At seventeen, Xie Xiu had not liked this small border city at first. Nor did he understand why his family had sent him to such a godforsaken place.

Even though his family had explained it to him at length, he still did not understand — and the truth was, in his heart, he had no wish to understand. He simply resisted.

Compared to the other border passes of the Western Frontier, this small pass city called Xifeng Pass was more bitter, more impoverished, and more utterly without interest.

The people here all had a look of earth-yellow about them. And it wasn’t just the people — half the world here was earth-yellow, everything except the sky.

In the beginning, every day he did nothing but sit somewhere high up and stare at the sky in a daze, sometimes for half a day at a stretch.

Because in his view, everything here except the sky was filthy — filthy beyond measure, completely at odds with who he was.

But after nearly a year spent there, he suddenly found that he had changed. He found that trading crude jokes with those rough border soldiers was extraordinarily entertaining — no, it was undeniably entertaining.

None of them had any great learning, and many couldn’t even read, but they knew what it meant not to let people down.

Their emotions were all so simple and unadorned. Once they decided on something, they would not easily change their minds.

They hadn’t liked Xie Xiu at first either. They felt this young man from an aristocratic family was too pretentious, too prone to looking down on people, and so they simply couldn’t be bothered with him.

This state of affairs lasted until one time when Xie Xiu led a squad of scouts on a mission at the General’s orders. Midway through, they were surrounded by Western Region people, and only after a fierce fight did things begin to change.

That day, he didn’t know why he stepped forward to stand in front of his subordinates — perhaps because of the unit commander’s insignia he wore, perhaps because of his own arrogance.

Those rough fellows always said about him that he’d only come to the frontier for a brief turn, just to add something to his record, and would go back to wealth and high office.

They also said that someone like Xie Xiu would never become a true brother-in-arms — not the life-and-death kind.

Even though in a place like the Western Frontier’s Xifeng Pass, if border soldiers did not treat one another as brothers, they would likely die all the faster.

They were pursued by men ten times their number, corralled into a copse of trees, and Xie Xiu saw those rough fellows looking toward him, waiting for his command.

But Xie Xiu could see that while they looked at him, their eyes held no expectation.

Only because he was the unit commander, and the iron law of border soldiering was obedience to orders.

“We fight our way out. I take the lead.”

Xie Xiu said only these six words, and then mounted his horse.

That day, his arrows seemed to have been granted power by some divine force — every arrow found an enemy. The eyes of those rough fellows began to grow bright.

That day, when Xie Xiu charged at the head of the formation to break out of the encirclement and turned to see that three of his men had been caught and surrounded, he turned back without a second thought to fight his way back to them. And those rough fellows’ eyes blazed with a brilliant light.

They too, without a second thought, followed their unit commander and charged back in.

Howling and roaring, like a pack of wolves.

In that battle, they fought until their eyes were bloodshot, breaking free from the immediate siege of their pursuers.

Yet the next day, more enemies came. Already spent in both man and horse, they were surrounded by at least six or seven hundred Western Region cavalry.

For this outing, Xie Xiu had brought only a squad of ten. With six or seven hundred men surrounding them, there was no way to look at it that was anything other than certain death.

Xie Xiu said… I am sorry. It is I who have brought calamity upon you.

He said, if it were not I leading this squad, the General would certainly have come to your rescue — because the General dislikes me and feels that I and all of you are not the same kind of people.

He also said, I know you all dislike me, and all feel that I am not the same kind of person as you — but today, since it is I who have brought calamity upon you, I will be the first to fall in battle.

And then, they saw the black battle banner of the Dachu border army.

Their General had come, bringing three hundred cavalry, cutting from one end to the other, and then back again, carving through the enemy like a plow through earth.

Three hundred elite cavalry, and they killed six or seven hundred Western Region cavalry until their dead and wounded numbered seven or eight in ten, with the remainder fleeing in all directions.

When they returned to Xifeng Pass, the General raised a cup to him — and everyone knew this meant acceptance.

Yet he said, I thought you would not come to save me.

The General said, I truly do not like you, but you are my soldier, a border army brother. I will not abandon a single comrade.

From that day on, he trained on the sandy ground together with his border army brothers — wrestling, grappling, tumbling through the dirt.

He squeezed onto the heated mud-brick sleeping platform with his border army brothers and talked nonsense in the night about what it might feel like to be with a woman.

They were truly rough and crude, and the women in their talk were nothing more than a kind of longing.

Everyone boasted about how capable they were, but in truth, if they actually came face to face with a woman, they couldn’t even get words out.

Xie Xiu often thought to himself, what a bunch of country bumpkins — truly bumpkins to the core. But being together with these core bumpkins was genuinely great fun.

Once a person opens up and becomes more easygoing, things that were once puzzling cease to be puzzles. And so Xie Xiu came to understand why his family had arranged for him to come to such a small place.

Because although it was so hard and so impoverished, so isolated and small, this place was safe.

Though the Western Region people would come here to provoke trouble, this border pass was too small — too small for the Western Region’s great army to use as a route of invasion into the Central Plains.

His family’s intention was for him to spend a year being tempered in such a small place, then return to be placed in a position at the Ministry of War.

That battle of ambush occurred when he had been at the border pass for nearly a year — to be precise, twenty-seven days before the year was up.

The days were still peaceful enough, yet Xie Xiu found this place growing more and more interesting. When he calculated that only three days remained before he could go home, he felt an incomparable reluctance to leave.

And yet on that very day, the Western Region people came.

Before the warning horns sounded, the brothers had been chattering away, helping the General plan how to look impressively dashing when he went to meet the General’s mysterious and secret betrothed.

They had all seen that young woman before. She was truly beautiful — yet no one envied the General, because they all felt that only a young woman like her could be worthy of their General.

Even though their General was only a borderline Sixth Rank officer who could just barely be called a general.

All three hundred and sixty of them were so devoted that each man wanted to bring out his most treasured possession and offer it to the General, so the General could present it to that young woman.

The young woman they all addressed as Elder Sister.

Because the General had said that after this meeting, the betrothal would most likely be settled, and so they all felt that presenting betrothal gifts to someone’s young woman — one could not be stingy about it.

The Western Region people came, with no warning whatsoever, and they came with tens of thousands of troops.

When the brothers mounted the walls, the General found Xie Xiu and said to him… go now, there is still time if you leave now.

Xie Xiu shook his head and said, why should I leave? Does the General still look down on me?

The General fell silent, and then said that the reason he wanted him to leave was because he had a selfish motive. Xie Xiu leaving was more suitable than anyone else leaving.

Xie Xiu didn’t understand, and asked why.

The General said, you are of the Xie family. When you return, you will be entrusted with important responsibilities, and may even be appointed to an official post in the Ministry of War.

You must let the people of the court know how the soldiers of Xifeng Pass died. You must ensure the families of our brothers receive their compensation.

If you do not go and do this, perhaps no one will ever remember this place, and no one will care about this place.

The General also said, all of them… may die.

In truth it wasn’t “may” — once the fighting began, in the end they would all certainly die.

The enemy outside was too numerous — several hundred times their own number. Every one of them was a brave warrior who would not retreat or fear even facing an enemy ten times their size.

But this time it was hundreds of times their number, and they didn’t even have the weapons and equipment to kill that many enemies.

The General handed him a booklet, and told him it was the roster of everyone in Xifeng Pass — every single person’s name was recorded within.

The General gave him a military salute and said, consider it my begging you — the brothers can die, but they cannot die without leaving so much as a ripple. And after they die, their families cannot be left without even their compensation.

After saying all this, the General seized his blade and charged up the city wall.

Xie Xiu left. He walked fifteen li, then tore open his clothes, bit open his finger, and on that scrap of cloth wrote a letter in blood. He had his personal attendant take the blood letter and the name roster back to the family, requesting that his family help see to it that these brothers’ families received their compensation.

His attendant knelt and begged him. He only shook his head and said, I must be with my brothers. Even in death, we must be together.

When Xie Xiu mounted the city wall, he saw many familiar faces already lying on the ground, their bodies bristling with arrows.

He was filled with rage. Roaring, he seized a bow and arrows.

His border army brothers saw that he had returned, and many cursed at him, cursed him for coming back, cursed this pampered young master for coming back to add to the confusion.

But this time, the cursed Xie Xiu felt no anger — he only stood among his brothers with red eyes.

He shot his arrows one by one, sending one enemy after another down to the underworld.

He didn’t know whether among those enemies he had slain there were any who had killed his comrades — he only wanted to kill every last one of them.

Three hundred or so men, holding off tens of thousands of Western Region troops, yet they held on for many days. Their arrows were spent, and their blade edges were all chipped and notched.

They hadn’t even eaten in a full day and a night, because the brothers responsible for cooking had already fallen dead beside them.

Now, only a dozen or so of them remained.

The General looked at Xie Xiu and said, go now. None of the brothers think less of you, none of them think you are a coward.

Xie Xiu said, if I leave, I will think less of myself for the rest of my life. I will think I am a coward for the rest of my life.

The Western Region people charged once more. Looking into the distance, it was like a flood surging over and covering the open ground outside the border pass.

They had no more arrows. They gripped their already-ruined sabres, a dozen or so men standing in formation on the city wall.

The brothers looked toward the General. The General walked to the very front of the formation.

Xie Xiu asked, General — how do we fight?

The General said, arrow formation. Attack.

Just as the General was about to charge, they held him back — forced him to leave. Because there was still a young woman waiting for the General.

They wept and begged, red-eyed, begged the General to go.

The General broke free, swung his hand and struck Xie Xiu across the face, then quietly walked back to the very front of those dozen or so men’s formation.

“I am the General.”

He said.

When the Western Region people climbed the city wall, their faces twisted with ferocity as they charged at them, the General turned back and looked at Xie Xiu and said… *I too bear the surname Xie.*

In this moment, Xie Xiu understood why his family had sent him here.

Perhaps, before him, the General had been the one his family had chosen — the one to spend a year being tempered at the border pass and then return to wealth and high office, to a limitless future.

But the General chose to stay. Because this border pass held people he cared about — and brothers he cared about.

Everyone fell. Xie Xiu fell too. The General had taken more than ten arrows to shield him, but he could not hold back the surging tide of the enemy.

Seriously wounded, Xie Xiu was captured. The Western Region people forced him to lead the way for them. He only responded with a cold smile, and so he gained even more wounds upon his body.

That night, Shen Rujian rescued him and brought him back to the Central Plains.

Not long after, the Dachu border army from Liangzhou came and drove the Western Region people back, slaughtering them until bodies lay strewn across the field.

Now, in the lavishly appointed parlor of the Jingzhou Military Governor’s residence, Xie Xiu collapsed face-down on the table, weeping in great heaving sobs.

“I miss the General.”

He said.

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