The arrow was aimed at Qiu Yue, flying so swiftly there was no time to dodge. Xin Mei instinctively closed her eyes, and the next moment, the sharp whistling sound of the arrow grazed past her ear before abruptly veering upward into the sky—merely a warning shot, redirected mid-flight without harming anyone.
Xin Mei exhaled sharply, wiping cold sweat from her brow, then turned to ask, "Who was that?! Shooting at us from the shadows!"
"That's one of the general's clansmen. We can't flee—he'd rather kill us than let the War Ghost Clan bear the shame of retreat."
The War Ghost on the high platform drew his bow taut again but did not loose the arrow, a silent yet ruthless threat.
"What a bastard!" she fumed. "I knew red-eyed people were no good!"
Keep your voice down… Si Lan silently wept. Had she forgotten that the general also had red eyes?
"I'm going to reason with him."
Xin Mei leaped onto her horse, flicked the reins, and the Fierce Cloud Colt, seething with pent-up fury, galloped like the wind, leaving Si Lan's horrified cries behind as she reached the high platform in an instant.
The archers stationed above nocked their arrows, aiming at her. Li Yan recognized her as Lu Qianqiao's wife and lowered his bow, turning to say, "General Bai, do not harm this young lady. She is merely an ordinary civilian."
Bai Zongying remained expressionless, as if he hadn't heard, his gaze fixed only on the smoke-filled battlefield beyond the pass.
Li Yan clasped his hands from afar and bowed to Xin Mei. "Miss Xin, how did my elder brother allow you to leave the Imperial Mausoleum?"
"Come here," Xin Mei beckoned with a finger.
Hesitating, Li Yan leaped lightly onto the horse's back like a great bird. "...I'm here. Miss Xin, where is my elder brother?"
Xin Mei scrambled up to stand on the horse as well, glaring at him furiously. "You're trying to kill Lu Qianqiao!"
"How could I kill him…" Li Yan shook his head. "You don't understand our clan's rules."
"He can barely move, and that bastard general up there only gave him a ragtag army! And you're pointing arrows at him! These rules aren't fair at all!"
Li Yan didn’t respond.
He knew it himself—this truly wasn’t fair. Bai Zongying resented Li Chao Yang for persuading the emperor to send Lu Qianqiao here as a hindrance. The two thousand soldiers assigned to Lu Qianqiao were weaker than five hundred ordinary troops. Even if Lu Qianqiao awakened now, victory in this battle was far from certain.
But even so, they could not retreat.
The War Ghost Clan was inflexible to the point of stubborn foolishness, clinging to an unyielding pride. What mattered was not who killed them, but where they died. To perish on the battlefield and to die in bed were worlds apart. Only when pushed to the brink of death could they attain true power—this was their creed.
"You're just watching him march to his death—no! You're holding a knife to his throat, forcing him to die! This is how War Ghosts awaken, no wonder your clan keeps dwindling! You're killing yourselves!"
Li Yan’s expression darkened. "Miss Xin, mind your words."
"I have nothing left to say." Xin Mei stared straight at him. "Instead of shooting arrows at your own clansmen, why don’t you tell that bastard general up there to send more soldiers to fight? The peasant soldiers keep causing trouble because of these useless generals who only eat and do nothing! Can a general be as round as a dumpling?!"Li Yan glanced back at Bai Zongying. Her voice was loud enough that Bai Zongying must have heard every word clearly—because... his face was now greener than vegetables, trembling with rage.
"Open the gates!"
Bai Zongying roared, grabbing his broadsword and mounting his horse. He led a group of elite soldiers charging out of the pass. The two thousand remnant troops outside, suddenly reinforced by the old general Bai himself, saw their morale soar instantly, and the situation took a subtle turn.
In the distance, Si Lan on Qiu Yue's back took the opportunity to apply medicine to his wounds. Demons naturally had formidable recovery abilities, and in just this short while, the bleeding from his wounds had already stopped. Revitalized, he flipped down and brandished his longsword, continuing the fight with even greater ferocity than before, swiftly clearing a small area around him.
"That's more like it. Now it's fair," Xin Mei said, crossing her arms and nodding solemnly.
Li Yan looked at her, then at the battlefield below where the situation was improving, and suddenly felt a newfound respect for Lu Qianqiao—to choose such a formidable wife, the young master truly had excellent taste.
"Ah... I am Li Yan, of the Li clan," he introduced himself politely, full of respect.
Xin Mei curved her lips into a bright, sunny smile at him while one hand stealthily slipped into her bag, feeling for the two newly bought packets of Sichuan pepper powder. After the battle with Li Min, she had concluded that pepper powder was more reliable than throwing knives or poison darts in certain situations.
Just as she was about to scatter it with the wind to retaliate for his earlier arrow attack, a shrill, drawn-out howl suddenly echoed from the distance. It sounded like a beast cornered in desperation, or a mountain demon wailing at the moon—chilling to the bone.
Li Yan's face instantly changed. He flipped off his horse and sprinted toward the front lines.
Huh? Did something happen? Xin Mei turned her horse around and saw Qiu Yue flapping its wings in panic mid-air as a figure plummeted straight from its back—Lu Qianqiao!
The rhythm of the entire world seemed to slow down. He fell to the ground in slow motion, then... slowly stood up! Overjoyed, Si Lan swung his longsword, driving away the surrounding peasant soldiers, and scrambled to Lu Qianqiao's side.
"General! Have you passed the Transformation Tribulation?!"
No one answered his question. Lu Qianqiao tilted his head slightly, his face half-covered in dirt. His expression was hollow and blank, his eyes completely devoid of light, standing motionless like a stone statue.
"General?" Si Lan called again, puzzled.
The next moment, a pair of lifeless, blood-red eyes locked onto him. Si Lan felt his throat tighten—Lu Qianqiao had seized him by the throat with one hand and lifted him effortlessly. The Yan Yue longsword was easily wrested away, and Si Lan struggled desperately as he was flung violently to the ground, his back slamming hard against the earth.
The not-yet-fully-awakened War Ghost let out a piercing roar that echoed across the entire battlefield, drawing everyone's attention.
The longsword traced an elegant yet razor-sharp arc through the wind, its blade still dripping with blood. Expressionless, Lu Qianqiao gripped the sword and charged into the crowd like an arrow freshly loosed from its bow.Without technique or reason, he seemed to have transformed into a sharp, unstoppable blade. Wherever he went, nothing could stand in his way—and he wasn’t just killing peasant soldiers; he was slaughtering his own allies as well. No one could withstand that crescent moon longsword, as if it had descended from hell itself. Wherever it swung, blood and severed limbs littered the ground.
Xin Mei galloped toward him on Fierce Cloud Colt, dodging flashes of blade light as she chased after him.
“Lu Qianqiao!” she shouted his name at the top of her lungs.
…
He seemed to hear her voice. Smiling, he turned toward her and stretched out his arms, his face gentle.
“My treasure, come here.”
Blushing, she threw herself into his embrace.
“We’ll never be apart again!”
…………
The above was merely a fantasy.
He did seem to react to her voice, whirling around and raising the crescent moon longsword to slash straight at her. Fierce Cloud Colt let out a mournful whinny as a sharp gust of blade wind sheared off a patch of skin from its head. Xin Mei felt a sharp pain in her shoulder—his blade wind had actually cut her!
She tumbled off the horse and ran faster than a rabbit.
Si Lan, standing dumbfounded nearby, couldn’t help but roar, “Where are you going?! The general’s awake!”
She glanced around, found a somewhat reliable half-person-tall boulder, and swiftly hid behind it before replying, “I’m finding a place to hide. Lu Qianqiao seems to have lost his mind.”
Huh?! Hadn’t she come to this battlefield, risking life and limb, precisely to live and die with the general?! Shouldn’t she be rushing forward now, tears streaming down her face, hugging him tightly and calling out his name to snap him out of his madness?!
Si Lan was furious. “He’s just not used to the War Ghost’s immense power yet! If you go to him, he might regain his senses!”
Xin Mei peeked out. Lu Qianqiao was still swinging his sword wildly, killing indiscriminately. She immediately ducked back. Staying by his side was one thing, but getting killed by him was another. This was clearly a case of insanity—approaching him now would be suicide.
“Call his name! He can’t hear anyone else, but he’ll definitely hear you!” Si Lan still refused to give up.
Huh? Call him over so he could chop them both into mincemeat?
Xin Mei gave him a troubled look. “Have you… been possessed by Zhao Guanren?”
Si Lan stiffened as if struck by lightning.
“If this awakening succeeds, the young master will have officially passed his Transformation Tribulation!”
Li Yan had appeared atop the boulder at some point, speaking with undisguised joy.
Xin Mei looked up at him. “Why are you hiding here too?! Aren’t you going to stop him from killing indiscriminately?”
Li Yan blinked. “The young master is awakening. How could I possibly stop him? Let him kill as many as he wants—it doesn’t matter if he slaughters them all.”
“Some of the people he’s killing are the emperor’s men! Don’t you work for the emperor?”
A cold expression crossed Li Yan’s face. “War Ghosts pledge true loyalty to no one but the gods.”
…But once he finished killing everyone here, wouldn’t he come for them next?
Xin Mei’s heart pounded wildly. She cautiously peeked out again. Lu Qianqiao was already far from her, drenched from head to toe in blood—other people’s blood.Many people surrounded him, yet none dared to approach, watching in terrified silence as he howled in agony, as if enduring unbearable torment. The Moon-Shrouding Blade was clenched tightly in his grasp, its edge curled from slaughtering too many, hacking heavily into the ground with each swing, leaving deep, narrow gashes behind.
Is he... in so much pain right now?
She looked down at her hands, palms already slick with sweat. She had never seen Lu Qianqiao like this—utterly unapproachable, driven solely by the War Ghost's instinct for frenzied slaughter. Could it be... she really had to do as Si Lan suggested, charging in with earth-shaking momentum to embrace him, then calling his name repeatedly in a voice like a cuckoo weeping blood?
...How disgusting. Better not.
Suddenly, the Moon-Shrouding Blade was raised high as Lu Qianqiao prepared to hurl it—toward the white tent on the distant hill! Wasn’t that the camp of the peasant soldiers' leader, Wu Shuang?
The blade radiated a crimson glow as it left his hand, shrieking through the air like a piercing whistle, streaking like a red meteor. Just like when he had slain the Tiger Demon, the blade seemed to take on a life of its own, swirling around the tent before shredding it to pieces in an instant. Along with the fragments of the tent, chunks of flesh and blood exploded outward—likely the remains of those who had been inside.
"Ever-Victorious King! It's the Ever-Victorious King!"
The peasant soldiers erupted into chaos. Everyone knew the tent had housed Wu Shuang’s younger brother, Wu Yi, who had arrogantly proclaimed himself the "Ever-Victorious King." The silent death of their second-in-command dealt a devastating blow. Even Wu Shuang stood frozen for a long moment before suddenly snapping back to reality, turning his horse and fleeing. "Retreat! Withdraw for today!"
Morale shattered, the peasant soldiers scattered like frightened birds, retreating a full thirty miles. On the sixth day of the eighth month, the battle at Jiaping Pass ended in a minor victory.
General Bai Zongying rode over with a complicated expression. Lu Qianqiao stood motionless, neither screaming nor killing, once again a dull, lifeless statue, tilting his blood-soaked face upward to stare emptily at the sky.
"General of Agile Cavalry..."
Bai Zongying had only uttered those four words when Lu Qianqiao suddenly swung his blade toward him. The general’s loyal aide rushed forward to block the strike, only to be cleaved in half, screaming as he collapsed to the ground.
"You—what are you doing?!" Bai Zongying tumbled off his horse in shock, scrambling backward in panic.
The blade rose again, this time aimed squarely at his plump face.
"Lu Qianqiao!"
A young woman’s voice suddenly called from behind. The hand holding the raised blade hesitated for the briefest moment.
Under the stunned gazes of the crowd, Xin Mei picked up a large rock from the ground and hurled it at him with all her might. "Stop going crazy already!"
Thud. The rock struck the back of the frenzied General of Agile Cavalry’s head with perfect accuracy. The blade slipped from his grasp as he toppled face-first onto the ground.
"What did you just do?!" Si Lan nearly fainted on the spot.
"Uh... I just wanted him to calm down..." Xin Mei admitted sheepishly, a rare moment of guilt.
And indeed, he was calm now—perfectly, peacefully unconscious.
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