There circulated in the court of Tiancheng a hand-copied volume of secrets that no one had ever actually laid eyes upon, known as A Hundred Methods for Glimpsing the Imperial Countenance.

As its name suggested, it was a guide to meeting the Emperor by a hundred different means.

Whether such a volume truly existed was a mystery without an answer. But the mere fact that it circulated as rumor illustrated one thing clearly: the current Emperor of Tiancheng was famously averse to being seen.

How averse, exactly? Legend had it that on the day of his enthronement, the Emperor was supposed to ride the imperial palanquin along the Grand Enlightenment Passage to the Yuanming Hall, where the assembled ministers awaited their first audience with the new sovereign. But when the palanquin was lifted, it was discovered that the Emperor had ordered a cover fitted over it — and over that cover, a layer of gauze, embroidered so densely with patterns that it could be admired only from a distance and never approached too closely.

From that point on, any court official with even a shred of perceptiveness understood one thing: the Emperor did not like to show his face.

The head eunuch was the first to grasp this, relocating the dragon throne in the Yuanming Hall another ten feet back. The eunuchs in the inner palace wasted no time following suit, fitting the side chambers of the Yuanhe Hall with gauze screens. Even the candles in the Yuanhua Hall were lit with a stinginess that beggared belief — and one had to wonder whether the beauties of the rear palace had ever managed to make out the Emperor’s face during those intimate moments.

Such behavior — this shrinking from wind, this hiding from light — was the sort of thing that, had Xiao Nanhui heard of it in the past, would have kept her quietly laughing to herself for a very long time. Hmph. So the Emperor was too ugly to be seen, was he? Or perhaps he had some dreadful affliction on his face. Either way, there must be something wrong — otherwise, what kind of grown man hides and covers himself like some cloistered young woman? Truly insufferable.

But now, in this moment, she could not bring herself to laugh at all.

Early that morning, she had parted ways with the other three. In the end, she had still been unable to avoid knocking Su Pingchuan unconscious — but all in all, the westward journey had gone relatively smoothly.

Yet that smoothness did not last long before it was utterly shattered by a question that struck her without warning.

Did she know what the Emperor looked like?

The answer was painfully obvious.

The closest she had ever come to the Emperor was that audience outside the Taihe Bathhouse and Gardens. But a gauze screen had stood between them, and what little wit she possessed had been entirely consumed by her verbal sparring with him. She had not spared a single thought for what he actually looked like.

A person she had never even seen — how was she supposed to pass such critical information to him?

Where was the Emperor’s military camp? What were his daily routines, morning and evening? Who attended him inside? And most importantly — which one was the Emperor?

Xiao Nanhui sat beside the dried-up bed of the Tianmu River and racked her brains through the entire night. Her mind grew emptier and emptier, until at last only cold wind and sand remained.

She had also considered giving up and simply going to find Xiao Zhun first. She knew Suibei Camp inside and out, and she would certainly recognize Xiao Zhun on sight. She hadn’t seen him in so long — she longed to rush straight to his camp.

That impulse was ultimately suppressed by her reason, because doing so would inevitably drag Xiao Zhun into this affair.

The matter was still unclear, but one thing was certain: this was no simple business. Rumor had it that the Emperor’s thoughts were impossible to read, and Xiao Zhun was a man of great influence and authority — suspicion was easily invited. With affairs at such a precarious juncture, she could not pull him into the fire.

Dawn came early in the gobi. When the horizon brightened once more, she could not afford to waste any more time and set off in a daze.

Based on what she had gleaned from Su Pingchuan, the Emperor was most likely with the Black Feather Division. And based on the most recent coded letter Bolao had sent her, the Black Feather Division’s main force should be encamped somewhere near the lower reaches of the Tianmu River.

Xiao Nanhui had caught a distant glimpse of that area once, back when she had accompanied the young lady of the Tian Family to her wedding. Thanks to the Sun Family, an artificial dam had been built to divert the water of the upper Tianmu River. The dried-up riverbed downstream, ravaged by wind and sand over the years, had gradually subsided and collapsed into a hundred-li-long ravine that split the eastern and western districts of Suyan into two — a chasm so sheer that even birds and beasts would shrink from it.

For a great army, such formidable terrain made for a fine hiding place, though a poor route of advance. The Bai Family clearly understood this well enough — otherwise they would never have left such a gap unguarded.

With her destination confirmed, only two difficulties remained.

The first was her concern about the Emperor. The second was how to infiltrate the Black Feather Division camp.

Whether it was Suibei Camp or the Black Feather Division, she had served in the military for many years. If she walked in openly by identifying herself, she ran the risk of running into someone who knew her. One look at each other, and the risk of tipping off the wrong person would be very real. Should she disguise herself and slip in under cover of night? Setting aside the fact that the Black Feather Division’s defenses were sure to be exceptionally tight — she could not be confident of coming and going without leaving a trace. And even if luck was on her side and she actually managed to sneak in, the first problem would still be waiting for her.

She wracked her brains for a while, and was left with only the most foolish of options.

Taking a deep breath, she began making her way along the dried riverbed toward the upper reaches of the Tianmu River.

The further north she went, the deeper the ravine grew. The jagged riverbanks were stripped bare of every blade of grass — not a single pebble could hide itself from view.

Xiao Nanhui felt that she was not walking through a ravine at all, but along the blade of a great sword suspended between Bijiang and Tiancheng.

When she estimated she had reached the edge of the military camp, she stopped, found a crevice in the rock to conceal herself, and waited until dusk — until the light had turned murky and ambiguous between heaven and earth — before she finally made her move.

The Black Feather Division’s eyes were truly extraordinary. She didn’t even need to make any furtive movements — barely had she poked her head out and taken a few steps before an arrow was fired at her.

The first arrow was merely a probe. She rolled aside and dodged it cleanly.

It seemed that the agility of that dodge made an impression, because the second arrow came with killing intent.

She had no idea which lieutenant had drilled those archers, but she had already dodged with what she thought was quite good timing — and yet the arrow still buried itself in her thigh. Fortunately, it missed anything vital.

“Who goes there?”

The voice from the cliff face echoed through the ravine.

Xiao Nanhui said nothing. She scrambled to her feet and made a show of fleeing, but hadn’t taken two steps before the Black Feather soldiers descended from above and pinned her to the ground.

These were sentinels of the Black Feather Division, concealed without rest in the surrounding cliff faces and rock crevices. Any suspicious figure who appeared would be dealt with immediately.

She was still wearing the southern Qiang clothing she had acquired in the Bijiang settlement, and her face was covered in a smudged mess of grime. When she opened her mouth, out poured a stream of Lingxi dialect.

“It’s a woman.”

The few Black Feather soldiers exchanged glances. They seemed to have already formed a rough assessment of her identity.

“Search her.”

She was pinned down, and everything she carried was emptied out.

“What’s she got on her?”

“Apart from a half-length staff, nothing but some dry rations.”

Before the soldier had finished speaking, something the size of a palm slipped from Xiao Nanhui’s inner garment and landed on the ground with a clang — clearly made of hard metal.

She stayed face-down on the ground, her peripheral vision catching a soldier picking up that iron tablet. A silence fell over the group, and then someone spoke in a low voice.

“Bring her back to camp.”

That morning, when Su Pingchuan had been arguing with her, Xiao Nanhui had already been plotting to use him.

This westward trip was a covert operation in the strictest sense. Strictly speaking, her identity as Tiancheng’s Right General had been temporarily “set aside.” That being the case, if she truly found herself at the final moment of needing to verify her identity, she had to have something genuine and reliable to prove her allegiance. Her own belongings were no good anymore — but she could borrow someone else’s.

And so, after knocking Su Pingchuan unconscious, she had taken the opportunity to lift his Right General’s identification tablet.

It had now come in handy, as she had known it would.

The few Black Feather soldiers clearly had questions about her background and purpose. Rather than executing her on the spot, they brought her back to the prisoner camp and handed her over to their squad leader.

When exchanging their reports, they spoke in low voices but made no effort to exclude her — perhaps assuming that Xiao Nanhui was a southern Qiang woman who understood no official tongue.

“She had an identification tablet from the Guangyao Division on her — by the design, it belongs to a Fourth-Rank General.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing. She’s alone, and a woman at that.”

“Even so, you shouldn’t lower your guard. Bijiang has no shortage of women in command. And since when do Black Feather Division arrows go wide? Is she just that capable, or are you that careless?”

The sentinels promptly apologized. The squad leader took the thin, square iron tablet and held it before Xiao Nanhui’s eyes, addressing her in the Lingxi dialect.

“This — where did you get it?”

She lifted her chin without a hint of shame. “I found it.”

“Found it where?”

“None of your business.”

The squad leader let out a cold grunt and seized the arrow shaft in her thigh, giving it a sharp twist. Xiao Nanhui howled with pain.

So people everywhere are equally brutal when it comes to their enemies.

She squeezed a few tears from her eyes. “Killing me will do you no good. I want to see your Emperor — I’ll only speak to him and no one else.”

The squad leader’s expression shifted. “Who told you the Emperor was here?”

“I know much more than that! Take me to the Emperor, and I’ll tell you everything.”

At these words, the other side was visibly wavering. This woman was clearly suspicious — but she might also be carrying military intelligence worth a fortune. Taking a few enemy heads in battle only earned so much merit, after all.

Xiao Nanhui could tell she had a foothold and was waiting for the squad leader to press her further, when suddenly a cool, languid voice sounded behind her.

“Looking at her like that, she doesn’t seem like someone who’ll give up anything useful. Drag her out of camp and execute her.”

The moment that voice rang out, a familiar chill ran through her.

Before she could recall the owner of that voice, the squad leader had already spoken the name first.

“Greetings, Lord Lu.”

Lu Songping, the Governor of Jizhou.

What was he doing here instead of Tong City?

But now was not the time to ponder that question. Lu Songping’s voice rang out again.

“How can someone this dangerous and unpredictable be brought before His Majesty? If something were to go wrong, do you all not value your own heads?”

Lu Songping, you wretched turtle of a man — time and time again you ruin my affairs.

She was raging inwardly, and yet she still had to face reality. She twisted with all her might, struggling to turn her face toward Lord Lu behind her.

“Sir! I beg you to spare my life — everything I said is true! I really do know many things. If you don’t believe me, you can test me. I will hold nothing back — I’ll tell you everything I know. We southern Qiang people never lie. If we lie, we are struck down by thunder, cast into a hell of blades and boiling oil, and denied peace even in death—”

Xiao Nanhui knew the other party understood the Lingxi dialect, so she poured forth an even more voluble torrent of words, expressing her fierce will to survive, hoping that her sheer effort might move him to grant her a chance to “defect to the enemy.”

Lu Songping seemed to find her somewhat dirty and stepped back half a pace — and then he caught sight of her face and suddenly went still.

His gaze was rather unnerving, and it set her heart beating nervously. By all reason, that night had only been a fleeting glimpse, and she was in this state now besides — Lu Songping should not have been able to recognize her. And yet somehow, something felt off.

“I swear I will be completely cooperative! I am telling the truth — if you don’t believe me, you can go and ask. My settlement is right across the river. We have thirty yaks, one hundred and eighteen black-tailed sheep, and many chickens — all told, it’s quite a substantial place. You cross Sanmu Pass and head straight west, through a stand of red willows—”

“Enough noise.”

Lu Songping finally offered his verdict on Xiao Nanhui’s long-winded speech.

In the next second, an iron fist came straight at her face, landing squarely and solidly right on the bridge of her nose.

Xiao Nanhui’s vision went black, and she plunged into a brief, swimming darkness.

The ringing from the blow gradually faded. The sound of cloth dragging across a rough surface reached her in a rhythmic pattern.

She had not fully lost consciousness — she had simply been blindfolded and lost her sense of direction.

The hemp rope binding her seemed to have been tightened further, cutting painfully into her wounded thigh as she was dragged along. Something had been stuffed into her mouth, and her jaw ached from being stretched so wide.

After some time, the dragging stopped. She heard the low exchange of soldiers handing her off, and the weight in her chest finally eased somewhat.

These soldiers had still not dragged her out and executed her. She didn’t know whether Lu Songping had put in a word, but the squad leader had her separated from the other prisoners and brought alone to this particular place. The blindfold over her eyes was presumably to keep her from learning the location of the main command tent.

She tried to console herself: no matter what, her foolish method had produced at least some result. Though at this point, “foolish” was too generous a word — what she had done could properly be called a half-brained scheme.

Xiao Nanhui thought this with grim displeasure, doing her best to ignore the arrow still lodged in her thigh.

When she got back to Quecheng, she was going to make Su Pingchuan pay for every last drop of blood this had cost her. Not only had he lost his battle, he had thrown an unwanted, thankless task onto her plate. She, an accomplished “advance scout,” had endured unimaginable hardships to work her way up to settlement leader — and then, because of rescuing him, she had nearly blown her cover. And now she was here, cleaning up his mess for him.

The coarse ropes had her hands twisted behind her back. The blindfold over her eyes had not been removed. She could only feel that the punch she had taken earlier had left her nose swollen and itching unbearably. She tried to tilt her head back to suppress the itch, but it kept surging back. Blood trickled in a slow stream from one nostril and traced a red line down her face before dripping to the ground. She wanted to wipe it away but could not.

The humiliation of it all had overtaken the physical pain.

She only regretted not having rubbed more dirt onto her face beforehand. If she was recognized by someone she knew now, she would resign from the military entirely and go home — she would never set foot in the army again for as long as she lived.

Unable to see, she steadied her breathing and strained her ears.

The surrounding area was less noisy than before, and the temperature was slightly warmer — but she could hear no sound of burning coal or charcoal. She estimated she must be in the outer chamber of a large tent. Several low voices drifted from not far away, perhaps filtered through a felt curtain of some kind — even with her acute hearing, she could make out only a vague murmur and none of the actual words.

The soldiers who had brought her in clearly did not dare step into the inner chamber and had retreated to wait not far from her.

Xiao Nanhui, of course, had no choice but to wait as well.

And wait she did — in the posture of a dog eating dirt. Half an hour passed. She was just about to shift her weight and put the other side of her face on the ground when someone lifted the curtain, and a deep, coarse male voice came through — it sounded like some sort of general.

“Who is this outside the tent? Why has there been no sound all this while?”

“Greetings, Commander Yan. I am the one on duty from the prisoner camp.”

She had just been thinking about running into someone familiar, and here one came.

Yan Guang, the Western Commander. She had some recollection of him — back when she had followed Xiao Zhun around everywhere, she must have encountered this man on several occasions. She remembered even complimenting him once on how nicely his beard was trimmed.

“Why has someone from the prisoner camp come here?”

“In answer to the Commander — Lord Lu gave the order earlier. He said a southern Qiang woman was captured at the riverbank to the south, claiming to have urgent matters and requesting an audience with His Majesty.”

“Lu Songping?” The voice of the big-bearded Yan Guang immediately turned cold, and his tone carried a poorly concealed contempt. “His hands are long indeed. His Majesty is in conference with us about critical matters of the campaign — how could he have any spare time to see some stray cat or dog? Get her out of here at once. She shouldn’t be here in the first place. Now get out yourself, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

The soldier was clearly no match for this Commander Yan and dared not utter a single word of protest. Upon receiving the order, he went straight for Xiao Nanhui, grabbed the rope knotted at the back of her neck with practiced efficiency, and made to drag her back the way they had come.

Was he serious? She had come all this way, enduring everything she had endured, only to be sent all the way back to the beginning?!

In a flash of desperate inspiration, she jerked her head to one side, opened her mouth wide, and — through the half-piece of torn cloth still stuffed inside it — sank every front tooth she had into the back of that soldier’s hand.

Xiao Nanhui was utterly merciless, pouring every last ounce of force into her jaw. There was an agonized wail that echoed through the entire camp, and the whole great tent fell silent at once.

“I’ve always heard that southern Qiang savages are a wild lot — today I’ve seen it for myself. A good thrashing is clearly in order.”

Schring.

She heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

In the next instant, something cold pressed against her throat.

You cannot be serious, old fellow. We’ve exchanged pleasantries before, and that magnificent beard of yours doesn’t ring any bells for you at all?

But her protest could only stick in her throat. Her tongue was locked in a life-or-death struggle with that scrap of torn cloth, and no matter how she strained, she could not produce a single intelligible sound.

“Wait.”

A low, hoarse voice rang out from behind the felt curtain.

The breath caught in Xiao Nanhui’s throat was slowly, slowly released. Her earlier struggling had caused the cloth bound over her eyes to slip sideways, giving her a sliver of vision.

She strained to open her eyes as wide as possible and peered through the gap. All she could see was the space between the felt curtain and the floor — and a pair of white boots approaching from behind the curtain, drawing closer, stepping past the curtain, advancing toward her one unhurried step at a time.

The angle of this glimpse was a peculiar one, and it sent her mind drifting back, unbidden, to an encounter from months ago at the Yongye Temple, when she had gone to draw a lot.

Back then, she had been in much the same position as now — peering through thick, swaying prayer banners as a pair of fine boots walked toward her.

The figure drew a little closer. She made out a hem of a garment above those boots — ice-silk snow-satin of the highest quality, embroidered with exquisite patterns, carrying the faintest shimmer of pale blue.

A moon-white color, she thought.

For some reason, Xiao Nanhui felt that the color was strangely familiar.

“Your Majesty, please allow this subordinate to deal with her — we shall not trouble your eyes—”

Your Majesty?

Xiao Nanhui found that the itching in her nose had returned.

“There is no need. We have other plans for her.”