"Your surname is Dou?"
Snow was falling outside. Inside the royal tent of the East Wu Clan, Dou Lide stopped writing where he sat in the center on the Golden Deer, Tattered-Winged Dragon Throne and looked down at the man bowing below. "And you're from Hejian, Hebei?"
"Yes," Dou Ru answered respectfully.
"Are you a Hebei native, or from an official's family that came from the Western Pass?"
"My ancestral home is in the Western Pass."
"What relation is Dou Pi, Deputy General Manager of Hejian Grand Camp, to you?"
"He was my father."
"Then we're old acquaintances?"
"Indeed... otherwise I wouldn't have surrendered that very night and urged Dusuwu and the others to surrender too... but I would rather things hadn't come to that."
"Ah... what are you doing here?"
"Serving as an envoy... when I returned to the Western Pass, since I was a son of the Dou family, and my father had risen to Deputy General Manager and died in Hebei, the Chang'an Court had to give me a position that admitted me into its inner halls. The family head, Dou Shang, arranged it. He had me appointed Vice Minister of Rites and sent to the Witchlands. Because of Princess Chengyi of Former Wei, it was difficult to accomplish anything in the Central Wu Clan's territory, so I came east to seek Dulan."
"Dou Ru."
"Yes."
"We both came from Hebei. You know the inner workings of our Exorcising the Dragon Gang, and you should know me too... I can give you prospects and safety. Now report every piece of information you think useful." Dou Lide finally dropped the pretense.
Dou Ru did the same, taking several sheets of paper from his robes and passing them up through a guard beside him.
Before rebelling, Dou Lide had