As the sky gradually brightened, the morning wind blew across the mountains and wilderness outside Linzhou city. The cold wind was aloof and distant, carrying in the air a sense that warned strangers to keep their distance.

It was as if this spring, too, had shown no kindness to the world of men.

Trails of beacon smoke and clusters of routed soldiers spread across these hills and highlands. In the fallow fields and along the roadsides, blood that had once flowed now lay congealed, corpses sprawled in disarray, and a hot-air balloon lay collapsed in the corner of a field ridge, its flames having burned a cart down to a cold skeletal frame.

Figures of Han soldiers appeared—two men crawled forward, searching the corpses for valuables and food to fill their stomachs. When they reached the edge of the woods, one of them was startled by something and crouched down, listening with a pounding heart to sounds carried on the distant wind.

“…Zhu Biao is dead! Zhu Biao is dead…” Someone in the woods was gathering and shouting these words. After a while, another voice shouted: “Ning Yi is dead! Ning Yi is dead…”

Louder commotion and more voices soon carried over. Two groups clashed at close quarters within the forest. The sound of slaughter drew closer and closer toward this side of the woods, and the two Han soldiers searching the corpses went pale, exchanged a glance, and then one of them turned and ran!

The other soon followed suit, turning to flee as well. Figures burst out from the woods—soldiers who had cast away their armor and helmets, ten of them, twenty of them… clutching only their weapons in hand, fleeing for their lives without a backward glance. Figures pursued and cut them down as they emerged from the woods; a dozen or so figures stopped at the edge of the woodland, while out on the open field, fifty or sixty men still ran desperately in different directions.

The figures at the edge of the woods leaned against tree trunks, gasping in exhaustion. Before long they climbed to their feet and headed north. One of them held aloft a banner—black in color.

Nearly half of Linzhou city had already been burned black by flames. To the west, north, and east of the city, there were large-scale traces of routed troops. When the relief army arriving from the west appeared in the distance, several thousand Jurchen soldiers—who had become separated from their main formation and had gathered in Linzhou to burn and kill—slowly began to react, attempting to regroup and block the advance.

Under the command of Wang Juyun, the Prince Ming army charged into the city at high speed, and fierce fighting spread through the city’s streets and alleys. The Jurchen general Ali Bai, still within the city, worked hard to organize resistance. As the Prince Ming army arrived in full force, he gathered over two thousand Jurchen troops along with several thousand Han soldiers who had been burning and killing within and outside the city, on the northeastern side of the city walls, and began fierce resistance there.

Wang Juyun rode his horse, leading the bulk of his forces north along the city walls. He looked at the surrounding walls, the battlefield, and the scenes of slaughter stretching far and near, his brow furrowed tightly. At last, the old man—who was normally imposing without needing to show anger—finally spoke: “The seventh… the ninth… how did it come to this…”

Shulisu’s siege of the city had begun at noon on the seventh. Now it was only the morning of the ninth, yet everywhere one looked across the battlefield were the traces of the most brutal head-on collisions.

He soon learned the course of events from the mouths of rescued wounded soldiers. In the early morning hours, the Huaxia Army had launched a counterattack against the Jurchens who were fiercely besieging the city. Nearly twenty thousand troops had thrown themselves all-in against Shulisu at the center of the battlefield, and Shulisu’s side had likewise put up a tenacious resistance. After more than an hour of fighting, the Huaxia Army’s main force, led by Zhu Biao and others, had turned—still locked in combat with the Jurchen army led by Shulisu—toward the northeast of the battlefield. Along the way, various units had become tangled with one another in a chaotic slaughter, and by now no one knew how far the fighting had spread.

Of course, it was also possible that somewhere beyond Linzhou’s sight, the entire battle had already come to a complete end.

Among the Huaxia Army’s wounded on the battlefield, some who had been cut down to the point of exhaustion still struggled to rise and rejoin the fighting ranks. Wang Juyun watched coldly for a moment, then still had them carried away. The Prince Ming army then pressed on in pursuit toward the northeast. Huaxia, Jurchen, and routed Han soldiers continued to slaughter one another across the long stretch of the chase…

…

Ten li north of Linzhou, at Yegu Ridge, large-scale fighting continued beneath the cold, overcast sky. Most of the snow on this desolate ridge had already melted, leaving broad stretches of mud across the slopes. Altogether more than four thousand soldiers charged across the slope; men bearing shields collided with their enemies and tumbled to the ground together, groping for their weapons and slashing with all their strength.

Someone was roaring hoarsely: “Shulisu is dead! Shulisu is dead…” — shouted in the Jurchen tongue, though it seemed to have little effect. A Jurchen soldier clad in leather armor and a felt cap hooked his fingers around his bowstring, his eyes bloodshot as he bellowed at the top of his lungs; his fingers, from the ceaseless fighting, were already dripping with blood.

Even so, those fingers drew the bowstring to its fullest. As he released, blood and shredded flesh sprayed into the air—a figure had crawled forward and thrust a blade into his stomach from the front. The arrow soared over the battlefield, flying toward the tattered black banner atop the slope.

Near the black banner was where the fighting raged most brutally, men colliding and slaughtering one another in the mud. Zhu Biao gripped a broadsword he had snatched up and swung wildly, cutting down an enemy with every stroke. His own body was already covered in blood. An arrow whistled past and buried itself in his armor. Zhu Biao kicked away the Jurchen man in front of him, reached down and pulled out the blood-stained arrow. A Jurchen soldier leapt at him from the left, seizing his arm, while the blade in the man’s other hand came slashing down toward his head.

Zhu Biao lunged forward with his whole body, knocking the man down into the mud. The two exchanged several blows with their fists, and then Zhu Biao gave a great roar and sprang up, driving the arrow in his hand into the man’s neck, then wrenching it back out. Blood gushed out in front of him, spraying without pause for a long while.

His comrades had already come up beside him. Zhu Biao picked up a large shield and bellowed: “Follow me and kill—!”

The fighting spread further. In a stretch of woods three li away, Guan Sheng led over a thousand men forward. Ahead, Jurchen soldiers came charging from different directions. Guan Sheng grabbed a scout by the clothes: “Where is Shulisu? Which direction?”

The scout could not answer. He was covered in blood, two arrows lodged in his back, his legs trembling, but he still stood with great difficulty. Guan Sheng let him go: “Never mind—go get your wounds treated first… the rest of you, follow me and cut through—”

The exhausted, wounded soldiers had little to say in response. Some raised their shields, others took up hand crossbows and strung them.

“If it’s not them dying today… then it’s us living! Ha ha.” Guan Sheng, feeling he’d made something of a joke, waved his hand and raised his blade forward.

Before long, they burst forth from the trees.

…

Pushing aside the corpse lying atop him, Xu Ning crawled out of the pile of dead, struggling to wipe the blood from his eyes.

A sharp pain shot through his left foot. He propped himself up using the shaft of his short spear to stand, aware that the bone in his lower leg had already broken.

His vision still swam, corpses stretching endlessly across his sight. Yet not far ahead, a figure was approaching. Seeing Xu Ning, the figure paused for a moment, then kept walking forward.

It was a Jurchen veteran soldier, drenched in blood from head to toe. Seeing Xu Ning, he bent down and picked up a broadsword lying on the ground, then walked toward a horse standing not far away.

Slowly, the Jurchen man climbed onto the warhorse.

Xu Ning staggered forward a step. He bent down, using his short spear to hook over a sickle-spear lying nearby, and gripped the end of its shaft.

The Jurchen man lay low against his horse, catching his breath for a moment. Then the horse began to gallop, the light of his long blade rising and falling with the motion, slowly lifting into the air. The horse charged forward.

The Jurchen man swung his blade down; the horse leapt. The tip of the sickle-spear seemed to spring up from the ground as if alive—Xu Ning threw himself to one side, and the sickle-spear’s blade raked across the horse’s thigh, hooking directly into its belly. With one long whinny, horse and rider crashed to the ground together, and Xu Ning’s body was sent spinning through the air as well.

The horse’s body, weighing several hundred pounds, rolled across the ground a few times, its blood staining the entire patch of earth red. Half of the Jurchen man’s body was pinned beneath the horse. Xu Ning, dragging his sickle-spear, slowly climbed back up from the ground.

He walked forward step by painful step. The Jurchen man opened his eyes and saw that face nearly soaked entirely in blood; the tip of the sickle-spear came to rest against his neck. The Jurchen man struggled for a moment, groping for his blade, but could not find it in time, and so he reached out and grabbed the tip of the sickle-spear instead.

Xu Ning pressed the spear tip down with all his strength, his entire body leaning onto the shaft.

Before long, he splinted his broken leg with a wooden stick, climbed onto a warhorse, and slowly rode off in pursuit across the mountains and wilderness ahead.

…

Deep in the forest, footsteps could be heard approaching from different directions.

In a dilapidated temple, over a dozen wounded soldiers noticed the sound of approaching men and each picked up their weapons. A wounded veteran pushed a young soldier, urging him to leave; the young Huaxia Army soldier shook his head.

The battlefield is a place that tempers men through life and death—in close combat, all one’s spirit and strength are gathered into that single decisive strike. An ordinary person facing such an onslaught would be utterly exhausted after only a few swings of the blade. But veterans who had lived through countless brushes with death could keep wringing strength from their bodies in order to survive.

The young soldier had not yet faced many such trials. In spirit, he was not afraid to die, but he had already fought himself to exhaustion, and instead of helping, he had become a burden to his comrades. He felt ashamed, and so, at this moment, he was unwilling to leave.

Jurchen soldiers approached from different directions. The young soldier raised his hand crossbow and, together with the wounded men around him, fired the first volley of bolts. Several of the elite Jurchen soldiers outside fell, and the rest began taking cover. More and more men quickly closed in, and fire arrows came flying toward the ruined temple.

Flames rose up. The veterans tried to stand, only to fall amid the rain of arrows and fire. The young soldier snatched up a blade and charged out of the temple.

He took two arrows to the body but still charged forward, shouting. A long spear pierced through his abdomen, and standing before him then was the figure of a Jurchen general.

Shulisu strode forward and, with a single stroke, cut open the soldier’s throat. His gaze was stern and fierce. A moment later, a scout arrived, and Shulisu flung down the map in his hand: “Have you found Suotuohu!? Where has he gone! Tell him to come and join up with me—”

At this very moment, Suotuohu was leading what was now the largest remaining force of Jurchen troops, several li away, locked in a bloody melee with the forces of Qin Ming, Huyan Zhuo, Shi Guang’en, and others.

In this morning’s fierce fighting, most of Shi Guang’en’s Jin troops had gradually fallen out of formation. Yet he, together with several dozen men under his direct command, had continued to follow Huyan Zhuo and the others in ceaseless combat. Despite suffering wounds in several places, he had still not withdrawn from the battlefield.

“Ha ha ha, what a rush…” Having cut down a small stray band of Jurchens nearby, Shi Guang’en paused amid the fighting and looked around. “Tell me, where’s Shulisu, eh! Have we actually managed to kill him already… Damn it, doesn’t matter. In all my years as a soldier, I’ve never felt this exhilarated before. Brothers, today we die together right here—”

He charged forward with the group of men at his side.

The fighting had already lasted several hours and seemed set to stretch on endlessly. In this hour-plus of chaos on both sides, rumors that “Zhu Biao is dead” and “Shulisu is dead” kept circulating. At first it was just chanting to rally spirits, but eventually even the ones shouting no longer knew whether it had actually happened.

By the hour of Si—around nine in the morning—the man leading troops into a genuine head-on clash with Shulisu was Li Jiakai. He was a general in the Huaxia Army who had taken part in the Battle of Xiaocang River and risen through the ranks by merit. During the final stretch of the Xiaocang River battle, he had led his unit in continually harassing the Jurchens in the northwest, taking charge of part of the rearguard action, and had later led the surviving soldiers to transfer to Zhu Biao’s command at Liangshan.

In battle, Li Jiakai’s tactical style was extremely solid—he was skilled both at inflicting damage on the enemy and at preserving his own men. When he broke out of the city, he led over a thousand Huaxia Army soldiers, cutting a path through in continuous fighting. By now he had suffered heavy casualties, and even with the additional soldiers gathered along the way, when facing Shulisu’s still more than three thousand troops, he had no more than six hundred men left.

The two sides engaged in a fierce, drawn-out battle. Li Jiakai then led his soldiers in continuous harassment and evasive maneuvers, trying to break free of the encirclement. After passing through a stretch of forest, he made use of the terrain to split off more than four hundred of his men, sending them to link up with Guan Sheng’s main force, which was likely nearby, in order to strike at Shulisu.

Li Jiakai himself led just over a hundred men, using the nearby hills and woodland to mount a stubborn resistance.

…

A hawk soared through the sky.

Lu Junyi looked up, tracking its path, then led the eight men with him through the dense forest.

The presence of Jurchen soldiers in the woods was growing thicker; a battle was raging just ahead. The nine of them moved like shuttles, as skilled as the most seasoned hunters of the deep mountains, slipping through the thickets ahead.

Amid the crowd moving through the trees, one figure caught his eye.

Lu Junyi paused for a moment, then began weighing his options. In this long, drawn-out slaughter, his physical strength was already eighty percent spent. Along the way, he and his companions had cut down several Jurchen officers, but in the process of being hunted by Jurchen soldiers, he too had been seriously wounded—the bandaged wound on his back was still seeping blood, and his left hand, its tendons injured, was nearly useless.

Shulisu himself had not suffered any serious wounds, but the elite Jurchen guards around him had been cut down by half, and most of the rest were exhausted. Shulisu, being fierce and valiant by nature, was waving his long blade to urge his men forward and had, as a result, become somewhat separated from the main group, pressing ahead too aggressively.

Lu Junyi glanced at the companions who had caught up beside him.

There would not be a better chance than this.

He tilted his head slightly and pressed down on his left hand, numbing the pain. To one side, two soldiers signaled with gestures and circled off into the distance, one ahead of the other; they struck first, targeting a lone, stray Jurchen squad leader nearby. As the commotion broke out, Shulisu turned his head atop his horse, and Lu Junyi and the others lowered their bodies and broke into a sprint.

The first volley of crossbow bolts hissed through the trees; the horse beneath Shulisu took a bolt to the haunch and let out a long whinny. But this fierce horse, which had carried Shulisu his whole life, did not bolt in panic—only its eyes turned bloodshot, and long streams of white breath poured from its mouth.

In the woods, the distance closed rapidly, figures clashing in confusion. One arrow was deflected by Shulisu; the guards around him rushed forward, forming a wall of blades and spears. An assailant who charged in was cut down; another circled wide, sprinting off into the distance. In that instant of chaos, Lu Junyi had already closed the distance—the spear in his two hands moved like a dragon breaking from the sea, in a single instant piercing two men nearby and knocking down a third. Two more came charging from ahead. Shulisu wheeled his horse around, about to flee, when Lu Junyi planted the tip of his spear into the ground and launched his whole body into the air.

Atop his horse, Shulisu thrust fiercely with his long blade. Lu Junyi’s body spun in midair; he swung down the steel guard on his hand. In a burst of sparks, Lu Junyi dodged the blade’s edge, his body slamming down toward Shulisu. The warhorse let out a sudden long whinny and reared backward; man, horse, and rider went tumbling down the wooded slope together in a single crashing heap.

Thrown into the air and slammed down again, Lu Junyi clung desperately to Shulisu. Shulisu swung his steel blade in an attempt to strike, but it was pinned beneath him and could not be drawn in time. The instant the tumbling stopped, Shulisu twisted and flipped himself upright, his blade slashing out. Lu Junyi had already lunged forward as well, drawing the bone-cleaving military saber from his back and bringing it down in a slashing blow.

The clash of blades rang out again and again without pause. Shulisu retreated fiercely; Lu Junyi pressed forward fiercely. Two more Jurchen soldiers rushed in from behind. With a bang, a packet of white lime powder burst open in the air, coating one soldier’s head and face entirely. As Lu Junyi’s right hand swung his blade, streaks of blood and torn flesh flew out mixed with white powder. Shulisu’s body already bore several slashing wounds. The Jurchen soldier who had rushed in trying to block him had his wrist and belly opened by two strokes of the blade. At that very moment, with his back against a tree trunk, Shulisu slashed toward Lu Junyi’s chest. Lu Junyi neither dodged nor flinched—the blade came down straight for his head, while beside him a soldier clung to his leg, and to the side, a horse let out a long whinny.

Shulisu’s warhorse suddenly crashed into Lu Junyi and sent him flying. Long gashes appeared almost simultaneously across Lu Junyi’s chest and across Shulisu’s head and face. As Lu Junyi was thrown backward, his feet staggered against the ground twice; the blade in his hand still managed to stab into the horse’s neck and body. The horse sent Lu Junyi flying a great distance, and he collapsed, sprawled, in a pool of blood.

A Jurchen soldier rushed at him. Lu Junyi rose to his feet and cut the man down; his chest was already soaked entirely in blood. By the tree trunk on the other side, Shulisu was pressing a hand to his right cheek, sinking slowly down to the ground as blood poured out—this fierce Jurchen general now resembled a gravely wounded beast on the verge of death, his open left eye still staring fixedly at Lu Junyi.

Lu Junyi stared back at him as well.

He had once been the greatest master of spear and staff in all of Hebei.

He had once dreamed of serving his country and achieving great deeds, yet that chance had never come to him.

Instead, his family had once been destroyed and scattered, and he had turned to banditry in bitter resentment. What he had felt, facing Song Jiang back then, only he himself knew.

Ning Yi had once called him bold but lacking in strategy. He had had no choice but to join the Bamboo Society, and later, gradually, he had followed Ning Yi into rebellion—yet in the end, Ning Yi had never given him command of troops.

He was no longer the Lu Junyi of those days. Some things, even once understood, still left regret lodged in his heart—but this moment was different.

“Jade Qilin” Lu Junyi, slaying Shulisu here, on this ground.

The battle cry rose like a surging tide, sweeping in from the field ahead…