Fan Jing had previously been a capable general under Jiang Hanyuan’s grandfather, and his relationship with Jiang Hanyuan’s uncle Yan Zhong was as close as brothers. He was also Jiang Hanyuan’s trusted confidant, held in high regard in Yunluo. After returning under orders last year, he had taken on the important responsibility of assisting Yan Cheng alongside Yan Cheng’s uncle Zhong Cheng.

At the end of last year, Yan Cheng and Zhong Cheng had led troops on a border patrol when they encountered a small group of Beidi cavalry scouts. When the Beidi cavalry fled, Yan Cheng ignored Zhong Cheng’s advice and pursued them relentlessly. During the chase, he encountered another group of scouts, and in the conflict, he became separated from the main force and didn’t return that day.

With war between the court and the Beidi imminent, Fan Jing was busy with war preparations during that period. Upon learning the news, he was extremely anxious and led search parties everywhere. After several days with no results, he feared Yan Cheng was likely dead and was about to send word to Jiang Hanyuan when Zhong Cheng found Yan Cheng and brought him back.

He was wounded and in a wretched state, saying that after becoming separated from the main force that day, in his haste to shake off pursuing enemies, his horse had gone too fast and he had fallen down a cliff with his mount, losing consciousness. When he awoke, he found the Beidi cavalry had left. Having narrowly escaped death, he had slept in the open and encountered his search party halfway back, thus managing to survive.

His safe return was great fortune. Fan Jing had breathed a sigh of relief at the time, the matter passed, and he had focused wholeheartedly on war preparations again.

After the New Year, as Great Wei launched its expedition from Yanmen, the situation at Xiguan Pass also became tense. He and Xiguan’s defending general Liu Huaiyuan supported each other. He positioned troops on the front lines, maintaining constant vigilance.

Last month, he suddenly received news that Jiang Hanyuan had sent an envoy with urgent war-related matters, extremely pressing, calling for him to return immediately for an audience. Without delay, he handed over his duties and rushed back through the night. Halfway there, he encountered one of his trusted agents from the city, who told him that Yan Cheng had already surrendered to the Beidi and was conspiring with his uncle to lure him back to the city to kill him. The man had escaped after learning of the plot and warned him not to return.

The man died from severe injuries after delivering his message, and pursuing troops had already arrived. Fan Jing relied on his exceptional martial skills to finally escape the pursuit. Worried about trouble at the front lines, he turned back regardless of everything, but before arriving, he saw countless Beidi cavalry covering the mountains and plains, heading toward Xiguan Pass.

At this point, he understood—the Beidi forces must have been let in by Yan Cheng after he was lured away. Looking back now, the several days when Yan Cheng had gone missing and been isolated at the end of last year, he must have been captured by the Beidi and then released. Or perhaps the entire conflict had been designed by the Beidi from the start, to win over Yan Cheng.

By then, it was too late for him to change anything. He could only take a small path, traveling day and night, finally managing to get word to Xiguan Pass before Yan Cheng arrived there, barely allowing Xiguan Pass to avoid disaster and hold out until today.

After Fan Jing finished recounting the events, seeing Jiang Hanyuan’s slightly furrowed brow and long silence, he gritted his teeth and said: “Once reinforcements arrive, please give me a chance to redeem myself!”

The guilt in his heart had reached its limit, and he had long prepared to die together with the Beidi. He spoke these words without the slightest hesitation. But unexpectedly, she asked: “Uncle’s old subordinate generals—after such a thing happened, are they all willing to follow along?”

“Yan Cheng took his loyalists and is now attacking the city with the Beidi forces. Zhong Cheng remains in Yunluo, having locked up all those men. With their families held hostage, they dare not resist.”

Jiang Hanyuan climbed the pass tower and gazed into the distance. After a moment, she slowly said, “Uncle Fan, the reinforcements won’t arrive for several more days. They are all Uncle’s old subordinates. If Uncle’s spirit is aware in the afterlife, he surely wouldn’t want to see them follow Yan Cheng down the path to death.”

“I want to make a trip to Yunluo and meet with them.”

…

Three days later, Beidi reinforcements arrived and, according to their original plan, headed for Xiguan Pass through the mountain pass that had been under Yunluo’s defense. Unexpectedly, when the large force reached the middle section, the trees ahead caught fire, blocking the passage. The fire spread rapidly, startling the warhorses and forcing them to retreat. The fire, aided by wind, continued burning along both sides of the pass. The Beidi forces were forced to retreat, and at that moment, large amounts of flaming oil suddenly poured down from the cliff slopes on both sides of the pass. The oil was quickly ignited, and in an instant, the entire pass was swallowed by raging flames. Countless Beidi cavalrymen were burned to death or injured, while the survivors retreated in panic, unable to advance.

This was the front-line position where Fan Jing had originally prepared for war. The reason Yunluo could serve as the center outside Xiguan Pass, standing firm for many years, was precisely because of this pass—easy to defend, difficult to attack.

Fan Jing had previously stored large quantities of flaming oil here for wartime emergencies. It hadn’t been used then, but finally proved useful now.

While the great fire blazed here, Yan Cheng, who was attacking the city alongside Beidi forces near Xiguan Pass, had no idea that his elder sister Jiang Hanyuan had already secretly infiltrated back to Yunluo.

As soon as she appeared, she was embraced by the entire city’s military and civilians. Zhong Cheng fled at the first sign of trouble, and those former Yan family generals who had been coerced also turned to support Jiang Hanyuan. Subsequently, the soldiers and civilians stationed in Yunluo organized themselves and, under Fan Jing’s leadership, set fire to the newly arrived Beidi forces.

While the great fire still burned in the pass, Jiang Hanyuan secretly infiltrated back to Xiguan Pass.

By this time, the reinforcements sent by Jiang Zuwang had also arrived.

The Beidi forces had been blocked here for a long time, with staggering daily consumption of men and horses. Aside from weapons, food and fodder alone were major concerns.

The Beidi had never been accustomed to carrying supply trains with their armies, relying instead on supporting war through war. After arriving, they had depended entirely on supplies from places like Yunluo to sustain their forces. Now, although the reinforcements still hadn’t arrived, this was secondary—the most important problem was the critical shortage of food and fodder.

Human rations could last a few more days—at worst, they could eat injured or weak horses—but horse feed was a major problem. Many warhorses were already underfed, able only to graze on wild grass to stave off hunger.

Coincidentally, just after the Wei reinforcements arrived, Yunluo delivered a much-needed batch of fodder.

With their problems solved, the Beidi forces didn’t wait for reinforcements—in fact, they could no longer wait, as the Wei forces had completed their assembly and launched active warfare.

This battle was no longer the previous siege and defense warfare.

Jiang Hanyuan personally led cavalry out from the pass, taking the front and meeting them head-on.

This battle was fierce, with blood and flesh flying. At the height of the fighting, many Beidi soldiers noticed something was wrong. Their warhorses became sluggish, initially able to struggle on, but then collapsed one after another, unable to rise.

It turned out that the batch of fodder that had been delivered was laced with poison. After eating it, the horses behaved as if drunk and could no longer continue fighting.

At this time, news also came that there had been changes in Yunluo—the reinforcements had been caught in fires and blocked outside the pass, unable to arrive.

In stark contrast were the countless Wei soldiers arriving with intense killing intent, each fighting desperately to the death. The Beidi rout was unstoppable.

After this large-scale field battle outside Xiguan Pass, small-scale fighting continued intermittently for several more days. Finally, the Beidi forces fled north, and the war temporarily came to an end.

This incident, from its initial beginning to its conclusion, had lasted nearly two months. Though the time wasn’t long, and the final result was barely satisfactory—Xiguan Pass was safe, and places like Yunluo had returned to Great Wei’s rule—the consequences of the betrayal were far from over.

Fan Jing led men to capture Zhong Cheng, who had been fleeing for many days. From his mouth they learned that when Yan Cheng encountered Beidi cavalry at the end of last year and became isolated, he had indeed fallen into Beidi hands. The person involved was no small figure—Chi Shu’s uncle, Lord Zuochang Mu Da, had personally acted, using both threats and inducements. That very night, he had arranged for a woman to spend the night with Yan Cheng, then released him to return.

Soon after, when Great Wei sent troops to Yanmen, Yan Cheng privately told Zhong Cheng the truth, wanting his assistance in surrendering to the Beidi to share wealth and status in the future.

The woman that night was no ordinary person either—she was Lord Zuochang’s daughter. Lord Zuochang promised future marriage to solidify the relationship. Not only that, he also brought Chi Shu’s promise that after success, Yunluo’s status would not only remain unchanged, but after the successful marriage, Chi Shu would also consider placing Xiguan Pass under his control.

This was how Yan Cheng completely turned to the Beidi.

Not only that, but to save his life, Zhong Cheng also confessed to another matter.

Even before this, Yan Cheng had been possessed by evil thoughts. After his father Yan Zhong was wounded, to become city lord sooner, he had personally prepared medicine under the pretext of filial duty, but had secretly tampered with it, removing a key healing ingredient.

Yan Zhong’s ultimate failure to recover and his early death were likely caused by this action.

He had done this extremely secretly—even Zhong Cheng only learned of it later from Yan Cheng’s mouth. Yan Cheng’s purpose in telling him was to drag him down with him. If anything happened to Yan Cheng, they would be accomplices.

“…Yan Cheng has also been captured. How to deal with him, please decide for yourself, General.”

Finally, Fan Jing looked at Jiang Hanyuan’s back, rigid as stone, and said quietly.

Night fell, then day broke.

Jiang Hanyuan sat through the night, and on the second day’s evening, she came to the valley where the Yan family members were buried.

Here lay her grandfather, mother, uncle, and many Yan family ancestors she had never met.

All of them had been people of upright character who, for the peace of the land where generations had lived, would not hesitate to shed every last drop of blood in their bodies.

Yet today, there was an aberration here. A disgrace.

Jiang Hanyuan stopped before her uncle’s grave, staring down at the person at her feet.

It was her former younger brother, Yan Cheng. His hair was disheveled, his body covered in blood and filth, hands and feet bound, prostrate on the ground with his head hanging down, motionless as if dead.

Jiang Hanyuan knew that this person who looked like a dead dog before her was not yet dead.

She stared at his back and spoke in a hoarse voice, inflamed with rage: “Chi Shu deliberately targeted you, setting up a scheme that led to your betrayal of Great Wei—this action of yours, I can still try to understand. Perhaps you felt there was no way back. But Uncle—he was your father! Even for this position of city lord, sooner or later, it would have been yours! Where did he wrong you that you would harm him?”

Yan Cheng kept his eyes closed, still unmoving.

“Speak!”

Jiang Hanyuan shouted sternly.

Only then did Yan Cheng open his eyes, struggling to crawl up crookedly from the ground, then slowly turning around and raising his head with a cold laugh.

“You want to know? Then I’ll tell you! Do you know what it felt like to hear him praise you in front of me, to hate that you weren’t his son? It was like this when we were small, and still like this when we grew up!”

“Everyone called me Young Master, but from top to bottom, who truly treated me as Young Master? Even three-year-old children in Yunluo City knew General Changning’s name!”

“General Changning—”

Yan Cheng repeated the name with extreme disgust.

“Since he never saw me as a son, why couldn’t I plan for myself? He should have died long ago. And you too! I am what I am today—isn’t it all your fault? If there had been no such person as you in this world, if you hadn’t come to my home when we were children, would I have fallen to this state today?”

“It’s all your fault! You inauspicious wolf-girl! You bring misfortune to those around you. You killed your mother, killed your uncle, and now you’re going to kill me, too. Do you think this is the end? I tell you, this is far from enough.”

He looked at Jiang Hanyuan, his eyes releasing hatred he no longer needed to hide, his lips showing a cruel and satisfied smile.

“…Everyone around you who has any connection to you, you-your father, oh yes, and that Regent Prince—none can escape—”

His voice stopped abruptly.

Jiang Hanyuan drew her sword and thrust it straight forward, piercing his heart.

Yan Zhong’s face showed pain, but he still struggled, gritting his teeth and tremblingly uttering his final words.

“Elder sister… you… are naturally inauspicious…”

Jiang Hanyuan’s eyes were blood-red, her expression cold and stern.

She looked down coldly at Yan Cheng convulsing under her sword, exerted force, and thrust the long sword forward once more.

The blade pierced through his back and emerged from behind.

Finally, she withdrew the sword, holding it inverted, letting blood flow continuously down the blade into the muddy ground beneath her feet.

She stood like this, quietly watching Yan Cheng on the ground slowly stop struggling and die completely, then turned and walked away.

Her steps were initially heavy and slow.

Before her eyes appeared her imagined mother’s appearance, Sui Chang Nu Ying holding her small, tender hand, her uncle’s voice and smiling face that had never left, her father’s lonely yet resolute figure.

And him, that man sitting high in the court, currently breaking through waves and clearing the way for what she was doing…

As long as his trust remained, she vowed she would not fail him.

Her steps became faster and faster, increasingly steady.

Yan Cheng had also been wrong. Until his death, he had remained pitifully stuck in his childhood, never growing up.

It wasn’t she who was inauspicious—war was inauspicious.

What she, Jiang Hanyuan, wanted to do was end the calamity of war and bring about peace in all four domains, a world without war!