Most tents in a military camp were designed for mobility, organized strictly according to the hierarchy of units—from the smallest squads to the largest divisions. Each sub-camp fell under the jurisdiction of a major command, their rows and columns clearly defined when the army halted to pitch camp.
At the boundary between the Guangyao and Black Feather camps, there was a small, conspicuous tent that seemed an extra addition to the orderly rows. From within, the low, melodious singing of a Nanqiang woman drifted out, carrying a note of leisurely contentment.
When living with the army, the most important skill was knowing how to "seize the moment."
This was a truth Mo Chunhua had realized herself. On a rare day like this, when the weather was fine and one didn't have to worry about clothes being blown away by the wind, she had to hurry and hang out everything that needed airing.
As she walked out carrying the last bundle of sheepskin rugs, she collided head-on with someone.
Because her arms were full, Mo Chunhua’s center of gravity was unstable. She was knocked flat onto her backside, the hard, coarse sand of the earth stinging her skin as the sheepskin rugs scattered everywhere.
She looked up and saw Xiao Nanhui’s large face, her expression profoundly gloomy.
Mo Chunhua snorted through her nose. "Xiao Nanhui! Do you have grit in your eyes?! Can't you see me walking out..."
There was no response for a long moment. When she scrambled up, she realized Xiao Nanhui had already picked up the sheepskins and carried them into the tent.
Mo Chunhua lifted the flap and followed close behind. Catching sight of the back of the other woman's head, she stood dazed, her mouth half-open. "Your... your hair, why is it..."
Xiao Nanhui didn't have the energy to deal with her at the moment. She tossed the sheepskins onto the couch and sat down heavily, her face clouded with worry.
After a long while, Mo Chunhua finally closed her mouth, but her face took on a somewhat suggestive expression.
"Oh, I see."
The "oh" was drawn out in a long, knowing tone that made Xiao Nanhui’s ears burn.
She turned back indignantly. "You don't know a damn thing."
Mo Chunhua ignored the retort, her eyes still sparkling with curiosity.
"Then you tell me—why is it that you went to teach the Emperor martial arts and came back with your hair all undone?"
Xiao Nanhui rubbed the half-piece of jade in her hand, her heart feeling a bitter pang.
"Let me ask you, were you the one looking after the Emperor’s daily needs before?"
"I did for a while. Why ask that?"
Xiao Nanhui opened and closed her hand, then opened it again, before finally asking with great difficulty, "That... among the Emperor’s everyday clothes, have you ever seen a moon-white robe?"
Mo Chunhua looked up at the ceiling. "The Emperor has so many clothes, how could I remember them all?"
"Hah." Xiao Nanhui let out a heavy sigh. "So there is one, then."
"What if there is, and what if there isn't? Why don't you just speak plainly?"
Speak plainly?
"I don't even understand it myself, so how am I supposed to explain it to you?"
Xiao Nanhui felt a sense of frustration, and beneath that frustration, a growing seed of fear. She didn't understand what she was afraid of; she only felt that she couldn't dwell on the many details of what had just happened. She was particularly unwilling to face the conclusions such thoughts might lead to.
She sat up from the couch, deciding to change the subject.
"While I was away, were there any letters?"
Mo Chunhua was clearly dissatisfied with the previous answer and turned her head away. "No."
Xiao Nanhui didn't give up. "Not even a single bird?"
Mo Chunhua quietly took a lock of Xiao Nanhui’s hair and tied it into a vicious knot around her finger. "For that, you should go ask that man named Lu."
Xiao Nanhui blinked, finally remembering the situation.
Ever since she had parted ways with Wu Xiaoli and the others, the Night Owls had not come to find her for a long time. Naturally, she had lost all news of Shrike, Su Pingchuan, and the rest.
This was all thanks to Lu Songping.
With the war intensifying at the front, the main army had been leaving camp frequently these past few days. Lu Songping had tightened security around the Royal Tent, and all regulations were becoming increasingly strict. Even the hawks and falcons used for messaging were banned; military reports relied solely on swift horses.
Xiao Nanhui hadn't understood at first, but later she began to grasp the reason.
Rumor had it that a certain tribe of the Nanqiang were descendants of the ancient Kuyi clan and could understand the language of birds and beasts. Lu Songping was deeply paranoid; coupled with the previous experience of the Night-Hunting Bats, he felt that any potential risk of leaking the Royal Tent's location had to be eradicated at the root.
One couldn't blame him for being so cautious. The Emperor was leading the campaign in person and had no heirs; if anything happened to him, Tiancheng would fall into absolute chaos.
She thought back to the group of young maidens they had escorted into the palace months ago when leaving Que City. She wondered if the Emperor had graced those beauties before the campaign to leave himself a son or daughter.
Seeing her silent for so long, Mo Chunhua leaned in again.
"Since your duty ended so early and you're just idling about, why not teach me a few more moves?"
Xiao Nanhui glanced at her, feigning laziness. "Since I'm idling about, I might as well lie down and sleep."
Looking at that sluggish face, Mo Chunhua’s anger flared. She grabbed the sheepskin felt from under Xiao Nanhui’s seat and yanked it with all her might. "Sleep? I'll make sure you don't sleep at all tonight!"
Xiao Nanhui felt a sudden surge of force and landed on her backside on the ground. Mo Chunhua looked at her triumphantly and turned to leave, but Xiao Nanhui lunged forward and snatched the felt back.
Though Mo Chunhua possessed great raw strength, she was no match for a trained martial artist. After a brief stalemate, she lost ground. Unable to let it go, she reached out to pry Xiao Nanhui’s wrist away. The moment she touched it, her palm was pricked by something sharp.
"Ow!"
She let go in pain. Xiao Nanhui belatedly raised her hand, remembering the iron ring on her wrist. Mo Chunhua’s hand had just been pricked by the sharp protrusion on it.
"Are you alright?"
She felt a bit apologetic, but Mo Chunhua was both angry and aggrieved.
"You dead woman, you only know how to bully me!"
Xiao Nanhui scratched her head, her voice as low as a mosquito's hum. "The Emperor gave me this, it's not my fault."
Wait. When the Emperor gave her this thing, hadn't he said it was a token that allowed her to come and go by his side?
Then what was that whole ordeal she had just gone through?
The expression on Xiao Nanhui’s face became even more tragic. As she raised her wrist, she suddenly remembered something else.
Turning the iron ring, she indeed saw the strange script engraved on the protrusion.
She hadn't paid much attention to it before because she didn't recognize the symbol at all, assuming it was some mark of the Black Feather Camp. But over the past few days, she hadn't seen this mark anywhere else in the Black Feather Camp, until just now...
"Mo Chunhua, do you recognize this?"
Mo Chunhua’s palm was still stinging. She gave her an angry look and bit her lip, refusing to speak.
The Nanqiang were considered a foreign race, and some tribes still preserved scripts used in ancient times. Although Mo Chunhua had never attended a school, she was likely a bit more knowledgeable in this regard than the average person from Tiancheng.
Xiao Nanhui thickened her skin and leaned closer, using the skills she had honed from dealing with Yao Yi. "Take a look for me, and I'll teach you three sets of fist techniques."
Mo Chunhua huffed, then crooked her finger. Xiao Nanhui hurriedly offered her hand.
Mo Chunhua looked it over from every angle, staring so long that Xiao Nanhui began to feel anxious.
"Do you recognize it or not?"
"Don't be noisy." Mo Chunhua brought the iron ring closer for another look, then said with confidence, "I recognize it."
Xiao Nanhui’s eyes lit up. "Really? What is it?"
"I don't know."
The breath caught in Xiao Nanhui’s chest, turning into a roar. "You say you recognize it but you don't know what it is?!"
Mo Chunhua picked her ear, staring with two innocent, wide eyes. "I've seen it, so naturally I recognize it. But I don't know what it means."
Xiao Nanhui calmed her breathing. "Where did you see it?"
Mo Chunhua took on a thoughtful look. "It was... when I was very young, before I entered the manor. Once, a ram from the neighboring village ran out and scared me. I had nightmares for three days and nights. My grandmother invited a passing old master to perform a ritual. I remember his bell and vajra-scepter had this mark on them."
Childhood? Nightmares? A master?
Xiao Nanhui frowned. "Are you... sure?"
Mo Chunhua was very certain. "Yes, I'm sure. It looks exactly the same."
Xiao Nanhui sighed, feeling she was wasting her time. She would just wait until she returned to Que City to ask Yao Yi.
"But why did you suddenly think to ask about this? You've had that bracelet for days now."
Xiao Nanhui pursed her lips and said nothing.
What flashed before her eyes was the open scroll in that dimly lit tent.
Was all of this a coincidence?
What exactly was the Emperor reading?
***
Since the day of the great wind at the martial grounds, the wind that blew ceaselessly through the seasons in the Gobi seemed to have suddenly vanished.
The headscarf Xiao Nanhui usually used to block the sand had been tossed into a corner, only brought out occasionally to wrap her hair.
The hairpin she had carried all the way from Que City was gone for good. She had to follow Mo Chunhua’s example, braiding her hair and tying it haphazardly with a cloth string.
As for the duty of teaching spear techniques, it had somehow fizzled out after that day. The Emperor, citing busy military affairs, no longer summoned her, and even Lu Songping was nowhere to be seen. She even had a lingering suspicion: perhaps the agreement to learn martial arts was merely a "stalling tactic" the Emperor used to let Ding Weixiang depart in peace, and that fellow Lu Songping had realized it long ago, merely playing along.
Thinking of this, Xiao Nanhui felt a small, inexplicable sense of loss. She attributed this to a feeling of pity for the Emperor’s "lack of ambition" and poured all her teaching enthusiasm into Mo Chunhua, training the girl until her waist and legs ached and she cried out in protest.
Out of a private motive, she would take on the task of patrolling the camp, leading several squads to scout the nearby hills. She used these opportunities to climb the dunes and gaze into the distance, hoping to see the silhouette of a Night Owl, but in the end, nothing ever came.
Although the Emperor wanted her as a "close" attendant, he did not keep her by his side at all times as he had with Ding Weixiang. Occasionally, she would use the authority of the wristband to linger near the Royal Tent for a moment, hoping to hear news of Xiao Zhun.
Even news of Ding Weixiang would do.
Ding Weixiang had promised to reach the upper reaches in three days, but for some reason, the Bai clan had recently stopped their probing attacks near Sanmu Pass, as if they had caught wind of something.
The two sides were in a temporary truce, but the front line was filled with an unsettling silence. Bold vultures often circled above the Tianmu River rift, gathering to feast on the corpses of fallen soldiers, visible like black clouds from a hundred miles away.
For two nights in a row, Xiao Nanhui had not slept well. While it wasn't quite insomnia, she would wake up inexplicably every night around the start of the Hour of the Ox.
She felt it was related to the recent abnormal weather.
The day before, the Astronomer Royal traveling with the army had apologized to the Emperor. The reason for his apology was his failure to fulfill his duty of observing the celestial omens.
Suyan was an ancient place name, meaning "Rock of the Constellations." It was so named because the area had been vast and clear since ancient times, its high ground an excellent place for stargazing. Yet, in such a place, not a single star had been seen for several nights; only a blurry moon hung in the sky.
A few days ago, Mo Chunhua had forgotten to bring in the felt blankets she was drying; in a single night, the sheepskins felt as though they had been soaked in a river. In a place as dry as Suyan, where one couldn't wring a drop of water from the air, this was truly an absurdity.
In the blink of an eye, five or six days had passed since Ding Weixiang’s departure.
To save resources, the oil lamps in the tent had been extinguished early. Xiao Nanhui lay in the dark with her eyes open, staring blankly at the rough felt ceiling above her.
Beside her, Mo Chunhua was already snoring softly. The girl had been exhausted lately and fell unconscious the moment her head hit the pillow.
Xiao Nanhui turned over. The half-piece of jade hidden under her pillow revealed a corner, catching her eye and asserting its presence. She indignantly stuffed it back under the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut, chanting in her heart: *Out of sight, out of mind.*
She should be worrying about Xiao Zhun, yet she was constantly distracted by these senseless matters.
Perhaps once Ding Weixiang succeeded, the various armies would converge at Bijiang. Then she could see Xiao Zhun legitimately. Would their reunion be different from before? After all, they hadn't seen each other for a long time; he hadn't seen her in armor yet. Would he fail to recognize her?
The corners of her mouth curled slightly. It didn't matter; as long as she could recognize him, it was fine.
But then, thinking of Xiao Zhun risking his life on the battlefield, hovering between life and death, while she was stuck in this cramped little tent acting as some sort of imperial guard, Xiao Nanhui’s heart burned with frustration. She only hoped the turning point of the war would come quickly. When that time came, regardless of the outcome, she would surely request to return to the Subei Camp and fight by his side once more.
Amidst these tangled and troubling thoughts, Xiao Nanhui fell into a light sleep.
Fragments of memory, mixed with the increasingly damp air in the tent, made her head feel heavy and muddled.
In a trance, she returned to that night in King Kang’s palace in Tong City.
The giant orchid looming overhead had vanished. Looking out from the skylight in the center of the Xuemi Hall, a large, round moon hung there.
*Drip. Drip.*
Some liquid was dripping onto the floor.
She looked down at her hand. The half-piece of jade lay quietly in her palm, still dripping with water, as if it had just been fished out of a pool a moment ago.
Looking around, the mess of the overturned tables had disappeared. Only a figure in moon-white stood with his back to her, right before the shattered throne.
"Nanhui."
Someone called her name. It was the voice she was most familiar with.
Xiao Nanhui turned her head in joy and indeed saw Xiao Zhun’s figure standing at the entrance of the hall.
Moonlight spilled softly from behind him, outlining his silhouette.
She couldn't quite see his expression, but the way he called her name was so familiar and warm.
Her feet moved involuntarily, wanting to walk out of the hall. But after a few steps, she seemed to remember something and stopped.
She slowly turned her head back. That moon-white figure was still standing before the throne, quiet and motionless.
A voice in her heart said: *Xiao Nanhui, you must see who this person is.*
As if possessed, her feet changed direction, and she walked toward the throne in the darkness.
"Nanhui, don't go over there. It's dangerous."
Xiao Zhun’s voice sounded behind her, carrying a hint of urgency.
Dangerous? She seemed to know it was dangerous too, but just one look—it should be fine, right?
Just one look, Father. After looking, she could let this matter go and never think of it again.
Ten steps away, five steps, three steps.
She could already see the patterns on the person's hem.
"Hey?"
She wanted to call out, but in the next moment, the figure slowly turned around. Simultaneously, the weather changed abruptly; dark clouds obscured the moon, and the entire hall plunged into darkness.
She was startled. As she looked around blindly, a hand firmly gripped her wrist, as unshakeable as iron.
The sliver of moon-white had been swallowed by the darkness. The air was filled with an oppressive dampness, like the smell of a decaying tomb, inspiring fear and trembling.
Terrified, she tried to shrink back but could not break free no matter what. Looking back toward the entrance of the hall, Xiao Zhun’s figure was also being slowly submerged, vanishing from her sight.
*Father!*
She heard the cry in her heart.
No, this wasn't right. It shouldn't be like this.
*Wake up, wake up now.*
Amidst fear and regret, Xiao Nanhui opened her eyes with a cry.
What met her eyes was still the rough felt ceiling above.
Her head felt swollen. She scrambled up and fumbled to pull Pingxian into her arms; only then did her heart slowly calm down.
She hadn't heard the sound of the camp's night watchman yet and didn't know what time it was, only that the sky outside the tent was still gloomy.
The dampness in the air had grown even heavier, just like the smell she had encountered in her dream.
"Mo Chunhua?"
No one responded in the darkness, only the faint sound of someone turning over.
Normally, Xiao Nanhui would have lied back down and continued sleeping. But for some reason today—perhaps because the nightmare had left her with a lingering fear—she was wide awake.
After a thought, she put on her boots and walked out of the tent.
The moment she lifted the flap, she almost thought something was wrong with her eyes.
She waved her hand in front of her face, seeing only two blurry shadows. She looked down at her feet, seeing only a bit of grey-white at the tops of her boots.
She took a few steps forward. When she looked back, she could no longer see where the tent entrance was.
The great banner of the Guangyao Camp hung by her left shoulder, its weathered surface frayed. But now, not even a single loose thread on it moved.
The torches in the camp looked like ghost fires scattered about. The moonlight had completely vanished.
The surroundings were terrifyingly quiet, as if everything had dissolved into this dreamlike haze.
It was fog.
A fog the likes of which hadn't been seen in a hundred years.
The voice of the night watchman came drifting through.
"Initial Hour of the Ox, the hour before dawn. The night is ending; hope for the first light..."
Xiao Nanhui followed the sound and grabbed the watchman by the shoulder.
"How long has this fog been up?"
The man jumped in fright. After seeing it was a person and not a ghost, he caught his breath and answered, "About... about just after the third watch, it started."
After the third watch? Then it had been up for some time.
"What day is it today?"
"Reporting to the Officer, it is the twenty-sixth day of the tenth month. It is the Great Snow."
***
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
宿岩 | Suyan | A place name meaning "Rock of the Constellations."
太史令 | Astronomer Royal | An official title; in this context, responsible for observing celestial phenomena.
大雪 | Great Snow | One of the 24 solar terms in the traditional Chinese calendar.
丑初 | Initial Hour of the Ox | Approximately 1:00 AM.
昧旦 | Daybreak / Before dawn | The period of time just before the sun rises.
法师 | Master / Sorcerer | A practitioner of rituals or magic.
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