Leaping onto his steed, facing the biting wind, Jun Beiyue rode at full gallop, looking exactly as he always did—not a trace of weakness, his commanding presence and brilliance undiminished!
The poisoned blood he’d just forced out had genuinely eased much of the cold energy within him, but no one knew how long he could hold out. For now, at least, he looked fierce, valiant, and utterly unrestrained!
No one could stop him. His steed burst out of the camp and charged straight south!
The route south required descending from the northern frontier plateau, continuing south to the Three Realms, then turning west, heading all the way west from there!
Jun Beiyue knew full well that no matter what method he used, there was no way he could reach Xijing before the war there ended!
All his hopes rested on Sha Qiuzi!
After all, a hawk flying for a single day could cover more ground than a horse traveling by winding roads for several!
He could only hope that Sha Qiuzi would deliver the sealed letter to Ziqing as quickly as possible, hope that Ziqing would be wary of Situ Haonan, hope she’d understand just how much the death of the lord of Nangong Castle would affect him!
And as for himself—
He was racing forward with everything he had not just for his wife, but for his brother as well!
Among the imperial family, even brothers born of the same mother would fight to the death over power—let alone him and the other imperial princes, who weren’t even born of the same mother, some not even sharing the same father!
He’d had no brothers since childhood. Situ Haonan was the only one—and the closest one, too!
No matter what, he didn’t want to turn against this brother, didn’t want to give up on him.
As the saying goes, spring cold bites hardest just before it fades—the days around the New Year were the coldest time on the northern frontier, and the biting wind kept striking his face, endless, seemingly never to stop!
Jun Beiyue’s blood-red cloak snapped and cracked in the wind, flying wildly, while his three thousand strands of ink-black hair danced like a dragon and phoenix in flight. In the howling wind, no one could clearly make out his face—only that it looked as cold and forbidding as ice!
A full day of hard riding, from night into day, and then into night again!
The poison Bai Mengmeng had forced out could only hold back the cold for a single day. As night fell once more, a bone-piercing chill began creeping up from beneath Jun Beiyue’s feet, along his leg bones.
It felt as though countless icy insects were crawling up from beneath his feet, climbing steadily up his leg bones, up to his waist, up across his body, up into his skull!
This kind of cold was indescribable—as though his entire body, from toes to crown, was being sealed in ice!
His limbs grew stiff with cold!
Yet Jun Beiyue gritted his teeth, his sharp eyes fixed straight ahead. He had forgotten himself entirely—his mind held only one road, one direction, one person.
That night, this man never once paused his ride.
That night, this man sat motionless on his horse, save for the hand holding the whip.
That night, not a trace of worry crossed this man’s handsome brow.
That night, this man did not fall.
Dawn finally broke, hazy and dim. In the biting chill of early spring, the thing most feared was rain—and along this southward road, instead of snow, rain began to fall.
The rain struck his body, and the cold it brought felt like falling into icy water in the dead of winter—something no ordinary person could endure!
And yet Jun Beiyue continued pressing forward!
He let the freezing rain soak him through, let it hang from his hair, drip down his face, soak his clothes, cling to his eyelashes—he showed no reaction at all, as still and imposing as a stone statue.
Finally, though the man did not fall—his horse did!
In the midst of the desperate ride, the horse stumbled once again. This time it wasn’t sabotage—the horse’s legs had simply given out from exhaustion.
Jun Beiyue leapt from the saddle, landing beneath a large tree—but the moment his feet touched the ground, his own legs gave way too!
The cold had sealed his meridians, consuming his vital energy!
He’d only been able to endure this long because he’d been running on sheer vital energy. Once the cold within his body finished consuming what remained of it, he would truly be in danger!
Jun Beiyue leaned against the tree trunk, bracing himself, refusing to fall!
He had never been a man to force himself beyond his limits for pride’s sake, but neither had he ever been one to give up easily, or to ask for help easily—least of all from someone he despised.
Better to rely on himself than to beg others!
The lord of Nangong Castle had once been arrogant before him, carrying himself with all the authority of the supreme master of the martial world—never realizing that he, Jun Beiyue, carried the bloodline of the Gu clan, possessed a talent unmatched by anyone else of that lineage.
For the truth was, Liuxian Island was where the true great martial families of the world had gathered. The once most honored martial clans on the Longyuan continent had all long since retreated into seclusion on Liuxian Island—those who remained on the Longyuan continent were, so to speak, the ones eliminated back then!
Before the clans of Liuxian Island, the martial world of Longyuan wasn’t even worth mentioning!
And he, Jun Beiyue, was the very pinnacle of the Gu clan’s internal cultivation techniques—surpassing even the Gu clan’s own patriarch!
The peak achievement of Gu clan internal energy cultivation was known as “transmuting to essence”—internal energy could be converted into vital essence, and when internal energy was overly depleted, the stored vital essence could be converted back into internal energy, each sustaining the other!
Now, as long as he gritted his teeth and endured, converting his remaining vital essence into internal energy, he could break through the meridian points sealed by the cold and force all the chill from his body!
Only, this process would be agonizing and brutal!
Jun Beiyue clenched his jaw. A full day and night of hard riding, facing the biting wind, had at least brought his blood and essence to a boil from sheer exertion!
Now was the best possible moment!
No matter what, he had to endure this!
At this moment, Da Zhou could not do without him. Ziqing could not do without him. His brother could not do without him, either!
He summoned every last ounce of strength and forced himself upright, standing tall.
Letting the rain beat down on him, letting the cold wind invade his body, he closed his eyes and began the most difficult trial of his entire life, of his entire cultivation journey!
Whether he would succeed, no one could say.
Meanwhile, far off at the western front of Xijing, the smoke of battle had cleared, the war drums had gone silent. Atop the walls of Longxi City, one of Wanyan Lie’s generals raised a white flag, signaling to the attacking forces that they surrendered!
Though no one could yet see where Han Ziqing was, there was no doubt that if she hadn’t cut off all of Longxi City’s supply lines from behind the scenes, Wanyan Lie wouldn’t have surrendered so quickly.
Had the standoff dragged on, morale would have crumbled—and even with morale soaring on his own side, Situ Haonan might not have won after all.
Situ Haonan sat astride his warhorse, his troops arrayed before the city walls. He looked up at the white flag atop the gate and couldn’t help bursting into laughter.
He turned, thrusting his spear into the air, and shouted loudly, “Brothers, we… we’ve won!”
“We’ve won!” General Dugu immediately echoed, raising his sword high, pointing it straight at the heavens.
In an instant, the entire army erupted in cheers, spears raised, arms thrust into the air, tens of thousands of voices roaring as one!
“We won! We’ve won!”
“We are victorious!”
“Xijing has won!”
“Xiliang has surrendered!”
…
“Ha, we’ve won—we’ve finally won!” Situ Haonan looked out over his cheering soldiers, a surge of overwhelming emotion and fighting spirit rising within him!
In this moment, he was so full of vigor, so heroic and handsome; in this moment, his handsome face radiated the joy and relief of victory; in this moment, he seemed, if only briefly, to have forgotten the hatred surrounding Nangong Castle!
If not for that hatred hanging over Nangong Castle, how worth celebrating this moment would have been!