Gu Yanxi understood now. With the sails gone, and the oars and sculls disabled next, the ships were finished.

“What does the Bureau Chief think?”

“General Sun’s soldiers are truly exceptional.”

Sun Qi’s expression remained unhurried. “Nothing more than grueling practice, day after day. Every soldier at the Shouya Pass must drill in the water until they’ve worn through several layers of skin. They have no grand ambitions — if they can fill their stomachs and not lose the strength to swim, that is enough for them. Should the capital delay their grain and pay again in the future, I would ask that my lord put in a word. If even fighting and risking their lives cannot secure them a full meal, why would they go on laying down their lives for it?”

Gu Yanxi felt his face burn with shame. Had his imperial uncle not, just these past few months, found reasons to withhold the Shouya Pass garrison’s grain and pay — forcing General Sun to scramble for provisions on his own? In nearly two hundred years of Daqing’s history, this had never happened before.

He turned and gave a solemn bow, with nothing to say in defense or apology.

Sun Qi had been holding in this grievance for some time, and now that he had vented a measure of it, he reached out to lift Gu Yanxi from the bow and deliberately changed the subject. “A few days ago I received the dried noodles and dried meat that the Sixth Prince sent. The letter only said it was a contribution from First Young Miss, with no explanation of how it came about. Perhaps my lord can enlighten me?”

“A’Zhi lent her people to Sixth Prince — and along with them, unlimited financial support. The silver she has saved over these past two years has likely all been poured into this.”

Sun Qi was not surprised by this answer. Though he had never dealt with the young woman of the Hua Family directly, he had managed to take the measure of her character well enough. She was hard and formidable on the outside, but far too soft where it counted — that was her greatest weakness, and it was exactly the quality he had made use of.

He had read the Emperor’s intentions clearly. Bluntly put, the Emperor was like a man afflicted with red-eye disease — he could not stand to see wealth in anyone else’s hands. Hua Zhi bore the name of the Wealth Goddess; her several ventures all made money hand over fist. If the Emperor was not going to reach into her purse, whose would he reach into? That he had not yet done so openly was already a concession to appearances, nothing more.

And Hua Zhi was far too protective of the Sixth Prince. She was wholly dedicated to paving his road; as long as she knew something would benefit him, she would do it without fail. In itself, this was admirable — but in terms of their bonds of feeling, they had all come to owe her far too much.

At this point, the sails of both ships on the water had been ruined. The men below the surface had surfaced and signaled their success with a gesture. Now several somewhat larger vessels moved out; men aboard them were armed with thick bamboo poles or with ropes fitted with sharp-toothed hooks. Gu Yanxi watched as they fanned out to encircle both ships, cast their hooked ropes around their sterns, while those with the bamboo poles braced them against the same. Then all together they heaved, and the ships began to shift in one direction.

Gu Yanxi allowed the edge of a smile. He saw now what they were doing — once the ships built up momentum they would begin to spin in place, and if the soldiers increased their speed, he wondered how long the people aboard — who had yet to show themselves — could hold on.

“My lord.” Yu Mu came ashore. His gait was still somewhat strange — after days of hard riding, there was not an inch of his inner thighs that wasn’t ruined.

“What is the situation?”

Yu Mu gave a bow to Sun Qi at his side, then reported, “Fortunately Wang Hai brought men to catch up. One ship pulled into a stop along the way and hasn’t moved since — this subordinate has arranged for men to keep watch on it. Another took a tributary partway through; this subordinate found that ship extremely suspicious and had Wang Hai take all the men he’d brought to trail it.”

Gu Yanxi looked at the two ships on the water, both now spinning in circles. “More suspicious than those two?”

“This subordinate believes so.”

Perhaps it was the loss of twenty-seven subordinates still weighing on him, but Gu Yanxi’s first instinct was to calculate how many men Wang Hai had taken — it should be around twenty. Even if that ship truly belonged to the Chaoli tribe, it ought to be a fight they could manage. Still, no further delay could be afforded here.

“I must trouble General Sun to have someone take us aboard.”

Sun Qi signaled the young officer beside him to escort them over, making no mention of joining himself. He was the commanding general — the safety of the entire Shouya Pass rested on him, and he had no right to act as though his own life were expendable.

“Pass the order: Second Company stands down. Archers at the ready. All others give full support to the Seven Lodges Bureau’s operations.”

“Yes, sir.”

A small boat ferried the twenty-odd members of the Seven Lodges Bureau out to the larger vessel. By now the Shouya Pass soldiers had begun pulling in the opposite direction, and in just moments the spinning ships came to a halt.

Long whip in hand, Gu Yanxi cracked it and used the momentum to vault himself aboard. The others followed immediately after, dropping into a defensive formation the instant their feet touched the deck.

“Find them.”

With that order given, Gu Yanxi sprinted toward the bow. Of all positions on a ship, only the helmsman could not afford to abandon his post.

The cabin door was sealed shut. Gu Yanxi drove his sword through it and drew it downward in a clean line, then stepped back — and brought the whip down hard. The cabin door exploded inward.

In the same instant, a throwing knife flew out from within, aimed straight at Gu Yanxi’s face. A second followed right behind it.

Gu Yanxi deflected them both, his mind racing through possibilities. From the intelligence he had gathered, the Chaoli people were ill-suited to the nimble art of throwing knives. This was wrong.

He sent the long whip slithering through the broken door like a serpent — it met no resistance. Using that opening, he stepped inside and then cracked the whip again and again, advancing several steps with each strike, forcing whoever was hiding inside to run out of places to conceal themselves and finally break cover.

Wrong.

These are not Chaoli people.

Gu Yanxi recognized it in an instant. A sweep of the whip knocked the three who rushed him unconscious. He scanned the cabin and left quickly.

On the deck, a number of people were already lying prone. Yu Mu came forward with a guilty expression. “My lord — they are not Chaoli people.”

“Even if they are not Chaoli, they are not innocent. If they were truly blameless, they would not have attacked the moment we came aboard without a single word. Go to the other ship.”

The other ship was not Chaoli either! From their clothing, their appearance, and the way they carried themselves, Gu Yanxi was now confident the two ships were operating together.

Yu Mu ran over and whispered close to his ear: “My lord — the ship’s hold is filled with grain!”

The volume of grain it would take to make a ship ride that low in the water…

The hold was stacked to the rafters. Gu Yanxi slit open one sack — flour. He walked to another side and slit another — unhusked rice, still in the hull, the kind that could be kept for a long time…

“Yu Mu, you stay and interrogate them. These people may be connected to the Chaoli tribe.”

“Yes, sir.”

By now Sun Qi had come aboard as well. At the sight of the white flour, his eyes lit up. Sun Qi — who had been so desperately short of provisions he was nearly sick with it — had the immediate impulse to drag it all back with him.

“General Sun, I need a number of skilled swimmers and your fastest vessels.”

Sun Qi gave the order to his personal guard without a moment’s hesitation. “Is this about the one that took the tributary?”

“In all likelihood.”

“The tributary — does it meet the sea at a harbor roughly thirty li from here?”

Yu Mu estimated mentally and nodded. “Yes.”

Sun Qi’s certainty settled. “That waterway empties into another bay. There is no need to pursue from behind — it would be better to cut them off from the front. I will go with you.”

“That would be ideal.” Gu Yanxi smiled and patted one of the rice sacks. “What brought me here was the chase for silver — and silver is all I intend to bring back.”

Sun Qi grasped his meaning at once and gave a clasped-hands bow of thanks.