaken him somewhat — but not to the point of making him submit then and there. That was the sort of thing that happened only in shallow storybooks: a protagonist delivers a few high-minded words, and the enemy falls to their knees in conversion, thereafter loyal unto death.
—
The Tingwei Mansion, the Chief Tingwei’s study.
Li Chi entered and saw Gao Xining cooking noodles. He couldn’t help smiling: “You timed my return exactly, did you?”
Gao Xining said openly: “No, I was hungry and making some noodles for myself.”
Li Chi glanced at the noodles going into the pot: “That’s enough noodles for ten of you. And you say you’re not making them for me?”
Gao Xining sighed, and gestured to one side. The Divine Eagle — that magnificent creature — was lying on the ground half-asleep, making small grumbling sounds.
Gao Xining said: “Awkward, isn’t it? I was thinking — if the noodles come out well, I’ll eat some and give the rest to the Eagle. And if they come out badly, they all go to the Eagle.”
Li Chi: “You don’t need to explain in that much detail.”
Gao Xining said with great seriousness: “I was worried that without a detailed explanation, you’d end up snatching food from the Eagle.”
Li Chi sighed: “Just you watch — I’ll eat some in a moment and we’ll see.”
Gao Xining: “So you really are going to steal from the Eagle.”
The Divine Eagle seemed to have had enough of silence. It stood up and let out several cries at Li Chi — as if to say: can you not act like a person? Stealing food from a pig? Do you have any self-respect?
Li Chi looked at that thoroughly ugly creature, and at the Eagle’s expression of refusal, and understood at last what “ugly rejection” truly looked like.
With ordinary rejection, it was: I’m sorry, you’re too unattractive for me. With the Eagle, it was: I’m this ugly, and I can still reject you — shouldn’t you reflect on yourself?
“Don’t you find this strange,” Gao Xining said, picking up the dossier that had just been delivered to the table. “Our people dug up the floor inside the courtyard at Xingchen Lou and found a large quantity of gold and silver — no less than five hundred thousand taels.”
That was strange indeed.
Li Chi nodded: “Unless he wanted to die. Unless he wanted everything to be found by us. Otherwise there was no reason at all for him to return to Xingchen Lou in the guise of Young Master Yu.”
Gao Xining sat down: “Since we don’t know why he did something foolish, let’s not try to figure out why he did something foolish. Think about it from a different angle.”
Li Chi asked: “What angle?”
Gao Xining asked: “You’re a man — so think: what would a man do something foolish for?”
Li Chi said: “To get you.”
Gao Xining pursed her lips: “Say something harder.”
Li Chi said: “That’s not hard enough already?”
Gao Xining said: “Getting me is far easier for you than settling things with those three old ones.”
Li Chi: “……”
Gao Xining said: “A shrewd man who suddenly acts foolishly — as you said, either he wants to die, or he has something to gain. One: money and power. Two: family and loved ones. Three: a woman?”
Li Chi said: “If it were money and power, there was no need to throw his life away. He has no family or loved ones in Yuzhou City.”
Gao Xining: “Then it was a woman.”
Li Chi: “He’s a eunuch.”
Gao Xining: “What the — I completely forgot.”
Li Chi: “Have some restraint.”
Gao Xining chuckled: “I forgot, all right?”
Li Chi: “I’d prefer the other phrase.”
Gao Xining thought for a moment and then said: “Can a eunuch not have a woman he loves? Besides — you said it yourself — the people we think of as villains are villains from our perspective. From the villain’s own perspective, they naturally see themselves as normal people.”
She looked at Li Chi: “So they too have loyalty, convictions, people they love and care for, and things they feel compelled to protect.”
Li Chi said: “So your meaning is that the only reason he did all this was to protect someone — yet if it were that easy to guess, would that not make him seem rather naive? He’s a man the Cao family couldn’t unearth. He wouldn’t be that naive.”
Gao Xining: “Unless he was confident we would never find the person he wanted to protect.”
—
Meanwhile, in the interrogation room.
The person now sitting across from Liu Yanggong was Zhang Tang.
“I have no desire to make trouble for myself.”
Liu Yanggong smiled: “I know you are Zhang Tang. I also know you have ten thousand ways to make a person suffer. Fortunately, I have no intention of making you use them.”
He was remarkably composed.
“My official identity is Senior Officer of the Inspector’s Office — I should properly be called Yu Yue. I am the adopted son of the Seal-holding Eunuch Yuenzetze. However, my original name is Liu Yanggong — the name I had before I took Yuenzetze as my adoptive father.”
Zhang Tang nodded: “Continue.”
Liu Yanggong said: “I had grown tired of the game. So I decided to use my own life to saddle Prince Ning with a foul reputation — burning Han Huamei and the others to death in Yunbao Zhai. Prince Ning would not have been able to explain it away, and those scholars would not have believed a word spoken by those in power.”
Zhang Tang’s eyes flickered slightly, as though that remark had touched something in him.
Liu Yanggong said: “You understand as well — scholars all believe themselves clever. The common people, who have no comprehension of life, accept things at face value. The sages have seen through everything. And scholars have understood just enough of life to be dangerous — half-knowing is the most treacherous of all.”
Zhang Tang said nothing.
Liu Yanggong continued: “Questioning anything said by those in power is the reflex of a scholar who believes himself clever. They won’t question a common person who says dung smells foul. But if someone in authority says dung smells foul, they may not dare say it openly, yet in their hearts they’ll think — you say it’s foul, but have you tasted it? And even if you have tasted the dung of Central Plains people, have you tasted foreign dung? You haven’t. So your words have no basis.”
“Han Huamei and the others burned to death in Yunbao Zhai — you go and tell the scholars throughout the city that it was the Inspector’s Office that burned them. Will they believe it? They won’t. They’ll say Prince Ning wanted to plunder the treasures inside Yunbao Zhai. All it takes is someone to nudge public opinion slightly — rest assured, my people are already doing exactly that. A pity Han Huamei and the others weren’t actually burned to death.”
Zhang Tang still said nothing, but nodded.
Liu Yanggong said: “All right — next question.”
Zhang Tang said: “Why did you do all this?”
Liu Yanggong started: “Didn’t I just explain at such length?”
Zhang Tang said: “You explained. But I don’t believe it.”
Liu Yanggong was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled: “What does it matter whether you believe it? Go ahead and use torture if you like.”
Zhang Tang looked at him, and after perhaps four or five counts of silence asked one more question: “You know they call me a devil on the outside. Do you know why?”
Liu Yanggong: “Ruthless and cruel.”
Zhang Tang said: “Ruthlessness and cruelty are merely methods. A devil doesn’t act with ruthlessness and cruelty without purpose. Let me tell you: the reason they call me ruthless and cruel is that I am very intelligent.”
He reached out and pinched something — a small residue — from Liu Yanggong’s body, held it up, and examined it in the light. “What pastries do you like to eat?”
Liu Yanggong’s heart gave a violent jolt.
Zhang Tang said: “It doesn’t matter if you won’t say. How many places in Yuzhou City sell pastries, after all?”