A torrent of red crests the high wall — smoke and fire unspent, blood not yet cold.

The moment the relief forces appeared, every person on the wall felt as if light had flooded the entire world.

The radiance was not from the high and distant sun. It was from those blazing red battle standards, one after another. It was from those soldiers, one after another, surging up.

What is it to have one’s spirit revived?

This. This is it.

“How could this be…”

Zhimocan’s expression shifted drastically. He cried out involuntarily.

He turned to look at Prince Kuokedi Liancheng. The prince’s expression was equally dark — but differently so.

The darkness on Zhimocan’s face was disbelief. On Kuokedi Liancheng’s, it was something closer to fury.

Because not long before, Zhimocan had just told Kuokedi Liancheng that there was no possibility of reinforcements reaching Prince Ning Li Chi.

He had said so with full confidence: Li Chi’s forces were all pinned down, and with only a few tens of thousands of troops to begin with, there was no way he could disengage them. Therefore, no reinforcements could possibly reach Beishan Pass.

That confidence came from his arrangements throughout Jizhou. At this very moment, no fewer than several hundred thousand central plains rebel forces were moving in to seize territory, taking advantage of the fact that Prince Ning Li Chi could not hold Jizhou firm.

Zhimocan had been delighted to see such a response from the central plains people — this was precisely the outcome he had wanted.

Yet now he was not only seeing reinforcements arrive. He was seeing the most elite, battle-hardened soldiers in the Ning army.

Kuokedi Liancheng looked at Zhimocan: “Do you intend to offer an explanation?”

Zhimocan immediately bent low in deference: “The intelligence I received clearly stated that Prince Ning Li Chi’s limited forces had all been drawn into other engagements and could not possibly be redeployed to Beishan Pass — unless…”

He raised his head: “Unless Prince Ning Li Chi was willing to surrender all of Jizhou and concentrate every last one of his forces here to hold back our southern campaign army. His territory… would have been entirely abandoned. Yet I find it difficult to believe there is anyone like that in this world.”

Kuokedi Liancheng fell silent. He too was unwilling to believe that such a person existed in this world — least of all as his enemy.

“Abandoning everything he had fought so hard to build, all of it, just to stop our Black Martial empire’s army from marching south…”

Kuokedi Liancheng murmured to himself, then said to Zhimocan: “Send word through your Intelligence Offices to every Black Martial army — Northern Court, Southern Court, frontier troops, reserve troops, every formation, every commanding general. They must all know who Li Chi is. They must all remember this name. If we cannot kill him in this battle… he will without question become the Black Martial empire’s most dangerous enemy in the years ahead.”

“Understood!”

Zhimocan answered at once: “I will see to it immediately.”

Kuokedi Liancheng exhaled and turned to leave. As he walked, he said: “Begin pulling the troops back. The enemy’s fighting spirit has been renewed. Their courage is now doubled. The enemy in this moment cannot be beaten. We cannot break through…”

He gave a small shake of his head. How can a person like this exist? How can he be like this?

When the Black Martial withdrawal horns sounded, the entire length of Beishan Pass’s walls erupted in wave upon wave of cheers.

Li Chi leaned against the battlements, breathing hard, watching the Black Martial forces temporarily pull back. The tension that had been wound inside him finally eased.

He set the black blade against the wall and turned, letting his back rest against the battlements as he slowly slid to the ground.

A moment later, Li Chi suddenly threw his head back and laughed — great, booming laughter that seemed to ring from every stone of the wall.

“Ha ha ha ha ha… ha ha ha ha ha!”

On this day, the blazing red battle standards had not fallen from the walls of Beishan Pass. And after this day, those blazing red battle standards would never fall again.

“Chief!”

Dantai Yajing rushed to Li Chi. Seeing Li Chi like this, Dantai Yajing’s eyes went faintly red at the corners.

Li Chi raised his hand and gave a light wave. He truly had very little strength remaining — even speaking took considerable effort.

So he said only one thing: “Let everyone who is exhausted go down to rest and tend to their wounds. I’m going to sleep too… I want to sleep.”

Li Chi slept for a full ten hours. When he woke, it was already the next morning. His first sensation upon opening his eyes was a headache, but as his consciousness grew clearer, the pain gradually dissolved.

He moved to sit up — and only then saw Gao Xining, who had fallen asleep beside him.

She was seated in a chair at the bedside, head resting on her folded arms, slumped forward onto the bed in sleep. At the faint sound of Li Chi stirring, Gao Xining raised her head at once. Those eyes threaded with bloodshot red filled instantly with worry.

When she saw Li Chi smiling at her, that worry dissolved.

“Heh heh…”

Gao Xining smiled, and that smile was more beautiful than any sight in the world.

“Come lie down.”

Li Chi said softly.

He shifted over, lifted his hand and patted the space he had cleared on the bed: “Here. Prime real estate, available for lease.”

Gao Xining giggled, then said in complete seriousness: “I can’t afford the rent on prime real estate right now.”

Li Chi said: “Try and trick me. I’m very easily tricked. I’m simple like that.”

Gao Xining laughed and got up. Li Chi immediately folded back the covers. Gao Xining lay down beside him, still smiling at the corner of her lips.

Li Chi was about to say that a kiss would count as the full rent payment — but he saw that the beautiful girl’s eyelids were already unable to stay up. She lay her head on his arm and fell asleep almost at once.

Li Chi lay there on his side looking at her, watching and watching, with no desire to get up, no desire to move. He just wanted to keep looking.

It was not until midday, when Gao Xining woke, that Li Chi finally shifted the arm that had long since gone numb.

“Oh!”

Gao Xining discovered she had been lying on Li Chi’s arm, and her face went red at once. She seemed to have no memory at all of what had happened in the morning.

At that time, her mind had truly been in a fog. Her smile at Li Chi had been entirely unconscious.

She had been worried something might be wrong with Li Chi, and in truth had not really slept at all — it was only shortly before Li Chi woke that she had finally succumbed and fallen forward onto the bed.

Li Chi was amused by her reaction. Looking at Gao Xining’s flushed cheeks, he felt an impulse growing inside him that was increasingly hard to contain.

Gao Xining could naturally see the change in Li Chi. She quickly got up, threw back the covers, and slipped out.

Li Chi sighed: “Heartless.”

Gao Xining said: “That’s because you’re shameless.”

Li Chi was genuinely shocked: “What did I do that was shameless? I was just lying here quietly. I didn’t even dare move a finger.”

Gao Xining humphed: “Your fingers were perfectly still, yes, but!”

She flicked her gaze toward Li Chi’s body. Li Chi followed her eyes and saw that a certain region of the bedcovers was standing up somewhat — a rather prominent elevation.

Li Chi’s face went red as well.

He actually wanted to earnestly explain that this was purely a natural physiological response — but when he was about to say it, he found he didn’t believe it himself.

So he laughed in spite of himself: “Proof I’m still in working order…”

Gao Xining let out a laugh too: “Save it for later then… right now you smell, and I smell too.”

Li Chi said: “You don’t smell at all. You’re fragrant.”

Gao Xining let out another heh heh laugh, then tidied her clothes and hair, walked to the door and turned to look at Li Chi: “Get up. I’m hungry. After we wash up I want to eat something good. I want meat. Lots of meat.”

Li Chi acknowledged: “Coming right up!”

Gao Xining pulled the door open — and startled.

Standing outside were a great many people: Yu Jiuling, Dantai Yajing, Xiahou Zuo, Lian Xiwu, the Ning army generals, the Dachu frontier army generals — all standing in the courtyard. It was impossible to say how long they had been there.

Gao Xining was immediately flustered. Though nothing had happened with Li Chi, her heart was suddenly racing, and she felt an urgent need to find somewhere to hide.

“Greetings, Princess Consort!”

Everyone bowed in unison — Xiahou Zuo, Yu Jiuling, Dantai Yajing, Lian Xiwu, and all the Dachu army generals.

Gao Xining stood frozen, unable to find a single word to say.

“My lord, Princess Consort — the soldiers wish to invite my lord and the Princess Consort to the city wall. They have a gift they would like to present to my lord and the Princess Consort.”

Lian Xiwu bowed and spoke.

Li Chi first flipped back the covers and checked — he was still wearing his trousers, which was a relief — and then felt it was rather too much of a relief.

He got up, walked to the door, and asked with a grin: “A gift for the two of us? What’s the good thing? Did someone stew a big pot of meat? Did you all overhear us — we were just saying we wanted meat.”

Xiahou Zuo smiled: “There is meat. But go to the wall first.”

Li Chi agreed and stepped outside. The sunlight was a little dazzling; he raised his hand to shade his eyes. In that same instinctive lowering of his head, he noticed he had forgotten his shoes.

“Carry the lord up!”

Xiahou Zuo called out. Two Dachu army generals stepped forward — both wounded, but neither caring about it.

The two of them got on either side of Li Chi and lifted him up in their arms, carrying him the way one carries a person in a makeshift sedan chair.

Li Chi kept telling them to put him down, but the two Dachu frontier army generals simply refused.

When they carried Li Chi to the base of the city wall, the densely packed Ning army soldiers all around erupted in cheers.

“Long live the Prince of Ning!”

“Long live the Prince of Ning!”

“Long live the Prince of Ning!”

Among the cheering crowd were also Dachu frontier soldiers in bandages, leaning on crutches, or carried on stretchers.

They were learning the Ning army’s ways — performing the Ning army salute, raising their right arms and striking their chest armor.

With everyone around him, Li Chi ascended the wall. He had come down from it only twice in nearly four months.

Reaching the top, Xiahou Zuo looked toward a young general who appeared slightly bashful but visibly moved.

Xiahou Zuo said: “Yin Kong, you say it.”

Yin Kong was the young frontier army general to whom Li Chi had said a few words when he first arrived at Beishan Pass.

Li Chi had told him: watch me. If I hide behind your backs when the enemy comes, then you are all welcome to hide behind mine. If I kill fewer enemies than any of you, every enemy I kill counts as your battle credit.

Yin Kong stepped before Li Chi, gave a solemn salute, then turned and extended his hand, pointing outward: “Prince Ning — look!”

Li Chi followed the direction he pointed, and went still.

Along the full length of the walls, Ning army battle standards flew everywhere. Every single Dachu frontier army standard had been removed.

Yin Kong said loudly: “My lord! From this day forward, every soldier in the frontier army — all of those still living — and including all of the brothers who died in this battle — are Prince Ning’s soldiers. They are all Ning army now!”

Li Chi saw it then — those wounded frontier brothers, every one of them, watching him.

Some still cradled neatly folded frontier army standards against their chests — yet not one of their eyes held the slightest trace of reluctance.

To fold the tattered standards and put them away was their tribute to the frontier army’s banner, and to the fact that they had once been frontier soldiers.

Yin Kong raised his right fist and called out: “Long live the Prince of Ning! Long live our King!”

Every voice roared together: “Long live our King!”

Xiahou Zuo raised his hand and struck his chest armor. Gradually, every fist struck every chest armor. It was the most fierce and stirring war drum in the world.

“HU!”

“HU!”

“HU!”

—