The fifth day of the sixth month, the tenth year of the Jinghan era. Shandong, Dulong Ridge. In the midst of war, an ordinary day.

The battle, which had begun on the twenty-eighth of the fifth month, had now entered its eighth day. Zhu Family Manor’s position was like a bowstring stretched to its very limit, entering its final desperate stage. In the Liangshan camp, reports came pouring in one after another; that very morning, Lin Chong and others had led a unit to directly seal off the road in front of Hu Family Manor, even setting up preliminary tents and fortifications, preparing to split the Zhu and Hu manors apart.

Once the two manors were truly cut off from each other, Dulong Ridge’s advantage in its winding terrain would vanish entirely, and both manors would lose all room to maneuver; at that point Liangshan could focus its full strength on a single manor, and the battle would essentially be over. Perhaps sensing this, Zhu Family Manor’s attacks that morning had grown especially fierce, and Liangshan, in turn, kept sending out more units and commanders to shore up their lines.

In truth, had it not been for the twisting, narrow-then-wide roads that turned every engagement into a brawl between mere dozens of men, Liangshan’s advantage would long since have been overwhelming. Casualties on both sides would likely have been far greater than they were now, and the fighting would already have been settled.

“According to what that Li Ying says, if it comes down to a full siege, Hu Family might well surrender.”

Standing at the front of the lines, Xi Junyu watched the outline of Zhu Family Manor in the distance, speaking with the “Heaven-Flying Sage” Li Gun, whom he knew well. Li Gun laughed. “That Hu family killed plenty of our brothers — if they want to surrender now, whether we let them is another matter!”

“Better not to force them into a fight to the death,” Xi Junyu said. “I think the Strategist would agree to accept it if it came to that…” He looked out at the manor. “This whole battle is probably no more than two or three days off now.”

“About right.” Li Gun nodded, then, after a moment, tilted his head with a smile. “Oh, by the way, brother Xi — something strange has happened.”

“Hm?”

“Since this morning, a few of our captured brothers have been trickling back on their own. Two of my own men came back, and what they said was odd — they say Zhu Family Manor tortured some information about us out of them, then let them go, telling them to act as spies on our side…”

Li Gun laughed as he said this. Xi Junyu hesitated a moment, finding the whole thing rather absurd himself. “Tortured them? Ha… and then just let them go?”

“Given Zhu Family Manor’s situation right now, who’s even going to listen to them once they’re back among us. I believe the torture part, sure — but the battlefield’s changing by the minute, what use is a bit of stale information anyway?” Li Gun shook his head. “The overall outcome’s already decided. They’re pulling out one bad move after another.”

“…Well, that’s not entirely certain either,” Xi Junyu said, considering it. “If they really just sent the men straight back, this could well be some kind of scheme to sow discord. Given how things stand now, even at our current pace we’ll settle this in two or three more days at most. Even if a few real spies get mixed in, what harm could they do? We just have to be careful they don’t drive a wedge between the brothers.”

Li Gun nodded. “I’ve already told Chief Dai about it. Those two men of mine are being watched — anyway, it’s good they’re back. No time to deal with it now, we’ll ask them more tonight.”

The “Chief Dai” Li Gun mentioned was the “Marvelous Traveler” Dai Zong, in charge of Liangshan’s intelligence and scouting, one of Song Jiang’s own inner circle, who now oversaw much of the security work in the camp. And though the Liangshan forces were not exactly a monolith, each small band of commanders and their men knew one another well enough that infiltrating a real spy would not be easy — let alone given the enemy’s present hopeless struggle to accomplish anything at all.

Xi Junyu thought a moment. “Perhaps they’re hoping for something outlandish, like assassinating Brother Song…” He thought further, but since Dai Zong was already handling it, there probably wasn’t much more to it, and with that lingering doubt he went off to attend to other matters. Passing by a small camp, he heard someone shouting, “I want to see the Chief — they’re trying to turn us against each other, I haven’t betrayed anyone!” Someone nearby answered impatiently, “You’re back, that’s what matters, we know you’re no traitor — just stay in the tent for now… the Chief doesn’t have time to see you.”

Similar incidents were occurring throughout the camp that day. In the chaos of battle, some men had simply run into their own brothers or fellow townsmen and rejoined their units on the spot; others had made their way to the gates of the main Liangshan camp, where they were gathered together and waited on until a minor or mid-level commander came to claim them.

With the fighting outside still fierce that day and troops constantly moving back and forth, no one had much time to deal with these matters for the moment. As the saying goes, at home rely on your parents, away from home rely on your friends — Liangshan valued brotherhood above all, and most who had joined the mountain had been brought in through some friend or brother’s introduction; many knew some minor or mid-level commander who would come to claim them: “That’s one of my own men — you think there’s a problem there? If anything comes up, we’ll report it properly later.” The men guarding the camp gate saw the sense in this too; when someone came to claim a man, they naturally let him go, and for those they didn’t recognize, they didn’t even bother recording the names. Liangshan was at the very height of its power now, its discipline still sound, and it seemed simply unreasonable that anyone would defect under these circumstances.

These “trivial matters” only reached Dai Zong, and from him made their way up to Song Jiang and Wu Yong, well past noon. Hearing of this odd little development, Wu Yong found it rather strange himself. “By rights they should be trying to trade prisoners with us — why send them back like this?”

He thought it over a moment, and then a first possibility occurred to him. “This many men — first tortured for information, then scattered and sent back — clearly they mean to… sow discord among the brothers. But under the circumstances, that hardly matters much. I suspect they’re trying to muddy the waters. If they’re hoping to turn things around now, their only real chance would be some attempt to assassinate Brother Gongming… heh, how utterly outlandish…”

With so many skilled fighters on Liangshan’s side, even the slightest vigilance would make it impossible for Zhu Family Manor — even with Luan Tingyu himself leading the charge — to reach Song Jiang. Wu Yong took precautions regardless, and said to Dai Zong, “If you would, Chief Dai, please gather these brothers together, give them good food and wine, and question them carefully on the details. The enemy is cunning — if they really tortured information out of anyone, someone’s bound to have told them something about Liangshan’s situation. All of that is to be overlooked entirely, no need to hold it against anyone. In another two or three days, once Zhu Family Manor falls, this will all blow over anyway.”

Most of the men who had come to Liangshan to become bandits were not, by and large, especially sharp-minded. Even after a short round of questioning, Dai Zong found that no one could give a clear account of what had happened. Some spoke of the killings during the interrogation that night; some mentioned court officials being involved; one even reported up the chain that the people at Zhu Family Manor had told him to go poison the water, and that he, of course, had refused to do it.

“Poison?”

“A packet of laxative.” Dai Zong produced a small paper packet, on which was stuck a red, octagonal paper slip bearing the character “Zhu.” “That brother said the man at Zhu Family Manor threatened him — told him to put the packet in the well water, then report back, and in exchange the court would wipe his slate clean, with a reward besides.”

Wu Yong let out a startled laugh. “You’re joking. This whole area is fed by flowing water — we haven’t even used the few wells around here, precisely to avoid being poisoned. Why would anyone bother poisoning well water, and with a laxative besides… this really is a desperate, muddying scheme.”

This truly was the behavior of men at their wits’ end, pulling out one foolish move after another. Wu Yong shared a laugh with Song Jiang over it, saying they’d break the manor in two or three days and could have a good laugh at this clownish enemy then, and he called Hua Rong and the others over for extra protection. Dai Zong then went off to question the dozen-odd men who had come forward honestly, in more detail.

Then, piece by piece, more reports began to trickle in — not only from the dozen or so gathered at the camp gate and taken in by Dai Zong, but from among the men under various commanders throughout the camp, who began coming forward one after another to report what had happened at Zhu Family Manor the night before. Some commanders were still asking around about it; others felt something was off and had begun reporting up to Wu Yong instead. What had seemed a minor matter at first began to take on real scale once more than ten different commanders started reporting the same thing. Not many were particularly worried yet — most simply suspected that a spy or two from Zhu Family Manor might have slipped in. Wu Yong thought it over for a while, then went to find Dai Zong, who by then had already gathered together some twenty or thirty men, with another twenty-odd still scattered among their original commanders.

By now it was afternoon, and the information was only gradually being pieced together. The two rounds of interrogation the previous night, carried out by that ruthless court agent… Of those who came forward to confess, some swore adamantly that they hadn’t given up any information at all, insisting the enemy was simply trying to sow discord; others admitted, somewhat sheepishly, to having said something. More importantly, at the very end of each session, that wealthy young master had assigned nearly every one of them a task. The earlier ones who came forward had been confident they would never actually go through with theirs, and so hadn’t thought to mention it when reporting; only the man who had been given the packet of laxative had told Dai Zong about it.

The tasks assigned varied wildly, almost bizarrely — putting laxative in the well, setting fire to the fodder stores, slipping little strips of paper marked with the character “Zhu” into people’s food, even killing a comrade beside them on the battlefield or in camp and bringing the head back for a reward. Completing the task, they were told, would earn immediate pardon. And there was one man whose assigned task had been unusually direct.

“That man said… he told me that as soon as I got back, I should report this straight to the top — all the way up to Chief Song and Strategist Wu, tell them personally. He said that would count as my task done, and I’d be pardoned for it. Only… he also said, after I made my report, staying in the camp might become dangerous, and that if I wanted to live, I should find some excuse to slip away, and get back to Zhu Family Manor as fast as I could — that might be the only way to keep my life…”

More and more men in the camp kept coming forward with confessions. Dai Zong returned and reported, “There’s one brother whose task was this — he said once he got back, there’d surely be quite a few people confessing or informing on others, and this fellow was told to just kill one of them at random and bring the head back for his reward…”

Wu Yong’s expression shifted unpredictably. These orders seemed to run the gamut — some, like killing someone and fleeing, were difficult to carry out, but others, if done without anyone being on guard, would be quite easy. If something really did go wrong, it wasn’t hard to imagine someone being talked into trying. As he mulled this over, he was suddenly struck by something someone beside him had just said, and barked, “What did you just say — say it again!”

The soldier who had been sent back, somewhat clumsy with words, had naturally led with what he thought most important, only adding the finer details of the previous night afterward. What he was repeating now were the words that wealthy young master had used to threaten them — words that, being empty talk, few had taken seriously and so had saved for last. Now, seeing Wu Yong’s reaction, he was startled, and nervously repeated it back.

“That, that man said before… that our Liangshan looks strong on the outside, powerful with lots of men, but really has deep problems — too many little factions, everyone protecting their own and ignoring what’s right, and… and he said the court has some kind of built-in advantage over us, that some men here whose families haven’t even joined Liangshan yet would surely turn on us eventually. He said what he was going to do, we’d find out today ourselves, and he also said… he also said…”

The man hesitated, wiping away sweat. “He said this was some kind of ‘exposed scheme’ — that we… we’d have to accept it whether we wanted to or not.”

“Accept it whether we want to or not…?” Hearing this, Wu Yong frowned. “An exposed scheme…”

“If he really had the ability, holed up in Zhu Family Manor, he’d have made his move long ago — all this mystification, this talk of an ‘exposed scheme,’ is just big talk…” He weighed the situation, gave a mocking little laugh, but still turned to Dai Zong and said, “If you would, Chief Dai — give the order right away. Find every last man who slipped back from over there and hasn’t confessed yet, and let it all go once they do, no punishment at all! And… this Chaos Thunderbolt Hand, this Lei Feng — has anyone ever heard of him before, Chief Dai?”

At this, Dai Zong shook his head, and before he could say anything more, someone came running up. “Strategist, something’s happened — Chief Song wants you over right away.”

“Right, coming. Chief Dai, I’ll leave the rest to you here.”

Wu Yong frowned as he walked out. “What’s happened?”

“Zhu Family Manor tricked us — they lured Brother Suo Chao’s unit into an ambush. They’re about to be overrun. Word is someone in his unit was signaling to Zhu Family Manor’s men.”

“…” At those final words, Wu Yong stopped where he stood, looking toward the man delivering the report, then back toward the camp behind him, blinking in confusion.

“…Impossible.” He shook his head and hurried toward the main tent.

Stepping out of the tent, Wu Song was already leading a unit charging out through the camp gate, smoke rising in the distance, the sun sinking low. On this same ordinary battlefield, amid Liangshan’s usual crushing advance, something, somehow, seemed to have snagged just slightly…