Perhaps others might not believe it, but among all the rulers across the continent of Longyuan, Minhan Mudeer was undoubtedly the least sharp-witted of them all — and while Gu Nanny herself wasn’t foolish, once the poison took hold, she’d surely lose consciousness almost immediately!

After all, Jun Beiyue had begun poisoning Gu Nanny from the very first day of her captivity — with doses meticulously prepared by a dedicated poison master, so precisely calibrated that even someone of Gu Nanny’s caliber couldn’t have detected it!

Why else would Jun Beiyue have gone to such trouble to select a washed-up former Great Gu Master as a hostage, taking such great pains to keep her imprisoned?

Making full use of every resource — if he’d gone to the trouble of using a person, of course he intended to use her value at just the right moment!

Ziqing and Jun Beiyue deliberately waited three full days for word of Gu Nanny.

For those three days, the war drums sounded daily, yet no troops moved.

On the first and second days, the slave army had reacted with considerable alarm, but by the third day, they no longer responded to the drums at all!

But on the morning of the fourth day, word finally arrived — the previous night, in the dead of night, Minhan Mudeer had personally led an elite unit and slipped away eastward.

“My lord, should we pursue or not?” a guard asked respectfully.

“Pass the order — let them go,” Jun Beiyue said, as though he’d already anticipated this, having calculated it all in advance.

Beside him, Ziqing could barely hold back her laughter. Minhan Mudeer had indeed fallen for the scheme — his departure surely meant he was going personally to reclaim his forces and settle accounts with Xuanyuan Lige!

Of course Jun Beiyue would let him go!

“Understood.” The guard departed to carry out the order.

Jun Beiyue then turned to look at Ziqing, smiling somewhat mischievously. “Next time, I should make a bet with you.”

Ziqing chuckled quietly to herself — no way was she taking that bet. She’d always considered herself fairly clever, but faced with someone as devious as Jun Beiyue, she’d probably end up foolishly helping him count the profits even after being sold off.

Seeing her quiet amusement, a flash of tender indulgence crossed Jun Beiyue’s eyes, and he pulled her close. “Come on, let’s go to Xichu!”

He and Ziqing had gone northeast toward the northern desert region to deal with Minhan Mudeer, while Yelu Qianqian and Situ Haonan, having settled matters in Xiliang, had headed east — they should be nearing Xichu’s territory by now.

With Minhan Mudeer fleeing in a panic and the slave army’s morale in chaos, why would Jun Beiyue and Ziqing waste time personally engaging in such a battle themselves?

Whether Xiliang or the Xiongnu, both had merely been Xuanyuan Lige’s accomplices — the true culprit was Xuanyuan Lige himself!

Their ultimate target was Xichu’s capital — Xuanyuan Lige had to be there!

He wanted to enter Xichu’s capital — but no one would allow it!

“Someone, sound the drums, deploy the troops!” Ziqing gave a cold command. The previous three rounds of drumbeats without troop movement had been precisely to lull the enemy into complacency!

Keeping the enemy guessing, unable to tell whether they’d actually march or not — that confusion in morale, that chaos in military intelligence, was always the most feared tactic of all!

Ziqing was confident that even if they took half their forces away, the slave army left behind would never manage to recover.

The couple mobilized their troops south that very day, heading from the Three Realms toward Xichu’s capital.

Whether it was Ziqing’s group, Yelu Qianqian’s group, or Xuanyuan Lige — every side was racing against time!

Xichu’s capital had undoubtedly become their final battleground for the decisive confrontation.

At this moment, Xichu’s capital had committed its entire force to holding the eastern gate.

Standing high atop the gate tower was none other than Chu Tiange.

“Xuanyuan Lige, this king tells you now — today, even if my House of Chu perishes together with this city of Qinhan, you will never set foot past this gate!”

This city, called Qinhan, wasn’t merely Xichu’s capital — it was the former capital of the great Qin Empire itself!

The rightful imperial line of Great Qin belonged to the House of Xuanyuan, while the Chu clan of Xichu were merely rebel generals from years past — and yet, for all this time, they had occupied Qinhan, the very city that had once belonged to the House of Xuanyuan. It had to be acknowledged: for the House of Xuanyuan, this was a profound humiliation!

Xuanyuan Lige, a man who had once lived his whole life for a single dream, hadn’t he also once abandoned this very dream of restoration and reclamation?

So why, today, did he return in force, in exactly this manner?

Had that dream of restoration reawakened?

Or was there some other reason entirely?

Gazing up at the old capital of Great Qin, now filled with Xichu’s archers, Xuanyuan Lige’s ears still echoed with his master Jue Mingzi’s parting words.

What was all this for? What was he waging such a massive war for? What was he even living for?!

No one knew what he was fighting for — did he himself even know?

“Xuanyuan Lige, your mother empress once colluded with the Xiongnu, bringing ruin upon your own nation — will you now follow in her footsteps, refusing to spare even this final corner of Great Qin?”

Chu Tiange shouted this out. Xichu had been weak ever since its war with Da Zhou years ago, and now, with the east and north already falling to Xuanyuan Lige and the Xiongnu army, and the west crumbling day by day, this was the very last city Xichu had left.

To defend this city, whatever the justification, even if he had to invoke the name of Great Qin itself, he was willing to do so without hesitation!

But that very statement from Chu Tiange thoroughly enraged Xuanyuan Lige.

“You have no right to speak of Great Qin in front of me!” Xuanyuan Lige scoffed coldly, a flicker of malice crossing his eyes. Without a word, a single gesture was enough to have the sound-killing troops all around him fall into formation!

The moment Chu Tiange saw this, he drew a sharp breath of cold air.

Having fought his way here, Xuanyuan Lige naturally knew full well how terrifying his sound-killing forces were — but today was the first time he’d actually witnessed it with his own eyes!

An army like this was completely unlike any conventional force. Even having prepared himself fully, Chu Tiange had no idea how to defend against it!

These troops didn’t attack the city, didn’t use arrows, didn’t even set up scaling ladders!

They carried no weapons of any kind — each one simply held a zither, standing far below the walls, forming a great arc that completely surrounded Xichu’s eastern gate!

The front three rows of zither players sat cross-legged, their zithers laid flat across their laps; the back three rows stood in formation, each holding a zither, fingers resting on the strings, ready at any moment to unleash a sound wave, a wind blade.

And Xuanyuan Lige stood alone at the very center, directly facing Xichu’s eastern gate, his purple robe trailing to the ground, his three thousand strands of silver hair flowing in the wind. He gazed at Chu Tiange from a distance, his eyes cold and detached, like a living corpse without a soul. His pale, slender hand rested on the zither strings — if one could set aside the thousands of sound-killing musicians behind him, from a distance, anyone would take this man for a spirit fallen from a realm of pure serenity, a zither master creating heavenly music by the shores of Yaochi Lake, someone whose hands alone would draw every eye, filling them with breathless anticipation, longing for him to play a mesmerizing melody.

But at this moment, he was no zither master, nor any spirit at all.

He was a demon from hell, utterly without a soul, coldness masking a violent, murderous intent, with thousands of sound-killing musicians behind him capable of ending an entire city’s lives in an instant!

This sight terrified everyone atop the wall, from the highest prince down to the lowest foot soldier — this man had clearly come today to massacre the entire city!

Amid their stunned disbelief, Xuanyuan Lige raised his hand gracefully, and with a resounding “twang…” he began to play!