He Simu had only tried calling out to Duan Xu, but he truly awakened at her call, his rigid body collapsing like a rapidly melting glacier. As if finally beginning to feel the pain, he sat down powerlessly on the ground, breathing rapidly.

In the flickering firelight, this wilderness resembled the legendary hell. Duan Xu hung his head, his expression hidden, only his steady yet weary voice could be heard: “There’s still such a long road ahead, but I’m… so tired.”

He finally admitted he was tired.

He Simu thought she had assumed he was someone who reveled in pushing himself to the brink of death. So he could get tired after all.

After these seemingly disheartened words, Duan Xu suddenly raised his eyes. Though blood-soaked, they still held a gleam of exhausted light.

He suddenly said, “You want to make a deal with me, you want my five senses, and you say you’ll return them to me on schedule. But that’s because you’ve never experienced having five senses. Once you know the five colors, five tastes, six tones, warmth, and cold, can you bear to lose them again? Won’t there come a day when you take all my senses, maintaining only the minimum of my life, turning me into a living corpse?”

It was remarkable that he could still remember this deal at such a moment.

He Simu was silent for a moment, then said coolly, “Perhaps. Never mind, let’s forget this deal. I see that if you don’t hurry back to the city to find a doctor, you’ll die here.”

Duan Xu stared at her for a moment, then suddenly smiled faintly, a smile so quiet without a trace of madness. He reached out to He Simu, saying in a joking tone, “Help me up. Pull me up, and I’ll agree to your terms.”

He Simu raised an eyebrow, wondering what new madness this young general was up to. She said, “Seventeenth…”

“Call me Duan Xu.”

She didn’t understand his insistence on this false name, but simply said, “Duan Xu, are you still clearheaded?”

“Very clearheaded. This is so interesting.”

Duan Xu’s hand hung in midair as he smiled and slowly said, “I bet that when that day finally comes, you won’t bear to do it.”

A firework burst in the night sky between them with a thunderous sound. Duan Xu’s blood-covered hand was illuminated, bright red and intense like burning flames, his fingertips trembling almost imperceptibly.

It was unclear whether from excitement or fear.

He Simu looked at him for a long while, at those eyes that were always clear yet unfathomable.

This reckless, audacious gambler never considered consequences.

She smiled faintly: “Very well.”

She extended her hand—pale, with fine deep purple veins winding beneath the grayish-white skin. This cold and deathly hand grasped Duan Xu’s warm, bloody one, stained with his blood, gripping his hand inch by inch.

The Oath Pearl flew out, hovering above their clasped hands, drawing a drop of blood from each of them and merging them together, flowing into the grooves of the talisman pattern, taking effect immediately.

From now on, he would be connected to her fate.

He Simu raised her hand to pull Duan Xu up from the ground. He truly exerted no strength at all, lazily allowing her to pull him like a kite, then using the forward momentum to stagger and lean against her.

He was taller than her but bent down to bury his head in the crook of her neck. Thick fresh blood stained her collar, his forehead pressed against the cold skin of her neck.

He placed his entire weight on her as if entrusting his life to her.

“What are you doing?” He Simu didn’t push him away but asked coolly.

“Am I abnormal?” Duan Xu asked softly.

He Simu knew what he meant and said, “Blood-crazed killing can be considered abnormal?”

Killing excited Duan Xu.

Only now did He Simu realize that she had seen that look in Duan Xu’s eyes on the battlefield, as if suppressing something—he had been suppressing this excitement.

He seemed to have experienced years of extensive killing, to the point where killing had become a trigger for excitement, inducing a state of physical and mental exhilaration that was difficult to control.

Perhaps deep down, he craved slaughter.

This slaughter had once pleased him.

The long time he spent in Heaven-Knowing, everything he had experienced, had merged into his blood and bones.

Duan Xu was silent for a while, then said to her, “Just now, before Senior Brother Fifteen died, he told me… ‘You’re a monster too, you can’t escape it.'”

He Simu didn’t answer. In the biting cold wind, Duan Xu’s body trembled slightly as he slowly said, “Sometimes I don’t know if I’m a normal person disguised as a madman or a madman disguised as a normal person.”

He Simu laughed softly, with a hint of disdain. She finally reached out and placed her hand on his back, patting it neither too lightly nor too heavily.

“You’re leaning on the most abnormal being in the world, what nonsense are you talking about?”

Duan Xu was quiet for a moment, then suddenly laughed softly. Recklessly, he reached out to embrace He Simu’s back, saying cheerfully and contentedly, “You’re right.”

He Simu patted his back, composed: “Don’t get too familiar. Let go of me.”

“Don’t you want to know who I am?”

Duan Xu didn’t obediently release her. His entire body relaxed as if opening a sealed door. He spoke calmly by her ear: “My name is Duan Xu. My maternal grandfather was a famous literary master. When I was born, he was watching a Chunsheng Troupe performance and named me after ‘Conquering the Wolves of Ju and Xu’ from the play. My maternal grandmother was a Princess Imperial of the previous dynasty. My family has been scholars for three generations—the Duan family of the Southern Capital. I grew up in Southern Capital until I was seven.”

Here he goes again.

He Simu frowned, about to interrupt his nonsense, when she heard Duan Xu laugh and say, “Then, when I was seven, I was kidnapped.”

He Simu’s hand stopped patting his back.

Duan Xu continued, “The Hu Qi people kidnapped me to threaten my father to trade intelligence with them. At that time, factional struggles were life and death. My father not only refused to agree with the Hu Qi people but couldn’t let others know he had such a vulnerability in Danzhi’s hands. So he told the Hu Qi people they had kidnapped the wrong person—the one they took wasn’t the Duan family’s third young master, Duan Xu. The third young master had been sent back to the ancestral home in Daizhou to accompany his grandmother.”

“That third young master sent back to Daizhou was the fake Duan Xu.”

“The Hu Qi people were deceived, thinking they had kidnapped the wrong person. I took the opportunity to escape, wandering the streets of Danzhi… then I was chosen by the Heaven-Knowing leader, my master, who was out selecting disciples and entered Heaven-Knowing. They didn’t know my background. After completing my training at fourteen, I blinded my master and escaped back to Great Liang, returning to my ancestral roots with the courtesy name Shunxi. My father arranged that incident of being robbed on the way from Daizhou to Southern Capital, so the fake Duan Xu could disappear, allowing me to return.”

“This is who I am. I am Duan Xu, courtesy name Shunxi. I have never lied to you. You see, once again I’ve… turned misfortune into blessing.”

Duan Xu spoke very calmly, and at this point even smiled mischievously, like a pleased child.

He Simu remained silent. Countless soul lanterns rose from the Danzhi camp, gathering into the sky like shooting stars in reverse. Fireworks burst continuously in splendor above Shuozhou Prefecture city. Joy on one side, sorrow on the other—what an absurd and magnificent human scene.

Blood dripped from Duan Xu’s fingertips. He finally released his arms from around He Simu’s back, but this time He Simu embraced him.

He was sliding to the ground; without her support, he would have fallen.

Embracing He Simu had already used up Duan Xu’s last bit of strength.

He Simu held this powerless figure who had collapsed against her, sighed deeply, and said, “Not just a little fox, but a little ancestor too.”

In the end, He Simu sat on her Ghost King lantern pole with Duan Xu beside her, leaning against her shoulder, carried by the Ghost King lantern toward Shuozhou Prefecture city. Duan Xu closed his eyes, seeming asleep yet still slightly conscious. He asked vaguely, “Your Majesty Ghost King… what is your name?”

He Simu clicked her tongue a couple of times, casually stroking the Ghost King lantern below the pole.

Usually, she wouldn’t tell mortals her name. Even among evil ghosts, only the Left and Right Ministers dared to call her by name.

But after all, this was the oath-bound person who would give her his five senses.

“He Simu. ‘He’ as in He Simu, ‘Simu’ as in yearning.”

Her explanation made Duan Xu laugh softly.

The long night was ending, dawn was breaking, and the gentle, misty morning light dissolved the endless darkness.

In the golden sunlight, Duan Xu parted his dry, cracked lips and slowly said, “He Simu, Happy New Year, peace year after year.”

He Simu was startled, then responded with a faint smile, “Duan Xu, little fox Duan, may you turn misfortune into blessing and live a long life.”

Her gaze fell on the Truth-Breaking Sword at Duan Xu’s waist. The scabbard was also stained with blood, though whether Fifteen’s or Duan Xu’s was unclear.

Fifteen was killed by the Truth-Breaking Sword, so he would at least have a rebirth without resentment.

She had been wondering why the Truth-Breaking Sword would accept Duan Xu as its master. At this moment, she finally thought of the answer. Duan Xu was neither a cultivator nor did he possess spiritual power. Although he had a strong fate, was a heaven-bestowed talent, and possessed a temperament beyond ordinary people, this wasn’t why the Truth-Breaking Sword chose him.

The Truth-Breaking Sword chose him because it wanted to save him.

This sword, primarily of compassion, both killed and delivered people. It came from Bo Qing’s hand to this young man, choosing him as its master because it wanted to deliver him.

Deliver him from his blood-stained hands and weathered life.

Han Lingqiu and Meng Wan had told Wu Sheng Liu about Duan Xu’s plan to attack when the Danzhi military camp caught fire on New Year’s Eve. The Danzhi army, leaderless and in chaos, retreated step by step, driven more than a hundred li away by the Tabai army, withdrawing in defeat from Shuozhou.

Thus, the siege of Tabai Prefecture city was lifted.

The battle continued until morning. When Wu Sheng Liu and his forces returned, they saw a person standing on the city wall.

That young man, dressed as a Hu Qi person, was injured all over and soaked in blood. In the morning light, he smiled and waved at them, then took a head from the cloth bag at his waist and hung it on the city gate.

It was Awuerqi’s head.

Their commander had infiltrated the enemy camp, set fire to it, assassinated the chief commander, ensuring his soldiers wouldn’t fight the enemy to mutual destruction, allowing his soldiers to return victorious, letting the common people behind him experience a lively Spring Festival without worry.

Wu Sheng Liu suddenly jumped down from his horse and knelt on the ground.

He didn’t issue any orders, but following his action, all the officers, commanders, captains, and soldiers dismounted, kneeling on one knee in succession. In the morning light, countless suits of armor reflected cold silver light, like waves surging across the sea’s surface.

Duan Xu’s eyes flickered.

“Tabai Army, welcome our commander!” Wu Sheng Liu shouted.

The soldiers behind him shouted in unison, their voices coming like an avalanche, surging toward Duan Xu on the city wall. Duan Xu held onto the wall, barely managing to stand straight. He thought he should have taken more painkillers earlier.

Then he smiled gently.

He Simu had asked him why he risked his life alone. He said it was because this Tabai Army wasn’t yet his Tabai.

At this moment, the Tabai Army had finally become his Tabai.