After the thirteen northern prefectures fell into Danqiu hands, General Yujie Xu Hexue had once reclaimed six Yan Pass prefectures. When he was there, Juhan Pass served as Great Qi’s defensive line. Sixteen years after he left, Juhan Pass fell, and the strategic fortress of Yongzhou became Great Qi’s final defensive line in the north.

For sixteen years, barbarians frequently harassed and caused trouble here. Emperor Zhengyuan issued edicts to station troops for strict defense. Though the national treasury suffered losses, expenditures on military funds over the years were not ambiguous.

Yongzhou had two great clans—one surnamed Qin, one surnamed Wei. The two families were marriage relations spanning a hundred years, and also the two great generals garrisoning Yongzhou since General Yujie’s conviction for treason.

Qin family military commander Qin Jixun served as Yongzhou Military Commissioner. Together with Wei family military commander Wei Dechang, with whom he became sworn brothers, they jointly defended the frontier for sixteen years with considerable merit.

Ni Su left Yun Jing in early spring. When she arrived at the frontier in Yongzhou, it was just entering summer. Born in Que County in Jiangnan, had she not witnessed it with her own eyes, she could never have imagined this region’s precipitous mountain ranges and vast, magnificent plateaus.

After entering summer, the temperature difference between day and night here was great. During the day, Ni Su learned from locals to wrap her face with gauze to avoid sunburning her cheeks. At night she had to dress warmly to avoid being too cold.

“Young mistress, is my grandson still alive?”

The old woman paced back and forth outside the curtain, listening to her daughter-in-law’s heart-wrenching screams of pain inside. She couldn’t stop muttering outside.

Ni Su’s hands were covered in blood. Her fingers gently pressed the infant’s head, but seeing it completely motionless, her heart sank. “Three days in labor without delivery and only now you seek a physician—how can the child still be saved?”

“Ah?”

The old woman nearly fainted. Her unmarried daughter came to support her. She looked at that busy figure inside. “Then what use is there in our family hiring you?”

“Auntie Wang, the stillborn child is still at the birth passage. If not removed, Pingn iang will die!” The midwife lifted the curtain and came out, speaking to her kindly.

“When I gave birth to Afeng, I wasn’t as delicate as her. Why can’t she deliver it!” The old woman complained.

“Every person’s circumstances are inherently different. If the pelvis doesn’t open, the infant becomes stuck in the birth canal. Not being able to deliver is not her fault either.”

That clear female voice came from within the curtain. The midwife saw through the curtain that she fed Pingn iang something, and hastily said, “Young mistress, the infant is already dead—we dare not give her medicine to open the pelvis at this time!”

“This is not medicine to open the pelvis, but pills to replenish vital energy and blood.” After Ni Su spoke, she comforted Pingn iang lying on the bed, her entire body soaked in sweat. “Rest assured, if this medicine causes harm, I will forfeit my life to you.”

These words were addressed to Pingn iang, but also to the old woman and midwife outside the curtain who did not trust her enough.

Pingn iang was in too much pain to speak, tears nearly flooding her eyelids. Ni Su observed beneath Pingn iang’s skirts. After a moment, she immediately called the midwife inside.

About the time it takes to burn one incense stick, Pingn iang’s voice grew hoarse, her entire body spent. The midwife, covered in sweat, wrapped the stillborn child she delivered in cloth.

Fine perspiration also appeared at Ni Su’s temples. She washed her hands and lifted the curtain to emerge. That unmarried girl, seeing the blood on her body and recalling her sister-in-law’s earlier screams, turned pale, understanding for the first time that women’s childbirth was such an agonizing matter.

“I will write a prescription. Please be certain to obtain the medicine to help restore her health.”

After Ni Su said this, she saw the old woman hesitate, not responding. She then added, “These are not precious medicinal ingredients. No woman’s childbirth in this world is easy. You yourself certainly suffered pain in your time. She lost her child—her heart grieves too.”

Ni Su finished writing the prescription and handed it to the daughter, then departed with the midwife.

“Young mistress, have you truly studied medicine properly?”

The midwife made conversation with her.

“Family tradition. I was immersed in it from childhood.”

Ni Su said.

“So you truly come from a medical family. Young mistress, those pills of yours were truly effective. I thought they were to open the pelvis, not knowing they replenished vital energy and blood.”

The midwife had never seen a young mistress like her—so young in years, yet possessing some ability in women’s medicine, treating everyone with complete propriety.

“Today’s consultation fee I will give entirely to you, but I wish to ask you to help me with one matter.”

After pondering for a moment, Ni Su stopped and spoke to her.

“Young mistress, please speak.”

The midwife hadn’t expected such good fortune. She beamed with joy.

“I suspect that Old Woman Wang will certainly be unwilling to spend money obtaining medicine for her daughter-in-law. Keep this money of mine—use half to obtain medicine for Pingn iang and give it to her younger sister-in-law, keep the other half yourself.”

The midwife hadn’t anticipated the favor she asked would be this. She froze, then after quite a while finally nodded, adding, “Young mistress is kind-hearted, but there are too many such cases. Doing this… how can you possibly help them all?”

“For impoverished families, survival is never easy. My father also often provided free medical care for rural farmers.” Ni Su paused, then continued, “I also wish to ask you to tell me about the difficult problems you’ve encountered while helping deliver babies. I’m young and actually haven’t yet seen many patients. I want to hear how you resolved difficult situations.”

“Young mistress also wants to learn our folk remedies?”

The midwife felt somewhat embarrassed.

“As long as they’re useful, they’re all good remedies. Being a physician means embracing all rivers and seas.”

“What rivers and seas?”

The midwife listened in confusion.

Ni Su couldn’t help but curve her eyes slightly. “I’m saying, please teach me. I know you are the best midwife in this area. If you’re willing to be my teacher, tomorrow I will send teacher the customary gift.”

The midwife had grown up in this impoverished land. For half her life she had only delivered children for poor families. It wasn’t that Yongzhou city lacked better midwives—they delivered for great clan families and possessed some status and wealth. How could she compare with those people? Moreover, she had never been formally addressed as “teacher” before. She had only heard schoolchildren address their tutors this way.

“I hardly count as any teacher. Young mistress must not say such things.” The midwife’s face showed some smile as she pressed half the consultation fee Ni Su gave her back into her hands. “I won’t take my half. What remains I’ll keep to obtain medicine for Pingn iang. Whatever you want to know, just come to my home.”

Ni Su thanked the midwife and parted ways with her, heading toward West City’s Willow Alley. The slanting sun at the horizon resembled crushed gold leaf. Ni Su had not yet approached the well at the alley’s end when she saw the wooden cover on the well pushed open from below. A head wrapped in cloth strips emerged. When those eyes with extremely dark pupils lifted and saw her, he shouted: “Miss Ni, my father seems to have returned!”

Ni Su had followed Qingqiong to Yongzhou but had not seen Qingqiong’s father. He left a letter in his home beneath the well, its crooked characters only Qingqiong could read clearly.

The letter said he went to a neighboring county for work.

His legs and feet were poor so he couldn’t walk far or do heavy labor. Going there meant nothing more than making chests and cabinets for people.

Ni Su and Qingqiong had stayed in Yongzhou for half a month without seeing him return.

“Sugar candy on the table—it must be what he bought me.”

As Qingqiong spoke, he climbed out from the well, covering the wooden board above and locking it securely. Since his mother returned to the Nether Capital, he and his father had come to live beneath this well.

The corpses at the well’s bottom had all been excavated and buried by General Yujie’s orders that year. His father was a carpenter who had excavated a more spacious area beneath the well, making it quite homelike.

“Then where did he go again?” Ni Su asked.

“He should have gone outside the city.”

Qingqiong guessed, “It’s nearly dusk. At this time there shouldn’t be many people passing by Sangqiu. My father should have gone to sweep General Xu’s grave…”

His voice abruptly stopped.

Looking up, he met Ni Su’s gaze.

“Why have you never told me he has a grave?” Ni Su walked close to him in two or three steps.

Qingqiong fell silent for a moment before saying, “That is not a tombstone erected to commemorate him.”

How would people here commemorate him?

Ni Su knew that sixteen years ago, His Majesty issued an edict condemning Xu Hexue to death, and Jiang Xianming, following popular sentiment, subjected Xu Hexue to death by a thousand cuts in Yongzhou. The popular sentiment he followed was Yongzhou’s popular sentiment.

Beneath the hills, ravines were azure. Upon the craggy cliff face stood a tombstone.

Cold wind blew against Ni Su’s veil. On the journey accompanying a solitary soul to the capital, she had already learned to ride horses. At this moment on horseback, gripping the reins, though she did not approach closely, she could still clearly see carved deep into that tombstone—his name.

A broken silver spear was embedded before the tombstone. Qingqiong said it was what he used in life. After sixteen years of wind, sun, and rain, the silver spear had rusted beyond recognition.

“Father, stop hiding!”

Qingqiong glimpsed the figure hiding behind the tombstone.

Hearing his voice, that person crouched and peered outward. Seeing Qingqiong on horseback with a young woman also mounted beside him, he emerged slowly from behind the tombstone, leaning on a crutch, still holding a cloth in his hand.

“More children came here again?”

Qingqiong saw the cloth in his hand was very dirty and knew it had been wiped from the tombstone.

“Yeah.”

Fan Jiang reacted slowly, responding, then looking at Ni Su. “This is?”

Qingqiong dismounted and walked before his father, the two speaking quietly to the side. Ni Su also dismounted. Her hand unconsciously grasped the medicine basket’s tie. The closer she came to that tombstone, the more clearly she could see the traces children had scrawled on it with charcoal—crooked characters spelling “bad person” that Fan Jiang had not yet wiped clean.

“General Xu’s living soul can actually return?”

Fan Jiang’s whiskers trembled.

“Father, this Miss Ni is the person who summoned him back.” Father and son both spoke slowly. Qingqiong finally explained everything clearly to him.

“Where is General Xu?”

“Father, General Xu has now returned to the Nether Capital.”

Qingqiong tugged at his sleeve.

Wind blew painfully against Ni Su’s ears. She spoke: “Uncle Fan, can you tell me why Qingqiong’s mother knew the truth of what happened back then?”

Fan Jiang looked at her, then at Qingqiong. Seeing Qingqiong nod to him, he finally spoke slowly: “The prefect’s office caught fire and needed people for repairs. I was one of them. By then I had already chiseled away the talismanic marks beneath the well. Ashuang could leave the well, so she accompanied me to work at the prefect’s office.”

Fan Jiang carefully wiped the tombstone while speaking. “She’s a ghost and can conceal her form before people. She heard the prefect surnamed Yang and a military commander surnamed Miao arguing. Commander Miao refused to withdraw half of Yongzhou’s garrison, saying it was General Xu’s military order. But Prefect Yang wouldn’t accept his authority, accusing him of delaying military operations. The two argued while Ashuang listened from the side. Seeing Prefect Yang refuse to heed General Xu’s military orders, after returning home she discussed with me about going to Juhan Pass to find General Xu. She wouldn’t let me go and left alone at night.”

“Later she told me when she went, General Xu had already led the Jing’an Army deep into Danqiu territory. When she reached Mushen Mountain, General Xu’s Jing’an Army and the barbarian forces had already suffered devastating mutual losses. Dead bodies everywhere, blood-red expanses everywhere. She personally witnessed Lord Xue Huai’s last breath—pierced by so many arrows, he fell and stopped breathing. She searched everywhere for General Xu. She encountered several barbarian soldiers crawling out from piles of corpses. Remembering her own terrible experiences, she lost control and used her soul fire to burn them to death.”

“She didn’t know doing this would alert the Nether Capital. When she found General Xu, his eyes had already been wounded by barbarian golden blades. In that mountain of corpses and sea of blood, he was tightly protected by fallen soldiers. Arrows pierced his body, he was gravely wounded, unconscious. She wanted to rescue him but was constrained by the Nether Capital’s prohibition, unable to move. Before being drawn into the Nether Capital, she saw a group of people. They brought General Xu out from the pile of corpses, then…”

Fan Jiang suddenly stopped.

“Then?”

Ni Su’s palms were covered in sweat.

This was Fan Jiang’s first time mentioning this matter to anyone. His hand gripping the cloth tightened further. “Then Ashuang left. But sometimes I can hear her speak. She told me she heard Lord Xue Huai say before dying at Mushen Mountain that two forces should have come as reinforcements for this battle. But I don’t know why they didn’t go. Then Juhan Pass was lost, Yongzhou was ambushed by barbarians, over half the city died or was wounded. Commander Miao the militia commander died in battle. General Xu was brought back to Yongzhou, became a traitorous minister who betrayed the nation, bound to the execution platform…”

Fan Jiang’s lips trembled. “Death by a thousand cuts.”

He had witnessed it with his own eyes.

Ni Su staggered back several steps. Qingqiong hurried to support her. Her gaze fell in panic upon the end of the inscription carving Xu Hexue’s crimes—

Gravely wounded, subjected to one hundred thirty-six cuts before death.

Just as Qingqiong said, this tombstone stood here never to commemorate him, but to use him to announce to all under Heaven: traitors should be thus.

Ni Su’s eyes reddened. Tears fell in clusters. Her breathing tightened, nearly unable to remain calm. Pushing Qingqiong aside, she walked close to the tombstone, bent down to grasp the rust-covered broken spear, struggling with all her strength to pull it from the mire, yet never having enough force.

Qingqiong silently came to help her. Together the two exerted force before pulling the broken spear free—wrapped in filthy mud, unbearably rusted.

Ni Su wrapped it in her own shawl. A glass lamp swayed on the horseback, candle flame flickering inside. She was about to lead the horse when she saw on the deep green mountain path several pairs of eyes with unfriendly expressions staring fixedly at the three of them.

“Fan Jiang! You’re here again! I caught you once before!”

“You sweep his grave—why don’t you go sweep graves for the barbarians?”

One by one they were righteously indignant, even holding sticks in their hands.

Yongzhou had suffered great disaster. Most common people living in Yongzhou had lost close relatives in that Yongzhou defense battle sixteen years ago.

“I…” Fan Jiang had been beaten before. Seeing the sticks in their hands, he felt afraid, pulling Qingqiong over to protect him.

“Birthing a monstrous son, living in a well where people died, you…” A woman’s voice was sharp. Halfway through her words, seeing the thing wrapped in the young woman’s shawl beside that father and son pair, her eyes widened. Her expression turned strange as she looked toward the tombstone front—indeed, the broken spear was gone.

Everyone stared at Ni Su.

“You want to take that thing away?” Someone asked strangely.

“Is that not allowed?”

Ni Su used the shawl to wipe mud from the broken spear.

“How dare she take that thing…”

“These father and son brought back another abnormal one…”

“Not even afraid of filth.”

All were common people living near Sangqiu, using extremely strange looks to stare at Ni Su, speaking all at once.

“It is not filthy.”

Ni Su raised her head, clutching the broken spear to her chest, staring at them. “This spear has only been stained with barbarian blood. It has never been stained with any of your relatives’ blood.”

“You’re an outsider—what do you know?” Someone heard from her accent she wasn’t from Yongzhou.

“I know better than you!”

Ni Su wiped her face with her sleeve, gritting her teeth. “Today I am taking it. Whoever stops me, I’ll fight to the death!”

“Miss Ni!”

Seeing her step by step approach them, Qingqiong wanted to stop her but was held tightly by his father.

Ni Su led the horse forward while the crowd retreated.

They gripped things in their hands but didn’t know whether they should treat this woman before them with sticks and clubs as they did that Fan family father and son pair.

She stepped forward one pace; they retreated one pace.

Tears filled Ni Su’s eyelids. The glass lamp swayed on the horse, nearly blending with the burning red sunset clouds at the horizon’s edge. She withdrew the dagger she carried. Someone in the crowd cursed her as “madwoman.”

A child held by an adult threw stones at her. Then someone came to seize the broken spear from her hands.

Beneath the tombstone lay no bones of Xu Hexue. They treated this broken spear as him—wanting him exposed to wind and sun, wanting him forever damaged.

Seeing her surrounded by the crowd, Qingqiong and Fan Jiang immediately came forward to help. Ni Su was pushed to the ground, both palms scraped, yet she still gripped the broken spear tightly.

Suddenly the sky darkened.

Sunset glow vanished entirely. Wind sounds swept over. Fine snow pellets fell on Ni Su’s cheeks.

People only felt thick fog, heavy layers. The anger on their faces was gradually replaced by terror. They could not see the floating luminous dust sharp as points, only felt something pierce their hands.

Heart-piercing pain forced those struggling with Ni Su for the broken spear to loosen their hands. They retreated in panic, sticks falling everywhere. No one dared beat the Fan father and son anymore.

Nearly crawling and tumbling, they fled swiftly.

Relentless cold wind on the cliff. Qingqiong and Fan Jiang helped each other sit up, but saw the thick fog dissipate. A frost-white figure had at some unknown time come to stand with his back to them before that woman.

He bent down, grasping her hand.

The sensation of accumulated snow wrapping around startled Ni Su. Fine snow like salt fell only in this patch of heaven and earth. His face was pale and flawless. A pair of clear, cold eyes seemed unable to see her clearly.

The glass lamp was on the horseback. That light was some distance from him. His eyes could only see her blurred outline.

He parted his lips to call out but heard her crying.

He froze, then reached forward exploratively, grasping her shoulders to help her sit up. Unexpectedly her head pressed against his chest.

Xu Hexue’s spine stiffened. He lowered his eyelids.

Her tears soaked his collar. He could feel it. He raised his hand wanting to touch her cheek but stopped midair. After quite a while, he lightly touched her temple hair.

“Did they hurt you?”

He could not see clearly, unable to judge whether she was actually injured.

“No, no…”

Ni Su’s sobbing could not stop. Still clutching the broken spear, one hand tightly grasped his robe as she wept uncontrollably.

He was already dead.

But Ni Su knew—

The punishment this mortal world inflicted upon him still had not ended.