Before the battle lines, Tie Ci released her hand and Xiao Chang fell straight down into the dust.

His body hit heavily, stirring up dust a foot high.

Tie Ci didn’t even glance at the corpse beneath her feet, saying flatly: “No need for your commands, no need for your surrender. My soldiers—how dare they betray me?”

She raised her eyes to look across.

Those were Xiao Chang’s personal troops, part of the Kaiping Army forces, and soldiers from the Shunning Command.

Now those soldiers looked in panic at Xiao Chang’s corpse.

Behind them came commotion—Huang Ming, who had tried to escape earlier, was blocked back by the Kaiping Army forces that had just arrived and surrendered to Tie Ci. Turning to see Xiao Chang’s corpse, in his great shock and fury, he shrieked: “Crown Princess! You arbitrarily killed a border general, protecting traitorous rebels—are you trying to defy the imperial edict and the Empress Dowager?”

Tie Ci smiled and guided her horse. Her voice wasn’t loud, yet the entire field could hear.

“Regarding the matter of Yongping Guard Commander colluding with enemies and betraying the country—I need to clarify that the so-called enemy she contacted was me, having penetrated deep into Western Rong.”

The great army was in uproar.

“Spies appeared in the army, causing Yongping Army’s covert contacts in Western Rong to lose communication. With Western Rong and Liaodong stirring and poor information flow here in Yongping, this would bring variables to border defense. Therefore I volunteered to lead some soldiers and academy students deep into Western Rong to gather intelligence. Before departure, the Commander and I agreed to exchange information at intervals. If Supervisor Huang dares produce the original of that so-called treasonous letter, he should know there would be no words on it, only secret marks the Commander and I agreed upon.”

Huang Ming sneered: “The letter has already been sent to the capital. Whether real or fake, Crown Princess, your word doesn’t count!”

Tie Ci smiled and beckoned. Several people emerged from the Kaiping Army forces that had surrendered to her.

It was Rong Pu and the others.

When Tie Ci left, Rong Pu and the others had also given chase. Dan Ye specially allocated elite troops to escort them, traveling day and night. Just as Tie Ci was blocked at Mount Fu’s pass, Rong Pu and the others caught up.

Not only did they catch up, they also brought a messenger.

This was the person Huang Ming and the others had continued to dispatch to Western Rong after forging Di Yiwei’s letter.

After entering the Hanli Khan Desert, he got lost in the sandstorms and wandered for a long time. When Rong Pu and the others found him, he still hadn’t emerged from the desert.

So the letter never reached Tie Ci’s hands.

Rong Pu had noticed this person’s messenger attire and became suspicious, rescuing him. He then discovered the letter this person carried was different from usual—it was in a sealed box, very tightly secured. Through the box, Rong Pu caught a faint, familiar scent.

After putting on gloves and opening the box, he found the letter that should have been delivered to Tie Ci.

Rong Pu approached and quickly explained the situation, taking out the letter and asking the messenger: “Did Supervisor Huang have you deliver this letter?”

The messenger glanced at Huang Ming and nodded.

“Was it to be delivered to Ye Ci?”

The messenger nodded again.

The soldiers listening looked grim.

Tie Ci said: “How strange. If Di Yiwei was originally colluding with enemies, the letter was written to the Great Prince. Already intercepted by you and sent to the capital to convict the Commander—then where did this letter continuing to Western Rong come from? Why did it change to being delivered to me?”

Rong Pu took out a silver needle and carefully opened the letter. Moments later he held up the needle.

Under sunlight the needle was pure black.

“The letter is poisoned,” Tie Ci said. “The letter supposedly for the Great Prince was actually for me, yet the letter for me was heavily poisoned. Don’t you all understand?”

Panic flashed in Huang Ming’s eyes as he forced himself to steady: “This servant doesn’t recognize this messenger and knows nothing about any poisoned letter. How do we know this isn’t all arranged by the Crown Princess?”

“I’m not here to debate with you—you’re not worthy. Since you say the letter has been sent to the capital, we’ll take it there together for the court ministers to examine closely.” Tie Ci looked at Huang Ming with contempt. “See the pattern at the bottom of this letter? You were quite meticulous, even copying it when forging the letter. Then you imitated the Commander’s handwriting to write treasonous content on top, right? You idiots—don’t you know this is English script? The script itself is the communication content. Your superfluous writing on top creates completely nonsensical content. Are you trying to make me die laughing so you can inherit my throne?”

Soldiers: “…???!!!”

Huang Ming: “!!!”

Di Yiwei remembered that day when the Crown Princess accepted the mission to Western Rong, followed her to her tent, and insisted she learn some English script for communication—pestering her to practice those crooked, worm-like characters for half the night until she couldn’t stand it and threw the person out of her tent.

She sighed inwardly.

There are no naturally perfect people in this world. Human perfection comes slowly from long-term grinding in adverse circumstances.

Like grass snakes and gray lines extending thousands of li—one must first slowly crawl those thousands of li.

“Colluding with enemies and betraying the country requires motivation. If the Commander truly colluded with Western Rong, the great army coming now shouldn’t be from Liaodong.” Tie Ci methodically removed her gloves, indicating Rong Pu should seal the letter again for arrangement to send to the capital.

She casually dropped another bombshell.

“Western Rong is now pacified. The new Western Rong King is willing to offer the Hanli Khan Desert and permanently maintain friendship between our two countries.”

After a moment of silence, the soldiers erupted in tremendous cheers.

With Liaodong’s great army currently pressing the borders, Western Rong’s attitude was especially important. With Western Rong stabilized, the two-front war they’d all feared no longer existed.

The Crown Princess had personally infiltrated Western Rong, securing them a stable rear and the opportunity to control the situation—equivalent to saving countless soldiers’ and civilians’ lives. Her merit was immeasurable.

Huang Ming listened to the cheers, slowly shrinking into himself.

Beside him, Cui Shi wrapped in a great cloak also cowered. When soldiers lifted his cloak, revealing his pale, thin body, Tie Ci’s gaze turned and she was somewhat surprised to see him.

How had he gotten mixed up with Huang Ming?

Chi Xue said quietly: “Master, this person came with Huang Ming. Your servant finds him somewhat strange…”

Cui Shi raised his head, looking up at Tie Ci, voice urgent: “Your Highness… I… I only encountered Huang Ming by chance and was brought here… I came to Yongping to reform myself, wanting to apologize to the Crown Princess in person…”

Tie Ci didn’t glance at him: “Take him away. Guard him well for later interrogation.”

She had no time now for such vermin.

“Now,” Tie Ci looked at those Shunning Command forces and Kaiping Army with awkward expressions, “I personally testify—no betrayal of country, no collusion with enemies. With national crisis at hand, will you continue helping tyrants commit evil?”

Before her words finished, the Kaiping Army had already retreated in unison, joining the forces that had already surrendered to Tie Ci.

The Shunning Command’s Deputy Commander struck down the still-hesitating Commander with one blow, bowed to Tie Ci, and shouted: “All troops—lay down your weapons!”

The sound of ten thousand armies removing armor rang as one.

Only Xiao Chang’s personal troops remained—actually the Xiao family’s private army. Before their leader could take a stance, Tie Ci had already said matter-of-factly: “Xiao Chang and Huang Ming colluded with each other, coveting military power, forging evidence, framing border generals, causing Liaodong’s great army to enter our borders, harming our people, destroying our homeland—unforgivable crimes. Generals in the field have authority for emergency decisions. Now I proclaim by Crown Princess decree to all armies—”

Everyone held their breath.

“Order the immediate execution of Xiao Chang and his personal troops, rewarding this the same as killing enemy soldiers.”

Yongping Army’s main camp erupted in tremendous cheers heard for ten li.

Amid the cheers, soldiers full of hatred and long-suppressed anger surged like a tide toward the Xiao family’s personal troops.

Huang Ming and some veterans in Yongping Army stared wide-eyed.

Never imagining the Crown Princess would be so decisive.

She actually openly ordered the killing of Da Qian soldiers!

This would outrage the entire realm!

Foreseeable that after this, censors’ impeachment memorials would flood Ruixiang Hall!

The academy students also felt suffocated, never expecting Tie Ci would give such an order. Only Rong Pu, after his shock, immediately gathered the academy students, whispering rapid instructions.

Tie Ci’s expression remained calm as she watched Xiao Chang’s personal troops before her fall into a sea of slaughter—struggling, crying, howling, cursing.

A complete break with the Xiao family was inevitable—they couldn’t coexist.

But she wasn’t giving such orders for private desire.

Huang Ming could be kept to obtain evidence against the Xiao clan, but Xiao Chang had to die.

If escorted back to the capital, Empress Dowager Xiao and Second Minister Xiao would find every way to exonerate him—dragging things out, and finally in the mutual buck-passing among the Three Judicial Offices, the matter would be forgotten, major issues becoming minor, minor issues disappearing. After a few years he might even make a comeback.

If such a situation arose, border generals would lose heart. Soldiers defending the frontiers would lose heart.

They had already lost heart. Di Yiwei was framed and publicly displayed. These days everyone was constrained and oppressed—morale had reached its lowest point. At this time, facing the fierce approaching Liaodong was the most disadvantageous situation.

With Cangtian Pass captured, Yongping Army was already passive. If they didn’t vindicate Di Yiwei and release the soldiers’ pent-up frustration, how could they face the fierce, powerful Liaodong forces in the coming great battle?

Moreover…

Tie Ci glanced at Di Yiwei.

Di Yiwei watched that slaughter with a strange expression in her eyes.

The Crown Princess was truly clever.

She was actually using such a decisive method to retain her.

How had she guessed that she planned to turn rebel after repelling Liaodong?

That old witch’s completely controlled, useless court, that imperial house with no achievements—what couldn’t be rebelled against?

From the moment she entered that prison cart, from when she saw her soldiers’ heads continuously drooping in the cold wind, from when she stared at the cold creeping inch by inch from the prison cart’s iron bars onto her skin.

This thought had raged in her heart like a blizzard brewing in mountain shade—a butterfly’s wing-beat could trigger upheaval reaching the heavens.

But now, Tie Ci had achieved this step.

She resolved Di Yiwei’s future troubles, vindicated her, turned the tide for her, even faced the inevitable attacks from court and country, bearing this infamy.

Whatever other thoughts Di Yiwei had were now without justification.

Yongping Army, suppressed too long, used white blades going in and red blades coming out to express these days’ resentment and injustice.

These Xiao Chang personal troops were the ones who had stripped the Commander’s clothes, who first surrounded the main camp, who during these days of guard duty continuously mocked and insulted them, treating them like dogs.

These blood-and-iron men forged in battlefield combat, heads tied to their belts for years for country and home, drinking frontier frost and snow with every sip, leaving bloody footprints with every step.

In the end, they were trampled underfoot by these privileged pretty boys who enjoyed the peaceful years they’d fought for.

Anger from injustice and grievance was fire burning in their chests—if it couldn’t burn their enemies, it would burn out their own blood and spirit.

Flesh became mud, blood and meat flew.

Tie Ci sat upright on her horse throughout, face cold and hard, watching this moment when mountain passes’ snow was stained with blood, blood covered with scattered snow. Between red and white, gray-green wild birds were startled, flying low, wing-tips tracing deep red.

War always requires deaths.

Just as hatred can ultimately only be redeemed with blood.

The soldiers’ blood bore the mark of this lifetime’s spear song—until death, the spear couldn’t be laid down.

She was the same.

Someone shouted: “Tie Ci, you will become a sinner cursed in history books for ten thousand years!”

Tie Ci: “Let future generations judge merit and fault.”

Someone screamed: “Tie Ci, you will bury your lifetime’s reputation!”

Tie Ci: “With the realm unsettled, what use is reputation!”

All around was chaos yet silence.

Chaotic was the vengeful slaughter; silent were the soldiers witnessing this slaughter.

Yongping Army felt their hearts clear. The Shunning Command forces and Kaiping Army felt fear, the latter’s fear hiding subtle relief that they had laid down weapons at Mount Fu’s pass—otherwise they might now be objects of this venting.

Gradually, people withdrew, throwing their bloodied blades to the ground, saying “Enough, disgusting!”

More people withdrew, sheathing their blades and walking away.

Revenge gradually stopped, but less than one in ten of Xiao Chang’s personal troops remained.

The survivors were also covered in wounds, groaning in pools of blood.

Some had escaped in the chaos. Without Tie Ci’s orders, naturally the Shunning Command and Kaiping Army pursued them. Both sides’ eagerness to atone for their crimes was so intense they turned chasing fugitives into military competition.

Tie Ci turned back to Di Yiwei: “This matter is concluded. Please, Commander, temporarily forget previous grievances, continue in the role of Acting Commander, command all armies, drive out the invaders, and recapture Cangtian Pass.”

Immediately several generals exhaled long breaths they could no longer hide.

Really—they’d worried needlessly for so long.

Seeing the Crown Princess so forceful, they’d constantly worried what to do if this highest-ranking person locally wanted to seize military authority. Two tigresses meeting, one must be wounded—and they dared not break up such a fight.

Fortunately this one was forceful but also clear-headed—seizing banners and killing people while yielding authority.

Di Yiwei seemed unsurprised, nodding casually, her gaze falling across the field.

Tie Ci turned to look and saw Lou Xi standing among the blood-stained Xiao Chang personal troops.

He’d been there all along, never leaving. Since Di Yiwei appeared, he’d stared at her unblinkingly.

When others surrendered, he didn’t surrender. When others were killed, he wasn’t killed either.

He stood in the crowd’s center, and everyone encountering him flowed past his sides like water around a rock.

Through flashing blades and sword shadows, flesh becoming pulp, he remained unharmed in the human sea.

Only unknown whose blood had splashed on his temples, making his pallor even more pronounced.

Di Yiwei suddenly walked over.

Tie Ci fell silent, signaling everyone to retreat.

The empty space between the two armies gradually expanded, leaving only the two approaching figures.

Di Yiwei’s military boots trod in Xiao Chang personal troops’ blood pools. She normally walked with a shuffle, now even more so with her soles squelching, dragging bloody mud, trailing dark red water.

This sound would normally seem somewhat amusing, but now no one laughed.

Though the weather had recently warmed, wind rushing from the cliff carried Liaodong’s unmelting snow-breath, cutting faces like daggers pressed to skin.

Di Yiwei stood before Lou Xi.

She was a full head shorter than him.

Lou Xi bent slightly toward her as he had for many years.

He said: “Commander, I finally see you again. Good—you look well.”

Di Yiwei blinked her brown lashes, looking at the slightly bowed shoulders before her. His usually immaculate long hair was somewhat disheveled, draped over his shoulders. She saw those hair tips showing layers of snow color.

Lou Xi, only about thirty, Lou Xi whose hair had been ink-black—sometime unknown, his hair had frosted.

Looking at that touch of frost, Di Yiwei suddenly said: “This posture of yours—many times before I wondered if you wanted to hug me.”

Lou Xi paused slightly, then said softly: “Then—may I hug you?”

Di Yiwei said: “If you really want to.”

Lou Xi stepped forward and opened his arms, embracing Di Yiwei.

He held her so carefully yet so forcefully. Twenty years of yearning like a dream that could never be realized, daily wandering in his heart. Then this day, amid ground covered in blood and mud, his dream was suddenly opened by heavenly light, touching warmth within his embrace.

So the person in his arms was so small, like a cloud—too much force would make her scatter.

In imagination she would certainly be wreathed in faint tobacco smoke, but now that scent seemed too faint, mixed with her own light soap fragrance, becoming a pleasant yet cold breath. He tried hard to find that familiar tobacco aroma—as if finding it would mean the twenty years of life spent standing behind her watching her hold a pipe still existed, hadn’t slipped through his fingers.

But Di Yiwei buried against his shoulder suddenly asked: “That letter—you wrote it?”

Lou Xi stopped slightly: “Yes.”

“The lists of Liaodong and Western Rong scouts and spies—you leaked them.”

“Yes.”

“Just to get me?”

Both their bodies suddenly stirred.

Lou Xi’s answer came slowly, his voice seeming somewhat broken: “…Yes.”

In the distance, Tie Ci standing with hands behind her back suddenly slowly raised her gaze over the jagged cliffs on both sides to that line of deep blue sky.

The sky was already split by cliff edges, dawn light splashing on those serrated borders, the surging colors like blood.

Di Yiwei and Lou Xi said nothing more.

They pressed shoulder to shoulder, head to head, for a long time.

Much later, Lou Xi finally raised his head. Like Di Yiwei’s habit, he squinted as if suddenly unable to see clearly this Di Yiwei in bloody daylight.

The sunlight was too intense—she was transparent in the uniform brightness, her entire being ethereal as if about to dissolve in the sunlight.

This was his beloved, from first sight to lifelong.

Countless days and nights of tossing and turning, the heart-fire of unrequited love burning until finally days became black, poisonous juice. He threw back his head and drank poison, falling into a mad, dark abyss.

Madly writing, madly striking, madly walking to face her, watching her lose her army and suffer humiliation, waiting for her wings to break completely so she’d fall wearily into his embrace.

Finally he got this embrace—afterward mountains and rivers would be desolate, his arms forever empty.

He said: “Bury me at the highest point of Other Mountain. Facing away from the main camp.”

He was used to following her—after losing her he’d certainly lose direction. Even in death, he wanted to remain one foot behind her.

Yet he had no face to see these vast comrades—he didn’t deserve to look down on them.

She said: “Mm.”

He said: “Don’t forget me.”

She said: “Mm.”

He said: “No, forget me instead. I don’t want you to remember me, especially the recent events.”

She said: “Mm.”

His chin rested on her shoulder—the closest position in his lifetime. He’d thought of this day and night, using every means, seeking just one glance without regret.

Now truly arriving, he didn’t know if he regretted it.

Was it using any means for just one glance, one moment of brilliance more beautiful than a lifetime of satisfaction?

Or standing eternally in flowing time, waiting for a possible or impossible backward glance, peacefully completing this life?

Regret or no regret—it no longer mattered.

His voice gradually grew light and shallow. Wind slowed its pace, butterflies folded their wings, flowers paused half-bloomed.

“…I only hate that you never loved me in this life.”

Di Yiwei didn’t continue answering.

She quietly lowered her eyes, silently counting his breaths in her heart.

One, two, three.

Until wind rolled again, and in that wind was no longer the familiar rhythm and breath.

Only then did she say: “No.”

“I have loved you.”

“Never stopped.”

“That day seeing that beautiful youth, I said ‘truly handsome.’ You were one step behind me.”

“You don’t know—I was thinking then, how would you react?”

“Would you be jealous?”

“Would jealousy drive you to rush into my tent that night and say things that should or shouldn’t be said?”

“Just like that young couple.”

“Though I didn’t hope for it, I actually knew—I’d been waiting ten years for that sentence from you.”

“Finally, I got your reaction.”

I waited half a lifetime for your courage. Your courage turned out to be a tide accumulated over ten years, daily beating empty against the dam—once the dam broke, turbid waves reached the sky, toppling everything.

So this was fate.

Fate was written full of our entanglement, every sentence an ominous prophecy.

She lowered her eyes.

Lou Xi slept against her shoulder, skin cold and white, long dense lashes lowered against her neck.

She turned her head and gently kissed his lashes.

Someone approached and gently took Lou Xi.

“Bury him on the mountaintop.”

“Yes.”

Di Yiwei said nothing more and didn’t look back. She slowly walked toward Tie Ci, treading on ground covered in red—that bright color held both Xiao family personal troops’ blood and Lou Xi’s.

The ten thousand troops fell silent, watching their female commander step by step, wide sleeves hanging down, revealing blade tips that dripped thick blood drop by drop with her pace.

Tie Ci silently watched her walk step by step, feeling in a trance that something had ended.

In that departed era were youthful passion, battlefield comradeship, life-and-death trust, silent devotion, the most brilliant and vibrant mark of one person’s life—in that dark, bloody world like an eternal lamp, its small light forever bright.

Then one day, she bent down, lowered her head, and gently blew it out.

Past events became ashes.