Buns

"Brother Li, isn't there anything you want to ask me?"

The apparition of Zhuge Yuan spoke up. Li Huowang was sitting outside a bun shop, eating breakfast: three vegetable buns, soy milk, and fried dough sticks.

"No." Li Huowang took a sip of soy milk. "Why do you ask, Brother Zhuge?"

Fortunately, the street was noisy, and the shopkeeper was busy making a living. No one noticed the man by the riverbank talking to thin air. Even if they had, it would hardly matter. Strange things were everywhere these days.

"Everyone else and I knew about Hong Zhong from beginning to end." Zhuge Yuan studied Li Huowang's face, but his expression did not change. Zhuge Yuan let out a long sigh.

"Ah—! Brother Li, what am I supposed to do with you?"

"They say a gentleman is hard to draw in but easy to send away, while a petty man is easy to draw in but hard to send away. Only today have I learned that being a petty man isn't easy either."

"You know full well that, in the future as it originally stood, I would deceive you into doing something for Great Qi. You also know I took the character 'Wang' from your name in the past."

The words caught in Zhuge Yuan's throat. Looking at Li Huowang, he truly did not know what to do.

"Brother Zhuge, let the past stay in the past. And don't bring up things that haven't happened yet." Li Huowang spoke earnestly. "I've trusted you from beginning to end. I'll help you save Great Qi, even if it costs me my life."

He knew, of course, what Zhuge Yuan had kept from him. Die's plan could only be described as an overt scheme: to save Zhuge Yuan's world, Gao Zhijian had to