When Li Shuang regained consciousness, she found herself half-buried in muddy ground. As she tried to move her legs, she realized that the more she struggled, the deeper she sank into the mire. Immediately, Li Shuang calmed herself and dared not move further. Darkness surrounded her, save for a faint light about ten zhang away. In this dim illumination, she vaguely discerned a figure lying nearby. The person was flat on the mud, with only their heavy-booted feet submerged in the swamp. Li Shuang called out softly, “Your Highness?”
The man grunted lightly, awakened by her call. As he stirred slightly, Li Shuang noticed his body sink for a moment. “Don’t move!” she commanded urgently.
Sima Yang quickly grasped their predicament. “A swamp?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t seem natural. It’s more like a deliberate trap.”
Li Shuang looked up, spotting a large, dark hole above them. They had likely fallen through it, but now four or five thick wooden stakes blocked the opening. This was undoubtedly a man-made trap.
“Now I know where all those felled trees went,” she mused.
They had been used to create this trap underground, neither burned nor built with nor transported away. But who would do this, and why?
Moments earlier, Li Shuang and Sima Yang had led their guards to investigate the forest. Li Shuang had intended to circle the outskirts, reluctant to risk the Crown Prince’s safety by entering. However, upon reaching the forest’s edge, they heard faint cries for help from within. Li Shuang, skeptical of supernatural claims, wanted to investigate alone, but Sima Yang insisted on accompanying her. Together with their guards, they entered the eerie woods.
Felled trees littered the ground, leaving behind a scarred landscape of stumps. The atmosphere in the desolate forest grew increasingly sinister. As they followed the cries for help deeper into the woods, Li Shuang grew uneasy. They were approaching the area where the “rising corpse” of the old woman had been discovered. Just as Li Shuang was about to order everyone to halt, a white figure suddenly attacked from the side.
Li Shuang drew her sword, but before she could engage, the assailant moved with unexpected speed, seizing Sima Yang and dragging him forward. Li Shuang and the guards gave chase, but after a few steps, the ground gave way beneath them. They plummeted into an underground stone chamber.
The chamber floor was littered with bones, the nauseating stench having dissipated. Li Shuang’s eyes locked onto the white figure as it pulled Sima Yang into a dilapidated cave behind the chamber. She pursued, but the cave system proved labyrinthine. Multiple paths soon appeared before them. Li Shuang ordered the group to split up, and as she and a guard prepared to take the right-hand tunnel, the white figure suddenly reappeared.
It knocked the guard to the ground. Li Shuang’s eyes narrowed as she raised her sword to block the attacker’s strike, forcing them to pause. Upon closer inspection, she realized the weapon clashing with her eight-sided sword was a finely crafted steel fan. The person wielding it was… the “spy”? The well-dressed man who had escaped from Luchen’s prison?
It was him!
“My, General Li is indeed formidable,” he chuckled softly as if greeting an acquaintance on the street.
Li Shuang demanded fiercely, “Who are you? Where is His Highness?”
The man smiled, seemingly harmless. “I’ll take you to him.” As he spoke, two whips suddenly lashed out from the cave behind him. Li Shuang pivoted, withdrawing her sword to dodge one while Qin Lan, who had rushed back upon hearing the commotion, blocked the other.
As Qin Lan reached to pull Li Shuang behind him, the man’s fan flew through the air, slicing Qin Lan’s arm before spinning back to strike Li Shuang’s head. The blow to her weak spot left her dizzy and unsteady. In her daze, she felt her arm grabbed tightly as the scenery blurred around her.
She tried to resist, fighting through the vertigo to plant her feet and raise her sword to strike. Suddenly, a forceful push to her shoulder sent her stumbling backward. A sensation of weightlessness followed as dizziness once again overwhelmed her senses.
When she awoke, she found herself in her current predicament.
Li Shuang couldn’t understand why the man had isolated her and Sima Yang here. What about the others? How would he deal with their accompanying guards? Moreover, though she couldn’t be certain, the man’s speed and techniques seemed remarkably similar to those of the mysterious black-armored figure. Were they connected somehow? Perhaps disciples of the same master?
However, Li Shuang had no time to ponder these questions. Her heavy armor was dragging her deeper into the mud. Earlier, it had only reached her waist, but now it was nearing her chest. Carefully, she raised her hands to unfasten the breastplate and shoulder guards. She glanced at Sima Yang beside her.
His situation was somewhat better. He lay flat on the mud, almost floating on its surface. Only his excessively heavy combat boots had sunk deep into the mire. While he could move the rest of his body freely, he dared not, knowing that any shift in weight distribution would cause him to sink further.
The only solution was to give him a foothold. If he had something to step or push against, he could safely jump out of the swamp.
“Your Highness,” Li Shuang called out, “do you still have strength?”
“Yes.”
“My arm is here. You can use it to escape the swamp.”
Sima Yang fell silent for a moment. “If I step on your arm and push off, what will happen to you?”
“I’ll find a way…”
“What way?”
Faced with Sima Yang’s pressing question, Li Shuang remained silent.
In truth, she had no solution. Given their current situation, she could only save Sima Yang. If they delayed, sinking deeper, even using her as leverage would become impossible, and they would both perish here.
Sacrificing herself to save the Crown Prince was a decision Li Shuang, as a general, made instinctively.
“Your Highness, it is our duty to protect you at all costs. You must not come to any harm here in the northern frontier.”
“Li Shuang,” Sima Yang finally called her by name, as he had in their intimate past, “you want me to save myself by killing you?”
Li Shuang paused briefly. “This is the only way to rescue you, Your Highness. If my death here ensures your safety, then I implore you… do not let our past relationship cloud your judgment of the greater picture.”
The “greater picture” they both understood all too well. At court, the Third Prince, backed by the Prime Minister, coveted the throne. If anything were to happen to Sima Yang here, allowing the Third Prince to ascend, the Empress, the General’s household, and all of the Crown Prince’s court allies would face dire consequences.
“Your Highness, I’ve been stationed at the frontier for years, occasionally hearing news from the capital. I understand you now have an heir, and affairs at court have become more stable…”
“Li Shuang,” Sima Yang interrupted, “we parted three years ago, and I’ve thought of you ever since. Now, do you intend to make me remember you for the rest of my life?”
Li Shuang’s eyes flickered momentarily before she forced a smile. “I dare say, my desperate attempt to save you today is a ploy to secure a future favor from you, Your Highness. It’s insurance against any potential trouble my forthright nature might cause me in the future.”
“With me, you need never fear consequences for your words.”
Li Shuang’s expression grew serious as she struggled to move closer to the Crown Prince, curling her arm beneath his boots. “Your Highness.”
Sima Yang remained silent and motionless for a long while. Finally, he let out a soft sigh. “Li Shuang, when you get out of here, I’ll grant you any wish.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
In an instant, Sima Yang rose. His body sank slightly, but his feet found purchase on Li Shuang’s arm. With a powerful push, he leaped upward as Li Shuang felt herself plunge deeper into the swamp. Sima Yang soared through the air, his armor shedding clumps of mud, and landed on solid ground three zhang away.
When he turned back, Li Shuang had vanished beneath the surface of the mire.
The mud showed little disturbance, settling calmly over the recent activity. Covered in mud, Sima Yang clenched his fists. He stood there for a moment, seeing nothing nearby that could be used to retrieve her. Gritting his teeth, his eyes dark with resolve, he turned and strode towards the source of light nearby.
The clanging of his armor against stone faded into the distance.
What he didn’t see was a small bubble that slowly rose to the surface of the mud pit after his departure.
Suddenly, a figure crashed through the wooden barrier above the black hole, bringing with it a gust of icy wind. With an expression of near despair, it plunged headfirst into the murky swamp.
Moments later, the mud began to churn violently, as if pushed by a great force from within. With a thunderous “boom,” the entire pit exploded, splattering mud across the cave walls. As the mud slowly slid down the walls, pooling at the bottom, a half-naked man tightly embraced Li Shuang at the center of what had been the mud pit.
She had held her breath, preventing mud from entering her nose and mouth, but the prolonged lack of oxygen had turned her face a dark blue-black. Her breathing had all but stopped.
Jin’an held her close, desperately compressing her chest. “No, you can’t,” he pleaded, his bloodshot eyes brimming with tears that fell onto Li Shuang’s blackened face.
“I won’t let you die. You can’t die,” he repeated, his voice hoarse with despair.
She could do anything – love another, marry another, belong to another – but she couldn’t die. If she died, even his pain would lose its meaning.