The oil lamp had been out for a long time before Chen Wuya slowly opened his eyes. Outside the hut, the wind moaned softly. The wet patch had long since dried completely, but he remembered exactly where those five fingers had pressed against the rim of the bucket. He did not move. He merely pressed his palm against the edge of the bedboard, letting the rubbing force travel inch by inch through his meridians until it condensed into an imperceptible tremor at his fingertips.
He knew that person would come again that night.
At first light, he rose and walked out of the hut. Cooking smoke had just begun to rise through the camp, while several children rolled and tussled in the mud. He walked straight to the open ground in the center, grabbed a dead branch, and forcefully drew a long line across the sand.
"Three days from now, we're going to North Valley." His voice was not loud, but every word was clear. "We'll cut off their supply route and burn their tents."
Several villagers who had been drawing water stopped in their tracks. One frowned. "North Valley? It's all cliffs over there. How are we supposed to get across?"
"Go around the poisonous marsh." Chen Wuya continued drawing the route, crookedly cutting through a blank patch marked "mud sink area." "Then cut through Broken Ridge and launch a night raid."
"That route won't work!" an old farmer blurted out. "The poisonous marsh bubbles every rainy season. Anyone who steps in sinks straight down, and not even the bones remain."
"That's why I said the timing is already decided." Chen Wuya brushed the sand from his hands and stood. "Last night, I dreamed of a golden light splitting open the marsh and revealing a stone staircase—this is Heaven's will."
The crowd stirred. Some did not believe him, some whispered among themselves, and others shook their heads and walked away. From the corner of his eye, he swept a glance toward the cooking tent in the northwest corner. Its flap had been lifted a crack, and an eye quickly withdrew.
The corners of his lips lifted slightly, and he turned to leave.
Old Wu Tou sat in front of his own hut, still holding that jujube-wood cane. When he saw Chen Wuya approach, he raised his head. "Are you really going to fight?"
"Fake." Chen Wuya squatted beside him. "But we have to make them believe it's real."
"You're using absurdity as bait?"
"The more absurd it is, the more real it looks." He lowered his voice. "A sensible person wouldn't announce a plan that sends everyone to their deaths. But if you're bluffing, you have to make the story as lively as possible."
Old Wu Tou fell silent for a moment, then suddenly said, "I'll make a patrol by the dry well tonight."
Chen Wuya nodded and said no more.
After night fell, he hid behind a boulder at the edge of the woods, watching the dry well a hundred paces away. Shortly after the third quarter of midnight, a figure quietly appeared, skillfully digging away the loose soil around the well, burying a small wax pellet, and quickly covering it back up. Moonlight shone across the person's face—it was the woman who had joined them half a month earlier.
After she left, Chen Wuya did not follow. Instead, he waited the time it took an incense stick to burn before quietly approaching the dry well. He took a small pinch of gray powder from his sleeve and sprinkled it over the place where the wax pellet had been buried. This was medicinal sand he had prepared. When it encountered body heat, it gave off an exceedingly faint blue-green glow that lasted less than half a tea session.
The next morning, the camp exploded into an uproar.
"There was a huge fire in North Valley last night!" a shepherd boy rushed in shouting. "I saw thick smoke billowing into the sky from far away. There must have been a battle involving a thousand people!"
The crowd erupted. Some asked whether the foreigners had turned on one another, while others said perhaps their own people had launched the attack early. Chen Wuya stood among them, his expression grave. "This is bad. The news has leaked."
He beat his chest and stamped his feet in front of everyone. "Someone must have overheard my plans and passed them on! The enemy is prepared now. The surprise attack won't work—instead, we may walk straight into an ambush!"
Before his voice had even faded, he caught sight of the woman's hands trembling slightly as she carried the pot. Soup spilled out. She hurriedly lowered her head to clean it up, then quickly slipped into the tent.
That night, she went out again.
This time, she did not go to the dry well. She headed straight for an abandoned kiln cave ten miles northwest. Chen Wuya and Old Wu Tou had already laid an ambush halfway there, watching from a distance. A tattered cloth curtain hung over the cave entrance, and a faint light shone from within.
The two of them lay prone on the slope and heard hushed voices coming from inside:
"...The leader has confirmed it. They'll set an ambush along the return route three days from now. We must kill the enemy commander."
"Will he really take that poisonous marsh route? Isn't he afraid the entire army will be wiped out?"
"He said it was Heaven's revelation, so we'll follow orders. In any case, as long as he's on the road, there'll be a chance."
A burst of muffled laughter came from inside the cave.
Chen Wuya slowly exhaled and turned to Old Wu Tou. "We've connected the line."
Old Wu Tou nodded. He untied a string of copper bells from his waist and gently fastened it to several dead vines by the cave entrance. Then he took out a handful of fine sand and scattered it in a circle around the entrance. It was sand mixed with iron filings; the slightest vibration would make it emit the faintest sound.
"You guard the outside." Chen Wuya lowered his voice. "I'm going to light a fire."
He withdrew ten paces, sat down cross-legged, and slowly injected Misaligned Force into the ground. This was not an attack, but a kind of vibration—an application he had recently worked out that could make the soil produce a deep rumble resembling the march of a large troop.
A moment later, the voices inside the cave abruptly stopped.
"There's movement!" someone whispered.
"Don't panic. It could be a wild beast."
"No, those are footsteps! Lots of people!"
The cloth curtain was suddenly flung aside, and someone poked his head out to look around. Old Wu Tou did not move. He merely rested a finger on the bell cord.
The man hesitated, then withdrew into the cave. But less than half a quarter of an hour later, two more people hurried outside. The moment one took a step, a snare beneath his feet suddenly tightened. He fell hard to the ground, striking the copper bells hanging from the vines.
"It's an ambush!" Chaos erupted inside the cave.
Chen Wuya stopped hiding and suddenly sprang toward the entrance. He kicked open the wooden door and thrust out his right palm. Misaligned Force transformed into an explosive surge that blasted toward the oil lamp. The flame went out with a pop, and darkness swallowed the entire kiln cave in an instant.
He did not use his eyes, relying only on Misaligned Force to sense the movement of the air. Someone lunged from the left. He twisted aside, then struck a finger into the attacker's Jianjing Acupoint. A blade swept past his ear from the right. He bent his elbow into the opponent's wrist, seized the short blade, and swept it sideways, forcing back a third man.
The last man tried to escape through the rear window, only to run straight into Old Wu Tou. With one strike of his cane, Old Wu Tou sent the dagger flying, then seized the man by the neck and slammed him to the ground.
Chen Wuya lit a firestick, and its dim yellow glow revealed three terrified faces. The young man kneeling on the ground trembled all over. "We only carry messages! There's someone directing things above us!"
"Who?" Chen Wuya squatted down and stared at him.
"I don't know... We just receive the wax pellets and act according to their contents..."
"Then how do you know whether what I say is true or false?"
The young man looked up, his expression complicated. "Because you... every time you spout twisted logic, you're especially serious. It's as if... it really could work."
Chen Wuya smiled.
He stood, patted the dust from his clothes, and looked toward the wooden chest in the corner. The chest was locked, but the hasp was loose. He walked over and opened it. Inside, more than a dozen wax pellets were arranged in neat rows, each marked with a date and a direction.
"So there's more than one contact point." He spoke softly.
Old Wu Tou came over carrying the prisoner. "What should we do with them?"
"Take them back to camp." Chen Wuya closed the lid. "Let them see with their own eyes how the information they passed along became a death warrant."
The two escorted the three men back. Along the way, the youngest captive suddenly spoke. "You knew from the beginning, didn't you? You were waiting for us to show ourselves."
Chen Wuya did not turn around. "I wasn't waiting for you. I was waiting for you to believe me."
"But you said you were going to North Valley... That was fake."
"Yes." He kept walking. "But I also said 'Heaven's revelation.' You don't believe in Heaven's revelations, yet you believed I would be stupid enough to take a dead-end road. So—"
He paused, his tone calm:
"You weren't deceived by a scheme. You were trapped by your own thoughts."
When they returned to camp, the sky was just beginning to brighten. Chen Wuya had the wax pellets found in the kiln cave spread across a table and arranged in chronological order. One was marked, "If the enemy commander moves, he must pass through Broken Ridge." Another read, "Ambush on the return route three days from now."
He picked up the last one and rubbed the edge of its wax seal with his fingertip.
"They thought I was laying out a scheme." He spoke softly. "In truth, I merely pushed their logic to its conclusion."
Old Wu Tou stood in the doorway and looked at him. "What next?"
Chen Wuya slipped the wax pellet into his robes and looked up at the sky in the east, where the darkness was gradually paling.
"Let them pass along one more message."
Before you continue