In the desolate desert of Suyan at the end of the year, the cold was biting and the land was barren. The wind that scraped against one’s face was like a knife laced with sandpaper — after only a few days, it could turn a delicate, soft-skinned beauty into someone looking thoroughly weathered and haggard.

Xiao Nanhui quietly touched her own face. It felt rougher than before. Then she looked at the face of the man before her, and felt a surge of indignation.

Su Wei’s face was clean and smooth, his expression perfectly placid.

The “imparting of knowledge” had barely begun when she realized she had been distracted. She knew it was wrong, yet could not help moving her attention from his face down to his body.

Hmm — could this slight frame endure her training? And that waist — far too slender —

“Xiao Qing.”

Hmm? Was she being addressed?

“Why does Xiao Qing keep staring at us?”

Xiao Nanhui’s heart lurched. She didn’t even dare look at him, and immediately pulled herself together, stumbling a little as she finally began teaching in earnest.

After a few rounds of testing the waters, she confirmed it at last: the Emperor truly was a complete novice with absolutely no foundation whatsoever.

Since it was impossible to work with conventional weapons straight away, she began with the most fundamental close-quarters grappling and restraint techniques. These were techniques for preserving one’s life — nothing like the point-and-stop sparring of an ordinary practice bout. What she was teaching were moves designed to be lethal.

She first explained some basic theoretical knowledge, helping the other identify the most vulnerable and the most resilient points on the human body.

Ding Weixiang’s words bored through her skull like a demon’s chant and rang out.

After a moment’s consideration, she had Su Wei stand still, and began indicating the key points of joint locks — pointing to each joint as she explained it, touching the corresponding position on the other’s body with two fingers, quick and light, controlling the force to the absolute minimum, terrified of going a fraction too far.

Once she was properly into the lesson, time moved quickly.

It was nearly time for the midday meal, and the wind had picked up somewhat, with a faint sound barely audible in the distance. Even by the standards of a place where flying sand and dust were commonplace, it was unusually strong.

Xiao Nanhui wiped the sweat from her brow, looked down at the sweat on her hands, and reckoned that at least eight out of ten parts of it had been scared out of her — and quietly cursed Ding Weixiang another hundred and eighty times in her heart.

She knew perfectly well that one could not grow fat on a single bite. With the wind blowing hard enough to make it difficult to keep one’s eyes open, she decided to let the Emperor rest for a while, thinking to wait until the fierce gusts passed before continuing in the afternoon.

But thinking about the practical demonstrations that would follow, Xiao Nanhui ran into trouble.

There was a distinction between ruler and subject — and moreover the ruler was a piece of fragile imperial jadeite cabbage.

She stole a glance at him.

Not far away, the Emperor was sitting quietly beneath a withered poplar tree, cross-legged in a perfectly aligned posture that was exactly like his usual way of sitting in the carriage. He seemed entirely unaware of the tangle inside her — his eyelids lightly lowered, his brow relaxed, his expressionless face carrying an air of unfathomable depth. If not for this bleak and desolate place, she would almost have suspected she was looking at the incarnate Buddha in the midst of sitting meditation.

Such a figure placed upon the altar — touching him would be an act of desecration. How then could one throw him to the ground?

The wind swept past, carrying with it the scent from his person.

That peculiar smell of the prayer beads again.

She had not liked that smell before, always finding it carried a coldness that cut to the bone.

Yet now, she couldn’t quite say why — perhaps she had grown accustomed to it — she found something in that breath of air that drove away ghosts and roused the spirit. It was, oddly, rather calming.

But why should she feel this way? Could it have been that previously —

An image from the past flashed before Xiao Nanhui’s eyes, but before she could grasp it, she felt her vision shift — the man had risen and was walking toward her.

She swallowed.

“Does Your Majesty feel unwell somewhere? You must tell your subject right away — your subject —”

“Not at all.” The Emperor stopped two or three steps in front of her and tilted his head slightly to look at her. “We are simply curious — how long did it take Right General to acquire these skills of hers?”

A perfectly standard opening for awkward small talk.

Xiao Nanhui roused herself and tried earnestly to answer the question.

“Your Majesty flatters your subject. Roughly from the time your subject can remember until now, I suppose.”

The Emperor considered for a moment, as if calculating the number of years involved. Yet Xiao Nanhui had no sense that he would know her birthday. After all — she didn’t know it herself.

“You have the makings of a camp captain. That you once had to content yourself with the lowly position of squad leader was an oversight on our part.”

The awkward conversation was growing dangerous. The cold sweat she had just wiped dry began to bead again.

“Your Majesty is kind to recognize your subject’s efforts — but your subject would not dare to think too highly of herself. Your subject is a person of the military with some basic skill, and absolutely would not presume to the title of General.”

“If we say you are worthy, you are worthy.”

The Emperor tossed out a light reply, and seemed about to end the conversation.

Her heart had just begun to settle a little when he opened his mouth again.

“There was one point in what the General said earlier that we did not fully understand.”

Oh?

Xiao Nanhui looked up.

She had always assumed the Emperor had not the slightest interest in learning martial arts — and yet here he was, so eager to learn after all?

She had long heard that imperial children were, as a rule, diligent and hardworking. Seeing it now, it did seem to be true.

She bowed respectfully: “Your subject is new to the task of instructing, and there have been many oversights. If Your Majesty has questions, please feel free to ask without hesitation. If your subject is not equal to answering, she will seek another who can —”

She hadn’t finished speaking when the Emperor’s body suddenly surged close.

His movement was very light — barely a whisper of disturbed air — and she had been focused on her own words and noticed nothing. By the time she reacted, the Emperor was already very close.

“If I come from behind like this —”

A low sound passed by her ear, and a hand locked precisely onto the vulnerable point at the side of her waist. Before he could exert any force, Xiao Nanhui’s body had already responded on instinct.

In barely an instant — a lightning-fast lift of the elbow, a turn of the body, a lock, a throw.

The sequence was fast, precise, and flawless. By the time she processed what had happened, the Emperor’s body was falling irreversibly toward the ground.

Xiao Nanhui felt a thunderbolt crack right through the center of her skull.

What had she done? She had thrown the Emperor!

Ding Weixiang, you jinx!

There was no time to think. She threw herself toward the falling figure, and managed, at the last possible instant, to slide her arm beneath him before he hit the ground.

Su Wei was not as heavy as she had imagined. Xiao Nanhui’s arm pressed against the stone floor for just a moment before she steadied him.

“Your subject — your subject deserves ten thousand deaths! Ten thousand deaths, not enough to repay this crime —”

She was so busy piling up her apologies that she went a long time without any response. She finally raised her head in trepidation — and realized that her current position was rather improper.

Both her arms were wrapped around Su Wei’s back, her entire body pressed against his, their faces so close that it felt as though she were holding him.

The man’s half-lidded eyes were looking at her. In the long, slanted tails of those eyes, the shadow of his lashes fell, stripping away the still, waveless calm they usually held, and filling them instead with a hazy, fathomless depth. The line of his chin tilted slightly upward was beautiful; following that opening in his collar down, she could see the faint rise and fall of his throat, the clearly defined collarbone, the smooth, gently undulating chest —

Xiao Nanhui instinctively swallowed, and suddenly realized she had seen far too much through that open collar.

Xiao Nanhui, oh Xiao Nanhui — your fear has just barely subsided, and already your shameless nature has returned.

She used all four limbs together and practically crawled backward off Su Wei’s body.

“Your subject — deserves ten thousand deaths.”

From a general who commanded armies — now her voice was as thin as a mosquito’s.

She couldn’t be blamed. Truly, she could not.

She was only human. She could not be held responsible for committing an outrage against a true dragon.

For a long while, the “dragon” made no response.

She pried open one eye and looked.

The Emperor was still in the same position as when he had fallen, watching her with perfect composure.

“How much longer does Right General intend to leave us lying here on the ground?”

Xiao Nanhui leaped up in a carp-spring and plastered herself to him with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned attendant, carefully helping the Emperor up from the ground.

“Does Your Majesty feel any injury? Your subject truly had no such intention — please punish your subject for her improper conduct.”

The Emperor drew his arm smoothly from her grasp and shook out his sleeve.

“We are unharmed.”

With that, he walked toward the exit of the practice ground.

So they were done practicing?

She quickly fell into step behind him.

“Your Majesty is truly unharmed? Perhaps we should have Lord Lu take a look —”

Mid-sentence, Lu Songping had already materialized before them, ghost-like.

Xiao Nanhui suspected that from the moment she had knocked the Emperor down, this man had been standing ready with his blade, prepared to come charging in and cut her down at any second.

But Lu Songping did not look at the Emperor first. He looked at her — with that same strange expression of his.

She had no idea what he meant by it, and blinked furiously at him, indicating he should pay attention to the Emperor.

Only then did Lu Songping shift his gaze and bow. “Does Your Majesty have any instructions?”

The Emperor did not pause in his steps, heading west.

“Our outer robe got dirty. Have someone bring a change of clothes to the small tent.”

Imperial children, truly — not worth praising for even a moment. She had just been about to compliment the Emperor on his diligence and eagerness to learn, and now he couldn’t even tolerate a little sand on his clothes. Truly not suited for martial training.

A moment’s inattention and the Emperor had vanished, Lu Songping nowhere to be seen either — leaving her alone in the middle of the ground. The cold wind blew, and her face genuinely stung.

She had a feeling she had just been brushed off.

Though the Emperor hadn’t reprimanded her, Xiao Nanhui felt a vague deflation. She had handled things poorly, after all. Ding Weixiang’s every worry had proven spot-on. It was truly infuriating.

Thinking it over, her steps back to Mo Chunhua’s tent slowed to a halt.

It was all that scoundrel Xu Shu’s fault — during their sparring in the past, she had always hit a little too hard. Could it be the Emperor was actually covering for a scrape, and that was why he said he was going to change clothes?

But knowing the Emperor’s character, he would have absolutely no reason to cover up for her sake. Yet what if it was a matter of saving face, and that was why he had said he was unharmed?

Thinking of how, when they had left Huozhou, that man had been suffering from a cold and stubbornly endured it the whole way without a word, Xiao Nanhui found herself more and more convinced this was possible.

She strongly suspected the Emperor had something of a vindictive streak. Not reacting now didn’t mean he wouldn’t retaliate later. Not taking it out on her didn’t mean he wouldn’t take it out on the Xiao household. If this was left unexamined, she feared she would drown in her own spiraling thoughts right where she stood.

Having made up her mind, Xiao Nanhui turned toward the western side of the camp and set off.