The battlefield first began to take shape in Su Mucheng’s mind in the form of sound.
Not the clang of weapons colliding, nor the tremors of thousands of horses charging across the ground.
It was the muffled wail of distant horns and the deep rumble of war drums. It was the squelching sound of wooden cartwheels rolling over earth saturated with blood and mud. It was the continuous, barely suppressed groaning of wounded soldiers in the infirmary, and the splashing sound of basin after basin of hot water being carried inside, only to be poured out again as dark red blood.
Wearing a modern medical mask, Su Mucheng pressed clean linen that had been repeatedly boiled in the Dasheng military infirmary against a wound with both hands. His latex gloves were covered in wet, sticky blood.
The latex gloves he had brought from the other side of the “Gate” were limited in number. He only stopped to put on a new pair when treating deep wounds or situations involving potentially large amounts of bodily fluids.
He knew that blood was more than just blood.
On a battlefield without modern infection-control measures, blood itself was a moving source of danger.
What was more, he could not afford to collapse. He was the Key to the Gate.
But at this moment, he was simply a military physician who had to be more cautious than anyone else.
Here, he was “Military Physician Shen An.”
“Red cloth! Penetrating abdominal wound, rapid pulse! Take him to Treatment Table Two!”
“Yellow cloth! Fractured left arm, no bleeding. Take him to the side and splint it with a board. Don’t block the main passage!”
“Blue cloth! Superficial injuries. Go to the back for medicine and bandages!”
Different-colored strips of cloth were tied around the wrists of the wounded, directing them to separate treatment areas.
The stretcher bearers hurried back and forth, sweat pouring down their faces. They had been somewhat clumsy at first, but the moment they heard Shen An’s firm, unyielding instructions, they immediately followed them, as though they had finally found someone to rely on.
This was the system of triage and stretcher transport that Military Advisor Su had spent more than half a month designing on paper, drawing countless diagrams and forcing the Dasheng soldiers to practice again and again until they could carry it out.
When the first wave of wounded arrived, the system worked so smoothly that it was almost surprising.
The most severely injured received treatment to stop their bleeding quickly. The lightly wounded no longer clogged the entrance to the tents. Nobody rushed around like a headless fly as they had in the past.
As Shen An rapidly sutured a deep laceration on a soldier’s thigh, a flicker of satisfaction even crossed his mind.
Modern battlefield medical principles really could work in this era.
Until the second wave of wounded surged in like a flood.
The distant horns changed their tune, and the number of casualties being brought down from the forward transfer station suddenly tripled.
Chaos shattered the order almost instantly.
There were nowhere near enough stretchers. Some soldiers simply carried their blood-soaked comrades on their backs and rushed inside, laying them on the ground. Others forgot to tie on the colored strips. Some tied red cloth onto the wrong people. Still others, because their own comrades were screaming the loudest, forcibly pushed a soldier wearing a blue strip to the front.
The literate soldiers responsible for keeping records were seized by the collars and confronted by people sobbing and shouting. Meanwhile, the evacuation route at the rear was completely blocked by two damaged supply carts.
“Military physician! Hurry! Save him first! He’s lost so much blood!”
A young soldier dropped to his knees in front of Shen An with a thud. The man on his back had a horrifying gash across his abdomen and chest. Blood had already soaked through the straw mat beneath him.
The veteran military physicians nearby turned deathly pale and immediately reached for hemostatic cloth.
“Wait.”
Shen An grabbed one of the older physician’s hands and stopped him.
His expression darkened.
What he saw was not merely the intestines protruding from an open abdominal cavity.
He crouched down and pressed his fingers against the severely wounded man’s carotid artery.
The pulse was so faint that it was almost imperceptible.
His pupils had already begun to lose focus, and his breathing had taken on the irregular rhythm of someone nearing death.
This was not simply a case of severe injury. His bodily functions had already reached their limit.
“Military Physician Shen, hurry!” the young soldier roared, his eyes bloodshot.
Shen An fell silent for two seconds.
He knew that the decision he was about to make was the right one.
And precisely because he understood that it was the only correct decision, a suffocating ache surged through his chest.
In a voice so calm it held not the slightest tremor, he uttered two words.
“…Black cloth.”
The medical orderly beside him froze.
“My lord?”
“Black strip. Didn’t you hear me?”
Shen An repeated himself, his voice so heavy it barely sounded like his own.
“Take him to the ‘comfort-care area.’ Cover him with a blanket to keep him warm. Give him pain relief if he needs it. Tell him… that he did well.”
In the triage system Shen An had devised, black did not mean an immediate declaration of death. Rather, under the limited medical resources available on a battlefield, it designated patients who could not be prioritized for rescue at that moment and who should instead receive palliative care.
In the modern world, he might have made a different choice.
But this was not the modern world.
The orderly’s hand trembled as he picked up the black strip.
“But, my lord… he’s still breathing…”
“I know.”
Shen An had already risen and was moving toward the next wounded soldier.
“Next. Bring me the man with the penetrating thigh wound. The one who’s still shouting.”
“What did you say?! He’s still alive!”
The young soldier shouted in anguish, raising his hand as he tried to charge at Shen An.
The two personal guards stationed nearby immediately rushed forward and pinned him firmly in place.
“I’m not deciding who deserves to live.”
Shen An stopped and looked at him. He did not back down in the slightest, and his gaze was terrifyingly calm.
“I’m deciding who can still be saved right now.”
He pointed at the stretchers continuing to pour in from behind them.
“If you want me to spend all the available manpower and medicine on him, then what about the next person? And the one after that? And the one after that? Who will save them?”
The veteran military physician beside him spoke in a trembling voice.
“Military Physician Shen…”
“Let him depart in peace.” Shen An withdrew his gaze and issued the order coldly. “Carry him away. Next!”
Shen An did not look back at the soldier being carried away.
Nor did he look again at the desperate face of the young soldier being dragged away by the guards.
It was not that he did not want to look.
He could not look. He had no time to look.
The soldier with the penetrating thigh wound was carried over.
Shen An turned and immediately began cleaning the wound and stopping the bleeding.
This was the first time he had truly felt the weight of a battlefield.
He had not faced the enemy’s blades, yet every second, he was deciding who would live and who would die.
A system was no magical solution that could make everything perfect. The cruelest truth of battlefield medicine was that sometimes, you had to deliberately give up on those who looked the worst and seemed to need help the most, in order to save those who still had a chance of surviving.
The intense medical work continued until dusk.
Although he only handled emergency cases while the other military physicians and medical orderlies dealt with the rest, by the end of the day, he was so exhausted that he could barely lift his shoulders.
Shen An washed his hands in a basin of relatively clean water.
Just then, a messenger rushed into the infirmary, his head drenched in sweat, and looked around frantically.
“Where is Military Advisor Su? The deployment orders for the third batch of wounded from the front need his seal!”
Shen An dried the water from his hands with a cloth, raised his head, and replied slowly, “Military Advisor Su isn’t here.”
The messenger froze. Looking at the military physician before him, covered in blood and visibly exhausted, he hesitated before asking, “You’re… Military Physician Shen?”
“Yes.”
“Then where is Military Advisor Su? This is urgent!”
Shen An gestured with his chin toward another tent.
“He went out. Look over there. If you see someone wearing a white gauze veil hat with personal guards accompanying him, that’s the one. Go straight to him for the seal.”
Watching the messenger hurry away, Shen An slowly let out a breath.
At this moment, the confusion of their identities had unexpectedly become one of the few chances he had to catch his breath.
Mu Li was flawlessly playing the authoritative and efficient role of “Military Advisor Su” over there, while the real Su Mucheng was hidden beneath the skin of a man named Shen An, fighting to snatch lives back from the hands of death.
After a brief rest, Su Mucheng noticed that the transfer station was sending down wounded soldiers more slowly, yet the horns at the front had not stopped sounding.
He realized that something might have gone wrong with the stretcher circulation at the transfer point.
“Get the medical kit. You’re coming with me to the second transfer station.”
Shen An turned to the medical orderly and strode toward the exit of the camp.
“Military Physician Shen, please stop.”
Two personal guards appeared as if from nowhere, stepping out of the shadows beyond the tent to block his way.
“The wounded are backed up at the front. I have to see how the triage is being handled in person.” Shen An frowned.
“His Highness has ordered that you are not to cross this red-flag line today.”
The guards remained expressionless, but their tone allowed no room for argument.
“It’s too dangerous ahead. The infirmary’s responsibility is to remain in the rear.”
Shen An looked at the guards, then glanced toward the distant direction where dust was rising into the air.
He understood. This was Xiao Yuan’s bottom line.
Xiao Yuan had allowed him to establish the system and permitted him to save lives in the rear, but he would never allow him to expose himself to the danger of stray arrows or a night raid.
He was the Key to the Gate, as well as an important strategic asset. His life was not his alone.
At this moment, however, the feeling of being “protected” was like a shackle.
People were bleeding up ahead, and he possessed modern first-aid knowledge, yet all he could do was wait behind a line of safety.
But he had promised Xiao Yuan that he would not break the rules.
He took a deep breath, suppressing the agitation in his heart, and turned to the medical orderly beside him.
“Go tell them this: lightly wounded soldiers must help one another walk down on their own. They are no longer to occupy stretchers! Free up every stretcher for those with severe abdominal and leg injuries. Go, now!”
By nightfall, the cries of the wounded in the infirmary had finally begun to subside, gradually giving way to exhausted snores and muffled sobbing.
Su Mucheng removed the bloodstained outer robe he had worn as Shen An, washed his hands and face, and returned to the military advisor’s tent.
Inside, the lamplight flickered. On the desk, Mu Li had already divided the military reports received from the various camps into three piles.
The top pile contained matters that required “Military Advisor Su” to review and decide personally. The middle pile consisted of documents that had already been approved and merely needed his seal. The bottom pile held routine paperwork that could wait until the following day.
The administrative side of things had not ground to a halt just because he had spent the entire day in the infirmary.
Su Mucheng sat down.
Now, he was Military Advisor Su.
He opened the casualty register for the day.
During the day, he had seen one agonized face after another, one wound after another that needed to be staunched. Now, all those people had become cold strokes of ink on paper.
Wounded received today: 127.
Lightly wounded, treated and transferred to the rear: 42.
Moderately wounded, kept under observation: 20.
Severely wounded, remaining in the infirmary: 54.
Killed in action: 11.
Su Mucheng’s finger stopped on the number “eleven.”
It remained there for a long time.
Among them… were people he knew, people whose names he had only just learned, and people he had never had the chance to meet.
He thought of the soldier with the devastating chest and abdominal injuries whom he had given up on that afternoon. He thought of the scout who had suffered a high fever for three days and ultimately failed to survive until today. He thought of those whose injuries had been no more than sword cuts, yet who had bled to death because evacuation from the transfer station had been too slow.
Only now was he beginning to understand why Xiao Yuan reviewed these registers every day.
Why he would always ask one more question:
“Is Li Cheng, the man from yesterday, still alive?”
Those cold figures had never been mere numbers to Xiao Yuan.
He had simply grown accustomed to hiding all his concern and grief inside cold military orders.
Owl had once said, “The people must come back.”
Xiao Yuan was calculating the cost of strength and casualties in his own way.
And now Su Mucheng knew what he had to do.
He had no time to grieve.
He picked up his brush and spread out the stretcher-triage flowchart he had drawn himself. Then he forcefully crossed out several lines.
“Assigning exactly four stretchers to every transfer point is wrong. It’s too rigid.”
He muttered to himself as his brush flew across the page.
“The number of stretchers must be adjusted dynamically according to the distance from the front. Medicine and supplies can’t all be stored in the rear. Hemostatic cloth and splinting boards must be distributed among the transfer points in advance. Triage can’t rely on military physicians alone. There aren’t enough people…”
War was not a fixed procedure. It was a quagmire full of variables.
A system was not meant to make the battlefield orderly.
It was meant to keep the battlefield from slipping completely out of control, even when order broke down.
Its greatest purpose was to reclaim as many lives as possible from the quagmire of chaos.
At the bottom of the casualty register, Su Mucheng wrote down the following day’s orders in bold strokes, signing them in his capacity as military advisor.
— Eight additional stretchers were to be assigned to each transfer point tomorrow.
— Two additional record-keeping soldiers were to be stationed at the second transfer point.
— The lightly wounded were no longer to occupy stretchers. Those able to walk were to support one another during evacuation.
— Hemostatic cloth, clean linen, and splinting boards were to be placed at the transfer points in advance.
— The supply of hot water was to be doubled.
He put down his brush.
The ink had not yet dried.
Outside the tent, another horn sounded in the distance.
Su Mucheng raised his eyes.
He knew what it meant.
When the sun rose tomorrow, more people would be carried down from the battlefield.
The battlefield would not grow merciful simply because he had established a system.
He still had the observation charts for twenty moderately wounded soldiers to review, and he needed to calculate the remaining stock of hemostatic cloth again.
He picked up his brush once more.
All he could do was make his system run a little faster than it had yesterday.
And do everything in his power to ensure that more people survived tomorrow than had survived today.
◆◇◆◇◆
When Xiao Yuan entered the central military tent, Su Mucheng was nowhere to be seen in the outer chamber.
He lifted the layers of windproof curtains and walked toward the inner room. The grimness and bloodlust that had gathered in his eyes softened into a tender warmth the instant he saw the curled-up figure on the bed.
Su Mucheng had not even pulled the blanket properly over himself. He was curled into a ball.
His eyes were tightly shut, yet his long, delicate brows were drawn together in a deep frown. A faint shadow beneath his lower eyelids made him look heartbreakingly exhausted.
Xiao Yuan softened his steps, removed his armor and outer robe, which still carried the metallic smell of blood, and sat beside the bed in only his inner clothes.
He raised a hand and gently brushed his fingers through Su Mucheng’s soft, jet-black hair.
Since Su Mucheng had begun growing his hair out, it had finally reached past his shoulders. Even so, it was still much shorter than the hair worn by men of Dasheng. That was why, when he disguised himself as Military Physician Shen An during the day, he still had to wear a stuffy wig.
The touch of his fingers stirred Su Mucheng, whose sleep was always light.
His eyelashes trembled before he slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Xiao Yuan’s handsome profile, tinged with exhaustion.
Xiao Yuan took the opportunity to lie down beside him, slipped an arm around him, and asked softly, “Did I wake you?”
“…I only just fell asleep. I wasn’t sleeping deeply.”
Su Mucheng’s voice was husky with sleep. He naturally nestled into Xiao Yuan’s warm embrace, finding a comfortable position for himself.
Xiao Yuan gazed deeply at him.
Before he had even returned to the tent, his personal guards had already reported everything that had happened in the infirmary that day, including the chaos and the dangerous moment when a soldier had attempted to attack Su Mucheng.
Afterward, he had seen the tightly drawn, forceful annotations Su Mucheng had made in the casualty register.
Looking at the lingering gloom deep in the eyes of the person in his arms, Xiao Yuan felt a dull ache in his chest.
As expected, I should never have let him step into this bloody quagmire.
His concern threatened to spill over. Xiao Yuan lowered his head and pressed a warm kiss to Su Mucheng’s forehead, then let it fall upon his trembling eyelids, before finally covering his soft lips with his own in a tender kiss, full of affection that seemed to seek comfort and make amends all at once.
After the kiss, Su Mucheng was still immersed in the sense of security and tenderness Xiao Yuan brought him when something suddenly stirred in the back of his mind.
He remembered something.
“About that soldier today…” Su Mucheng raised his head and looked at Xiao Yuan with bright, dark eyes. “Don’t punish him too severely. He wasn’t deliberately causing trouble. He just couldn’t accept watching his comrade die right in front of him, and for a moment, he lost control…”
He knew that military discipline was strict. Although Xiao Yuan treated his soldiers exceptionally well in many respects, he would never allow anyone to challenge his authority. As a strict commander, he had to maintain discipline.
Besides… the person the soldier had attacked was Su Mucheng himself.
Su Mucheng understood Xiao Yuan’s temperament too well. Punishment was inevitable, but he hoped the man would at least be allowed to keep his life.
Xiao Yuan raised an eyebrow slightly. A shadow of dangerous darkness flickered in his eyes as he asked in a low voice, “Are you pleading for him as Shen An, or as Military Advisor Su? Or as Su Mucheng?”
Su Mucheng froze.
What kind of lethal multiple-choice question was this?!
He rapidly calculated his options.
Given Xiao Yuan’s possessiveness and his tendency to get jealous over even the smallest things, choosing “Su Mucheng” was absolutely out of the question. Otherwise, the man would probably find an excuse to make an issue of it tonight.
Intervening in military discipline as “Military Advisor Su” would be overstepping his authority.
After considering it from every angle, it seemed that only the nominal victim remained.
“Since he originally intended to attack Shen An, then… Shen An,” Su Mucheng ventured cautiously.
The moment the words left his mouth, Xiao Yuan suddenly rolled over. With one hand, he caught Su Mucheng by the wrist and pinned him to the bed.
The man’s tall, powerful frame descended over him, blocking out all the light. A bold, dangerous curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“Then what are we to do? ‘Shen An’ is currently the new favorite in this prince’s bed, and we’re in the throes of passionate romance. Someone dares to lay a hand on the person dearest to me? I’ve already shown Shen An considerable consideration by not having the man beaten with a rod and exiled a thousand li away. And you still want to plead for him?”
Su Mucheng silently rolled his eyes.
How was this still a trick question?!
Choosing Shen An was a trap, too?
Xiao Yuan’s thumb brushed gently, yet dangerously, across Su Mucheng’s slightly swollen lower lip. His voice resonated low in his chest.
“Whether you are Military Advisor Su, Physician Su, Su Mucheng, Mu’an, or Shen An… every one of those identities belongs to me. I don’t like you pleading on behalf of other men. But I know you have a soft heart, and you would keep thinking about this if I didn’t settle it properly. So I’ve already demoted him, placed him under observation, and assigned him to hard labor. The matter is closed. You are not to think about it anymore.”
Hearing this, Su Mucheng finally felt the weight lift from his heart.
But as soon as the tension eased, he became aware of his current predicament.
The flames of war had already been kindled at the front. The murderous aura that Xiao Yuan usually kept under control now resembled an iron bow drawn to its absolute limit. Every inch of him radiated an aggressive intensity, as though he could strike at any moment and devour whoever stood in his way.
Those deep, dark eyes were now fixed on Su Mucheng from above, with a fire burning in them that made his heart pound.
Su Mucheng knew exactly what Xiao Yuan was thinking.
But this was a military camp!
The tent was made of only a few layers of cloth. If they made even a little too much noise, the patrolling guards outside would hear everything clearly!
Su Mucheng’s body stiffened slightly. The way he huddled beneath Xiao Yuan’s grasp, not daring to move, made him look just like a wild rabbit forced to submit.
Some of the danger faded from Xiao Yuan’s eyes, and he could not help laughing.
“Relax. I know you’re tired. I have no intention of devouring you just yet.”
Xiao Yuan released his hold and lay back down beside him, wrapping him tightly in his arms. His palm moved smoothly through Su Mucheng’s dark hair.
Then, beside Su Mucheng’s ear, he whispered a single sentence.
“Mu’an, you did very well today.”
You did very well.
Those words precisely dismantled the defenses Su Mucheng had gritted his teeth and maintained throughout the entire day, barely managing to force them back into place.
They were the same words of comfort he had spoken to the dying soldier that afternoon. They were also the words that had weighed so heavily on his heart when he forced himself to issue the order for the black strip.
Su Mucheng’s entire body trembled.
Then he buried his face deep in Xiao Yuan’s broad, solid chest.
He had wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong, to display the calm and professionalism expected of a physician.
But every last disguise crumbled before Xiao Yuan’s gentle affirmation, leaving him exposed with nowhere to hide.
In the quiet inner chamber, Su Mucheng’s slender shoulders trembled faintly.
Whenever things fell silent that day, the same images had kept flashing through his mind in an endless rotation.
The bloodied, unrecognizable faces.
The desperate, bloodshot eyes of the young soldier.
The black strip tied around a man’s wrist.
And his own voice as he delivered the decision—so cold that it had bordered on heartlessness.
He knew perfectly well that he had been saving lives. He knew that he had been forced to make a choice.
Some people had survived because of his decisions, while others were beyond his power to save. Yet he had still been required to choose.
The guilt of personally consigning someone to death continued to gnaw at his heart like a toxin.
Xiao Yuan simply held the trembling body in his arms, firmly and steadily, stroking his thin back again and again.
He understood better than anyone that Su Mucheng came from a peaceful world, one without the smoke of war.
Before meeting Xiao Yuan, Su Mucheng had endured hardships, but his life had still been relatively stable.
And now, for Xiao Yuan’s sake, he had stepped onto this blood-soaked field of slaughter, forcing himself to grow thorns, forcing himself to learn how to be ruthless.
Xiao Yuan pressed his lips to the side of Su Mucheng’s ear and whispered over and over in the steadiest, most reassuring voice.
“The system you brought here helped dozens more people survive today. Your hands brought dozens of lives back from the brink. As for those who could not survive… it was I who failed to protect the people of Dasheng. I will make proper arrangements for their families. This is not your fault, Mu’an… Don’t place the weight of every life on your own shoulders.”
“I know\…”
Su Mucheng’s voice was muffled against Xiao Yuan’s chest, thick with restrained sobs and a stuffy, nasal tremor.
He understood all these truths.
During his hospital internship, he had personally watched patients he had cared for pass away.
He knew how cruel it was when medical resources were limited. He also knew that as long as he continued to hold surgical instruments and save lives, this feeling of helplessness would never disappear.
But understanding something was one thing.
Experiencing it firsthand was another.
“I’m fine…”
Su Mucheng’s voice was so hoarse that it hurt to hear.
“Mm. I know you’ll be fine.”
Xiao Yuan gently stroked the back of his head and kissed the crown of his hair.
“Sleep. I’ll stay with you.”
“Okay…”
With Xiao Yuan’s steady heartbeat, familiar warmth, and unconditional acceptance surrounding him, the tension that had held Su Mucheng together all day finally eased completely. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he once again sank into a deep sleep.
Xiao Yuan held the sleeping man in his arms, listening as his breathing gradually settled into a steady rhythm. In the dim lamplight, his gaze grew cold and resolute.
When the sun rose tomorrow, they would still have to face the hellish battlefield.
And only by bringing the war to a complete end could he ensure that the person in his arms would never have to face such cruelty again.