Just as Hua Po’an had said, after the Blood Demon Beast died, the blood pool it transformed into continued to expand little by little. It swallowed the vegetation along the riverbank, seeped into the waters of the moat, and slowly, the edges of the city walls also began to collapse. Bricks and tiles fell into the bloodwater and melted into bright-red, viscous slurry.
This kind of erosion was no longer like the earth-shaking cries of battle when the two armies faced one another, with victory or defeat decided in an instant.
It was more like a venomous snake slithering through a haystack, flicking its tongue inch by inch as it prepared to devour the enormous carcass of its prey…
During this period, Chonghua and Liao did not engage in battle. Separated by that surging river of blood-red molten flow, Chonghua was utterly silent, while Liao had already begun to revel.
That night.
Mo Xi climbed the city tower alone. Standing beside the vermilion railings of the ornate corner tower, he gazed outside the city. Beneath the tower was the water of the blood pool. Across the vast red surface of the river, the continuous camps of Liao were brightly lit. The cultivators sat around campfires, drinking and chatting, looking entirely as though victory was already within their grasp.
Following him, the steward of Xihe Manor, Li Wei, stood beneath the corner tower with his sleeves folded and his head lowered, quietly waiting.
A young cultivator asked anxiously, “Steward Li, is Lord Xihe… all right?”
Li Wei was silent for a moment. Even with his silver tongue, he could not find anything to say.
Was Mo Xi all right?
He did not know. No one knew the answer to that question.
After Gu Mang sacrificed himself, the Chonghua soldiers had at first thought that Mo Xi would lose his reason, that he would collapse, that he would give himself over to despair, that he would be consumed by grief.
But he did none of those things.
The cultivators repeatedly cast spells beside the blood pool formed from the Blood Demon Beast, exhausting every possible method, yet they could not retrieve Gu Mang—even his corpse.
In the end, it was Mo Xi who told them, “Stop looking. Go back and rest. The battle isn’t over yet.”
He and Gu Mang were both fated to bear the destiny of one general achieving success atop the bones of countless dead. They had seen too many people part from their loved ones amid the flames of war. Brothers who had drunk together the day before might become lifeless corpses the very next day.
They did not even have time to grieve, to swallow the reality, to comprehend a person’s death or life. Everything happened in haste, and responsibility would force a commander to remain clear-headed.
Because the battle was not over.
If an ordinary soldier lost control from grief, the price might be his own life. But if the commander-in-chief lost control from grief, how many people would be dragged down with him?
Mo Xi knew that he did not have that right.
All he could do was stand by the railing while watching the blood pool and the Liao army, lingering for just a little longer beside the blood pool where his lover had sacrificed himself.
Just for a little while.
The young cultivator could not help asking quietly again, “Wouldn’t Lord Xihe be sad?”
This time, Li Wei was able to answer quickly.
“He isn’t made of stone. How could he not be sad?”
After saying this, Li Wei sighed inwardly and looked toward Mo Xi’s solitary, lonely figure beneath the starry sky.
On the night Gu Mang had just sunk into the blood pool, it was Mo Xi himself who had ordered the cultivators to return to the city and rest, telling them not to waste any more effort on a rescue that would accomplish nothing.
Quite a few people had been secretly shocked by Mo Xi’s cold-bloodedness and composure.
Only Li Wei knew what Mo Xi had truly been like that night, after he returned to Xihe Manor and entered the room where Gu Mang had once lived, stripped of all identity and responsibility.
Li Wei had originally gone to tidy the room that would never have an owner again. But before he even pushed open the door, he saw Mo Xi’s back as he sat before the small table. On the table were letters Gu Mang had once written and fragments of words he had once left behind.
By the dim light of a single dying lamp, Mo Xi read them page by page.
What Gu Mang had recorded in his daily life had always been things worth being happy about. There were very few complaints in his words about anything unpleasant.
Mo Xi was immersed in the beautiful past Gu Mang had woven.
Fan Dou was lying at his feet, whining softly, seemingly asking where Gu Mang had gone, seemingly asking him why Gu Mang had not come back tonight…
After some time, Mo Xi lowered his head.
At last, low, suppressed sobbing came from within the room, as restrained as the trembling of his shoulders.
But how could he suppress it?
He had already endured for so long. His entire being had been reduced to nothing but sorrow, pain, and responsibility…
There was nothing else left.
Over these years, he had endured false betrayal, true loss, and the pain of parting. Each time, he had told himself, Just hold on a little longer. Just hold on a little longer, and perhaps everything will pass.
Even just a few days ago, when he had seen Gu Mang standing beneath the fluttering military banners on the training grounds, full of vitality, he had thought that all their suffering had finally reached its end. He had thought that after this battle, he would finally endure until the day when they could remain together for the rest of their lives.
But what was ultimately left for him was only this empty little room.
Its owner had already departed, as though he had merely been staying here temporarily, without even leaving behind many traces.
So after enduring so much suffering, what he had finally waited for was not a lifetime together, but a long separation.
Mo Xi lifted that stack of soft pages and pressed them against his chest, close to where his heart beat.
It was as though the person who had written the words still left behind a trace of warmth on the paper.
He could no longer hold back. Hoarsely, weakly, he whispered,
“Gu Mang…”
Gu Mang.
After that one word, he could no longer utter another sentence.
He was not the pillar of the empire.
He was not Marshal Mo.
At this moment, he was merely a helpless man who had been parted forever from the person he loved, the junior martial brother whom Senior Martial Brother Gu had left behind in a sea of blood.
All his comrades had gone.
Those seventy thousand souls.
Those brothers who had once been as young as they were when they entered the military.
Now Gu Mang was gone too.
In the end, only he remained.
Before dawn broke, there was only him.
Whether it was hatred or love…
His Gu Mang-gege would never again turn around to look at him, flash that dazzling smile at him, or become adorably irritated in bewilderment.
A hoarse whimper, like a dying beast, cried out in pain and shattered his final restraint.
Mo Xi lowered his head, choking with sobs, grieving…
In the end, he was like a trapped beast that had lost its lifelong companion, like a lone lion at the end of the road—stranded, desperate, and finally, in the silent night, weeping until he could no longer make a sound.
Life was so long, and the mountains and rivers so vast.
Yet only this moment, only this little corner of heaven and earth, belonged entirely to him.
Li Wei looked at his back, sighed, and quietly pulled the door firmly shut for him…
Mo Xi had never been heartless.
Li Wei knew that throughout all of Chonghua, perhaps there would never be anyone who could truly understand what Gu Mang was to Mo Xi.
Not light.
Not fire.
Not hope.
Not a lover.
Not a brother…
What Gu Mang meant to Mo Xi was perhaps far more than all of these things combined.
So when Mo Xi ordered them to stop wasting their strength searching for and rescuing Gu Mang, it was not a form of giving up.
It was because Mo Xi understood better than anyone—
What decision Gu Mang had made.
What Gu Mang wanted.
And whether he would return.
Li Wei left that secluded little courtyard.
He deeply revered his master. In fact, even before His Majesty had bestowed him upon Mo Xi that year, he had already felt that Lord Xihe was the backbone of Chonghua.
Now that backbone had bent in a place no one else could see.
He was in pain, and it was difficult for him to continue holding himself upright.
Yet everyone in the entire nation could see only Mo Xi’s strength, forgetting that he too was flesh and blood.
He had just lost the most important person in his life.
But the only place where Mo Xi was permitted to catch his breath, permitted to exist as a living person—to mourn, to remember, to embrace the lingering traces of another person’s presence—was this tiny, lonely room.
That was the home he and his Gu Mang-gege had shared.
Li Wei could not bear to disturb him, nor could he bear to look any longer.
This was Mo Xi and Gu Mang’s farewell.
It had nothing to do with Lord Xihe, Marshal Gu, status or rank, life or death, or anyone else.
He was the steward of Xihe Manor.
In the end, he would also protect this secret for his master.
On the fourth day, half of Chonghua’s capital had already been swallowed by the blood pool.
The people living in that half of the city had no choice but to retreat toward the rear of the city, watching as their former homes became a sea of blood.
Fortunately, Yue Chenqing was skilled in constructing mechanical armor. Among the records left behind by Murong Chuyi, there was also a volume explaining how to quickly construct shelters.
Following the diagrams, he managed to temporarily resolve the people’s need for somewhere to stay.
That had been Murong Chuyi’s magic.
Yue Chenqing thought that if his Fourth Uncle were still alive, he would certainly have done a much more thorough job than he had.
But his Little Uncle was already gone.
Only he could carry on Murong Chuyi’s gentleness amid this turbulent, chaotic age.
“Fourth Uncle, I may not be doing this well enough, but…”
He raised his head toward the starry sky. His fingers, worn raw and blistered, trembled slightly, yet he still did not put down the bamboo warrior he was adjusting.
“But I will follow your wishes and finish the things you wanted to do.”
“I am Yue Chenqing. I am your nephew, the head of the Yue family, and your successor.”
The stars flickered one by one, illuminating this land filled with the smoke and flames of war, and reflecting in Yue Chenqing’s eyes, which shimmered faintly with tears.
Yue Chenqing choked out softly,
“Can you see it all from heaven…?”
You used to protect me silently all this time.
Now it’s my turn, Uncle.
I will protect our home.
Just like Yue Chenqing, everyone in Chonghua was now fighting to protect their homeland.
In the past, this nation truly had been a loose heap of sand.
But because people like Gu Mang and Murong Chuyi had offered their blood first, and because everyone understood clearly that if they lost this battle, there would be nowhere left for them to retreat, that heap of sand had finally gathered together.
It had become solid.
It had become strong.
The blood pool continued to spread, but the resilience born from despair did not diminish. Instead, it grew stronger.
They were searching for a way to turn the tide.
On the fifth day.
While all the nobles and high-ranking commanders were gathered in the Imperial Palace’s Military Affairs Office, studying how they could restrain the expansion of the blood pool, a guard suddenly came to report—
“Lord Xihe! Lord Wangshu! Princess Meng Ze!”
The guard saluted the three people currently holding the greatest authority and trust within the hall in turn before saying,
“Apothecary Jiang has returned! He is waiting outside the hall!”
When Jiang Fuli entered the hall, everyone froze.
Most of all, his wife, Su Yurou.
Although Su Yurou’s face was veiled in white gauze, making it impossible to see her features clearly, when she saw Jiang Fuli’s appearance, the cup she was holding slipped from her hand and suddenly crashed to the ground, shattering into pieces.
“Fuli, you—”
Jiang Fuli wore a robe of alternating blue and silver. Both the material and workmanship were exquisite, yet they still could not conceal how travel-worn he was.
Most shocking of all were his eyes.
His left eye, which had already been night-blind, had suffered some kind of injury and could no longer see at all.
A strip of snow-white gauze was wound diagonally across it, stained with bright-red blood.
Hearing her voice, he quietly looked at Su Yurou with his still-clear almond-shaped right eye.
When their gazes met, it was as though they exchanged a secret that no one else knew.
Su Yurou immediately collapsed limply.
Mo Xi heard her call in an almost inaudible voice,
“Palace Master.”