Huo Liuxing couldn’t remain here like Jianjia, spending the rest of his life guarding only Shen Lingzhen.

Waiting for him to guard were still the people of Hexi.

Previously when he returned to Bianjing, he should have immediately entered the palace to have an audience with the Emperor. After entering the city, upon hearing news of Shen Lingzhen’s death, he violated the imperial command and turned around to leave without a word—this was already a grave taboo. Fortunately Duke Yingguo’s mansion, knowing the circumstances, promptly explained to the new emperor on his behalf.

The new emperor deeply lamented this marriage between the two and didn’t excessively blame him. Instead, when Huo Liuxing re-entered the palace for an audience, he asked: “The betrothal between Cousin Shen and General Huo was actually never dissolved. Why don’t I make this decision—let Cousin Shen be moved into your Huo family tomb?”

This meant letting Shen Lingzhen, as Huo Liuxing’s wife, be given the Huo surname after death.

The young emperor seemingly still didn’t understand romantic love and didn’t know why this idea would make Huo Liuxing shake his head.

He said: “This subject kowtows in gratitude for Your Majesty’s great kindness. However, this subject committed many wrongs while she lived and has no qualification to decide her destination after death. Please withdraw the command, Your Majesty.”

The new emperor sighed: “I was thinking that you will henceforth guard Hexi for me. With such great distance, if you think of Cousin Shen at any time, it won’t be convenient to visit her.”

He paused, smiling faintly: “This is what this subject deserves.”

The new emperor said no more and let him be.

Huo Liuxing thus left Bianjing, returning to the frontier as Military Commissioner, stationed in Hexi for a very long time.

The Hexi Corridor was Daqi’s vital passage to the Western Regions, always a strategic location military strategists fought over. Though Xiqiang had temporarily lost the ability to seize Hexi due to defeat by Daqi, many other tribes in the northwest still covetously eyed this treasure.

The narrow terrain easy to attack but difficult to defend meant there had never been a myth here of one man holding the pass against ten thousand.

Yet Huo Liuxing used six years to create a legend in Hexi.

During those six years, facing over a hundred small-scale harassments and seven large-scale wars from surrounding nations, all of Hexi remained impregnable as iron walls, never losing ground for even a moment—not even a single city or stronghold’s breach was ever broken by enemy forces.

Through accumulated military merits, Huo Liuxing was promoted all the way to Grand General, reaching the peak of military positions. Put plainly, he was below one person and above ten thousand.

The Hexi people who lived peaceful days would proudly say whenever someone mentioned him: “You’re talking about our Hexi’s War God?”

However, no one is perfect. The War God at such an age still had no wife or children, remaining alone—this truly broke the hearts of Hexi’s people.

Everyone privately discussed, saying: Could the General be so focused on warfare that he’s forgotten about continuing the family line?

With much discussion, rumors slowly spread.

Some said the General hadn’t forgotten at all. They’d heard that every time the General went on campaign, he’d sew a young lady’s silk handkerchief onto his cloak. On that handkerchief were even words he’d personally written two years ago when promoted to Grand General.

Others asked: Whose silk handkerchief is it? Our General has unmatched martial arts and is handsome and talented. Such an excellent man—which young lady is so blind as to refuse to marry him?

Someone sighed in response, saying it seemed to be the General’s deceased betrothed. The young lady died of illness at such a young age. How pitiful that the General is so devoted. Alas…

Everyone sighed in agreement. Someone proposed that when the General grew old in the future, if he had no children, all of Hexi’s children would provide filial care for him!

Everyone laughingly agreed, seemingly having decided that this protector god of Hexi would guard them like this until old age. After all, even Huo Liuxing himself thought so.

But in the sixth year of his guarding Hexi, an unexpected event occurred.

After Xiqiang’s old king was slain by Huo Liuxing six years ago, they fought civil war for three full years, going through four kings during that time. Now they’d finally finished recovering their strength.

The first thing they did upon restoring combat power was to trouble Huo Liuxing. Firstly for revenge, secondly to make the iron-walled Hexi lose its so-called protector god.

Therefore, that Xiqiang general named Ya Lichong deliberately leaked news, making Huo Liuxing realize his elder brother’s death years ago seemed to have other suspicious circumstances.

This matter was precisely that thorn lodged in his and Shen Lingzhen’s hearts, creating a barrier between them.

When he discovered that the supposed blood feud between the Huo and Shen families might merely be a misunderstanding, even knowing clearly this was Ya Lichong’s bait to take his life, he couldn’t overcome his obsession and willingly jumped into the enemy’s trap.

On a winter night of heavy snowfall, Huo Liuxing rode alone into the enemy camp for a direct confrontation with Ya Lichong. The moment he verified everything, he finally knew how absurd he’d been ten years ago.

At that moment, he suddenly felt tired.

He considered that though he’d killed many people in his life, he’d never harmed the innocent and had been worthy of the common people. Yet heaven let retribution descend upon him piece by piece, never showing him mercy.

Merciful to him was only that one girl in this world he’d wronged, the only one he owed.

He suddenly missed her very much.

These six years, he’d only seen her in dreams after getting drunk. He wanted to live like Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly, treating dreams as reality and reality as dreams. But days of charging into battle always forced him to maintain absolute clarity during warfare.

He didn’t even have the qualification to be muddled.

Six years—now he no longer wanted to live soberly alone. He wanted to stop and rest.

So in that battle with Ya Lichong, he lost. Struck at the waist by a curved-head axe, he fell in a pool of blood yet felt no pain, instead feeling satisfaction.

In that instant, family vengeance, national hatred—he thought of nothing, only wanting to see her.

He thought, as long as he could go to a place where she was, he was willing to pay the price of his life here.

When he saw her, if she was still willing to forgive him, he would treat her well. If she was no longer willing, he would just watch her from afar, protect her, not let her suffer torment from injury and illness anymore.

Huo Liuxing hadn’t expected heaven would truly hear this wish and let him, at the moment of near-death, return to a certain spring’s Bianjing Peach Blossom Valley.

This was truly inconceivable. He once thought he was in a dream, but was awakened by the real scene before his eyes and the year, month, and date he heard when asking passersby. He recalled an old matter.

He remembered Jianjia had said that before Shen Lingzhen’s death, one strange thing happened.

Now this strange thing seemed to have also befallen him.

Where he currently was was precisely where ten years ago Shen Lingzhen had been abducted by bandits. If he remembered correctly, at this hour she should already be missing.

Regardless of whether this was real or just a dream, this time he must save her.

The urgency of time left him no leisure to be shocked or think. Carrying his injuries, he rushed toward where she’d originally fallen off the cliff, using his flesh and blood body to desperately stop that carriage about to fall, then killed those culprits with extremely brutal methods.

During the fight, he saw one assassin who, before dying, stared in terror at the sword in his hand and tremblingly stammered: “You are… Huo Liuxing…”

He froze for an instant. Because ten years ago at this time, though he already possessed this sword, he wasn’t called Huo Liuxing but Meng Liuxing.

An ordinary assassin couldn’t possibly know his true identity.

Even because he’d always been at the imperial tomb, people outside couldn’t easily recognize his sword.

He hazily formed a strange idea.

If such miracles truly existed in the world, he thought, could it be that Shen Lingzhen, who encountered this strange event before him, had changed the trajectory of his life?

Shen Lingzhen’s life’s tragedy originated from this cliff-falling disaster. His life’s retribution originated from originally switching identities with Meng Qufei.

Since he came to a place where he could change Shen Lingzhen’s fate, then six years ago, could Shen Lingzhen have gone to a place where she could change his and Meng Qufei’s fates?

Jianjia said when she departed, her hem and boot soles were covered with frost particles.

And he and Meng Qufei were born precisely in the frost-forming season.

Which meant there might be no Meng Liuxing here at all, only Huo Liuxing.

The person she was now to marry was precisely him in this world.

Huo Liuxing trembled and lost focus over this idea, so that when he finished killing all the bandits and turned toward Shen Lingzhen, thousands of words were stuck in his heart. He could only carefully ask her: “Are you injured?”

He led her through thorns all the way, hid in a mountain cave, and ultimately chose silence.

She was so frightened she hadn’t heard that assassin say “Huo Liuxing” just now. Then he needn’t explain his identity to her, explain that hurtful past.

In this place without Meng Liuxing, let her just remain ignorant like this, living carefree.

He knew he could barely hold on anymore. And this world seemingly no longer needed this scoundrel version of him.

His final selfishness was not taking that cloak with the sewn handkerchief, leaving a tiny mark related to her for his former existence.

Or perhaps, because of this silk handkerchief, she would eventually become a perfect match with this world’s Huo Liuxing.

Everything he couldn’t accomplish, he hoped that person could accomplish for him.

——

In the sixth year of Chuurong in Daqi, the court’s Grand General and Hexi Military Commissioner died in battle at the frontier. On the day of his funeral procession, Hexi’s people crowded the long streets, weeping to send him off.

A young boy who’d grown up hearing the Grand General’s deeds squatted by the roadside sobbing uncontrollably, telling his sister at his side: “Sister, the Grand General never lost a battle. How could he possibly die?”

His sister comforted him: “Don’t cry. The Grand General didn’t die at all.”

The boy looked up at her questioningly.

His sister smiled and made up a very beautiful-sounding lie: “Haven’t you heard the story of the Grand General and the silk handkerchief? Our General didn’t die—he went to find his young lady.”