Rallying the troops that had been scattered by the cavalry took Xiao Nanhui a quarter of an hour.
This was her first time commanding a battle as a general, yet she had no inclination to savor the moment.
Although the Black Feather Battalion’s arrows had repelled Bai Family’s first wave of assault, as the battle settled into a grinding stalemate, this place would sooner or later become a field of carnage.
She had to seize the opportunity — before Bai Family’s cavalry tightened their encirclement — to exploit the terrain’s advantage and break through northward, withdrawing to the rear of the combat zone, then find a chance to regroup with the various battalions.
Lu Songping had instructed her beforehand that if something went wrong, she should listen to the drum beats to identify directions and find a way to move toward the position of the battle’s central formation — that would be where the entire Tiancheng army would make its last stand.
Among her troops were Lu Songping’s trusted subordinates, who presumably knew the finer details of this operation. She kept one of them as a guide and arranged for the rest to scatter, each driving a separate carriage to divert the enemy’s attention.
The solar eclipse was nearing its end. The sky was gradually brightening, with only the heavy mist yet to disperse. What had previously been an obstacle to visibility now served as a useful form of cover. As long as she could dodge Bai Family cavalry’s most destructive vanguard at the right moments, rejoining Tiancheng’s main force would not be difficult.
Nevertheless, as a precaution, she ignited the Jiaozhi incense tube fastened at her waist — a specially crafted tracking incense designed for emergency situations, to guide Lu Songping in locating the position of the sovereign.
The heavy drumbeats continued to drift faintly from ahead, signaling the commanders at each formation node directing their troops in battle. Once all of this was done, she hesitated no further, drove her carriage swiftly toward the nearest position.
Traveling through fog strips a person of their sense of distance. Xiao Nanhui could only estimate her northward progress by gauging the horses’ stamina and the frequency of the wheels rolling beneath her.
Along the way, small scattered groups of cavalry kept charging into her path, each of which she dispatched as swiftly as possible, seeking only a quick escape.
After roughly the time it takes to finish half a cup of tea, just as she was drawing closer to the source of the drumbeats, they abruptly ceased.
Almost on instinct, Xiao Nanhui immediately reined the carriage to a halt. The moment the horses’ hooves and the rolling wheels fell silent, she noticed that the surroundings had grown far quieter than before — even the sounds of battle had receded into the distance.
Had she already left the combat zone?
An ominous feeling gradually took hold in Xiao Nanhui’s heart.
Something was wrong. The terrain here had already leveled out; if she had truly been heading north the entire time, she should have passed the low hills where Lu Songping had set up his formation.
The advance scouts she had sent ahead still had not returned, as if they had wandered into some deep recess of the mist and never found their way back out.
Xiao Nanhui stared fixedly at the gauze-like curtain of fog before her, her instincts telling her that something terrible was about to emerge from it in the next instant.
At that moment, a rapid, urgent jingling sound rang out from within the mist, startling her.
The sound burst out like a sudden downpour, then cut off sharply — as if swallowed whole by some strange beast.
Silence fell once more around her, and Xiao Nanhui’s heart began to pound in frantic, constricted beats.
Drums signal advance; gongs signal retreat.
Something had gone wrong ahead.
She cursed under her breath, tightened her grip, and yanked hard. The ten reins drew taut at once. The horses went quiet as one, their heads rearing high, and when those dozen iron hooves came back down, the carriage had already bolted off in the completely opposite direction.
To guard against an attack from the flanks, Xiao Nanhui adjusted the formation into an inverted triangle — a classic retreating formation in which the left and right wings would form a line capable of guarding against a flanking pincer attack while simultaneously cutting off any pursuing troops.
However, she quickly discovered that her band of just over a hundred soldiers was being rapidly consumed. Like the suddenly silenced drumbeats, they vanished without a trace before she had even caught sight of the enemy.
Xiao Nanhui clenched her jaw and drove the carriage at full speed.
She forced herself not to look left and right in distraction, yet the dying cries of her soldiers kept drawing closer and closer, so near they seemed on the verge of pressing against her very ear.
Damn it — she should have anticipated this long ago: Bai Family had launched this raid with the intent to succeed at any cost. How could they have sent only one in four of their cavalry?
Yet even an opponent of Kuilang’s caliber should not have been able to cut down several well-trained soldiers in an instant, without making a single sound.
Her mind fell into chaos. The carriage, in its frantic flight, had long since lost all sense of direction. She could only vaguely determine the location of the combat zone by the sound of stray arrows, with no idea at all where the horses’ heads were pointed.
But one thing was certain — it must not be in the direction behind her.
Back there, somewhere in the mist, a terrifying pursuer lurked.
And she had to find a way to escape.
All four horses simultaneously let out a heavy snort, breathing in great labored gasps. All living things possess a spirit — they, like her, sensed the killing intent steadily closing in.
Then, something began to pierce through the mist, moving toward the carriage as it sped along.
The first thing Xiao Nanhui heard was a sharp, keening cry.
A sword’s cry.
That was the sound a sword cast in a single piece made when drawn from its scabbard — and yet it seemed to be so much more than that.
The sound made her mind drift for a moment back to the resonant bronze bells she often heard in the main hall of Yongye Temple: a sustained vibration that bored deep into the ear and straight into the mind, impossible to shake out.
“Xiao Nanhui.”
Suddenly, someone called her name.
She snapped back to awareness in that same instant — and in that very same instant, a sword’s aura laden with cold intent arrived in its wake. She just barely managed to draw Pingxian in time, before she heard the clash of metal on metal, and the entire carriage shuddered violently. One of its wheels was wrenched clean off the ground.
The four harnessed horses screamed and lurched sideways. Xiao Nanhui hurriedly rose to her feet and used her body’s weight to haul the listing carriage back into balance. The wheel crashed back down.
She immediately looked to the right — there was only an empty expanse of mist. Nothing at all.
Truly a terrifying depth of power. At a distance of five steps away, a sword’s aura could transmit such overwhelming force. If facing such a strike head-on, whoever received it would sustain either grievous injury or permanent disability.
She felt her hair, soaked through with sweat, turn ice-cold and clammy beneath her iron helmet.
“Gather yourself. The final moment has not yet arrived.”
Su Wei’s voice came once again from the curtained compartment behind her — utterly composed, without a trace of panic or fear, as though what he had just said was a matter of no particular consequence.
Those brief words alone sent a sudden chill through Xiao Nanhui’s entire body.
Her duty was not yet fulfilled. How could she allow herself to entertain any thought of retreat?
Yet before she could prepare herself, that sword cry — like the wailing of a ghost — rang out again. This time from the right, faster than before and with greater force.
This at least told her that her opponent was likely just one person.
Xiao Nanhui pulled tight on the reins and changed course. The four horses stumbled for a fraction of a second, and that strike grazed the side of the carriage’s body — but in passing, it severed half the carriage shaft and the yoke.
There was a sharp crack. The entire weight of the carriage fell upon the chest harnesses and the reins. The four horses screamed and crashed into one another, on the verge of breaking free and scattering in all directions.
In that split second of fire and lightning, she spun around and hauled Su Wei from the compartment to her chest, then planted a palm against his back, shifting his entire center of gravity onto the remaining half of the wooden carriage shaft.
Freed of the weight above it, the carriage body began to sway wildly from side to side. The clods of sand and stone thrown up by the four wildly galloping horses flew outward in a constant stream, scraping past their faces and forcing their eyes shut.
Xiao Nanhui had no time to think about any of that. She squinted hard, picked out a large grey horse that still looked to have strength in its legs, seized Su Wei by the waist sash with both hands to hoist him up, then slowly rose to her feet on the wildly hurtling carriage.
The man was dressed today in a floor-length robe of dark black — a plain base beneath a layer of fine gauze. The moment the wind caught it, that thin gauze, trailing its eight pleated panels, burst outward like an explosion of wings, like a black lotus blooming in silent quietude within this pale, hazy mist.
Xiao Nanhui’s gaze remained fixed on the back of the galloping horse ahead, yet she could feel the restrained power emanating from the body beneath her hands.
He dwelt at the apex of earthly sovereignty, yet here he was caught in this utterly absurd predicament. He could have expressed displeasure or fury, demanded explanations — yet he said nothing, asked nothing.
That was a grace that was born into him — such that even if blood were to spray three feet and bodies fall five steps in the next moment, he would remain poised throughout.
The wooden board beneath their feet sank down in the next instant. A heartbeat before she lost her balance, Xiao Nanhui pushed off with full force, taking the person in her arms with her, and landed heavily on the grey horse’s back.
Almost at the same moment, the dozen or so reins snapped one after another. She drew Pingxian and swept it back to sever the chest harnesses. The carriage — now resembling a porcupine, riddled with arrows — was left behind them entirely.
Cold wind rushed at her face. She felt Su Wei’s hair catching and twining around her neck, and only then did she realize his crown had been knocked loose in the chaos of a moment ago — the apology occurred to her belatedly.
“Your Majesty, this subject has just been disrespectful.”
She could not see the expression on his face, but she heard a low, soft laugh.
“This one truly could not have imagined, that in this lifetime, there would yet be such an experience to be had.”
What was she supposed to say? That she was honored beyond measure?
Xiao Nanhui was a little at a loss, and simply lowered her voice to remind him: “Your Majesty, do not raise your head — that person is still following behind.”
This horse was a draft animal and had no saddle besides its bridle. She could only do her best to grip the lead rope and maintain her balance. With two people sharing one mount, she still did not dare to clamp down on the horse’s flanks and let it gallop freely.
The mist did not seem as dense as it had been at dawn. She carefully scanned the landscape around her and began advancing in a circuitous manner, trying to shake off the person following behind.
The sounds behind her shifted between near and far. She kept close listen, and the moment those sounds drew nearer, she would immediately wheel the horse around and open up the distance through a sharp turning maneuver.
Yet this course of action was clearly not sustainable.
She lowered her head to check the Jiaozhi incense at her waist, and found it had already burned down to nothing. There was no telling when Lu Songping’s people would arrive to offer support.
In that brief moment of distraction, she suddenly noticed a faint breath of wind brushing against her face from ahead.
On the open plain, air currents generally moved in regular patterns. Only when approaching terrain with elevation changes — like valleys — would the air currents shift in an irregular way.
Lu Songping’s battle formation was positioned around the low hills, and yet the direction she had fled from was very nearly the exact opposite.
That meant there was another possibility —
Almost on instinct, she wrenched the reins tight.
The bit dug hard into the horse’s mouth. The animal reared up on its hind legs and began to topple sideways from loss of balance.
Xiao Nanhui clutched Su Wei close and used the momentum to roll off the horse’s back, barely managing to arrest their movement, when she felt something cold sweep upward across her shoulder from below.
She slowly turned her head and saw the edge of this dry, withered land.
How could the earth have an edge?
Of course it was not an edge. It was simply where it ended.
The end of a cliff.