Iron cavalry tore through the earth; the roar of battle surged like a tide.

“Fight them to the death—!”

Long Hui bellowed at the top of his voice, swinging his iron spear and smashing an enemy soldier to the ground; amid the flying flesh and blood, more Resentment Army soldiers surged forward.

“Kill!”

The Resentment Army’s charge, in this small stretch of ground, seemed to crash against a reef, yet the tragic, valiant war cries could do nothing to hold back the collapse of the entire battlefield. On the east and west flanks, great masses of men were already scattering and fleeing in all directions.

There was no longer any telling whose men had broken first — this hastily gathered force was simply too disparate a mix. Wherever a banner stood on the battlefield marked the direction of the Resentment Army’s charge, and the wave of blood raised by that first charge had already broken the nerve of many units, causing the units around them to scatter and flee as well.

Only a few small groups still struggled on grimly amid the collapse. Long Hui, at the head of several hundred of his own men, had formed them into a defensive formation; Wang Chuanrong led his men in a sideways charge toward the forest’s edge. Ni Jianzhong’s cavalry, along with Fulu and the rest of the martial-world masters, were swept up in this chaotic tide, fighting all the way, and in what felt like an instant, were scattered apart.

Like a street suddenly hit head-on by a flood, in the blink of an eye, a towering wave of blood had swallowed everything.

“Old Chen! Old Cui—!”

Amid the surging roar of battle, men like a churning sea, Long Hui, pressed in among his own guards and comrades, his eyes bloodshot, scanned wildly in every direction. The rout, as always, had come too fast — but as it unfolded, he had already come to understand a great many things.

“…Break through! Get word to Xia Village — tell them not to come out—”

“Elder Fulu—”

“We’ve lost — all that’s left is to die—”

“Everyone, don’t let yourselves be used—”

“Tell them, don’t come out—”

On the battlefield, thundering cavalry wheeled in a circle, surrounding the most conspicuous formation — the one led by Long Hui. As elite troops within the Resentment Army’s ranks, these men had not been made to dismount and fight on foot these past days, taking part in the assault on Xia Village. While the rest of the army had suffered grievous losses, these men had done little more than draw bows and loose the occasional arrow, all the while nursing a pent-up frustration. In a sense, their morale, too, had been worn down watching their comrades suffer so terribly — and only now did this elite cavalry finally unleash its full strength.

The snowy field was already dotted with chaotic, scattered figures. Long Hui fought on desperately, shouting loudly, but few could still hear his voice. The old man named Fulu, on horseback, wielded twin blades, fighting desperately to press forward, yet with every step forward, his horse was forced three steps back, gradually swept sideways and carried off. At this moment, only one small cavalry unit, led by Ni Jianzhong of Taiyuan, heard Long Hui’s cries and, on this savage battlefield, fought desperately to cut a path forward…

…

“What’s going on…”

Noon had already passed, and the overcast sky had not cleared. At Xia Village, troop movements stirred occasionally; Ning Yi and the others stood on the platform, puzzled by the changes visible over at the Resentment Army’s camp.

“…Fighting has broken out toward Xiaoling, behind the Resentment Army’s position…”

“…Could be someone raiding their camp…”

“…Guo Yaoshi’s split his forces…”

Scattered guesses and speculation occasionally came in from the advisors. There were also seasoned scouts and martial-world men in the army who reported feeling the tremor of troop movements through the ground. But whether reinforcements had genuinely arrived, or this was some scheme of Guo Yaoshi’s, no one could say for certain.

That the landmine trap the night before had given Guo Yaoshi quite a shock, forcing him to halt operations for now, was entirely plausible. And once halted, what attack strategy he would choose next, no one could predict in advance.

Feigning the arrival of reinforcements as a ploy to lure the enemy out — if this was indeed something Guo Yaoshi had orchestrated deliberately, it wouldn’t be strange at all.

“With things having gone this badly right outside Bianliang, who would still dare come — does he take me for a fool?!”

Faint stirrings of activity continued somewhere out of sight for quite a while, and the oppressive mood persisted throughout. The men behind the wooden walls occasionally looked up and gazed into the distance, and the soldiers, too, had already begun murmuring among themselves. By afternoon, even Ning Yi and Qin Shaoqian couldn’t help exchanging a few sardonic remarks.

With the fighting having dragged on this long, everyone’s nerves were stretched to their absolute limit. This kind of oppressive stillness might mean the enemy was brewing some scheme, or it might mean a storm was gathering on the horizon — whether one leaned optimistic or pessimistic, ease of mind, at least, was simply not an option. In his earlier efforts to rally the men, Ning Yi had said this: we face some of the strongest enemies in the realm; when you feel you can’t take it anymore, you still have to grit your teeth and push through, and outlast everyone else. It was precisely because of this repeated emphasis that Xia Village’s soldiers had been able to keep their spirits taut and hold on this far.

By now, the fires had already scorched the ground and the ramparts throughout; the whole camp reeked of blood, and even a faint smell of decay had begun to set in. The winter cold could not drive away the despondent, sickening undertone in that smell. Clusters of soldiers huddled behind the walls, weapons in hand, sheltering wherever they could from stray arrows; the men on patrol occasionally rubbed their hands together, exhaustion plain in their eyes despite their best efforts to hide it.

Whatever the Resentment Army’s silence meant, once that silence broke, what awaited them here would surely be even greater pressure and mortal danger.

And the only thing to hope for was that, once both sides had been stretched to their absolute limit, it would be the other side that finally broke, in order to preserve what strength remained.

“If it’s the Western Army coming to our relief now, that’s not entirely impossible.” On the platform above, Qin Shaoqian poked at the bonfire with a stick of firewood. “At this point, in this area, the only force still capable of fighting is probably that column under Young Master Zhong.”

“Young Master Zhong may not necessarily come to our aid,” said the deputy officer He Zhicheng.

“If it were me, I’d send a unit disguised as the Western Army, striking from the flank of their camp, to lure us out…” Ning Yi said, tilting his head, sounding almost bored.

“Whatever the case, there’s simply no possibility of us taking the initiative to sortie right now…” said Han Jing. No sooner had he finished than a soldier suddenly rushed over: “Something’s happening, something’s happening…”

Qin Shaoqian took the telescope. The soldier on watch duty pointed toward one end of the Resentment Army’s camp: “Over there, over there! It looks like someone’s charging into the Resentment Army’s camp.”

Everyone turned to look at Ning Yi. Ning Yi frowned, then stood up too, raising a telescope to look in that direction. These handmade, single-tube telescopes weren’t all reliably good — he looked, then handed it to someone else. Far off, at the rear of the Resentment Army’s camp, there was, indeed, some commotion.

“Old Guo’s just as sly as Liheng is!” someone said, laughing, looking at Ning Yi.

But most were still frowning. “What do we do?”

“Is it real?”

Ning Yi looked over at Qin Shaoqian, Yue Fei, and the others. Yue Fei cupped his hands. “This humble officer thinks that, even if it’s real, all we can do right now is wait and see.”

Qin Shaoqian lowered the telescope, and after a long while, nodded. “If it’s the Western Army, even fighting Guo Yaoshi tooth and nail for a day or two wouldn’t be enough to rout them completely. If it’s some other force… even if others really have come, what good would it do us to sortie now…”

Near the walls, quite a few soldiers had also noticed the disturbance over at the Resentment Army’s camp; they craned their necks, gazing toward the snowy ridge beyond, waiting in puzzled silence to see what would unfold.

Beyond that snowy ridge, having fought their way through, twenty-six riders charged toward the Resentment Army’s defensive line. A man named Ni Jianzhong had already had his belly slashed open; gripping his long spear, he clutched at his stomach with his other hand, trying to keep his intestines from spilling out.

Everything before his eyes was a sheet of red.

The Resentment Army’s soldiers surged forward to meet them.

“Kill!” he shouted — his last words.

The charge of these twenty-six riders dragged a tragic, ten-odd-zhang trail of blood across the snow. Within sight of the edge of Xia Village, the bodies of men and horses alike — all of them were left behind here…

…

Meanwhile, at Bianliang, this was the most perilous day yet.

Jurchen soldiers breached the city twice.

In the afternoon, Shishi, carrying a basin of bloodied water, was hurrying outside, exhaustion clinging to her as always, though she had grown skilled enough to weave around the wounded and the rushing crowds nearby.

“Sister Shishi…”

Someone suddenly approached, reaching out to grab her; she instinctively stepped aside, but the person blocked her path, nearly colliding with her. Looking up, she saw it was He Leier, carrying a small bundle.

“You…”

For a moment, Shishi felt a disorienting sense of dislocation — He Leier’s attire had no business appearing in a military camp at all. But regardless, here she was.

Though Shishi herself had come from the pleasure quarters, seeing He Leier show up like this still gave her a feeling of “this is madness.” She carried the basin forward. “Lei’er, what are you doing here…”

He Leier hurried along behind her. “Sister Shishi, I’ve come to find him… have you seen him…”

“He…” Shishi rushed out of the tent, dumped the bloody water, and went to fetch fresh hot water. A physician came over and gave her a few instructions; He Leier trailed beside her, her face a picture of misery.

“I don’t know where he is! Lei’er, even if you got hold of his token, you shouldn’t have come running in here at a time like this — do you know how dangerous it is here… I don’t know where he is; go, now—”

The clamorous, tragic cries of the wounded filled her ears; for the moment, Shishi had no time to deal with He Leier, only vaguely recalled saying something like this to her before she was, once again, swallowed up by exhaustion and endless work — blood, blood, blood, severed limbs, the dead, a constant humming buzz all around her…

…

Dusk was approaching.

Ning Yi and the others stood on the watchtower, watching as the Resentment Army drove captives into their camp.

Several flagpoles had been erected in front of the Resentment Army’s camp, and a few naked figures had been bound to them; the one in the very center had a broken arm, but by the looks of it, all of them still had some breath left in them.

Some Resentment Army soldiers were below, whipping them, beating them into bloody pulp, while loud-voiced members of the Resentment Army shouted toward Xia Village from the front, telling them that the reinforcements had been completely wiped out.

“The one right in the middle — that’s Long Hui…”

Someone standing beside Ning Yi, Qin Shaoqian, and the others pointed outward.

“I never imagined… that anyone would actually come…” Qin Shaoqian said quietly, his hands gripping the railing at the front of the watchtower until it creaked.

Distant mountains, near walls, snow-white ridges, the earth mottled in black, white, and grey, and beyond it all, the quiet Yellow River — within Xia Village, people gazed out through the walls, and everyone fell silent at this sight. There were perhaps over a thousand captives, their condition utterly wretched; their commanders were the ones now strung up before the camp. In this weather, stripped bare and hung up like this, it wouldn’t be long before they died as well; the constant whipping from below served only to increase the horror of the spectacle. There was no doubt that these thousand-odd captives would, before long, be driven forward to attack the city.

…

On the snowy plain, a dozen-odd li from Xia Village.

The horse was dead.

An old man trudged through the snow on foot, one of his arms bleeding, trembling.

The road ahead was littered with the dead in great numbers, blood staining what had once been pure white snow; the further he walked, the more corpses he found. At last, he reached the place where the battle with the Resentment Army had taken place — across the mountains and the snowy valley, bodies lay strewn everywhere. There was no one left alive; even those gravely wounded had, by now, frozen to death here. They had simply been left behind, forever.

“Ahh…”

The old man opened his mouth, and a meaningless sound emerged from his throat, tragic and desolate. An army without spirit could not defeat the enemy; and now that they’d finally shown that spirit, seeming to glimpse a ray of hope, it had still ended in this same cold, helpless futility. And the most bitter irony of all was that, having fought to the very end, he himself had still not died.

Heaven above… what more must be done, to turn this tide…

…

At Bianliang. Night had fallen, and the fierce fighting had not ceased.

The wall had been breached. Shishi ran through the flickering firelight, clutching a bundle of medicinal herbs, heading to seek shelter, the sounds of battle roaring all around her.

“Sister Shishi…” A faint voice called out from nearby, then grew louder. Someone ran up, reaching for her hand. Shishi turned.

He Leier.

She was still wearing that same brightly colored dress, so utterly out of place on a battlefield — no one knew why no one had chased her off by this point, perhaps simply because the fighting was too fierce, the battlefield too chaotic. Regardless, her face had grown far more haggard.

“You—” Shishi froze for a moment, then her gaze suddenly sharpened. “Run, now!”

She frowned and turned to leave. He Leier followed, trying to grab her arm. “Sister Shishi… what’s wrong… what’s wrong… Sister Shishi, I still haven’t found him!”

“You’re not going to find him! If you keep stopping here, you really won’t find him — ever! He Leier, do you understand what’s happening right now?! Do you understand what you’re doing — people are dying here! Do you understand what that means? All you can think about is your precious general! You think he’ll take you away? Can’t you think straight—”

Amid this back-and-forth, Shishi finally had to grab her hand and run, but a moment later, He Leier’s hand suddenly went heavy in hers. Shishi pulled at it hard. “Are you coming or not—”

They took a few more steps forward. He Leier seemed to be saying something — “It’s not…” — but when Shishi turned to look at her, He Leier collapsed to the ground.

An arrow had struck her from the side, piercing straight through her lower abdomen; blood was flowing. He Leier seemed startled; she touched the blood with one hand. “Sister Shishi, Sister Shishi…”

She lay there on the ground.

Having grown accustomed to every kind of wound these past days, Shishi crouched down almost instinctively, reaching out to touch the wound. Whatever she’d said moments ago no longer registered at all now. “You — lie still, it’ll be all right, it’ll be all right, it might not be serious…” She reached out to tear the woman’s clothing, then fumbled in her robe for scissors, speaking calmly all the while.

“Sister Shishi, it’s not… I’m not…”

“Don’t think about anything else right now, Lei’er…”

“I want to find him, I want to see him again, does he not love me anymore…”

“Lei’er! Don’t think about all that, Xue Changgong is still—”

“I’m carrying his child…”

“Let me try to stop the bleeding first…”

At those words, something rang in Shishi’s head with a jolt; she turned to look at He Leier. “What?” In that instant, the thoughts swirling through Shishi’s mind were chaotic — the first thing that occurred to her, oddly enough, was “whose child is it?” But even at the Alum Tower, women who weren’t fully virgin courtesans still didn’t take clients casually — and even when they did, there were more than enough ways to avoid pregnancy. More thoughts came crashing into her mind all at once, more than she could process.

“It’s his child, I wanted his child, it really is his…” He Leier smiled. “Sister Shishi, I’m only telling you — don’t tell him…”

Amid this chaos of battle, the capital had, for months now, existed in a state of grim martial severity. Soldiers had suddenly become the most sought-after men; a pair like He Leier and Xue Changgong should, in ordinary times, have simply been described as two people drawn together by the circumstances of the era — that should have been all there was to it. Shishi understood this perfectly well. This foolish woman, oblivious to the times, careless of the danger, still daring to bring pastries onto a battlefield like this — was that courage, or was it stupidity?

In this moment, for some reason, she found she couldn’t make sense of any of it. Earlier, when He Leier had come to find her at the Alum Tower and told her all this, Shishi had thought to herself: if you want to find him, go to the battlefield yourself. But He Leier had said: I’m carrying his child…

She had his child, but he hadn’t come to see her; she wanted to go find him on the battlefield, but she was already pregnant; she wanted Shishi to help her find him, but then she’d said: go yourself.

And so, she had come…

Sister Shishi, I’m only telling you — don’t tell him…

The blood flowing from her abdomen had stuck to Shishi’s hands.

Her thoughts seemed to seize up entirely.

Shishi had been helping out on this battlefield for many days now; she had witnessed every kind of miserable death, heard the screams of countless wounded, and had grown used to all of it. Even when Cen Jiqing’s hands had been severed, that horror unfolding right before her eyes, she had still been able to calmly bandage and treat her, and bring her back to the Alum Tower for further care. But at this moment, at last, something finally welled up inside her, and it could no longer be held back.

“Ahh…”

She knelt there, mouth opening wide, a sound of weeping tearing from her throat. After a long, long while, all the sorrow that had piled up within her over these many days finally, uncontrollably, broke free.

“Ahhh—”

Not far away, Xue Changgong, long saber in hand, was leading a small band of his remaining men past this spot. He glanced this way, then took two steps closer — he recognized that flowered skirt on the ground, and recognized too the woman kneeling beside it, weeping aloud. His gaze, and Li Shishi’s gaze, met briefly.

He took a step forward, stopped, stepped back, stopped again — then turned around, gripping his blade with both hands, and, leading his few remaining men, charged with a shout toward the Jurchen soldiers breaking through in the distance.

The glow of flames, the smell of blood, the clash of combat, the roar of battle cries… all of it went on.

…

At that very same moment, Zhong Shizhong, leading the Western Army, was crossing mountains and ridges, racing at full speed toward Bianliang!