Qin Zhiyan was slightly startled, feeling somewhat embarrassed under her gaze. A faint blush actually appeared on his pale face. He glanced sideways at Qing Xia, who was still lying on his back, cleared his throat to cover his embarrassment, and said, “What are you looking at?”
“Qin Zhiyan,” a big smile bloomed on Qing Xia’s face. Her eyes narrowed into crescent-shaped arcs as she smiled and said, “Meeting you has been truly wonderful.”
Qin Zhiyan was stunned. After a long while, a trace of smile slipped into his eyes, and his entire being warmed up.
“Meeting you has also been my fortune.”
Under blue skies and white clouds, amid blooming flowers, in the depths of the crisp bamboo forest, two people who had survived disaster clung closely together.
In the early months of the 299th year of the Southern Chu calendar, it was a year of turmoil and unrest.
The excitement of the early year’s enthronement ceremony had not yet passed when the border wars of Nanjiang thunderously erupted. The Ludan people, dissatisfied with Chu’s oppressive policies, were the first to declare independence from Southern Chu rule, restoring their tribal self-governance banner. After engaging in large-scale fierce battles with Nanjiang garrison forces and suffering heavy casualties, they hastily fled Nanjiang territory in desperation, entering the Western Black Grasslands and surrendering northward to the Qin state.
The Southern Chu court was in uproar, their illusion of being a celestial empire instantly shattered. The court factions were clearly defined, split into two distinct camps. The war faction demanded deploying heavy troops to annihilate the Ludan clan, making an example to intimidate the numerous southern border tribes. The peace faction demanded relaxing Southern Chu border policies, treating the southern barbarians with benevolent leniency to win over the world through virtue.
However, before Southern Chu ministers could argue to a clear conclusion, the events that followed shocked the entire Southern Chu populace. A single spark can start a prairie fire. Over fifty years of the previous Chu emperor’s tyrannical rule over the borderlands finally caused catastrophic disaster. The war rapidly spread across half of Nanjiang and continued expanding. Southern border rebels raised household kitchen knives, with the elderly, weak, women, and children all joining the rebellion. The traditionally fierce Ludan people became leaders of the rebels, consecutively fighting three major battles on the Western Black Grasslands with both sides suffering victories and defeats, turning the grasslands into rivers of blood filled with rotting bones and flesh.
But at this critical moment, Eastern Qi, which had been hereditary enemies with Southern Chu, raised the banner of helping Nanjiang people achieve self-governance and escape Southern Chu tyranny. Prince Qi’an personally took command with Prince Jing as deputy, stationing three hundred thousand troops in the Minlan Mountains, vowing to avenge their previous imprisonment in Southern Chu dungeons. Their momentum was fierce and intimidating.
The tense atmosphere was explosive. Southern Chu citizens finally panicked. The rising war smoke caused border residents to migrate en masse to Southern Chu’s central heartland. Large-scale migration brought famine, plague, and pillaging. Countless lands became barren, border towns were nine-tenths empty. Wailing filled the land.
Under these circumstances, Chu Li, who had just ascended to the Southern Chu imperial throne, finally stepped forward to declare his position, announcing his determination to maintain Southern Chu’s regime and restore peace and prosperity to the people. The new young emperor personally took command, leading two hundred thousand troops to Nanjiang’s Western Black Grasslands to pacify the border unrest. Duke Mengtian carried Chu Li’s military talisman to Minlan Mountains to confront Eastern Qi.
Fighting simultaneously on eastern and southern fronts triggered a new domestic grain crisis. At this moment, an anomaly occurred—Xichuan, which usually preferred taking advantage of chaos and watching tigers fight from the mountain, sent large quantities of grain to Southern Chu’s borders under General Yan Hui’s leadership, ostensibly to help their neighboring ally. Through this method, they waded into Chu’s muddy waters.
Surveying the world’s general situation, now apart from some negligible border states, only Great Qin—dominating the north and having just achieved great victory at Yanmen Pass—showed no movement, making their intentions unclear.
With escalating Nanjiang warfare, Chu Li’s first upheaval since taking the throne had finally arrived.
At this very moment, Chu Li, who should have been commanding northern forces to annihilate the Ludan people at Hanchao City, unexpectedly appeared at the foot of Longji Mountains less than forty li from Great Qin’s border. Accompanied by three thousand Black Guard elite cavalry, clad in silver-white armor, eyes like stars, sword-like eyebrows extending to temples, his entire being radiated enormous cold dark aura. Sharp light shot from his eyes toward the panicking crowd, his gaze flickering with incomprehensible brilliance.
Hatred mixed with cruelty, despair seemingly tinged with fervor. No one could see clearly, including himself.
“Report!”
Continuous reports came from the distance. In the deathly dark night, a soldier in black clothing rode a tall warhorse, fully armored with a battle blade at his waist, galloping like lightning.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, we’ve found that woman.”
The resounding voice fell into the night. The man on horseback trembled slightly upon hearing this, unconsciously raising his eyebrows and saying in a deep voice, “Where?”
His voice was very calm, seemingly without any fluctuation, but his eyes hidden in darkness brightened. He stared intently at the reporting soldier, his gaze nearly boring a hole through his words.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, ten li ahead, southern slope ravine of Longji Mountain.”
“Lead the way.”
With a thunderous roar, countless warhorses reared up and galloped toward Longji Mountain’s southern face.
The originally peaceful night had now become a Shura killing field. Amid countless people’s agonized screams, bloody light shot skyward. Black Guard soldiers rode through white tents searching for something. Finding nothing, they threw their torches at those white deerskin tents. These things couldn’t be taken away, so they burned them on the spot, not leaving them for the rebellious Ludan people. Without warming tents, they could only freeze to death on the Western Black Grasslands’ wasteland.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, we’ve brought the person!”
Two soldiers suddenly rushed forward, carrying a constantly struggling woman in common clothes. Her hairpins were askew, black hair hanging down covering her face. Due to violent struggling, her clothing was nearly torn to shreds, exposing large patches of snow-white skin that appeared even more beautiful and alluring under torchlight, filled with bloody temptation.
She wore coarse earth-yellow hemp clothing, yet it couldn’t hide her exquisitely pure temperament and fair, moving skin. The girl with lowered head continuously fought the soldiers on both sides, suddenly opening her mouth to bite fiercely into a guard’s wrist.
Chu Li’s heart violently shook in that instant. Traces of fervor slowly rose in his eyes. This unyielding appearance even in desperate circumstances was so familiar. His eyes narrowed slightly as he prepared to dismount.
“Ah!” The bitten guard cried out in pain, instinctively raising his other hand toward the woman and pushing.
He hadn’t intended any harm. For this woman, His Majesty had even abandoned defending the northern army, traveling incognito to the Western Black Grasslands, covering three days’ journey in one night and exhausting four horses to arrive here. He merely instinctively wanted to push her away. But as soon as he raised his hand, he suddenly felt coldness at his neck. Greatly alarmed, he forgot the wrist pain and looked up to find His Majesty’s sharp sword at his throat.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Chu Li’s voice was ice-cold, his eyes like two dark gems flickering with dark radiance.
The soldier was greatly shocked, falling to his knees with a thud and kowtowing to Chu Li, saying, “This lowly one deserves death!”
His movement immediately affected the woman beside him. As his words fell, the woman biting his wrist also stumbled and fell to the ground with a thud.
In the distance, flames still flickered. This group consisted of Ludan family members—all elderly, weak, women, and children, with only a dozen men in their fifties and sixties as guards. With Ludan rebellion, everyone became soldiers. All men between eleven and sixty went to battle, leaving only some wounded with broken arms and legs to protect their families and children. Now, under the Black Guards’ fierce slaughter, few remained.
“Devils! You devils! I’ll kill you all!” Hoarse, desperate screams suddenly rang out brokenly. The woman kneeling on the ground with disheveled hair shrieked terribly, suddenly reaching toward the kneeling soldier’s waist and drawing his battle blade with a swish.
The cold gleam dazzled her eyes. Before she could fully draw the long blade, she was already subdued on the ground.
Chu Li’s body shook violently when the woman screamed desperately. His brow furrowed tightly as traces of despair slowly crept into his heart. Yet he still commanded in his most resolute voice, “You, raise your head!”
“Devils! Kill you all!…”
The woman continued screaming madly, her voice shrill like ghostly wailing, hands struggling, fair wrists covered in streaming blood.
“Kill you all, kill you all…” Sorrowful crying finally arose. Powerless, she was forced by the soldiers to raise her head toward Chu Li’s direction.
This was a beautiful face—eyes like autumn water, small vermillion lips, delicate features. Clearly not a southern barbarian, she resembled a capital’s well-trained young lady from a great family, possessing strong scholarly aura and charming stubborn expression. Her neck was slender, gleaming with pearl-like soft radiance, her figure also petite with a southern woman’s delicate frame.
In every aspect, she was a rare beauty. Especially in such a brutal killing environment, her heartbreaking pitiable appearance was even more prominent.
However, Chu Li’s eyes completely cooled the moment she raised her head. His warm heart seemed instantly thrown into an abyss of ice, cruelly wrenched. Disappointment shrouded his entire being. Suddenly losing all interest in everything before him, he merely raised his head to gaze at the vast darkness in the distance.
In the ink-like night curtain, countless shadows flickered in the darkness. His gaze focused far ahead on the towering Longji Mountain range—there lay Great Qin’s imperial mausoleum, the north’s insurmountable natural barrier.