As she kicked the man up, she grasped with one hand. With a crackling sound, a thin bolt of lightning struck Qiu Wujiu’s body.

The soldiers on the mountain path looked up in horror, seeing that it was truly their commander who had been struck and was spitting blood.

Under the electric light, it was as if he had been struck by heavenly thunder.

Tie Ci shouted: “Those who commit many wrongs have already received heaven’s punishment!”

Someone ran frantically, caught Qiu Wujiu, and fled.

Seeing the commander fleeing before their eyes, the originally organized attack on the mountain path immediately descended into chaos.

When the front was in chaos, the rear followed suit. The imprisoned Yu Youji and others took advantage of the confusion to escape. In the chaotic crowd, unable to distinguish direction, they saw someone breaking through ahead and followed from afar, unknowingly being swept farther and farther from the royal palace.

On the palace wall, Dan Ye roared and leaped down first, jumping into the enemy army.

Countless more soldiers followed, jumping down like sharp blades piercing the formation, bloodthirsty and tearing.

Tie Ci didn’t look back and directly gave chase. However, with armies blocking the mountain path and square, once chaos erupted, finding one person became extremely difficult. She fought against the current, and by the time she reached the square, she could no longer find where Qiu Wujiu had gone.

Behind her, the Western Rong army began counterattacking, surging like a flood from beneath the palace walls, cascading down the mountain path. Wherever they passed, blood flowed like rivers.

Qiu Wujiu’s army was scattered—part of them rushed toward the city gates, part dispersed into the city. Some were angrily besieged by civilians who had suffered from the ravages of war, while clever ones stripped off their armor and threw it aside, blending into the crowd.

The roaring fire atop the royal palace alarmed the people. Countless civilians surged toward the city gates, while scattered soldiers were also driven there. The soldiers Qiu Wujiu had originally left to guard the gates quickly fell into chaos as well.

When Dan Ye personally led troops to arrive, he saw Tie Ci leading a group from inside to assault the gate guards, coordinating with Huyin’s fierce attacks from outside to break open the city gates.

The moment the gates opened, Tie Ci rushed out frantically. Huyin came galloping toward her on horseback with raised blade. Seeing Tie Ci, she was overjoyed and about to greet her when Tie Ci flipped up onto the horse’s back and pushed Huyin down with one hand: “Lend me your horse! I’m leaving!”

Huyin: “…”

She landed, stumbled and steadied herself, seeing that Tie Ci had already turned the horse around and was galloping out against the flow of people rushing into the city, shouting as she ran: “Tell them to return quickly! You’re responsible for protecting their safety! I’m leaving first!”

Huyin suddenly remembered something and shouted: “Something happened in Da Qian…”

“I know!”

A soldier stumbled and crawled over, shouting: “Your High—”

Huyin yelled: “Wait, there’s more—”

That soldier anxiously mounted a horse to give chase. He was from the Nine Guards, sent by Xia Houchun to inform the Crown Princess about domestic affairs and some intelligence they had discovered. After great difficulty entering Western Rong territory and finding Huyin’s forces through many detours, he had followed the siege for several days, wanting to report to the Crown Princess as soon as possible. Finally encountering her, the Crown Princess ran faster than a rabbit—before he could react, she had already sped far away.

He could only turn back to pursue. Huyin watched his struggling departing figure, scratched her hair, thinking that at the Crown Princess’s speed, by the time this unlucky fellow caught up, whatever was happening in Yongping would be over.

But she had no way to chase herself—she still had to command the battle. She could only irritably draw her blade and charge toward the gates on foot.

After just two steps, someone rushed out from the gates—it was Dan Ye. Seeing her, he said: “Perfect timing. Since you’re here, this royal city is yours.”

Huyin grabbed his reins with one hand: “You stop right there!”

“Don’t worry about me!”

“I’m your only elder—I can manage you!”

Dan Ye turned back, his deep, slightly elongated double eyelids reddened with anxiety at the corners.

“You want to chase after Tie Ci now? Hmm? She worked so hard all the way to support you—is this what she wants, for you to abandon the royal city to chase her? Believe it or not, if you catch up to her, she’ll slap you twice first!”

“She’s injured!”

“Even injured, she could beat you until you crawl on the ground!”

“That’s not what I mean!”

“That’s exactly what she and I mean! Dan Ye! Show some backbone! In the heart of a woman like her, men can fail, can be mediocre, can be weak, but they absolutely cannot lack great ambition or disregard sacrifice!”

“Once she leaves, she’ll never come back!”

“If you chase her, then she truly will never set foot on Western Rong soil again!”

Dan Ye fell silent. After a long while, when he spoke again, his earlier anger had dissipated, his tone faintly weary: “I actually don’t want to be king of Western Rong. I only wanted revenge. After revenge, I wanted to follow her across the world, protecting her forever. But if I had said that then, she definitely would have abandoned me… Earlier when I thought Qiu Wujiu was about to break in, I even felt somewhat happy inside—this way I could activate the mechanisms and die together with her, be together forever… But it turned out to be her plan. In the end, she still had to arrange everything for me, personally risking danger to kill Qiu Wujiu…”

Huyin was horrified: “What did you say? You wanted to activate the palace’s destruction mechanisms and die together with her?”

“Once revenge was complete, she would leave. Since I would lose her forever anyway, why couldn’t I keep her with me forever!”

“You never had her to begin with! And you don’t deserve her!” Huyin burst into furious cursing. “Wu Liang Shuoye, how capable you are! Do you know how difficult Tie Ci’s journey has been? Do you know what she’s been struggling so hard for? Do you know what dreams and wishes she’s sacrificed everything for? Do you know what it’s called when someone helps you kindly but you want to drag them to death together because of your selfish desires? It’s called having a wolf’s heart and dog’s lungs, called ingratitude, called repaying kindness with enmity!”

While cursing, she pounced on him, one hand grabbing his neck, the other seizing his hair, banging his head against the ground: “How did you become like this! What’s stuffed in your brain! Is it all sand from the royal city? I’ll pour it out for you! Pour it out!”

Bang, bang, bang—his head hit the sand and dirt, leaving all the soldiers stunned.

Fighting was still going on here, while the two leaders had started brawling there. Tian Wu and others who arrived later were also dumbfounded. Rong Pu had injured his foot and was being carried by Tian Wu. Tian Wu was confused and didn’t understand, instinctively wanting to step forward to break up the fight, but Rong Pu pulled his neck like reins, immediately stopping his steps.

“Some people’s brains are indeed full of mush and really should be emptied out.” Rong Pu said indifferently, his expression displeased.

He hadn’t known such things had happened in the palace before. If he had known, even risking the Crown Princess’s blame, he would have invited Qiu Wujiu right through the door and let this little bastard die by himself.

When they returned to Da Qian, they absolutely had to send more people to the Hanli Khan Desert—digging mountains, mining, planting trees, developing wasteland, diverting water for irrigation—to cooperate with the Crown Princess in expanding Yongping Guard’s territory and making Western Rong formally become a vassal state.

“Let’s go.”

The overall situation in Western Rong was decided. With Huyin there, and Dan Ye not being truly stupid, there was nothing left for them to do here.

After the two fighting people rolled around, they suddenly both stopped. Dan Ye knelt on one knee, Huyin stood. Both turned back to see a ray of morning sun shooting from the distant wilderness, passing through the gate opening and dividing light and dark in half.

And at the head of that sunrise, there was a small black figure in the distance, gracefully waving from afar.

Business here was finished—until we meet again at the ends of the earth.

…