Shen Zhuxi snapped awake from the last remnants of sleep in an instant.

“I heard from the servants…” A’Xue paused, then wrote on her palm: “The banners of the enemy army bear the image of a green flying phoenix…”

Shen Zhuxi immediately leapt out of bed.

She grabbed at the clothing on the rack and hastily dressed herself with A’Xue’s help, then rushed to push open the room door.

Ding —

Two large swords crossed in front of her, barring her way. Two guards stood expressionless, not looking at her.

“His Majesty has given orders that the Princess may only remain in her room.” A few steps away, the captain of the guard bowed his head respectfully, but firmly.

“Out of the way!” Shen Zhuxi demanded furiously.

“…This subordinate respectfully cannot comply.”

Shen Zhuxi glared furiously at this former servant of Yan and present lackey of the Fu clan, then suddenly lowered her head and charged straight toward the two crossed swords.

A’Xue let out a panicked cry behind her. The guard captain’s expression changed as well.

The two swords hastily fell back as Shen Zhuxi drew close.

“Let me see who dares stop me!” Shen Zhuxi halted her steps, spun around, and glared back at the guard captain and the two astounded soldiers behind her, her words ringing out like a hammer blow.

The guard captain looked at her resolute expression, and though he took one step forward, he stopped.

A’Xue quickly caught up and pressed close behind Shen Zhuxi, guarding against the soldiers in every direction.

When Shen Zhuxi charged into the front courtyard, she came face to face with Fu Xuanmiao, surrounded by attendants. He was dressed in a moon-white brocade long robe with blue dragons, a retinue of officials of various ranks gathered around him, all wearing different expressions. He looked at her calmly, entirely unsurprised to see her appear at the first sign of movement.

“Since Your Highness is here, come along with us.” Having said this, Fu Xuanmiao turned and walked toward the gate. The officials around him, not daring to look at Shen Zhuxi, hastily followed on his heels.

Shen Zhuxi clenched her teeth, lifted her skirt, and followed.

After boarding Fu Xuanmiao’s carriage, the vehicle turned around and drove forward against the stream of people.

Through the thin paper window, Shen Zhuxi watched the surging crowd outside, her brow furrowed with unease. Ordinary commoners with no power or status were, under the threat of war, frantically bundling up all their valuables — perhaps a parcel of loose silver, or a thick new quilt they had recently made — and fleeing in the opposite direction from the encircling enemy army with bundles large and small. To forge ahead against this current, the soldiers leading the way shouted loudly while roughly shoving civilians aside with the flat of their sword handles. Women’s screams and children’s cries rang out without cease.

Fu Xuanmiao gently opened a crack in the window and said to Yan Hui, who rode on horseback alongside the carriage: “Bring the Kuozhou Prefect to me.”

Yan Hui took the order and left. Before long, the Kuozhou Prefect — face drenched in sweat — had squeezed his way to the side of the carriage and was keeping pace with it at a hurried trot, a face full of ingratiating smiles: “Your Majesty summoned this official — what matter requires attention?”

Fu Xuanmiao reclined in his seat at the small table, eyes lightly closed, as if conserving his strength. When the Prefect’s voice reached him, he opened his mouth slightly and said in a soft voice: “Was an urgent notice issued to Lishui, commanding the people to remain in their homes?”

“It was, it was —”

“If a notice was already issued, then what is that out there?”

The Prefect was taken aback and said: “They are all common people of Lishui — ordinary folk have no real experience of the world and are thrown into a panic at the slightest disturbance. Please forgive them, Your Majesty…”

“Given that the notice had already been widely proclaimed, pouring into the streets and spreading the mood of fear is a minor matter — but obstructing the roads is another, and delaying military affairs is a graver matter still… If something truly is delayed as a result, does Your Excellency expect to come to me for forgiveness again?”

The sweat on the Prefect’s brow grew more profuse, and his head sank ever lower.

“This official dares not… dares not… this official will immediately send more men and ensure the shortest possible time to restore order…”

Fu Xuanmiao closed his eyes and said nothing more. The Kuozhou Prefect — face drenched in sweat, his own collar thoroughly soaked without his knowledge — stopped and bowed deeply as the carriage drove away, only daring to straighten after it had gone.

Stern toward his superiors and ruthless with his inferiors.

The Prefect, with unprecedented efficiency, mustered a squad of ferocious local ruffians, who dressed in ill-fitting garrison armor and used their borrowed authority to call out commoners by name, supported by threats and violence. In almost no time, the previously packed street was left with nothing but overturned stalls and broken shards of porcelain, and a lone cloth boot — stepped on countless times by countless feet — lying abandoned ahead.

The carriage wheels rolled over the battered boot without a moment’s pause and drove on. The steady, unified sound of the guard escort’s running steps rang out with unusual clarity on the now silent street.

“Are Your Highness’s eyes not tired?” Fu Xuanmiao asked in a quiet voice, as if even through his closed eyelids he had sensed her censorious gaze.

“…They are innocent,” Shen Zhuxi said. “Why must you go to such lengths?”

Fu Xuanmiao opened his eyes. His placid, untroubled gaze swept over her and he said: “The people of this world… who among them is entirely without innocence?”

“…And you?” Shen Zhuxi said. “How much of what you’ve done is innocent?”

He closed his eyes, as if he had heard nothing.

The carriage finally reached the city gate. Shen Zhuxi had just moved to rise when Fu Xuanmiao raised a hand to stop her. He rose and descended first. Shen Zhuxi heard the chorus of voices outside offering their respects to the Emperor, and Fu Xuanmiao seemed to wave his hand, for those voices quickly subsided.

“Your Highness, please.” He extended his hand in an offer of assistance, looking toward Shen Zhuxi inside the carriage.

Shen Zhuxi rose and walked out, ignoring the hand suspended in mid-air, and stepped down to the ground herself using the mounting block.

Everyone who witnessed this moment bowed their heads in shock and fear. Fu Xuanmiao’s outstretched hand hung in the empty air a moment longer before it quietly fell. His expression remained composed, as though he had not noticed.

The two of them, surrounded by the assembled officials, walked up to the city wall. Guards gripping iron shields walked ahead, wary at every moment of arrows that might come flying.

Reaching the battlements, Shen Zhuxi gazed out with urgent longing.

The familiar Qingfeng banners flew throughout the vast encircling army, and was not the silver-armored general at its head the person she had been thinking of day and night?

Beyond the Qingfeng banners, among the dark mass of soldiers that stretched as far as the eye could see, there were also vast numbers of banners from the Wuying Army and the Cangzhen Army. The warriors on their battle-ready horses were full of spirit and fierce with the will to fight. The cold glint of their armor connected in the light of dawn into a magnificent silver sea, and the air on the battlements seemed to be blanketed by this silver sea as well, growing more and more heavy and still.

“…The enemy managed to encircle the city overnight, and not one of our scouts noticed?” Fu Xuanmiao spoke, his tautened voice like a cold, sharp fishing line.

After a round of exchanged glances, a man who appeared to be a military commander knelt with a pale face, stammering:

“Reporting to Your Majesty… our scouts on the eastern front… were completely annihilated… by the time we discovered it, the enemy had already arrived beneath the walls… the enemy vanguard commander, whoever he is, moved with uncanny unpredictability and at lightning speed — our men had no time to send any signal whatsoever…”

No answer was needed.

Fu Xuanmiao’s cold gaze fixed on Li Wu, mounted on horseback below the city wall. Li Wu, across the sea of soldiers, raised one corner of his lips in a challenging smirk.

“…How many enemy troops are there?” Fu Xuanmiao said.

“Reporting to Your Majesty — the enemy forces number approximately one hundred thousand,” a military officer answered.

“A mere hundred thousand… and they dare to lay siege?” Fu Xuanmiao said slowly.

The officials clustered around him immediately joined in the chorus, one after another disparaging the capabilities of the coalition army below.

Fu Xuanmiao gazed down calmly at the great army below the walls, and in his commanding, elevated gaze there lingered a faint, barely perceptible contempt.

“…We shall see how they break this city with only one hundred thousand men.” Fu Xuanmiao turned and walked away. His peripheral gaze fell on Shen Zhuxi: “Please, Your Highness, return to the carriage.”

The word “please” amounted to a squad of guards gripping sword handles and using their unfriendly stares to drive her feet into motion.

Shen Zhuxi stole one last lingering look at the faraway Li Wu, then had no choice but to turn and descend from the battlements.

The carriage did not return to the residence of the Kuozhou Prefect where Shen Zhuxi had previously been staying, but instead stopped at the entrance to the Northern Spring Garden — the Prefect’s secondary villa, not far from the city wall. Despite his ministers’ pleas against it, Fu Xuanmiao moved his lodgings from the comparatively safer prefectural offices in the city center to the Northern Spring Garden, which was closer to the front lines. The venue for military councils was also relocated from the camp in the near outskirts to within Northern Spring Garden itself. From this point on, Fu Xuanmiao took over complete command of the army.

Shen Zhuxi was confined to the Northern Spring Garden, but the place was full of officials coming and going, and idle gossip was never in short supply. By piecing together fragments she overheard, she was able to piece together how the military situation shifted from one day to the next —

The Qingfeng Coalition seemed to be plotting something, maintaining their siege but not taking the initiative to attack.

Jinhua City’s supplies were more than sufficient — it could hold out under siege for three years without issue.

The city gate fell at midnight, and the Qingfeng Coalition very nearly succeeded in a surprise attack.

Fu Xuanmiao flushed out spies within the army as easily as catching turtles in a jar, and had them publicly beheaded at the marketplace.

In the two armies’ first clash, Fu’s forces suffered a crushing defeat and were captured to a man.

During negotiations for the return of the prisoners, Fu’s forces launched a surprise attack, killing several of the Qingfeng Coalition’s commanders on the spot — among them one of Chunyu An’s most capable lieutenants. Chunyu An flew into a rage and in his fury had an iron cauldron set up, ready to boil the captured hundred or so of Fu’s soldiers alive — until Li Wu intervened and stopped him.

This latest news left Shen Zhuxi’s heart quaking with fear. The one saving grace was that Li Wu and those she was acquainted with were not among the dead. Launching a surprise attack during negotiations was conduct that soldiers had always regarded as the height of shame. The blame was taken by a senior Fu commander, but Shen Zhuxi understood clearly that without Fu Xuanmiao’s approval, no one would have dared to act on their own.

Six days passed in the blink of an eye.

After several skirmishes, the Qingfeng Coalition, having lost several capable commanders, was falling behind. Fu’s forces, however shameless, had — judging by casualties and overall impact — come through relatively unscathed. The mood within Jinhua City also began to tilt toward going on the offensive and breaking the siege.

At great effort, Shen Zhuxi managed to learn that Fu’s forces were planning to launch a full assault on the night of the following two days, but she had no way to transmit this information to the outside.

In what seemed like an eyeblink, the night of the full assault had arrived.