Xiao Nanhui couldn’t sleep.

She was rarely sleepless — in her days with the army, she never was. The moment the back of her head touched the pillow, she was out.

But ever since hearing what Su Pingchuan had said, sleep had become utterly impossible.

The moment she closed her eyes, grim images cycled through her mind without cease — as though at first light Akuang would drag Xiao Zhun in before her and crow over her in triumph.

A spy had infiltrated the army. Judging by the extent of that person’s knowledge, they likely held no small position — and they were probably in the Suibei Camp at this very moment. How could she possibly sleep?

With that thought, she climbed out of bed, threw a blanket haphazardly around her shoulders, and stood in the courtyard until dawn.

Wu Xiaoliu woke early and went to fetch water, only to find the woman standing there like a statue, frost settled across her hair.

Something must have gone wrong with the prisoner last night.

“What happened?” Wu Xiaoliu asked, though he already had a suspicion.

Xiao Nanhui glanced at him but couldn’t bring herself to answer.

There was no way to answer, really — Wu Xiaoliu didn’t even know her true identity. The only person here who knew even a fraction of her story, who was guaranteed to stand on her side without question, and who was healthy and fully capable, was Hao Bai.

Just as she was working through it all, Hao Bai drifted out of a room on the other side, his hair in total disarray. A layer of frost had settled on the withered yellow grass, and he nearly lost his footing and went down.

Xiao Nanhui cast her face skyward and let out a long, clouded breath.

One fat man, one wandering quack, and a wounded soldier laid out in a cell. She would have liked someone to count on — but there was truly not a one of them worth counting on.

“So the Chief was up early after all. Had I known, I would have come and reported this sooner.”

A voice rang out from the courtyard gate — someone from her own village, she knew. She didn’t rush.

“What is it?”

“Master Akuang and his brothers left early this morning.”

“What? He’s gone?” That was unexpected. Then a thought struck her and she tensed at once. “Was the Tiancheng soldier taken with him?”

“No, not him. He left from the western side. When he passed the guard post he told the men there was something urgent — probably to do with the fighting in the north again.”

She let out a partial breath of relief, but a spreading unease immediately took its place.

Something was wrong. This departure had come without warning. And there was no way he would have just left Su Pingchuan behind.

Had she given herself away and aroused suspicion? Or was it Su Pingchuan’s identity that—

Countless possibilities flashed through her mind, not one of them offering the slightest comfort.

Xiao Nanhui threw the blanket to Wu Xiaoliu and retrieved her recurve crossbow in one swift motion, speaking low and close: “I’m going out. Sundown is my limit. If I’m not back by then, do as I told you. Understood?”

Wu Xiaoliu looked faintly dazed, as though he hadn’t expected this day to come so soon. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know yet.” Xiao Nanhui checked the dagger in her boot. “But it’s likely nothing good. What I told you to do — do you have it all clear?”

Wu Xiaoliu nodded, and glanced instinctively back at Hao Bai.

Hao Bai’s color was none too good either, but uncharacteristically, he said nothing. He simply turned and went back inside to attend to whatever he was doing.

By the time Wu Xiaoliu turned back around, Xiao Nanhui had already vanished without a trace.

Akuang knocked the ash from his smoking pipe and lit another brazier to warm his hands. He shifted positions under his heavy outer robe, grumbling darkly to himself.

The coldest time in Bijiang wasn’t the dead of winter but right now. A forest that had endured a killing frost like this was particularly good at gathering cold — it could strip away every last bit of warmth from a person’s body.

He had been waiting here for over an hour. He watched the sun travel from its high point toward the west, and still the person he was waiting for had not come.

If not for the need to show deference to the backer behind that person, why would he need to suffer out here? In all his years of work for the Bai Family — a thousand tasks if not ten thousand — even the business of orchestrating the assassination of Prince Kang had passed through his hands.

The corner of his mouth curved upward. Then he thought of the way Prince Kang had looked in death, and a chill crept up the back of his neck before he even realized it, and he shuddered.

Enough. If he had to wait, he would wait.

“Sir, the person seems to be coming.”

His subordinate was quick and perceptive, well aware of his impatience, and had been scanning in every direction. As soon as a silhouette appeared, he hurried back to report.

Akuang kicked a scattered pile of fruit peels and ash to the side of the path, summoned every last trace of alertness, and fixed his gaze on the direction from which the person was approaching.

A small round fruit core wobbled left and right down the slope and came to rest against a clump of red willows.

Xiao Nanhui looked down at the fruit core and pressed her dry lips together.

This stretch of terrain was flat and offered little cover. She had followed the group’s tracks to the vicinity, and looking around, found only two rocks that could be put to any use. Using her crossbow she had hoisted herself up between the two outcroppings, carefully shifting her legs every hour to keep from going numb. Half the day had passed without a drop of water — hands and feet numb with cold, far worse off than Akuang with his fruit and hand-warmer.

It had not been for nothing. She adjusted her position and found an angle that allowed her to observe Akuang’s group without being seen, then held perfectly still.

Half a cup of tea’s worth of time passed — though it felt to her like far longer.

At last, a cluster of grey figures emerged from the intertwining thicket, moving so soundlessly that beyond a faint scrape of sand and pebble, they came on like a cloud drifting into the forest.

She shifted her gaze slowly, letting it fall on the figure at the front.

It was a slight, slender form — not dressed in the Southern Qiang manner. The robe was exquisite and costly, but looked far too large on the wearer. He walked very slowly, as though taking the measure of Akuang’s group.

Akuang’s reaction, however, was one of thorough deference — his back bowed low, almost cringing with submission.

One step short of where Akuang stood, the figure finally stopped. He lingered for a moment, then slowly turned to face outward.

Xiao Nanhui’s pupils contracted sharply the instant she made out his face, and she stood motionless, stunned.

That face still retained a trace of youth, but it had grown considerably in the months since she last saw it. A faint trace of delicacy that had not yet entirely disappeared.

It was An Lu.

The descendant of the convicted An clan of Mu Er He in Huozhou — abandoned in a desolate village after failing his mission just months ago, and now appearing in a forbidden land a thousand miles away.

This was no coincidence.

“This must be Master Akuang, I presume?” An Lu’s voice was low. He had his back to Akuang, and seemed to have no particular interest in the man himself.

“The very same, the very same. Hearing that the honored Master An was coming, I made certain to be here waiting as you instructed. Only — I wonder what this matter concerns — why not move to the village to speak there—”

“Has anyone else been alerted?”

Akuang faltered for just a moment before answering quickly: “Certainly not.”

An Lu made a gentle wave of his hand, and the people behind him stepped forward one by one to check Akuang and his subordinates. It was only then that Xiao Nanhui noticed what appeared to be the same mark tattooed on the back of each of their necks.

“You should know — this is something Lord Yan arranged. He says that some time ago, at the Sun family’s estate, he encountered a rather peculiar woman who escaped in this direction. He sent me to come and have a look.”

Lord Yan?

Her mind flashed to the figure in purple and the bone-chilling level of martial skill that person had displayed.

She had been careless. She had been badly hurt at the time, desperate to shake off Kexang’s pursuit — she must have revealed something of her fighting technique and footwork. And after that, she had been drifting in and out of consciousness through the entire journey, with no idea how Wu Xiaoliu had managed to carry her back into the village. A man who could serve as the Bai Family’s arm was certainly a sharp judge of people. He might have had his suspicions long since.

She ought to be grateful that there were so many villages in Bijiang — that was the only reason they had taken this long to track her down.

“Could the woman Lord Yan described be Pan Yao’er, the current chief of this village?” Akuang’s mind was as quick as ever — he had seized on the key point in an instant.

An Lu’s interest was finally caught. “The current chief? What happened to the previous chief?”

“Pan Mei’er went to the Sun estate for a celebration some time ago, and never returned. The timing of the succession was right around then. The new chief claims to be Pan Mei’er’s younger sister—”

Akuang was still speaking when An Lu cut him off, his voice flat as ice.

“Where is she? Take me to her.”

A hundred plants die; the frost descends.

A thick carpet of leaves had fallen across the low scrubland of Bijiang, mixing with withered yellow grass — deep enough in places to swallow a person halfway up the leg.

The sun leaned westward. The air, stripped of warmth, sank down, and mist rose through the trees. A figure moved at speed through the mist, cutting it open like a knife through cloth, leaving a long trail of white in its wake.

Xiao Nanhui ran through the dead leaves on a still-mending leg, not daring to stop for an instant.

An Lu had not brought many people, but each of them was fully armed. Now that they knew something was wrong, they would not be slow.

She knew Akuang was a local too, no less familiar with the roads than she was. But over these past three months she hadn’t let the land go to waste — she had walked every hillside and stretch of wasteland around the village until they were mapped into her bones. The shortest and most direct route was etched in her mind. If she pushed herself to the absolute limit, she might be able to open a gap of one incense stick’s worth of time.

This was the first time she had ever run from a fight.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t win a direct confrontation — it was that she couldn’t afford to lose. The moment her impersonation was confirmed, escaping would be nothing like the close calls before. She could not fail here. If she died alone that was one thing, but she would likely drag three other lives down with her.

An Lu’s face seemed to hover before her eyes still. He was working for the Bai Family? Had his master summoned him to Bijiang?

At the time, his target had also been the secret seal — which would make sense if the Bai Family were behind it.

But what connection did he have to the organization known as Pu Huna? Were those assassins something the Bai Family had cultivated? If so, why had Wu Xiaoliu crossed their path as a child? The upheaval of Yu’an had been over a decade ago, and what Wu Xiaoliu described had happened at least twenty years back.

Xiao Nanhui felt as though a tangled skein of rope were twisting and writhing in her mind, the knots pulling tighter and tighter, stealing the air from her lungs.

Only one thing was perfectly clear to her in that moment: An Lu must not see her face.

Though their encounter in Huozhou had been brief, she would not allow herself the smallest carelessness toward this half-grown youth. The hatred and distortion she had seen in his eyes at their parting had been so stark — fierce enough to drive a mortal body to the most extreme of acts.

Bijiang, she feared, could no longer be held.

That thought had been circling at the edges of her mind since last night, but it had only taken shape fully in this moment.

And she had a vague premonition: the matter of Pu Huna might be the single most important intelligence she would uncover on this entire westward journey. Yet the night hawk would not return for another three days. She had no time left.

The sunlight struggled at the horizon.

In the last moment before the final sliver of sunset disappeared, Xiao Nanhui finally made out the outline of the village.

“Wu Xiaoliu!”

She had no breath to spare for her burning lungs. She called out with everything she had.

The village was still. Not a soul in sight.

“Wu Xiaoliu! Wu Xiaoliu—”

She called again twice more, and just as she was about to call a fourth time, a round silhouette came trembling out from beneath one of the elevated bamboo buildings, clutching half a smoking fire-starter in one hand.

Xiao Nanhui exhaled with relief and grabbed him at once. “The people in the village—”

Wu Xiaoliu swallowed hard, repeatedly. “They — they all went like you said, half an hour ago, and you still weren’t back—”

“Good, good, good.” She said it three times over, then asked urgently, “What about Hao Bai and the man in the cell?”

Before she had finished speaking, a white figure came struggling toward them from not far off — apparently attempting to run, but weighed down by the limp figure draped across his shoulder, unable to take proper strides.

“Right here, right here.”

She looked at the other man’s blazing white garments and felt a vein near her brow begin to twitch. She had hidden that robe quite carefully — and he had still managed to find it.

The last scrap of light on the horizon vanished in that very instant. Darkness fell all around them, and the air carried a faint, fine trembling — building from far away, drawing closer, like the footsteps of something out of a nightmare.

Xiao Nanhui took the fire-starter from Wu Xiaoliu’s hand and rekindled it. The flame lit up her brow and eyes — exhausted, but resolute.

“Let’s leave this place.”

Akuang and An Lu had already sensed something amiss when they were still a few miles from the village.

A smell of smoke in the air. The sky not far off stained a deep crimson.

It was firelight.

Dry grass soaked in castor oil had been stuffed into every corner of the village. When it caught, it left no room for mercy — the whole thing went up in almost an instant.

“She’s run.”

A hundred feet away, within a thicket of low shrubs, several grey figures were moving rapidly into the distance. One white point stood out conspicuously among them.

Akuang had clearly seen them too — but the road ahead was blocked by the fire, and circling around would take more time than he could calculate. He could only make belated amends, directing the men around him: “The crossbows! Use the crossbows!”

Ten powerful bolts split the air and flew — but they struck the low trees in the way and were deflected one after another, very few reaching any distance at all.

“Useless. Move aside.”

An Lu’s expression had grown increasingly grim. He kicked aside a half-burned beam, and using his slight frame to his advantage, vaulted in a single turn onto a section of earthen wall that had half-crumbled.

Xiao Nanhui heard the parting of air behind her and felt fortunate she had chosen this path overgrown with brambles — difficult going, but in a moment like this, it could save a life.

The crossbow bolts flew for a time and then stopped. She couldn’t control herself — she looked back once.

That one glance caught the youth standing on the wall.

He was still in that over-large robe. Both hands hung at his sides, swallowed entirely by the sleeves, like a puppet on strings.

In the next instant, he slowly raised both arms. Two thin, gaunt limbs slid out from beneath the fabric — dyed blood-red in the firelight.

Xiao Nanhui watched his movement with puzzlement, but she only had time to see the branches and leaves that stood between them before they seemed, in an instant, to be divided by an invisible blade.

Amid a scattering of grass and splinters, a surge of force arrived before her eyes in the blink of an eye — inescapable.

Almost simultaneously, a great force struck her from the side. She hit the ground. When she scrambled up, she found Wu Xiaoliu lying flat in the exact spot where she had just been standing. His entire shoulder had been nearly torn apart, blood gushing from the wound in a torrent that showed no sign of stopping, like an inexhaustible well.

He lifted his head weakly and looked at her, lips parting.

“Wu — Wu Xiaoliu!” Her lips trembled. She pressed down hard on his wound. “Don’t speak—”

“There’s something I absolutely have to say.” The fat man propped up those squinting eyes with great effort and slowly wheezed out: “Meeting you has been the worst luck of my life.”

Another surge of force bore down on them. Everyone flattened against the ground to let it pass, and a desert poplar behind them took the blow — the trunk gave a heavy crack and slowly toppled, raising a cloud of sand and dust.

Using that brief window, Hao Bai scrambled up from the ground. With swift and practiced hands, he tore off a strip of cloth and bound Wu Xiaoliu’s wound tight. “He won’t die just yet. But if we don’t move, we’ll all die together!”

Xiao Nanhui still stood frozen in shock, unable to find her way back to herself.

What she had just witnessed exceeded everything she had come to understand about the limits of martial technique and bodily movement.

She knew An Lu’s capabilities — there was no way he could have become a master of this level in such a short time.

And she had clearly seen no weapon of any kind in his hands. How had he drawn blood from someone a hundred feet away in a single instant?

What was it? What on earth was it?

The youth on the wall, who had kept his head bowed in silence, slowly raised his face. Xiao Nanhui’s gaze, which she had not yet pulled away, met his across the surging wall of fire.

She saw a smile open on that face — a smile with no warmth in it whatsoever.

He had recognized her.

A burning wave of heat rolled through air that had gone ice-cold. She shuddered.

The next instant, Su Pingchuan’s hand clamped hard around her wrist.

“Xiao Nanhui!”

That rough, warm hand jolted her back. She reached out and seized Wu Xiaoliu by his blood-soaked garment, hauling him up onto her shoulder.

The fallen desert poplar offered them a moment of cover. A gust of cold wind dispersed the murk in the air — wind coming from the east.

She looked back once more toward the village.

She gave her fist a quiet, firm squeeze.

She was genuinely grateful for what this land had given her — the tenacity and resilience that had seeped into her very bones. But she did not belong here.

She never had. And now, less than ever.

She needed to go to the side of the person she loved, even if that place was not the land that had given her life.

Xiao Nanhui turned away and let the towering flames paint her back in red.

“Let’s go.”