Wen Yu slightly raised her eyes but did not speak.

Gu Xiyun continued: “Now in Liang territory, everyone says he’s a mad dog.”

“I haven’t been able to find out what his relationship with that courtesan was, but I heard that in Dingzhou he held a grand funeral for that courtesan with great ceremony.”

Little A’Li in the crib had not fallen into deep sleep. She pursed her mouth as if about to cry herself awake. Wen Yu raised her hand and gently patted the child’s side through the soft blanket. Only then did little A’Li stop crying and continue sleeping with her small fists clenched.

Gu Xiyun rocked the crib a couple times along with her. After little A’Li’s breathing became more steady, she looked at Wen Yu and said: “I believe you wouldn’t misjudge someone, A’Yu, but in this world, the human heart is the thing that can least withstand tribulation. Especially now that he holds great power, with an empire within his grasp…”

She paused, then pressed her lips tight and continued: “He may no longer be the person you once knew.”

Gu Xiyun knew Wen Yu’s temperament. She appeared the most easygoing and indifferent, as if nothing could weigh too heavily on her mind. But once something was placed in her heart, it was absolutely not something that could be easily abandoned.

Wen Yu had summoned that person back twice, and he had refused both times. In Gu Xiyun’s view, this meant his heart had already gone wild.

Power and position could corrupt many things, and ambition and desire would expand infinitely along with them.

For him to now go this far for another woman, with rumors about the two of them unclear and ambiguous—this made Gu Xiyun even more furious.

How dare he?

If her elder brother were still here, that fellow wouldn’t even have had the chance to approach Wen Yu!

A fire burned in her heart, continuously blazing since she had heard this news.

After hearing all this, Wen Yu displayed an unusually exceptional calm. After tucking in the blanket corners for her sleeping daughter, she straightened and said: “I understand.”

“A’Yun, you’ve been exhausted from traveling and marching on this journey—you must be very tired. I’ve already had Zhao Bai prepare Yunshu Pavilion. Go take a look, and if there’s anything missing, just tell Zhao Bai and the others.”

Gu Xiyun was a female general, so staying overnight in Wen Yu’s palace was not inconvenient.

She knew that Wen Yu saying this meant she wanted to be alone quietly. Though worried about Wen Yu, she also understood that continuing to stay would be somewhat inappropriate, so she rose and said: “Alright, then I’ll go take a look first.”

After Gu Xiyun left, Wen Yu gently rocked the crib for a while longer, then propped her elbow on the bedside, silently watching her sleeping daughter.

Little A’Li wore a small white jade lock around her neck. Beside the crib, in addition to some plush cloth dolls that Tongque and the others had sewn, there were also some smoothly polished wood carvings—kittens, puppies, various styles.

Before long, footsteps came from outside the hall again. It was Zhao Bai.

She clearly already knew what Gu Xiyun had told Wen Yu. After entering the hall, she directly knelt down: “Please punish the Princess. This servant acted on her own initiative and concealed reports about Xiao Li’s affairs in Liang territory.”

Wen Yu asked calmly: “Why did you conceal it from me?”

Zhao Bai lowered her head and said: “The Princess had just given birth, your body has not yet recovered, and the governmental affairs from both Liang and Chen territories that require your handling are numerous. This servant feared that after you knew, your heart would be troubled, which would be detrimental to your health, so wanted to wait some time before telling you.”

She just hadn’t expected that after this delay, Gu Xiyun would still reveal it to Wen Yu today.

After Zhao Bai finished speaking, the hall fell into long silence.

Wen Yu sat on a stool facing her sideways, the embroidered brocade skirt with its complex embroidery trailing down onto the yak wool carpet below. With one hand she gently patted her sleeping daughter in the crib. Her profile was outlined in soft contours by the daylight streaming through the window, like a white-feathered peacock bowing its head to rest, or like a jade statue of Guanyin lowering her brows in compassion for the world.

After a long while, a clear, deep voice finally came from within the hall: “You may withdraw.”

The ending tone was like jade stones striking together—clear and cold, yet without revealing the slightest trace of emotion.

—

Great Liang, Dingzhou.

It was early winter again. The distant mountains were covered with a layer of white snow, while the nearby withered grass stood sharp and erect like iron caltrops.

At the end of the wilderness of withered grass was a newly raised grave mound. Even from a great distance, one could still hear the sounds of craftsmen chiseling and cutting stone.

Spirit money was scattered by the wind across this wilderness, some frozen together with frost and snow, some trampled into the mud.

Xiao Li’s dozens of personal guards waited by the wilderness path as he alone stepped across the ground of remaining snow toward that grave mound.

Drawing closer, the clinking and clanking sounds of chiseling stone became even clearer, showing a loneliness in this vast heaven and earth that pressed down until one couldn’t catch their breath.

Song Qin still wore the blood-stained armor from the day of the city assault. His hair bun, not groomed in many days, was disheveled and loose, and the stubble on his chin had already turned dark blue.

He had grown so thin that his cheeks were sunken inward, making his prominent cheekbones especially obvious at first glance. His ten fingers—whether cracked from cold or scraped while chiseling stone—were covered in blood stains, but as if he felt no pain, he continued wielding the hammer blow after blow, chiseling away at the stone tablet before him.

When too much blood dripped from his hands and dirtied the stone tablet, he would casually wipe it away with a cloth that was likewise stained with unknown amounts of blood. Occasionally he would turn his head to consult with the stone mason master beside him for a sentence or two, then continue carving the stone tablet after receiving an answer, his expression so focused it didn’t look like he was carving a tomb inscription, but rather like he was preparing a betrothal gift for a girl he had long admired.

Xiao Li stood not far away, silently watching this scene.

Seeing him, the stone masons below all became somewhat fearful. The minor foreman leading the stone masons in constructing the tomb here wiped the mud and ash from his hands on his clothes, bent at the waist and ran over calling: “Lord Marquis…”

Xiao Li said nothing.

Seeing him staring at Song Qin chiseling the tombstone in the distance, the minor foreman said: “General Song has been here these past days continuously, not eating or drinking. It’s quite worrying…”

Xiao Li said: “You may go down.”

He still carried the killing aura from coming down from the battlefield. The minor foreman dared not linger near him and, after receiving these words, hurriedly withdrew.

When Song Qin’s five fingers with their congealed blood scabs cracked open again from forcefully wielding the hammer to strike, a large hand with distinct sinews and bones reached out diagonally and intercepted the iron hammer.

Blood dripped down the hammer handle he gripped. Song Qin did not raise his head, only saying: “Let go.”

His voice was hoarse as if sharp stones were scraping across rubble.

Xiao Li’s sharp brows knitted: “The dead cannot be brought back to life, Elder Brother.”

Mudan’s death was a terrible blow to all of them.

No one had expected that when Song Qin entered the city that day to receive Mudan, she would deceive them, saying she was now together with a wealthy merchant who admired her, that Zuihong Tower had been converted into a wine house, that she was living well and didn’t want to go with them, and told them not to worry about her anymore.

How could anyone have known there was no wealthy merchant at all, and that her paramour was a General Pei stationed in Yongzhou?

After Yongzhou’s defeat, that General Pei retreated north taking Mudan along. Those jackals under Pei Song, hearing that he kept a courtesan as an outer mistress, all wanted to see the courtesan’s beauty.

That General Pei, fearing punishment for losing the battle, intended to curry favor with these people, so he held a banquet inviting them and wanted Mudan to perform a dance at the feast.

Among high officials and nobles, gifting concubines to each other was nothing new, let alone an outer mistress who had once been a courtesan.

Mudan understood what this dance performance meant.

It seemed she had been waiting for such a day all along.

That night, wearing red robes as brilliant as wedding garments, she brought the girls who after Zuihong Tower’s dissolution still refused to leave and had continued following her to perform a dance at the banquet. After getting several Generals Pei drunk at the feast, she tore down curtains from the room intending to strangle them.

But the plan was exposed. One General Pei had an excellent alcohol tolerance and had only been pretending to be drunk at the banquet.

When Song Qin heard at Yongzhou’s defeat that scouts had discovered the retreating General Pei had taken a courtesan outer mistress and left together, he knew Mudan had deceived him.

After sending word to Xiao Li, he led his men to rush ahead to save her.

But he was still too late.

When Xiao Li led the main army there, broke through the city gates, and attacked into the general’s manor, the blood flowing from the front hall had already run out to the steps outside the door.

Mudan died leaning in Song Qin’s embrace. At the time, she was covered in blood all over, yet still smiled so brilliantly, so beautifully, looking at them and saying: “I’m sorry, I deceived you and A’Huan…”

Song Qin begged her not to speak anymore. A full seven-foot tall man, having just killed his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, at that moment could say nothing else besides tears rolling like pearls.

He said he would take her to see a physician, but the bones in her body were all broken—he couldn’t even find leverage points to lift her up.

She knew they were grieving. Choking on blood in her throat, constantly coughing, yet still smiling, she struggled intermittently to tell them: “I… I just wasn’t resigned. Those scholars always say things like… ‘singing girls know not the hate of a fallen kingdom, across the river they still sing… still sing of the flowers of the rear courtyard.’ We daughters of the red dust, clearly… clearly also have such courage…”

“But… what a pity I couldn’t see Pei… Pei Song. If I could have killed… killed him, then… then it would have been… avenging… Aunt Hui too…”

A General Pei who had had an ear bitten off drunkenly crawled out from under the smashed chairs in the chaos, cursing furiously without understanding the situation, still seeking to take revenge on Mudan and the others. Xiao Li, in his forcibly suppressed fury, drew his blade and cleaved the man in two halves, red and white splattering everywhere.

That night, firelight filled the city sky, burning until dawn without extinguishing.

He had not ordered a single Pei soldier in the city to be spared.

Recalling that day’s circumstances, killing intent surged again in Xiao Li’s eyes. He controlled his emotions somewhat, released his grip on the hammer handle and said: “Acting like this, Elder Sister Mudan won’t be at peace underground either.”

But Song Qin said: “I’m the one who caused Mudan’s death.”

Xiao Li’s brows furrowed.

Song Qin’s expression was wooden, his eyes like a pool of stagnant water, bloodshot from going too long without rest.

He spoke hoarsely: “That day when I went to Zuihong Tower to find her, she asked me whether you had sent me or whether I came on my own. I said it was you. Then she told me that a wealthy merchant was devoted to her and had long ago helped her convert Zuihong Tower into a wine house, that she was living well now, and told you and Aunt Yue Gui and the others not to worry about her, and that I shouldn’t worry about her either.”

Song Qin seemed to find himself laughable. He tried to move his facial muscles but couldn’t even raise the corners of his mouth: “She also said… it was good that it was your idea. If I had wanted to find her on my own, for the sake of my dignity, it would have been awkward for her to speak these truths…”

Hearing this, Xiao Li already understood everything.

Looking at the characters “Mudan” on the inscription stained red by the blood from Song Qin’s hands, he pressed his thin lips tight and also fell into long silence.

The word “love” was most adept at toying with people.

Song Qin let out a low, self-mocking laugh, his eyes red enough to pierce the heart: “How did I not notice then that she was lying? I only felt too ashamed to see her again…”

He stroked the inscription as if he could no longer bear this agony, lowering his head: “…If I hadn’t been afraid to admit it then, and had told her frankly that I myself wanted to take her away too, would she have not chosen that path?”

Mudan was already gone. No one could give a definite answer anymore.

—

When Xiao Li left, the wind and snow intensified again.

On horseback, he looked back at the solitary shadow before the distant lonely grave. Zheng Hu wasn’t good with words and hadn’t dared accompany him earlier to see Song Qin. Only now seeing Xiao Li look back that way did he say: “Second Brother, how is Elder Brother?”

Xiao Li withdrew his gaze and said: “Let him stay here to build the tomb for Elder Sister Mudan.”

Zheng Hu was completely confused, but since Xiao Li had already spurred his horse to return, he could only urge his horse to follow.

When the group returned to camp, personal guards came forward to lead Xiao Li’s horse. Taking the cloak he untied as well, they said: “The military advisor requests an audience with you.”

Xiao Li’s expression was indifferent as he went directly toward the central military tent: “I won’t see him.”

The personal guard jogged to keep up with his pace: “This subordinate also said you had left camp and were not in the army today, but the military advisor said he would wait outside the tent for your return…”

Just as he was speaking, they had already reached the central military tent ahead.

Zhang Huai stood outside the tent, looking as if he had been standing there for some time, not wearing a cloak, his shoulders and hair already covered with a layer of snow.

Hearing the commotion, he turned his head. His face, tinged blue from cold, bore a gentle smile as he bowed to Xiao Li, saying respectfully: “Lord Marquis has returned.”

Xiao Li walked past him directly into the central military tent. Zheng Hu and the others following behind all showed strange expressions, but Zhang Huai continued bowing his head and standing quietly, showing no sign of complaint whatsoever.

Zheng Hu knew somewhat the inside story about Xiao Li’s treatment of Zhang Huai this time. As he passed Zhang Huai’s side, he said in a low voice: “I’ll go plead with Second Brother on the military advisor’s behalf.”