War broke out all at once.

There was no warning.

When the palace gates shut, when Li Linge stood in the Emperor’s bedchamber, a cold arrow shot in from outside, announcing the beginning of the war. At the same moment, inside and outside the palace, the Shen family’s army moved.

Outside the palace, the scattered imperial guards, sentries, and private soldiers had, through Zhang Xingjian’s contacts with officials in the preceding days, begun converging methodically according to plan.

Zhang Xingjian merely sat at home, looking at his chessboard.

Within the palace, Shen Qingwu and Chang Lin led their men outward. As she walked, Shen Qingwu shouted orders for her forces to gather, trying not to let them scatter and give the enemy an opening.

In her mind a map of the palace turned rapidly—one that Li Linge had drawn by her own hand many days before, so her personal guards could familiarize themselves with the structure and layout of the palace halls.

The final battle would unfold within the palace. They all understood this in their hearts.

As she entered the palace halls, Shen Qingwu gazed up at the towering palace walls, her eyes narrowing against the piercing sunlight—that light seemed to throw its last strength into blocking her path, leaving her faintly dazed.

Bo Rong, where are you?

“General, we don’t have enough weapons!”

Shen Qingwu’s daze lasted only a moment before she came back to herself.

Bo Rong had lured Li Linge deep into the palace. Li Linge’s personal guards had demanded to accompany her, or the Imperial Princess would not enter. Now that the Princess had entered, the guards had arrived, but without weapons—which left only one option.

Shen Qingwu said, “Naturally, we’ll borrow the enemy’s.”

This would be a classic battle of few against many. How to break through would depend on her own skill.

Shen Qingwu instructed a few of her most trusted guards, along with Chang Lin: “The rest of you don’t need to fight alongside us. Find a way to locate their main enemy force, their commander. If we can strike him down in one blow—”

She did not hesitate. “Then kill him.”

To catch the bandits, first catch their king. It had to be done.

Chang Lin’s eyes narrowed slightly: if the commander was Bo Rong…

But Shen Qingwu’s gaze turned icy, cold enough to press the words back down, and Chang Lin raised no objection.

Before Chang Lin left, he saw Li Linge stepping out of the Emperor’s chambers.

The Princess had shed the overlong, ornate robes she had worn a moment ago, changing into light clothing similar to a woman’s riding garb. As she stepped from the hall, Li Linge held a sword in her hand.

This was a princess untrained in martial arts.

But she was by no means a weak woman.

Li Mingshu’s feeble cries came from behind her: “Sister, sister, save me…”

Li Linge turned back, looking once at the Emperor collapsed on his couch, unable to rise.

She had imagined this final meeting between herself and Li Mingshu countless times.

Her mind drifted back to a night of thunder and lightning years ago, when she had held her young, weeping brother in her arms, choking on her own sobs: “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. Sister will protect you… no one will take your throne, no one will dare to depose either of us.”

But did Li Linge not hate Li Mingshu, deep down?

If she did not hate him, then in nearly twenty years of raising him, why had he grown ever more ignorant and unlearned, ever more cruel and vicious…

Li Linge had indulged the growth of a demon.

So that one day, she could walk the path she had long yearned for, treading upon that demon’s bones.

The palace door closed. She shut Li Mingshu inside.

She turned and smiled at Shen Qingwu, who had looked back at her: “His Majesty has passed. The traitor’s heart still beats with malice—it falls to you and me to put down this rebellion.”

Shen Qingwu raised her blade and cut down an enemy who lunged at her. Blood splattered across her face; there was little emotion in her eyes.

Li Linge noticed that once Shen Qingwu was in the midst of battle, she became far more coldblooded than usual, far more merciless.

This was someone born for the battlefield.

Li Linge called out loudly, “General Shen, in our struggle against these traitors, we cannot do without the cooperation of the officials and soldiers outside the palace. Send out my letters and see if we can gain everyone’s aid.”

These were letters that Li Linge had personally written.

The letters were folded so they could be hung from arrows, and the soldiers fighting under Shen Qingwu’s command tied them to their arrows. Whistling arrows carried the messages out of the palace—letter after letter, written in the Princess’s own hand, sent out from within.

Other letters were folded into paper boats and sent floating along the drainage channels, out through the palace’s waterways.

At the highest tower in the palace, the Phoenix Terrace, stood Bo Rong.

Bo Rong said nothing. Order after order came from his brush and was dispatched outward.

The commander of the fighting outside the palace was Shen Zhuo; the battle within the palace, he oversaw personally.

The Shen family felt this was unfair, so Bo Rong had left the bulk of the troops outside the palace. When the Shen family worried that too few men remained within and that they might lose, Bo Rong stopped paying them any heed.

By this point, the Shen family had no choice but to follow Bo Rong’s path to the end.

At this moment, Bo Rong issued order after order:

“Intercept their letters. Intercept any means by which they communicate with the world outside the palace.

“They intend to win over the people’s hearts—do everything possible to stop it.”

The fighting outside the palace was no easier than within. In fact, with far greater numbers of soldiers on both sides, the street fighting grew even more brutal.

Zhang Xingjian sat at home, deep in thought.

The elderly man across from him wore a bitter expression. “Not all the court officials stand with us, and the common people don’t even know what this coup is about… San Lang, you contacted some people in advance, but we still don’t have enough hands.”

Zhang Xingjian suddenly turned his head, looking toward the whistling arrows.

After a moment, a death-soldier arrived, having picked up a letter from an arrow that had fallen in the courtyard, and brought it to Zhang Xingjian.

Zhang Xingjian smiled faintly. “Where’s this letter from?”

The death-soldier answered, “From within the palace.”

Zhang Xingjian said, “Not entirely foolish, then.”

Without even glancing at it, he handed the damp, mud-stained letter to the elderly clansman across from him.

The old man’s hands trembled as he opened it, his eyes narrowing—A Letter to All Under Heaven.

He scanned it quickly: it was a letter written in Li Linge’s earnest, heartfelt words.

It was addressed not only to those wavering, hesitant officials—those who resented her, doubted her, who had once been her loyal supporters but now questioned her intentions—but also to ordinary people hiding in their homes, watching the fighting outside without understanding what was happening.

Li Linge wrote that His Majesty had been harmed by treacherous officials, that she had long sensed something amiss in the edict placing the Princess on the throne, and that though she knew there was danger ahead, she had walked toward it anyway, in order to save the Emperor.

She wrote of the hardship of raising the Emperor for so many years, and her sorrow at the growing distance between them.

She condemned the Shen family’s ambition, and described the dire straits she now found herself in.

She wrote that she would clear out the enemy within the palace, and would fear nothing even if it cost her life. She asked only that anyone outside who still believed in her lend some support—she needed soldiers, she needed men.

When the old man finished reading, he said, “With the Princess writing personally, appealing to old loyalties, those officials who once supported her may well waver and come back to her side.”

Zhang Xingjian nodded. “Some officials who have taken no side at all will, for the sake of righteousness, temporarily throw in with the Princess.

“And as for those stubborn ones convinced the Princess harbors ulterior motives—this battle will reveal exactly who they are.”

War mixed with political struggle; one battle could reshuffle everything. Every favor and alliance within the capital was every bit this complicated.

The old man asked, “Then what do we do?”

Zhang Xingjian looked at the water clock.

He said, “Wait a little longer.”

By noon, the fighting had grown even more brutal.

Li Linge led a group of soldiers, saying she would go rescue the women of the households. In the midst of her own desperate battle, Shen Qingwu spared some men for the Princess before turning back to the fighting within the palace.

When the two sides finally clashed, Shen Qingwu knew at once that the enemy commander could only be Bo Rong.

Many of her strategic maneuvers were quietly, effortlessly countered by the other side. Her opponent seemed to know every step she would take before she took it, preparing for it, dismantling it in advance—

Only Bo Rong could understand her tactics so completely.

Because he was the one who had taught her all of it.

Bo Rong had spent countless days and nights playing chess with her, drilling troop formations on the sand table again and again. She had never been a general who liked to rely on strategy, yet he had tirelessly cultivated that very ability in her.

Bo Rong had once told her: “You may choose not to use it, but you must not fail to know it.”

Shen Qingwu had learned it.

Whatever the thousands of treatises on warfare taught, whatever the endless permutations of enemy formations—she had learned them all.

But the problem before her now was that everything she had learned and everything Bo Rong had taught came from the very same source.

Could she use what Bo Rong had taught her to defeat Bo Rong himself?

Shen Qingwu clenched her teeth and said nothing.

She kept commanding the battle, kept cutting down enemies, kept issuing orders. She refused to say who the enemy commander was. Even now, she was determined to keep that secret.

But then—

A soldier fell back in a panic.

Shen Qingwu noticed her own men beginning to lag in following her orders. Whispers had begun to spread among the ranks.

At such a critical, fiercely contested moment—someone was sowing chaos among the troops?

Shen Qingwu quietly observed the few soldiers spreading the rumor, her hand moving to her sword as she pressed closer to them amid the fighting. Suddenly someone dropped down behind her, and she spun around, alert.

It was Chang Lin.

His face was ashen.

Chang Lin said, “Their commander is Bo Rong.”

Shen Qingwu said nothing.

She had already realized it without his telling her.

But there was one thing Shen Qingwu had overlooked—

Chang Lin lowered his voice. “You told me to take a few men and investigate their commander. We secretly killed several of their generals, but… one guard, while scouting a palace building, caught sight of Marshal Bo.

“He didn’t actually see Marshal Bo’s face, of course, but he’d seen him before, and he admired him greatly… a silhouette on a high tower, and that guard insists it was Marshal Bo. No matter how I tried to talk him out of it, it made no difference.

“I brought the man back with me, but I can’t keep the news contained.”

Shen Qingwu abruptly looked at the brothers-in-arms following behind her.

She pressed her lips together.

These were the Yizhou army.

The Yizhou army’s original loyalty to the Princess had come from their loyalty to Bo Rong. Once they discovered the enemy commander was Bo Rong himself, the Yizhou soldiers…

Shen Qingwu narrowed her eyes.

In an instant she understood: this was Bo Rong deliberately showing his hand, deliberately letting his old soldiers recognize him.

She could almost see Bo Rong smiling as he watched her: Is the Yizhou army my army? How will you command an army that believes in me?

Shen Qingwu’s grip tightened on the hilt of her sword.

She suddenly drew her blade and pointed it at one of her own guards who was trying to whisper to the man beside him. “Why hide and whisper? What can’t be said to my face?”

The guard she pointed at froze.

The man beside him said, “General…”

Shen Qingwu said, “You don’t need to guess anymore—I’ll tell you myself. Yes, the enemy’s commander, their general, is the very Bo Rong you’re all whispering about. Your Marshal Bo.”

The crowd erupted into murmurs.

In their confusion, the enemy struck hard.

With hearts thrown into disorder, even Shen Qingwu’s ferocity could not meet the enemy’s blades head-on.

They retreated, step by step, until there was nowhere left to retreat, and only through Shen Qingwu’s iron command and sheer force did they fall back behind a palace building and win a moment’s respite.

Shen Qingwu looked at the men behind her.

She finally had the chance to speak. “So what, then—because the enemy is Marshal Bo, will all of you betray me and go over to him?”

Someone rasped, “That’s Marshal Bo!”

Shen Qingwu shouted furiously, “Is the Yizhou army Bo Rong’s private soldiers?! Do you know that he and the Shen family stole the tiger tally to send the Longyou army south against our own Yizhou army? Don’t you have family, friends, back in Yizhou? If Yang Su had lost, if General Yang hadn’t held them off, what would you think then?

“And the Longyou army—of the Great Zhou’s two great border armies, the strongest, the most powerful—are they meant to be used for infighting? If the Longyou army leaves its post and foreign barbarians invade, how is Great Zhou to defend itself?

“The Yizhou army has never once left Yizhou! Even when the Princess held Yizhou, the Yizhou army never left!

“The Longyou army has been coerced by the enemy and forgotten its original purpose. Of course, the soldiers themselves are innocent—they revere their commander just as you revere yours. But their commander would have them abandon their sworn duty to protect their homeland and their country, all just to stop us.

“The Princess entered the capital to end this war with the least bloodshed possible. Bo Rong holds this palace precisely to wage war with the greatest bloodshed possible.

“I’ll give you a choice—those who wish to follow Bo Rong may lay down their arms and walk away right now; within ten steps, I will not kill you. Those willing to stay with me—keep fighting!”

The soldiers exchanged glances.

The harsh sunlight on the horizon could not pierce the palace walls and corridors to reach the shadows.

No one spoke.

Shen Qingwu’s hand shook around the hilt of her blade, blood dripping down the back of her hand and falling to the ground drop by drop. She lowered her eyes.

She thought: Bo Rong, will you destroy even your own reputation among the Yizhou army with your own hands? Do you truly want everyone to hate you, to blame you?

By afternoon, the battle had reached a fever pitch.

Zhang Xingjian set down a stone on the board.

He said quietly, “I should go out now.”

The old man across from him, still puzzling over the game, looked up blankly at San Lang.

Zhang Xingjian said, “Qin Yueye’s assassins can’t keep fighting forever. The people in the streets and alleys are of divided hearts, each fighting for themselves—they need someone to step forward, to draw enemy fire, so our generals can more easily gather their troops and the imperial guards can more easily assemble.

“The capital’s hundred thousand imperial guards—usually so lazy that even the blades in the armory have rusted… I can’t expect troops like that to defeat the Shen family’s army, which trains every single day. I’ll just have to draw some of the fire myself, so their numbers can carry the day.”

Only this way could officials and soldiers act as one.

Zhang Xingjian lowered his eyes, thinking that this was also a chance to shake the imperial guards out of their laziness—the guard corps was usually stuffed full of the aristocracy’s worthless, idle young men, and every time he wanted to take decisive action, countless people stood in his way.

This time, it was time to reorganize the imperial guard.

Zhang Xingjian walked outward.

The old man called out anxiously, “San Lang, it’s too dangerous! Stay home—they won’t attack our house!”

Zhang Xingjian smiled. “No. They will attack our house.”

Just as he spoke, a thunderous explosion rang out, and a death-soldier’s voice came from a distance: “My lord, they’re blasting our wall!”

Zhang Xingjian smiled at the old man, whose face had gone pale. “Would Bo Rong really let us sit back and reap the rewards? Fifth Uncle, stop hiding—come out and meet them.”

By evening, the fighting had numbed everyone to it; countless had died on both sides, and few of the living remained.

Li Linge led her troops and blasted open an underground chamber. After an hour of resistance, the enemy withdrew, and within this underground chamber, Li Linge finally found the women who had been held captive there.

Through the haze of dust, the women saw the Princess appear, and after a brief moment of disbelief, they broke into sobs.

The women cried, “We’re saved, aren’t we? Has Your Highness come to rescue us?”

Li Linge’s face, body, and hands were covered in blood.

Her hand, still gripping her sword, trembled slightly. Untrained in combat, she had made it this far only through her skill in riding and archery, and she was utterly exhausted.

But looking at the faces of these women, Li Linge leaned against the door and let a weary smile slowly surface.

It felt as though success were only a single step away.

She had saved these officials’ wives and daughters… surely they would finally open their eyes and truly look at her? Surely, influenced by their wives and daughters, they would set aside their prejudices and seriously consider whether she could govern well?

The soldiers following Li Linge noticed the Princess’s pale face and trembling hands.

A soldier asked with concern, “Your Highness?”

Li Linge said wearily, “Send for General Shen… General Shen has the roster. Have her count the numbers, see if they match.”

Among the panicked women, one sat calm and cold, apart from the rest. She neither wept with the others nor rejoiced with them.

The exhausted Li Linge did not notice this woman.

But the woman raised her eyes, and through the faint, flickering candlelight of the underground chamber, she saw Li Linge.

This woman was Zhang Wenbi.

When Shen Qingwu arrived, an air of icy menace clung to her, silencing the women instantly.

The Princess had only a little blood on her; one could still see the delicate beauty beneath it. But Shen Qingwu looked as though she had been steeped in blood—the blood on her had dried, her expression grim and forbidding, like something out of a nightmare.

Shen Qingwu had those around her help the Princess count the women.

She turned to leave.

The battle had reached a critical juncture; there was no time to lose.

A voice called from behind her: “Your Highness, General Shen.”

Shen Qingwu did not turn.

But the voice continued: “My name is Zhang Wenbi… Does General Shen still remember me?”

Shen Qingwu turned abruptly, looking at the woman walking toward her and the Princess from among the crowd of women.

Zhang Wenbi was much older than her, but had never married, having been raised within the Zhang family. She had raised Zhang Xingjian herself, and he often spoke of his elder sister—whatever this elder sister thought of her, Shen Qingwu would still turn to acknowledge her.

Only, meeting like this on a battlefield left no room for reminiscing.

Nor did Zhang Wenbi intend to reminisce.

Li Linge leaned against the doorway, watching Zhang Wenbi with a distant look. The corner of her mouth carried a faint, unreadable smile as she waved the soldiers aside, letting Zhang Wenbi approach the two of them.

Zhang Wenbi bowed to them both. “My elder brother has lost, hasn’t he?”

Neither Li Linge nor Shen Qingwu spoke.

But Zhang Wenbi understood in her heart: that the two of them would appear here at all meant her elder brother had reached the end of his road.

And so, what she was meant to do, she should now do…

Zhang Wenbi drew a letter from her sleeve.

She said, “My elder brother told me to deliver this letter to the two of you whenever I judged the moment right. Please open it together.”

Shen Qingwu’s eyes narrowed.

She hesitated for a brief moment.

Li Linge said, “Enemy commanders corresponding with each other in the middle of war? Neither General Shen nor I should be reading this letter.”

Zhang Wenbi said, “Understood.”

She began to withdraw her hand, but Li Linge suddenly reached out and snatched the letter away.

Blood-flecked lashes lifting, Li Linge said coldly, haughtily, “But I don’t mind breaking that rule.”

For a brief moment her heart felt lighter, touched with a flicker of triumph. As she opened the letter, she even found herself thinking:

If Bo Rong were begging her forgiveness, would she grant it?

How would she torment him, how would she humiliate him, how would she make him suffer…

She tore open the envelope, and a single sheet of paper fluttered out.

Li Linge’s hand trembled; for an instant she seemed to lose herself, watching the paper drift from her fingers. Shen Qingwu bent down and picked up the fallen letter from the ground.

There were no dense rows of characters on the page.

There was only a single line—

“How can life be without feeling? Wishing to speak, I have already forgotten the words.”

Bo Rong sat atop the Phoenix Terrace, having sent every soldier away.

He told them they could surrender.

He said their main force had already been defeated; if they wished to live, they should surrender.

He said that if they had strength left to spare, they should go start a few more fires for him.

And he sat on the high terrace, gazing at the red-gold sun sinking slowly toward the horizon, being swallowed inch by inch by the earth.

Outside the palace, the fighting raged on, fierce and brutal.

Zhang Xingjian’s once-clean robes were now stained with blood. He looked up, and his gaze suddenly caught the setting sun above—

How can life be without feeling.

Wishing to speak, I have already forgotten the words.

In the underground chamber, all was still, when suddenly a great rumbling sound came, like a slumbering earth-dragon stirring awake, drawing terrified screams from the women within.

They wept: “Is the enemy coming again?”

“Your Highness, General, save us!”

Shen Qingwu shot to her feet as a soldier came running in from outside: “The palace gate is under attack! We don’t know if it’s friend or foe!

“There are fires breaking out all over the palace!”

Shen Qingwu strode swiftly outward. “Follow me to the gate!”

Li Linge clenched the letter in her hand, staring at the black characters against the vast white space. The soldier beside her still pressed anxiously, “Fires everywhere in the palace, many enemies surrendering—”

Li Linge shouted furiously, “If there’s a fire, go put it out! If someone’s surrendering, go take them in! Why ask me?!”

Zhang Wenbi watched calmly.

She saw, in that single instant, an enormous panic rise in the eyes of this proud, arrogant Li Linge who had always seemed above everything.

Li Linge’s hand trembled around the letter. Suddenly she turned, gathered up her skirts, and ran into the darkness.

Zhang Wenbi sank down to the ground.

She covered her face and wept silently.

The sun sank slowly; the bright moon rose slowly.

Light and darkness changed places, heaven and earth stood apart, fires broke out across the palace, enemy and ally fought and surrendered by turns, and Li Linge, gathering the long train of her skirts, wandered lost through a sea of flame, searching without direction.

She knew that, many years ago, the Zhang family’s parents had died in a fire just like this.

For the first time she realized how vast this palace truly was. She knew every tile, every wall of this place, and yet running through the cold night and the searing flames, she could not guess where Bo Rong might be.

Shen Qingwu sent Chang Lin to tell her that Bo Rong might be in one particular place—the Phoenix Terrace.

That was the high tower Shen Qingwu’s soldiers had scouted as a possibility.

Li Linge’s eyes grew damp.

She knew that place—it was where Bo Rong had once taught her and Li Mingshu their lessons. Whatever mischief the two siblings had gotten into, they had refused to study in the library, refused to recite poetry by the lake; they had insisted on watching the view from the palace’s highest terrace, the Phoenix Terrace, reading their lessons while their tutor played the zither for them.

Li Linge trembled: Bo Rong! Bo Rong!

How can life be without feeling.

Wishing to speak, I have already forgotten the words.

Did you mean it this way?

Do you no longer wish to say a single word to me?

Then why write me a letter at all—why torment me like this?

Brother Rong, Brother Rong!

Teacher, teacher!

Feiguang… Feiguang!

Li Linge, gasping for breath, finally reached the Phoenix Terrace and saw the high tower engulfed in flame.

She had never witnessed with her own eyes the fire that had consumed the Zhang family, but she felt certain that the blaze before her now was no less fierce than that one must have been.

A soldier behind her tried to hold her back: “Your Highness, the fire is too great—”

Li Linge turned.

They were stunned to see that the Princess was weeping.

She wept without making a single sound.

Li Linge said hoarsely, “Go and put out the fire.”

And gritting her teeth, gripping the railing, she insisted on climbing to the top of the burning tower.

On Shen Qingwu’s side, the fighting had reached the palace gate. The gate was under attack, and it was unclear whether friend or foe stood beyond it.

All the remaining main forces within the palace had gathered here, Shen Qingwu at their head, standing at the very front, waiting for the instant the gate would open—

Victory or defeat—

Li Linge climbed the tower, smoke and flame blurring her vision.

The soldiers following tried to find some way to stop the Princess, but she, gasping, leaned against the railing, and through a haze of smoke, she saw a tall, slender figure standing before the window, robes wreathed in fire.

She cried out hoarsely, “Brother Rong—”

She lunged toward the window.

Her heart ached unbearably, her whole body shaking, her voice cracking and trembling, tears falling without end: “I won’t watch you leave again. You can’t abandon me again and again and again—”

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

None of them had wanted her.

Bo Rong turned his head.

He turned to look at her in the last light of the setting sun.

But the flames were so great, and the sunset’s glow so obscured his face, that Li Linge, amid the soldiers’ cries of “Your Highness, be careful!”, could only glimpse Bo Rong’s lowered eyes as she lunged forward.

There was a trace of helplessness in them.

And a trace of tenderness.

But her tears blurred her vision, and Li Linge could not see clearly.

He fell backward.

Li Linge threw herself against the window frame, her hand unable to catch even the hem of his robe. Wreathed in flame, he fell like a phoenix consumed by fire, plummeting downward—

She wanted the man she loved to swiftly and rightfully grow into a worthy sovereign; she wanted to take revenge on the man she loved—

Either kill her once and for all.

Or die before her eyes.

“Boom—”

The palace gate burst open.

Shen Qingwu, gripping her sword hilt, every sense alert, found herself face to face with Zhang Xingjian, standing at the head of those outside the gate, his whole body soaked in blood.

Heaven and earth fell utterly silent.

The great, sinking sun was swallowed by the horizon.

A round, bright moon rose from the edge of the sky.

This was a grand and magnificent desolation—light and darkness did not change places in a single instant.

Sun and moon traded places, the sun setting as the moon rose, and still, between heaven and earth, a faint glow lingered.

How can life be without feeling?

Wishing to speak, I have already forgotten the words.