As the arrow flew out, Qiang Jin Jiu Cen Yu knew at once that disaster had struck. When he saw the Imperial Guards draw their blades, he coughed up blood in panic. Covering his mouth in a sorry state, he cried, “Who fired that shot?!”
Before coming, he had already instructed Luo Mu to strictly forbid the miscellaneous troops from making a move. Once this arrow was loosed, regardless of whether Yao Wenyu lived or died, Qudu was doomed beyond redemption!
Dantai Hu carried his saber and strode forward, roaring thunderously, “So much for keeping your word—fuck your city-gate negotiations!”
The Imperial Guards charged neatly through the rain. Mud and water splashed everywhere as they wiped their blades clean in unison. The front ranks spun and slashed, crashing into the rabble troops. In an instant, flashing blades and sword shadows engulfed the storm. The tables and chairs atop the high platform overturned with loud crashes, and the students supported Cen Yu as they retreated in alarm.
“Stop…” Cen Yu still clung to illusions. Wiping blood from his mouth, he urgently shouted, “Prefect, please hear me out!”
But the Imperial Guards had already crossed the line. No one listened to Cen Yu anymore. Drenched by rain and snow, his official robes hanging heavily from his body, he finally choked with sobs and cried toward Qudu, “I have failed the trust His Majesty placed in me!”
The bronze bells of Qudu rang out thunderously. Li Jianheng knew it was no thunder. Supporting herself against a pillar, she slowly stepped into the rain. The huadian on her forehead dissolved in the water. Looking at Xue Xiuzhuo below the steps, it was as though she had only just met him.
“You have ten thousand taels of silver,” Li Jianheng raised her arm and pointed toward the direction of Xi’er, “and the support of the people. Go to Xi’er, find a new emperor, and you can still fight Shen Zechuan again.”
Xue Xiuzhuo also looked at Li Jianheng. After a long while, he lifted his hand, removed his black gauze official cap, and said, “I am a minister of the Li dynasty.”
Li Jianheng smiled. The more she smiled, the louder she laughed. When the rainwater covered her face, a trace of innocence appeared. Leaning closer, she asked, “Teacher, have I succeeded in my studies?”
All her life she had been trapped in the cracks. After clawing her fingernails to ruin, she had finally become a vessel. She came from the mud pit, yet carried the floodwaters of a broken heavenly river. She was eager to learn, diligent, even something of a genius, but she still could not turn the tide.
“It could have been better. It is this teacher whose abilities are mediocre,” Xue Xiuzhuo looked at the black gauze cap in his hand. “I am a blade that strayed from the proper path.”
He had known very early on that he was not clever. He could not remember policy essays and could only memorize them by brute force, staying awake through endless nights where even taking a sip of water felt like wasted time. In the most impulsive years of his youth, Emperor Guangcheng had crushed his spirit, making him realize that beneath the surface prosperity, the Great Zhou was in truth barren.
Xue Xiuzhuo had never intended to walk this road, but he witnessed the brilliant flare that erupted when Qi Huilian briefly appeared. That fleeting light ignited hope in him. He followed Qi Huilian, stubbornly believing the Great Zhou could still be saved, but reality was always disappointing. He admired and respected Hai Liangyi, yet gradually drifted onto a different path from him.
All of them wanted to save the Great Zhou. None of them succeeded.
“You brought me to this position, but no one here is willing to reason,” Li Jianheng raised her hand and smeared the huadian on her forehead into a streak of blood-red. “The Empress Dowager instructed Han Cheng, Han Cheng hinted to Fu Man—they all wanted to kill me. Isn’t the emperor allowed to fight back? If I didn’t kill them, then I would die.” She turned around. “We stayed cautiously inside the cage. Even with towering ambitions, we had neither the authority nor the time.”
Li Jianheng was very pale. It was an illusion nurtured within the Xue residence. Beneath that layer of skin, she was covered in wounds. The moment she stood here, she became Li Jianheng. No one would ever ask where Lingting had gone, as though Lingting deserved to die.
“In this world, people don’t need laws to kill people. Men’s stronger bodies crushed my bones. I fell to the ground,” Li Jianheng turned back to Xue Xiuzhuo and said, “and everyone who passed by thought I was filthy. No one held them accountable. It was as if I had willingly lain there. Once you die once, you should be discarded like worn shoes, never allowed to stand before people again.”
The tolling bronze bells stretched longer and longer. Rainwater flooded over the hems of both their robes. The sky had darkened so much the palace halls were barely visible.
Li Jianheng mocked bitterly, “Was that my fault? Teacher, I obeyed the teachings of the books. I didn’t even kill those scum. The day you took me away from Xiangyun House, I thought I would take revenge, but you taught me benevolence and morality. I stayed in this rotten palace and endured everything. Over these years, I never wasted a single moment. I chased after everyone else, and in the end, we still ended up with nothing.”
Her chest heaved. There were too many things she could not accept. Amid that extreme endurance, she finally exploded.
Pointing at her own eyes, Li Jianheng declared, “I do not live by these eyes. I am not like anyone else. I am Li Jianheng.” Suddenly, she tore the golden hairpin from her hair and flung it into the rain, sneering, “To hell with virtuous and gentle decorum. I am an emperor. I am the last emperor of the Li dynasty!”
Thunder exploded across the heavens, illuminating every face in the rain with a deathly white glow. Li Jianheng tore off her soaked cloak and even ripped away the cumbersome hair ornaments, saying coldly, “I will live and die with the Great Zhou.”
All eight gates of Qudu were now sealed. The mechanisms atop the walls clattered as they shifted. The armories of the former Eight Great Camps had been emptied, and the battlements were densely lined with archers. The Zhongbo Garrison Army attacked the East Gate head-on.
“Madam has taken charge of Qidong. Jiang Wanshao cannot return,” Yao Wenyu breathed unevenly. Supporting himself against the bed, he said to Shen Zechuan, “The road ahead has opened. I shall remain here and await the Prefect’s triumphant return.”
Shen Zechuan removed his Yangshan Snow saber and placed it beside Yao Wenyu’s hand. “I entrust this blade to you. When I return, you can give it back to me.”
Yao Wenyu smiled wistfully. “Why make things difficult for me?”
“Xun’er is still in Cizhou,” Shen Zechuan’s gaze dimmed slightly. “You are still his teacher.”
Yao Wenyu could only say, “Yuan Zhuo will do his utmost.”
Fei Sheng removed Shen Zechuan’s cloak. Shen Zechuan stepped back two paces and exchanged one final look with Yao Wenyu before silently turning and leaving the tent. While tidying the tent, Fei Sheng picked up Yao Wenyu’s handkerchief and discovered it soaked entirely in blood.
Outside the tent, wet snow fell thickly, and sudden winds surged.
Shen Zechuan stepped down the stairs while the Imperial Guards on both sides stared straight ahead. As he tightened the bindings on his arms during his stride, he passed by Dantai Hu and heard the latter roar toward the heavens:
“Tonight we kill our way into Qudu, and from this day forth the realm will follow the tide! The Prefect leads from the front—we shall repay him with our lives and loyalty!”
The garrison soldiers and Imperial Guards alike pounded their chests in unison, their voices drowning out the thunder:
“We shall repay him with our lives and loyalty!”
Qiao Tianya held a dagger between his teeth and crawled through the dark, damp official drainage ditch by bracing himself on his elbows.
Back when the drainage ditch case happened, Pan Lin had once given Xiao Chiye the engineering blueprints of Qudu’s drainage system. Xiao Chiye later left those plans in the Mei residence. When Shen Zechuan rebelled and fled Zhongbo, Qiao Tianya and Fei Sheng had escaped Qudu’s encirclement using those maps. They had long since memorized every crossing and branch of Qudu’s drainage system.
Qiao Tianya’s chin was submerged in foul sewage water. Tilting his head upward, he rammed his shoulder against the wooden board above him.
The chain on the board clattered aside. Ge Qingqing, now clean-shaven, exchanged a glance with Qiao Tianya before smiling and pulling him out.
“It’s been over a year since we last met,” Ge Qingqing said. “How is the Prefect?”
“Safe and sound,” Qiao Tianya replied tersely after removing the dagger.
“We’ve been tracking Qudu’s internal movements these past few days.” Ge Qingqing unfolded a map covered in markings and circles. “‘The Scorpions’ are here.”
Qiao Tianya looked at the densely packed circles and felt his scalp tingle.
“These people can’t establish roots. They can only wander Qudu awaiting orders. Most of them are riffraff from all walks of life,” Ge Qingqing covered the crossed-out areas. “The Prefect guessed correctly. They have a ‘leader’ directing all operations.”
Qiao Tianya stared at the marked location of the “leader.”
“We must strike first before the Scorpions move,” Ge Qingqing circled the location with his finger. “Leave none alive.”
His finger stopped at the royal palace.
Without putting away his dagger, Qiao Tianya rasped, “Same old profession, same old rules. The master gave a death order—where the Embroidered Spring Blade falls, none survive. We split up.”
He stabbed the dagger into the palace location on the map.
“I’ll go here.”