Chapter 124: The Death of Great Sound

After crossing the river, the people Bi arranged for them led out two swift horses. Without a word, they mounted and set off.

Along the way, Kai Ming kept glancing at Xuan’s face from time to time. His grave, anxious expression was impossible to conceal. He was truly worried about Da Yin. She sighed inwardly.

Xuan led her around the mountain roads and straight toward the open plains. They traveled west until they reached the Central Palace encampment.

From a distance, they saw the palace banners. Only a few soldiers remained inside the camp, each leaning on his weapon with a listless air.

Kai Ming was the first to dismount. She charged through the gate and shouted, “Where is Da Yin? Where is your general?”

The soldiers guarding the camp were startled and hurried to block her. “Who are you, to charge into the Central Palace camp?”

Kai Ming roared at them, “I am your deputy general! Where has the commander gone? Speak!”

The soldier hesitated, looking her up and down. “General?”

Impatiently, she demanded, “Do you know who the deputy general was for this campaign against the Western Palace?”

The soldier stammered, “It was… General Kai Ming…”

“I am she!” She shoved him aside. “You fool!”

The soldier followed close behind, running in short, startled steps. “But… didn’t General Kai Ming flee the battlefield? Why have you returned?”

“Who said I fled? I was acting under a palace order to carry out a matter of the utmost secrecy. General Da Yin knew about it.” Kai Ming looked around at the tents scattered throughout the camp. Silence lay everywhere. There were scarcely any soldiers left. Where had all the men and horses gone? “I have vital military intelligence to report. Where is the general? Why isn’t she in the camp?”

The soldier quickly straightened. “Reporting to General Kai Ming: General Yin took all the troops with her today. She led them out of the camp, and they have not yet returned.”

Kai Ming’s expression changed drastically. “Which way did they go? Where are the Western Palace forces?”

The soldier pointed due west. “There!”

Kai Ming looked up. In the direction he indicated, smoke and dust obscured the sky. The faint clash of spears and halberds drifted toward them. A battle was clearly underway.

The soldier handed her a bow and arrows, then threw her a spear. The two of them mounted at once and galloped toward the rolling cloud of dust.

The closer they came to the battlefield, the louder the sounds of combat grew. Shouts and screams rang out from close by. When they reached their destination and looked down, both drew in a sharp breath.

The battle was nearing its end. Corpses lay strewn everywhere, soldiers sprawled in grotesque positions. Some hung upon earthen mounds, while others had been pierced through the chest by spears, their blood staining the yellow mud. Again and again, they saw warhorses with severed legs overturned on the ground, whinnying in despair.

Kai Ming and Xuan dismounted and cautiously made their way into the field of corpses. The blood was still warm, and some of the bodies were still twitching.

This was war.

This was the terrible price paid for ambition and power.

The farther Kai Ming went, the heavier her heart sank. There was no sign of Da Yin. Even if she had died, there should at least have been a body. Yet not even her corpse could be found.

Dust hovered in the air like a dream, while the stench of blood assaulted their senses. Kai Ming walked onward in a daze, tripped over a body, and stumbled hard to the ground.

A blood-covered hand clamped tightly around her arm. Terrified out of her wits, she looked up and saw a face drenched in blood. Terror filled the plump cheeks, and the figure called to her in a trembling voice.

“Kai Ming… is that you?”

Kai Ming answered in an equally unsteady voice. “It’s me… You are…”

Her fingers brushed over the other woman’s fleshy face and frightened eyes. A wave of sorrow welled up inside her.

“Is it… Chun Hua?”

“Kai Ming!”

Chun Hua opened her broad arms and pulled her tightly into an embrace, bursting into loud sobs.

“It’s me, Kai Ming! Why did you run away? If you had to leave, you should at least have told us! You abandoned us and ran off alone! What were we supposed to do?”

She wept as she wiped her tears on Kai Ming’s clothes. Kai Ming let her cry and shout, holding her tightly in return, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions and unable to utter a word.

At the sound of Chun Hua’s sobs, two corpses beside her suddenly stirred. The bodies covering them were pushed aside, and two terrified faces emerged from beneath.

They were Xia Cao and Qiu Ju.

Still shaken, they asked, “Has General Kai Ming returned?”

When Kai Ming saw the two living women before her, she could no longer hold back her tears. They streamed down her face.

Xia Cao and Qiu Ju rushed toward her. The four women clung to one another and wept at the tops of their voices.

Hearing the earth-shaking cries, Xuan hurried over. When he saw the scene before him, he did not know how to comfort them and could only stand there.

After several minutes of crying, Kai Ming finally remembered the matter at hand. She pushed away Chun Hua’s heavy arms and asked, “Have you seen General Da Yin?”

“General Da Yin?” Chun Hua paused, then pointed toward the hillside. “I saw her lead a troop of soldiers after the Western Palace commander. They went that way.”

Xuan immediately ran in the direction she indicated.

Kai Ming looked at the three women with concern and examined them from head to toe. “Are any of you hurt? This was all my fault. I should never have left you behind.”

Chun Hua shook her head. “They’re only superficial wounds. The blood on us belongs to the dead soldiers. Kai Ming, you have no idea how brutal this battle was. If we hadn’t been clever enough to hide beneath the corpses, we might never have lived to see you again…”

Kai Ming laughed through her tears. “I knew you three were clever.”

Yet her heart was full of worry for Da Yin’s life or death. She turned to them and said, “Stay here. I’m going to find the general. Wait for me, understand?”

“Yes.”

The three women hurriedly agreed, then lay back down and pretended to be dead.

Kai Ming wiped her face, hoisted the spear onto her shoulder, and ran up the hillside, stepping over the corpses of the soldiers.

When she descended the slope, she saw the bodies of soldiers from both palaces lying everywhere. The sight was horrifying.

At the far end of the slope, Xuan stood rigidly. The bow in his hands was drawn to its full length, yet he had not released the arrow. Cold sweat covered his forehead.

Kai Ming was startled. Had Xuan found Da Yin?

She hurried forward to see.

The sight below shocked her even more. Wild weeds grew thickly at the bottom of the slope, where several soldiers lay dead. Two figures were locked in fierce combat. Nearby, soldiers in armor gripped their weapons, wanting to intervene but not daring to enter the fight.

The two combatants were evenly matched. Their flashing blades dazzled the eye.

Looking closely, Kai Ming recognized the slender figure with her disordered black hair and twin swords.

It was Da Yin of the Central Palace.

Her opponent was a thin young man clad in an iron helmet and armor. The timidity that had once filled his face was gone, replaced by unyielding determination. Though many days had passed, his features were still faintly recognizable.

It was Zhao Ming, the young soldier she had met once at the Southern Palace camp.

Da Yin was fighting alone, still struggling with all her strength, but it was clear that she was exhausted. Little by little, she began to lose ground.

Zhao Ming, however, grew fiercer with every exchange. Behind him, the Western Palace soldiers waved their weapons and shouted encouragement, their momentum terrifying.

The tip of Xuan’s arrow shifted constantly as he tried to aim at the leaping figures. Anxiety twisted inside him, and the cold sweat running down his brow grew heavier.

Kai Ming watched him anxiously, then looked toward the battle below. In a low voice, she said, “Let’s go down. Perhaps we can help the general…”

Before she could finish, a sharp whistle cut through the air.

The arrow Xuan had held for so long finally left the bow. It flew with tremendous force, like a cannon shell, and struck its target with perfect accuracy.

A scream rang out.

The arrowhead pierced the iron armor, breaking through it and burying itself deep in Zhao Ming’s vulnerable flesh. Caught completely off guard, Zhao Ming let out a long cry, clutched his chest, and fell backward.

Da Yin was startled and spun toward the source of the arrow.

At the top of the high slope stood Xuan, longbow in hand, gazing down at her with a smile.

That smile reached straight into the depths of her heart, making her tremble with joy.

She returned the same sweet smile. Though her face was smeared with blood and filth, she still wanted him to remember that she was a beautiful woman.

Kai Ming stared blankly at the smiles exchanged between them, her mind suddenly emptied of all thought.

Was this what the books meant by speaking with one’s eyes?

Only the setting now was a blood-soaked battlefield.

A strange sound rang out.

It was the sound of a spear piercing flesh.

Da Yin’s sweet smile abruptly became a pale, frozen expression. The muscles of her face tightened and stiffened. On the hillside, Xuan seemed to split into two figures.

Her gaze slowly lowered—from the wild grass, to the tips of her feet, and then to her body.

She saw the blood-covered spearhead trembling before her.

Only after seeing it did she feel the pain.

The cold spear had pierced her from behind and passed straight through her body without mercy. A vast bloom of blood spread across her chest and abdomen. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed sideways, the spear still running through her.

Behind her falling body, Zhao Ming clutched his chest and forced himself upright. He released the spear shaft from his right hand, clenched his teeth, and watched as she fell with earth-shattering force.

“No!”

Xuan’s roar erupted from the hillside. Like a maddened beast, he raced down from the summit.

Kai Ming cried out as well. She had never imagined that Da Yin would die before their eyes at the very moment they reached her.

Watching a living person die before you was far crueler than seeing a corpse.

Zhao Ming’s gaze shifted from Da Yin to the top of the slope. He saw Xuan—and then he saw Kai Ming.

She clearly saw the bewilderment in his eyes, as though he could not understand why she was there. Then he gave her a strained smile, closed his eyes, and fell backward.

The Western Palace soldiers hurried over, lifted him from the ground, and retreated in haste.

Still shaken by what she had witnessed, Kai Ming began walking helplessly down the hillside. Her foot caught on a protruding stone, and she fell hard, yet felt nothing.

She struggled to her feet, only to tumble down again, rolling into the wild grass.

When she lifted her head, she saw Xuan’s back. His body was bent over as he held Da Yin’s blood-soaked form tightly in his arms.

The wild grass, the setting sun, and the two figures together formed an unbearably sorrowful scene of farewell.

Kai Ming stumbled toward them, falling with nearly every step. Xuan’s figure swayed before her eyes. He was clearly so close, yet why could she never seem to reach him?

“Xuan…”

Apart from calling his name again and again, she could say nothing else.

At that moment, every other word would have been superfluous.

Da Yin’s pale face was smiling. Blood continued to seep from the corners of her lips, while her lashes trembled faintly, as though she were trying to open her eyes.

“You came, Xuan…”

With those soft words, blood suddenly poured from the corners of her mouth.