Xiangyang was under siege!

Shen Zhuxi’s heart lurched and her legs went weak beneath her. Even so, with the messenger’s eyes on her, she summoned every ounce of strength to keep her composure.

Li Wu was not here. She had to shoulder the burden of Xiangyang County herself.

“What is the situation right now?” she said, forcing a calm she did not feel.

The messenger let out a breath of relief and said, “All four city gates leading out of Xiangyang have been blockaded by the rebel army. The west gate is currently under heavy assault. Deputy Prefect Fang has already gone to the west gate to maintain order.”

“How many defenders does Xiangyang still have?”

The messenger hesitated a moment, then said, “Including rear-support troops, perhaps three thousand… The prefect took the city’s main force to reinforce Shang Province. Xiangyang is now essentially empty. Morale among the population is collapsing, and the soldiers’ hearts are wavering — I’m afraid it cannot hold for long…”

“Is there still time to send word to the surrounding counties for reinforcements?” Shen Zhuxi said urgently.

“Even if someone were to break through the siege and seek aid, the reinforcements would only be a drop in the ocean… As for sending to the surrounding prefectural cities, first, there is little certainty anyone would respond, and second, most of the neighboring prefectures were devastated by the flood and are still recovering. Even if they sent a small force, it would do nothing against the false Emperor’s hundred thousand men.”

Shen Zhuxi fell silent, a chill spreading from her spine to every corner of her body.

“Madam… what do we do now?” the messenger asked, looking at her uneasily.

Shen Zhuxi was quiet for a long moment.

Then she spoke, and the fear in her eyes was replaced by something resolute.

“Take me to the west gate.”

Shen Zhuxi’s mind was made up, and there was no stopping her. Tiniang was worried about her safety, but standing by and doing nothing was no solution either. Tiniang clutched Shen Zhuxi’s cloak and came running after her, climbing into the carriage.

“What are you doing following me? It’s dangerous there!” Shen Zhuxi tried to stop her.

“Wherever Madam goes, I go too!” Tiniang looked at her stubbornly. “I’m never letting Madam leave me behind again!”

Shen Zhuxi sighed and let her come.

What should have been the quietest hour at the turn of dark and light was instead filled with the sounds of chaos and clamor. Many shops stood wide open, shopkeepers directing their assistants in hiding away valuables; the doors of residence after residence were tightly shut, and occasionally a pair of frightened eyes peeked out through a sliver of opening.

Shen Zhuxi did something she had never done before — she threw open the carriage door, removed her veiled hat, and let everyone see her composed, unruffled face.

The closer the carriage drew to the city gate, the louder the tumult became.

A fierce wave of assault was raking the west gate, which was now defended only by a skeleton force. Countless stray arrows fell from the air, and the carriage was forced to take cover for a while beneath the wide eaves of the Xiankelai tavern.

When the attack briefly eased, the carriage finally pushed through to the base of the city tower.

With Tiniang’s support, Shen Zhuxi stepped off the carriage. Fang Tingzhi came hurrying down from the city tower, his face a smear of white and black, entirely bedraggled. He raised both hands to bow before her.

“No need for formalities.” Shen Zhuxi raised a hand to stop him, and got straight to the point. “What is the situation now?”

“…Not encouraging.” Fang Tingzhi’s face was grave. “Xiangyang was originally garrisoned by twenty thousand elite soldiers, all of whom the prefect took with him to reinforce Shang Province. The new Zhenchuan Prefect failed to win the support of his men and is hamstrung at every turn. The six provinces under the prefecture are badly fragmented, and the damage from the flood has not fully passed. The false Emperor must have been watching for exactly this — he had been lying low near the outskirts since fleeing the imperial capital. The moment the prefect took his troops and left Xiangzhou, the false Emperor moved this quickly.”

Shen Zhuxi was burning with anxiety, and she pressed on immediately. “How long can we hold?”

“At most two days. At least…” Fang Tingzhi’s expression was laced with guilt. He clasped his hands in a bow. “One day. When the Xiangzhou troops departed yesterday, they made no effort to conceal their march. The people now know that only the old, the weak, and the ill are left to defend the city, and even before the two sides have come to blows, our own morale has already sunk to the bottom. On top of that, there are rumors the enemy has been deliberately spreading through the city… I have been unable to do my duty — though I arrested a few and made public examples of them, I have not been able to stop the rumors from spreading.”

Shen Zhuxi frowned. “What rumors?”

“They say that the prefect took the twenty thousand elite troops and left Xiangzhou not to rescue Shang Province, but because he received word that the Liao army was about to attack — and fled the city to save himself.”

“Utter nonsense!” Shen Zhuxi said, her voice sharp with anger.

“Please calm yourself, Madam…” Fang Tingzhi held his bow for a moment, then raised his face with a look of careful consideration. “May I ask what Madam’s intentions are?”

Shen Zhuxi’s mind was a tangle right now — what intentions could she possibly have?

But she could not let her panic and helplessness show in front of the officials. In her desperation, she recalled how her imperial father had handled his court ministers in the royal study.

“What is Deputy Prefect Fang’s own assessment?”

Fang Tingzhi paused, then slowly said, “I have two options, each corresponding to a different answer from Madam. If Madam wishes to leave Xiangzhou and seek aid from other prefectures, the southern gate has the thinnest line of encirclement. We could concentrate the city’s elite troops and attempt to break through the south gate.”

Seeking aid from other prefectures? That was nothing more than abandoning the city and fleeing.

Shen Zhuxi held down her anger. “And the other option?”

“The other option — if Madam chooses to remain and defend the city —” Fang Tingzhi raised his eyes and met her gaze without flinching. “Then we must prepare ourselves for death, hold on to the very last moment with the resolve of one who has burned their boats behind them, and then… leave the rest to fate.”

Wounded soldiers groaned on the city tower.

The enemy forces below the wall taunted and jeered.

The world was in an uproar, yet a stillness like the silence of a grave settled around Shen Zhuxi and Fang Tingzhi.

Tiniang held her breath, her eyes flickering nervously between the two as they stared each other down.

“I am choosing a third option,” Shen Zhuxi said.

Fang Tingzhi’s gaze sharpened.

Shen Zhuxi set her foot on the stone steps and climbed the city tower, steady and fearless, one step at a time.

On the wind-swept tower, defending soldiers lay sprawled everywhere. Some had taken arrow wounds to the arm, bound with nothing more than a strip of cloth. Some had been struck in the thigh and sat slumped against the stone wall with despair written across their faces. Some stood at their watch posts, their expressions full of dread.

Shen Zhuxi’s arrival drew every pair of eyes in the place to her face.

She looked at each of them in turn, and then spoke, her voice ringing with conviction:

“Warriors all — I am the Lady of Xiangzhou. Yesterday, my husband answered the Zhenchuan Prefect’s call and led twenty thousand elite troops to Shang Province to quell the rebellion. With my husband’s skill, he will certainly return to Xiangzhou within four days. Until then, I ask that you all lend me your strength and stand with me to protect the hundreds of thousands of innocent people of Xiangzhou. I will fight alongside every one of you, and whatever befalls us — life or death — we face it together!”

Every word Shen Zhuxi spoke carried the full weight of her fearless resolve.

As she spoke, not only the guards on the tower were listening — from the buildings close to the walls, people began stepping out one after another, raising their heads toward the slender figure standing high on the city tower.

She was no great tree, yet she would not yield.

Shen Zhuxi turned to face the city tower’s edge, looked down at the people gradually gathering below, and called out in a clear, carrying voice:

“I am the Lady of Xiangzhou, and I will not abandon my people and leave! Please trust me, and stand with me to defend our home, our land, and everyone we hold dear! If we only cower and tremble behind our doors, we may survive a moment, but when the rebel army enters the city to kill and burn, we will still end up as fish on the chopping block! I ask that everyone come together — take up whatever weapons you have in hand — and hold out with me until the prefect, who has gone to reinforce Shang Province, returns with his forces!”

Another volley of arrows began. Fang Tingzhi and several soldiers rushed forward with shields and covered her.

The arrow tips struck the shields with a ringing clatter. Fang Tingzhi said urgently, “Madam! It is too dangerous here — please return to the Li residence!”

Courage, vast as an ocean, quietly swallowed what had been a trickle of fear.

She no longer felt afraid. The mission she bore on her shoulders made her expression grow ever more resolute.

The assault tapered off. Fang Tingzhi cautiously lowered the shield from above his head and rubbed his hands, which had gone numb from the impact.

Arrows were scattered all around their feet.

“Fang Tingzhi!” Shen Zhuxi said in a clear, firm voice.

Fang Tingzhi startled and replied by reflex, “I am here.”

“I order you to arrange a squad of elite cavalry to break through the south gate and ensure that news of Xiangzhou’s crisis reaches the prefect.”

“Yes!”

“Then send a team of persuasive men to appeal to the able-bodied men in the city to join the defense. All who volunteer will be exempt from taxes and labor conscription for three years. Any who die in battle will receive full military survivor compensation, and any orphaned children or widows left behind will be supported and cared for by Xiangzhou for the rest of their lives!”

Fang Tingzhi’s expression grew increasingly grave and attentive. He looked at Shen Zhuxi — her bearing steady and resolute — for a long moment, then bowed in a deep formal salute.

“Yes!”

Fang Tingzhi quickly carried Shen Zhuxi’s determination to hold the city at all costs down through the ranks, and the shattered morale of the defenders was restored by the Lady of Xiangzhou’s decision to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her soldiers.

That same night at midnight, a squad of elite cavalry broke through the southern siege line at the cost of more than half their number, and rode hard toward Shang Province carrying word of Xiangzhou’s desperate plight.

Fang Tingzhi was a civil official who knew little of the art of defending a city, and those among the Xiangzhou troops who could read and knew military strategy had mostly been taken along by Li Wu when he left.

When Shen Zhuxi had been copying out military texts for Li Wu, she had picked up a surface understanding of tactics. She had never expected that today she would be forced to apply half-learned knowledge in a situation where lives were at stake.

To keep abreast of the enemy’s movements at the earliest moment, she set up a temporary command post on the city tower, eating and sleeping there as well. She called for the fortification maps of all four city gates and studied them day and night. After successfully organizing the defenders to repel one determined enemy assault, Fang Tingzhi brought her a tactical sand table of his own accord.

Shen Zhuxi’s clean garments were dirtied and rumpled. Her fair complexion became patchy with grime. She wore plain, unadorned clothes; everything else had been given to the city treasury, converted into a bowl of gruel, a suit of armor, a longbow. After two days without sleep, dark circles hung beneath her eyes. Her hair was simply pinned up with only the plain gold hairpin that Li Wu had polished for her. If any of her former acquaintances from the palace had seen her, they would have refused to believe this was the pampered Princess of Yue.

She was beginning to look more and more like the soldiers on the city tower.

She had lost her fine robes and carriages, yet the people of the city showed her ever greater respect.

In every council of war, the officials and soldiers listened earnestly to what she had to say. Whenever she appeared in public, the people knelt before her with heartfelt reverence.

These were things she had never received, even in her days as a princess.

Shen Zhuxi came to understand more and more clearly where respect truly came from.

Her imperial father had been the sovereign of a kingdom, yet he had been overthrown by the very common people he held in contempt. She had been a princess of that kingdom, yet she could not find a single person willing to speak with her.

A person’s worth is not a matter of bloodline, but of the character and ability that commands admiration. Even an emperor, without the matching ability and virtue, will ultimately invite the same ruin her father had brought upon himself.

And even one born in poverty, if they themselves shine, can draw others toward their light the way Li Wu did.

Noble birth is a lie that those above tell those below. A person’s origins have never carried any true distinction of high or low.

Only those who lack outstanding virtue of their own attempt to overawe others with the grandeur of their birth.

It matters little to deceive others. But if you come to believe the deception yourself — then your own destruction is not far off.

Shen Zhuxi had once felt as though she were hanging in the darkness, suspended by a few frail threads.

But now she felt, more and more vividly, the solid earth beneath her feet.

She would defend it.

Defend her people, defend every person she held dear.

With her own two hands.