340.
Night on the Yangtze**
The Yangtze flows even at night.
The day's current simply changes into black clothing; it does not stop.
Moonlight scattered across the river, flashing like silver scales, and the ripples slowly breathed, flipping those scales over again and again.
In the middle of the river was a small island.
A low hut and a single lamp hovered there like an old secret that had never moved.
It was a place where the two sides met and whispers crossed.
A place where words touched first—before swords and spears ever did.
A place where bargains staked with lives were concluded in the quietest way.
A single boat approached without sound and kissed the sandbar.
The ferryman's hands spared even the faint noise of an oar cutting water.
Yoon Dam stepped down, drawing his black robe tight.
He favored a style like a messenger of death out of old tales.
When the wind caught the hem, he immediately cinched his belt.
On a night like this, a loosened garment would read as carelessness.
Park Seong-jin followed behind him.
Dressed like an escort, he kept one step back.
He spoke little—and because he spoke little, his eyes spoke more.
Several men were already standing around the island.
The wavering light revealed their faces and then hid them again.
Their expressions were invisible, but their air was not.
A forced calm betrayed tension.
They were guards belonging to Wei Jin, Zhang Shicheng's strategist.
Wei Jin sat before the hut.
His clothes were plain, but his posture held dignity.
There was none of the luxury of great camps, none of the swagger of generals.
Instead there was a gaze that pierced people through—
the gaze of someone who trusted the situation more than words,
the silence of someone who could guess the ending before hearing the argument.
He spoke softly.
"Lord Yoon Dam. You have come a long way.
Was it dangerous, crossing the Yangtze on a night like this?"
Yoon Dam smiled.
The smile was courtesy—and also a shield.
"I judged it worth the risk.
When the shape of the realm is changing, a single sentence can be more frightening than a blade."
Wei Jin tilted his head slightly.
The tilt was not a question, but a confirmation.
"Previously, at Yangzhou, you yielded.
That allowed us to withdraw in peace."
Yoon Dam answered at once.
Gratitude is the first line of a transaction.
"And because you yielded, we gained a foothold in Jiangnan.
Without that choice, we would still be wandering the hills and fields, camping like strays."
Each side placed a debt on the other.
This debt did not exist to be repaid.
It existed to keep the cord uncut.
As words passed, the fire flared.
In its light, the two sat facing one another.
Park Seong-jin stood behind them, scanning the island—
watching the perimeter while also listening to the grain of the conversation.
Sometimes what one avoids matters more than what one says.
Yoon Dam spoke first.
"Lord Wei Jin. How do you read the present situation?"
Wei Jin paused.
Not to "think," but to weigh his counterpart.
He set his cup down and looked into the fire.
The flames shook like waves.
He read their wavering as he read the world.
"The realm has already tilted," he said.
"Zhu Yuanzhang holds Jiangnan's granaries.
Chen Youliang holds the waterways north of the river.
Zhang Shicheng barely breathes between them."
With each sentence, Zhang Shicheng's space narrowed.
"In this formation, those who move die.
Those who stop live.
That is the shape of things."
Yoon Dam slowly shook his head.
The refusal was not emotion, but direction.
"Those who stop are eventually swallowed.
If you do nothing, Jiangnan—and the realm—becomes Zhu Yuanzhang's.
He is more ruthless and more relentless than you think.
Once he wins, he will eliminate."
Wei Jin's eyes narrowed.
"Then is Chen Youliang different?"
Yoon Dam replied as if he had been waiting for the question—
not as a rebuttal, but as a guided conclusion.
"He is different. He is a bold man.
If you submit, he will take you in."
He adjusted the end of his sentence with care.
In front of Zhang Shicheng's strategist, stabbing Zhang Shicheng directly was dangerous.
So he pressed with comparison instead.
"He believes in loyalty and keeps faith.
If Zhang Shicheng truly comes over, Chen Youliang will not fear him."
Wei Jin took a sip.
Wine can loosen the heart—or bind the tongue tighter.
He spoke low.
"A man like that does not last."
Yoon Dam's brow tightened slightly.
"Why?"
Wei Jin set his cup down and delivered a calm cruelty.
"The world does not turn on loyalty.
Loyalty is often nothing but decoration for power.
That 'embrace' you praise is, in the end, an act of exposing one's heart.
A man like that will eventually see blood through betrayal."
Yoon Dam fell silent for a moment.
He knew the truth: those who chase profit tend to live longer.
The fire lit only half his face.
The other half remained in shadow.
A human heart is always split that way.
Yoon Dam asked again.
"So you are stopping."
Wei Jin did not hesitate.
A quick answer meant the decision had already been finished.
"We stop."
There was no shame in it, and no excuse.
"When Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang fight and weaken each other, the world returns to us.
It does not matter who wins."
"You're waiting for the fisherman's gain," Yoon Dam said.
Wei Jin rolled his cup and added, as if casually:
"When both sides lose legs and waist, we become the heart.
That is the third path."
Park Seong-jin's body stiffened on its own.
This was not mere calculation.
It was a philosophy of emptiness—
a belief that one could win the world by refusing to fight.
And that belief was the most elusive tactic of all.
Yoon Dam smiled slowly.
The smile was praise—and also warning.
"You are truly wise.
But that wisdom will not last long."
Wei Jin narrowed his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"The world belongs to those who move," Yoon Dam said.
"While you wait, heaven and earth change.
Those who wait become prisoners of waiting itself."
Only then did Wei Jin shift his gaze to Park Seong-jin.
He did not look at an escort as merely an escort.
A young blade is always a variable.
"You are young," Wei Jin said.
"If you travel with Lord Yoon Dam, you've likely seen many battlefields."
"Yes," Park Seong-jin answered, briefly.
Wei Jin nodded.
"Then answer me.
On a battlefield, who falls first?"
Park Seong-jin replied without delay.
"The frightened."
Wei Jin's mouth twisted—half smile, half cold sneer.
"And the one who calculates too much."
He pointed at the fire.
Sparks jumped.
"The frightened flee.
The over-calculating hesitate.
And it is over that hesitation that a spear takes the throat."
Park Seong-jin swallowed his words.
His gaze did not waver.
A rebuttal was a quarrel of mouths.
War is not a quarrel of mouths—war is where time fights.
Yoon Dam finally laid bare the night's purpose.
"Lord Wei Jin.
If Zhang Shicheng continues to hesitate as he does now, the realm will become two, not three.
The moment those two fuse, the 'third path' you speak of vanishes.
And at the end of that vanished path, neither Zhang Shicheng nor Lord Wei Jin remains."
Wei Jin was silent for a moment, then nodded gently.
He conceded—but did not yield.
"Your words are correct.
But the world where correct words win has already passed."
He raised his hand and extinguished the fire.
When the flames died, only moonlight spread across the river.
With fire gone, the world grew colder—and clearer.
Wei Jin spoke low.
"One thing, however, I will promise.
We will not fight.
We will not attack you.
That alone I can promise.
That is the best we can do."
The promise remained.
But a promise not to attack does not become a promise to help.
Neutrality is not the refusal to hold a blade—
it is the act of hiding one.
Yoon Dam knew that difference precisely.
The boat cut back across the river.
The current was quiet, and that quiet clung like a wolf.
Yoon Dam did not speak.
To persuade a man who sought the fisherman's gain was brutal work.
Persuasion was not moving someone's heart—
it was relocating their fear.
Wei Jin did not relocate his fear.
He stayed seated, holding it.
Park Seong-jin asked.
"What do you think?"
Yoon Dam answered slowly.
"Wei Jin's calculation is deep.
Deep calculation sinks a man."
He looked out over the river and continued.
"Zhang Shicheng's power is like a boat on water.
If it does not move, it will sink."
Park Seong-jin turned back toward the shore.
Under moonlight, the island was swallowed again by darkness.
It felt as if the words traded there had already seeped into the river.
"They mean to gain the world without fighting," Park Seong-jin said.
Yoon Dam gave a bitter smile.
"Yes.
And a world gained without fighting is eventually lost."
His words scattered across the water.
Far off, ripples collided and silver rings spread outward.
That night, the Yangtze swallowed the future of the realm without a sound.
To persuade the weak is rough work.
It is better to keep distance.
Men like that ruin the board from close at hand.
They have many soldiers, and much money.
That strength makes them softer.
Zhang Shicheng knows, and Wei Jin knows, that Zhang Shicheng's army cannot seize clear advantage over anyone head-on.
So they watch both sides, reading faces, waiting for a gap.
Even while knowing the future—
that they may fall beneath the victor's blade—
they cling to their present stillness to the end.
The Yangtze flows.
On a flowing river, anyone who tries to remain still cannot defeat the current.
Only one thing has not yet revealed itself:
where that current will finally carry him.