Lu Su said nothing. The air in the reception hall felt heavier, the way it does when an entire room is waiting to see what a man will choose, a choice that could completely change the course of his life.
This was a chance to fulfill the ambition he had carried for years: to raise his family name into the ranks of the nobility and perhaps even pull off a masterstroke so brilliant that the world would still remember it a thousand years from now.
Honestly, who could turn down an offer like that?
Dreams like these were what kept this chaotic age moving. They were why farmers took up spears, why scholars stayed awake through the night studying politics and strategy, and why ambitious men across the land were willing to risk everything they had for a chance at greatness. Under heaven, there were few prizes more tempting.
But did Lu Su still have the right to chase such a dream?
He felt completely lost. The carefully laid plan he had devised to defend Jiangdong had just collapsed, while the political fortress he had spent years building was now burning to the ground. At this moment, he was little more than a refugee stranded in enemy territory, with no clear path forward.
He had no idea what he was supposed to do. Rejecting the Governor of Jiangling outright, especially to his face, would be a terrible move when the man was practically handing him a lifeline from the highest authority in the land. Yet accepting it meant stepping onto an entirely different path, one whose consequences Lu Su could hardly begin to predict.
For now, all he could do was keep his mouth shut. He sat stiffly in his ornate wooden chair, his gaze fixed on the floor as the moment stretched longer and longer, until the once-formal reception hall became nearly unbearably awkward.
Gan Ning, however, had no interest in contemplating the meaning of life. He simply felt like he had been completely left out.
"Hey, what about me?" Gan Ning slapped a hand against his chest, the sharp smack echoing through the hall. "Where is my golden ticket?"
His hearing was perfectly fine, thank you very much. He had heard the Governor loud and clear, and every word had been directed at Lu Su. Jiang Wan had practically rolled out the red carpet for him while somehow making Gan Ning's name disappear from the conversation altogether.
Naturally, Gan Ning found this deeply offensive.
If he had not been ruthlessly efficient when everything went to hell, Lu Su would not be sitting comfortably in that fancy chair right now. He would probably be rotting in a dungeon somewhere while Sun Quan screamed himself hoarse at him. Gan Ning had come up with their escape plan, taken the helm, and personally guided them through the treacherous waters. Surely that earned him at least a little recognition.
With that thought in mind, he turned his most murderous glare on the Governor.
Jiang Wan did not even blink.
Nor did he seem particularly concerned about forcing Lu Su into an immediate answer. Instead, he simply turned toward Gan Ning with a polite smile, treating the pirate's murderous stare like a mild inconvenience.
"If General Gan wishes to travel north and have a look around Chang'an, you are more than welcome to do so. The gates are open, and we will make sure you are treated as an honored guest."
Jiang Wan paused for a moment, and there was amusement in his voice when he continued.
"But are you certain you do not want to stay here for a while? Or perhaps head east to the Jiangxia docks? Little General Gan should be returning from his victory tour very soon."
Gan Ning's irritation vanished so quickly that it was genuinely impressive.
Confusion took its place.
"Little General Gan?"
He was not stupid. His mind immediately began putting the pieces together, and as the answer started to take shape, his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Wait... are you talking about Gan Gui?"
Jiang Wan took his time lifting the teacup to his lips. After taking a slow sip, he gave a calm nod.
"Exactly."
Gan Ning drew in a sharp breath.
The political chessboard had just been flipped over, and it was happening far faster than his brain could keep up with.
Only now did he realize how badly their information had fallen behind.
The two fugitives had fled Jiangdong shortly after the New Year and spent more than a month fighting their way across the open sea, dodging one murderous wave after another before finally washing ashore in the remote jungles of Jiaozhou. From there, they had been dragged into one diplomatic mess after another, making their way all the way to the southern reaches of Yizhou before joining forces with local powers and fighting their way back toward southern Jingzhou.
For most of that journey, they had been stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people who were cut off from the empire's main flow of information.
Wu Yi, Zhang Ni, Shi Hui, Wu Ju. These were warlords operating far from the imperial center, where news arrived late, incomplete, and often so distorted that it was barely recognizable by the time it reached them.
As a result, Lu Su and Gan Ning had only been able to confirm one thing with any certainty: Lu Meng had lost both his army and his head.
Everything else was little more than rumor.
They had theories, of course, but theories were all they had. Not a single reliable source had made its way to them during their long journey south.
And now, out of nowhere, the Governor of Jiangling was casually throwing around a title like Little General Gan like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
Lu Su finally lifted his head, his curiosity about the political situation proving stronger than his lingering gloom. Whatever despair had been weighing on him a moment ago was now being pushed aside by the realization that the world outside Jiangdong had apparently changed beyond recognition.
Gan Ning, meanwhile, had given up on pretending to be a scholar altogether. He leaned back in his chair, grabbed his teacup, and swallowed the scalding tea in a single gulp before setting the cup down with a heavy thud. The way he looked at Jiang Wan, he might as well have been a starving man who had just discovered an entire banquet laid out in front of him.
"Alright, Governor," Gan Ning said, pointing a thick finger at Jiang Wan. "If you have got the time, then you need to tell us everything. What exactly is happening out there? We want to know what the situation really looks like."
He leaned forward, his curiosity growing by the second.
"And while you are at it, you might as well explain how you figured out our real identities so quickly. We told you our names were Gan Yi and Lu Meng!"
Jiang Wan watched as the pirate immediately poured himself another cup, and he could not help finding the whole scene amusing. For all the fearsome reputation Gan Ning had earned on the rivers, he was now behaving like an ordinary tavern patron who had settled in for the night and was waiting impatiently for the storyteller to reach the interesting part.
Jiang Wan set down his own cup, and the amusement on his face gradually gave way to genuine admiration as he recalled the latest military reports.
"If you want to understand why Jiangling is so secure right now, then we have to start with General Zhao Yun. His heavy infantry practically annihilated the legendary Zhang Liao in open battle."
He raised a finger, pausing just long enough to make sure neither of them interrupted.
"Of course, to understand how General Zhao Yun managed that, we have to look at what Lord Liu Bei was doing at the same time. He marched out of Hanzhong, crushed the Three Qins, and then went straight on to seize the capital region."
A second finger joined the first, and Jiang Wan's voice carried a note of unmistakable respect.
"And when it comes to the capture of Chang'an, we cannot leave out Strategist Zhuge Liang. The man managed to break three separate armies using medicinal soup. Then General Ma Chao launched what was practically a suicide cavalry charge just to crack the fortress at Jieting."
Gan Ning sat there frozen, his jaw hanging open like he had forgotten how to close it.
Lu Su was hardly any better. His eyebrows shot upward, nearly disappearing beneath his hairline, while his heart began pounding as the scale of what he had just heard slowly sank in.
They had only been gone for 3 months, yet listening to Jiang Wan made it sound as though they had spent 3 years sleeping in a cave. In the short time they had been away, the entire political landscape had apparently been torn apart and redrawn while they were busy sailing around the southern seas.
A rather horrifying thought occurred to both men at almost the same time. What if they had actually taken that overly enthusiastic young man in Jiaozhou up on his offer? Shi Hui had practically begged them to stay in the deep south and work for him for 6 months. If they had agreed, they might eventually have emerged from the jungle only to discover that Liu Bei had started selling Cao Cao and Sun Quan in bamboo cages at the local market.
Neither of them wanted to entertain that possibility for too long.
Whatever had happened, they needed to hear the rest.
So they leaned forward and gave Jiang Wan their full attention, and once the Governor began explaining the situation, he showed no intention of stopping anytime soon.
He continued speaking through the scorching heat of noon and into the evening, until the moon finally rose above the city walls. Piece by piece, he laid out the extraordinary developments of the northern campaigns: the audacious strategies, the seemingly impossible logistics, and the nerve it had taken to carry them all out.
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, a local official named Zhou Qun was making his way around the estate in search of Governor Jiang Wan, hoping to get a few farming reports signed. After checking several rooms and asking around, he eventually found the Governor in the main hall, but stopped just outside the entrance when he heard what sounded like a heated argument coming from inside.
"Wait, Governor Jiang, you have to explain that Guizhi soup again. How exactly are you supposed to win a siege with a medical prescription?"
"Brother Gongyan, please have one of the servants bring a coal briquette in here. We need to see this fuel for ourselves before we can possibly believe it."
"And the northern cavalry are really that terrifying? They rode 200 miles in a single day and still had enough strength left to fight a major battle? That is completely insane!"
"Hold on. Are you seriously saying that elite heavy cavalry were cut to pieces by infantry armed with long swords? Brother Gongyan, you cannot possibly expect us to believe that."
Zhou Qun remained outside the door for a moment, listening to the increasingly animated voices of two legendary Jiangdong veterans who seemed to have completely forgotten their usual dignity. A faint smile appeared on his face as he turned around and walked away without interrupting them. Whatever could possibly be so important that it had these two men shouting like tavern patrons, the farming reports could wait until tomorrow. Governor Jiang could deal with his unexpected tourists first.
Inside the hall, the conversation continued until the afternoon light faded from the windows and darkness settled over the estate. Servants eventually entered to light the oil lamps, their warm flames throwing long shadows across the walls while Jiang Wan paused to drink some water and soothe his increasingly tired throat. Once he had caught his breath, he gradually shifted the conversation eastward, bringing up the subject that none of them had been particularly eager to discuss: Lu Meng's defeat.
Jiang Wan went through the battle in careful detail, explaining how the disaster had unfolded and how one mistake after another had turned an already difficult situation into a catastrophe. Among the casualties was Han Dang, the veteran general who had fought a desperate rearguard action to give the rest of the army a chance to survive. Even when the situation became hopeless, Han Dang refused to retreat, holding his ground and keeping his battle standard raised until he was completely surrounded by enemy troops. He ultimately fell on the battlefield, still fighting beneath a sea of enemy blades.
Gan Ning and Lu Su both tightened their grips around their wrists as they listened, and a heavy wave of grief settled over them. Han Dang had been one of the great pillars of the Jiangdong military, a veteran of the old guard whose career stretched back through decades of campaigns and upheaval. Men like him represented an entire generation of warriors who had helped build Jiangdong's strength from the ground up, and losing one of them felt like watching another piece of that old world disappear.
What came next was even harder to swallow.
Lu Meng had become careless. Believing the river to be completely secure, he had allowed his defenses to loosen, never expecting a serious attack to come from that direction. Then a heavy crossbow bolt tore through his defenses and struck the command tent, throwing the entire camp into chaos. As panic spread among the soldiers, the situation quickly spiraled beyond Lu Meng's control, and the men under his command, terrified of being held responsible for the disaster, eventually turned on their own commander.
They killed him simply to save themselves.
Lu Su slowly sank back into his chair as Jiang Wan finished explaining what had happened, while the room fell into a long, oppressive stillness. Losing a battle was painful, but it was something an army could eventually recover from. Even being outmaneuvered by a superior enemy was a bitter defeat rather than an unforgivable disgrace. What had happened to Lu Meng was different. His own soldiers had betrayed him at the moment when they were supposed to stand together, and that kind of wound went far deeper than any battlefield loss.
For an army built on loyalty and shared history, a mutiny like that was not simply another defeat to be recorded and forgotten. It was the sort of stain that could remain long after the battle itself had faded from memory.
Gan Ning, however, processed the news rather differently. The moment he heard about the heavy crossbows, the pirate in him came roaring back to life, and his eyes lit up with the kind of predatory curiosity that had probably made more than a few enemies regret letting him get close.
"This heavy crossbow," Gan Ning said, barely able to contain his excitement. "Can you have one brought in? I want to see how the tension mechanism works. And I need to take a look at the trigger."
Jiang Wan could only give him a helpless, apologetic smile.
"General Gan, if I brought every piece of new military technology you have asked about today into this room, we would have to tear down the walls just to make room for it. Most of them would not even fit through the doors."
After a moment, he offered a more practical solution.
"If you are really that eager to see them, you can always visit your son at his camp. The Jingzhou warships are loaded with these things. They have entire racks of them on board."
That finally left Gan Ning speechless. He blinked several times, staring at the Governor like Jiang Wan had just casually informed him that his son had secretly built an entire arsenal.
Lu Su glanced at the enormous pirate beside him, and something about the absurdity of the situation finally broke through the gloom that had been weighing on him all evening. A laugh escaped before he could stop it, and once he started, he made absolutely no effort to spare Gan Ning's pride.
"Oh, that is rich!" Lu Su gasped between laughs. "From now on, whenever anyone talks about the terrifying Jinfan pirate, they will probably just assume they are talking about Gan Gui!"
"Hey!"
Gan Ning shot upright in protest, but the joke had already done its job. Whatever oppressive mood had settled over the room after Jiang Wan's account of the war was gone, replaced by something much lighter. Gan Ning's rough face slowly turned red before he finally broke into a deep, booming laugh of his own, the sound so loud that the teacups on the table rattled.
"Well, obviously!" he declared, bringing his heavy palm down on the table. "He has got Gan family blood in his veins! What else were you expecting from my boy?"
He threw Lu Su a sharp, mocking glance, and there was a very clear message behind it.
My son is out here commanding fleets and making history. So, Zijing, what exactly have you been doing with your life?
Lu Su nearly choked on his own laughter. The jab had landed far too perfectly, and for once he had absolutely no comeback, because his own grand legacy was currently little more than a pile of ashes. The two men stared at each other for a tense moment before the absurdity of it all finally got the better of them, and they both burst out laughing, laughing so hard that their ribs began to ache. It was the kind of laughter that only came after surviving something you were not sure you would survive at all, full of relief and the simple joy of still being alive.
Their laughter drifted out through the hall, carried across the gardens until it reached the guest courtyard next door.
There, Lu Su's mother sat alone in a dimly lit room. The moment she heard her son's laughter, she froze and listened. It was real, completely unrestrained laughter, the kind she had not heard from him in months. The deep lines of worry etched across her forehead gradually softened, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the crushing anxiety of their miserable exile eased just a little. Her son was laughing. He was safe.
Back in the reception hall, the broad outline of what had happened was finally clear to Lu Su, but the more he understood, the more questions began piling up in his relentlessly analytical mind.
When the servants brought dinner, he barely touched the roast meat in front of him. He forced down 2 bites of rice before immediately turning back to Jiang Wan, his curiosity already getting the better of his appetite.
"So after the fires of Chibi, all those incredible developments in Gong'an happened so quickly. Did Lord Liu Bei really rely entirely on Zhuge Liang's talent to make all of that happen?"
Lu Su had gone straight for the heart of the mystery. How had Liu Bei's camp managed to advance so unbelievably fast?
The pace of their development was simply unnatural. Their sudden breakthroughs in agriculture, medicine, engineering, and commerce were enough to make any strategist suspicious, because no government could normally transform itself at anything close to that speed. Then there was the military side of things. Their campaigns had been executed with frightening precision: they had taken Yizhou with barely any casualties, conquered the nightmare terrain of Hanzhong, and somehow managed to make one politically accurate decision after another, while every major administrative reform seemed to produce twice the results anyone should reasonably have expected.
As a former top-tier strategist and longtime ally, Lu Su could not simply ignore the obvious questions. If Liu Bei really had a genius capable of producing all of this working for him, then why had that genius allowed him to spend years struggling in the miserable dirt of Xinye? Zhuge Liang had already been there back then, so why had this astonishing transformation only begun in recent years?
There had to be someone else behind it.
Someone hidden.
Someone who had been turning the wheel without a sound while everyone else thought they understood what was happening.
Across from him, Jiang Wan maintained an expression of perfect calm, revealing absolutely nothing.
"Lord Liu Bei gave very specific instructions regarding you," he said. "He simply wants you to travel to Chang'an and see the situation for yourself. Use your own eyes and make your own judgment. Once you have seen the truth, the choice is entirely yours. You can stay and put your abilities to work, or you can leave and live in peace somewhere else. We will not make things difficult for you either way."
That rock-solid guarantee was exactly what Lu Su needed to hear. After thinking it over for a moment, he slowly nodded and accepted the invitation to travel north to the capital.
Jiang Wan let out the breath he had been holding. Mission accomplished.
Lu Su then glanced at the enormous man sitting beside him.
"Xingba, are you coming with me to tour Guanzhong?"
Gan Ning casually waved him off as he reached for another piece of meat with his chopsticks.
"Look, if Lord Liu Bei had specifically called for me, then I would not have a choice. I would be heading up that mountain road right now. After all, my boy is already wearing his uniform and commanding warships."
He tossed the meat into his mouth and chewed with great enthusiasm before continuing.
"But he did not call for me, so I am going to Jiangxia instead. I will sit right there on the docks and wait for my son to sail back in with his victory banners flying."
Lu Su could only shake his head. He knew the stubborn streak running through the Gan family far too well to waste his breath trying to change Gan Ning's mind.
The whole thing was honestly hilarious. For most proud warriors, watching their own son completely eclipse them in military glory would be a difficult pill to swallow, and another veteran general might have spent the entire journey fuming over it. Gan Ning, however, had needed only a brief moment to recover from his embarrassment before transforming into something that looked remarkably like a fighting rooster fresh from winning a death match. He practically radiated pride, and there was not even the slightest hint that he was bothered anymore. If anything, he looked ready to grab the next person who mentioned Gan Gui just so he could brag about him all over again.
Lu Su and Gan Ning stayed at the Jiangling estate for 2 full days, spending their time eating well, sleeping comfortably, and enjoying a rare stretch of peace before the journey ahead.
On the morning of the third day, Lu Su finally prepared to leave. Jiang Wan, meanwhile, had clearly decided that if he was going to send Lu Su north, he might as well make sure the man arrived in one piece. He assigned a squad of heavily armed elite guards to accompany him, arranged a fast and comfortable riverboat for the stretches of the journey that could be covered by water, and provided a string of fine northern warhorses for the mountain roads. Everything had been prepared down to the smallest detail, giving Lu Su the kind of VIP treatment normally reserved for someone far more important than a man who was technically still an exile.
Jiang Wan stood on the steps outside his office, watching as the caravan was loaded and prepared in the courtyard below. A faint smile crept across his face as he imagined what was waiting for Lu Su at the end of the road.
"When Zijing finally reaches Chang'an," he murmured to himself, "Jian Yong is going to be insanely jealous of this trip."
The route itself was almost absurd, the kind of journey that would make any traveler jealous. Lu Su had begun his escape in the eastern lands of Jiangdong, sailing across the dangerous and unpredictable sea before reaching the humid jungles of Jiaozhou. From there, he had traveled north through the wilderness to Jiangling, and now he was preparing to follow the vast Han River upstream into the rugged Hanzhong Basin. Once he reached Hanzhong, the journey would take him across the terrifying Baoxie plank roads, suspended high above the mountain valleys, until he finally arrived at the ancient capital of Chang'an.
By the time he completed the trip, Lu Su would have traveled along practically the entire frontier of the known Chinese world. Jiang Wan could already picture Jian Yong, Liu Bei's resident gossip and professional travel enthusiast, pestering Lu Su for every tiny detail the moment he arrived, from the condition of the roads to the ships, cities, mountains, and everything else he had seen along the way.
Later that day, they finally took to the water.
The river between Jiangling and Jiangxia was packed with traffic, with merchant vessels moving constantly in both directions and barely a stretch of open water to be seen. That grumpy dockmaster they had met a few days earlier had been absolutely right: moving goods along this particular route had become one of the most profitable businesses in the entire empire.
On the busy docks of Jiangxia, Gan Ning stood among the crowds and waved goodbye to Lu Su with a huge, toothy grin. He looked completely at home in the chaos of the port, and he casually mentioned that he planned to track down General Zhao Yun, spend some time at his camp, and drink a few heavy jugs of wine while waiting for the fleet to return.
As Lu Su watched Gan Ning disappear into the crowd, however, a heavy knot slowly tightened in his stomach.
The world beneath his feet was changing with frightening speed, while the life he had once known had already been buried for good. As the boat carried him away from Jiangxia, a powerful sense of uncertainty washed over him, along with the growing realization that from this moment onward, his own destiny was about to bend in a direction he could no longer recognize.
Of course, life had a habit of delivering its biggest surprises precisely when a person thought he had finally caught his breath.
Lu Su's boat continued north along the Han River, passing beneath the towering stone walls of the Xiangyang-Fancheng stronghold. Yet the moment they cleared the city's shadow, the endless stream of river traffic abruptly disappeared. The merchant ships were gone, leaving only 2 or 3 lonely transport vessels scattered across the wide, cold water as the surrounding wilderness gradually swallowed up the sounds of civilization.
Lu Su stood alone at the wooden bow, his heavy scholar's robes snapping in the harsh northern wind. With nothing but the rolling river stretching out before him, his exhausted mind slowly drifted away from the journey and into its own thoughts.
Then, without warning, a loud voice rang across the open water, thick with unmistakable shock.
"General Lu?"
Lu Su was pulled instantly out of his thoughts. He turned toward the voice and quickly scanned the deck of a transport ship passing in the opposite direction, searching through the figures aboard until his gaze finally settled on one familiar face.
His eyes widened.
Even the wind seemed to fall still.
"Zishan?"