Having retreated to the rear, Huaiji went at once to find Prince Ling, but the mountains were in such chaos that he searched for a long while without success — until finally, finding one of Prince Ling’s own guards, he learned that Prince Ling had gone south.
“Gone south?” Huaiji was taken aback.
South of here lay nothing but Chuien Palace and a stretch of steep cliffs. What could Prince Ling possibly want there?
Huaiji had no time to think further and immediately led his men in pursuit.
Prince Ling had not gone far. With guards protecting him, he walked through the wilderness relatively undisturbed by the chaos of battle.
Huaiji caught up to him: “Your Highness, why have you come this way?” Glancing around, he saw that though their army had been routed, with their sheer numbers they could still hold out a little longer. “Let me escort you north, Your Highness. The rebellion here on Mount Pingnan has only just begun — the territories beyond Jinling won’t have time to react yet, and their defenses should still be lax. If we can break through with our troops now, once we reach the northern steppe, we’ll be safe!”
But Prince Ling gave no clear response to this.
He glanced at Huaiji and simply asked: “Have Xuanwu and Zhang Yue all surrendered by now?”
“Surrendered” wasn’t quite the right word — with the army routed, everyone was looking out for themselves, and these rebel generals, scrambling to save their own skins, had no time left to spare for loyalty or duty.
Seeing Huaiji fall silent, Prince Ling added: “You should go too.” With that, he continued walking south.
Huaiji wanted to urge him further, but with the Household Guard’s imperial troops closing in from behind, he was too occupied fighting them off to say anything more to Prince Ling.
Bad news kept pouring in from the ranks. Though Zhang Yue had already ordered a retreat, his forces were being wiped out entirely by Yun Xi’s Zhongyong army. Before long, another scout arrived to report: “Your Highness, General Xuanwu… he’s already been beheaded by General Xuanwei of the Marquis of Zhongyong’s household.”
Hearing this, Prince Ling said nothing.
With Yun Xi still fighting in the mountains, it was only to be expected that Yun Luo would come as well.
The mountains once again rang with the sound of horns, and the steady, solemn tread of marching troops echoed across all of Mount Pingnan — the Palace Front Command had finally received Emperor Zhaoyuan’s order and left Chuien Palace to clean up what remained of the rebellion.
Seeing the Palace Front Command approach, Prince Ling’s remaining forces, still struggling to resist, gave up all hope, casting aside their armor and weapons and fleeing in every direction.
Amid the chaos, Prince Ling suddenly heard someone shouting: “Your Highness, Your Highness—”
He turned to look and saw a man in official robes pushing through the crowd, running toward him.
It was none other than Vice Minister Shan Wenxuan.
Shan Wenxuan was filthy from head to toe, his official cap apparently lost somewhere in the chaos, his face bruised black and blue. Seeing Prince Ling, he was overjoyed nearly to tears: “Your Highness, this old servant has finally found you.”
Prince Ling was taken aback: “What are you doing here?”
He had found the man tiresome and had sent him away at the very start of the campaign to keep watch alongside Cao Yuan at the foot of the mountain.
But Cao Yuan was already dead — how was Shan Wenxuan still alive?
Trembling with fear, Shan Wenxuan said: “Before coming up the mountain, this subject had a fortune-teller cast a divination for me. He said I would face calamity today in the southeast, and that I absolutely had to avoid it — so when the rebellion broke out, I came up into the mountains to find Your Highness. And sure enough, sure enough…”
Sure enough, just a moment ago, Cao Yuan, who had been stationed with him in the southwest, had been cut down by General Xuanwei’s blade.
Seeing Prince Ling heading south, Shan Wenxuan hurried to block his path: “Your Highness, what business do you have going south?” His eyes were red with panic. “This subject had the fortune-teller cast a reading for Your Highness as well — he said there is a malevolent omen to the south today, a sign of great misfortune. You must not take even a single step in that direction!”
“Your Highness, Your Highness!” Seeing Prince Ling ignore him, Shan Wenxuan chased after him, still trying to block his way. “Your Highness, you mustn’t go south! Go north instead! The fortune-teller said that though Your Highness faces calamity today, if you head north, among the paths of life, rest, and opening, you might just stumble upon one of the three auspicious gates! He also said—”
Shan Wenxuan lowered his voice, his eyes wide with terror. “Your Highness, there is a fierce and vengeful ghost to the south — the most malevolent ghost in this world! If Your Highness goes south, with every step, you draw closer to the bloody doom that ghost brings! And the mountain of corpses, the sea of blood already spread across these wilds, will only claim one more body!”
As if to prove his words true, a scout soon arrived to report: “Your Highness, General Huaiji was no match for the young Prince of Nan’an — he’s already been… been cut down amid the chaos of battle by the young prince.”
Hearing this, Prince Ling paused, stunned: “Huaiji… is dead too?”
“It’s over.” Shan Wenxuan collapsed to the ground, tears that had long welled up now spilling down his face.
Of all the generals who had pledged loyalty to Prince Ling, Huaiji alone had been the most faithful. With him dead, there was no one left capable of leading troops to escort Prince Ling safely to the northern frontier.
But the next moment, Shan Wenxuan wiped at his tear-blurred eyes, stumbled to his feet, and said to Prince Ling: “Your Highness, Huaiji is dead — this old servant, this old servant will escort you north myself.”
Hearing this, Prince Ling stopped in his tracks.
Chai Ping had been driven to his death by Cheng Chang; Pei Ming and Luo Fuyou could likely no longer even protect themselves. Among all his advisors, Shan Wenxuan was the one he had held in the least regard — foolish, a spineless coward who knew nothing but fortune-telling and divination. If not for the authority that came with his position as Vice Minister of the Secretariat, Prince Ling would never have kept him in his service.
And yet, now that things had come to this, it was this very fool who alone remained willing to stay by his side.
Prince Ling said: “No need. Go north on your own. If you run into the Zhongyong forces, just tell them you were deceived by others.”
Cheng Xu was a prince born and raised among the common people, one who had known hardship firsthand — he would not take a life lightly.
“No, no,” Shan Wenxuan said in alarm at this. “Even if the Fifth Prince is willing to spare me, what if His Majesty still wants me dead?”
Tears streamed down his face again. “I’m useless — I’ll never survive on my own. I can only follow Your Highness. Your Highness is an imperial prince — if I protect you well, and the court sees my loyalty, perhaps I can save my own life.”
He had long since lost all sense of composure, panicking beyond reason. Hearing this, Prince Ling laughed.
Prince Ling said: “I am a man who raised an army in rebellion, a traitor who conspired with a foreign enemy. Before such crimes, the title of imperial prince means nothing at all. Follow me, and you will only become a traitor as well.”
Having said this, he offered no further persuasion, simply allowing Shan Wenxuan to follow him toward the cliffs on the southern mountainside — he himself had already reached the end of his road; what did the fate of others matter to him now?
The morning light in the mountains was faint; the hour of the Rabbit had arrived. Along the stretch of road nearing the cliff, the vegetation grew thick and lush, branches and leaves unfurling in the fragmented light of dawn.
On the cliff, which should have stood empty, several guards now stood. At their head was a man clad in a dark blue-black wide-sleeved robe; the jade pendant at his waist, though fine in color, could not compare to the cold clarity of his eyes. He stood alone in the morning wind, his entire bearing unusually still and solitary — yet the streak of ash-gray scarring along his cheek, seared by fire, lent his handsome features a faint touch of something uncanny, almost otherworldly.
This, perhaps, was the vengeful ghost Shan Wenxuan had spoken of.
Prince Ling asked: “Why are you here?”
“I’ve come to see my cousin off,” Cheng Chang said, his tone distant and cool.
“You’re actually not—” Prince Ling paused, then finally voiced the doubt that had troubled him for so long, “—not Mingying, are you?”
Emperor Zhaoyuan’s own line was thin; after the eldest son of the Cong princely household had passed away, only the Third Young Master remained. And so, though Cheng Chang was only a cousin to the various princes in the palace, he had grown close to them since childhood.
Prince Ling, Prince Yun, and Cheng Chang, being close in age, had often spent time together as three brothers — back then, Cheng Chang had still called Prince Ling and Prince Yun “Third Brother” and “Fourth Brother.” Even after his fall into the water, when he had realized he’d been harmed by one of his own cousins and grown distant from them, he had never seemed to change so drastically in nature.
Prince Ling had always attributed the change in Cheng Chang’s temperament to memory loss from the accident. Now, it seemed, he had been wrong all along.
The old Mingying had been foolish and reckless; even accounting for growth and change, he could never have become this sharp, this ruthlessly decisive.
The man before him now carried a singular clarity of mind unlike anyone else in this world.
Where he had truly come from, Prince Ling had no idea — how could someone so utterly indifferent to everything else, upon encountering injustice, struggle so fiercely and painfully at the very edge of life and death, resisting with the desperate, tragic defiance of a moth throwing itself into flame?
It was a pity he had understood this too late. Had he known from the start that this was not truly Mingying, he never should have made an enemy of such a man.
But regret was pointless now — there was no room left for it.
Cheng Chang did not answer Prince Ling’s question, and instead asked: “So all this time, you wanted to silence Cheng Mingying because he had unwittingly learned that you once conspired with the Daman tribe’s Second Prince, and tried to use the Daman’s hand to assassinate the Fifth Prince, Cheng Xu?”
Hearing this, Prince Ling merely smiled. “You really aren’t Mingying, are you.”