Love Beyond the Grave

Actually, He Simu had wronged Duan Xu this time. He truly thought he would struggle to fall asleep, but he slept remarkably well—so well that it even surprised him.

When Duan Xu opened his eyes and was stung by the bright morning sunlight, he lay dazed for a moment, seriously pondering how he had managed to sleep so soundly.

After some thought, he concluded it might be because, for him, the dead were far more familiar and reassuring than the living.

By the time he woke in the morning, the pale and bewitching Ghost King was no longer by his side. He stretched out his arm over the spot where she had lain, now warmed slightly by his own body heat. Her form had not been as icy as it was initially—apparently, even a lifeless body could be warmed.

Duan Xu recalled the first time he had seen her—in Liangzhou’s city, as the morning sun broke through the clouds, rising behind the pavilions at her back.

She stood in the middle of the long street, surrounded by corpses, drenched in blood, her face smeared crimson, gripping the severed head of a dead man in her hand.

Crows—black crows—cawed endlessly in the sky.

They circled her, densely perched on the piled corpses filling the alley, on her shoulders, while her expression remained indifferent.

It was the first time he had seen death so vividly embodied in a living person. Ever since, whenever he saw flocks of crows, he would think of this girl.

Light spilled from behind her, and when the sunlight clearly illuminated her face, she smiled.

Bright and dazzling, she laughed, tossed aside the head in her hand, and ran toward him, saying, "General, the Huqi People slaughtered the city before retreating. I was terrified. Have you come to save us?"

Even then, he knew this girl was anything but ordinary, though her acting wasn’t particularly skilled. Still, he hadn’t expected her to be someone like the Ghost King.

Duan Xu smiled faintly and sat up from the bed.

Lately, Chen Ying had been extremely worried about his "Little Big Sister" because she seemed to be sleeping far too much. The day after the Laba Festival, she had slept straight from noon until dawn the next morning—no normal person would sleep that long!

When He Simu returned to the borrowed body and opened her eyes, she saw Chen Ying slumped by her bedside like a frostbitten eggplant, his head drooping.

She wondered—he hadn’t been lacking in good food these past few days, so why was he still so down?

"Little Big Sister, you have to tell me the truth," Chen Ying said sternly, his round little face serious as he saw her wake. "Are you sick?"

After a pause, he added, "The serious kind. The incurable kind."

"..."

He Simu rubbed her forehead and sat up, humoring him. "Yes, exactly."

Chen Ying froze, his eyes immediately welling up as if he were about to burst into loud sobs—but He Simu stopped him. She pinched his nose and said, "I’m lovesick. There’s no cure for lovesickness. How tragic."

Chen Ying’s round eyes darted around, his voice muffled by her grip as he exclaimed excitedly, "Is it Duan Xu-gege?"

See? Instantly excited. This kid had an abnormal passion for gossip.

"What do you think?" He Simu flashed a radiant smile.

Her day off had turned into the Lantern Festival—spent entirely guessing riddles—all because she’d run into Duan Xu. That guy still stubbornly refused to make a deal with her, playing his evasive games masterfully. Well, she refused to believe he could smoothly defend this city without her.When she got up and washed, Chen Ying darted out in a flash and didn’t return until quite some time later, sweating profusely with eyes shining brightly. “Sister Simu, I heard them say Brother General is going to hold a martial arts competition!”

He Simu raised an eyebrow as she dried her hands. “Oh?”

With crises looming both inside and out, Duan Xu still had the leisure to organize a martial arts competition?

Chen Ying had gone out this time to gather news about his lovesick sister’s beloved. After running around the streets and alleys, he learned that with the New Year approaching, Duan Xu had decided to hold a simple military competition to celebrate the soldiers’ valiant defense of Shuozhou City.

As He Simu listened to Chen Ying’s excited report, she thought that Duan Xu’s competition couldn’t possibly be just a competition.

What mischief was he up to now? Probably setting the stage for the grand spectacle he had mentioned.

Straightening her clothes, He Simu smiled and took Chen Ying’s hand as they stepped out. “Let’s go have breakfast.”

She would wait and see what tricks Duan Xu had up his sleeve and whether he could truly manage without her help.

Having narrowly escaped death during the grain raid ambush, Duan Xu quickly resumed his cat-and-mouse game with Danzhi’s forces outside the city. Boiling oil, scalding water, and rolling stones were all employed against the besieging army. The defensive leather curtains hanging outside the battlements collected countless enemy arrows daily, which were then repurposed as weapons for Great Liang’s troops. He even assigned “well listeners” to monitor the wells for any signs of Danzhi’s forces attempting to tunnel into the city.

Although there was a spy in their ranks whose identity remained unknown, hindering Duan Xu’s plans, he was fortunate to be a military leader accustomed to acting first and explaining later. Even his subordinates often found his strategies baffling. For instance, it wasn’t until they burned alive enemy soldiers attempting to dig tunnels that they realized their general had stationed these “well listeners.”

The spy probably couldn’t guess Duan Xu’s intentions either.

Danzhi had initially thought conquering this small city and its meager forces would be effortless, but they had repeatedly hit a wall. Frustrated, they changed tactics and sent an envoy to persuade surrender.

Duan Xu courteously received the envoy, a Han Chinese who seemed quite content serving Danzhi. The envoy appealed to both emotion and reason, first lavishing praise on Duan Xu’s youthful brilliance, then meticulously analyzing the disparity in strength between the two sides, extolling the benefits of surrender.

Finally, the envoy said, “General Duan, Shuozhou City has held out against Danzhi’s attacks for over a month. You’ve already done your duty to Great Liang. If this continues, your arrows and ammunition will soon run out, and your provisions won’t last more than another month. The city will fall eventually. Do you know that when Danzhi conquered the Great Sheng Dynasty, General Wu Nan resisted for three months in Yunzhou? When provisions ran out, they boiled leather armor for food and even resorted to cannibalism, starting with the elderly, children, and women until everyone was consumed. By the time the city fell, only a few hundred remained, and General Wu Nan took his own life. Yet despite such sacrifices, didn’t Great Sheng still perish? As the saying goes, rise and fall are fated. General, you must not commit such folly.”Duan Xu smiled warmly at the envoy for a while, until the man began to squirm uncomfortably, before finally speaking: "I'm quite curious—you say the city has descended into cannibalism, so why haven't the people rebelled or fled? Why do they obediently wait to be eaten? Could the esteemed envoy enlighten me?"

The envoy's expression darkened, but Duan Xu continued without waiting for a reply: "Because the Hú Qì People massacre every city that resists. The people know they'll die if the city falls, so they'd rather use their lives as walls to keep the enemy out. You called General Wu Nan's actions foolish, but it was precisely because of the resistance in Yunzhou that the Hú Qì stopped their massacring ways, allowing millions of Han people to survive."

"How long have you served Danzhi? Do you truly understand the Hú Qì People? Esteemed Envoy, the Hú Qì will never respect those who kneel before them. You must make them sweat, make them bleed, tear flesh from their bones, and leave them in agony. Only by standing can you survive. Do you believe me when I say that if I were to cut off your head right now and throw it outside the city walls into Danzhi's camp, they'd only be angry at the insult to their pride? No one would mourn your death—because you're nothing but a dog. Yet they would never let me live, because when I took Shuozhou through strategy, I desecrated their Azure God. They'd want to tear me limb from limb."

He stood up, leaning his uninjured right hand on the table as he moved closer to the pale-faced envoy, smiling sincerely.

"Esteemed Envoy, I understand the Hú Qì far better than you do. But neither you nor Awoerqi understand me. As long as I live in this city, its people will never resort to cannibalism, and you will never cross here to reach Great Liang."

Seeing the negotiations collapse, the envoy began to fear for his safety. Forcing composure, he said, "In that case, I shall take my leave."

As soon as he reached the door, Meng Wan blocked his path, looking to Duan Xu for instructions. The envoy shouted, "Envoys are not to be harmed during war between nations! You... you can't—"

"Before you mentioned General Wu Nan, I intended to spare you. But now I think sparing envoys is a Han custom. When in Rome, I should follow Hú Qì rules instead." Duan Xu nodded casually at Meng Wan and said, "Kill him and throw him off the city walls."

Meng Wan clasped his sword and replied, "Understood."

Four or five soldiers approached and, led by Meng Wan, dragged away the still-screaming envoy. Duan Xu shook his head and asked with a laugh, "He won't become an Evil Ghost, will he?"

Beside him, a pale girl in red slowly materialized. Lazily, she said, "Someone that cowardly would hurry straight to reincarnation. Why would he become an Evil Ghost?"

After a pause, He Simu looked curiously at Duan Xu in his silver armor and asked, "How did you know I was here?"

"I didn't. Just asked casually—didn't expect you to actually be here."

He Simu narrowed her eyes slightly, but before she could speak, Duan Xu immediately clasped his hands and bowed with a smile. "Ghost King, spare me, spare me!"

His round, bright eyes sparkled with mirth, showing none of the ferocity he'd displayed while threatening the envoy.

Ever-changing—Duan Shunxi.The day after the envoy's corpse was thrown outside the city walls into Danzhi's camp, He Simu was leisurely enjoying her tasteless breakfast when she saw Boss Lin Jun hurriedly exiting the main hall, his hair crown askew as he mounted his horse and galloped away. Watching his retreating figure, she asked the steward, "What's happened to Boss Lin?"

Having stayed with the Lin family for so long, this was the first time she'd shown any concern for Lin Jun's affairs.

The steward looked worried as he replied, "I heard... the Hú Qì People have captured Elder Lin from the main branch and brought him beneath the city walls."

The Lin family was a prominent clan in Shuozhou. Lin Jun was the only son of the second branch and had inherited the family business in the prefectural city after his father's death. Meanwhile, the main branch of the Lin family resided in several cities north of Shuozhou.

In other words, they lived in territories under Huqi rule.

Chen Ying tugged at He Simu's skirt, worried. "What should we do? Will Brother Lin Jun be alright?"

Lately, he'd really taken to calling everyone "brother."

He Simu glanced down at Chen Ying before pulling him into a secluded corner. "Do you want to go see?"

Chen Ying nodded.

Before long, He Simu and Xue Chenying, wearing a veiled hat, stood atop the Shuozhou city walls, openly walking among the soldiers to peer through the battlements.

No one else on the walls could see He Simu or Xue Chenying. They only saw Lin Jun, eyes reddened, repeatedly trying to approach the battlements only to be held back by Han Lingqiu, who kept urging, "Boss Lin, it's dangerous! Don't go forward!"

Outside the city, before Danzhi's camp, stood a row of people dressed in fine clothing. At the forefront was an elderly man with white hair and beard, yet still vigorous in spirit. Clad in black fox fur, his hands were bound behind his back as he calmly gazed up at the generals, soldiers, and his nephew on the city walls.

Behind him stood men and women, young and old, some weeping, yet he seemed not to hear. A Huqi soldier kicked him in the back, saying, "Elder Lin, speak properly to those on the walls. Your wife, children, and elders are still behind you."

The old man staggered from the kick but refused to kneel.

After a moment of silence, he called out loudly, "Jun'er."

Lin Jun, eyes red, replied in a trembling voice, "Uncle."