The black water rose over his chest, so freezing cold that even his bones ached.
Xu Zhan had no idea how long he had been soaking in this underground dungeon.
Time had no meaning here; day and night were the exact same color.
The only thing he could perceive was the water level. When it rose, it reached his chin, forcing him to tilt his head back just to breathe.
When it receded, it exposed his ribs. The leeches clinging to his wounds, stimulated by the cold wind, sucked even tighter.
He could no longer tell which sounds were real and which were just in his head.
Sometimes he could hear warhorses neighing, iron horseshoes crushing the frozen earth, and the mingled roars of men and beasts during a cavalry charge.
That was the sound of the night raid on the barbarian vanguard camp.
His brothers-in-arms had climbed out of the trenches with raised swords, chewing on the meat bricks sent by his little sister, their bodies surging with endless energy.
That battle was fought beautifully.
The lives of three thousand men had been sustained by that batch of military rations.
But what happened after the battle?
The scene jumped.
In the tent of the outpost camp, Zhou Daniu lay on the communal bed, panting heavily.
The stump of his right arm, severed at the root, was wrapped in ragged linen that had long since formed a hard, stiff blood scab.
The edges were curled back, oozing murky fluid.
Xu Zhan remembered Zhou Daniu's wife, who was still waiting for him to return home and farm the land.
But what kind of garbage had the quartermaster issued?
Moldy, hairy, rotten medicinal roots. Applying them didn't stop the bleeding; it only made the wounds rot faster than if nothing had been applied at all.
The military medic crouched by the charcoal basin, warming himself with a shrunken neck, refusing to even look up.
"The higher-ups didn't issue any coffin money. If you stop breathing now, you'll just be wrapped in a straw mat and thrown to the wolves in the back mountain."
Those were the medic's exact words.
The living longed for death, and the dead fed the wolves.
This was the fate of the "Pillars of the State" written about in the imperial court's commendation decrees.
...
The dream continued.
The seventeen-year-old new recruit, Goudan, carrying three oil-paper packages in his arms, climbed over the camp wall in the middle of the night and walked thirty miles north through the snow.
He used those few meat bricks to exchange for two large bundles of dry hemostatic herbs and half a string of copper coins.
When he returned, his face was purple from the cold, and his boots were filled with ice shards. But as he climbed back through the gap in the camp wall, before his feet could even steady themselves...
He saw only torches in front of him.
Dozens of torches were raised in unison, lighting up the surroundings as bright as day.
Ma Jin'an sat in an armchair wearing his official robe, holding a hand warmer in his palms, not even bothering to look up.
"Those who leave the main camp without authorization shall be beheaded. Those who privately sell military supplies and secretly trade in the barbarian markets shall be executed immediately."
Goudan stiffened his neck and howled, "My Lord! Those are herbs exchanged to save lives! Uncle Zhou is dying!"
The armored guards yanked his arms out of their sockets and dragged him beneath the wooden watchtower by the camp gates.
A hemp rope tied in a dead knot was slipped over his neck, and the other end was pulled.
The man was suspended in mid-air, his tongue hanging out, his two legs kicking wildly in the wind.
Xu Zhan remembered that in that moment, his mind was completely blank.
Clang.
The horse-cleaving saber was drawn from its sheath.
He lunged forward from his horse, striking the two guards blocking his way on their breastplates with the back of his blade.
The sound of shattering ribs was crisp, and the men were sent flying over ten feet away.
"Ma Jin'an!"
The tip of the blade pointed right at the face in the armchair.
The bloodstains left in the blood groove from cutting down barbarians hadn't even been washed off yet.
"I led my brothers to hack through the barbarian vanguard camp with our lives! Where are the court's rewards? The medicine? The pensions? You've embezzled all the military supplies, and now you want the lives of my soldiers?"
Ma Jin'an set down his hand warmer and stood up.
He was unhurried, wearing a sickeningly calm expression on his face.
He pulled out a shattered clay pot. The bottom had fallen out, scattering quicklime powder all over the ground.
"The bottom of this concealed gunpowder and saltpeter, which generates high heat when exposed to water. Xu Zhan, are you really developing military rations, or are you trying to use this opportunity to create chaos in the army and plot a rebellion?"
"Screw you! That's quicklime!" Xu Zhan was so furious that a metallic sweetness surged in his throat. "That's used to heat up cold rice and soup!"
Ma Jin'an didn't give him a chance to finish.
"This official specifically had the imperial physicians examine the meat chunks sent from Jiangning. They are heavy in sugar and salt, mixed with all sorts of messy extracts. After eating them, the soldiers suffered from excess internal heat, became restless and manic, and acted as if they were mad."
"That fearless night raid was not a surge in morale at all, but the toxic outbreak of these demonic substances!"
The sound of soldiers gasping could be heard all around.
The hand Xu Zhan used to grip his saber was trembling.
Not out of fear.
It was because he was enraged to the extreme. All the blood in his body rushed to his head, leaving his hands and feet cold.
But Ma Jin'an didn't give him the chance to strike.
The curtains on both sides of the tent were thrown open, and three hundred armored guards wielding Mo sabers poured out.
They were fully clad in lamellar armor, their faces covered by iron masks.
Those were not border troops; they were executioners directly assigned to the army supervisor by the Ministry of War.
A chanting sound echoed from the open ground outside the tent.
Dozens of crippled soldiers wrapped in bandages were shoved to their knees in the snow, the executioners' sharp blades pressed against the backs of their necks.
Goudan was also taken down. An armored guard stepped on his back, pinning him to the frozen earth with a long saber pressed against his heart from behind.
"Centurion Xu, your swordsmanship is quite good. You are welcome to try and break out," Ma Jin'an smiled.
"Let's see if your blade is faster, or if the beheading speed of my men is faster."
Snow fell onto the back of Xu Zhan's saber, melting into water droplets.
He didn't strike a single blow.
...
The scene shattered.
When it pieced itself back together, it was an even deeper darkness.
The sole of He Minghu's boot stepped on his severed arm. The flesh and blood on the fresh stump were crushed, and the bone fragments ground against his flesh, making a sound.
Xu Zhan arched his entire body in agony, his screams tightly muffled by a ragged cloth stuffed in his throat.
"Whether you die or not, the hole in the military supplies can't be filled. I just can't stand the sight of you. Who asked your little sister to send those military rations and win a great victory? If not for that, this hole wouldn't have been made so glaringly obvious."
He Minghu squatted down and patted his face.
There was no expression on that face, only the relaxed relief of having finished a business deal.
...
The dream shifted, this time shattering into a ground full of peach blossoms.
March in the peach haven.
The peach trees in the backyard of the old estate were in full bloom, their petals falling to coat the stone table in a soft layer.
His little sister sat beneath the tree, tracing red characters. She would write a stroke, glance up at him, and mumble classical literary particles.
He leaned against the tree trunk, wiping his saber. The sun was so warm it could melt a person's bones.
"Second Brother, look, did I write this 'Yong' character well?"
He tilted his head for a look: "Looks like a dog scratched it."
His little sister flung her writing brush right at his face, the ink from the tip smudging all over his nose.
He dodged with a laugh, shaking down a shower of peach petals onto his head.
How wonderful it was.
Back then, he still had two arms.
Xu Zhan wanted to keep having this dream.
But the black water was too cold.
It was so cold that his teeth chattered uncontrollably, clacking together. The iron chains on his body were pulled taut, and the iron shackles around his wrists had long since embedded themselves into his flesh.
The skin and flesh beneath the shackles were pale and swollen, devoid of all sensation.
He struggled to open his eyes, but everything before him was red.
It wasn't firelight; it was bloody water that had smeared across his eyelashes and congealed into a thin crust.
Everything was veiled in a layer of dark red.
Someone grabbed him by the hair.
And yanked upward.
The tearing pain in his scalp made him slightly more lucid.
Wang Biao's face leaned in, the stench of chive dumplings and cheap liquor pouring straight into his nose.
"Centurion Xu, stop playing dead!"
A piece of paper was slapped onto his face.
A confession bearing bloody fingerprints was pasted over his lips and nose. The paper, half-softened by bloody water, stuck to his skin so tightly it couldn't be peeled off.
Xu Zhan had no strength left to speak.
Even rolling his eyes took immense effort. His vision was filled entirely with blurred lights and swaying human figures.
Then he heard footsteps.
Not Wang Biao's.
Wang Biao's footsteps were dragging and sloppy, carrying the idle sluggishness of a seasoned military slacker.
These footsteps were different.
They were hurried yet steady with every step. The sound of boot soles grinding against the mossy stone steps drew closer from the distance.
Firelight spilled down from the tunnel entrance above.
The black water was illuminated, revealing its true color; in the murky dark brown, unidentifiable things floated about.
Wang Biao let go of his hair.
Xu Zhan's head dropped back down, his chin hitting the iron chain with a muffled thud.
Squinting through the gaps of crusted blood over his eyes, he saw a person standing on the stone steps.
The torchlight poured in from behind the figure, casting their face into backlit shadow.
But he recognized that silhouette. It was one he had known since childhood.
Only, the figure was slightly taller and thinner than he remembered. A sword hung at their waist, its scabbard piercingly bright in the firelight.
No.
Xu Zhan blinked.
How could it be...
He thought his mind was playing tricks on him again.
Just like the peach blossoms from earlier, just like the sun in Jiangning, it was merely the last bit of mercy from the King of Hell before death.
But the person was walking down.
Step by step, treading down the moss-covered stone stairs, walking along the damp, seeping walls right to the edge of the water dungeon.
The firelight finally revealed that face.
Cold.
Colder than the black water in this dungeon.
Xu Zhan's throat bobbed, and his lips parted a few times.
The voice that came out was hoarse and frail, bubbling with blood.
"Qinghuan..."
Using the very last ounce of his strength, he squeezed the rest of his words out of his throat.
"Run... don't look back."
