Three days later, the newly formed Qingfeng Army fought its first battle since its founding at Dinghai Stronghold.

After more than a hundred years of division, Pingshan Stronghold and Dinghai Stronghold were united once more, and Li Wu’s Qingfeng Army grew even stronger — its ranks swelling to well over ten thousand.

Though more than two thousand of those were the elderly, infirm, or otherwise unfit for combat, the sheer mass of humanity was still enough to strike fear into anyone who laid eyes on it.

On the very night of the merger between Pingshan Stronghold and Dinghai Stronghold, the chieftain of Pingshan Stronghold fell gravely ill and passed away without recovering.

San Hu knelt at the bedside — some weeping, some wailing — though only those involved knew how much of it was genuine.

Taking advantage of the mourning period, Li Wu spent several days rooting out the troublemakers and dissenters hidden within the ranks.

Once the seven-day mourning rites concluded and the former chieftain was seen off, Li Wu led his vast force of ten thousand men down the mountain.

Wherever the Qingfeng Army marched, roving bandits and thieves scrambled out of the way without hesitation.

Within the borders of Yingzhou, who hadn’t heard of the bandit king who had dismantled two century-old strongholds one after another?

Word had it that Er’hu of Pingshan Stronghold had been stripped so clean that even his gold-threaded undergarments had been sold off. They had no such reserves — best not to go flaunting themselves before the man called the “Flaying Duck.” With no gold-threaded undergarments to offer, wouldn’t they have to pay with their own lives?

Their fellow outlaws were wise enough to stay out of the way, and so the Qingfeng Army’s march toward Xuzhou was smooth and uneventful. The soldiers feasted and caroused every night, and Shen Zhuxi, surrounded by it all, sometimes had to wonder whether they were heading to war or on a pleasure outing.

Once the army crossed out of Yingzhou, the atmosphere shifted sharply. Li Wu banned all drinking and revelry within the camp. Li Que and Xiao Hu were assigned as military inspectors, frequently conducting surprise night checks to ensure the sentries were faithfully carrying out their duties.

Li Wu may have been casual and undisciplined in everyday life, but after he personally executed two night watchmen at the main camp gate for dereliction of duty and deliberate slacking, the vigilance of the entire Qingfeng Army visibly sharpened.

By the time the wheat along the roadside had turned from green to gold, Shen Zhuxi had finished reading the entirety of the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance aloud, and the Qingfeng Army, after its long march, had finally entered the borderlands between Bozhou and Xuzhou.

The moment they crossed out of Bozhou, the Qingfeng Army was set upon by a band of displaced soldiers bearing no identifying insignia.

Even a proper military force had been shattered and absorbed by Li Wu — a rabble of routed soldiers who had already fled once stood no chance at all. In less than half a day, Li Wu had brought the engagement to a close.

Shen Zhuxi, who had taken to heart the principle that staying out of trouble was the same as rendering service, huddled inside the carriage throughout — and only pushed open the carriage door to step out once the cleanup began and everyone was happily scavenging the spoils.

After asking around nearby, she found Li Wu a hundred paces away.

Li Wu appeared uninjured, but his expression was unusual. Li Que and the others stood at his side, watching a defeated commander kneeling on the ground, trembling as he spoke.

Shen Zhuxi caught a whiff that something had changed, and quickened her pace toward Li Wu.

“The General’s wife!” someone called out upon spotting Shen Zhuxi, hastily stepping aside to bow.

Shen Zhuxi had not yet grown accustomed to that form of address, and nodded back with a faint flush on her cheeks.

Li Wu extended his hand and drew her to his side.

“What happened?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“Tell her yourself.” Li Wu fixed the man on the ground with a dark, weighted stare.

Shen Zhuxi followed his gaze to the kneeling soldier. The man flinched and looked away, his eyes full of panic and shame.

Only then did Shen Zhuxi realize with a start — this was the stout armored soldier she had crossed paths with back at the garrison in Pengcheng County!

“Weren’t you part of the Xuzhou Army? How did you end up with the rogue forces?” Shen Zhuxi exclaimed.

A long silence followed.

The stout soldier kept a wary eye on Li Wu’s expression.

“Now you know to be afraid?!” Li Wu delivered a kick to the man. “You recognized me, and you still dared to raid my army’s column — quite the nerve you had. What happened to all that boldness?”

“I — I didn’t see the centurion among them…” the stout soldier said miserably, on the verge of tears. “If I’d known you were with this force, why would I have come here looking to die?”

“I’m not a centurion anymore!” Li Wu snapped impatiently. “Explain yourself — how did the Xuzhou Army end up as a band of rogue refugees? Out with it!”

“It’s — it’s…” The stout soldier, his courage already shattered by the battle, began speaking rapidly, the words tumbling out like beans from an upturned barrel. “Ten days ago, a Liao army force that had been routed by the Fu Family Army fled here from Yanzhou. They launched a night raid while Xuzhou’s defenses were thin… We were short-handed, but we held on for several days, because everyone believed the Wuying Army would arrive to reinforce us soon… But then… to everyone’s shock, the Wuying Army that was supposed to arrive at any moment never appeared…”

“And then…” The stout soldier’s face crumpled in grief. “Xuzhou fell. I and some of the surviving soldiers escaped. We had planned to go north to Beidou and join the Wuying Army, but we had no money and no food, and the men had to eat — so we… somehow, we ended up in this line of work.”

“What became of the people of Xuzhou and the Prefect of Xuzhou?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“From what those who escaped later told us…” the stout soldier said, hesitating, “the general leading the Liao army broke into the prefect’s compound, dragged Prefect Wang — who had been bedridden with a stroke — out to the main gate, and beheaded him in full view of the gathered townspeople. And as if that weren’t enough, he left the body draped over the stone lion statues to bake in the sun for several days… The family members inside the compound — they likely fared no better.”

Once a city fell, its civilian inhabitants were invariably the ones who suffered most.

Burning, killing, looting, and violation — these played out in every place. Women were prized second only to gold and jewels as spoils of war.

Shen Zhuxi knew that reality better than anyone. The moment she let herself think of it, the image would rise unbidden: the imperial palace lit by flames, the Noble Consort Shu — clothing in disarray, eyes unable to close in peace.

A silent testament to what became of the staghorn ferns that had grown in the shelter of a great tree, when that tree was felled.

Shen Zhuxi’s face was ashen, and beside her, Li Wu — who had traveled all this way to Xuzhou seeking vengeance — looked no better.

“That old Prefect Wang — he couldn’t have died a little earlier or a little later, but the moment I show up, he goes and dies on me —” Li Wu looked deeply aggrieved. “I went to all the trouble of handpicking an old crone to take him as a second wife, and he has the gall to die first!”

“This man truly had no appreciation for what he was being given. What a waste of Elder Brother’s kind intentions.” Li Que chimed in with a shake of his head, looking genuinely regretful.

That had been a female bandit he’d spent ages turning the stronghold upside down to find — one who had bad breath and smelly feet, who looked like a female version of Li Kun, tall and imposing, with a powerful appetite at night. In her youth, more than a few handsome young men in and around the stronghold had suffered at her hands. She would have been perfect for tormenting — or rather, keeping company with — the stroke-bedridden Wang Wenzhong.

What a shame that Wang Wenzhong had been lucky enough to die before she could be delivered to his bridal chamber.

Having one’s corpse left to the elements after death was nothing. Being forced to live when life was worse than death — that was true suffering.

“That Liao army force you mentioned — where exactly were they scattered?” Li Wu asked.

Shen Zhuxi wasn’t sure why he was asking, and the stout soldier couldn’t read his intent either, hesitating before answering: “Somewhere around Bozhou, I think?”

“You’re lying to me?” Li Wu’s brow furrowed. “If the battle happened in Bozhou, how did routed soldiers end up attacking Xuzhou?”

“I’m not lying!” the stout soldier protested, looking put-upon. “How would I dare lie to you! The battle really did happen in Bozhou — that’s exactly why we weren’t that alarmed at first. Bozhou to Xuzhou is a long way — if they were going to attack anyone, they’d have struck Jizhou or Qizhou first. Who would have guessed — they came all that way just to attack Xuzhou!”

“Who was the opposing commander they fought?”

“The Fu Family Army — naturally, it was the foremost gentleman under heaven, Fu Xuanmiao himself.”

Shen Zhuxi had half expected as much, and hearing that Fu Xuanmiao had personally led the army himself came as no great surprise to her. Li Wu, however, pressed his brows down at that and glared at the stout soldier with fierce eyes: “…Are you tired of living?”

The stout soldier stared at him in bewilderment, unable to figure out what he had said wrong.

“Elder Brother, calm your anger — if he had any eyes in his head, he wouldn’t be kneeling here right now.” Li Que spoke up. “I believe that no matter what others may say, in Sister-in-law’s eyes, Elder Brother alone is the true foremost man under heaven.”

Shen Zhuxi found herself suddenly thrust into the center of this conversation — and into such an uncomfortable position, at that. She froze, fumbling for words, but Li Wu was staring at her, plainly waiting for a response. Not wanting to endure his inevitable crowing afterward, she took the path of least resistance and, conscience aside, gave a small nod.

Oh, Mother Consort in heaven — she was not being entirely honest with herself.

Shen Zhuxi felt deeply uneasy: was she and Li Que behaving this way going to make Li Wu even more insufferably arrogant — to the point where he actually believed himself to be the foremost man under heaven, unmatched by any?

“Get out of here! If I ever catch you doing this sort of thieving and pilfering again, I’ll twist your mangy head clean off —” Li Wu said to the stout soldier, his temper none the better for any of this.

…Someone who didn’t know better, seeing this, might actually think Li Wu was a man of great righteousness and principle.

Xiao Hu, watching from the fringes of the crowd with his arms folded, looked from the shameless Li Wu to the effortlessly flattering Li Que, and couldn’t for the life of him figure out which one of them had picked up the other’s habit of saying things with a straight face.

The stout soldier stayed on his knees, his lips parting and closing several times, wearing an expression of someone with words caught in his throat.

“Spit it out!” Li Wu said.

“There — there is one more thing…” the stout soldier said, faltering. “Just yesterday… I heard that the rogue army occupying Xuzhou, after plundering all the city’s wealth, moved off in the direction of Xiangzhou…”

“What does them going to Xiangzhou have to do with me —”

Li Wu abruptly caught himself. The color drained from Shen Zhuxi’s face as well.

Prefect Wang had known Li Wu’s background, and the colleagues in Xuzhou all knew he was from Yutou County in Jinzhou — which was precisely why the stout soldier had thought to mention it.

Because no matter which road one took from Xuzhou to Xiangzhou, the route inevitably passed through Yutou Town in Jinzhou.

Yutou Town could very well be the next place to fall.

“To horse! Move out for Jinzhou immediately!” Li Wu made his decision without hesitation, and before the newly joined men — San Hu and the others — could voice any objections, a rapid string of orders was issued. “The vanguard rides with me at forced march pace. The rear guard continues to protect the main column and follow behind. Where’s San Hu?”

“Right here!” Er’hu — holding his folding fan — jumped out from the front of the watching crowd.

“I’m here.” Da Hu’s voice came from somewhere in the crowd.

Xiao Hu raised an arm from the corner, signaling his presence.

Li Wu’s expression darkened as he looked at the three of them, each standing in a completely different spot:

“Lead the main column and rear guard forward and continue the advance. We’ll meet again at Yutou County.”

The main column contained not only the elderly, infirm, and women and children from both strongholds, but also the accumulated plunder of a century — all manner of valuables that Pingshan Stronghold and Dinghai Stronghold had seized over the years. For ordinary people, it was an enormous temptation, let alone for San Hu, who were not only the original owners of those valuables but were bandits by trade, strangers to anything resembling noble character.

Li Wu’s decision shocked everyone present.

Never having expected that such an immense responsibility would fall on their shoulders — and so soon after pledging their allegiance — the three brothers exchanged a glance. Da Hu was the first to cup his hands in salute: “General, perhaps you could take one of us three brothers with you, and leave one behind to escort the main column — that way…”

“Once you’ve paid the entry fee, you’re my brother. It’s the same whether I keep any one of you or swap any of you out.”

Li Que couldn’t help speaking up: “Elder Brother…”

And not only Li Que — even the longer-serving men like Niuwang showed expressions of undisguised disapproval.

Shen Zhuxi was someone who found it easy to trust people, yet if she searched her own heart, she knew she could not bring herself to be as bold as Li Wu.

“I’ve decided.”

Li Wu cut Li Que off. On that face — always so idle and unserious — a rare flash of pride surfaced.

He looked at San Hu, his calm and steady gaze sweeping slowly across all three faces:

“If I dare to use you, I dare to trust you —”

Everyone understood the principle of “never employ those you doubt, never doubt those you employ.”

But how many people could truly live by it?

After a long moment of silence, San Hu clasped their hands together in salute and spoke as one:

“We will not fail you —”