The Jiaping Granary was outside the northern city gate, not as strictly guarded as the neighborhoods and markets within the city. If the Shenguang cult decided to strike, this place would be their first target.

Thick clouds gathered as two Eastern Palace Guards rode ahead, clearing the way with loud calls. A damp wind blew against their faces and rushed past their ears.

At the city gate, the Gate Commander recognized Zhao Yān. After learning the reason for her urgency and hearing that the Jiaping Granary might be under attack by bandits, he immediately assigned eight city gate guards to accompany her, while the rest closed the city gates to prevent bandits from sneaking in during the chaos.

Upon reaching the granary gates, Zhao Yān immediately sensed something was wrong.

No patrol guards came to greet them, and in the stuffy pre-rain breeze, there was a faint smell of blood.

They were half a step too late.

Realizing this problem, Zhao Yān raised her hand to stop the city guards from calling out rashly, urgently saying: “Don’t make a sound! Fall back!”

As her words fell, the sound of bowstrings broke through the air from the granary watchtower.

The arrows weren’t many, but they were vicious and accurate. The city guards, who had never been on a battlefield, couldn’t react in time. Instantly, they howled in pain as more than half of them fell.

Zhao Yān ducked low to avoid an arrow that grazed her back, but her horse was startled and reared up.

…

…

In that moment of being thrown upward, she glimpsed a familiar woman standing on the watchtower—beneath a black cloak, a purple gauze Daoist robe fluttered in the wind.

With no time to think, Zhao Yān rolled off her horse, repeatedly tumbling to avoid the high-raised hooves. Arrows were already approaching her face.

In the critical moment, a curved blade intercepted and sliced the arrow in half. Chou Zui’s beast-like figure stood before her, his tattered warrior’s robe making flapping sounds in the wind.

Zhao Yān immediately rose and hid with the four remaining guards at the corner of a stone wall.

The arrows stopped. It was unclear whether the enemy was briefly resupplying and resting, or hesitating and apprehensive.

Chou Zui stood with his blade among the sliced arrows. Opposite him, about a dozen masked men with tiger-like backs and bear-like waists had somehow gathered.

These men were all exceptionally robust, with fierce eyes, and they walked with their legs slightly splayed—a habit only found in people who had lived on horseback for long periods.

Even though they covered their faces with triangular scarves and bound their hair with turbans, Zhao Yān instantly recognized they weren’t from the Central Plains.

But she had to suppress the trembling and anger in her heart and find a way to protect the Jiaping Granary’s storehouses, buying time for the Military Affairs Bureau’s troops.

She closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath, told the guards, “Don’t move rashly,” then slowly stepped out from behind the stone wall, focusing her gaze on the tall figure at the front.

“The dignified Thirteenth Prince of Northern Wu, yet willing to be the lapdog of the Great Xuan rebels. Wu Que, I misjudged you.”

Hearing this, the man at the front stumbled.

After a while, he pulled down the triangular scarf covering his face, revealing a deep, wheat-colored, rugged foreign face. He spread his hands and shrugged: “I knew I couldn’t fool you.”

His willingness to talk was a good sign.

Zhao Yān steadied herself, stepped forward twice more, and stood beside Chou Zui.

“You’re a clever person. Why seek the distant over the near, ignoring the business opportunity with the Great Xuan to stir up trouble with rebel remnants whose fate is sealed?”

“We Northern Wu people don’t have so many twists and turns. Whoever offers the most benefits is our friend.”

“Aren’t you afraid of war breaking out again between the Great Xuan and Northern Wu?”

“That would require you to have money and provisions to fight. In these two months in the Xuan Dynasty, I’ve figured out all your weaknesses.”

Wu Que folded one arm across his chest, rested the other hand against his chin, and squinted with a smile, revealing a pointed tiger tooth. “Little Princess, if you can open the pass, promise trade relations, and send the seven border cities as a dowry along with yourself, I can immediately switch sides to help you. How about that?”

Zhao Yān bit her lip, and after a moment, tried to say calmly: “We can negotiate.”

“Negotiate?” Wu Que threw his head back and laughed heartily.

The warm, moist wind lifted a strand of white hair that had escaped from his turban, and the air echoed with his youthful, wild laughter. After a long while, he said: “You’re too cunning, able to find a way out even on a dead-end path. I won’t fall for it. Taking you back as my war trophy would be just as satisfying!”

As he spoke, he had already drawn the Hu blade from his waist and came straight at her.

With a ringing sound, sparks flew.

Wu Que stepped back, looking with interest at the two curved blades in Chou Zui’s hands, and laughed: “Big guy, you use curved blades too!”

Though Wu Que’s martial skills weren’t as good as Wenren Lin’s, and his face always wore a smile that could deceive young and old alike, once he struck, every move was precise and vicious. On the arena platform, if he hadn’t deliberately held back a bit, even the young prodigy Pei Sa might have lost his life at his hands.

Now, as he faced off against Chou Zui, the killing intent they exuded made the air tremble.

“Forward. Go,” Chou Zui mumbled indifferently.

Zhao Yān understood. Facing such strong and crafty enemies, there was no more time to delay.

Under the guards’ cover, she headed for the granary gates. The Northern Wu men tried to pursue but were dispatched by Chou Zui’s blade. Wu Que’s eyes darkened, and he had no choice but to focus his attention on Chou Zui.

Behind them came the ringing of blade collisions.

Zhao Yān pushed open the granary gates and was immediately hit by a strong smell of blood that made her dizzy.

On the steps and along the paths lay dozens of granary guards’ corpses scattered about. Most had been suddenly attacked while removing their armor to eat, becoming ghosts under the arrows without even a chance to react.

Footsteps came from ahead. Zhao Yān picked up a long sword from the ground and used all her strength to block the blade of an approaching attacker.

The masked Northern Wu man’s blade deflected and got stuck in a brick wall. The guard behind Zhao Yān came to her rescue just in time and pierced the attacker’s chest with a sword.

“Your Highness, go quickly! Leave this to your servant!” The guard valiantly fought off the enemy.

Zhao Yān knew where Concubine Zhen was and walked through a trail of fresh blood toward the watchtower.

Just as she climbed the stairs, she saw several heavy arrows coated with niter oil and burning sparks cutting through the sky, flying toward the cone-shaped granaries covered with straw in the distance.

Then came successive earth-shaking explosions, lifting the entire ground. Zhao Yān fell backward, with dust and wood splinters falling from the stairs with a series of crackling sounds.

A sharp ringing filled her head. Zhao Yān covered her ears and, after a while, regained her hearing. Fighting the dizzying spinning sensation, she asked: “Are you all right?”

The guard who had shielded her shook off the dust and grain husks covering his body and replied: “Your servant is fine. How is Your Highness?”

“I’m also fine… help me up.”

Zhao Yān gritted her teeth as she stood. The exploded rice from the granaries had splattered as far as a hundred zhang away, and the stairs were covered with half-burnt grain.

In the distance, thick smoke billowed. At least seven or eight granaries had been destroyed at once. Last year’s severe flooding in various regions meant that now less than half of the granaries in the entire Jiaping complex contained food.

They couldn’t allow any more destruction!

Zhao Yān continued upward. Just as she was about to reach the top platform of the watchtower, she came face to face with Concubine Zhen, who was wearing a black cloak.

She seemed to have already arranged everything and was preparing to withdraw.

“Your Highness, be careful.”

The guard stepped forward, pointing his sword at Concubine Zhen.

Concubine Zhen retreated step by step, her eyes half lowered, looking at the sword tip almost touching her nose without the slightest ripple of emotion. She backed onto the platform and slightly raised her finger. Two Northern Wu archers with heavy bows emerged from behind her.

Zhao Yān knew well that only by dealing with these two archers could they save the remaining granaries.

The archers attacked first. An arrow shot forth and was deflected by the Eastern Palace guard’s horizontal blade. The power of the heavy arrow was extraordinary; the guard’s entire arm went numb, his body uncontrollably falling backward, and then the second archer’s arrow arrived before his eyes.

The guard was hit and tumbled down the stairs with a muffled sound. Zhao Yān took advantage of the moment when they were reaching for new arrows and used all her strength to thrust her sword forward.

The archer on the left was caught off guard and stabbed in the chest. He howled in pain and bumped against the platform railing, dropping his bow and arrow.

Hearing the sound of a bowstring being drawn behind her, Zhao Yān suddenly felt a chill. She released her sword and spun to avoid the attack. Almost simultaneously, an arrow grazed the tip of her nose and lodged in the archer who was leaning against the railing.

His thick body arched backward and fell from the watchtower.

Seeing that he had accidentally injured his comrade, the other archer cursed in a foreign language, stepped forward to kick away Zhao Yān’s sword, and pinned her against the platform railing.

Zhao Yān’s shoulders and head hung over the railing, her blood-stained sleeves fluttering in the air.

Below, Wu Que, who was entangled in combat with Chou Zui, saw this, and his golden eyes darkened. He shouted something in a foreign language.

The archer paused upon hearing this, not daring to deliver a fatal blow, but the pressure of his hands didn’t relax at all, almost crushing Zhao Yān’s chest.

Zhao Yān’s breath caught as she looked toward Concubine Zhen with difficulty and said: “You’re… the Master, aren’t you?”

Concubine Zhen just looked at her silently, her expression compassionate and calm.

“I never… understood… why you did all this.”

Zhao Yān desperately tilted her head back to breathe, inhaling the stuffy, damp air. “What is… your real name?”

“Your Highness need not waste your energy.”

“You incited the Luo Province rebels, using… the name of the deposed Crown Prince from the previous dynasty. You do this either because you hate him or revere him… but the Shenguang cult is already falling, at the end of its rope. What meaning… is there in doing these things?”

“As long as it makes the Emperor pay the price, there is meaning,” Concubine Zhen said instinctively.

At these words, both Zhao Yān and Concubine Zhen were slightly startled.

“You hate Father Emperor, are you a supporter of the deposed Crown Prince?” Zhao Yān grasped the key point.

Concubine Zhen smiled gently and said softly, “Your Highness wishes to reminisce and delay time, but unfortunately, it’s useless against me.”

Seeing her plan exposed, Zhao Yān’s heart sank, and coldness spread throughout her body.

Concubine Zhen didn’t delay any further. She looked at the Northern Wu archer, her voice soft yet vicious: “Strangle her.”

The Northern Wu archer, mindful of Wu Que’s earlier order, was still hesitating.

Concubine Zhen said calmly: “Kill her, and your prince can have as many women as he wants.”

Hearing this, killing intent erupted in the archer’s eyes. The next moment, Zhao Yān felt a sharp, suffocating pain in her neck.

As the bowstring tightened around her neck, Zhao Yān’s vision suddenly darkened. She fell to her knees with her head tilted back. This fear of facing death directly was deeper than any previous crisis, causing even her soul to tremble.

Her consciousness was drifting away. Instinctively, she wanted to struggle, but she knew that once she struggled and moved chaotically, the bowstring would only tighten further.

Don’t give up, can’t give up…

What had Wenren Lin taught during martial arts class about escaping when someone choked you from behind with a rope?

Remember, quickly remember!

In just an instant, Zhao Yān opened her bloodshot eyes, squeezed one hand between her neck and the bowstring, and despite the pain, desperately twisted her head to one side, slipping her jaw into the arched gap of the taut bowstring, striving to keep her airway clear…

With her other hand, she drew the short dagger from her waist, raised it, and slashed!

The broken bowstring twisted like a silver snake, leaving a hair-thin red mark on Zhao Yān’s delicate cheek.

The archer fell backward due to the sudden release of tension. Zhao Yān didn’t hesitate for a moment; her short dagger precisely slashed across the archer’s neck. Even in his final moment, he stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

Concubine Zhen, preparing to go downstairs, sensed something was wrong. She had just turned around when she saw a cold arrow tip appearing before her eyes.

The young woman’s hair was disheveled, her hairpins all gone, her blood-soaked sleeves flapping fiercely in the high tower’s strong wind. She had drawn a bow with an arrow, her slender white neck marked with a ring of red, like a goddess’s shackle. The delicate joints of her fingers bled from the bowstring’s pressure, but she seemed completely unaware.

She gasped for breath, her reddened eyes fixed intently on Concubine Zhen. Without hesitation, she let go, releasing the arrow.

Though her force was unsteady, it was still a highly damaging iron arrow. Concubine Zhen staggered back a step, half her arm losing all sensation.

“I know you… are skilled with poison. I’ll disable one of your arms first.”

Zhao Yān, enduring the taste of blood in her throat, said hoarsely and with difficulty, “Now, we can talk.”

The roles of attacker and defender had instantly reversed.