The candle flame on a winter night, with no moths or small insects dancing nearby, burned with particular quiet.

The remaining half-bowl of medicine slowly congealed and turned black in the rough clay bowl. The woman who had fought and struggled finally could not hold off exhaustion and sank into a deep sleep. Xiao Nanhui sat in silence staring at that half-bowl of medicine for a full shichen, and did not leave the tent until Xiao Zhun’s personal soldier came to take her place.

The sky was overcast. Drifting clouds obscured the moon.

Her mind suddenly went back to the memory of sitting with Dujuan as a child, listening to her tell stories. In those days Dujuan was still only a half-grown girl herself — sometimes she would sneak a little diluted peach wine, and then she could talk without stopping for an entire evening.

In the few conversations where Dujuan had mentioned the old affairs of the Wang family, she had put it this way.

She was twelve years old when she entered the household of Prince Shuo Xiao Qing. She had begun as the most unremarkable kitchen girl, tending the stoves, but because her cooking was decent she was later transferred to the small inner kitchen, and from there she gradually began to hear something of the workings of that great household.

Prince Shuo Xiao Qing had entered officialdom young, and had not begun campaigning until he was nearly thirty — yet in the space of only a few years had distinguished himself with great military achievements and been awarded the title of Prince. Such an extraordinary man was, in private, a quiet and somewhat melancholy figure. His eldest son Xiao Heng was most like his father — steady and gentle, with a compassionate heart. His third son Xiao Jin was clever beyond his years, already possessed of a mature composure. Only the second son Xiao Zhun was nothing like father or brothers: his nature was fierce and unyielding, his approach left nothing half-done, and his bearing had all been inherited from his mother, who came from the world of wandering martial arts — a sharpness that no one could hold back.

A Xiao Zhun like that was not popular among the children of Quecheng’s powerful families. His mother’s humble origins made things worse — a boy who grew up amid exclusion and cruelty tended to be more solitary and stubborn than others. Yet no one had expected that this Xiao Zhun would eventually find a “friend,” drawing closer and closer to the son of the Bai Family who was equally odd-tempered, until the two became inseparable, bound together more closely than any of the ordinary alliances among the powerful.

But Dujuan later learned that there had never been any “young son” in the Bai Family at that time. Apart from the eldest and second sons who were nearly of age, Bai Heliu had only one daughter — the same age as Xiao Zhun. A daughter from an official family dressing as a man and socializing with a noble young gentleman was no small matter. What was more, the position of Imperial Censor was sensitive and prone to drawing trouble. This relationship ultimately dissolved like smoke, never to be spoken of again.

The following spring, a south wind rose over Chizhou and would not stop. The air always carried a damp, metallic sweetness — the kind of smell that only belonged by the sea.

Sixteen-year-old Xiao Zhun, together with his father Xiao Qing and the male members of the clan, followed the Emperor Fuyin Su at that time out of the capital to the town of Yu’an, a hundred li away, for the spring hunt. On the eve of their departure, Dujuan’s younger brother — who had been bedridden for years — died of a lung ailment contracted the previous winter. Their mother was old, and as the elder sister, Dujuan had no choice but to ask the household for leave to return home and handle the funeral, and so was struck from the list of those accompanying the family on the spring hunt.

She had not imagined, then, that of that long procession stretching out beyond sight, only one person would return after half a month. The clever young boy who served as horse-keeper and yard-sweeper, the beautiful senior maidservant in the madam’s rooms, the gossipy old women and aunties in the kitchens — none of them came back. They became a small splash of crimson in that blood debt the Xiao Family was owed, fading with the passage of time.

When Dujuan spoke of the past, the thing she returned to most often was this: that her brother, who had consumed her care and dragged her down for half her life, had in the end saved her life with his own death. Because of the avoidance, she had actually said very little about the Bai Family’s “young son.”

Whenever Dujuan sobered up from wine, she would counsel her again and again with the utmost emphasis: never mention anything related to the Bai Family in front of Xiao Zhun. She had agreed completely, thinking that Xiao Zhun must harbor the deepest hatred for them — naturally one could not bring it up in his presence.

Bai Clan had betrayed the nation, slaughtered the loyal Prince Shuo’s entire household — this was a blood debt no amount of former friendship could wash away. So Xiao Nanhui had never given that legendary daughter of the Bai Family’s main line a second thought.

But now, having seen Xiao Zhun’s attitude toward that Bai-surnamed woman, she suddenly found herself uncertain.

Was the blood debt she had felt as if she had lived through herself — a debt she had spent years seeking to repay, protecting the homeland, hoping for the day the lost territories might be recovered and the old disgrace cleansed — all of it false?

Then what had all those years of hardship and devotion been for?

Xiao Nanhui felt she ought to go directly to Xiao Zhun and ask him plainly.

But that would be tearing open Xiao Zhun’s old wound with her own hand — how could she do that?

The turmoil and the suffocation ground against each other in alternating waves. She walked through the rows of military tents, breathing deeply, trying to expel the stale air trapped in her chest — but no matter how she tried, she could not.

A figure emerged from a tent ahead — it was Su Pingchuan.

He saw her approaching from a distance, and seemed not to see him at all, drifting past right under his nose.

“Hey.”

Xiao Nanhui stopped and turned back.

Su Pingchuan tossed something toward her: “Your things.”

She caught it — a cloth bundle. She opened it to find the broken Ping Xian inside.

From the moment Xiao Zhun shattered Ping Xian, her thoughts and her memory had been in chaos. She had almost no recollection of how she had ended the battle, or how she had followed the Suibei Army back to camp.

Looking back on it now, she supposed she should feel some relief that he had helped her collect Ping Xian.

“Thank you.”

This was Xiao Zhun’s weapon, forged for her — the weapon she had carried since she was fourteen.

The weapon she had believed would be with her for the rest of her life.

Her fingers found the place where it had been cut — an edge sharp enough to slice open a finger. Xiao Zhun’s spear technique was as relentless as ever. When he struck, there was no going back.

Su Pingchuan looked at her expression and slowly spoke: “I already showed it to the master smith in the armory. The mechanism inside this shaft is too complex — once broken, there’s no point keeping it. When you return to Quecheng, have someone forge a new one.”

Xiao Nanhui seemed not to have heard him, still running her fingers along the broken shaft.

Her palms knew this temperature, this texture, so intimately. When she had picked it up this morning, she had never imagined it would be for the last time.

“Hey, did you hear what I said?”

Su Pingchuan prided himself on his aloofness and was absolutely not one to concern himself with other people’s affairs. This had been a sudden impulse of rare good intention — and now the person would not even give him a word of thanks, had been in a daze from start to finish without so much as a reaction.

“Xiao Nanhui—”

“I heard. I understand.” Xiao Nanhui finished speaking, then hugged the broken shaft to herself, head down, and walked away.

Su Pingchuan stood where he was. A succession of expressions passed over his face. He found himself, for some inexplicable reason, with the feeling of being snubbed.

He watched that retreating figure, and when he finally gathered himself to step forward and catch up, a voice suddenly rang out directly behind him without any warning.

“Where is the Left General going?”

Su Pingchuan’s spine went rigid. The person’s martial bearing and composure were so remarkable that he had been approached without sensing anything.

But the speaker did not seem to intend to startle him, and took a few steps forward to stand at his side. Only then could Su Pingchuan make out the person’s appearance.

An unremarkable face — the kind one might easily forget the moment one looked away — but he seemed to be one of the sword-bearing guards recently seen near the Emperor.

The person appeared to guess at his puzzlement and spoke first: “This subordinate is Yanchi Camp Lieutenant Ding Weixiang, under orders to summon the Left General to the council tent to discuss tomorrow’s march plans.”

Yanchi Camp?

Strange — how did this opening line feel as though he’d heard something like it somewhere long before?

Su Pingchuan looked again at the other man’s face, shifted his gaze to the badge at his waist, and set aside his puzzlement for now.

“Understood. I’ll come at once.”

The two walked one after the other toward the council tent. Ding Weixiang tilted his head ever so slightly in the direction Xiao Nanhui had gone, and exhaled a breath, barely audible.

~~*

Xiao Nanhui was not someone who was good at concealing what weighed on her mind. In front of those close to her, her emotions were often impossible to hide.

And so from childhood onward, whenever something sad or painful happened, she would run away on her own and find some corner where no one was to hide.

Only then would there be no one to look at her with sympathetic eyes and ask what had happened.

Only then would she not have to spend every last ounce of her strength pretending nothing was wrong while she was still bleeding inside.

She was not a person without pride — it was just that most of the time she had buried her pride very, very deep.

As now. She would do the same — and bury with her own hands the weapon that had defended her dignity.

She found a shovel from one of the logistics soldiers, slung it over her shoulder, walked far from the camp, found a spot where no one was, and began to dig with deep, labored strokes.

She only had to look at the broken Ping Xian and she would think of the moment Xiao Zhun had cut through the shaft, think of those bite marks on his hand, think of the beautiful woman in the tent, think of the words she had said.

So she wanted to dig a hole and bury the spear — out of sight, out of mind — but when it actually came to it she couldn’t bear to, and so she could only let the anguish gnaw at her.

She dug for a while, then decided she was tired, and looked down. The hole in the ground was already deep enough to bury half a horse.

She sat down on the earth with a thud, staring blankly at that dark hole in the ground, and suddenly her eyes stung, her throat tightened all the way up to her airway, and she was so suffocated that she couldn’t draw breath — and in the end she let out a venting, screaming cry.

She had thought she would shed tears, but found that no matter how she tried she could not cry. She could only rub uselessly at her eyes, hoping to squeeze out some remnant of emotion she had already let go of.

She couldn’t even tell what kind of feeling it was — just a sense of grievance, and a bit of anger, a gas trapped in her chest that would not come out. She had never felt like this before, and so felt somewhat at a loss.

She reached her hand out, then pulled it back — clenched her fist, then unclenched it. After a long internal struggle, she finally wrapped the broken spear back up in its cloth.

No, she could not. She still could not bear to.

Even broken in two, she still could not bring herself to bury it.

If one day the bond between herself and Xiao Zhun was severed like Ping Xian — could she walk forward alone?

A sound of branches being crushed came from behind her, followed by a voice.

“Do not look like this.”

Xiao Nanhui turned and looked up. In the moonlight, the young Emperor was draped in a long black cloak — he seemed on the verge of merging entirely into the night, only those eyes still carrying a faint glint of light.

She lifted her hand out of habit to wipe her face, and still said nothing.

But her hand still had mud on it, and her face only got dirtier with every wipe. Su Wei saw this and frowned.

“Do not look like this — it is truly unsightly.”

In Xiao Nanhui’s heart she was raging: None of your business!!!

But the roar reached her lips and came out as a mosquito’s murmur: “The night is late and the dew is heavy. Your Majesty should rest soon.”

Saying this, she stood and made to leave. Halfway through she remembered something, turned back, and picked up the cloth bundle from the ground.

Su Wei’s gaze settled on the bundle of broken spear. His voice came from behind her, flat and unhurried.

“Has We given you leave to go?”

Her mood was extremely poor at this moment, but she was incapable of turning a sullen face to the person in front of her. She could only stop: “Does Your Majesty have a further command?”

Su Wei looked at her — the exchange between ruler and subject seeming almost casual: “The Qinghuai Marquis came to Us just now to plead for mercy — to pardon the Bai Clan’s daughter, Bai Yun. What is Xiao’s view of the matter?”

Those words hit her at this moment like a blade dipped in poison, carving away at her heart.

Xiao Zhun had really not wanted her to die. And for that, he had been willing to debase himself — as an official who had no place doing so — and gone humbly to plead before this stone-hearted man.

Xiao Nanhui realized that since learning this man’s true identity, she had found him growing more and more unpredictable. Not only had his voice changed, but even his bearing and manner had become entirely different.

To think that she had once believed that the supposed “Zhongli Jing” had a certain Buddha-like serenity. In retrospect it had all been a facade. No matter how serene the face, this man’s heart was black at its core.

She drew in a deep breath and made every effort to appear composed.

“Your Majesty has the authority to decide. Your subject does not dare to speak out of turn.”

Hmph — wasn’t it just kicking the question back? She had watched long enough to know how it was done.

“Oh? We had thought you would plead on the Qinghuai Marquis’s behalf. After all, it would not be excessive to exterminate the entire Bai Clan nine generations over — and yet he, as an external official, dared to come before Us and speak, confident that We would be coerced by the military power in his hands and comply without question?”

Xiao Nanhui broke out in a cold sweat.

She had made a mistake — which was that after spending so long alone in that man’s company, she had momentarily thought she was still with the old Zhongli Jing.

Zhongli Jing was always saying “it’s all right,” and over time she had grown careless.

“My foster father’s entire family was harmed by the Bai Clan rebels — even washing Bijiang in blood could not extinguish that enmity. He would never act out of personal feeling. Still less would he dare threaten Your Majesty. There must be another reason behind this, and I implore Your Majesty to judge wisely.”

She went down on one knee and spoke these words, yet dared not raise her head to see the expression on the person before her.

Who could ever read the heart of an emperor? Better not to understand than to look and be the worse for it.

A long while passed — until she thought perhaps the person standing before her had already departed — when he finally spoke.

“We came out tonight in pursuit of the moonlight, only to have it disturbed by your wailing-over-a-grave racket. As punishment, you will stand watch outside Our tent until dawn — not one step away. Do you accept the punishment?”

Xiao Nanhui cast a sideways glance at the night sky.

It was a cloudy night. There was not even a shadow of moonlight on the ground.

She did her utmost to keep her voice from sounding too much like she was grinding her teeth: “Your subject accepts the punishment.”

Su Wei nodded with satisfaction, and just before he left, added in a leisurely tone: “Tomorrow the army moves out at the hour of Yin. Do not be late.”