Fan Changyu was dumbfounded.

Only when a sharp pain came from her lips did she react. Ashamed and angry, she instinctively swung her other hand toward his face—but he seemed prepared, easily catching her hand and pulling her even harder toward himself. Her body collided with his unyielding chest, and her whole person was enclosed tightly within his iron arms.

Fan Changyu had never been treated like this before. She struggled with brute strength, but each movement was deflected effortlessly by his skillful control.

Fuming, she simply used her teeth instead. When she bit down hard, Xie Zheng gave a low hiss. As they separated, blood appeared on his lips. He frowned.

“You—”

Before he could finish, Fan Changyu slammed her forehead toward him, striking his nose bridge dead on. A sour ache spread through his nose, and he had no choice but to free one hand to cover it. In that brief opening, Fan Changyu swung her freed hand and punched him hard at the corner of his eye.

Xie Zheng gritted against the pain but did not release her other hand. With a forceful pull, he twisted both of her wrists behind her back and pinned them against the wall, pressing his body into her back. His tone turned cold.

“Feeling that wronged?”

Fan Changyu almost wanted to bite him to death. Because her wrist had been injured before, she couldn’t break free of his grip for the moment.

She spat angrily, “What madness has possessed you? If you want a woman, the brothels are full of those eager to do business with you—what do you take me for?”

Xie Zheng suddenly lifted his head, his black eyes deep and dark.

“That’s what you think of me?”

Pinned down and unable to move, Fan Changyu’s eyes blazed with humiliation and fury.

“And what do you think you were just doing? Taking advantage of someone in distress!”

Perhaps he was enraged to the point of laughter, for he let out a low chuckle. “Taking advantage of someone in distress? If I truly meant to take advantage of you, I wouldn’t have waited until now.”

He released her and stepped back, the curve of his lips cold. “Still can’t let go of that former fiancé of yours? Every man you find in the future has to look like him? Haven’t learned your lesson yet?”

Fan Changyu had just been treated indecently by him, and now hearing his mocking, lecturing tone only fueled her anger further. Before she knew it, her fist was already flying toward his face again.

“What does it matter to you whether I can let go or not?”

Xie Zheng neither dodged nor flinched—he took the full force of her punch. His lip split open, and the flushed side of his face made his otherwise jade-like features strikingly vivid.

Fan Changyu froze after landing the blow. She knew how heavy her punch had been.

Why… didn’t he dodge?

Xie Zheng pressed his tongue lightly against the torn corner of his mouth, tasting the faint tang of iron. He turned his head to look at her and asked, “Not going to continue?”

Fan Changyu couldn’t tell what she was feeling at that moment. Her knuckles still throbbed faintly, and his face looked worse for it.

Yet, after what he had done, she couldn’t bring herself to apologize. She pressed her lips together tightly and turned to head back inside.

But before she could take more than a step, he suddenly closed in like a shadow. Fan Changyu only saw the terrifying darkness in his eyes before her head was seized and her lips were crushed once more.

Her scalp went numb; she felt as if she might explode. But having lost the initiative, she was subdued at every turn. As she struggled and pushed, her whole body was pressed against the wall. He caught both her hands, raising them above her head, and using his height and strength, pinned her firmly beneath him. His breath, different from the usual calm and composed one, fanned hotly across her face as he kissed her again—this time, even rougher and more reckless than before.

Fan Changyu, driven past endurance, bit him viciously. He quickly clamped her jaw, using some deft strength that rendered her unable to bite again—yet he did not withdraw. Instead, taking advantage of the position, he forced her lips apart and swept back and forth within her mouth several times.

When it finally ended, Fan Changyu’s breathing was ragged; for a moment, her mind was light-headed from lack of air, and she forgot even to punch him again. She only stared at him in disbelief.

Xie Zheng released her, wiped the blood from his lips with his index finger, and said, “Now that was taking advantage of someone in distress.”

That surge of fury from being violated and humiliated rushed straight to Fan Changyu’s head. When Xie Zheng stepped back and freed her hands and feet, she immediately drew the small boning knife she always carried and pressed it against his neck.

“Who do you think you are, that you can humiliate me whenever you please?”

Leaning lazily against a wooden post with the blade at his throat, Xie Zheng’s expression did not change in the slightest. Only when he heard her words did he lift his gaze, a rare seriousness settling over his face.

“Rather than having poor judgment and marrying another ingrate in the future, you’d be better off following me.”

The words startled not only Fan Changyu but Xie Zheng himself. For a brief moment he, too, was stunned—then a rush of numbing pleasure, as though reason itself had shattered, swept through him.

Yes… rather than letting her marry someone else later, wouldn’t it be better to keep her by his side?

Having opened his mouth, the rest came easier. After a pause, he said slowly, “I have a powerful enemy outside. I might die by his hand—or he might die, and I live. If you’re willing, wait for me two years. If I die, someone will bring you word. Then it won’t be too late for you to remarry.”

Fan Changyu stared at him coldly. “You call Song Yan an ingrate, but how are you any better? You take liberties with me, and then tell me you have intentions toward me?”

She sheathed the knife; anger at being violated overrode every other feeling. Lifting her sleeve, she wiped her lips hard. “I hit you—so we’re even. The things are all on the table. Once the city gates reopen, you can leave.”

Xie Zheng watched her retreating back as she went inside. Not even the faintest curve of cold irony could lift the corner of his mouth.

So—she had rejected him?

Since his birth, he had tasted defeat only once before—on the battlefield of Chongzhou. This time, he had found it again, in another form.

He did not take the things left on the table in the main hall. He stood for a while under the eaves, leaning against a pillar, then walked out through the Fan family’s gate.

Because the people of Qingping County had recently rioted and besieged the city, the government had imposed martial law once more. The streets of Lin’an Town were desolate, with scarcely a villager come to market.

Xie Zheng wandered aimlessly until he reached the pine forest by the riverside outside town. The ground was covered in a foot of snow. The river, flowing through uneven terrain, ran swift and clear; the thin sheet of ice that had formed overnight was already cracked, and from halfway up the mountain came the tinkling sound of spring water.

He lay down on a gentle slope, using one arm as a pillow behind his head, and stared blankly at the faint outline of Lin’an Town in the distance.

On the Chongzhou battlefield, when his life had hung by a thread in an ambush, he had not panicked. Escaping death by chance and being pursued for a hundred li by assassins, he had not feared. When he fell from a cliff and was carried by the river to Jizhou, waking on the riverbank battered with sword wounds and burning with fever, he had forced himself to seek out a village—only to collapse in the wild and be picked up by that woman.

At that time, all he thought about was how to stabilize the northwest front and step by step take revenge on the Wei father and son.

When had it begun—this reluctance to leave?

That small house was always lively, filled with the warmth of daily life. He had seen too many backs bent by suffering, but that woman—even if the sky were to fall—would still straighten her thin back and bear it.

Perhaps… it was only that no one had treated him with such pure kindness for a very long time.

When he thought of the dried tangerine peel candy she gave him when he drank medicine, and the red envelopes for the New Year… a trace of mocking laughter crept onto Xie Zheng’s lips. For a fleeting moment, the phrase wagging one’s tail in supplication crossed his mind.

She was probably just too kind. Even if the one she had saved that day hadn’t been him—if it had been anyone else—she would have cared for that person just as attentively: buying candy, preparing red envelopes for the New Year…

She treated him well because he was pitiful, not because she held any true affection for him.

That sentence he had uttered—“Follow me”—had truly been nothing but a joke.

A man proud all his life was not one to easily admit to such a laughable defeat.

Above the horizon, a gyrfalcon circled and cried out, as if searching for someone.

This time, Xie Zheng did not blow the whistle. He turned his head slightly and saw, near the riverside where most of the snow had already melted, a tender green shoot breaking through the ice, standing vividly amidst the whiteness.

When ice thaws, the spring pulses; when snow melts, new grass is born.

That had been the New Year’s couplet he wrote for her.

He gazed at it for a while, then lowered his eyes, half sat up, and plucked the sprout, tossing it into the rushing river. Quietly, he watched the current carry it away.

If the heart is disturbed—then uproot it.

The gyrfalcon circling the sky finally caught sight of him and dove downward. Xie Zheng did not lift his hand to receive it. The bird landed and stood there for a moment; seeing he didn’t take the message, it tilted its head curiously, then approached and gently pecked the back of his hand.

Xie Zheng raised a hand to smooth the feathers on its head, but his gaze remained fixed on the distant river. After a long while, he finally removed the message tied to its leg.

Three lines met his eyes. When he finished reading, the paper turned to ash between his fingertips.

He looked one last time toward the distant Lin’an Town and said, “Let’s go. It’s time to return.”

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

Jizhou.

An urgent dispatch from Jinzhou arrived at the Jizhou prefectural office, and every official who read it was struck with shock.

“The Beijue people have really attacked Jinzhou!”

“Fortunately, Marquis Wu’an did not die at Chongzhou! With him stationed in Jinzhou, those northern barbarians will surely tremble at the sound of his name!”

Sitting above in the council hall, He Jingyuan’s expression was as dark as water, and before he could speak, a guard outside reported, “Lucheng is in peril! The Great General Guo Xinhou, under Prince Changxin, has led fifty thousand troops to surround the city!”

At those words, the entire hall erupted in alarm.

It had been barely any time since the affair where Prince Changxin’s heir had disguised his death warriors as peasants to incite rebellion among the people of Qingping County.

If the uprising in Qingping hadn’t been suppressed—if the commoners truly turned against them—then Lucheng, the first line of defense between Jizhou and Chongzhou, would be caught between two enemies, with Qingping right behind it. In that case, Lucheng would truly face attack from both front and rear.

One official slammed the table and cursed, “The rebels clearly plotted this long ago! Jinzhou’s crisis will force Marquis Wu’an to transfer his heavy troops from Huizhou, leaving no strength to suppress the rebels! They mean to seize the opportunity and devour the northwest!”

A military officer said grimly, “The immediate problem is that the rebels are already at Lucheng’s gates. We must decide how to hold Jizhou.”

If Lucheng fell—Jizhou would have no shield left.

Amidst the clamor of voices, He Jingyuan said, “Guo Xinhou is a seasoned general, well-versed in the art of war. I will personally go to Lucheng to oversee its defense.”

“Lord He, you must not! Lucheng is in grave danger—fifty thousand rebel troops are pressing in, and the city has only twenty thousand soldiers. Should anything happen to you, none of us could bear the responsibility even in death!”