The leaves had fallen away entirely, and the wind sweeping through the mountains now carried a faint chill, heralding winter’s approach. Amid the rolling hills, the waters of Xiaocang River flowed on quietly, the waterwheel turning as it always had. Children walked the paths leading down the mountainside, and the few residents remaining moved about the valley’s streets. With the main army deployed and the fighting in the northwest still raging at fever pitch, the training grounds within the valley stood empty, the atmosphere subdued—an air of solemn stillness had hung over the place for days now.

Every person in the valley kept close watch on how the war outside was unfolding.

Ning Yi walked along the mountainside, looking down at the scene below.

It was now the eleventh day since the great battle had erupted. News from the front arrived with some delay, but Ning Yi knew that, up until now, the fighting between the Huaxia Army and the Jurchen forces had raged at the most intense pitch possible every single day. The first decisive report to arrive not long ago had left him somewhat taken aback; once confirmed, his feelings had grown far more complicated still.

In the fighting up to that point, the fierce and chaotic circumstances of battle had caused a number of Huaxia Army soldiers to become separated from the main force. Amid such conditions, on the night of September 4th, a small squad of some twenty-odd soldiers, while searching for the main army, had ambushed the Jurchen main encampment near Xuanjia Hollow in Qing Prefecture, unexpectedly achieving a remarkable feat. These twenty-odd men had launched a surprise attack on the Jurchen temporary camp in the dead of night, and it was suspected that they had struck down and killed the commander of the Jurchen western army himself—Wanyan Loushi.

This initial report remained unconfirmed at first, since the bulk of the news concerned the fighting itself.

On the night of September 4th, into the early morning of September 5th, sparked by this surprise attack by that small band of twenty-odd men, the fighting around Xuanjia Hollow escalated to an astonishing degree—a clash and struggle of such ferocity that no one could have anticipated it. Though none of the previous nine days of fighting had been easy by any measure, only two engagements of truly massive scale and full-scale collision had erupted before this; but on this particular night, the two armies clashed head-on for a third time, in full force.

The initial contact came from the Huaxia Army’s Fourth Regiment, tasked with the night raid, but the Jurchens’ subsequent response drew in every Huaxia Army soldier stationed near Xuanjia Hollow. Before long, the engagement had spiraled into a chaotic, full-scale clash—the Jurchen cavalry, throwing everything they had left into the fight, launched a massive night charge, and Liu Chengzong and the others once again pushed the artillery line forward to the front.

Before this, in every prior engagement, Loushi had been extremely cautious, always maneuvering to avoid the Huaxia Army’s artillery. But this time, the Jurchen assault came almost straight at the cannon line itself. After the initial shock passed, Qin Shaoqian and the others recognized that the enemy’s command structure had broken down, and began responding with cool composure. The ferocity and raw strength of the Jurchens still inflicted tremendous devastation that night; when the chaotic, brutal battle finally ended, the main Jurchen force had collapsed and retreated, casualties beyond counting. The abandoned village near Xuanjia Hollow, which had sparked the clash and become the site of the most fiercely contested fighting, saw both sides fighting over the piled corpses left behind until they formed something close to a small mountain.

Based on preliminary intelligence gathered after the battle, all signs pointed toward Wanyan Loushi having been killed by that squad of twenty-odd surprise attackers within the ruined village of Xuanjia Hollow. Not long after, a second report from the front essentially confirmed this to be true.

The reports from the battlefield came in only a few sparse lines, and it was hard to imagine just how much hardship the men at the front had endured. As for the sudden death of Wanyan Loushi—a war god who had dominated battlefields for decades—Ning Yi felt some measure of surprise, though it wasn’t entirely beyond understanding. Across the eight or nine days of fierce, relentless clashing, in every single exchange and confrontation, the Huaxia Army had shown a fighting spirit honed to its absolute peak, in no way inferior to any army in the world. And soldiers who, even after being separated from their unit in the aftermath of such brutal combat, would still fight their way back, sparing no effort to land one more decisive blow against the enemy—every single one of them was, in his own way, no less remarkable than Wanyan Loushi himself.

Still, if Wanyan Loushi truly had died, many things going forward might well unfold differently than previously anticipated.

Fighting a bit, stalling a bit, negotiating and then fighting again—this was, after all, a very different matter from the Jurchens’ all-out, relentless offensive.

In the northwestern valleys after autumn’s passing, once the leaves had fallen completely, the land always took on a heavy, withered yellow-gray hue. Ning Yi turned these thoughts over in his mind, though in the end it amounted to little more than quiet reflection. Ever since the Jurchens marched south, the world had moved like an iron torrent; by now, with the Central Plains fallen and millions upon millions of people driven into flight and exile, no one could remain untouched. Standing as he did at the very center of this maelstrom, there had long been no path of retreat left to him—and while he felt the weight of it all, he wasn’t the sort to feel afraid.

After thinking it over for a while, he returned to his quarters and drafted a response to the front:

First, have the members of Bamboo Records immediately begin spreading word of Wanyan Loushi’s death.

Second, advise the front lines to remain cautious, wary of any trap. At the same time, if Loushi’s death is confirmed, no negotiations of any kind are to be considered—the priority is to crush the main Jurchen force decisively on the battlefield. As long as any strength remains, no Jurchen is to be allowed to escape; any Jurchen who refuses to surrender is to be hunted down and killed without exception across the entire northwest, so that they come to fully understand the true strength of the Huaxia Army.

Third, …

In Jiangnan, the Jurchens’ campaign of “combing the mountains and searching the seas” had already begun.

…

After the great battle at Xuanjia Hollow, the fighting in the northwest did not settle simply because the main Jurchen army had collapsed. In the days that followed, fierce fighting continued to break out between reinforcements from various sides—the She and Zhong families clashed twice in succession, and around the edges of Qing Prefecture, skirmishes large and small between various factions never ceased.

Regarding Loushi’s death, the reorganized Jurchen forces never once confirmed it publicly, but as various pieces of information continued to circulate and ferment, people gradually came to realize that Wanyan Loushi—this nearly invincible Jurchen commander who had spent his whole life at war—had indeed been killed in some engagement against the Huaxia Army.

On September 7th, She Kequ had already begun to sense as much. On September 9th, near Chonggang in Qing Prefecture, the leaderless Jurchen army, now stripped of its supreme commander, engaged the Huaxia Army in a decisive battle. The Huaxia Army deployed rows of hot-air balloons equipped with crossbowmen, launching skyward to drop explosive charges from above, while the artillery positions simultaneously bombarded the Jurchen forces. After a period of frantic maneuvering, the Jurchen army, led by Loushi’s former personal guard under the command of Digu, launched an all-out assault against the Huaxia Army—but by this point, such a desperate, forced attack held little real meaning.

After this battle, Loushi’s personal guard was all but wiped out, and the remaining Jurchen forces, having lost the will to fight, began routing under the command of the general Digu. The Huaxia Army pursued relentlessly, cutting down several thousand of the enemy; afterward, Han Jing led cavalry in pursuit of the fleeing Jurchen forces across the entire northwest region.

Amid this tidal wave of rout and slaughter, this was perhaps the most humiliating defeat the Jurchen army had suffered since marching south. On that same day, September 9th, Wanyan Xiyin, stationed in Zhengzhou, upon confirming the news of Loushi’s death, smashed his fist through the desk in his study. After word arrived of the western army’s crushing defeat, he read over and over the piece of calligraphy Ning Yi had sent along with Fan Hongji.

“Stern and mighty, as if still present—who says the Han have already perished.”

Over the years, Loushi’s position within Zonghan’s faction had been truly indispensable; within the Jurchen court, he had likewise been a figure of great weight, a general of illustrious achievements. His accomplishments on the battlefield were countless, and his martial skill formidable, all earned through blood and steel, blow by blow. Two years earlier, in the assault on Puzhou, he had even scaled the walls personally alongside just three armored men, the four of them fighting their way through to open a breach atop the ramparts. No one had ever imagined he would suddenly meet his end on the battlefield—he had seemed, to all who knew him, an almost invincible hero.

At the same time, upon learning of Loushi’s death and the western army’s collapse, Wushu and the others pressed their offensive in Jiangnan with unstoppable, overwhelming force. Yinshuke took Mingzhou; originally a general with something of a merciful streak, he had shown some restraint over his troops after breaking through a city’s defenses in the past. But upon hearing of Loushi’s death, he ordered his soldiers not to sheathe their blades for ten days, after which the Jurchens spent that time slaughtering the people of Mingzhou before finally burning the city to the ground.

“This debt gets settled on the head of that man in the northwest,” Yinshuke said.

After this, the Jurchen eastern army sacked several more cities, and the corpses piled up in countless numbers all along the Yangtze River basin.

…

The blood was still spreading. Amid that crimson stain, he swung the weapon in his hands, smashing the pinned-down Jurchen officer’s face into an unrecognizable pulp, then hacked the man’s head clean off, hoisting it up with a wet slap and hurling it into the air.

“Come on—!” he roared.

The comrades around him closed ranks, forming up together. Ahead, countless Jurchen soldiers surged forward; blades and spears drove them steadily backward, warhorses crashing into the line. He swung his blade, cutting down enemies, while one by one the comrades around him were run through or cut down, bodies piling up into what looked like a small hill. Eventually he too fell, blood gradually rising to swallow everything…

When he opened his eyes, white light filled the space ahead of him.

It took Zhuo Yongqing a long while to realize he hadn’t died. He found himself in some room set aside for wounded soldiers; in the bed beside him lay someone, half his face wrapped in bandages, though it was still faintly recognizable as Squad Leader Mao Yishan.

“Hey, look who’s awake.” Mao Yishan grinned.

It took him quite some time longer to piece together what had actually happened.

That night at Xuanjia Hollow, they had run into Wanyan Loushi himself—and he had killed him. When Mao Yishan first told him this, Zhuo Yongqing hadn’t believed it, but not long after, Mr. Ning and the others came to visit him, and only then did he learn it was true.

That night of bloody battle at Xuanjia Hollow had left the ruined village littered with countless dead, but in the end, it was the Huaxia Army’s assault force that had come out on top. Their small group of twenty-odd men had ultimately banded together, rescuing seven severely wounded comrades—two of whom had died not long after—leaving five survivors, who were now all temporarily housed together in this room.

These five were: Zhuo Yongqing, Luo Ye, Qu Qing, Hou Wu, and Mao Yishan.

Over the following stretch of time, the five gradually woke one by one. Winter arrived, and snow began to fall outside. They spent nearly two or three months recovering from their wounds; by the time the fighting outside had long since ended, the She family had retreated back to their own territory to hold their ground, the Zhong family army had grown in strength and influence with the Huaxia Army’s support, and though Jurchen forces continued their slaughter across the Central Plains and Jiangnan, the northwest had, at last, settled into a temporary peace.

The five men were currently being housed in Yan Prefecture, and Mr. Ning and General Qin would occasionally come by to check on them. Luo Ye’s wounds healed the fastest; Qu Qing’s the slowest—he had lost three fingers on his left hand and taken a blade to the leg, which meant he might well walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Mao Yishan’s face had been disfigured by the slash he’d taken; Hou Wu’s injuries were similar to Zhuo Yongqing’s, and once healed, wouldn’t leave much lasting trouble—though, of course, the spot on Zhuo Yongqing’s hand where the blade had pierced through would occasionally ache once scarred over, sometimes making certain tasks a bit awkward. Still, this counted as no more than a minor injury.

Because of the wound on his hand, Zhuo Yongqing would sometimes find himself thinking of that mute girl who had died before his eyes.

Since Zhuo Yongqing’s family lived in Yan Prefecture, once his wounds had mostly healed, he went home to stay for a few days. After the New Year had passed, all five had recovered. On this particular day, they went out together to celebrate their return to health, taking a table at a restaurant and ordering a full spread. Luo Ye said to Zhuo Yongqing: “Kid, I’m honestly jealous of you… that it was you who killed Loushi.” Though, admittedly, this wasn’t the first time he’d said something like it.

Zhuo Yongqing looked rather embarrassed. “I—I still don’t even know for sure if it was really…”

They poured wine onto the ground, offering it to the souls of the dead. Not long after, Luo Ye raised his cup, paused for a moment, then said: “If this were in some story, the five of us—having survived such a great calamity together—would be expected to swear brotherhood right here. But doing something like that would actually be disrespectful, both to the dead and to the living, because the truth is, we—the Huaxia Army, everyone—we’ve already been brothers for a long time now.” He pressed his lips together, gave his cup a small swirl, then said, “So, brothers, all of you—here’s to us!”

Zhuo Yongqing raised his own cup in both hands. “Cheers… brother.”

They didn’t say much more about how special the five of them supposedly were—none of them was truly special, and there was no particular reason they needed to band together because of it. To think otherwise would have been an insult to the dead. They had each come from different places, converging together here, just as every member of the Huaxia Army had, whether now dead or still living.

And yet, in all the years that followed, Zhuo Yongqing would always remember this day. No matter how many wars, partings and reunions, hardships, struggles, cries of battle, or even final farewells he would go on to experience, he would always be able to recall, all those years later, the scene of that day—when he and those ordinary, yet extraordinary, people had come together in one place.

It was the winter of his first narrow escape from death on the battlefield, and the northwest, at last, enjoyed a brief spell of peace.

Outside the window, snow fell across the boundless sky.

And he had gotten thoroughly, wonderfully drunk.