Shadow Love (Yu Jin Chang An)

The military camp remained on high alert throughout the night, with everyone on edge due to the intruder. No one paid any further attention to the missing child.

Surprisingly, by the next morning, the child reappeared outside the Changfeng Camp.

Bare-chested and clad only in oversized, thin trousers, he stood barefoot on snow that had accumulated overnight. The blazing tattoo on his chest was strikingly vivid, as if the flames themselves were keeping him warm. Despite the freezing cold, he showed no sign of shivering or discomfort.

When questioned by the soldiers, he simply uttered five words: "I want to see Li Shuang."

At that moment, Li Shuang was conducting a mock war council with her lieutenants, both to broaden Li Ting's horizons and to prepare for potential Western Rong invasions during winter.

The soldiers brought the child before them.

The sight of a child dressed so scantily shocked everyone—except Luo Teng, who slammed the table in fury. "You little brat! Coming and going as you please—do you think Changfeng Camp is some roadside inn?" He turned to Li Shuang. "General, this insolent whelp isn't worth our time. Let's tear him apart and feed him to the dogs!"

Li Shuang studied the child, her fingers lightly tapping the table. "Since you ran away last night, why come back now?"

The child met her gaze with clear, bright eyes. "I wanted to see you," he stated bluntly. "The farther I went, the more I wanted to see you."

Hearing such candid words from a child, the assembled officers were inwardly stunned: What a little wolf cub—barely more than a brat, yet already bold enough to flirt with the general...

Back in the capital, Li Shuang had been renowned as the fierce daughter of a military family, someone no one dared provoke. When she first arrived at the frontier, a few arrogant officers had challenged her authority based on her gender. Soon after... those men were no longer part of the army.

Over the past three years, her subordinates had come to see her purely as their iron-willed general, her gender irrelevant. Hearing a child speak to her this way now struck her as amusing. "Oh? Because I'm special?"

"Yes," he answered plainly. "You're special."

Special enough to make him lose control...

"What should we do, then?" Li Shuang asked with a faint smile. "Yesterday, I took you in out of pity. But when you ran away, that pity vanished. Now you've returned of your own will, wanting to stay. But Changfeng Camp has no use for idle hands. Tell me—what skills do you have? Why should I keep you?"

"I can be your soldier."

"A soldier?" Luo Teng scoffed. "Ridiculous! The youngest recruit in our camp is older than you. What makes you think a runt like you can be a soldier?"

Only then did the child turn his full attention to Luo Teng. "I could kill you."

His words were accompanied by a gaze as cold and deadly as a wolf's from the frontier, sending a chill through every officer present. Even someone as rough as Luo Teng recognized the genuine murderous intent in those eyes.

This boy... wasn't just making empty threats. He truly intended to kill him.

"Ha!" Luo Teng, unwilling to back down after being challenged by a child, roared, "Fine! Come at me! I'll save others the trouble and tear you apart myself, you arrogant little bastard!""Luo Teng!" Qin Lan chided softly from the side. Only then did Luo Teng glance over and notice Li Shuang giving him a faint sidelong look.

Luo Teng finally regained his composure. In the military camp, under the watchful eyes of everyone, it was truly unbecoming for a deputy general like him to seriously spar with a child...

Gritting his teeth, he reluctantly sat back down with a huff.

Li Shuang then turned her attention to the child. Meeting her gaze, the hostility in the boy's eyes noticeably diminished. After a moment's thought, she asked, "Have you trained in martial arts?"

The child hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't know."

Li Shuang pondered for a while. "Yesterday I said that if you trust me, you should tell me your background and name. If you have parents, I'll take you to them. If not, I'll find a family in Lucheng willing to take you in. But I don't intend to enlist you as a soldier. You're too young. Our Great Jin Dynasty doesn't need children like you to defend our homeland."

Hearing that Li Shuang wanted to send him away, the boy's heart suddenly grew restless. "I... don't remember my background or my name. But I know I'm not as weak as you think..."

As Li Shuang remained silent, Li Ting suddenly jumped in. "Sister, let me! Let me test his skills for you. If he beats me, he stays. If he loses, we send him to a family in Lucheng. How about that?"

Li Ting had trained in martial arts with their father since childhood. Though still young, he was already quite skilled among the capital's youth—many young masters who played with him had suffered his blows. His father had sent him here partly at his own request, and partly to temper his character through the harsh frontier conditions. Moreover, Li Ting wasn't much older, making him a suitable match for sparring with this child.

Li Shuang glanced at the mark on the boy's chest and his wolf-like eyes, thinking his past must be extraordinary. Sending him to an ordinary family might endanger them. It might be better to keep him in the camp under her supervision—perhaps he could grow into a sharp blade for the Wind Battalion.

Having considered this, Li Shuang had already tacitly agreed to let the boy stay. She said, "Fine. A sparring match—stop at the point of contact."

Qin Lan, who had been sitting silently nearby, looked at Li Shuang. She noticed Li Shuang was speaking these words while staring at the boy—she was telling him to stop at the point of contact, not to hurt anyone. She had already assumed Li Ting couldn't defeat this child four or five years his junior.

The boy met Li Shuang's gaze. Silently, he stepped back and fixed his eyes on Li Ting.

Meanwhile, Li Ting bounced around, shedding his fox-fur coat and strapping on the guards for his hands and legs brought by his attendant. He twisted his waist and rolled his neck, warming up for quite a while before stepping forward and adopting a ready stance. "Come on."

The moment he spoke, the boy shot toward him like an arrow. Li Ting had no time to react before a heavy blow struck his chest, sending him tumbling onto the attendant behind him.

The entire match ended faster than a blink.

Li Ting clutched his chest, coughing with effort, while his attendant cried, "Heavens!" The accompanying old steward was furious. "How dare you! How dare you strike our young master so harshly!"

The boy stood straight as a ramrod. Though small, his presence was as steady as a mountain.Li Shuang waved her hand, turning her gaze away in embarrassment. Li Ting, who had been knocked to the ground, rubbed his chest as he coughed and grabbed the old steward’s arm. “Stop, stop, this is embarrassing,” he muttered, clutching his chest as he was helped up. He glanced at the child, then at Li Shuang. “Elder sister, he’s much stronger than me…”

Li Shuang nodded. “Go back and apply some medicine.” After all, she had grown up in a military family and had never been overly concerned about her younger brother’s physical well-being.

Li Ting was helped out, leaving the tent in silence.

The earlier sparring had astonished the generals. The speed and force of that strike were beyond what most soldiers—let alone many officers—could muster.

“If you join our camp, even though you’re young, you’ll be one of our soldiers. And soldiers must follow military discipline. If you make mistakes, I will still punish you according to military law,” Li Shuang said. “Do you understand?”

“Mm.”

“Good. Now go to the storeroom to register your name. The quartermaster will assign you lodging and issue you clothing.”

Despite her instructions, the child didn’t move. Li Shuang frowned. “What’s wrong?”

The child seemed lost in thought for a moment before looking at her. “I don’t know my name.”

That was his reply.

Li Shuang and the child stared at each other in silence for a while. Luo Teng interjected, “Back in the chaos of war, there were plenty of kids who didn’t know their names. No big deal—just pick one. How about ‘Cow Dung Ball’?” He waved dismissively. “Go on, Cow Dung Ball, go get your clothes.”

The child showed no reaction to the name and simply turned to leave.

He actually accepted it without protest!

Li Shuang rubbed her temples, unable to tolerate it any longer. “Call him Jin An,” she said.

The child paused and turned back to look at her.

She stood behind the table, clad in the same red robes and silver armor as the day she had picked him up, her posture both upright and graceful. “Jin An,” she repeated. “It means ‘May the Great Jin Dynasty enjoy lasting peace and stability.’ Tell the quartermaster that.”

She had given him a name—and imbued it with meaning.

Just as he had accepted “Cow Dung Ball,” he now accepted this name without hesitation and left the tent. Only as the heavy curtain fell behind him did he glance back at Li Shuang one last time.

She had taken her seat and was already discussing matters with the generals.

Jin An.

He repeated the name silently in his heart.

It sounded beautiful to him—warm and steady, carrying a sense of strength.

As the child’s footsteps faded, Qin Lan frowned uneasily. “General, this child’s background is unclear, and there are too many suspicious points. Moreover, right after his arrival yesterday, your tent was eavesdropped on by intruders. Keeping him here might—”

“It’s fine. If someone sent him as a spy, it’s better to have him in the open than hidden. Besides, this child is a rare talent. If he can be of use to our Changfeng Battalion in the future, it will be a tremendous advantage.”

Seeing her resolve, Qin Lan swallowed his remaining concerns and said no more.Jin An followed the others to collect his uniform, and the logistics soldiers arranged for him to share a tent with several other youths. The other boys already knew each other, so the sudden addition of a stranger made them somewhat uneasy. Moreover, Jin An spoke little and had been personally brought back by the general, which inevitably led to some exclusion from the group.

His bed was placed in the darkest corner of the tent. Jin An tossed the items he had received onto the bed and, ignoring the others, lay down without a word.

It was just as well that no one spoke to him. He didn’t want anyone asking about his origins—because even if he asked himself ten thousand times, he still couldn’t remember.

What was his name? Where did he come from? How had he ended up here?

His mind was a blank.

He struggled desperately to recall, but aside from the pale moonlight and the overwhelming scent of blood from that night, nothing else surfaced.

By evening, a faint ache began to pulse in Jin An’s chest. After yesterday’s experience, he had a rough understanding—when day turned to night, his body would undergo another transformation.

A child by day, a youth by night.

Suppressing the turbulent energy inside him, Jin An burrowed under the covers and stripped off the newly issued clothes. No one paid attention to what he was doing. When the others went for supper, they didn’t even call for him.

Late into the night, the young soldiers in the camp, exhausted from the day’s drills, fell into deep slumber.

The scorching heat inside Jin An’s body raged like a wild beast, snarling viciously in his chest. Just like the previous night—and the one before that—he felt unbearable agony, as if the burning energy had turned into needles piercing his flesh.

The scent of Li Shuang’s blood was like a flickering flame in the dark mountains, distant yet irresistibly drawing him in.

Barefoot, he stepped onto the ground, wrapped himself in a thin blanket, and slipped out of the tent without disturbing his tentmates.

Despite the vastness of the military camp and the patrols, under the cover of darkness, he moved freely, undetected.

He had only been to Li Shuang’s tent once, yet he remembered the way—or rather, even if he hadn’t, he would have found her regardless.

The closer he got to Li Shuang, the more his inner turmoil settled.

The guards outside her tent were noticeably stricter than before, but that posed no challenge to him. In his adult form, power surged endlessly from his chest. When he was far from Li Shuang, this power was always accompanied by pain—like a hook embedded in his flesh, tugging harder the farther he strayed, until he could resist no longer and was inevitably pulled back. But now, Li Shuang was just ahead, her presence soothing his suffering.

With a light leap, Jin An landed silently atop Li Shuang’s tent.

No one noticed him. Not even Li Shuang inside.

She was fast asleep, perhaps dreaming, occasionally murmuring something soft.

No matter how faint the sound, Jin An could hear it.

He found the spot directly above where she lay and slowly reclined, listening through the felt of the tent to her steady breathing. Each exhale eased not just his physical pain but also the turmoil in his heart.

As if who he was, where he came from—none of those unanswered questions mattered anymore.

Why was he so dependent on her?Jin An didn't know. It was as if he had been poisoned, and Li Shuang was the only antidote that could cure him.

He slept on top of her tent all night.

At dawn, what woke him was not the sunlight but the sudden hitch in Li Shuang's breathing inside the tent—she yawned, about to wake.

And in that instant, Jin An's eyes snapped open, clear and alert, as if he had never slept at all.

Then, his heart clenched violently. There was no pain like before when the change came over him, but he knew he wasn't far from turning into a child again. He leapt away from the top of Li Shuang's tent.

None of the guards below noticed a thing.

Inside the tent, however, Li Shuang opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long while before finally throwing on her outer robe and stepping outside. The soldiers outside saluted her immediately, but she walked a few paces away and glanced up at the roof.

Of course, there was no one there.

"Any disturbances last night?"

"None, General."

Li Shuang could only nod and let it go.