“My lord! This way!”

A soldier covered in blood came galloping out of the forest on horseback, his expression urgent and strained.

Six swift horses immediately fell in behind him, spurring hard into the dense forest.

Xu You’s great red horse was sheltered in the midst of his personal guards. After fighting their way through several engagements and breaking through the encirclement of the Zhenchuan Army troops who had turned against them, they had barely managed to escape this far. Of the more than two hundred personal guards he’d set out with, only the seven men now at his side remained.

Xu You himself was in no better condition.

During the last breakthrough, he had taken an arrow in the abdomen. The archer had been a man of great strength, and the shaft had pierced clean through the leather armor, driving the arrowhead deep into his side.

He had snapped the shaft and kept running with the arrowhead lodged inside his body for another full day.

Reinforcements were still nowhere in sight.

He had nothing left to give.

With a heavy thud, Xu You fell from his great red horse. Several startled horses let out shrill whinnies, their hooves grazing past him by the narrowest margin.

The dark flash of hooves passed through Xu You’s dimming eyes.

One by one, his guards dismounted in a hurry and threw themselves toward him.

“My lord!”

The guards gently turned his body and laid him flat. Blood seeped from beneath his leather armor, soaking into the dry earth below.

“Go… leave me…” Xu You said.

“No! My lord, we leave together!”

The refusal rang out in unison. A soldier moved to lift him, but the moment his body shifted, a great surge of warm blood poured from beneath the armor.

Someone let out a low, muffled sob.

Despair passed through the air between them.

“Don’t worry about me… go…” Xu You said weakly, his unfocused gaze passing one by one over the familiar faces around him. “This is as far as I can go…”

“If you stay behind, my lord, then we all stay behind! The forest can conceal our tracks to some degree — that should buy us at least some time,” said a soldier who served as a scout, his voice trembling. “My lord has survived so many fierce battles. This time will be no different. My lord, you once told us yourself — in the most difficult moments, we must never surrender our spirit —”

“That’s right! My lord must hold on — even if it costs us our lives, we brothers will get my lord out of this!”

“My lord must hold on — we will make it out!”

“Little Six has already broken through — if we can hold on a little longer, reinforcements will come!”

The guards spoke over one another, each with a single purpose, as if rousing Xu You’s will to survive could slow the rate at which his blood was flowing out.

They knew this was nothing more than an impossible wish. Yet what else could they do? There was nothing else by which they could hold on to the life that was draining from Xu You.

The muffled sobs slowly became open weeping, and more and more of the guards were in tears. Streams of water cut through faces covered in dust and dried blood.

“A man bleeds but does not weep… have you forgotten… everything I taught you?” Xu You said faintly. “I came from a humble background, and I staked everything I had to get where I am. I thought… that I had finally found the chance to do something real for this world. I never imagined… I care for the people, yet the people cannot care for me… it is what it is… it is heaven’s will…”

Xu You struggled to raise the corners of his mouth into a wan smile:

“But at least… the Shang River Weir was rebuilt before the rainy season. The people of four provinces… need never live in fear again…”

“My lord…”

Sensing that he was settling his affairs, Xu You’s guards could not help but break into open sobs.

Xu You reached out a blood-soaked hand and pulled a command token from beneath his armor, placing it in the hands of the youngest guard. He held the young man’s hand tightly — and the token with it — his gaze fixed intently on him, speaking each word with deliberate care:

“Of all the prefects across Zhenchuan’s six provinces, only Li Zhuzong is truly capable… this man has both valor and strategy… but most importantly… he holds a benevolent heart toward the people of this world… and he has come to my aid in my darkest hour, time and again… take this… and give it to him…”

Xu You held the guard’s gaze without blinking, his trembling voice heavy with emphasis:

“Tell him… I am entrusting him with what I was unable to finish…”

“My lord!” the guard wept. “You must hold on — reinforcements will be here soon!”

Water droplets fell onto Xu You’s face. They were cold.

A second drop fell.

Then a third, a fourth… the drops joined into a curtain of fine rain.

Rain and tears washed the grime from the faces of the guards, one by one.

The dirt was gone. The grief did not move an inch.

A dense, steady rain descended over a world turned grey.

Raindrops struck Xu You’s weary eyelids, making it harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

From his vision — now merging into a single blurred line — he strained to hold the image of this long-awaited rain in his mind.

He had finally done it. He had repaired the Shang River Weir before the rainy season.

Something slid from the corner of his eye. Xu You could no longer tell whether it was rain or tears.

He gazed up at the dark, rain-filled sky and smiled — a foolish, contented smile.

“How wonderful… how wonderful…”

…

Li Wu led twenty thousand men on a forced march toward Shang Province. Every small band of rebels they encountered along the way scattered in every direction. Li Que captured a handful for questioning, but nothing useful could be gotten from any of them.

These small bands of rebels were unwilling either to join the Zhenchuan Army’s rebellion against the former Prefect or to aid the weakened Prefect in suppressing the rebels, and so they simply took to the hills and became roving bandits.

When they had left Xiangzhou, all they knew was that fierce fighting had broken out in the city; beyond that, they knew nothing.

Li Wu absorbed the vast majority of them into his ranks, and made an example of the troublemakers — those who had already developed a taste for killing and plunder — to bring the rest into line. He then pressed on toward Shang Province with his consolidated force.

The closer they drew to the Shang Province frontier, the more such small bands they encountered.

Li Wu gradually came to learn that Xu You had fled the administrative seat of Shang Province, the county of Shangluo, with only two hundred personal guards.

They had to find Xu You before the rebels did.

There was still no word of Xu You’s whereabouts. To make matters worse, a heavy rain began to fall from the sky, slowing the march again and again.

The rain soaked their armor and horses, and each face was streaked with cold water.

As night descended, the rain made the sky so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Li Wu had no choice but to order the troops to halt and make camp where they stood.

After the temporary camp had been set up, Li Wu sat inside the tent with the flap open, frowning as he watched the rain that had been falling the entire day without any sign of easing.

With rain this heavy, was the water level rising?

If it kept up for several more days like this, it might…

“Big Brother!”

Li Que’s urgent voice interrupted his thoughts.

Li Que came running through the rain, his face taut with alarm:

“The scouts report a lone cavalry rider fleeing ahead, five li from here — possibly one of Xu You’s personal guards!”

Li Wu shot to his feet and ducked out of the tent. “Bring my horse!”

There was no time to lose. He immediately selected a hundred men to form a light cavalry squad and galloped toward the location where the scouts had spotted the tracks.

Less than an incense stick’s burn later, Li Wu arrived at the spot where the scouts had found the guard — but the place was already deserted.

Li Que was about to speak when Li Wu’s expression shifted, and he gave Li Que a sharp look to silence him.

The heavy rain had swallowed the marks of hoofbeats, and turned what should have been a still night into something noisy and chaotic. Li Wu closed his eyes and listened intently to the sounds around him.

A faint whistle of air came and went in an instant, but Li Wu caught it.

He opened his eyes, seized the reins, and pressed his legs hard against the horse’s flanks. “This way!”

The group plunged into the dense forest, hurtling through the darkness.

The sound of arrows cutting through the air drew nearer and clearer, chasing a stumbling figure — and the silhouettes of several riders in pursuit came into focus.

Li Que received Li Wu’s signal. With a single gesture, the cavalry archers behind him all raised their longbows.

“Swish!”

In quick succession, the pursuers toppled from their horses one after another, and Li Wu, arriving behind them, drove his horse ruthlessly over their bodies without hesitation.

A personal guard who had been running with the last of his strength collapsed in the rain.

Li Wu swung down from his horse and strode quickly toward the man.

“Where is Xu You?!” he demanded.

“You… you’re the… Xiangzhou… prefect…” The guard struggled to pry open his rain-battered eyelids and worked to identify the face now before him.

“I am!” Li Wu, heedless of the blood and filth on the man, lifted his upper body out of the pool beneath him.

The unusual warmth against his hands made him suddenly realize this was not a pool of water.

In the dim moonlight, his palm was stained a deep red.

“Thank heaven… we’re saved… reinforcements… have finally come…” The guard, whose face still held the unformed quality of someone no older than sixteen or seventeen, let out a relieved breath laced with tears.

Li Wu tucked the blood-stained hand out of sight and said, “The others — where are they? Where is Xu You?”

“My lord… my lord…” Tears spilled from the guard’s eyes. “My lord didn’t make it to the end… the others all gave their lives so I could break through…”

“My lord wanted me to give you this…” The guard trembled as he reached into his clothes and drew out a command token.

Li Wu took it, brushed the rain from its surface, and saw that it was a tiger-tally.

“My lord said…” The guard’s breathing grew labored, his voice breaking. “He said… he is entrusting you… with what he was unable to finish… you must not… betray… my lord’s… trust…”

Having said this, the guard’s breathing slowly grew faint.

“Am I… going to die?”

“You still have the energy to jabber — you’re not dying that easily.” Li Wu helped the man up, bearing almost all of his weight, half-supporting and half-dragging him toward his horse.

“When we get back to Xiangzhou, I’ll show you what a miracle physician in our Xiangzhou can do.”

“Th… thank you, my lord… My mother… she has no one else… I can’t… leave her alone…”

“Stop talking and save your strength for the road, and you’ll make it home to be with her.” Li Wu said.

“All right… all right… thank you… my lord…”

Li Wu helped the man to the horse’s side and said to Li Que beside him, “Come give me a hand here.”

Li Que took hold of the guard’s limp body, then paused — and went still.

“What is it?”

With the rain pouring down in sheets, Li Wu had to raise his voice to be heard.

“He… is already gone,” Li Que said.

Li Wu was startled. He looked at the guard he had been supporting, and at some point that youthful face had fallen still, eyes gently closed.

As peaceful as a man who had simply fallen asleep.

The dense, clamorous sound of rain filled the whole world.

“Big Brother, where do we go now?” Li Que spoke up, breaking the silence.

Li Wu settled the guard’s body at the base of a large, leafy tree, swung up onto his horse, and said in a low, steady voice:

“…To Shang Province. To let those sons of scoundrels know that a rebellion is not a game anyone can play.”

…

Rain pelted the eaves, its sound swallowing nearly every other noise in the world.

Shen Zhuxi was startled awake in the middle of the night by the rain. The relentless downpour made sleep impossible, and she simply gave up, rose, draped her outer robe around her shoulders, and lit the candle on the table.

Her heart was pounding.

Whenever something bad was about to happen, she was always struck by an inexplicable unease.

She trusted her sixth sense, for it had never failed her — it had been so on the day of the princess’s wedding procession, and it had been so on the day the Shang River Weir collapsed.

What was the cause of her anxiety today?

Shen Zhuxi thought of Li Wu leading troops far from home, and her unease only grew.

If it were possible, she truly wished Li Wu could be like a civil official — commanding from the rear, never again standing at the front line, making her worry every day. But she knew this was impossible.

If he could let his brothers shed blood out there while he lived in comfort at the rear, he wouldn’t be the Li Wu his men swore by, and he wouldn’t be the Li Wu she admired.

She swallowed her worry and smiled each time she saw him off, then prayed again and again to the gods and Buddhas he didn’t believe in, asking that he return safely.

Do not take anything from him — that was the vow she made. Whatever the gods and Buddhas wished to take, let them come to her instead.

No price was too great. She only wanted her Li Wu to escape every danger and come home safe, again and again.

She sat there until the rain outside the window grew quieter and the sky began to pale. Just as drowsiness was at last catching up with her and she was about to return to bed for a brief rest, she suddenly heard the sound of hurried footsteps outside the courtyard.

“Madam, something terrible has happened!”

A heavy pair of footsteps crossed into the rear courtyard, and an unfamiliar male voice came through that made Shen Zhuxi’s heart seize. All trace of sleep vanished in an instant.

For an outside man to enter the rear courtyard of the Li residence, the circumstances had to be exceptional.

Something of the utmost urgency had to have occurred for him to come here.

Shen Zhuxi fastened her outer robe, opened the door, and stepped out.

“What has happened?”

“The — the false Emperor has reached Xiangzhou!” the messenger said, his face ashen. “An army of one hundred thousand men — they’ve surrounded all four city gates of Xiangyang!”