Xie Changgeng asked the guide: “Is the next beaconHecang Beacon?”

“Exactly.”

“Setting out from here, given today’s road conditions, how long would it take to reach it?”

The straight-line distance between two beacon towers was typically about ten li, but since all beacon towers were built atop mountain peaks or high ridges, the actual ground distance between them was far more than that.

“About thirty li of road. On a normal day at full gallop, one hour. With the current accumulated snow making travel difficult, it would probably take considerably more effort.”

“As long as the message is sent out before dark, there is still time. Lead the way — full speed ahead!”

Xi’er said: “Lord Xie, I truly can!”

Xie Changgeng smiled gently: “Xi’er can, of course. But the reason Lord Xie brought you on this trip was to bring you to your mother. Besides, you are still young — wait until you are grown, and then you can help Lord Xie.”

He picked the child up and turned to go.

These words were addressed to the child, to be sure — but they were equally meant for Liang Tuan and the rest to hear.

Everyone understood that he did not wish for the young lord to risk his life. Hearing him speak, they naturally deferred to his lead.

The party descended from the beacon tower and pressed swiftly onward through the snow, weaving a path. They had only covered a few li when they climbed a gentle mountain ridge and were just about to descend the slope when, unexpectedly, a force heading in the opposite direction emerged from the side.

The two sides collided without warning, meeting head-on.

The other force numbered around two or three hundred. Though all were dressed in the garb of Hexi garrison troops, their facial features and contours, faintly visible, suggested they were northerners.

This group of northern tribesmen had been dispatched to seize the beacon towers. As they arrived at this spot, they suddenly spotted the small party appearing on the ridge ahead and halted.

Someone shouted loudly: “Hexi Military Governor Xie Changgeng! He is right there!” The voice rang out full of frantic joy.

The formation erupted into a commotion at once.

They had not anticipated encountering Hexi Military Governor Xie Changgeng here.

He had only a few dozen men at his side, while their own side numbered ten times as many. If they could capture him — or at worst, kill him — the magnitude of the achievement was easy to imagine.

Amid cries of excitement, several hundred men immediately gave chase.

Xie Changgeng ordered his attendants to fall back, wheeled his horse around, and rapidly descended the ridge along the path they had come by.

Arrows came whistling from behind in a continuous stream, sweeping past and embedding themselves in the snow.

One horse was struck in the flank, releasing a cry of anguished neighing.

Xie Changgeng glanced back at the northern tribesmen surging in pursuit, and quickly made a decision.

He ordered Liang Tuan to take half the men and press on to Hecang Beacon without fail, lighting the signal fire before nightfall, and once the task was done, to take the child directly to Jincheng — there was no need to come back.

He himself would take the remaining fifteen men and draw away these pursuers.

“My lord! We will cover you so you can break through — please, you go to the beacon!”

Liang Tuan led the thirty attendants, and they pleaded in unison.

Xie Changgeng said: “The northern tribesmen’s target is me. If I go to the beacon, they will pursue without restraint — it will work against us.”

“Transmitting the signal smoke is the first priority! Follow my orders!” he barked.

No one dared to disobey.

“My lord—” Xi’er called to him.

“Wait for me — I will come find you!”

Xie Changgeng called these words to the child, then tossed him along with the leather pouch to Liang Tuan, and immediately led the remaining men galloping off in another direction.

Liang Tuan and the dozen or so attendants hid in a hollow behind a snowdrift, watching several hundred northern tribesmen roar past before them. Suppressing the unease and anxiety in their hearts, they gritted their teeth and continued pressing forward.

Xi’er gripped the opening of the leather pouch with both hands, looking back again and again. After traveling several li, he suddenly cried out: “Guard Liang, take me back! I will help you light the fire, and then you can all go help Lord Xie kill the bad men right away!”

Liang Tuan continued forward.

“There are so many bad men — if you do not go help Lord Xie, he will die!”

The child’s cries echoed across the snowy expanse.

……

Half an hour later, Liang Tuan’s group carried Xi’er back to Moli Beacon.

He handed the fire-starter to the child, taught him how to use it, repeatedly and carefully went over all the precautions to keep in mind once inside, then tied a rope — soaked limp with snowmelt — firmly around the boy’s waist. From one of the smoke vents at the top of the beacon tower, they slowly lowered him down.

Liang Tuan and the attendants waited outside, keeping up an unbroken stream of conversation with the child inside.

The child had been down there for some time now.

Everyone held their breath, waiting anxiously.

Then suddenly, from the smoke vents, a thin thread of black smoke began to drift upward. The men instantly gripped the rope and called down: “Young lord, come out — are you standing steady?”

There was no response from inside.

The men exchanged glances, anxiety written across their faces. They were just about to try pulling the rope when, at that moment, a fit of coughing rose from below.

“I am fine—”

Everyone was overjoyed. With many hands working at once, they hauled at the rope urgently.

A small head emerged from the smoke vent.

Liang Tuan grasped the child’s shoulders and quickly dragged him out through the opening.

When he first came out, the child had his eyes shut, his face and body covered in soot. He coughed for quite some time before opening his eyes. He turned his head, fixing his gaze on the thick smoke still billowing from the several vents, and asked: “Is this enough?”

Liang Tuan’s face broke into a broad grin: “Young lord, the task is accomplished!”

The Military Governorate had established strict protocols for the beacon towers along this westward military road. Each tower, at all times, was required to guarantee at least one beacon soldier watching the direction of the next tower’s signal smoke, so that military intelligence could be relayed without fail. Unless the Hecang Beacon’s soldiers had also been entirely buried in an avalanche like those here, there was absolutely no possibility of missing the signal smoke rising from this direction.

Xi’er breathed a sigh of relief, rubbed his smoke-reddened eyes, and said: “I am fine now — quickly go help Lord Xie!”

Liang Tuan had grown to admire this child enormously. He dropped to one knee before him and kowtowed with deep respect.

“Young lord, I will find you a place to shelter — please hide there for the time being!”

……

Liang Tuan hid Xi’er in a mountain cave near the beacon tower, left two attendants with him along with dry rations and water, and then departed with the rest.

Xi’er waited for three days and three nights.

On the third day, exhausted beyond endurance, he lay inside the sleeping bag and drifted into a hazy half-sleep when he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps entering.

He opened his eyes at once, poking his head out from the opening of the sleeping bag.

He saw a tall figure, drenched from head to toe in blood, striding toward him from outside the cave.

He recognized the figure in an instant, let out a cry of startled joy, scrambled out of the sleeping bag, and flung himself toward that figure.

“Lord Xie! You came back!”

Xie Changgeng caught the child with one arm and lifted him up.

“Yes, I am back!”

He suppressed the surge of warmth rising from within him and felt the child’s hands and feet.

“Are you hurt?”

Xi’er shook his head at once.

“I ran so fast! The fire had not even reached me before Guard Liang and the others already pulled me out!”

There was a faint note of pride in the child’s voice.

“By the way, my lord — have your soldiers arrived? Are you hurt?”

The child looked at him, his eyes filled with worry.

Xie Changgeng pulled his arms in tightly, drawing the child against his chest.

“They saw the signal smoke you relayed and have already come. Not only did they defeat the enemy — they captured many prisoners as well!”

“Would you like to go see?” he asked.

“Yes!”

The child’s eyes immediately lit up, and he answered loudly.

Xi’er sat atop the horse, wrapped inside the large man’s outer robe. The warhorse galloped, the wind rushing past his ears, and it felt as though he were riding the clouds. Carried along by the figure behind him, he had no idea how many li they had traveled at full gallop, when suddenly, through the sound of the wind, a faint sound of cheering seemed to reach him.

Xi’er’s eyes went wide.

He was transfixed by the scene that met his gaze.

At the far edge of his vision, upon the snow-white expanse of the plain, a great army had assembled in formation, standing at the ready. Banners snapped in the wind, and soldiers’ robes were stained with blood — yet their spirits were high. The gleam of their armor and blades in the snow cast a fearsome and piercing light that would make any enemy tremble.

They had assembled here in formation as though they had been waiting for some time. The news that the Military Governor had arrived was passed from one messenger to the next, spreading through the entire army.

All the soldiers let out a unified cheer.

Xie Changgeng carried Xi’er on the horse, riding past row upon row of soldiers cheering and saluting him, until he reached the center and drew to a halt.

The Jincheng garrison commander rode forward to meet him. When he reached Xie Changgeng, he dismounted, dropped to one knee, and gave the military salute.

“Report to the Military Governor: all northern cavalry that violated Dudeng Garrison have been eliminated! There are more than a hundred prisoners — please give your orders on how to deal with them, Military Governor!”

“Kneel!”

The soldiers standing in attendance called out in unison.

The northern prisoner captives had long since been frightened into trembling, and they all dropped to their knees one after another, awaiting the verdict that was about to be declared upon them.

Xie Changgeng said: “Take them away — execute every last one.”

The garrison commander received the order, and the news was rapidly passed down.

As the transmission officers relayed the command in deep and solemn voices, the prisoners, already sensing the killing intent bearing down on them, collapsed to the ground one after another.

More than a hundred heavy blades fell in the freezing air, and across the snow-covered ground, a blinding spray of blood erupted.

Xie Changgeng ordered his men to cut off one ear from the final remaining prisoner and shouted: “Go back and tell your king — this is what awaits those who dare violate my Hexi!”

That prisoner, like a stray dog that had lost its home, felt his legs give out beneath him. He collapsed to the ground amid the roar of slaughter behind him, scrambled back up, and then staggered away in desperate flight.

The soldiers let out another mighty roar, its sound shaking the plains.

Xie Changgeng looked down at Xi’er sitting before him and asked: “Are you frightened?”

Xi’er clenched both fists tightly, tilted his head back to look at the man behind him, his eyes blazing with admiration.

He declared loudly: “I am not afraid!”

Xie Changgeng burst out laughing. Amid the thunderous cheering of the soldiers and the countless gazes turned upon him, he lifted the child before him high into the air.

……

Mu Fulan had arrived at Jincheng several days earlier. After a brief rest, escorted by a party of men familiar with the Tianshan geography dispatched by the Jincheng garrison commander, she had headed up the mountain in search of medicinal herbs.

The harshness of the journey’s weather had surpassed anything she had imagined. And the process of searching for the herbs had been winding and arduous.

Fortunately, over the several days on the mountain, one find after another had finally yielded enough medicinal herbs in the icy crevices. Once she had finished digging and gathering the roots, she finally descended — arriving at the mountain’s base that day as the sky had already gone dark.

The road from here back to Jincheng was still two days’ travel. With ice, snow, and the danger of the night road, the party leader had set up camp in a sheltered hollow at the foot of the mountain, planning to spend the night there and set out at dawn.

Mu Fulan was utterly exhausted, yet she forced herself to stay alert, and in her small tent, she began to preliminarily process the gathered herbs, readying them for refinement back in the city. Once the medicine was prepared, she would set out on the return journey immediately.

A small soldier brought her hot water melted from snow, added some fuel to the warming brazier for her, secured the brazier lid, and withdrew.

She tidied her things, washed her face and hands and feet in a hurry, crawled into her bedding, and lay down without undressing.

She had already been away for a month. She had no way of knowing how the elder chief’s injuries were faring now.

And there was Xi’er — she had no idea how he was managing alone over there.

She was doing something very important for him. On that point, she trusted that man — he would surely take care of Xi’er in her place.

She listened to the sound of wind and snow raging outside the tent, closed her eyes, and gradually fell asleep.

She did not know how long she had slept when, in a hazy half-dreaming state, she suddenly felt as though someone else had come to lie beside her.

She jolted awake and wrenched her eyes open.

On the low table inside the tent, the yak-oil lamp was still burning. In its dim amber glow, she saw a man crouching at her feet.

The man was cradling one of her frostbitten, swollen feet and applying medicinal ointment to it.

His head was bowed, his gaze resting on her foot, his movements gentle and wholly absorbed, as though he had not noticed her waking — until she drew her foot back, at which point he stopped and turned, watching as she slowly sat up.

“Your feet are frostbitten. Lie back down — I will finish applying the medicine for you.”

Xie Changgeng said, his tone easy and unhurried.