The provincial capital of Qingzhou.

Smoke and chaos still lingered. Atop the towering walls, the Western Xia banner now flew.

On the southeastern side of the city, smoke still drifted skyward. On the third day since the city’s fall, blades remained unsheathed in that southeastern quarter, where soldiers who’d distinguished themselves in the assault were now carrying out their final frenzy. With future governance in mind, the Western Xia king Li Qianshun hadn’t let his army’s frenzy run entirely unchecked — but even with such orders in place, the city’s other quarters were, at this point, hardly at peace either.

For a city that had put up resistance, the fury the army had accumulated ran deep. The soldiers who’d distinguished themselves ran wild in their designated southeastern quarter, slaughtering, looting, abusing, and violating at will; the other units who hadn’t received their share of the spoils likewise plundered and abused the local populace elsewhere. The people of the northwest, known for their fierce spirit, sometimes rose up in resistance — and were simply killed on the spot for it. In wars like this, being left alive at all was, in the eyes of the slaughterers, already an enormous mercy.

A former estate belonging to Qingzhou’s wealthy gentry figure Yang Ju had now become the Western Xia king’s temporary palace. The civil official bearing the Han name Lin Houxuan, Western Xia name Qunu Ze, waited in a chamber within the courtyard for an audience with Li Qianshun, occasionally glancing at a group of people across the room, trying to guess at their origins.

The group numbered six in total; the one leading them was peculiar — a woman dressed in the robes of a lady of refinement. She was beautiful, her robe patterned in blue and white, bright but not gaudy. When Lin Houxuan entered, she’d risen politely and given him a faint smile; from then on, she’d simply sat in her chair, head lowered, lost in thought, her gaze calm, not speaking with the several attendants around her.

The woman’s bearing was very much that of a well-read, well-bred Han lady from a prominent family — yet at the same time, the way she sat with her head bowed in thought carried the air of someone accustomed to managing real affairs of consequence. The fact that the five men beside her spoke only in hushed tones and never dared show her the slightest disrespect only confirmed this impression.

This was a chamber for those awaiting audience with the emperor, and a group led by a Han woman here was, indeed, rather intriguing.

His own career had been built on eloquence and the art of persuasion; reading people’s bearing and expressions had long since become second nature to him. As he pondered the group’s possible origins, an official entered from outside and waved him aside. This was his father, Qulige, himself a chieftain of the Tangut nobility, currently serving as a remonstrance official in the Western Xia court’s Central Secretariat. The old man was not pleased that his son had failed to persuade Small Azure River’s Wu Dynasty rebel forces into surrender — not exactly a fault, but certainly nothing to boast of either.

“His Majesty will see you shortly.”

“Yes.”

“Since your mission this time failed, when you see His Majesty, don’t gloss over anything or try to shift the blame. Whatever the situation in the mountains truly was, report it exactly as it was — how to proceed is for His Majesty to decide.”

“Yes.”

After a few more words of instruction, the old official nodded and left. Before long, someone came to formally summon him inside, and he once again found himself before the Tangut Western Xia emperor, Li Qianshun.

Compared to the Wu Dynasty, which had spiraled so sharply downward these past years, the Western Xia’s Emperor Li Qianshun, now forty-four, was in the very prime of his strength and vigor.

Western Xia was a nation founded on military might, plain and simple. Among the nations west of the Wu Dynasty, Dali lay far to the south, its terrain rugged and mountainous, and the nation itself was thoroughly pacifist by nature — weak in outward strength due to geography, though the neighboring Wu Dynasty and Tibetan territories didn’t much trouble it either. The Tibetan territories, at present, were fragmented among competing chieftains, their people far from benevolent, but with little real capacity to expand either — in earlier years they’d leaned on the Wu Dynasty, occasionally helping fend off Western Xia, but in recent years, as the Wu Dynasty weakened, Tibet had stopped offering the Wu Dynasty any help at all.

Only Western Xia, throughout all its years as a nation, had fought continuously against the Wu Dynasty, against Tibet, against the Liao — battles large and small, without pause. Had it not been for the extraordinarily gifted general Zhong Shidao decades earlier, backed by the powerful economic strength of the Wu Dynasty, Western Xia would never have been driven out of the Hengshan region in the first place.

With that southern barrier now gone and the threat of ruin looming, the upper and middle strata of Western Xia’s officialdom and populace felt, to varying degrees, a keen sense of urgency. In this atmosphere, Li Qianshun, as the nation’s sovereign, had seized the opportunity presented by the Jurchen invasion from the south to forge an alliance with them, then pushed his own forces past Hengshan — within half a year, taking several major cities in succession, even digging up the ancestral graves of the Zhong family’s Western Army in Qingjian City, and at the start of the year, scattering the remnants of the Zhong family’s forces entirely. Looking forward, this would stand as the towering achievement of a sovereign presiding over a genuine national resurgence. As ruler of his nation, expanding its borders and breaking new ground, his power and prestige had reached an unprecedented peak.

When Lin Houxuan was summoned in, the main hall was already engaged in deliberations; several great chieftains of the Tangut clans — Yeli Chong, Linu, Jiuyanmu — along with several senior generals of the army, such as Meile and Naduohan, were all present. With the campaign still ongoing, the fierce and battle-hardened general Naduohan carried an aura of freshly-shed blood about him, having apparently come straight from killing someone somewhere. Seated at the front in the position of authority, his short beard and stern gaze commanding the room, Li Qianshun had Lin Houxuan explain the matter of Small Azure River in detail, and at one point interjected: “Where exactly is that place?”

“East of Yanzhou, a small mountain valley.” Li Qianshun gestured toward the map behind him.

The great chieftain Yeli Chong said, “A Wu Dynasty rebel force has taken root there, roughly ten thousand strong — potentially usable talent. I had Qunu Ze go to negotiate their surrender, but he was refused, and so Your Majesty wished to hear the full account.”

Naduohan gave a small nod. Lin Houxuan bowed to the assembled group before beginning his account of the journey to Small Azure River. By now he could tell that, against the grand strategic considerations occupying these men’s minds, something as small as Small Azure River amounted to nothing more than a trivial nuisance; he didn’t dare embellish anything, simply laying out the entire course of events plainly, exactly as they’d happened. The others merely listened; upon hearing that the other side had refused to grant an audience for several days, most had already lost interest, and General Meile gave a cold snort. Lin Houxuan continued on, and by the time he reached the account of the eventual meeting and conversation between the two of them, no one seemed especially surprised.

Once he’d finished, Li Qianshun frowned and waved a hand — not in anger, exactly, though his voice had grown somewhat lower. “Well then, this trifling little place — let it be, for now.” With over a hundred thousand troops sweeping across the northwest, offering surrender terms had simply been a gesture of respect; since the other side had refused, they could simply be swept aside in due course.

Yeli Chong said, “Qunu Ze’s account is accurate. I intend to send word to Marshal Zonghan and General Cibushi of the Jin state, asking them to seal off the northern route through Lüliang. And I’ll order Jilasaile to seal off the Lüliang approach as well — anyone traveling to or from those mountains is to be killed outright. There’s no grain in those mountains; securing the southwest is our priority for now. We can simply let them starve to death in the mountains and pay them no further mind.”

At this, murmurs spread through the hall, and some passed along word of this Small Azure River army’s origins to those nearby. Everyone already knew of the Wu Dynasty emperor’s murder the previous year, but that the very group before them had committed the regicide — men like Naduohan hadn’t yet grasped this detail. Looking more carefully at the map now, he shook his head and laughed.

“Rose up in rebellion and killed the Wu Dynasty’s emperor… a bunch of madmen. Look at them — they may have had some fighting strength at first, but they don’t even dare seize a single prefecture or county, only daring to burrow into some mountain and hold on for dear life — utterly foolish. Since they refuse to submit to us, let them starve and rot in those mountains. Once the southern situation is settled, I’ll be happy to send them on their way personally too.”

“There’s no need for excessive concern, gentlemen, but neither should this be dismissed too lightly.” Li Qianshun waved a hand, turning to Yeli Chong. “This matter is Chieftain Yeli’s to decide, but do remind Jilasaile as well — he’s guarding the northeastern front, and needs to handle both the Zhe family’s army and this mountain rabble with due caution. That said, since this mountain rabble has murdered the Wu Dynasty’s emperor, there’s no possibility of them allying with the Zhe family anymore. Once we’ve pacified the southwest and move northeast, we can sweep them aside in passing.”

Meile said, “As for the scattered remnants of the Zhong family’s forces, now wandering in every direction, we must guard against them allying with this mountain rabble.”

“Clearing out these remaining Zhong forces along this front is our immediate priority. But if they flee into the mountains, in my view there’s no need to worry. There’s no grain in those mountains — the more outsiders they take in, the harder it’ll be for them to feed everyone.”

“Zhong Lie has now fled to Huan and Yuan prefectures. Since we’ve already taken Qingzhou, we might consider a direct assault on Yuanzhou; if he then retreats to defend Huanzhou, our main force could cut off his line of retreat…”

For the Western Xia army at this point, the true, pressing threat remained the Western Army. Toward the northeast, the Zhe family’s forces had spent this entire period biding their time, currently holding Fuzhou in the northeast; though Zhe family patriarch Zhe Kequ hadn’t sent troops to relieve the Zhong family, he remained a constant threat to the Western Xia forces nonetheless. The general Jilasaile, currently stationed near Yanzhou with thirty thousand troops, had as his primary task guarding against a sudden southward move by the Zhe family.

To the west, since his last defeat, Zhong Lie, leading several thousand of the Zhong family’s direct forces, was still maneuvering through the surrounding region, attempting to recruit new troops and rebuild, or at least preserve some spark for the future. For the Western Xia, taking cities and territory was no longer in question — but truly pacifying the Wu Dynasty’s northwest necessarily meant first thoroughly destroying the Western Army.

As for Small Azure River — the northwest was a land of fierce, hardy people, and at present, uprising bandits filled every corner of this region; this was merely one such group, slightly larger in number than most. Like a snake trapped in a jar, you might get bitten reaching in to grab and kill it — or you could simply seal the jar and let it die on its own in time.

Whoever governs a nation, after all, rarely takes a band of bandits too seriously.

As the discussion continued, the topic drifted on to broader strategic matters. Yeli Chong waved Lin Houxuan off, and Li Qianshun spoke from above. “Envoy Qunu Ze, you performed your mission on this journey with merit; go now and rest. There will be other missions requiring your service in the future.” Lin Houxuan gave thanks and bowed his way out.

Qingzhou remained in a state of tremendous chaos; within the hall, Small Azure River had merited only a few passing sentences, but Lin Houxuan understood — that valley’s fate had already been decided. Once the situation here settled somewhat, even if that place wasn’t left to starve, it would simply be swept aside in passing by their main forces. The doubts he’d once harbored regarding the attitude of that Ning-surnamed leader in the valley were now truly cast aside.

He had more important matters to attend to; there was no need to trouble himself over dead men walking.

Yet as he made his way out through the courtyard corridor, he noticed the group of six who’d shared the room with him earlier, the woman still leading them, being summoned in to see the emperor.

…

Lou Shuwan walked through the courtyard of this temporary Western Xia palace, transforming the cold, indifferent expression on her face into a gentle, confident smile. Then she stepped into the hall where the Western Xia emperor held court.

She carried Tian Hu’s seal of authority, along with a list of merchants who had, along the way, jointly agreed to submit to Western Xia’s rule.

Before long, on the map at the front of the council hall, she happened to notice something — the location where the Inner Demon Ning Yi and his forces were stationed, newly marked with an X.

…

This was, in fact, already the second time that day that the Western Xia emperor Li Qianshun and his chieftains and ministers had heard mention of this Wu Dynasty rebel army, of Small Azure River.

He studied the beautiful woman leading the group below with a stern gaze, frowning slightly. “You — do you have some prior connection to the people at that place?”

Tiger King Tian Hu was, from the Wu Dynasty’s perspective, likewise a rebel who’d risen in revolt. Coming from a thousand li away to seek cooperation, Li Qianshun had no objection to that. He didn’t hold this Small Azure River rabble in much regard either — but having only just pronounced this place’s death sentence in his mind, the emperor found it distinctly unwelcome to have anyone attempt to change his mind now.

The woman below lowered her head. “The Inner Demon Ning Yi is the most utterly heretical of men. He personally killed Shuwan’s father and elder brother with his own hands — the Lou family and he share a blood feud that can never be reconciled!”

“Oh.” Li Qianshun waved a hand, and now he laughed. “A father’s murder — no need to trouble yourself over it further. That place is already marked for death.”

By the time Lou Shuwan left the courtyard, the dispatch bound for the Jin state had already been sent. The summer sun blazed overhead, and she suddenly felt a wave of dizziness.

Since arriving from Tian Hu’s side, she’d already worked out Small Azure River’s intentions, learning of their efforts to open trade routes. She’d taken advantage of this, traveling and negotiating in every direction, rallying a group of merchants to submit to Western Xia first in exchange for safety — precisely in order to disrupt Small Azure River’s plans as thoroughly as possible.

She didn’t know whether her efforts would succeed. She hoped that, because of her efforts, the other side would sink into an enormous quagmire of difficulty. She hoped that Small Azure River would die a slow death amid that hardship, that the man named Ning Yi would die in unbearable agony. And yet, today, when Li Qianshun casually remarked, “That place is already marked for death,” she suddenly felt an odd sense of unreality.

This whole affair felt too simple. But Li Qianshun had no reason to lie — there was no need for it at all. A hundred thousand Western Xia troops were sweeping across the northwest, and more forces were being sent in from within Western Xia itself to secure this territory. The more than ten thousand people hiding in that impoverished, barren mountain range were now regarded with hostility by Western Xia, cut off by the Jin state, and, given the unforgivable crime they’d committed against the Wu Dynasty, had essentially made themselves enemies of the entire world — they truly stood no chance at all. And yet it still felt too simple, weightless, as though none of it were quite real.

Sometimes, that’s simply how grand strategic calculations play out — many things happen without ever feeling truly real. In her imagination, she had, naturally, already pictured Ning Yi’s death many times over. In that imagined moment, he was supposed to be begging for mercy before her — no, perhaps he wouldn’t beg for mercy, but at the very least, he would die before her in agonizing torment.

But as things stood now, she would simply, one day, receive word out of nowhere telling her: Ning Yi is dead, and there will never again be a man like him in this world. Thinking of it now, it felt suffocatingly false.

“What will you do…” she murmured under her breath, making her way through the chaos-stricken city.

…

“Waah, waah—”

“Pat pat pat, pat pat pat… don’t cry, little sister, look here, look here…”

“Did I wake her up? Sister, sister…”

Mixed with the sound of a crying baby, the small courtyard fell into a chaotic, noisy scene at noon.

This was after lunch; Luo Ye, who’d stayed to eat, had also left by now. In Yun Zhu’s room, the infant, only a month old, had begun crying without warning right after finishing her feeding. Five-year-old Ning Xi stood nearby, holding a rattle drum, trying to soothe her; Ning Ji stood there gnawing on his finger, thinking he’d been the one to wake his sister, looking utterly bewildered, and went over to try to soothe her too. Yun Zhu, dressed in a single white garment, sat on the edge of the bed holding the baby, rocking her gently.

“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?”

Ning Yi came in through the door, Jin’er following behind him. Ning Xi shook his head. “Ning Ji and I were both looking at picture books next to her, we didn’t disturb her.” He held the rattle drum in one hand and, in the other, a small picture book he and Yun Zhu had drawn together. Ning Yi smiled and ruffled his hair, then went over to look at the crying baby in Yun Zhu’s arms. “Let me take a look.” He took her, holding her in his own arms.

Once in Ning Yi’s arms, the infant’s crying softened somewhat.

As Ning Yi’s third child, this little girl’s life had been difficult from the very start. Her body was weak, her breathing labored; in her first month, she’d already come down with chills twice. As for her mother, Yun Zhu, she’d nearly died during the difficult labor, confined to bed for over half a month before she could finally stabilize. At first, Ning Yi had found a wet nurse in the valley to feed the baby, having the nurse take medicine that would pass into her milk to help treat the child. Once Yun Zhu had recovered somewhat, she’d insisted on nursing the baby herself and taking the medicine herself, so that her own postpartum recovery period had been carried out only half-heartedly — had Ning Yi not repeatedly insisted on restraining her and helping ease her mind, her recovery, out of sheer worry for her daughter, would likely have gone even more slowly.

In these recent days, the situation both inside and outside the valley remained far from optimistic; Ning Yi personally attended to nearly every daily matter in the valley, but without fail, every evening he would come here to look after his child and his wife. The frail, sickly infant would grow miserable and cry every night; Yun Zhu, still weak, would only grow more anxious trying to soothe her, unable to manage it — Ning Yi would come and hold the baby, coaxing her to sleep, and by now, he was actually more skilled than Yun Zhu at soothing this little girl.

“Let me check… no wet diaper, and she just finished nursing. Ning Xi, stop shaking the rattle drum, it’ll disturb your sister. And Ning Ji, don’t worry, it wasn’t you who woke her up… I think the room’s a bit stuffy — let’s go sit outside. Mm, there’s really no wind today at all.”

He carried the baby outside; Yun Zhu slipped on her embroidered shoes and followed, bringing a gauze cloth to shield the baby’s face slightly. In the early afternoon, cicadas chirped faintly in the courtyard, sunlight filtering warmly through the gaps in the trees; only a light breeze stirred, the swing beneath the tree swaying gently.

Sure enough, once they reached the shade of the tree, the baby in his arms stopped crying. Jin’er sat down on the swing, rocking back and forth; Ning Yi and Yun Zhu sat down nearby as well. Seeing their little sister quiet down, Ning Xi and Ning Ji ran off to the side to look at picture books, running quite far off this time. Yun Zhu, taking the baby back, looked at her sleeping face beneath the gauze veil. “I haven’t even been a good mother to her.”

“You nearly lost your life bringing her into this world — anyone who says you’re not a good mother, I’ll deal with them.” Ning Yi said softly, laughing.

Yun Zhu lowered her head and smiled faintly. She’d always had a quiet, gentle temperament, and her appearance hadn’t changed all that much from before — only her once beautiful, unadorned face had grown considerably thinner. Ning Yi reached out and touched her cheek, thinking back to the harrowing labor a month earlier, his emotions still not entirely settled.

He’d been through many major events over the years — when Tan’er and Xiao Chan had given birth to their two children before, it hadn’t been especially difficult. But this time, with Yun Zhu’s difficult labor, the turmoil in his heart had been, frankly, more intense than even the moment he’d killed Zhou Zhe in the Golden Hall. That night, hearing Yun Zhu in pain through half the night, he — normally so composed — had even rushed straight into the birthing room, ready to force the physician, if it came down to it, to save the mother over the child.

Perhaps because of this, he carried a certain lingering guilt toward this child who’d so narrowly survived, and being a girl on top of that, he found himself, in his heart, giving her a bit more affection than he might otherwise have. Of course, on the surface, he wasn’t willing to admit to any of this.

Yun Zhu knew exactly what he was thinking, and smiled now. “Sister’s grown thin too. If you have things to attend to, you don’t need to sit here with us — you and Sister both carry such heavy burdens.”

She was older than Tan’er, but when speaking of her, she usually called her “Sister,” sometimes “Sister Tan’er.” Ning Yi nodded, sitting with her in the sun for a little while longer before turning and heading off.

He still had a great many matters to attend to. Leaving the courtyard, accompanied by Chen Fan, he headed for the council hall; that afternoon, he met with a great many people, went through tedious administrative summaries, and missed dinner entirely. Jin’er and Chen Fan’s wife, Ji Qian’er, brought food boxes over to him; once he’d finished his work, they ate dinner together on the ridge, watching the sunset, and afterward had a bit of leisure time, the group strolling slowly along the ridge.

Dusk had already settled by now. Jin’er spoke softly of a few amusing things that had happened that day, occasionally offering some scattered thoughts of her own. Stopping on the grassy slope, she sat cross-legged, having Ning Yi rest his head in her lap as he lay down, reaching out to massage his temples. In her soft, unguarded way, Jin’er occasionally asked about matters in the valley too. At dinner today, she’d noticed Tan’er looked rather thin too — everyone was so busy, and things might not necessarily be improving. The valley’s grain supply was already stretched thin through June or July, and by now was beginning to run visibly low, yet no good news seemed to be coming in from those out beyond the mountains.

“…I heard from Duan Shanhua that things are getting tense over at Green Wood Stockade too — I told her it’d surely be all right… I mean, I don’t really understand these things, but I know you’re so calm about it, Liheng, so it must be fine… though sometimes I do worry a little. Liheng, is there really that much grain out there that could be brought in? Between us and Green Wood Stockade, we’re almost forty thousand people now — how much food does that even take to feed everyone each day…”

As she massaged his temples, murmuring on softly, she suddenly noticed Ning Yi had opened his eyes and was gazing up at her from below, an ambiguous smile on his face.

“What, does it not feel good?”

“You’re talking me to sleep.” Ning Yi said with a laugh.

“Well, isn’t that a good thing? Then rest a while.”

As Jin’er spoke, Ning Yi had already sat back up, cross-legged. Night had fully fallen now, though the mountain breeze still felt warm. Jin’er leaned in closer, massaging his shoulders instead.

“…You handle so many matters every single day, holding onto every little thing yourself, big or small — it’s exhausting… didn’t you say you could leave it to the people below you? I think those old stewards, and Zhuo Xiaofeng and his group, are all quite reliable… you work so late every day, Sister and I and the others all worry, but you won’t rest even when we tell you to…”

Her soft chatter continued on like this, until, at some point, she heard Ning Yi speak quietly.

“It’s difficult, but not impossible…”

“Hm?”

The hand ahead of her caught the one on his shoulder, pulling her forward; Jin’er knelt behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck from behind. Ning Yi, gazing down at the valley below, spoke slowly, his voice low, after a moment. “Look — what does Small Azure River look like right now, do you think?”

“Huh?”

Jin’er’s eyes widened, then blinked. She was a clever woman in her own right, and understood that what Ning Yi had just said was likely some kind of riddle — and though she didn’t need to concern herself with such things, she was naturally curious all the same.

Looking down from here, scattered lights gathered along the riverbanks and in the settlement of Small Azure River; from this vantage point, one could even make out small clusters of people, gathered together or scattered apart, here and there. This small valley, encircled by the dark silhouette of the distant mountains, looked both lively and lonely at once.

What did it look like?

But that night, Jin’er never did manage to guess the answer to the riddle…

That same night, a figure cautiously slipped past Small Azure River’s outer sentries, vanishing quietly into the forested mountains to the east. Though the winter’s acceptance of refugees had brought in relatively few spies from other factions mixed among them, it had, in the end, been impossible to prevent entirely. At the same time, a Western Xia dispatch demanding that the Jin state seal off the smuggling routes north of Lüliang was already racing along the road.

Amid the upheaval sweeping the realm, the vicious situation of an ambush closing in from ten directions around Small Azure River and Green Wood Stockade was steadily taking shape.

Malice was about to come crashing down…