The doors of Princess Xie Yuzhang of Zhao’s great tent were shut, yet music could be heard drifting out from within. People knew then that Princess Zhao was practicing her dance.

As for Princess Zhao’s dancing — when Xia’erdan had come back from the Central Plains with word that the alliance marriage was settled, he had described it to everyone in vivid, animated detail. He said that she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, dancing the most beautiful dance.

Many people had actually been looking forward to the Zhao princess’s arrival so they could feast their eyes.

After Xie Yuzhang married into the Mobei Khanate, no one was disappointed — she was truly as beautiful as Xia’erdan had said. No — even more beautiful.

Herdsmen stood dumbstruck as she galloped past on horseback and lost their sheep. Wrestlers heard the sound of her laughter and lost their strength, tumbling to the ground together. Young princes found fault with the wives their parents had chosen for them, all wanting to wed a beauty as lovely as Princess Zhao.

But where in the world was a second Princess Zhao to be found?

Everyone hoped that one day they might see Princess Zhao dance. Yet a woman of such pride — her dancing was only for the Central Plains Emperor and the Khan of the grasslands to see.

Even the princes who held real power sighed with regret.

Princess Zhao grew older day by day, from a girl into a young woman, and was nearly seventeen. Her figure had grown taller, her chest had begun to fill out, and she was soon to become the Khan’s true wife.

For her sake, the Khan bathed every single day throughout summer so that no odor would cling to him — and even in winter, he bathed once every three to five days.

His fondness for Princess Zhao was known to all. He had even driven away one of his sons for her sake. The grown princes all by silent agreement gave Princess Zhao a wide berth, and the young princes could only gaze at her from afar.

However beautiful Princess Zhao might be, no one dared covet her.

It was said that Princess Zhao had promised the Khan that she would dance for him when she turned seventeen. So these past days, music could often be heard near Princess Zhao’s great tent. What a pity that it was all so tightly sealed up — no one was given a look.

The more tightly guarded it was, the more the imagination ran wild, brimming with anticipation.

The sound of the zither ceased. Xie Yuzhang bent and swayed like a willow, her slender waist a single handspan’s grasp. She stood up, a flush like the color of begonia blooming on her cheeks.

The musician said. “The princess has not practiced dance in so long, and yet her body has not grown stiff at all.”

These few musicians had followed Xie Yuzhang from the Forbidden City’s music bureau all the way to the Mobei Khanate, with nothing to do here for so long. Xie Yuzhang had become a different person — no longer the Princess Baohua who had so loved to dance.

The astonishing dance at the Hall of Supreme Harmony three years ago had seemed like a final, solitary performance.

A smile touched Xie Yuzhang’s face.

“Though I have not practiced for a long time, I exercise every day with horseback riding and archery, and I stretch my limbs daily. How could I let my body grow stiff?” She asked, “Is it all right?”

The lead musician had known Xie Yuzhang for many years and answered honestly. “Compared to the Hall of Supreme Harmony years ago, more practice is still needed. But…”

She had practiced less and could not match her former self — Xie Yuzhang was not in the least surprised. She asked. “But what?”

The musician smiled. He knew full well why Xie Yuzhang had begun practicing her dance again. He said. “But the princess is older now, and compared to those years, there is a different kind of radiance.”

Enough to bewitch that old man of the grasslands.

Once the musicians withdrew, the handmaids attended her, wiping her down and helping her change clothes. Xie Yuzhang’s figure had its graceful curves — she had truly grown up.

She raised her arms and let the handmaids dress her, and said in an offhand tone. “I wonder when the Khan will be back?”

Ashina had gone to attend the birthday banquet of Zhada Yali’s father, and to make a tour of his territory while he was at it. He had been gone nearly a month already.

Lin Fei gave her a sideways glance.

Xie Yuzhang pressed her lips together in a smile.

On another plateau meadow, a group of men waited for Li Gu to make his decision.

Mantou said. “General!”

Hu Yiliu said. “General!”

His close personal guards all looked to Li Gu.

And Li Gu stood with his hand on his sword hilt, gazing northward.

If he kept up their pace, then from here — the royal encampment was only one day’s journey away! He had already… come this close to her!

Yet — the Master had died without clear explanation, Liangzhou was in utter chaos, and the Fourth Young Master and Elder Sister had both fallen into the Second Young Master’s hands!

Hexi was clearly on the verge of collapse!

Li Gu ground his teeth!

The words he had spoken to Mantou before leaving the northern border camp had turned out to be a prophecy fulfilled!

Hu Yiliu had chased after the marks they left on the road, his speed incomprehensible. He had set out with five horses, and four were already dead from the effort. Deputy General Jiang had charged him to find Li Gu by any means necessary and urge him to return at once!

He did not know what Li Gu had come quietly to Mobei to do, and he could not understand what Li Gu was hesitating over.

At this juncture — was there anything more important than Hexi? Than Liangzhou?

There was not!

Just then, another rider came galloping up from a distance, making straight for their hiding place. That rider, still far off, gave a whistle — the agreed signal of recognition. This was a scout who had ridden on ahead of them.

Mantou whistled back. The scout came flying in, leaping off before his horse had fully stopped. “General, Ashina’s great battle standard has been spotted!”

Everyone startled.

“I hid up in a tree, and they passed underneath. When they rested, Ashina was cooling himself in the shade below that very tree.” The scout said. “They didn’t find me.”

Trees were sparse on the grasslands. In that stretch, there were just a scattered few, and Ashina had claimed the one with the fullest canopy to rest under. The scout had been hiding up in that very tree.

Ashina had completed his tour of the grasslands and was returning. He said casually, “Rest a bit and then move on.”

But then the men around him burst into laughter.

“The Khan can’t wait!” the men said, laughing.

“On this trip back, the Khan can hold Baohua Consort in his arms every single day from now on.”

“Khan, I hear the Consort promised to dance for you — could you let us watch too?”

Ashina replied smugly. “You’d watch nothing of the sort — Baohua dances only for my eyes alone!”

Everyone laughed again.

Someone stirred the pot. “Then the Khan had better have a thorough bath — scrubbing off at least three layers of skin!”

Everyone nearly split their sides laughing.

Princess Zhao had an extreme love of cleanliness, which had led to the Khan washing his hands like an obedient child before every meal they shared together.

But if it were them, they would be willing too.

A pretty handmaid holding a delicate silver basin, and Consort Baohua personally rolling up his sleeves, personally rinsing his hands for him. With the honey-scented soap suds rubbed carefully in, washed clean and dried, and then a coat of pearl cream smoothed onto those hands.

The skin on the Khan’s hands had actually become quite a few shades softer and smoother.

They’d heard the Central Plains Emperor ate like this every single meal. The Khan did not find it the slightest bit tiresome — he quite enjoyed it.

Ashina’s face was thick-skinned indeed, yet even he reddened slightly under their laughter.

He kicked several of them and cursed. “Drink your water and eat your food, then go and relieve yourselves! Move faster — another day’s ride and we’re home!”

Everyone said. “Oh, in such a hurry!”

The scout had heard all of this, but naturally he would not recite it word for word at length. Besides, back when they had escorted the princess on the marriage journey… he was not blind.

He merely said vaguely. “Fortunately, Ashina was in a hurry to get back, so they left quickly.”

Yet his eyes had a slightly evasive look about them.

He was hiding something. And Ashina — why was Ashina in such a hurry to get back?

Of course — because her birthday was nearly upon them! She was about to turn seventeen!

Among all of them, the one who knew the most, and knew it most clearly, was Mantou.

Back then, outside the courtyard wall, on the snow-piled mound — everyone who had been at Li Gu’s side was there.

What they had come to do on this trip — everyone had vague guesses, but only he knew with full clarity.

On the back of Li Gu’s sword hand, the tendons had risen up in cords. The muscles in his jaw twisted out of shape — clearly he was biting down on his teeth.

Mantou did not dare say another word.

“Where is he, how far away, what direction, how many men?” Li Gu suddenly asked.

He was asking about Ashina, of course.

The scout gave a detailed report, and had also marked the trail along the way. On terrain like this, one reckoned direction first by the stars, then by the sun, and then by the markers one’s own people had left. Otherwise, how could Hu Yiliu have found them with such precision.

A chance encounter with the Mobei Khan under circumstances where his own side were concealed while the enemy was exposed — such an opportunity was rare beyond reckoning. In an instant, Li Gu had made his decision.

“Mantou stays with me.” He ordered. “The rest of you take Hu Yiliu and head south first. I will catch up with you shortly. If I do not catch up, then make your own way back.”

His close personal men had already guessed what he was about to do, and every one of them drew in a sharp, cold breath. The scout had just said that Ashina’s men numbered anywhere from eight hundred to a thousand. Those he brought were certainly the most elite of the Khan’s personal guard in the entire Mobei Khanate!

And they numbered only a dozen men, with some twenty-odd horses!

What the General was about to do was snatching live coals from the fire! Dancing on the tip of a blade!

There was no knowing at all whether he would come back alive!

“Move!” Li Gu bellowed.

Military orders were absolute — no one under Li Gu’s command dared disobey them. Everyone had no choice but to help Hu Yiliu onto a horse and have a man ride behind him to carry him along.

Li Gu took Mantou with him, glanced at the position of the sun, calculated the direction, and with a squeeze of his heels to the horse’s belly, rode out like the wind, leaving a trail of dust in their wake.

Ashina Suilibai was in an excellent mood, looking forward to returning home so that he could at last make Princess Baohua Xie Yuzhang his true wife.

When someone by his side said “Hey, are there people on that rise?”, he instinctively turned to look.

The man had chosen his position brilliantly. He was shooting with the sun behind him. The sun on the grasslands was fierce, and everyone who looked toward him was blinded by the glare for a split instant.

That was the split instant between life and death.

By the time Ashina heard the arrow shrieking through the air, it was already too late.

The speed of that arrow demonstrated the shooter’s extraordinary physical strength — and even here on the grasslands, only Ashina Suilibai himself could match it.

Who could have such terrible strength?

In the last instant before death, Ashina recalled a young man. That young man had gripped his sword and blocked the way in front of the felt-curtained door, refusing to let him through.

Damned wretch — inside there was… his wife.

A generation’s king of the grasslands passed from the world, like a falling star.

Compared to the other life, when he had died from a venomous serpent’s bite while relieving himself, this death was far more dignified.

Yet he need not have died at all — his young wife had already resolved to steer him clear of the misfortune that serpent would have brought.

Yet that young man had decided, for her sake, to kill him.

The caprice of fate — no one could ever explain it.

Li Gu struck with a single blow and immediately wheeled his horse, galloping down the slope at full speed.

He shouted. “Ride!”

At the foot of the slope, Mantou who had been keeping watch cracked his whip and burst out like a gust of wind!

Behind them, hoofbeats rolled like thunder. The Mobei Khanate’s most elite Khan personal guards spread forward like a black shadow swiftly engulfing everything.

Before this black shadow, two riders on two horses pushed their mounts to the absolute limit, riding for their very lives.

Live or die — nothing in between!

Arrows shrieked through the air. Both men flattened themselves against their horses, and the stray arrows passed just above their backs as if scraping over them.

Li Gu sprang upright. He already had his bow in hand. Turning back, he loosed three arrows in rapid succession. The three riders at the front of the pursuit fell from their horses. One of them collided with the man behind him. Another tripped up the horse of a companion.

Mantou also turned and fired rapidly.

To become Li Gu’s close personal guard, Mantou was by no means an ordinary man. The close personal guard of Hexi’s Eleventh Young Master Li Gu were among the elite of the elite.

This chase was breathtaking.

When Mantou finally heard the familiar whistle signal, the horse under him was nearly spent. He shoved two fingers in his mouth and let out a sharp, piercing whistle in return — long and short, a clear signal to the companions ahead.

When Li Gu and Mantou spotted the silhouettes of their companions, they had already switched to fresh horses and were picking up speed.

Behind them, two horses had been set loose with slackened reins, galloping free. Those were left for Li Gu and Mantou.

Li Gu and Mantou drove their warhorses on once more, this time for all they had. They raised their feet, pressed down in the saddle, and with a powerful push they launched themselves through the air, hurling themselves onto the two other horses!

The two warhorses before them cried out in grief. That final kick had drained the last of their life. They screamed as they collapsed, and were trampled by the pursuing enemy.

Li Gu and Mantou were on fresh horses, and in an instant they had put on speed and caught up with their companions ahead. Their companions turned back again and again to fire rapid shots.

In this kind of high-speed pursuit, arrows fired ahead of the enemy at targets pursuing from behind were far more dangerous. The pursuers were galloping forward — directly into the arrows, naturally shortening the range with every stride.

This chase lasted from midafternoon until the sun tilted to the west. The hoofbeats gradually faded. Li Gu’s group had finally shaken off their pursuers.

When they were certain they were safe and finally able to stop and rest, both men and horses were nearly drained of everything.

“Exhilarating!” someone dropped to the ground and grinned. “Haven’t felt this alive in a long time.”

These past two or three years the Mobei people had returned to their ancestral lands, and the seasons had been better than in prior years. They had not come to harass them much — only minor skirmishes, nothing large-scale.

Others asked eagerly. “General — did it succeed?”

Li Gu lifted his eyelids.

“It succeeded.” he said. “The old man — is dead.”

He raised the water skin his guards had passed to him and tilted his head back.

Water poured in, flooding down his throat, which burned like fire. As had just been said by someone else — exhilarating!

He could not bring her back. But she loathed that old man so much — and he had killed the old man, so that she would not have to serve him.

She… would be happy, surely?

She certainly would be, Li Gu thought.