The twenty-fifth year of Tianlong was a year of chaos.

Bo Rong, commander of the Yizhou army, had become a branded traitor, taken under escort to Dongjing. But after that battle, the Yizhou army itself had fallen into Li Linggeh’s hands.

When she emerged from the mountains, leaning on a cane, it wasn’t only Shen Qingwu who followed her—generals like Yang Su and their troops followed her as well.

Zhang Xingjian’s forces, unable to withstand the Yizhou army, had retreated, buying Li Linggeh the time she needed.

From this point on, she could only move forward, step by step. There was no road back for her now.

In a hastily assembled tent, no sooner had the physician finished bandaging her wounds than she called together, tearfully, every soldier who had followed her, giving them no time to rest.

She reasoned with them, moved them with emotion, and at the most painful moments, wept openly.

The battle-worn generals, crowded into the small tent, were stirred to fury by the Princess’s heartbreak.

She condemned the foolish young ruler in Dongjing:

“…He acted recklessly, trying to have me killed—so be it, but in trying to kill me, he set the Longyou army against the Yizhou army. Rong-ge was captured by Zhang Xingjian—is that humiliation not enough for the Yizhou army?

“I may be a woman, but I understand what benefits the realm, understand the people’s hardships, their suffering. I never wished to start a war. I only wanted the common people to return to how things were before the young Emperor took the throne… at least then, life wasn’t so hard for them—the enemy back then was the Western Di, not each other, tearing ourselves apart from within…

“I hope all of you will walk this road with me, hope you’ll help me bring Rong-ge home safely. But I also know war brings suffering to the people, and so I have shown the young Emperor every possible restraint. I know full well that not all of you trust me yet. Let us simply see, together, where this leads.”

Among the generals, Shen Qingwu listened as Li Linggeh, choked with emotion, won the soldiers’ loyalty.

She spoke the line: such is the fate of the common people—who could bear to watch them broken so?

Faintly, Shen Qingwu found herself thinking of Bo Rong.

He had been the one who first taught her to read, and this very line had been among the first things he’d taught her.

At dawn, mountains shrouded in mist, he’d had her run each morning, taught her the habit of daily training. And once, sitting in the morning light, he had taught her these very words.

She’d asked him what they meant.

He’d said, “You’ll understand, one day.”

It was one of the rare memories she had of asking him something he never answered.

She remembered his expression then—his eyes fixed on the blazing red sun as it rose, the light so sharp it stung the eyes, brought tears even, and still he kept watching it.

Only now did she begin to understand.

What did “the common people” mean?

It was the ideal Bo Rong had betrayed.

It was the ambition of his youth, the one he’d begun betraying the moment he met her.

That was why he’d never explained it to her—he hadn’t had the face to.

Knowing full well what disaster a war would bring to the common people, he had made this move anyway. The Princess said it was Bo Rong who wanted her dead; Zhang Xingjian kept asking why she always doubted him instead…

Slowly, she thought: so, it must be Bo Rong.

Did he want to destroy everything?

That story of the fox and the lion cub… it had trapped him his whole life, ruined his whole life.

And yet, while others could condemn him freely, what right did she have to condemn him? Whatever his purpose, he had truly pulled her out of the mire, given her a new life.

She only felt exhausted.

So this was what love and hatred did to a person—wore them down, endlessly.

“A’Wu.”

Li Linggeh’s gentle voice pulled her from her thoughts.

Looking up, she found the generals had already left the tent. Sitting propped against the bedside, wrapped in white bandages, Li Linggeh had blinked away her performative tears, and was smiling at her now—

She told Shen Qingwu she had no plans to keep fighting, no intention of confronting Dongjing head-on for now.

She wanted first to win over the southern provinces, to secure what she’d already gained. She believed she had time—Dongjing and the Longyou army had just fought a war of their own, the court would surely need to put Bo Rong on trial, and Zhang Xingjian’s negotiations had ended in failure regardless.

She smiled. “I know my brother well. He’s the type to fly into a rage and simply want to kill whoever’s crossed him. It’ll take Chancellor Zhang a long time to fight that battle… A’Wu may not know this, but even the most incompetent emperor still has loyal ministers willing to serve him.

“My brother is exactly that type. I fought him for years, Kong Ye fought him for years—now it’s Chancellor Zhang’s turn to taste what we’ve tasted. And this time is exactly the time I need to recover my strength, to win over the southern provinces.

“A’Wu, the Yizhou army answers to me now, and some of my people have already turned several southern provinces to my side… but some still resist. I don’t want a full-scale war. I want to resolve everything as simply as possible. A’Wu, will you stay and help me?”

Shen Qingwu asked, “You called yourself my senior sister-disciple just now, and in front of the soldiers you quoted that line—such is the fate of the common people. I want to know—do you actually believe it?”

Li Linggeh’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Calmly, she said, “I do.”

She chose her words carefully. “I was raised on those ideals since I was young. While my brother was still playing in the mud, I was already studying with Rong-ge. I once naively believed that if I simply held the right ideals, I could govern the realm exactly as I saw fit.

“But Rong-ge’s father scolded me, asked why I insisted on disrupting court order.

“I must have been around fourteen then. I turned and looked at my brother—only four years old at the time.”

Her smile was faint.

Li Mingshu had been jabbing at a wooden puppet with a small toy sword, shouting that anyone who disobeyed him should die. He had just had a defiant minister thrown into prison to be executed, and Grand Tutor Zhang had turned around and demanded of Li Linggeh why she was disrupting court order.

What exactly had she done? She’d only been reading, only offered a few opinions on state affairs. And yet in the Grand Tutor’s eyes, she still didn’t measure up to her four-year-old brother.

These things had consumed far, far too much of her energy, growing up. She could rattle off example after example, proving she wasn’t nearly as purely ambitious as Shen Qingwu seemed to assume.

But even Li Linggeh felt exhausted by it all.

Reason could accept what Bo Rong had done, pushing her off that cliff. Feeling could not.

But feeling was the most useless thing in the world.

Wearily, she looked at Shen Qingwu now. “A’Wu, to accomplish anything, you can’t rely only on kindness—you need ruthlessness too, more ruthlessness than your opponent. You probably don’t like me much… though I’ve tried hard to win you over, always believed you should be my ally.”

She fell silent.

She remembered the joy she’d felt, discovering there was a woman general out there. She had truly believed, back then, that she’d found an ally.

But all these years, she had never managed to win Shen Qingwu fully to her side.

Now, she understood why.

The one who had rescued Zhang Xingjian, at the Princess’s residence, all those years ago—had been Shen Qingwu. The one who had just severed ties with him on that cliff—had been Shen Qingwu too.

And the one who had, quietly, all along, first put Shen Qingwu’s name forward to the Princess—had been Zhang Xingjian.

So fate had been quietly at work, all along, long before any of them knew it.

Li Linggeh pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, about the matter with Zhang Xingjian. If I’d known you cared for him, I would have let it go…”

She wouldn’t give up an ally for the sake of one man.

“I don’t love him,” Shen Qingwu cut in.

Li Linggeh smiled silently, saying nothing more.

While she considered how else to win her over, Shen Qingwu asked, “Everything you said to the generals just now—was it all a lie?”

Cold as ever, and Li Linggeh answered just as evenly.

“Not entirely,” she said. “Which part do you mean?”

“The part about rescuing Bo Rong.”

Li Linggeh fell silent.

Shen Qingwu had grown much sharper. “You know the whole Yizhou army trusts Bo Rong completely, and that his capture has them all furious. Say you intend to rescue him now, and their loyalty to you deepens.

“But I remember—you told me yourself that it was Bo Rong who pushed you off that cliff. Will you forgive him?”

Flatly, Shen Qingwu added, “If it were me, I wouldn’t.”

Li Linggeh said nothing further, still.

She looked at Shen Qingwu, beginning to feel something like fear of her—this general’s sharp instincts, seeing right through to her true intentions, left her speechless.

“What is it you want?” Li Linggeh asked evenly.

“I can stay with you, help you win your realm, help you win over whoever you need won over. I don’t have anything more important to do anyway. You say you care about the people—so let me see just how you care…

“None of this really has anything to do with me, but I feel I should do it anyway.

“My condition for staying is this: you can’t kill Bo Rong.”

Li Linggeh’s eyes narrowed.

She couldn’t help a bitter laugh.

“He really has changed, from the man I remember,” Shen Qingwu said. “But he’s suffering. Every day is torment for him. I don’t think he wants you dead—I think he must have his own reasons, his own difficulties.

“He deceived me too. He tricked me into staying by your side, made me promise to protect you before I understood any of it. He never wanted to be a commander, never wanted to be ‘Bo Rong’ at all… My feelings for him have been wearing away, little by little, ever since.”

She lowered her head.

Perhaps, she thought, this erosion of feeling was exactly what Bo Rong wanted.

The men of the Zhang family treated scheming like breathing—Zhang Xingjian calculated everything down to the last detail. Bo Rong was the sun; surely he was even more formidable than his brother.

So all of this disaster must be exactly what he wanted.

Wanted people to hate him. Wanted no one standing on his side. Wanted the world to despise him, forget him. Wanted to throw everything away, give up everything.

Others schemed toward a better future. Bo Rong schemed toward a worse one.

He had sentenced himself to death.

“I won’t listen to his instructions anymore, won’t work with him anymore, won’t even go see him or try to save him again. What a man like him actually wants, I don’t understand. But we were master and student once, and I want us to end things cleanly—

“Your Highness, if you promise me you won’t kill him once this is over, I’ll follow you, and see the world you want me to see.”

Li Linggeh closed her eyes.

The candlelight fell across her face, beautiful nearly to the point of eeriness.

That pallor in her expression was, somehow, deeply sad.

At last, she agreed. “Fine. I won’t kill him. But when I deal with him in other ways, don’t interfere. A’Wu, I don’t like sharing Bo Rong with anyone—not even you, even though I want you close to me.”

Shen Qingwu accepted, calm.

What kind of revenge would Li Linggeh bring down on Bo Rong?

Shen Qingwu didn’t care anymore, didn’t want to know.

Whatever bond of teacher and student they’d shared—let it end here.

He didn’t want her anymore.

So she didn’t want him anymore either.

Walking out of the tent, her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Zhang Xingjian. She forced herself, quickly, to stop thinking of him.

People had to pay the price for their own choices.

This was exactly what she wanted.

However much it hurt him, however much he hated her for it—she no longer cared. Let the moon return to its place in the sky. Let it taste, for once, what she had felt. And then let them be done with each other, completely.

This was exactly what she wanted!

Wound the enemy a thousand, lose eight hundred of your own.

She didn’t care.

In the twenty-fifth year of Tianlong, north and south did not go to war.

Just as the Princess had predicted, while she busied herself winning over the southern provinces, the young Emperor raged through the court, throwing tantrums, demanding executions in his fury.

He still had no idea Bo Rong was actually Zhang Rong.

Hearing that the commander of the Yizhou army had ruined his plan to bring the Princess back, that Zhang Xingjian’s negotiations had failed, he wanted the man executed. But at the same time, learning the Princess wouldn’t be returning after all filled him with unexpected delight.

Over the following months, the young Emperor became a study in contradictions.

Some days he’d remember and demand Bo Rong be killed, demand the debt be settled; other days he’d forget entirely, ransacking the realm for treasures to bring to the capital, ordering new beauties brought into the palace to entertain him.

He blamed the Shen family for their poor generalship, for retreating in defeat. He’d spent months in fear, but once he saw Yizhou wasn’t marching on the capital, he relaxed, deciding his sister was nothing so formidable after all.

Reassured, he threw himself back into pleasure, back into executions, and began demanding the Shen family hand over Shen Qingye—he wanted her brought into the palace as Empress.

Pleased with himself, rather than address the matter of the divided realm, he threw himself instead into elaborate preparations for his own coronation ceremony.

Zhang Xingjian managed to rein in some of the young Emperor’s worst excesses.

He also negotiated Bo Rong’s release from the Emperor, in exchange for certain concessions, and had him confined instead within the Zhang household. The Emperor had no objection—Chancellor Zhang had just sent him two beautiful women, after all. As for the Yizhou commander—so long as he wasn’t set free, locking him up at the Zhang estate instead of the palace made no difference to him.

But Zhang Xingjian couldn’t restore the court to the peace it had known before the Princess’s departure.

There was no great mystery to it—simply that Zhang Xingjian was ill.

Ever since returning from Yizhou, this young man who had once dazzled the court with his brilliance had been falling sick, on and off, without end.

On good days he could manage some state business; on bad days, he was confined to the old Zhang family estate, unable even to leave his own room, let alone tutor the young Emperor.

The court officials were dismayed—they’d expected a spirited young Chancellor to return in triumph, and instead got an invalid.

Ministers who visited the Zhang household, peering through curtains and screens, would see a young woman seated at his bedside, inserting acupuncture needles, while the Chancellor lay wrapped in his cloak, drifting in and out of sleep, thin and frail as a pale sliver of moonlight.

Word spread that the cunning woman general Shen Qingwu had cursed Chancellor Zhang with some gu poison, leaving him in agony—unable to die, unable to live properly either—kept alive only by medicine and needles, with no cure in sight.

The officials fretted.

Were they simply to watch the Princess tear Great Zhou in two and do nothing?

Were they simply to watch the young Emperor run wild, and have any minister who dared gently suggest otherwise thrown into prison and beaten?

When, exactly, would the Chancellor’s illness ever fully heal?

Hoping for that day, people sent the Zhang household endless supplies of fine medicine, renowned physicians, even a few dubious mystics and shamans.

The Miao girl, hands on her hips, cursed a blue streak at the Zhang estate gate—her scolding somehow still musical, almost like singing: “Shamans? All fakes! If even my own people in the Miao lands can’t undo this gu, I don’t believe these charlatans can either.”

Then, turning around, she’d complain to Zhang Xingjian, worried sick: “Just get your wife to come back already. The two of you should hurry up and come to the Miao lands together. I’ve already apologized to my parents—they’re working on how to undo it. But if you two don’t come in person, there’s nothing they can do to break the curse from a distance.”

She’d roll her eyes, exasperated. “Without the mother gu present, how’s the child gu supposed to come out? Your wife really doesn’t care whether you live or die.”

Lying in his bed, Zhang Xingjian listened to her endless complaints without a word.

Since returning from Yizhou, he had grown much quieter.

Perhaps it was simply the toll of his long illness.

Zhang Wenbi had barely seen her brother at all.

Bo Rong had returned, and been imprisoned. Others didn’t know his true identity, but how could she fail to recognize her own brother?

She’d seen the guards lock him inside a cell within the household, chains binding the doors and windows shut. In a room that never saw daylight, her brother was kept prisoner.

Shocked and furious, she demanded to see Zhang Xingjian, to ask what he meant by treating his own brother this way.

But he refused to see her.

His guards stood watch before the moon gate, forbidding her entry to his courtyard.

They remained loyal to him, without exception: “Our apologies, Second Young Lady. Our lord is unwell, and sees no one unless it’s urgent.”

She wanted to demand what could possibly be more urgent, but she didn’t dare expose Zhang Rong’s true identity, and had to swallow her fury.

Day after day, she wandered near the courtyard where her elder brother was imprisoned. Unable to see either brother, she grew more and more anxious, certain something was happening that she knew nothing about.

Zhang Yuelu was no longer the compliant Third Young Master who once did as she wished.

It was at this time, in early summer, that Chang Lin, having fled and hidden his way south for months, finally returned to Dongjing—

Once again, Zhang Wenbi paced before the courtyard where Zhang Rong was held, arguing with the guards, trying to get even a glimpse of her brother.

She heard a maid behind her announce, flustered: “The… the Third Young Master is here.”

She turned, and saw the brother she hadn’t seen in so long.

She was startled.

Beneath lush trees, vines tangled along the corridor, dappled sunlight scattered across the walkway through layers of leaves and blossoms—Zhang Xingjian and Chang Lin emerged, one behind the other, moving through patches of shadow and light.

He wore a loose, antique blue-grey scholar’s robe, his hair bound with a plain wooden hairpin, every inch the picture of refined antiquity.

As he walked, his sleeves billowed, sunlight falling across his face, making him look impossibly tall and elegant, striking beyond words.

But as he drew closer, she noticed how much thinner he’d become, how much paler, how much more careworn—could the rumors in court really be true, that he’d truly been cursed, truly bedridden with illness?

If he really couldn’t leave his bed… then why was he up and walking today?

And his expression was cool, distant, his lips pressed thin.

For a man of such normally even temperament, this was already the very edge of what he could bear. She could tell, easily, that he was holding back fury.

What could possibly anger this brother of hers?

She called out, “Zhang Yuelu.”

He saw her.

Behind him, Chang Lin hastily bowed to her, while Zhang Xingjian merely nodded in her direction as a greeting, saying nothing at all, and walked past without stopping.

She watched the guards open the courtyard gate, watched him disappear into the room where their eldest brother was held, watched the door close again behind him.

Stunned, she sank down where she stood, overcome with a sense of loss.

Chang Lin didn’t follow him in. Instead, he tried to comfort her: “Don’t take it to heart, Second Young Lady. Our lord has something urgent to discuss with Marshal Bo, that’s all—he simply hasn’t had time to attend to you…”

She looked up. “My eldest brother… Marshal Bo… has he quarreled with the third brother? Has something happened between them? Something I’m not allowed to know?”

Chang Lin fell silent for a long moment.

He thought of the evidence he’d uncovered… the evidence that had made Zhang Xingjian cough blood in fury.

Quietly, he said, “It’s better if the young lady doesn’t know. All you need to know is that our lord has always acted with the Zhang family’s best interests at heart.”

Zhang Wenbi wasn’t foolish.

Sitting there in the corridor, she felt something collapse inside her. Though the summer sun blazed hot, a chill began spreading through her whole body.

Was Chang Lin implying that Zhang Rong meant to destroy their family?

Her eldest brother… the man she had once looked up to, admired so much in her youth—had he, somehow, become someone else entirely? Someone bent on their family’s ruin?

The room where Bo Rong was held was a small, cramped study.

The door slammed open, and Zhang Xingjian strode in with the daylight.

Bo Rong looked up as the door swung shut again, just in time to see a bundle of documents come hurtling toward him from Zhang Xingjian’s hand, scattering like a flock of startled cranes.

Zhang Xingjian’s voice shook with fury: “You joined forces with Kong Ye, joined forces with the young Emperor, against the Princess… You are the one who caused all of this!”

All the evidence had finally been uncovered—

The handwriting in the letters attributed to the third Bo brother had been forged convincingly—but the real man was left-handed, and the handwriting in those letters was not.

All these years, the one working with Kong Ye had never been the innocent scapegoat sacrificed in Bo Rong’s place—it had been Bo Rong himself, hidden in the shadows all along.

As Zhang Xingjian moved from the court into hiding among the common people, Kong Ye had sought to eliminate him—and Bo Rong had helped, feeding Kong Ye information on his movements. He had even sent Shen Qingwu his way, testing whether she might be persuaded to cooperate with his own designs.

Of course Bo Rong hadn’t actually wanted Zhang Xingjian dead—but he had wanted to obstruct his plans, delay the Princess’s return to court, delay Zhang Xingjian’s own return to power.

Even the bond between Zhang Xingjian and Shen Qingwu had been folded into his calculations.

The swordsman, the fake third brother, the countless deaths… all of it had simply been Bo Rong’s means of keeping Zhang Xingjian from ever returning to court.

His true goal had been to split north from south, to divide the Princess and the Emperor against each other.

Zhang Xingjian looked at the man sitting in the corner, forcing himself to master his temper: “We found letters at Kong Ye’s residence too, in yet another handwriting. I truly underestimated you, Brother—I never realized you had so many hands to write with. No wonder you were fit to be Grand Tutor, no wonder you dazzled everyone so brilliantly in your youth!

“You worked with Kong Ye, helped the young Emperor persecute the Princess… She likely has no idea the one tormenting her has been at her side the whole time, does she?

“I rushed back to Dongjing, negotiated with the Emperor, offered him every sincerity, trying to stop this war… and just as I was about to succeed, you played your final card and had the Princess ‘killed,’ setting the soldiers’ fury ablaze.

“A hundred thousand Yizhou troops! Turned into your tool for tearing Great Zhou in two!”

Bo Rong looked at him, unmoved.

Gently, he said, “Is that all?”

Zhang Xingjian’s eyes never left him. “I also found the truth of your parents’ deaths. They weren’t murdered—they took their own lives! One guard has spent years in hiding, playing the fool—you kept him locked away too, but Chang Lin found him, brought him back.”

“Zhang Rong. You’ve known the truth about your parents’ deaths for a long time. You’ve known for a long time that you were deceived.”

Bo Rong lowered his eyes, smiling faintly.

“I’ve turned it over and over,” Zhang Xingjian said, “and finally understood—you hate the young Emperor, and you hate the Princess too. Your feelings for her are more complicated—you wanted her dead, so you tried to have her killed; but you also didn’t want her dead, so you took Shen Qingwu from my side and sent her to protect the Princess instead.

“Were you clearing a path for her?

“Everyone is just a tool to you—the whole realm’s people mean nothing to you. You want the young Emperor utterly disgraced. You know exactly what kind of ruin he’d bring to this country, and you want the Princess on the throne instead. No one in this world believes she could actually get there!

“Only you are helping her. Helping her by destroying yourself.”

Bo Rong said nothing.

Zhang Xingjian’s eyes had gone red. “Did you begin scheming against Shen Qingwu the very moment you met her, in the twentieth year of Tianlong? From that moment on, was Wutong—was Shen Qingwu—nothing but a tool to you?”

Bo Rong lowered his eyes, smiling faintly.

“It’s done now,” he said. “There’s no use saying more. Zhang Yuelu, what could you possibly do to break my plan now—

“The wind rose from the smallest ripple, long ago. It’s far too late for any of it to matter now.”

Zhang Xingjian stared at him steadily.

Slowly, he said, “Even after all this, the Princess will still hate you.”

Bo Rong smiled.

Leaning against the wall, sunlight fell just three inches before him, and yet he himself remained entirely swallowed in shadow.

“I don’t care,” he said.

He closed his eyes.

In this world, he had calculated everything down to its furthest limit, and he was exhausted beyond words. Every time he closed his eyes, he wanted only to drift into sleep.

Every time he opened them again, he only felt tired.

Love, feeling, oaths, hatred… let it all blow away on the wind.

He was still alive only to see how this ended.

Sitting there in the dark, he watched the dust drifting in the light. “Zhang Yuelu, you’re a very clever man. When I was your age, I didn’t have your good fortune. There’s nothing left for me to do now—everything belongs to you now. The family’s honor, what kind of man to become, what direction the realm should take… you’re the one at the board now.

“I’m sorry, handing you this mess. I have no other requests—just let me see how this story ends.

“Whether the Princess lives or dies, whatever future this country meets… I only want to see the ending. Once I’ve seen it, you won’t need to do anything more—I’ll go to my death on my own.

“I’ve lived this one life, and I don’t want to leave nothing behind at all. Good or bad, I want to see it through to the end, before I go… to join my parents. Before I go to hell, to be reunited with them all. Before I can look them in the eye and tell them—my long life has finally ended.

“I want to ask them—are they satisfied.”

He looked at Zhang Xingjian. “Moon. I truly envy you.”

You still have so many chances left.

Outside, dusk was falling, the sun about to sink below the horizon forever.

What hung in the sky from now on should be the moon—patient, forgiving of everything.

The sun, whose eyes could never be shielded from the dust, was setting for good—

Zhang Xingjian looked at him. “The world calls Shen Qingwu a madwoman. You’re the true madman here.”

“Who isn’t mad?” Bo Rong asked. “Aren’t you?”

Leaning forward, smiling, he asked, “Zhang Yuelu. Dare you go mad, just once? Win, and you have everything. Lose, and you lose it all. Life is a battlefield, and love is a battle too—do you still dare step onto it?”

Zhang Xingjian stood in the small room, silent, eyes lowered—

On the eve of the New Year, in the twenty-fifth year of Tianlong.

Thunder rumbled ceaselessly overhead.

At dusk, Zhang Xingjian, leaning against the wall for support, slowly made his way home.

With every crack of thunder, his face grew a shade paler.

Seeing him so weak, Chang Lin ached for him—ever since returning from Yizhou, his lord had developed a deep, visceral fear of thunder, a wound of the heart.

What was there to fear in thunder, really?

What was truly fearsome was the wretch who’d made his lord sick like this.

In his heart, Chang Lin cursed that wretch over and over, silently regretting his own soft-heartedness—he’d once even thought she might make a fine match for his lord. And instead, she’d sooner die than marry him, and left him in this state.

“Third Young Master.”

A soft, trembling woman’s voice.

Zhang Xingjian, who had stopped at the gate of the estate, turned, and saw Shen Qingye and Qiu Jun standing there in the dim dusk light.

She bowed to him.

The young Emperor wanted to make her Empress; the Shen family was pressuring her; she had nowhere left to turn. If she waited any longer, it would be too late.

Softly, she said, “Sanlang. Might I ask a favor of you… Please, marry me. I have a plan—I want to escape all of this.”

In Yizhou, Shen Qingwu, staggering, badly wounded, returned to camp and was summoned by Li Linggeh.

She had taken many wounds, lost much blood. Hazy with exhaustion, all she wanted was to sleep.

Li Linggeh said, “Have you heard of the assassins’ guild in the martial world, Qin Yueye? They’ve offered to pledge themselves to me—if I help them rescue someone from Dongjing. A’Wu, would you be willing to make a trip to Dongjing, to help me turn Zhang Xingjian to our side?”