The horse trotted through the deep mountains, not moving very fast due to the night and poor visibility. He Yan felt somewhat disappointed – finally getting to ride Green Ears, yet unable to experience its legendary ability to “cross mountains and waters as if walking on flat ground.”

What a waste.

Starlight and moonlight filtered through the forest branches. Sitting on horseback, He Yan finally had the leisure to observe her surroundings. As she looked around, she spotted a wolf lying not far away, clearly dead.

She was momentarily puzzled, and after moving forward a few steps, she saw another wolf corpse.

After seeing about three such wolf corpses, He Yan realized this wasn’t coincidental. She swallowed and carefully asked, “Xiao… Commander, did you do all this?”

“Since I encountered them on the way, I eliminated them. Otherwise, they would have followed us, which would have been troublesome,” he answered.

He Yan marveled inwardly – as expected of the young killing general, dealing death at the slightest provocation. No wonder they hadn’t encountered any wolves along the way; the brave ones must have all been killed by Xiao Jue. She looked at the wolf corpses again – each killed with a single precise throat strike, the wounds remarkably small and accurate.

Her gaze shifted slightly downward to the sword at Xiao Jue’s waist. Everyone knew General Feng Yun had both a famous horse and a precious sword. The horse was named Green Ears, and the sword was called Yin Qiu. Her Blue Wave Blade had a blue gleam and could cut through iron like mud. Legend said Yin Qiu was crystalline throughout, like frost and snow. Now Yin Qiu hung at Xiao Jue’s waist, still sheathed, revealing nothing of its nature.

These wolves must have all died by Yin Qiu’s blade. Since ancient times, precious swords were gifts for heroes, and He Yan thought she barely qualified as a hero. Seeing the precious sword, she couldn’t resist wanting to touch it.

She quietly reached back to feel it.

Suddenly, she felt the body behind her stiffen. He Yan immediately withdrew her hand, exclaiming, “I didn’t mean to touch your waist, I just wanted to feel your sword!”

After a moment, a voice containing barely suppressed anger came from behind, “You can stay quiet.”

“I’ll die of boredom if I don’t talk,” He Yan said. “Commander, you don’t need to be so serious.” She continued, “Look, you killed so many wolves but didn’t take them with you. These wolves will just end up benefiting the mountain foxes. Forget about the meat, the wolf pelts are excellent. The one I killed has damaged fur, only good for boots. But these you killed have intact pelts, enough to make a great cloak. Though a wolf-skin cloak wouldn’t suit you – your clothes are surely made of finer materials – why not let me have them? With a wolf-skin cloak in winter, I could roll around in the snow.”

Xiao Jue seemed dizzy from her rambling, yet still responded, though not kindly. He curved his lips mockingly and said, “Since you love wolf pelts so much, no wonder you wouldn’t let go of the dead wolf in the pit.”

“That wasn’t it, I was just too cold,” He Yan shook her head. “Commander loves cleanliness and dislikes filth, can’t stand the smell of beast blood on clothes. We’re different – never mind a dead wolf, I’ve even slept in piles of corpses.”

After a moment of silence, Xiao Jue asked, “When?”

“It was when I was young, I barely remember now,” He Yan looked at the stars. “Back then, it was for survival, no choice. A pile of corpses is just a pile of corpses – after all, I was the only one who survived from that pile.”

She thought Xiao Jue would ask for details and was ready to make up a story, but surprisingly, he didn’t pursue it, leaving her prepared explanation unused.

He Yan’s thoughts drifted to the past.

It was shortly after she arrived in Mo County when a unit of new Fu Yue army recruits encountered Western Qiang people at the desert’s edge.

They were all recruits who didn’t know how to fight, acting only on raw courage. But that courage was quickly scattered by the Western Qiang’s brutality. In the end, the entire unit was wiped out.

He Yan was severely wounded then but didn’t die. She hid under the bodies of her comrades, barely breathing. The Western Qiang set fire to all the corpses before leaving. At that time, He Yan thought she was truly doomed to die in that desert.

But heaven wouldn’t let her die. Suddenly, rain began to fall, extinguishing the flames on the bodies. He Yan had no strength to move, nor did she dare to move. She couldn’t even cry out loud.

The youths who had been joking with her yesterday were now corpses. The senior brother who had scolded her that morning was now decapitated. Lying among the dismembered remains, she experienced war’s cruelty for the first time. In that pile of corpses, smelling the blood, she kept her eyes open and cried all night.

At dawn, a passerby came by. He buried all the bodies on the spot, giving them a proper burial, and discovered the barely breathing He Yan, saving her life.

Later, He Yan thought countless times that although she had lived as a man in the capital, she hadn’t been strong enough, always keeping a way out in her heart. But after that night, she often stopped leaving herself escape routes. She wasn’t a girl; no one would wipe away her tears on the battlefield. The only thing to do was survive every life-and-death struggle.

At any time, survival came first. For survival, what did it matter to lie next to a wolf’s corpse? If necessary, if there truly was no way out, she could even eat raw wolf meat.

But Xiao Jue probably couldn’t understand this.

He Yan sighed softly in her heart. At this moment, she truly felt some cold.

The young man wore black clothes and armor, his cloak blocking the chill. He Yan feared dirtying his clothes and dared not lean back too much, yet couldn’t help looking up at him. From this angle, she could perfectly see his beautiful jawline.

Xiao Jue was truly handsome – in both her past and present life, He Yan had to admit this fact. He was both handsome and heroic, with elegant bearing. Though aloof, he always carried a somewhat heart-stirring casualness.

His most beautiful feature was his eyes, clear and cool like autumn waters as if nothing in the world was reflected in them. It made people wonder involuntarily what tenderness those eyes might show if they ever seriously gazed at someone.

She remembered his hand reaching out to her in the pit, and thought of the phrase “fingers as tender and long as spring bamboo shoots, eyes as clear and blue as autumn waves,” feeling it perfectly suited him.

No wonder his beauty earned him the title “Jade-faced Commander.” Thinking about it made her frustrated – they were both young generals, why did he get to be called “Jade-faced Commander” while she could only be “Masked General”? He Yan thought, that if she had removed her mask then, she might have earned a title like “Military Pan An” or something similar.

Lost in her thoughts, she alternated between admiringly staring at Xiao Jue’s face and sighing dejectedly in disappointment, looking quite like a mad woman. In Xiao Jue’s eyes, her behavior was inexplicable.

And quite foolish.