There were still one or two hours before dawn, yet the main tent remained lit with candlelight, figures moving busily within.

Xiao Nanhui had initially wanted to rouse herself and eavesdrop on whatever the generals inside were discussing in their roundabout way, but this time the tent had been sealed so thoroughly that she could not make out a single word.

She was already exhausted to begin with, and after keeping watch through the night she was so drowsy her eyelids kept drooping shut.

Yet it was precisely this unstoppable wave of sleepiness that, for a time, made her forget about Xiao Zhun and Bai Yun’s matter entirely. In a muddled daze she simply followed the camp-breaking column back to Three-Eye Pass.

Xiao Zhun must have said something to the Emperor, for he truly did spare Bai Yun’s life — along with the youngest of the Bai family, Bai Rui — the two of them escorted by the Black Feather Camp back to Quecheng.

Reflecting on it afterward, Xiao Nanhui thought it was most likely because the encirclement operation to capture Bai Heliu had failed. Tiancheng needed something to hold in its hands as a bargaining chip, or perhaps a target on whom to pronounce sentence and fix blame.

Bai Heliu had escaped.

After abandoning his wife and children, he had vanished alone into the rugged and treacherous horizon of Bijiang, like a phantom that had incited the war — as though he had never existed at all from beginning to end.

In the month and more that followed, purging the remnants of the Bai faction entrenched in every corner became the principal task of Tiancheng’s armies. Scattered groups of surrendering soldiers kept appearing; most had once been old soldiers from Tiancheng’s Yue-Ze Army. Over the span of a decade or more they had left their homelands, their accents had changed, and they had eaten another’s bread — even after surrendering, they could not possibly regain anyone’s trust, and could only be temporarily housed in the garrisons near Tongcheng as prisoners of war.

At last, near year’s end, the phoenix returned to its nest.

With the Emperor at the head, the column that had concluded its campaign and was returning to the capital set out on the homeward road.

Along the way, reports kept arriving of Bai Family stragglers being intercepted at various places — most numerous along the banks of the Angry River at the border between Jizhou and Chizhou, and on Zhong Mountain in the north. These two locations were the north-south thoroughfares one had to pass through to enter Chizhou from Jizhou, and it seemed the stragglers had hoped to strike the capital by surprise while the throne had not yet returned.

The Angry River had suffered floods year after year and was permanently garrisoned by the Yan-Yi Camp’s forces. But Zhong Mountain was mostly mountainous terrain with scant human presence, and had not ordinarily been a place any camp stationed troops permanently. Why, then, had it suddenly produced an army capable of holding its own?

Xiao Nanhui suddenly recalled that roughly a year and more ago, the Emperor had dispatched Xiao Zhun to Zhong Mountain to suppress bandits.

At the time she had harbored considerable resentment, feeling that a great general like Xiao Zhun ought not be used in such a manner. But looking at things now, the bandit suppression had likely been a pretext — stationing troops was the true purpose. Under the cover of bandit suppression, hands had been extended into places ordinarily seldom visited, quietly planting the fine threads that would later draw the net closed.

Premeditated. This was absolutely premeditated.

To deploy troops in battle takes but a moment. But to nurture an army and lay out formations — could that ever be the work of a single day?

In the bottomlessly deep lake of the Emperor’s mind, the stone representing the recovery of Bijiang had been cast in long ago. What she could see now was nothing more than a few ripples on the surface.

Yet the more this proved true, the more clearly the doubt in her heart surfaced.

Had Xiao Zhun known about all of this? And what about her? In this carefully planned chess game, what position did she occupy — what piece did she represent?

All armies were rewarded according to their merits, and she naturally received a great commendation. But most of her unfamiliar colleagues in the Guang-Yao Camp had no idea what she had actually contributed to the campaign. Only occasionally, when she and Su Pingchuan exchanged glances from a distance or passed each other in the ranks, did the two of them who had been there share a brief moment of eye contact — proof that everything that had happened was not illusion, but fact.

Hao Bai, for his merit in treating the Emperor, had reportedly received considerable benefits. But he told Xiao Nanhui that he had declined the rewards with great integrity and dignity, asking only for a cart to carry the rare flowers and peculiar herbs he had gathered throughout Bijiang, and had departed eagerly for Wancheng.

Xiao Nanhui later suspected there must have been something else in that cart, but she never had the chance to verify her suspicions.

After all, when she had prepared that cart, she had deliberately left a place for Wu Xiaoliu. Without that fat fellow taking up space, the vacancy left behind must have been quite substantial.

Her original intention had been to have Wu Xiaoliu accompany Hao Bai back to Wancheng — it was a place warm and moist year round with abundant resources, a piece of land long renowned for nurturing people. But Wu Xiaoliu had insisted on following her, claiming he wanted to go to the imperial capital to broaden his horizons and gain some experience. Yet after riding on horseback for just one day, Wu Xiaoliu was already howling that his backside had burst into bloom. She could hardly just abandon the fat fellow on the road, so she had no choice but to find another supply cart carrying grain and rations, and stuff him inside.

Aside from the six Yan-Yi Camps and three Su-Bei Camps left to garrison Bijiang, all remaining troops withdrew northward to regroup. Xiao Nanhui followed the Guang-Yao Camp’s column in a daze for several days of travel, and it was not until she arrived at Tongcheng that something of a realization began to dawn on her: this war, which had been instigated over a decade ago, was truly now past.

The north wind still blew, but its flavor was no longer quite the same. It was a scent that defied description — carrying the pale blue smoke of burned-out firewood, and the warm white puffs breathed out by the jostling crowds — full, thoroughly, of the breath of everyday life.

The joy of the approaching year-end celebration brimmed everywhere. Sometimes she gazed at the city streets and scenes growing gradually livelier around her, at the villages and market towns, the vast desert solitudes now all fallen behind, and felt as though she had always lived here, grown up here, and never left at all.

The moment she entered the territory of Chizhou, the largest snowfall since the onset of winter drifted down.

Unlike the lean and bitter ice-chips of Jizhou, the snow here was soft and gentle — it fell in puffs like cotton wool onto one’s body, as though Heaven, unwilling to let the bitter cold persist, had draped an extra quilt over passing travelers.

In years past at this time, if she was not away with the army, she would already have been at the mansion preparing firecrackers and lanterns for New Year’s Eve early on. She had in fact always been someone who loved liveliness from childhood, but Xiao Zhun was always quietly composed, which made her hesitant to let the atmosphere grow too raucously boisterous. Du Juan would sneak her out to set off one or two strings in the rear courtyard, and that was one of the happiest moments for her each year.

What a pity that such days were growing fewer and fewer. She had thought that this time, she would be able to spend New Year’s Eve alongside Xiao Zhun on the road back to Quecheng. But she was now listed among the Guang-Yao Camp’s column, able only to view Su-Bei from a great distance. Besides, when on the march, what atmosphere of celebration could there possibly be?

The night the snow stopped, it was another night billeted in the distant outskirts.

Not far off, the firelight of a village flickered on and off, merging with the stars of the just-cleared sky into a single expanse.

The snow had accumulated into a thick layer on the ground; the moonlight reflecting off it brightened everything around.

The campfire in the camp burned vigorously, toasting one warm all over, comfortable from the inside out.

Xiao Nanhui rested her head on a soft cushion, beneath which lay a cloth bundle containing the broken Ping Xian.

For many days she had not seen the two Imperial Guards the Emperor had placed at her side. She estimated the two of them must have gone to say all manner of unpleasant things about her before the Emperor. But Bai Yun’s appearance was like an immovable stone pressing on her chest; she truly had no heart right now to think of anything else.

She had sunk into a state of despondency in which the great affair had concluded but fresh anxieties had arrived — for many days she would go without saying a word. Whenever colleagues in the military camp asked, she said she had caught a slight cold and her voice had gone hoarse, when in truth she simply did not feel like opening her mouth to speak.

“Xiao Nanhui.”

In a blur, she heard Bolao furtively calling her name in her ear.

She turned over, looking sickly and disinclined to respond.

Bolao’s voice persisted, relentlessly shifting from one side to the other.

“Hey, take a look at the Emperor.”

The Emperor? What about the Emperor? Certainly good-looking, but she had been seeing him every day recently and no longer felt like looking.

She pulled the blanket up to cover her head and still refused to make a sound.

“I seem to see — on the Emperor’s head —” Bolao narrowed her eyes, “your hairpin.”

Xiao Nanhui’s heart gave a sudden lurch, and then, as if jolted back from death’s door, she sat bolt upright — and following Bolao’s line of sight, fixed her gaze.

Yes, indeed.

What was perched on top of the Emperor’s head was, without doubt, her hairpin.

Among everyone in tonight’s camp, he was the most conspicuous. He wore that moon-white robe embroidered all over with patterns, the whole of him luminous in the night, the sparks flying from the bonfire surrounding him as though they might conjure a halo of moonlight.

Then suddenly, a fragment of some inexplicable memory leapt out from the recesses of her mind and struck the daydreaming Xiao Nanhui.

It was a flash of moon-white — moon-white carrying the warmth of a human body.

She had once fallen into a moonlight that held warmth, gazing upward at the high-hung rafters of Snow-Bewilderment Hall, where the specks of dust drifting down from the great orchids overhead had transformed, in her vision, into swirling snow.

“Hey.”

Bolao gave her an unceremonious poke from the side, and that suddenly surfaced image vanished in an instant like smoke.

“Oh.” She feigned composure, tossing the bones she had left over from eating into the fire. “You must have seen wrong.”

Bolao widened her keen, bright eyes and confirmed it three times over, then declared with certainty: “How could I? These eyes of mine can see through two streets, one gate, and three layers of gauze curtain to tell whether there’s anyone in Yao Yi’s room tonight!”

“Even human eyes can be mistaken sometimes.”

She denied it with all her might, inwardly hoping that meddlesome Emperor would hurry up and walk away. But Bolao was stubborn and only grew more tenacious with every setback.

“If that’s the case, take out your hairpin and let me have a look. I’ve noticed you haven’t used a hairpin for some time now. Don’t tell me it’s no longer in your possession—”

Xiao Nanhui was growing restless; she felt she had to change the subject.

“You still have the leisure to come here demanding my hairpin? I asked you to look into that purple-robed swordsman. Have you put any effort into it at all?”

The abrupt turn in the conversation indeed silenced Bolao, and Xiao Nanhui pressed her advantage immediately.

“If you have no leads, I’ll write a letter to the old Dean and ask him — the old gentleman has seen and heard a great deal—”

“No!”

Bolao suddenly grew agitated, jumping to her feet.

Xiao Nanhui assumed she was afraid of seeing Xie Li, and gave a slightly puzzled curl of her lip: “What are you so nervous about? I’m only asking a couple of questions — I’m not making you go in person.”

“Since you’ve asked me about this, don’t trouble anyone else!”

“You haven’t seen that person’s skill. I think it’s necessary to let An Dao Academy know about this — just in case—”

“What are you being so timid about?! The next time we see him, I’ll trade a couple of moves with him and be able to figure out a thing or two. There’s no need to sit here speculating wildly.”

The next time they met? Trading moves? If they traded moves, would she even still be alive afterward?

“Fine, fine.” She felt she was talking at cross-purposes and wasting the energy she had been storing up for so many days. “I’m going to walk around a bit. Don’t trail after me like a shadow.”

Bolao gave a “humph,” indicating she had zero interest.

Xiao Nanhui walked quite far before turning back to look, and finding that the other truly had not followed, she finally pressed onward through the crunching snow toward the distance.

In the blink of an eye, the Emperor was nowhere to be seen. She could only head toward the vicinity of the Emperor’s carriage.

She wanted to find a way to get her hairpin back.

She raised her hand and felt the pouch at her waist — inside was half a jade pendant she had been carrying the whole journey. Perhaps she could use the business of this thumb-ring-shaped pendant as a pretext to clear up the hazy memory of that night.

The Emperor’s carriage was encircled by the Black Feather Camp in a secluded position. Viewing it from a distance, she felt a sense of unattainable remoteness.

Ever since the day he had made her stand outside the main tent as punishment, the Emperor had paid no further attention to her.

Hmph. He had seen what she looked like without washing her face for three days — and now he had reverted to a posture where not even the hem of his robe could be touched?

Thinking resentfully, she drew a little closer — when suddenly a figure flashed through her mind: Ding Weixiang, with his silent bearing that radiated terrifying presence.

Guilty conscience getting the better of her, Xiao Nanhui found herself in a predicament again, hesitant and shrinking, her very posture becoming craven.

She looked left and right, and decided to first find a more concealed spot to wait. As long as the Emperor showed himself, she could seize the opportunity to approach.

The Emperor’s procession usually comprised several carriages, and from the outside these carriages were almost indistinguishable from one another. Only one of them contained the Emperor himself; the rest carried only attendants.

Xiao Nanhui found an empty carriage whose attendant must have gone off to serve elsewhere, leaving inside only a small table and several soft cushions.

She leapt up and sat on the rear axle board of the carriage, found a viewing angle to her liking, and settled in to stake out her target.

After a while, she shifted her gaze slightly, and by chance caught sight of the horizontal board she was sitting on. Her eyes paused.

Because the wheels stirred up mud and gravel as the carriage moved, the axle board invariably became coated with a layer of dirt and sand even if it was cleaned frequently.

Yet right now there was an obviously too-clean section on this piece of wood, as though someone had repeatedly wiped it with their hand.

A sudden thought flashed in her mind. Xiao Nanhui leapt swiftly off the carriage, swung one leg, and kicked away the cover panel on the axle board.

The wooden board flew aside. Simultaneously, a slight, thin figure crawled out from beneath the carriage and came straight at her.

The attacker had considerable momentum but clumsy technique — the moment they struck she had already swept them off their feet and onto the ground.

But when she saw the face of her attacker, she was still startled.

No wonder the person had been able to conceal themselves beneath the axle of the carriage — it turned out to be a child whose frame had not yet fully grown.

On the gaunt, hollow cheeks were set a pair of light-brown eyes distinctive to Nan-Qiang people; the dark skin had peeled from the cold and dryness, and the lips were pressed stubbornly together as though, by doing so, others might not see that he was in fact trembling.

“Don’t — don’t kill me, I only wanted to ask for a drink of water—”

Xiao Nanhui’s movements slowed instinctively, but the vigilance coursing through her blood vibrated with a warning that what lay before her was by no means so simple.

When had he concealed himself beneath the carriage? How could a child begging for water have been hiding beneath the axle board for so many days?

In that very instant of hesitation, a ferocious light suddenly flashed through the child’s eyes. The hand that had been hidden in his sleeve came out; in his pale-blue fist was clutched a short knife ground from sheep bone, lunging straight for her abdomen.

This blow was delivered with merciless ferocity, but for someone like Xiao Nanhui who had trained in martial arts for years, it was still too slow.

Her hand shot out like lightning. Before the youth could even react, the sheep-bone knife had already flown out and landed in the dust.

Failing with the first blow, he stubbornly scrambled back up. Spotting the dagger at her waist, he let out a great shout and lunged to grab it — only to be seized by the shoulders with one hand; with a single application of force she dislocated half his arm.

He grimaced in pain and could not move, yet he still endured without making a sound.

The Nan-Qiang people’s ferocious and untameable nature was no mere rumor — Xiao Nanhui knew this full well, and even with a child before her, she had not been overly lenient.

“Who sent you?”

The youth held his neck stiff and said nothing; beads of sweat coursed down his face and trembled, dripping onto the back of her hand.

She tightened her fingers; the force increased by another two parts. The child finally could not endure it and cried out.

“No one — no one sent me. I came on my own!”

She let out a cold laugh: “On your own? Setting aside how Tiancheng’s military routes are all classified, the homeward army departing from Bijiang had four routes, and which route the royal carriage would take was kept entirely secret. How did you know where to find it?”

“What royal carriage? The person I’m trying to kill is you! I tracked you here by following you—”

This time Xiao Nanhui was genuinely taken aback. She studied the child’s face carefully, unsure whether the other was craftily lying in an attempt to seize an opportunity to escape.

“Do you even know who I am? Concocting a lie like that—”

Unexpectedly, the boy’s expression suddenly grew agitated. He twisted his head around to fix her gaze: “Traitor Pan Yao’er — all are permitted to execute her! The Elder said: cut off your head, and you repay the blood of thousands of Nan-Qiang people who were killed. Everyone in the village will pray for my blessings!”

The hands that had been firmly pressing down on the child’s arms at last, involuntarily, loosened a little. Looking at that face twisted in pain, she finally had a faint sense of recognition.

“You’re someone from the village?”

“Has Chief Pan forgotten us so quickly? But the people of Bijiang will remember: the guests they received, the honored guests they seated at the head of the table, in the end brought war — and became wolves who occupied their homeland! A running dog! The Emperor’s running dog!”

The hand holding the dagger slowly fell. She gazed at that face smeared with mud, written all over with hatred, and it was as though she were looking at the trail of foul deeds she herself had wrought.

No — it should not be like this.

The one who had ignited the war was not her. Everything she had done was only what she, as a soldier of Tiancheng, had had to do.

“If you won’t be a Bijiang person, you can be a Tiancheng person instead. You used to barely have water to drink, and the grazing lands were always being seized — things will surely be better than before—”

“That fellow surnamed Bai said the same thing before, and in the end what came of it? In the end, no one kept their promise! Liars! You’re all liars! The gods will punish you — will make you pay for what you have done today, your bodies to fall into hellfire and the frozen abyss, your hearts to suffer the torment of being abandoned by all—”

She watched the hatred in the child’s eyes spreading in all directions, and suddenly thought of A’Lu’s face in the dungeon that day.

History was truly just the same play performed with a different cast. Only those who had been handed the script were immersed in it, unable to see clearly where the future lay.

Should she kill him here? Because there would surely come a day when he too would be devoured by hatred, and become another A’Lu.

But the hand that had tightened on the dagger gradually, at last, relaxed.

She had already taken away their hope. She could not bring herself to take away their lives as well.

Nearby soldiers who had heard the commotion had already begun to look in this direction. Xiao Nanhui reversed the dagger and drove it deep into the carriage shaft.

“Get out of here. The farther the better. If I see you again, I’ll only be able to kill you.”

The youth scrambled to his feet in disarray, turned, and fled into the grove of trees. Before disappearing, he turned back one last time to fix her with a ferocious glare.

“I can’t beat you! But if one day you return to Suyan, someone will definitely kill you!”

About half an hour later, the attendant who had gone out to serve finally returned.

Today was his shift on duty. The Emperor had barely spoken a word these past several days. The atmosphere all around was frequently even more frozen than the bitter depth of winter. Each time duty ended, it was like having strolled one circuit through the gates of hell and returned.

He had just bowed and was preparing to withdraw when the Emperor’s footsteps suddenly stopped.

The attendant grew somewhat uneasy; from the corner of his eye he glanced over furtively, and saw that the Emperor had stopped in front of his own carriage, looking down as though examining something.

After a moment, the Emperor walked away with that sharp-eyed, cold-faced guard.

The attendant exhaled with relief and stepped forward to look.

In the snow there was only a single line of lonely footprints stretching into the distance — as though someone had stood here for a while, and then turned and retraced their steps.

By the bonfire, Xiao Nanhui sat propped on her knees, motionless, for a long time.

The night had deepened. The camp had grown quiet; only the orderly sound of patrolling soldiers’ footsteps rose and fell in regular alternation.

Bolao ate the remaining three sweet potatoes by the fire, then seized her laid-out bedding and went straight to sleep with great gusto.

She gazed at the roaring flames before her, and seemed again to see the great fire from when she had left Bijiang.

There had been a time when she had contemplated the idea that one day she might return openly and upright to those kind and simple villages for a look.

But people were truly fated to pay a price for the things they had done.

Although she would still be able to return to that land in the future, the mere thought of encountering scenes like the one just now upon her return sent a wave of inexpressible sorrow flooding from her heart.

She had never regretted the path she had chosen, and the road one had walked in life had no room to turn back.

Perhaps this was the final fate between her and Suyan.

Nan Hui — difficult to return.

She could no longer go south, to return to her hometown.