This was, without question, the most momentous battle the continent of Longyuan had ever seen. Dong Qin had thrown its entire military might into this fight, holding the central stronghold, while Jun Beiyue’s three Tiger Armies advanced in full force, with Jun Beichen’s western frontier army also on its way to reinforce them.
Between the two armies, from the supreme commanders down to the ordinary soldiers, everyone fought with everything they had, drenched in blood.
Jun Beiyue rode on horseback, sword swinging as he cut a path straight into the enemy ranks, unstoppable. He had only one goal: to fight his way into Yandang.
While the battlefield raged in fierce combat, back at Da Zhou’s camp, Bai Mengmeng was on the verge of losing her mind.
“Let go of me! Do you hear me, let go!”
“My entire family’s lives are in Yandang City—they’re going to die! Don’t you understand that?”
“My father, my mother, my little brother—they’re all innocent! Please, let me go! I only want to go back and save them!”
…
She had been raging like this for hours now, had charged at the guards, had fought them—yet nothing worked against the Shadow Guards!
No matter how she raged, the Shadow Guards remained utterly unmoved.
Finally spent, she collapsed limply to the ground, at a loss, pleading over and over, “I beg you, I beg you, please save my whole family!”
“I’ll stay here obediently, I’ll tell you exactly how to bypass the battlefield to reach Yandang City—please, go save them quickly! Please! I’m begging you!”
“My father, my mother, and my little brother too—he’s about to get married and start his own family. They’re all innocent! If you don’t go now, it’ll be too late!”
…
As Bai Mengmeng spoke, stubborn as she always was, tears began falling despite herself.
In this moment, she hated herself—hated her own carelessness, hated herself for having so recklessly assumed things about Jun Beiyue. She should never have waited for him to come and go with her to Yandang City.
But no amount of hatred could help her now!
Facing the pitiless Shadow Guards, she suddenly leapt to her feet, trying to rush outside again, only to be shoved right back by them.
“Miss Bai, the battle isn’t over. You are not going anywhere. Forgive us.”
“Don’t you understand that’s three lives at stake? You don’t believe me?” Bai Mengmeng snapped furiously.
“Without Prince Yao’s orders, we cannot act,” the Shadow Guard replied coldly, thinking to himself—if this were true, why hadn’t Bai Mengmeng said anything before the prince rode out to battle? Why wait until now, of all times?
“You bastards! You’re all heartless bastards! You’d let people die without lifting a finger! You’re so cold-blooded!” Bai Mengmeng raged, but her fury couldn’t help her at all.
She wept, choking on her sobs. “Brother, I beg you, please, I’ll agree to anything you ask—just go to the battlefield and pass a message to Prince Yao, tell him my whole family is in the city, and the Dong Qin Empress will kill them!”
The Shadow Guard didn’t even consider agreeing—he didn’t even bother to reply.
They had no way of knowing whether this woman was telling the truth or simply putting on an act, and even if it were true, there was absolutely no way they would go disturb their master on the battlefield at a time like this.
That was a battlefield, after all—not some small skirmish, but a clash between two entire armies, countless blades aimed at their master, countless arrows trained on him. One moment of carelessness there could mean being pierced through by a thousand arrows, torn to pieces.
“I beg you, please, I’ll agree to anything, truly!” Bai Mengmeng carefully tried to grab the Shadow Guard’s hand, but he yanked it away at once.
Bai Mengmeng drew several shaky breaths, then clamped a hand over her mouth, unable to hold back a wail. “Waaah… how could you all be like this! Don’t you have parents? Don’t you have families of your own? I’ve been away from home for so long, never once repaid my parents’ kindness, and now I’ve brought slaughter down upon them instead! Waaah… Father! Mother! Your daughter has failed you, your daughter has failed you!”
No matter how much she wailed, even if she cried herself blind, the Shadow Guards would show her no mercy.
“I’m telling you now, all of you, listen well—if… if anything happens to my family, I will never forgive you, not one of you!”
Finally, Bai Mengmeng pointed straight at the Shadow Guards, spitting out each word through clenched teeth.
She truly was heartbroken now, truly grieving, truly in tears!
And truly resentful, truly full of hatred, too!
But pleading did nothing. Threats did nothing. And hatred did even less.
There wasn’t a single person in the camp with the authority to make such a decision on her behalf, and the one person who might have shown her any mercy—Hongyi—was the very one she had wounded, still fighting for her life even now.
No one could help her.
Not far off, in another tent, the sole army physician left behind had just finished treating Hongyi’s wound and was wiping the sweat from his brow.
It had to be said—the wound was severe. If treatment hadn’t come in time, Hongyi’s young life truly would have been lost.
“Doctor, how is she?” the Shadow Guard finally dared to ask.
The physician sighed, shaking his head. “Just a hair’s breadth from a vital point. Whoever did this was utterly ruthless—not even sparing a young girl. Drove the blade in so deep.”
The matter of Bai Mengmeng was sensitive, so the Shadow Guard didn’t elaborate, only asking, “When will she wake up? There’s no serious danger anymore, is there?”
The old physician shook his head again. “Whether she wakes up depends on her own fortune now. It’s already remarkable that this didn’t take her life outright.”
In other words… Hongyi was, in truth, still very much in danger.
“Doctor, this girl cannot die. If anything happens to her, none of us will survive it either—you must save her life,” the Shadow Guard urged anxiously.
The old physician frowned deeply, stroking his beard as he nodded, and instructed the Shadow Guard to go personally brew the medicine while he himself stayed by Hongyi’s side, not daring to leave, praying only that the girl would wake before the princess consort returned.
Meanwhile, Ziqing herself was still unconscious.
The mountain roads through the snow were difficult to traverse, especially going downhill, and carrying another person made it nearly impossible to move at all.
Though Yu Xiaomeng was strong, she was, after all, still a woman, and her strength had its limits. She carried Ziqing on her back, walking and resting by turns, not reaching Mobei Town until deep into the night!
By then it was the dead of night, utterly silent. Yu Xiaomeng was so exhausted she nearly collapsed. Several times, the moment she stopped to stand still, her vision would swim black and white before her eyes. Over the past two days, carrying Ziqing, her back had bent to a ninety-degree angle, hunched over and staggering forward like an old woman.
Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks. Everything before her eyes went black for a moment, and she felt as though the whole world were swaying. But she gritted her teeth, forced herself to hold steady, and urgently opened her eyes again.
It was nothing in particular—only that, far off, beyond the village, at the foot of the mountain, she’d caught the faint glow of lamplight.
That light, so distant, so faint, was still enough to warm her ice-cold hands and feet, enough to warm the carefully hidden corner of her heart.
This late at night, was Young Master Xuanyuan still awake?
What could he be doing?
She hadn’t seen him in so many days, had no idea whether he’d come looking for her at all. The thought made Yu Xiaomeng laugh quietly at her own foolishness.
How could he possibly!
Ever since that one time everyone had teased them about it, Young Master Xuanyuan had all but stopped coming to the Yu household!
She wanted so badly to sneak over and see what he was doing right now, whether his health had improved at all.
But the woman on her back still hadn’t woken, and her wounds were severe—she needed to find a physician for her as quickly as possible!
Yu Xiaomeng didn’t dare delay any longer. After catching her breath for a moment, she hoisted Ziqing back onto her back at once and hurried home.
Roused from sleep, Auntie Yu wrapped herself in a heavy cotton quilt and came out at once. The moment she saw Yu Xiaomeng carrying back a woman from the Central Plains, she grew suspicious immediately. “Who is this? Weren’t you supposed to be out hunting?”