Tibet and the kingdoms of India maintained fairly close intercourse with one another. Jiang Shiren remained behind to maintain contact, while the King of Vaishali personally escorted Wang Xuance northward, sending him to the border of the Vaishali Kingdom. Beyond the Vaishali Kingdom heading north lay the kingdom of Nepal. Nepal’s customs were broadly similar to India’s, but at this time it was a vassal state of Tibet.

The King of Nepal was named Narendradeva. Some years before, when Narendradeva was still a prince, his uncle had led a rebellion, killed his father, and seized the throne. Narendradeva had fled to Tibet, where he received the protection of Songtsen Gampo. Songtsen Gampo further dispatched his army to help Narendradeva put down the rebellion and install him as king. Narendradeva thereafter acknowledged Tibet as his suzerain state and gave his daughter, Princess Bhrikuti, in marriage to Songtsen Gampo.

Wang Xuance had traveled between the Great Tang and India several times and always took this route through Tibet and Nepal; he was quite well acquainted with Narendradeva. Upon arriving at the capital city, Narendradeva came out in person to receive him and welcomed him into the palace. A Tibetan cavalry unit of twelve hundred elite troops was garrisoned in Nepal; the commanding Dongben was named Chide Zan, who had campaigned westward alongside Songtsen Gampo and Wang Xuance, and held Wang Xuance in high regard. He too came to the palace to welcome Wang Xuance.

Wang Xuance recounted his experiences in India. Narendradeva and Chide Zan were both furious, roundly cursing King Dhruvasena.

“Deputy Minister Wang, the Great Tang’s national dignity must not be diminished,” Narendradeva said with conviction. “Since you have come to borrow troops, Nepal will lend all its strength. My kingdom is small — I have only seven thousand soldiers, but every one of them is an elite warrior. I will give them all to you to command, to crush this false king!”

“Deputy Minister,” Chide Zan also made his position clear, “Tibet has twelve hundred elite troops garrisoned here as well — naturally they are all at your disposal. However, this matter must first be reported to our Tsenpo. Please wait a few days: I will dispatch fast riders to Lhasa — they can make the round trip in six or seven days.”

Wang Xuance expressed his deepest gratitude. Chide Zan immediately dispatched men to Lhasa to seek instruction from Songtsen Gampo. In the interval of waiting, Nepal’s entire military was mobilized: seven thousand troops sharpened their weapons and drilled their horses, preparing provisions, mounts, and equipment, and mobilizing civilian workers and auxiliary troops. Seven days later, Songtsen Gampo’s command arrived, ordering Chide Zan to lead all forces and follow Wang Xuance to destroy King Dhruvasena. Songtsen Gampo harbored great ambitions and had long coveted India’s wealth and prosperity; now that King Harsha was dead, his greatest rival was gone, and he immediately gave Chide Zan a secret order to map the passes and conditions of various regions in India along the way, to assess whether Tibet might in future launch a military campaign into India.

The following day, a total of eight thousand two hundred men formed ranks and set out, sweeping down from the high mountain snowfields, driving directly toward Kanyakubja. Along the way, all the kingdoms were members of the Alliance of Sixteen Kingdoms — King Kumara had given orders that wherever the army passed, each city would supply provisions. As a result, Wang Xuance’s advance was swift; in a mere fifteen days, they reached the northern bank of the Ganges, bypassed the battlefield where both sides had been locked in a standoff, and drove straight toward Kanyakubja.

When Narasimha first heard that Wang Xuance was leading troops toward him, he was genuinely startled. But then he heard the force numbered only slightly over eight thousand and immediately burst into laughter. He commanded Jandha to withdraw fifty thousand men from the front lines, cross the Ganges, and form battle lines to meet the enemy.

Narasimha personally led fifty thousand troops — including three hundred war elephants, ten thousand cavalry, and the full panoply of a formidable army. Thirty li beyond the Ganges, a scout came to report that Wang Xuance had encamped ten li ahead, setting up field fortifications and waiting in strict formation. Narasimha ordered his great army to press forward. Jandha, who was familiar with the terrain of this area, cautioned against advancing recklessly. The left side was a continuous stretch of forested hills; the right side was a swampland; only the center was a narrow plain, completely incapable of deploying fifty thousand men. Wang Xuance had chosen this as his preset battlefield, evidently to neutralize their numerical superiority.

Narasimha was unconcerned. This was his first battle since ascending the throne. He meant to defeat Wang Xuance with a straightforward, righteous force, and thus intimidate all those in India who dared rebel. Jandha knew his Emperor was a stubborn man, and at the same time he genuinely believed that, given their absolute superiority, there was no need for clever maneuvering. Jandha issued orders: infantry in the van, cavalry on both flanks, elephant corps to the rear. He then commanded a ten-thousand-strong corps to launch an assault, destroy the enemy’s field fortifications, and open a gap for the cavalry to break through. Once the cavalry pierced the enemy’s formation and threw it into disorder, the elephant corps would roll forward in a broad sweep and shatter the enemy entirely.

Since Wang Xuance had chosen this as his preset battlefield, he had naturally made his preparations. To check the enemy’s assault, he erected three layers of wooden deer-fencing, adopting a purely defensive posture. Consequently, the first wave of imperial infantry immediately ran into a storm of fire — the allied troops sheltered behind the fencing and loosed arrows by the ten thousand, and countless soldiers were cut down mid-charge. But yet more men swarmed forward.

The infantry’s long spears stretched three to four zhang in length. Both sides fought savagely across the deer-fencing; from the very outset, the battle was brutal beyond measure — inside and outside the fencing, both sides piled up over a thousand corpses, nearly as high as the fencing itself. After much back-and-forth, the imperial forces, relying on their numerical advantage, painfully seized the first layer of fencing. Wang Xuance issued the order to fall back and defend the second layer.

But the second layer did not hold much longer either. The imperial forces pressed forward with furious energy and wrested it away as well. The soldiers cleared the fencing aside, removing the obstacle for the cavalry’s breakthrough. They raised a collective battle cry and surged like a tide toward the last layer. Narasimha was elated as he watched — barring any accidents, within half an hour the fencing would be breached and Wang Xuance’s formation broken. Only Marshal Jandha felt a creeping unease: everything was proceeding too smoothly. Wang Xuance was so clearly at a massive disadvantage in strength — why would he adopt a defensive posture on open ground?

Inside the fencing, Wang Xuance stood leaning on a long sword, standing cold and expressionless at his command position. He had assigned one thousand troops to defend each layer of fencing; now only two thousand remained in the center — and Chide Zan and the rest of his forces were nowhere to be seen. By Wang Xuance’s side was the inner minister Nepal’s king had sent along. This inner minister had never experienced so harrowing a situation; his heart hammered with fear. “Deputy Minister — the third layer of fencing is about to fall!”

“Let it fall. Was the fencing not set up precisely in order to be taken?” Wang Xuance replied without inflection.

The inner minister pulled a long face. “Taking such a risk puts you in mortal peril. If the timing slips even slightly — if the smallest thing goes wrong — we will all be ground to powder.”

Wang Xuance shot him a glance. “Eight thousand men trying to defeat fifty thousand — if we do not take risks, where will even the slimmest chance of survival come from?”

Just then, shouts and cheers erupted from the fencing line — the third layer was on the verge of collapse. The inner minister’s face went pale; he closed his eyes. He knew that the next moment would bring the thunder of the enemy’s iron hooves crashing down upon them.

And over at the enemy’s formation, Narasimha was clenching his fist in excitement. “The fencing is about to fall! Everyone — cavalry, charge!”

Marshal Jandha started to say something, then closed his mouth again. He simply felt it odd: Wang Xuance had arrived with such a fierce show of force — was it really possible that a single vanguard of ten thousand had utterly crushed him? How could that be? But the cavalry charge was the agreed strategy — and so he raised no objection.

Ten thousand cavalry peeled away from both flanks, gathering speed gradually, building momentum with each step, until dozens of paces in they were fully unleashed — two torrents of thunderclap lightning, rumbling in a surging charge toward the enemy formation. But just as the cavalry fully committed and had covered half the distance, suddenly from the direction of the forested hills to the left came a deep, rolling thunder of hoofbeats. In an instant, a black torrent burst forth from the hilly woodland — and there were the long-vanished Tibetan elite troops and a portion of Nepal’s cavalry, with Chide Zan and Jiang Shiren at their head!

It turned out that Chide Zan’s cavalry had been concealed in ambush within the forested hills for a long time. Wang Xuance had paid so steep a price — all in order to draw away Narasimha’s flanking cavalry, leaving both wings exposed — so that Chide Zan’s cavalry could strike the side in a massive flanking assault. To achieve this, Wang Xuance had not hesitated to use himself as bait, placing himself in mortal peril, all for this single fleeting window of opportunity.

Narasimha and Jandha had never imagined that the enemy’s cavalry would strike their own flanks at this precise, crucial juncture. In the chaos, Chide Zan and Jiang Shiren led their iron cavalry like a blade driving deep into the formation. What happens when cavalry charge at tremendous speed and devastating force into an infantry formation? They need not even swing their blades — the sheer impact alone throws the formation into disarray.

“Hold steady!” Jandha bellowed his orders. “Spearmen — form close ranks! Block their momentum!”

Jandha was without question a talented commander: even in such chaos, he maintained forceful control of his troops. The spearmen swiftly locked into a dense formation, creating a dense thicket of spears to check Chide Zan’s momentum. But the moment Jandha completed this adjustment, his face went white — he realized that Chide Zan and Jiang Shiren had never intended to break the infantry at all. Three thousand cavalry, each man on horseback with bow drawn and arrow nocked, released volley after volley of fire arrows directly at the war elephants!

The moment Chide Zan’s cavalry loosed their fire arrows, the situation changed entirely. The war elephants were so immense that these Tibetan elites could scarcely have missed with their eyes closed. Ordinarily, elephants have thick hides — a few arrows would matter little. But the trouble was that these fire arrows were coated with great quantities of flammable oil: once they clung to an elephant, they blazed with roaring flames that could not be extinguished. The cavalry also carried large clay jars of flammable oil strapped to their horses; these were ignited and hurled directly onto the elephants in mid-gallop, setting whole animals afire in an instant. The soldiers atop the wooden howdahs screamed in agony as they were engulfed in flames and leaped from their mounts; the elephants, burning, threw their heads back in terrified cries and stampeded in all directions.

Three hundred war elephants suddenly went berserk, charging wildly everywhere, and smashed the orderly formation into chaos — countless soldiers were trampled to death beneath the elephants’ feet.

With this, Narasimha’s formation collapsed into complete disorder. Chide Zan seized the moment, and he and Jiang Shiren each led their cavalry charging back and forth through the formation, driving straight at Narasimha’s command position. The infantry defenses they passed through crumbled with each charge; nothing could withstand the assault of three thousand iron cavalry.

Narasimha had long since gone pale with shock. No matter how he tried, he could not understand — just a moment ago, everything had been going so well. How could it have come to this in the blink of an eye? Seeing three thousand cavalry charging forward and his four thousand-plus remaining troops already in collapse, Marshal Jandha knew the situation was beyond recovery. “Your Majesty — we must retreat!”

“I will not retreat!” Narasimha screamed madly. “Are we to be defeated — just like that?”

“We have not been defeated yet,” said Jandha. “As long as their main force is still being held by our vanguard, it is not a total rout. Right now the priority is to ensure Your Majesty’s safety.”

Mid-argument, Jiang Shiren had already carved his way into the command position. Narasimha’s personal guard was struck down, and as the enemy swept in like a storm, Narasimha retreated in bitter fury. Jiang Shiren ordered his men to cut down the royal standard and bellowed: “King Dhruvasena is dead!”

Three thousand voices roared in unison, shaking the earth in all directions. The imperial soldiers, already struggling to hold on, saw the royal standard fall and instantly lost all will — the formation shattered entirely.

Across the way, Wang Xuance, who had been pinned down and watching Narasimha’s command position intently, saw the royal standard go down and was overjoyed. He issued the command for everyone to shout in unison: “King Dhruvasena is dead!”

The infantry and cavalry attacking Wang Xuance heard this and were seized with dread. Some turned to look — and saw not only that their own royal standard had fallen, but that the command position itself had collapsed. Panic swept through the ranks at once. Wang Xuance bellowed: “Everyone mount up — charge forward! As long as there is one breath left in you, keep charging forward! Do not look to the sides, do not look behind you. As long as there is a road ahead, as long as there is an enemy ahead — charge forward with everything you have!”

Wang Xuance had only around three thousand men remaining. They all leaped to their horses and charged forward with a great war cry. At that moment, the imperial cavalry was still driving toward them — both sides collided with a tremendous crash, like two great waves striking head-on, and countless men were hurled from their mounts. But every one of Wang Xuance’s men obeyed the command: forward!

They thrust through the imperial cavalry. They pushed through the imperial infantry beyond. They crossed the empty ground in the center of the battlefield — and with a force that would not be denied, drove headlong into Narasimha’s main army. Narasimha’s infantry corps had already been thrown into disorder by the maddened war elephants and Chide Zan’s assault — and now Wang Xuance’s frontal charge struck them in the face, and they broke completely. The imperial infantry scattered like forty thousand headless flies, crashing into each other. Countless men were driven into the swamps; still more were trampled to death; and even more were swept along in the rout behind Narasimha.

The entire battle devolved into something utterly bizarre: Narasimha and his routed soldiers fled in front, while Wang Xuance and Chide Zan led their cavalry herding them from behind, with Narasimha’s own intact cavalry unit trailing at the rear. Both Narasimha and Jandha saw clearly that if they could only turn around and plug the gap for even a short while, Wang Xuance would be caught between front and rear, and the battle could be completely reversed.

But it was not so easy. Once an army collapses, it becomes a cascade of sand pouring downhill. With three or four thousand men fleeing in all directions, anyone who dared stop would be trampled by the thousands of men behind them. However much Narasimha and Jandha resented it, they had no choice but to be swept along by the tide of defeated soldiers, fleeing in wretched disorder. Wang Xuance and Chide Zan both understood thoroughly the proper use of cavalry — especially in a rout. The optimal role of cavalry in a pursuit was not killing, but herding. The main body followed the routed soldiers at a measured distance, not allowing them to rest or halt; anyone who stopped was immediately cut down. Meanwhile, a smaller portion of the cavalry plunged deep among the fugitives, cutting and shooting, generating terror and keeping them in continuous rout. If the thirty or forty thousand routed soldiers were a straw mat, Wang Xuance was the man rolling it up. What he had to do was lift one corner of that mat and roll the whole thing up — sweeping the field.

The imperial cavalry that had been giving chase from behind saw the situation and knew the tide had turned completely. With no heart to pursue further, they scattered and fled. Wang Xuance, freed from worry about his rear, pressed the pursuit relentlessly.

The spectacle of forty thousand troops in full collapse was as though heaven and earth were splitting apart. Some were killed by the enemy; some were trampled to death by their own men; still others blundered blindly into the swamps and drowned. By the halfway point of the thirty-li retreat, half of the forty thousand had already scattered. Not a few soldiers actually died of sheer exhaustion in the course of their flight — and even Marshal Jandha perished in the chaos.

When the full thirty li were covered, the fugitives’ hearts turned to ice: ahead lay the vast Ganges River. Ships had been moored on the Ganges, but with tens of thousands of men crowding the bank, how many could cross at once? The routed soldiers clawed frantically at the boats. Wang Xuance’s cavalry pressed from behind, driving the fugitives into the river — and in moments, the Ganges was choked with floating corpses.

Narasimha’s personal guards tried to protect him and board a boat, but the routed soldiers cared nothing about whether he was emperor or commoner — they shoved forward in frantic desperation, and masses of men surged onto the boats. Before Narasimha could board, the vessel tilted and crashed over with a thunderous roar, capsizing and turning belly-up in the water. Countless routed soldiers plunged into the river, screaming in unison — in moments the water was filled with people being swept away by the current, a sight too terrible to bear.

Narasimha stood staring blankly at the river’s surface. Behind him was the pursuing enemy; before him, no boats remained for crossing. Suddenly he broke into a frenzied laugh — a laugh that bent him double and left him streaming with tears — and then he crumpled to his knees on the riverbank and wept with ragged, choking sobs.

Suddenly there was stillness behind him. Narasimha wiped his tears and looked back: his own guards were gone. Countless foreign cavalrymen had drawn in around him, forming a half-circle along the riverbank, completely encircling him. From among the iron-clad cavalry, Wang Xuance rode forward and gazed at him in silence.

Narasimha drew his long sword and threw it out, driving it into the ground between them.

“If you wish to kill me for vengeance, here is my head,” Narasimha said in a flat, dull voice. “If I cannot wait for her in this world, then I will search for her through the cycles of rebirth. For this world, I am thoroughly and completely sick.”

In the twentieth year of Zhenguan, Wang Xuance borrowed eight thousand two hundred troops from Tibet and Nepal and utterly routed King Dhruvasena’s army of fifty thousand, capturing him alive. India was shaken.

After capturing Narasimha, Wang Xuance crossed the Ganges and advanced directly to the outer walls of Kanyakubja. The city’s defenses had been entirely destroyed in the battle; upon hearing that the Emperor had been captured, the entire city surrendered. Wang Xuance entered Kanyakubja, and in an instant the whole of India was in uproar. The imperial armies that had been facing off against King Kumara and the others all surrendered to King Kumara. The allied forces of the Sixteen Kingdoms entered Kanyakubja under King Kumara’s leadership and assumed control of the administration.

All the kings were profoundly grateful to Wang Xuance — and at the same time somewhat apprehensive. The Tibetan and Nepalese troops were garrisoned within Kanyakubja, and this made the kings uneasy, as though thorns had been pressed against their backs. They consulted Wang Xuance and offered thirty thousand cattle and horses, along with bows, blades, and jeweled garlands as reward for the army. Tibet had suffered five hundred casualties in this campaign, and Nepal had lost over two thousand — great sacrifices indeed. Wang Xuance accepted the cattle, horses, and treasures without ceremony and divided half among Chide Zan and Nepal’s inner minister. Both men were delighted. On the high cold plateau, fighting battles that cost ten thousand lives yielded nothing like such generous rewards — and they felt keenly that India was indeed a land of extraordinary wealth. Chide Zan happily told Wang Xuance: “Deputy Minister, when I return I will urge the Tsenpo with all my strength to send troops into India.”

Wang Xuance was taken aback, and upon inquiry learned that Songtsen Gampo truly harbored intentions of pushing southward.

“Dongben,” Wang Xuance said after a moment of thought, “tell me — how many troops did you lose in this campaign?”

Chide Zan considered: “Of the twelve hundred men I brought, seven hundred remain. Over two hundred died in battle.”

“And how did the rest of the soldiers die?” Wang Xuance asked.

Chide Zan said with regret: “India’s climate is too scorching hot. Having just come down from the snowfields, over a hundred men suffered heatstroke. Then after drinking India’s river water, another hundred or more fell ill from disease. By now, over two hundred men have died from the unfamiliar climate and conditions. Fortunately, we will not be staying long — otherwise, we hawks of the snowfields who are undefeated in battle would likely have few survivors to return home.”

“If the Tsenpo were to lead a great army down from the snowfields on campaign,” Wang Xuance asked, “regardless of victory or defeat — in your estimation, how many would return?”

Chide Zan was stunned. He thought about it carefully, and could not suppress a cold shiver. India’s climate and Tibet’s were two complete opposites — once these high-plateau warriors arrived on the Indian subcontinent with its endless monsoon seasons and sweltering humid heat, they would likely lose their finest troops entirely and leave their bones in a foreign land. Chide Zan had let the wealth go to his head just a moment ago — but now, roused by Wang Xuance’s words, he came back to himself. He quietly thanked his good fortune: if he had gone back and spoken carelessly to the Tsenpo, and the Tsenpo had sent a great army into India, he himself might have become the greatest sinner Tibet had ever known.

On his return, Chide Zan reported the matter faithfully in full. Songtsen Gampo felt as though cold water had been poured over his head, and his desire to push south and contend for supremacy was extinguished on the spot. For the remainder of his life, the Tibetans made no further move southward — instead turning their ambitions north and west, to contend with the Great Tang and the Turks for mastery of the Western Regions.

After settling matters with the troops of both kingdoms, Wang Xuance put a condition to King Kumara and the others: Narasimha had unlawfully murdered the Great Tang’s envoys — a crime that could not be pardoned. Since he had now destroyed the kingdom, he would escort the members of the imperial family back to the Great Tang and present the captives before the throne. King Kumara and the others were eager to reshape the empire’s political order, and naturally were glad to have Wang Xuance take the former imperial family and nobility away. The assembled kings also had private agendas: they made large-scale arrests throughout Kanyakubja, seizing political enemies, officials who had opposed the Alliance of Sixteen Kingdoms, and nobles — packing them all together as Wang Xuance’s prisoners to bring back to the Great Tang.

In the end, Wang Xuance heard that too many people were being arrested, and went to inspect the camp holding the prisoners. He was immediately dumbfounded: men, women, young and old, a vast dark crowd of them — roughly counted, they numbered twelve thousand!

“This—” Wang Xuance could not believe his eyes. “These are all of Narasimha’s remnants? How can there possibly be so many?”

King Kumara laughed. “Not so many at all — these are merely the ringleaders among Narasimha’s remnants.” He pulled Wang Xuance aside and whispered in his ear: “Deputy Minister, you crushed a kingdom in a single battle and are presenting captives before the throne — what a magnificent and glorious achievement! If you take only three or five hundred people, would that not diminish the Great Tang’s prestige? Ha ha — the Deputy Minister understands.”

Wang Xuance felt a tremor in his heart. Indeed — this was the achievement of destroying a kingdom! And what was more, unlike Li Jing, Li Ji, and Hou Junji, he had done it alone in a foreign land, with another nation’s troops, to annihilate one of the greatest empires of the age. In terms of scale, the Harsha Empire was in no way inferior to the Eastern or Western Turkic Khanates — and annihilating a single Eastern Turkic Khanate had required father and son over two generations of the Tang imperial family, accumulating strength across more than a decade, while he had done it with barely eight thousand men in a single battle. True, there were many fortuitous circumstances involved — more than half the empire’s forces had been tied down by the Sixteen Kingdoms Alliance, and Narasimha had no roots and no popular support after ascending the throne — but this was still, incontrovertibly and undeniably, the achievement of destroying an entire kingdom. The thought set Wang Xuance’s heart ablaze, and he tacitly accepted this enormous prisoner contingent of twelve thousand.

Three days later, Wang Xuance led his Tibetan and Nepalese forces, escorting the vast column of prisoners, and set out on the journey home. Narasimha, after being captured, had been held separately in the palace. When the prisoner column assembled outside the palace gates, Wang Xuance went to the palace to bring Narasimha out.

Narasimha was dressed entirely as a fallen ruler — his hair unbound and loose, his feet bare, clothed in hemp, cradling his infant child in his arms. He walked out of the palace alone, a solitary figure. The narrow and towering palace gate framed his lonely shadow — boundless desolation.

After passing through the palace gate, Narasimha gazed in silence at the ground beyond the outer wall. It seemed there was still a dark stain there, reflecting in his eyes. He began to weep silently, bent his head, and murmured: “My child — this is the place where your mother gave her life. And now we must leave. Ten thousand li from our homeland — this life, I do not know if we will ever be reunited with her.”

With these words, Narasimha handed the child to a palace attendant beside him, then walked to the place where Lianhaye had died. He knelt down on the ground — and then prostrated himself, his entire body flat against the earth, arms spread wide, pressing his whole self into the ground. The assembled crowd watched in silence: this was the highest ritual of India — the five-body prostration. He was offering penitence to Lianhaye.

Narasimha wept with quiet, choking sobs, his tears spilling onto the ground, flowing into fissures. That night, Lianhaye’s blood had flowed out just this way, spreading in pools across the earth. Now Narasimha wept his tears into this same place.

Wang Xuance walked over and lifted him up. “The dead cannot return. Let us go.”

Narasimha stood, wiped his eyes, and murmured: “Does the Great Tang also have palace walls and cycles of rebirth?”

Wang Xuance did not know how to answer. Narasimha looked at him with beseeching eyes. Wang Xuance could only draw a long, heavy sigh. “The Great Tang too is part of this world — how could it have no cycle of rebirth? Narasimha, the Great Tang’s imperial city is magnificent and vast, a hundred times more glorious than Kanyakubja. The Great Tang’s Chang’an has a population of a million, shoulder to shoulder, rubbing elbows in every lane. Perhaps many years from now, in Chang’an’s western markets, you might chance to turn your head — and a woman, radiant as a lotus, will step softly toward you.”

Narasimha broke into heartbroken weeping.

The great army and the prisoners left the palace, moving through the narrow streets of Kanyakubja. Just as they reached the city gate, suddenly a commotion broke out ahead — and there rose the startled cries of numerous soldiers. Wang Xuance and King Kumara and the others hurried forward, and saw an elderly man with a long beard and short hair walking at a leisurely pace, coming straight toward them. The surrounding soldiers moved to block him — but the old man paid no heed whatsoever. He lightly flicked his fingers, swept his robe, and the surrounding soldiers were as though struck by an enchantment — they stumbled and fell to the ground, senseless. Nearby, a group of Tibetan warriors erupted in fury: more than ten men drew their bows and loosed arrows all at once. The old man spread out one great hand, and grasped at the empty air — and the dozen arrows suspended in midair, utterly still!

The onlookers erupted in astonishment. The old man opened his mouth and let out a single syllable: “Hah!”

The arrows that had been hanging suspended in the air suddenly shattered, dissolving into black wisps of smoke and vanishing. The surrounding soldiers stared open-mouthed, saying nothing, not daring to block him further. The old man pressed his palms together, lowered his head quietly, and walked on with complete composure.

At this point, Wang Xuance and the others came forward to meet him — and saw him, and were struck with astonishment. It was Subhakarasimha! In the rush of events these past days, Wang Xuance had utterly forgotten this important prisoner from the Seven-Layered Prison!

“Subhakarasimha!” Wang Xuance bellowed. “I had forgotten to come for you in the Seven-Layered Prison — and yet here you are walking straight into our hands!”

Subhakarasimha’s expression was sorrowful, his face gray and wan — as though he had aged by decades in a single day. He stared at the vast dark mass of prisoners, and murmured: “A glorious empire — brought to this. Can it be that this old monk was wrong?”

Wang Xuance drew his long sword and held it against Subhakarasimha’s neck, speaking coldly: “Tell me — you schemed for decades, controlling the Harsha Empire from the shadows. What was it all for?”

“Does saying so now serve any purpose?” Subhakarasimha suddenly wept — half crying, half laughing. “Thirty years of solitary striving, and I possessed an empire on earth — only for it to be shattered in so absurd a fashion. This old monk’s sins span a thousand ages; not even a hundred kalpas in hell would be penance enough.”

Wang Xuance frowned. “Subhakarasimha — what have you come here to do?”

Subhakarasimha’s expression grew solemn. He pressed his palms together and bowed. “This old monk has come to turn himself in.”

“To turn yourself in?” Wang Xuance was bewildered.

“By the law of cause and effect, this old monk is the true and ultimate mastermind of all this,” Subhakarasimha said calmly. “Since you are taking these prisoners to the Great Tang to present before the throne, how could this old monk be missing from the captives? And so this old monk requests to be bound of his own accord, to join this column of prisoners from a fallen kingdom.”

Wang Xuance gazed at him steadily, then nodded. “Even without your saying so, you would not have been left out from the captives before the throne. Guards — bind him!”

The Tibetan soldiers surged forward like wolves and tigers, binding Subhakarasimha with ropes wound around him in all directions. Subhakarasimha remained calm in expression, following the Tibetan soldiers quietly into the midst of the prisoners. After walking some distance, he suddenly turned back, gazing toward Wang Xuance in the distance, and laughed softly to himself: “The Emperor of the Great Tang — this old monk knows how to refine the immortality elixir. He can surely be granted ten thousand years of boundless longevity!”