Lin Zhiji hadn’t expected that even now, at a moment like this, Xie Yi would still remember that his body needed points to sustain it.
His heart felt as though it had been frozen solid and then plunged into warm water — a tingling, prickling ache spreading through it.
He pressed his forehead against Xie Yi’s shoulder, and his tears fell onto the small patch of fabric there, slowly soaking in.
Xie Yi felt a kind of helpless exasperation.
He was clearly the one who knew nothing here, and yet somehow it was Lin Zhiji who looked far more wronged.
He let out a low sigh, then pulled him in even tighter.
When it came to Lin Zhiji, his own limits — never particularly high to begin with — kept giving way, again and again.
Xie Yi’s return to Jiangcheng this time wasn’t only about stabilizing the public’s confidence — it was also preparation for the campaign ahead.
War had broken out all around Jiangnan’s borders by now, and mere defense was nowhere near sufficient.
Besides, Xie Yi’s ambitions had never been confined to Jiangnan alone.
Originally, with Jiangnan’s situation not yet fully stable, and worried about overextending supply lines, he had been forced to hold his pace in check.
But now, with this year’s harvest in Jiangnan turning out well, and Luo Zhitang holding things steady, the situation was relatively settled. Most importantly, the logistics problem had largely been resolved — making this the right moment for a campaign.
Even so, when Lin Zhiji volunteered to accompany him onto the battlefield, Xie Yi still refused.
Lin Zhiji said quickly: “I’ve been studying under Mister Luo all this time, and I haven’t neglected my training either. I won’t be a burden to you.”
Xie Yi still refused. “It’s not that I doubt your ability. It’s that swords and blades on a battlefield show no mercy. And besides—” he paused, “—the battlefield is far more brutal than you can imagine. You may not be able to bear it.”
This was nothing like the tasks in Qingzhou or Jiangnan.
Those had carried their own dangers, certainly, but neither mountain bandits nor corrupt officials in Jiangnan could compare to an actual battlefield.
The dangers on a battlefield weren’t limited to blades, either — there was starvation, poison, plague… all manner of horrors one could never anticipate.
Xie Yi knew that Lin Zhiji had come from a deeply peaceful world. The most brutal sight he had ever witnessed there likely didn’t come close to even a fraction of what awaited here.
Lin Zhiji, of course, knew all of this.
It was precisely because he understood the countless dangers that he was determined to go with him.
Setting everything else aside — he held the system store in his hands. When push came to shove, the task system would no longer be his foremost concern.
Seeing that Xie Yi was still about to refuse, Lin Zhiji said: “I can handle it. These past few days I’ve been going to the funeral parlor every day… I know what I’m going to see.”
This was something he had already prepared himself for, well in advance.
Xie Yi looked at the burning resolve in his eyes, fell silent for a long while, and in the end, agreed.
The first time Lin Zhiji set foot on an ancient battlefield, even with all the mental preparation he had done, he was still shaken to the core by the severed limbs scattered across the ground.
Just how brutal and horrifying warfare in the age of cold steel truly was — it was something no one living in a time of peace could ever fully imagine.
But with the battlefield situation urgent, he didn’t even have time to come to terms with it before he was already pulled into treating the wounded.
By the end of the day, Lin Zhiji was so exhausted his head was spinning, and he hadn’t even had time to eat.
Songlü handed him a piece of military ration, but the moment Lin Zhiji took a bite, a wave of nausea rose up in him, and he threw it all up on the spot.
He drank some water and rinsed his mouth out, which helped a little.
Songlü’s brow furrowed. “Young Master Lin, maybe you should let me tell my lord — let him send you back.”
Lin Zhiji grabbed his arm. “I’m fine.”
Songlü was deeply worried. He had spent enough time around Lin Zhiji to know that he was kind and gentle down to the bone — someone like that had no business being on a battlefield.
He couldn’t understand why my lord had agreed to it.
What he didn’t know was that Lin Zhiji possessed a stubbornness all his own.
He knew he couldn’t go without eating — otherwise he definitely wouldn’t make it through the next day.
So, forcing himself to swallow bite after bite, he kept up a conversation with Songlü, trying to distract himself from the nausea.
“Songlü, how did you all end up serving under Xie Yi?” he asked, curious.
The novel had painted Xie Yi’s subordinates as ruthless enforcers complicit in cruelty — but even so, it had never denied their loyalty to him.
Songlü didn’t bother hiding it. “Me? I used to be ‘meat stock.'”
Lin Zhiji froze. “What’s meat stock?”
“Human meat.” Songlü said it with complete indifference. “There was a great drought that year. My parents couldn’t afford to feed all of us kids, so they sold me to a butcher in exchange for grain. When it came time to bleed me out, I struggled too hard, and my lord happened to see it — so he bought me instead.”
Lin Zhiji was momentarily speechless, and finally murmured, “I’m… I’m sorry.”
Songlü scratched his head, a little embarrassed. “Don’t say that. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me. If it weren’t for that, how would I have ever met my lord and gotten to live the good life I have now!”
Lin Zhiji’s emotions were a tangled mess.
He remembered Qingli mentioning that all of them had followed Xie Yi from very early on. Could it be…
Sure enough, Songlü continued: “And honestly, I had it easy compared to some. Take Qingli — she never even met her parents. Grew up in a traveling circus troupe. Wasn’t pretty enough, and had no other talents, but she was double-jointed, so every day she performed by folding herself into a vase. When she got older and couldn’t fit anymore, the troupe leader was going to break her arms and legs to force her in anyway. When she escaped, that’s when she ran into my lord…”
Songlü looked toward the field hospital and said to Lin Zhiji, “Young Master Lin, in chaotic times like these, lives like ours aren’t worth anything. We were just lucky enough to be saved by my lord, and that’s the only reason we got to live like actual people… I don’t understand grand principles, but I know one thing — my lord is the reason I’ve had ten extra years of full meals…”
Something in Lin Zhiji’s chest stirred faintly.
Over the following days, Lin Zhiji was swamped beyond belief.
It could only be said that human adaptability was extraordinary — within just a few days, Lin Zhiji was able to coordinate treatment in the field hospital without batting an eye, even taking on part of the logistics officer’s responsibilities on top of it.
He had originally harbored a small, selfish wish of his own.
Knowing he would have to leave once his task was complete, knowing that the time he had left with Xie Yi was shrinking by the day, all he wanted was to spend more of it with him.
But the reality was that even though they were in the same army, both of them were so busy that even when they crossed paths, they could only manage a few brief words.
Perhaps it was precisely because of that scarcity that those moments felt unusually precious.
Thanks to the new-style military rations, they no longer needed to haul cumbersome supply trains, and could march light and strike with the speed of lightning.
Their offensive went remarkably smoothly. Before long, they had taken every territory surrounding Jiangnan.
In barely over a month, more than half of the southern region had fallen under Xie Yi’s command.
It was only at this point that anyone in the imperial court actually began to panic.
The Eastern Palace.
The Crown Prince returned to his quarters with a dark expression.
He had been scolded by his father the Emperor again today. Ever since Xie Yi had secured his footing in Jiangnan and started racking up victory after victory, his father’s temper had grown increasingly volatile.
Xie Yi had once served under the Crown Prince’s Training and Defense Office, and it had been the Crown Prince himself who originally proposed sending Xie Yi to Jiangnan. As a result, he had now become a thorn fully lodged in his father’s side.
The Empress had been dragged into the fallout too — reprimanded, confined to her quarters, and even stripped of her phoenix seal. All palace affairs had now been handed over to the Noble Consort, mother of the Prince of Qi.
Thinking of the barely-concealed smugness in the Prince of Qi’s eyes, the Crown Prince’s mood grew even more suffocating.
His thoughts circling back to this, he kicked over Liang Wenxu, who was kneeling on the ground.
“This was all your idiotic scheme!”
Caught completely off guard by the kick, Liang Wenxu’s face flushed crimson.
He had always held himself in high regard. When he had first thrown his lot in with the Crown Prince, he had been treated with considerable courtesy and respect.
He had never experienced this kind of humiliation before.
But what he found even harder to accept was that Jiangnan — that impossibly hard bone so many others had failed to crack — had been chewed clean through by Xie Yi.
Not only that, the man had now risen to become a regional warlord in his own right.
The lowborn offspring of some foreign woman!
How could he possibly!
The more he stewed in resentment, the further it festered. He crawled forward on his knees a few steps toward the Crown Prince, prostrating himself on the ground. “Your Highness, this Xie Yi may have a measure of brute strength, but he’s truly unlettered. Jiangnan is a complicated region — he’s likely only managed to hold it together through sheer military force. Though it looks like he’s seized a great deal of territory, the underlying instability is severe. As it happens, my own posting years ago was in Minzhou. The irrigation works there were built under my administration — the people are deeply grateful to me. If I could be sent to Minzhou, naturally I could…”
He grew more and more excited as he spoke, completely failing to notice how dark the Crown Prince’s expression had grown above him.
Shing—
The Crown Prince drew his sword and slashed it brutally toward Liang Wenxu.
Liang Wenxu sensed something and instinctively flinched away.
The blade missed anything vital, landing instead across his shoulder. In an instant, blood sprayed outward, staining his robes crimson.
Liang Wenxu was overwhelmed with terror, and nearly passed out from the pain.
Yet the Crown Prince’s fury was nowhere near spent. The sword in his hand swung toward Liang Wenxu again: “Do you take me for a fool?! Did you really think you could deceive me twice with the same scheme?!”
“Your Highness, I didn’t mean—” Liang Wenxu tried to flee in a panic, but his wound slowed him down, and the Crown Prince’s blade caught him again.
The Chief Steward of the Eastern Palace, Ge Yan, walked in just in time to witness the scene, and rushed forward shouting, “Your Highness, stop!”
But the Crown Prince was already too consumed by rage to hear him.
Ge Yan tried to reason with him: “Your Highness, whatever else can be said about Liang Wenxu, he is still Grand General Xie’s nephew. This may create a rift between you and Grand General Xie…”
By this point, Liang Wenxu had lost every trace of the elegant gentleman he had once projected.
Blood loss and pain left him sobbing and gasping. Hearing Ge Yan’s words felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man: “Your Highness — Uncle… has always doted on me… I…”
But the Crown Prince was unmoved.
With a cold sneer, he drove the sword straight into Liang Wenxu’s chest.
Liang Wenxu stared down at the blade in his chest in utter disbelief.
Ge Yan, too late to intervene, could only say helplessly, “Your Highness has acted rashly.”
The Crown Prince pulled the sword back out and said with disgust, “If Xie Pingyue has any sense at all, he won’t break ties with me over a fool like this!”
The word “fool” struck Liang Wenxu like a final blow.
Consumed with bitter resentment, his face twisted, he collapsed to the ground.
Having killed someone, the rage churning inside the Crown Prince finally began to ease.
The servants of the Eastern Palace silently carried Liang Wenxu’s body away.
Neither the Crown Prince nor Ge Yan so much as glanced at the departing body.
The Crown Prince wiped the blood from himself with a towel and asked Ge Yan, “How are the arrangements coming along?”
Ge Yan’s expression turned grave. “Rest assured, Your Highness, everything has been settled. Grand General Xie has also already given his word…”
The Crown Prince’s expression shifted several times before settling, gradually, into something cold and ruthless. “Father — you were the one who showed no mercy to your son first. Don’t blame me for what comes next…”
News of the upheaval in the capital reached Xie Yi’s camp before long.
Nobody had expected the Crown Prince to actually stage a coup overnight — storming the Prince of Qi’s residence under cover of darkness, slaughtering the Prince of Qi and every one of his children, and simultaneously marching into the imperial palace alongside Grand General Xie to force the Emperor’s abdication.
Fortunately, Shen Xian had been sharp enough to sense something was wrong early and avoided the slaughter. Afterward, taking advantage of the chaos in the capital, he and Cangfeng had found a way to escape and bring word to Xie Yi.
Aside from Xie Yi, who remained relatively composed, everyone else in the tent was stunned into silence.
After all, compared to the cunning and politically adept Prince of Qi, the Crown Prince had practically been a byword for mediocrity. If not for his claim to legitimate succession, he never would have had so many followers.
Who could have imagined that a man like that was capable of something like this?
Lin Zhiji froze too.
But for an entirely different reason — Liang Wenxu’s death.
In the novel, Liang Wenxu had been executed on Xie Yi’s orders, subjected to the punishment of public flaying.
That, in fact, had been a major contributing factor to why Xie Yi’s reputation among the common people had been so dreadful in the original story.
And now, the man had died this easily — almost incidentally.
Even though everything was now entirely different from how it had unfolded in the book, Liang Wenxu’s death was the first moment that made Lin Zhiji clearly, viscerally feel that fate had truly changed course.
Sitting at the head of the tent, Xie Yi glanced over at him sitting in a daze and cut off Cangfeng mid-sentence. “Tell me about the current situation in the capital.”
Cangfeng dutifully shifted topics. “After the Crown Prince forced the issue at court, the capital fell into chaos. Every official aligned with the Prince of Qi’s faction was killed. But the Crown Prince hasn’t fully secured control of the capital either…”
Murmurs of discussion broke out among Xie Yi’s followers.
Nobody had expected that even at a moment like this, the capital would still be tearing itself apart over the throne.
But this was, in fact, an excellent opportunity — especially for Xie Yi.
So he made an immediate decision: a forced march, striking before the capital had time to react, bringing his army right up to the city walls.
Xie Yi’s decisiveness carried him forward with unstoppable momentum from that point on.
The speed of his advance left the people of the capital thoroughly terrified.
Neither the Emperor nor the Crown Prince were fools — they simply hadn’t anticipated Xie Yi moving this fast. After all, the rebel forces before him had looked fearsome on the surface, but every single one of them had lacked any real staying power, never managing to truly stir up trouble.
So the two sides temporarily set aside their conflict and dispatched troops to intercept him.
But by then, Xie Yi had already advanced to Nanfeng City — the gateway to the capital. Once it fell, the road to the capital would lie completely open.
It was here that Xie Yi’s offensive was finally brought to a halt.
Xie Yi looked at the defending general who had appeared atop the city walls — both surprised, and not surprised at all.
Xie Pingyue stood looking down below, his emotions in complete turmoil.
He never could have imagined that the son he had once treated as a cast-off pawn would now become a regional warlord standing against him.
But how unfortunate…
He suppressed every emotion and murmured under his breath: “Born inauspicious… so it truly was.”
Xie Pingyue had spent decades at war, had fought through more battles than he could count, and unlike the court, he held no fear of Xie Yi.
In his eyes, Xie Yi only appeared unstoppable — in truth he was all bluster with nothing solid underneath. A forced march this long would have left the men exhausted, the horses spent, and supplies running thin. As long as things kept going his way that was fine, but the moment he suffered a single defeat, the whole thing would collapse.
All he needed to do was wait in comfort while the enemy wore themselves out — relying on Nanfeng City’s towering, solid walls, holding firm for a stretch of time, and then joining forces with another army to surround Xie Yi from both sides and take him alive.
Xie Yi and the others, of course, saw through Xie Pingyue’s strategy easily enough.
It genuinely struck at their weak point.
If Xie Pingyue hadn’t been Xie Yi’s own father, the tent would have already been ringing with cries of “crafty old fox” and “treacherous schemer.”
Sieging a city was difficult under the best circumstances, and with someone as battle-hardened as Xie Pingyue defending it, the difficulty only multiplied.
But with the capital now in sight after all the effort it had taken to fight their way this far, no one was willing to give up now.
Lin Zhiji’s brow furrowed as well.
In the novel, Xie Yi hadn’t marched into the capital until years later, under the banner of “purging the emperor’s side of corrupt influence.” By then the court had already rotted from within, which was why that campaign had gone so smoothly.
This was completely different from how things stood now.
Yet when Lin Zhiji looked at Xie Yi, he found no trace of worry there — which gradually settled his own nerves as well.
Xie Yi tapped the table lightly.
The room, which had been buzzing a moment before, fell instantly silent.
His gaze swept across everyone present, lingering just a moment longer on Lin Zhiji, before he said in a low voice: “We attack tomorrow.”
He offered no explanation.
And not a single person present raised an objection. Everyone knelt and answered in unison.
“As you command!”
Once everyone had dispersed, Lin Zhiji stayed behind.
This was, perhaps, the first time the two of them had been truly alone together in a very long while.
Lin Zhiji walked over and gently wrapped his arms around Xie Yi.
Perhaps he alone understood that tomorrow’s battle was, for Xie Yi, not merely a matter of ambition — it was a confrontation with fate itself.
He had spent ten years preparing for this single battle.
Xie Yi buried his face against Lin Zhiji’s neck, taking in the warmth of the body in his arms.
A trace of exhaustion — barely perceptible — surfaced on his face.
Lin Zhiji said nothing at all.
But he had already understood everything spoken in that embrace.
The two held each other quietly. In that moment, silence said more than words ever could.
Early the next morning, Xie Yi assembled the troops and set out.
By the time they reached the outskirts of Nanfeng City, the defenders there had already finished preparing for the siege.
Xie Pingyue stood atop the city wall, his face expressionless, watching the dark mass of the army gathered below.
To his surprise, Xie Yi rode out alone ahead of the formation, his cavalry saber pointed straight at the wall, and called out clearly: “Grand General Xie — dare you face me in single combat?”
His words sent an immediate ripple of shock through the crowd.
Xie Pingyue’s expression instantly soured.
He was holding a fortified city — there was no chance he would foolishly step outside to duel Xie Yi one-on-one.
But the illiterate foot soldiers had no way of understanding that calculation.
Sure enough, the moment Xie Yi finished speaking, the army behind him erupted into a roar of cheering loud enough to shake the mountains, morale surging.
By contrast, the city wall above fell into total silence.
The difference was unmistakable.
Xie Pingyue ground his teeth in fury.
He had meant to undermine Xie Yi’s morale — and instead, Xie Yi had turned the moment around effortlessly.
If anything, it was their own side’s morale that had taken the hit.
Xie Pingyue immediately shifted strategy and tried to rally his troops’ spirits.
But Xie Yi did not retreat as expected.
Instead, he took up a powerful bow and aimed it at the wall.
Xie Pingyue’s pupils contracted sharply.
Impossible!
Yet as Xie Yi released the string, a sharp arrow shot through the air with a piercing whistle and struck deep into the flagpole atop the city.
A teeth-grating crack sounded out, and the thick flagpole, trembling along with the arrow’s feathered shaft, slowly began to lean.
The deputy general shouted “protect the flag!” — but it was already too late.
The once-proud “Xie” banner came crashing down in full view of everyone.
And from behind another “Xie” banner, a thunderous roar of cheering rose up like a tidal wave.
Standing among the crowd, Lin Zhiji watched as Xie Yi’s single arrow struck the enemy’s standard, and his own heart surged with excitement.
At Xie Yi’s single command — “Attack!” — the soldiers, who had been holding back for so long, surged forward without a moment’s hesitation.
Beneath a sky thick with falling arrows, they pressed forward as though entirely unafraid of death, charging the walls wave after wave.
The defenders, hammered by blow after blow, saw their morale collapse rapidly.
The sheer ferocity of the opposing army struck genuine fear into their hearts.
Even with Xie Pingyue personally overseeing the defense from atop the wall, it made no difference.
He had believed he held Xie Yi’s weak point firmly in his grasp, believed he could frighten Xie Yi into retreating.
But he hadn’t realized that from the very start, Xie Yi had never once considered retreat.
If it was to be war, then war it would be.
By failing to kill him at the very beginning, they had already lost.
The battle raged from dawn until dusk.
As more and more soldiers scaled the walls, the fighting grew nearly feral.
Over the years, the Great Yu’s military had grown badly neglected — these defending soldiers were no match for Xie Yi’s forces. They were driven back, step by step, and some even slipped away in secret to flee.
Xie Pingyue could never have imagined that despite holding the advantage of a fortified position, despite his decades of battle experience, he wouldn’t even survive a single day against Xie Yi.
His eyes were nearly bursting with rage, as if through the dense crush of soldiers he could see Xie Yi’s gray eyes — the ones he had always despised, and always feared.
His deputy general, beside him, finally came to his senses and grabbed him urgently. “General, the wall can’t be held! We need to retreat now!”
Retreat?!
To Xie Pingyue, the word itself felt like a humiliation. But rationally, he knew the deputy general was right.
Preserving one’s strength now meant the chance to fight again later.
So they fought their way back, retreating step by step. Once they had come down from the wall, they prepared to switch horses and flee.
But just then, a deep, massive impact sounded against the heavy city gate behind them — a force so violent it seemed to shake the entire wall, and the great wooden beam serving as the bolt let out a teeth-grating crack.
Before Xie Pingyue and the others could even react, a second impact followed.
Then came an ominous, thunderous boom.
The gates burst open, and a battering ram crashed through into the crowd like some monstrous beast.
Xie Pingyue’s deputy general shouted urgently, “General, go now!”
But just as Xie Pingyue turned to flee, he heard the same whistling sound behind him once more.
A massive force struck him from behind, and an instant later, a searing pain bloomed in his chest.
He looked down in a daze — and saw only the arrowhead protruding from his chest, the character “Xie” engraved upon it, soaked through with blood.
Xie Yi lowered the bow in his hands, his ash-gray eyes betraying not a flicker of emotion.
With a single cry of “Kill!”
A new “Xie” banner was raised atop Nanfeng City.
Lin Zhiji walked slowly into the city gates with the rear guard, the air thick with smoke, the ground littered with severed limbs.
He looked up and saw Xie Yi standing at the center of the road, surrounded by his men.
Xie Yi’s gaze swept toward him, cold and distant — but the moment his eyes found him, that coldness dissolved, replaced by something gentler.
And at that exact moment, familiar words appeared on his task list.
[Main Quest 7 Loading—]
The shoe Lin Zhiji had been waiting for, for so long, had finally dropped.