Yuzhou City, atop the city walls.

Li Chi stood watching the people moving away into the distance beyond the walls. Among them was a procession that had set out from the Cao family estate.

“Do you think it’s real or a ruse?”

Tang Pidi asked.

Li Chi said: “Whatever we can see with our own eyes is probably not the truth. Someone like Cao Lie — how could he be seen through so easily?”

Tang Pidi said: “But even so, whatever we see, we still have to follow.”

Li Chi said: “So what we see may not always be good news. Right now, there’s still one piece of good news we’re still waiting on.”

Tang Pidi turned to look back into the city.

Zhang Tang had not yet returned.

Tang Pidi rested one hand on the city wall, fingers tapping lightly against the stone.

“If we closed the net right now by force — would that count as winning or losing?”

“No matter when we close the net, it wouldn’t count as losing.”

Li Chi said: “We still have Cao Garden, after all.”

Tang Pidi asked: “You’re certain Cao Garden is hiding silver?”

Li Chi smiled: “My nose is a bit sensitive. Wind, rain, grass ash, perfume powder — none of those bother me particularly. The one smell I can’t miss is silver…”

Li Chi tapped the side of his nose: “No matter how faint the scent, I can always pick it up.”

Tang Pidi said with a trace of self-reproach: “That your nose ended up so ruined — I bear some responsibility for that.”

Just then, someone came sprinting up from below the walls. Even from a distance they could already hear the pounding footsteps and labored breathing.

Tang Pidi asked: “Without turning around — shall we wager on who that is?”

Li Chi sighed: “Is there even a need to wager? Apart from Zhang Tang, who else would wheeze like that after only a few steps?”

It had to be said — Zhang Tang’s constitution was genuinely poor.

He had grown up in hardship, spending his early years as a tea house errand boy, which meant his nutrition had never been adequate.

His frame was weak. A few steps left him gasping, and there was no hope of him ever cultivating any remarkable martial skill.

With a constitution like his, even training was difficult — attempting it carelessly might very well be the end of him.

Listening to those heavy, labored breaths, Tang Pidi sighed: “Truly a man whose fate is winded at every turn.”

“Your Highness, there is good news.”

Zhang Tang came puffing and panting to a spot not far from Li Chi, bent at the waist in a bow: “Your subject has tricked a confession out of Cao Dengke!”

Li Chi asked: “Blasted out with cannon fire?”

Zhang Tang: “No… it was through deception. I talked it out of him. I told him that Prince Ning had already seen through everything and that Cao Dengke had already confessed — and that his elder brother Cao Ziluo was hiding in Mount Qi.”

Still gasping for breath, he continued: “Although Changsun Hengzhi is the third ranking figure in the Mountain-River Seal, he did not know Cao Ziluo’s whereabouts, nor did he know about the fortified stronghold that the Mountain-River Seal had built inside Mount Qi.”

“Cao Dengke knew — and let it slip by accident. As long as we capture Cao Ziluo, the Mountain-River Seal will be half destroyed.”

Li Chi turned to look at Tang Pidi.

Tang Pidi immediately nodded: “I’ll go muster the troops right now.”

Li Chi said: “I’ll go find Cao Lie.”

The two of them set off at a run, neither waiting for the other, and left Zhang Tang stranded on top of the city wall.

He looked one way, then the other, and the moment he realized he would have to run all the way back down to the base of the wall, a wave of wretchedness came over him.

—

Around that same time, in the courtyard where Shen Ruzhan was lodging.

She looked at the man standing before her — his face a picture of earnest sincerity — and the longer she looked, the more of a stranger he seemed.

Chu Xu stood beneath a tree in the courtyard. He had just finished laying out everything he intended to do.

He spoke with solemn conviction, saying he would certainly make something of himself in the future. He said he would one day stand at the summit of ten thousand peaks.

After all this time, this was the first time he had ever said so many words in front of her.

“I know I’m not worthy of you. I know you don’t think highly of me.”

Chu Xu looked toward Shen Ruzhan: “The man in your heart must be a man who stands upright and towers over the world — someone like the General.”

Zero, standing not far away, glared at him: “Shut your mouth. You have no right to speak the General’s name.”

Chu Xu said: “And why don’t I have that right?”

He let out a slow breath: “Because I refused to be bound by what you call morality — that’s reason enough to strip me of the right to speak the General’s name?”

He gave a cold snort: “On what grounds? Why can’t we have lives of our own? Why do we have to be arranged by other people?!”

Zero snapped in fury: “Back when we made that iron token, it was your idea!”

Chu Xu flicked his sleeve dismissively: “Don’t speak of that damned token anymore. The thing I regret most in this life is ever making it.”

He turned to look at Shen Ruzhan: “If you truly cared about us, you would never have sent us to Jizhou. You wouldn’t have played the kind-hearted benefactor while in reality you just wanted us to help you curry favor with that man!”

Shen Ruzhan’s eyes narrowed slightly.

She said quietly: “You’ve already lost your mind.”

Chu Xu raised his voice: “You still dare say you weren’t trying to please Li Chi? You women — you’re all born the same way. Back then you liked the General, wasn’t that just because he was a general? Now you’re flattering Li Chi — isn’t that just because he’s Prince Ning?”

Zero flew into a rage and lunged forward: “Shut your mouth!”

Chu Xu saw him coming and flung out his palm. A sheet of silver light erupted from his hand.

Zero, in the midst of his charge, scattered something from his own hand — a sheet of silver light burst outward in return.

In the space between them, countless tiny sparks flickered and clustered as an uncountable number of silver needles collided in midair.

Both had learned their skills from the same master.

In that split second of lightning and flint, Chu Xu did not move to meet Zero. Instead he charged straight toward Shen Ruzhan.

A short blade slid down from his sleeve. Swift as a gale, the blade drove toward Shen Ruzhan’s heart.

Yet Shen Ruzhan did not react at all. She simply stood there, watching him with cold, expressionless eyes.

At the very moment the blade tip was about to touch her, Chu Xu suddenly smiled.

“You’re not moving aside?”

He broke into laughter: “Are you trying to make me kill you, so I’ll spend the rest of my life in torment?!”

Shen Ruzhan continued to watch him with that same icy indifference. Her eyes held nothing but contempt.

“How could I possibly kill you…”

Chu Xu slowly let out a breath, turning to look at Zero: “You were still young back then. I always envied you for that — for being young enough that you didn’t, at the very age you were just learning what it means to like someone, encounter the woman who gave you no choice but to love her.”

His wrist snapped suddenly, and the blade tip drove into his own heart.

Chu Xu crumpled to the ground. Blood flowed from the wound at his chest.

A man struck through the heart has perhaps two breaths left to live.

“Master… now it is your turn to spend a lifetime in grief.”

He fell back, his breathing shallow, eyes fixed on the sky above.

“You never forgot the General. I never forgot you… The pain of loving without being loved — it is all the same in this world.”

Zero’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt.

He stared at the man who had fallen, unable for a moment to know what to do.

Chu Xu did not close his eyes, but his breathing stopped.

He had not come back for the hundred thousand taels of silver. He had come back to say farewell to Shen Ruzhan.

When he returned, he found that because of his departure, those here had lost all trust in him.

He did not care what others thought — not even Zero and the others.

If he had cared, he would not have left with such easy flair.

When Zero had chased after him, he had said only one thing in parting:

*When I stand atop ten thousand heads, I will come back to marry her.*

Shen Ruzhan said nothing. She was silent for a long time.

She turned and walked back into the room. In the moment she turned away, her shoulders trembled slightly.

Zero crouched beside Chu Xu’s body, reached out, and gently closed Chu Xu’s eyes.

He looked back. Qi was already streaming with tears.

Zero suddenly wondered — had Chu Xu returned for no other reason than to die in front of Master Shen?

—

Several days earlier, at an inn.

Changsun Wuyou looked at Chu Xu, and in this man’s eyes she saw something familiar — something she had seen countless times in her own eyes when she stood before a mirror.

“You don’t seem afraid?” she asked.

Chu Xu asked her.

Changsun Wuyou shook her head: “After he died, there was nothing left for me to fear. From the day I put on mourning whites on that boat, I died too — I simply wasn’t buried alongside him.”

Chu Xu fell silent.

After a long pause, Chu Xu asked: “Is it just for him that you want to move against the Mountain-River Seal?”

Changsun Wuyou gave a small smile, raised a hand to brush aside the strands of hair that had fallen across her forehead, and in that moment she was breathtakingly beautiful.

Because she knew she had succeeded.

“The Mountain-River Seal is only part of it. Everyone who had a hand in his death — I intend to repay them all. That includes myself, which is why I must die too.”

Changsun Wuyou looked at Chu Xu, her face serene, her breathing unhurried.

“Li Chi cannot fully eradicate the Mountain-River Seal. Even if he ultimately captures the Sect Master and destroys the Mountain-River Seal’s foundations in Yuzhou — the Mountain-River Seal has existed for a thousand years. How could it be so easily wiped away?”

Having said this, Chu Xu — who had been listening carefully — understood.

He asked: “So from the very beginning, your entire plan was to sacrifice your own life in exchange for an undying feud between the Mountain-River Seal and Li Chi?”

Changsun Wuyou made a sound of agreement and let out a soft breath: “With only my own strength… I cannot kill Li Chi, nor can I destroy the Mountain-River Seal. But I can bind Li Chi and the Mountain-River Seal together forever. Either Li Chi ultimately destroys the Mountain-River Seal, or the Mountain-River Seal ultimately kills Li Chi.”

She smiled again, utterly fearless in the face of death.

She said with quiet ease: “You were right. From the very beginning I intended to use my own life as bait.”

Chu Xu sat there, head lowered, eyes on the small knife in his hands.

After a long silence, he said with a heaviness in his voice: “Women… are truly terrifying.”

Changsun Wuyou said: “You have a woman you care about too. I saw it in your eyes. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have asked me all these questions that have nothing to do with the matter at hand.”

Chu Xu made a sound of acknowledgment. He suddenly looked up at Changsun Wuyou and asked: “Is death… a release?”

Changsun Wuyou said: “For me it is. He is gone — I have no right to remain. Once all of this is done, let the Mountain-River Seal and Li Chi fight it out. If Li Chi one day gains the world, then his children and grandchildren, generation upon generation, will go on fighting the Mountain-River Seal. So I’m actually quite willing to offer Li Chi my blessing — gain the world, and may your sons and grandsons know unending misfortune.”

“When all of this is finished, I will have no regrets. So for me, death is not merely release — it is also reunion.”

Listening to all of this, Chu Xu gave a self-mocking smile: “If I were to die, it would be a release for me. For her it would likely be a release too. But never would it be a reunion like yours — not even in death.”

He looked at the small knife in his hands. The light reflecting off its blade pricked at his eyes.

Changsun Wuyou said: “You are in greater pain than I am. At the very least, he and I — we shared a span of time that was beautiful. Whereas you… it looks to me like a love that was never returned.”

Chu Xu made a sound of agreement: “Yes… and no.”

He said: “I am the one who loves without being loved in return. And yet the one she loves is also someone who is already dead.”

Changsun Wuyou understood.

Perhaps there were not many people in this world who could understand more deeply than she could.

She looked at the small knife as well: “Do it. Give me this final mercy…”

Chu Xu rose to his feet: “I find I no longer want to kill you.”

Changsun Wuyou shook her head: “Living is my torment. If you kill me, you complete your mission, and I take my final step on this board… That is a fine thing.”

Chu Xu fell silent again.

Changsun Wuyou stepped toward him, reached out, took hold of his hand, and pointed the blade at her own heart.

“Before I die, let me offer you one word of counsel.”

She smiled as she spoke: “I am someone who cannot let go. If you are the same, then you are just like me — every day pretending you don’t think of him, yet thinking of him every single day. Every time he comes to mind, it is like a blade cutting through your heart.”

She gathered her strength and drove the knife into her own chest.

“One sharp pain now,” she said, “and you won’t have to hurt every day from this point on.”

Chu Xu shuddered.

He had killed many people. This was the first time a killing had frightened him.

“You are braver than I am.”

Chu Xu rose, bent down, and bowed deeply to the body on the ground.

—