Washed and dressed, I lift the mirror to look closely—between my brows, a lingering melancholy; clear water welling with endless tears, remembering yesterday’s terror that broke my heart…

Chen Dasheng sat solemnly before Qiqian’er’s dressing table, studying his own reflection in the bronze mirror for a full two hours.

A pregnant woman always overthinks things. After last night’s ordeal, she’d come home and fallen straight into a deep sleep—and, and she’d snored too. And… passed gas? Ground her teeth? Talked in her sleep?

She—she talked in her sleep too?

Chen Dasheng hadn’t been able to sleep at all. His wife had carried him flying straight to a beggar, saying she didn’t know how to teach, only how to hit.

Not the delicate, fragrant-fisted kind of hitting either—the kind where she swung a broken steel spear and pounded people straight into pulp.

That man was called Pang Tu, once fed and honored as the Great Patron of Yueong Mountain, an old recluse who’d claimed an entire lone peak in the green highlands, with countless disciples beneath him—mention any one of them and they’d be a name that rang through the martial world. Yet he’d died at his own wife’s hands. Even Yueong Mountain, which dared clash directly with Qinshe, didn’t dare set half a foot into Baiquan Mountain.

Not just Yueong Mountain—Qinshe didn’t dare either.

Meng Dichen had sent countless secret agents year after year searching for her; last year alone, the Ministry of Revenue’s allocation for this single matter had reached no less than eight thousand strings of cash.

And yet he had slept with her? And gotten her pregnant?

Chen Dasheng thought he must be dreaming, and tried hard to wake himself—he’d jumped around, babbled nonsense, thrown punches left and right, nearly dropped to his knees to beg his ancestors and the gods.

But right in front of him, his wife had shattered a massive tree with a single strike. That tree—one that took five men with arms spread wide to encircle—had turned into a pile of uniform, thumb-sized chunks. Chen Dasheng, wordless, had knocked his own head against a tree, and his wife, seeing him act the fool, had shattered a boulder with a single palm strike as a follow-up…

This time he was thoroughly, completely awake, and Chen Dasheng began worrying about A’Nai’s peace of mind.

Who had given the old lady the nerve to spend ten strings of cash hiring this literal deity to be his wife? Was there something wrong with his face?

Chen Dasheng studied his own reflection in the bronze mirror again. No… no flowers growing on it, right? Not particularly handsome either?

He forced a smile, poking at the dimple on his cheek. Was it because he was obedient, never provoked her anger, and had a sweet smile?

A wave of nausea hit him, and Chen Dasheng shuddered, slapping himself once.

Unconsciously, he reached out and pulled open his wife’s jewelry box. In an instant, dazzling light spilled out—jewels and ornaments of every color, radiant and precious. And yet… she’d earned every bit of it herself.

Chen Dasheng recalled the offering silver the Ministry of Revenue had received again last year for Baiquan Mountain, for the “Locust Tree Goddess.” She didn’t even care about money—casually turning down offers of a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand strings without a second thought… And what was he, by comparison? A pauper with only five hundred coins to his name each month?

She was worth far more reverence than some flying-immortal-like figure such as himself—she genuinely had a temple, and its incense burned strong.

His unseen spirit seemed to drift out through his seven orifices as Chen Dasheng, in a daze, received an education from Uncle Xin. As a scout, he naturally recognized who this was. The Beggar King! Ancestor of every beggar under heaven, with hundreds of thousands of disciples beneath him—yet ordered about by his own wife without the slightest flicker of anger.

So… had he just learned the Beggar Sect’s swift-footwork technique?

Well, fighting stray dogs over scraps—how could you not learn to run fast?

But this was the Beggar Sect’s inherited legacy—how could it be handed over so easily?

Chen Dasheng wasn’t stupid; once he came to his senses, he studied earnestly. But out of the corner of his eye, he kept catching glimpses of horrifying, heart-shattering sights—that woman, carrying his child, struck down with one palm, and countless splintered logs piled into a bonfire, the fresh wood’s sap unable to keep it from catching fire?

With one more strike from her, the wood dried instantly and the flames roared to life.

Rattled and distracted, he studied poorly, getting struck again and again, repeatedly kicked down from the tree by the old beggar. Tumbling down, he looked up just as his wife came down the mountain, hauling a stag over her shoulder.

The stag’s antlers branched like tall trees, its body so massive it blocked half his wife from view—yet she killed it herself, reaching out and snapping its neck with a crack. The massive stag crashed to the ground.

Chen Dasheng crashed down from the tree at the same moment.

The old beggar complained to his wife in disgust: “Madam, did you really marry a block of elm wood?”

His wife replied, “Isn’t that fitting, though? Wood matched with wood.”

She then drew a curved skinning knife from her boot and, with practiced ease, skinned the hide and removed the tendons, draining the deer’s blood into a gourd—all while telling him, sweet as any virtuous wife, that she’d make him deer-blood wine later.

Chen Dasheng shuddered and tumbled down again.

His wife—skinning hides, removing tendons, cooking venison—no wonder nothing he made at home ever satisfied her; clearly she’d been sneaking meals up here on the mountain all along.

This venison was heaty, inflammatory food—she was carrying their child; could she even eat it safely? Had she asked Physician Cheng first? Why was she eating so recklessly?

Battered and bruised all over, Chen Dasheng was dragged by Uncle Xin to rest by the campfire. He stared blankly up at the stars, thinking: I am now a corpse. Best to just bury me here and let me sleep forever.

But his wife—goddess? demoness? recluse? mountain lord?—how could she possibly be his wife?

He thought back over the years, remembering the hardship of it all—yet ever since this woman had appeared, his life seemed to have been watched over and lifted step by step, as if by some deity.

He’d thought he was doing well—head of the household, guiding light for his brothers, the family’s protective unicorn son… Ha. Turns out it was all a joke.

Pang Tu had died by her hand. The household ran on her care. The family fortune was earned by her. And him? Was he nothing but a burden?

It seemed… he really might just be a burden.

Utterly despondent, Chen Dasheng sat up, and a fragrant deer leg was laid before him.

Qiqian’er, out of habit, urged him to eat more.

“Eat up. Have some water too.”

The venison steamed, dripping oil—how hot must that be?! This foolish woman, why does she touch everything with her bare hands?

Without thinking, Chen Dasheng blurted, “Tsk—put it down quick! Careful, you’ll burn yourself!”

The moment he said “hot,” Qiqian’er suddenly felt it truly was hot. She dropped the deer leg onto a rock and blew on her palm. Chen Dasheng grabbed her hand and began scolding her, and Qiqian’er, hearing this, felt genuinely wronged.

“Are you a fool or something, something that hot… and you just grab it, grab it, grab it… with your bare hand?”

The two of them stared at each other, dumbfounded, while Uncle Xin let out a scornful laugh.

“Ha~!”

Later, this woman who could fly, shatter boulders, who had a whole mountain and a temple to her name, who could shelter the Baiquan Mountain region for five hundred li—the “Locust Tree Goddess”—looked at him with a wronged expression and said, “I don’t want you to die. An’er can’t grow up without a father.”

In that instant, all thoughts of tigers, gods, and demons fell away from Chen Dasheng. He simply held his foolish wife close and stopped caring about anything else—feeling, somehow, that he truly must have wronged this woman, not just in this life, but perhaps from some life before this one.

They embraced and made up, whispered quietly to each other, and afterward Uncle Xin slipped away—no one noticed exactly when. The old beggar had good instincts, it seemed.

But up in the tree, Uncle Xin had told him that his wife likely wasn’t a martial-world figure at all in the usual sense—what exactly she was, even Uncle Xin didn’t know. Her origins were mysterious, her background extraordinary.

In any case, that old beggar had thanked him on behalf of every martial artist under heaven?

Why thank him?

Chen Dasheng would never forget the old man’s eyes, full of pity and admiration.

After looking him over, the old man had glanced toward his wife’s belly.

Pah! Damned old beggar, what are you staring at?

After Uncle Xin left, his wife had finally, formally pressed her palm to his Baihui point and begun teaching him a secret breathing technique. But exactly what technique was it?

Er… his wife called it the “rabbit technique”?

Instantly, all manner of rabbits paraded across the bronze mirror in his mind—the rabbit lanterns of the Lantern Festival, the plump rabbit embroidery on children’s skirts, the gray wild rabbits scattered all over Baiquan Mountain…

A rustling sound came from the kang. Chen Dasheng gave a start as Qiqian’er murmured, calling to him: “Chen Dasheng? Aren’t you sleepy?”

Chen Dasheng turned to look at the small huddled shape beneath the blankets, sighed, and finally walked over, took off his shoes, undressed, and climbed into bed… Qiqian’er rolled over, threw a leg across him, and draped herself over Chen Dasheng.

Chen Dasheng dutifully kept his hands folded over his chest, staring at the roof beams, thinking: Ancestors, Ancestors—A’Nai always says, why don’t you send up smoke signals to guide me? Your grandson never realized you were the ones setting the whole mountain on fire… What a great deal of smoke indeed.

The couple slept clean through the morning. When they woke, everything returned to normal—Qiqian’er went back to managing the household, her eyes seeing nothing but domestic matters. As for Chen Dasheng, he carried on with his heart full of worry, doing whatever needed doing.

Could it be that I’m meant to die?

As the day of departure drew closer, Yu Qingguan and the others quietly arranged their households as thoroughly as they could. However reluctant they felt in their hearts, in times like these, someone always had to step forward to protect what mattered.

The days slipped by in a blink. At dawn, a string of fast horses shot out from Yanjing, followed by a covered carriage larger than the ordinary kind.

At the ten-li pavilion outside Yanjing, Emperor Wu, Yang Zao, leaned on Zhang Minwang’s hand as he stepped down from the carriage.

Chen Dasheng and the others dismounted as one, kneeling before their sovereign to bid him farewell. They wore the clothing of armed escorts, disguised for their secret departure from the capital.

The emperor stood with hands clasped behind his back, gazing at the horizon where earth met sky, the morning sun just rising.

He poured a cup of wine and said, “This first cup, I offer to heaven and earth. It was heaven’s punishment that fell upon me the day I ascended the throne—there must be purpose in that. Though this journey, my good ministers, is fraught with danger, believe that our Great Liang is protected by heaven and earth, and you shall surely return in triumph!”

The men poured out their wine in offering.

“This second cup, I offer to the innocent people of Great Liang. I, Yang Zao, am powerless—I cannot avenge them with my own hands. Yet today, before heaven and earth, I swear this oath, and call upon heaven and earth to witness it: the humiliation suffered today, I, Yang Zao, will repay a hundredfold, in offering to the wrongly slain souls of my people.”

The men poured out their wine again.

Emperor Wu turned to look at the generals before him, silent for a long moment, until the spring sun cast a layer of gold across their shoulders. Only then did he straighten his robes and bow slightly to them. “Gentlemen—you must return in triumph.”

Chen Dasheng and the others, alarmed, prostrated themselves, but the emperor lifted each of them up personally, pouring wine for them with his own hands. They drank it down in one gulp and smashed their cups.

Meng Dichen and She Qingling arrived just then to bid them farewell.

Chen Dasheng smiled and walked slowly to stand before his father, kneeling again with a smile. “Father! Your son is leaving. You—take care of your health. Eat when you should eat, don’t carry such heavy thoughts. You’re about to become a grandfather—you must cherish yourself. Your grandchild, once he arrives in this world, will still need you to guide him.”

She Qingling’s hands trembled, his heart a tangle of emotion he could hardly bear. He wasn’t this child’s birth father—so why, looking at this face, did his very guts ache with pain?

He remembered the past—how this boy had once knelt before him and asked, “Could you teach me to read?” How he’d later sat by the vegetable garden, chin in hands, smiling. How he’d stood at the palace gates smiling at him. How he’d carried him on his back down endless corridors, calling him “Father” again and again, the echo of it…

Father, Father, Father… Father, your son is leaving…

What a fine child he was—and now he had to send him off, to his death?

Would he die?

Surely the boy understood everything in his own heart, and yet he still knelt before him to say goodbye, eyes full of a parent’s tender devotion.

He had to let him go. This world held too many partings—if he didn’t go, what would become of Great Liang, of this realm under heaven?

“My son, go in peace. Go!”

The tears finally fell. She Qingling exhaled slowly, smoothed down Chen Dasheng’s hair, helped him to his feet, patted his shoulder, and sent him on his way.

Meng Dichen looked at the four young, spirited faces before him. When he’d first brought them up from the south, he’d meant to look after them as cherished kin, to give these children a taste of great fortune—never had he imagined that before fortune arrived, years of hardship would come first, and now, this outcome.

These eleven warriors faced an ancient tribal nation a thousand years in the making. Would they even return?

Seeing their leader fall silent, Xie Wuhao seemed remarkably at peace. He turned back to tighten his horse’s girth strap, saying as he worked, “Uncle Meng, don’t feel you’ve wronged us. Truth is, the lot of us are actually rather happy about this.”

Meng Dichen was startled. “Happy?”

Xie Wuhao patted his horse’s neck and turned back with a smile. “Ha! Happy—because it makes me feel my life actually has some worth to it. Before, we were nothing but wandering souls of the martial world, our families fighting over ten generations’ worth of empty, meaningless renown that never amounted to anything real. The funniest part is, we used to think that made us noble and above worldly concerns—calling ourselves men of chivalry?”

Meng Dichen sighed. Every person in this world held to their own path, and his path had been to bring the martial world of the south into the fold of the imperial court—that with skill in hand, one should not distinguish between close and distant kin, nor between noble and common, but hold all to a single standard of law. That, he believed, was the true way of the world.

Yet who could have known it would prove this difficult.

Qingfeng had no city gates. As the sun rose, farmers from the countryside drove their donkey carts past them, carrying people into the city. The main road split into countless side paths, all converging toward the same destination for food and drink.

This was Great Liang’s capital region, Yanjing—under the emperor’s own feet, life here remained peaceful and settled. Even with border cities falling, that was something happening tens of thousands of li away. The emperor himself was right here, unworried, so everyone else’s daily life carried on as usual.

The crowds slowly grew thicker. His Majesty and the others entered the ten-li pavilion.

An old farmer, plow slung over his shoulder, led a sturdy ox—two small children riding on its back—all three passing by with beaming smiles, heading toward the fields beyond.

From the emperor down to the generals, everyone found themselves inexplicably envious of such carefree ease.

Xie Wuhao said, “If my death could buy the common people of this realm such smiles, then chivalry or not, that’s really all it ever meant, wasn’t it, Uncle Meng?”

Meng Dichen, though he’d left monastic life behind years ago, suddenly pressed his palms together and murmured a prayer to Amitabha.

His Majesty looked at his warriors, his heart heavy with reluctance to let them go—these children had grown up practically at his feet, day after day. Who could have foreseen it would come to this.

Guan Si’er hung his old blade in place, and seeing everyone’s spirits low, hopped over to His Majesty with a grin. “Your Majesty, I have a favor to ask.”

He was the youngest of Lao Dao, and also the one with the most legendary fate—having only just been warmed in his birth parents’ embrace for a few days before all this.

Hearing he had a request, the emperor’s mood lifted somewhat. He smiled and asked, “What is it? If it concerns your family, don’t worry—Master Gong is a man of great virtue, and I’ve been meaning to entrust the Imperial Academy to him—”

“No!” Guan Si’er licked his lips, a little embarrassed, smiling bashfully. “That’s not it, Your Majesty. As you know, I have a betrothed at home, still in mourning.”

Ah, so it was about that.

His Majesty chuckled and nodded. “Ah, that. I understand. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she’s looked after. When my palace marquis returns victorious tomorrow, I’ll—”

“No, that’s not it!” Guan Si’er cut in, still smiling like a little sun. “Your Majesty, Miss Ge has had a hard enough life already. I thought, since I was alone in the world too, and she was alone as well, that we didn’t mind each other, and it would work out well enough… But she’s still so young, and she brought a good dowry. If one day… I don’t come back, Your Majesty, please help me find her a good family—preferably one that won’t mind that her fate runs hard…”

The emperor, torn between laughter and heartache, said, “You’re asking me for this?”

Guan Si’er nodded earnestly. “Yes! That’s the only thing I can’t set my mind at ease about. Everyone only gets one life—without so much as a marriage certificate to show for it, I can’t let a good girl like her spend it in widowhood for my sake…”

Chen Dasheng smacked the back of his younger brother’s head and apologized to the emperor. “Forgive him, Your Majesty—this one’s never had much sense in his skull, always somewhere else in his thoughts, coming up with all sorts of nonsense. Rest easy, Your Majesty—it’s not as dangerous as you fear. As I see it, the Tan are little more than beasts wearing the shape of men. Trust me with this task, and I will surely win. I will surely return!”

In that instant, an image flickered before the emperor’s eyes—another figure, once standing before the army just like this, his face bright with spirit, saying to him: “Sworn brother, rest easy—your brother will return in great victory!”

Later, Tan Er had gone. And now, Dasheng had come.

They’d all told him: I will surely return.

Emperor Wu Yang Zao felt a surge of heroic spirit rise within him, as if his sworn brother stood before him once more. He rose, patted Chen Dasheng’s shoulder, and, just as he once had for beloved generals departing for war, personally adjusted their tack, checked their horses’ shoes, checked the soft armor packed in their bags…

However many words were spoken, the moment of parting always came. The auspicious hour had arrived. She Qingling personally raised the long incense to lead the ceremony, guiding everyone in bows to the spirits of the four directions, beseeching their protection over Great Liang for a thousand generations, ten thousand years…

The company of warriors finally mounted and rode off. As they passed through the gates of Qingfeng, an old beggar suddenly blocked their path, seeming to want to speak but hesitating.

Chen Dasheng leaned down and heard Uncle Xin murmur in his ear: “Man of honor, please take care of yourself. Please, please come back alive.”

Chen Dasheng blinked in surprise.

Uncle Xin continued, “Man of honor, if your wife becomes a widow, she will rage. Her rage alone wouldn’t matter, but this whole realm would fall into chaos with it—and once this realm falls into chaos, someone will inevitably stand against your wife, and that opposition won’t matter either, except that rivers of blood will flow, and no one will be able to stop her…”

Chen Dasheng looked back at his brothers, unsure for a moment what to say. He pulled a piece of broken silver from his pocket and pressed it into Uncle Xin’s hand, pulled down his hat brim, and bid him farewell.

The horses passed through the long street. Qiqian’er, for whatever reason, had arranged that day to bring a group of women out for a stroll through the marketplace.

Tong Jintai’s daughter reached out with her chubby hand, grabbing a peach-wood sword and knife from a stall display and refusing to let go.

Zhang Wanru laughed. “My good girl, you’re a daughter—don’t go learning these things from your father. When you’re older, Mother will teach you to read and embroider…”

Before she could finish, Qiqian’er suddenly pulled her aside as a line of armed escorts on horseback rode past, cutting through the group of women, their faces full of peaceful, contented happiness.