Snow had begun falling from the sky once more.

Inside and outside the Xia Village valley, the large-scale battle was drawing to its close; where the Resentment Army’s camp had once stood, flames and thick smoke now raged unchecked. The corpses of men and horses, and pools of blood, stretched out from within the valley; at the valley’s edge, small pockets of Resentment Army soldiers still resisted, either already surrounded and being slaughtered, or else casting down their weapons and armor and kneeling in surrender. Amid the drifting snow across the valley and the ridges, cheers rang out from time to time.

Some were already busy scavenging the valuables the Resentment Army had failed to carry away in their retreat; those responsible for tending the wounded were emerging from the camp to give emergency treatment to the injured on the battlefield. Voices clamored noisily, cheers of victory dominating among them; warhorses ran freely across the hillsides, and when they came to a stop, the black-armored riders finally removed their helmets.

Smoke of battle blanketed the land everywhere; at the center of the valley, the bodies of Long Hui and the others had been laid down, wrapped in great banners, and the soldiers passing by saluted him.

Out in the snow beyond the valley, countless scattered footprints covered the ground—the flight and retreat of tens of thousands had churned up the entire snowfield—and Xia Village’s scouts were already pursuing in different directions across the distant horizon. Qin Shaoqian stood atop a snowy ridge, a great blade still stained with blood in his hand, gazing out at the distant scene. All around him, cheers were already rising, but the heat still coursing through his mind hadn’t yet faded; of everything he had witnessed, he had accepted part of it, while another part he still couldn’t fully process.

“Send out every scout… stay alert, in case Guo Yaoshi comes back… to strike us from behind… Go, quickly! Stay alert…”

The Resentment Army had been utterly routed.

As for the fact of this reversal today, from the moment everyone had decided to throw open the camp gates, with fervor boiling across every hillside, he, as a commander of no small skill, had already felt fairly certain of the outcome, nine parts in ten. But now that the situation had finally settled, looking back on the sheer ferocity of the Jurchen’s southward advance, the difficulty of his own efforts leading the Wuriu Battalion in trying to hold them back, the demoralizing string of defeats suffered by the several hundred thousand men outside Bian Liang over these past months, and then this desperate, all-or-nothing bloody struggle here at Xia Village these past days… now that everything had turned around, it left him with a faint sense of unreality…

Through all this long ordeal, even as recently as last night, they hadn’t been able to see much possibility of a breakthrough or an end to it. And yet now… had they somehow simply pulled through?

“…Where is Liheng?”

As this thought turned over in his mind, he found himself recalling the man’s decisiveness in that moment—this comrade, like a brother and mentor to him. Amid the chaos of battle, this brother, skilled in strategy, couldn’t always clearly grasp every shifting moment of the fighting; sometimes he couldn’t even fully understand the local advantages or disadvantages, and for that reason he never involved himself in the fine details of tactical decisions. But this morning, had it not been for the decisiveness he’d suddenly displayed, the single fleeting chance for victory would likely have slipped away in an instant.

In grasping and seizing the overall momentum and morale of the battle, Ning Yi, in that critical moment, had displayed a precision beyond compare. The oppression, brutality, and even despair of these past days, combined with everyone’s desperate desire to gamble everything before the crushing blow arrived, had all been compressed to their absolute limit in that instant. When the captives made their unexpected decision, for most commanders, all that could be done, perhaps, was to watch and hesitate. Even if moved in their hearts, they could only hope the soldiers in the camp would fight on with everything they had. But the course he had proposed staked everything on a single throw.

In the fighting that followed, Guo Yaoshi had demonstrated his skill in commanding and controlling his troops, yet for the Xia Village side, victory had come rather easily after all. Once Liu Shunren’s force had been annihilated in front of Xia Village, Guo Yaoshi had already begun pulling his own core troops back, leaving the cannon fodder stranded on the battlefield to be embroiled in chaotic melee with the Xia Village soldiers—nearly a one-sided slaughter. And after this almost coldly calculated act of cutting his losses, Guo Yaoshi had still managed to withdraw with over ten thousand surviving core troops.

It was hard to guess what had passed through Guo Yaoshi’s mind that morning, and just as hard to say what he’d been thinking when he made that decisive retreat. It wasn’t that the Resentment Army couldn’t fight—but the reality was as cold as the winter itself: Xia Village had been willing to burn every boat and fight to the death, while the Resentment Army had never possessed the courage to stake everything, all at once, on a single battle.

Still wary of the possibility that Guo Yaoshi might turn and strike back, Qin Shaoqian looked around again; across the smoke-shrouded battlefield, heavy snow was falling, and throughout the valley that had endured days of brutal fighting, the traces of corpses and warfire lay scattered everywhere, a scene of utter devastation. And yet, in this moment, for the first time, the emotions of victory were beginning to erupt across every hillside and crowd of men. Amid the cheers and laughter, there were also the faint, suppressed sounds of weeping.

Qu Qing limped his way across that ridge, which had already become the foremost point of Xia Village’s pursuit; some men stood embracing each other, laughing, their laughter faintly threaded with tears. Behind a great boulder, he caught sight of Mao Yishan, drenched in blood, nearly collapsed in the snow; after laughing for a while, he suddenly, for no clear reason, clutched his long blade and began sobbing. After a few sobs, he wiped his eyes and tried to stand, but as he pushed against the rock for support, he collapsed again, sitting in the snow and laughing “haha.”

Qu Qing didn’t go to help him up; he walked past from behind. Someone bumped into him, and someone else came up, throwing an arm around his shoulder and saying something; he laughed too, punching the man playfully in the chest, and then walked on into the nearby forest.

Within that forest, white snow and crimson blood still spread across the ground, with the occasional corpse lying scattered. He walked until he reached a place where no one else was, and the exhaustion in his heart finally surged up; he slowly sank to his knees on the ground. After a moment, tears began flowing, and he opened his mouth, letting out a low, muffled sob. This continued for a while, until finally he slammed a fist down into the snow, then struck his head against the trunk of the tree in front of him. He punched the trunk again, striking his head against it several more times until blood flowed; then he began biting at it with his teeth, tearing and scraping at it with his hands, until his head, hands, and mouth were all soaked in blood. He wrapped his arms around the tree and wept, his eyes bloodshot.

A man’s weeping is never a pleasant sound; his was twisted, almost like the cries of a madman.

He had once been an officer in the Wuwei Battalion, commanding a force of two or three hundred men; on the night of the raid on Moutuo Ridge, his unit had been all but wiped out entirely. Dazed and disoriented, he had broken away from the main force, scraping by to survive, and had wandered, without meaning to, into Xia Village. People spoke of the myth that the Jurchen were savage and that ten thousand of them were invincible, using it to excuse themselves, to make failure seem understandable and forgivable—and he too had once believed this. But these past days, in the end, he had seen something different, something that proved otherwise.

There was nothing that couldn’t be overcome—and yet all his brothers were already dead, every last one of them…

He clung to that tree trunk, his twisted, suppressed sobs continuing on and off for a long, long while…

In this moment, besides Qu Qing, there were many others weeping even as they laughed.

In the field hospital up above the valley, someone closed his eyes, listening to the sounds outside, murmuring softly, “Did we win?” The gaunt woman tending to him beside him nodded, replying in a subdued voice, “Yes.” The wounded soldier said quietly, “Ah, we won…” and then, finally, he stopped breathing, the bedding beneath him already soaked through with blood.

Nearby, people were still going about treating the wounded and gathering the dead; the cheers from below drifted up like something out of a dream.

The entire mountainside was, in this moment, immersed in an atmosphere as heady as wine, yet tinged with a touch of madness. Ning Yi hurried up the slope and caught sight of a woman lying on a stretcher—it was Juan’er. Her body was bloodied, her head wrapped in bandages, one eye swollen shut.

When the great battle down in the valley had descended into chaos, part of the Resentment Army’s forces, having been cut off and slaughtered, had broken through the undefended camp wall and surged inside. By then Guo Yaoshi had already led his troops in retreat, and these desperate men had thrown themselves into a hopeless fight; behind them were only the sick and wounded, and those with any strength left rose up to fight back. Caught in the midst of it, Juan’er had been chased and had tumbled down the hillside, striking her head and suffering several injuries to her body.

“There’s no danger to her life?”

Ning Yi immediately grabbed hold of the physician treating Juan’er, while beside him, Hongti went over to examine her as well.

“Miss Juan’er’s body is otherwise sound; this time, though…” the physician shook his head and began to say something, but seeing Ning Yi’s expression, quickly added, “There is no danger to her life.”

“Will there be any lasting effects on her body?”

“This section of Miss Juan’er’s hand bone—going forward, in damp, cold weather, it may ache… aside from that…”

The physician continued speaking a few more words; by then, Juan’er had already opened her eyes. With one eye swollen shut, she could only look at people with the other; her body, bloodied and wounded, made for a rather pitiful sight. “Miss Lu… Master, master… I’m fine, master, you weren’t hurt, were you…”

Ning Yi walked over, took hold of one of her hands, and reached out to touch her cheek, not quite knowing what to say. Juan’er struggled to smile: “Did we win?”

“We won,” Ning Yi said. “Don’t worry about any of that, just focus on recovering. I heard you were hurt, and I was worried about you… Well, as long as you’re all right. Rest and heal up first, and I’ll come see you again once I’ve dealt with things.”

“Mm.” Juan’er nodded. Ning Yi waved for someone to carry her away; the woman’s hand still gripped his fingers for a moment before finally letting go. Turning back, Ning Yi asked Yuwen Feidu beside him, “How many were captured after they broke into the camp?” Before Yuwen Feidu could answer, he added, “Have someone kill them all.”

Yuwen Feidu nodded first, then hesitated. “Master, I’ve heard some say… killing prisoners brings misfortune…”

“Heh.” Ning Yi rubbed his forehead, then after a moment, clapped Yuwen Feidu on the shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. I’m in no mood right now to think about the bigger picture. Anyone who got inside, kill them all. Anyone still outside, leave them be. Go.”

“Yes, sir.”

After Yuwen Feidu accepted the order and left, Ning Yi stood there for a moment, then finally let out a long breath. Looking back, the snowflakes drifting down weren’t especially thick, yet they had begun, little by little, to settle over the entire landscape; for the first time, amid all this devastation, the atmosphere across the distant ridges and nearby hills seemed to grow warm and calm. Whether cheering or weeping, that crushing, nearly unbearable sense of brutality and suffering had, for the moment at least, finally begun to dissipate.

Looking back on it, the fighting and struggle of these past ten days, the brutality and suffering, truly did feel like something from another lifetime. The possibility of driving back the Resentment Army had once seemed impossibly distant. Hongti came up from behind and took his hand: “Juan’er will be fine.”

“First, gather the bodies of General Long and all our other fallen brothers,” Ning Yi said, though this was directed at the attendants beside him. “Tell all the commanders not to let their guard down. This afternoon, we’ll begin the memorial rites for General Long. Tonight, prepare a good meal—but as for wine, still just one cup per man. Send someone to relay word to the capital, and find out how the fighting there is going. Also, keep tracking Guo Yaoshi…”

Amid the wind and snow, he waved his hand, and the orders began going out, one by one.

A few miles from Xia Village, out on the snowy plains, fighting between scouts was still ongoing. The corpses of horses and soldiers lay scattered across the snow and among the trees; occasional bursts of fighting claimed one or two more lives, and the survivors scattered in different directions, only to cross paths again before long.

By around noon, the great retreating column of the Resentment Army had finally begun to slow.

Amid the demoralized ranks, Guo Yaoshi rode his horse, his expression cold, neither joyful nor angry. Along the way, his capable officers had already reorganized the formation, while he himself paid closer attention to the reports brought back by his scouts. Among the Resentment Army’s senior commanders, Liu Shunren was already dead, and Zhang Linghui might well have been captured or killed. What remained of this force now consisted entirely of his own core troops—by careful count, only around fifteen thousand men.

Thirty-six thousand men had attacked a valley held by a force barely half their size, an enemy consisting of nothing more than remnants of the Wu Dynasty army—and in the end, his own side had lost over half its strength. This was something he had never imagined could happen.

In this moment, he came to a halt out on the snowy plain, reining in his horse and standing still, gazing around in every direction; heaven and earth alike were the same expanse of white, making it nearly impossible to tell one direction from another. This army of his had once been made up mostly of starving refugees from Liaodong who, in order to survive, had later pledged allegiance to the Wu Dynasty for reorganization; among them were also many refugees from the Six Prefectures of Yan-Yun who had lost their land and property. They had no roots, no sense of where they ought to go. Several officers came to ask Guo Yaoshi for orders; in his calm, expressionless face, no one could read what he was thinking.

Reports kept streaming in. After a long while, out on the snowy plain, Guo Yaoshi pointed in one direction: “We have no choice… but to go that way.”

The assembled officers’ faces showed shock, but before long, most of them merely stamped their feet and sighed. That afternoon, this remnant of the Resentment Army set out once more, heading, at last, deeper into the wind and snow…

This day was the tenth day of the twelfth month, in the thirteenth year of the Jinghan era—the day the war against the Jurchen’s southern invasion first saw a turning point. For the many forces stationed around Bian Liang at this time, the situation came as a shock; within a short span of time, most of them had received, one after another, the battle reports from Xia Village. And due to the exhaustion following the great battle, that afternoon, the Xia Village army was mostly occupied with tending its wounds and consolidating its strength. Every soldier still able to stand took part, amid the heavy snow, in memorial rites for General Long Hui and the many others who had died in battle over these past ten days.

As the scouts sent out gradually began returning, someone handed a letter over to Ning Yi.

That scout, while tracking Guo Yaoshi’s column, had encountered an old man of extraordinary martial skill, who had asked him to carry this letter back and deliver it. After confirmation from several men of the martial world, that old man turned out to be Fulu, the sole surviving disciple of Zhou Tong.

When the letter was opened, inside was found to be a letter written in blood.

After reading it, Ning Yi stood in the snow for a while, then tossed the blood letter into the fire and burned it.

This was but a small footnote amid the great war; it would be many years before the contents of that blood letter came to be made known to the world. Toward evening, the scouts who had returned from the capital brought back another urgent piece of news.

Since dawn that day, the Jurchen had ceased their siege of the city.

The reason was that Zhong Shizhong, leading over twenty thousand men of the Western Army, had arrived beneath the walls of Bian Liang and formally engaged Wanyan Zongwang, attempting to threaten Zongwang’s rear. Faced with this development, Zongwang, having failed to take the city, had abruptly abandoned the siege of Bian Liang altogether, launching a massive counterattack with his elite cavalry against the Western Army—likely an act of vented frustration after so long a failed siege. Bian Liang’s own forces, lacking sufficient strength, dared not sally out to relieve them, and outside the city, the two armies had since been locked in a brutal battle. Though Zhong Shizhong was an aging general, he still fought at the very front with everything he had—but given the disparity in strength, by the time the scout had left Bian Liang that afternoon, the Western Army’s more than twenty thousand men had already been routed and were in full retreat. Though Zhong Shizhong still retained some measure of control over part of the situation, if it continued much longer, his entire force risked being wiped out entirely outside the walls of Bian Liang.

Hearing this news, Qin Shaoqian, Ning Yi, and the others all fell into stunned silence for a long while. The Western Army was indeed famous among the common people, and in the eyes of many high officials of the Wu Dynasty, it did possess real fighting strength—but having fighting strength didn’t mean it could stand toe-to-toe with the Jurchen. In past engagements, Zhong Shizhong’s Western Army, while possessing a certain degree of combat capability, had always shown good sense when facing the Jurchen—fighting a while, and retreating when they couldn’t win. Eventually, everyone else had taken to hiding on the sidelines, and Zhong Shizhong too had led his army into hiding; even when Guo Yaoshi had gone looking for him to force a direct confrontation, he had simply maneuvered around, unwilling to engage head-on.

And yet, now, after Wanyan Zongwang had spent nearly twenty brutal days besieging the city, this old general had suddenly struck.

This time, he hadn’t chosen to retreat.

According to the scout’s report, in this battle, the ground outside Bian Liang was littered with corpses—not only those of the Western Army’s soldiers. Before the Western Army’s rout had fully taken shape, facing the world-renowned Jurchen elite cavalry, they had, under Zhong Shizhong’s command, still managed to inflict no small number of casualties.

The old general’s intent was plain to see. The Jurchen had besieged the city for twenty days without success, and their fighting strength had already begun to decline, their losses severe. The Western Army’s twenty-thousand-odd men might not be able to defeat them outright, but if they staked their lives and inflicted further losses on the Jurchen, the already battered Jurchen forces might no longer be able to consider continuing the siege at all—and Zhong Shidao and the others still inside the city might finally be able to force the enemy toward peace…

Even as Ning Yi and the others at Xia Village were left shaken by Zhong Shizhong’s courage and resolve, inside Bian Liang, the utterly exhausted populace was cheering and weeping tears of joy at the arrival of the Western Army—by contrast, the news from Xia Village had not yet reached most people’s ears. Su Wenfang came to the field hospital and found Shishi, her hair disheveled, her face pale, her frame gaunt, and told her what had happened at Xia Village.

Shishi stared at him wide-eyed for a long moment in silence; after a while, gripping the front of her robe with both hands, she bent forward slightly and began weeping, suppressed yet violent. Her thin frame trembled, letting out soft, choked sobs, like a sprout of bean about to collapse, tears falling like rain. Watching this, Su Wenfang’s own eyes reddened; he had been running himself ragged through the city for days, gaunt and stubbled, and after a while, he took his leave, continuing on with his errands for the chancellor’s office.

Within the imperial palace, the ministers had already gathered, compiling reports arriving from every direction, most of them in high spirits. And at this moment, the old man named Qin Siyuan stood in the hall, raising a matter that dampened the mood entirely.

That matter was… the rescue of Zhong Shizhong.