A ear-splitting crack traverses the horizon as a clap of thunder splits the dark clouds above. Countless lightning bolts cut through the sky like soaring dragons pouring out of the sea, all of them flying towards Shangjing at the same time.
It has begun to rain heavily; an all-pervasive, drenching downpour madly funnels water from heaven to earth, putting out the inferno that rages through the city. From afar comes the sound of the Mongol army’s gong, signalling their temporary retreat.
Coughing, Duan Ling makes his way out of the ruins, and after taking several turns in the alleyways he returns to the Viburnum. The inside of the Viburnum is the very picture of tranquility.
“Xunchun! Someone killed the coachman —”
He dashes through the winding gallery, and his voice comes to an abrupt stop. There are two people in the front courtyard, standing beneath the pouring rain.
Xunchun’s gorgeous gown is drenched by the rain. Her wet hair is pasted to the face. She’s holding Zhanshanhai.
Lang Junxia has on a conical hat, and he stands in the courtyard, holding Qingfengjian. They stand off against each other with some distance between them.
Duan Ling’s steps slow as he walks into the courtyard. He stares at Lang Junxia in a daze.
“It’s me. I’ve come to get you. It’s too dangerous here.”
“Don’t leave with him! Your Highness!”
For a moment, Duan Ling actually feels a bit at a loss.
“Shangjing will definitely be breached today. You can’t stay here any longer.”
“His Majesty told me that unless he’s here personally, no one can take him.”
The rainstorm seems omnipresent; the sound of falling water is already so loud that there’s no way anyone can hear a conversation. There is another crack of thunder. Duan Ling cries out, “Stop it!”
Before he finishes speaking, Xunchun has already launched her attack. but Lang Junxia’s sword turns a near imperceptible angle, reflecting the bright flash of lightning, shining it into Xunchun’s eyes.
Xunchun’s eyes narrow, but from that point on she’s already lost the initiative. Lang Junxia goes right for Xunchun’s throat with his sword; she turns around, stepping onto a flowing stream of rainwater, her red gown fluttering as it spins up the water around her.
A million drops of rain seems to freeze in the instant the lighting strikes, the world refracting in each crystalline droplet of rain, as though fossilising this moment in time — Duan Ling drawing his sword, Xunchun stepping back into a defensive stance, Lang Junxia’s sword thrusting forward.
Xunchun pulls out her hair pin, and throws it.
Lang Junxia’s move punctures Xunchun’s abdomen, while Xunchun’s hairpin spins through the air, piercing through water droplets all along the way to bursting, burying itself beneath Lang Junxia’s ribs.
In the next instant, Lang Junxia slashes across with Qingfengjian, but Xunchun risks taking this attack head-on and rushes towards him, her hands extended, and both her palms connect with Lang Junxia’s chest. Her internal energy erupts inside Lang Junxia’s body where it’s blocked by the meridian point sealed by her hair pin — and the vibration at once damages his internal organs.
Lang Junxia turns back, stepping onto the side of the wooden pillar and rushes at Duan Ling; Duan Ling immediately draws his sword and points it at Lang Junxia. Clearly having been hurt rather badly, Lang Junxia doesn’t stop in time and stumbles at the sword. Duan Ling backs away right away out of fear of hurting him.
Only then does blood spray from Lang Junxia’s mouth; the sword in Duan Ling’s hand is now covered in his blood. Afterwards, Lang Junxia runs out of the Viburnum and disappears. Right before he leaves, their eyes meet, and the look in Lang Junxia eyes makes Duan Ling keenly aware of something, but it stays on the tip of his tongue.
Rain is coming down in buckets. Duan Ling takes several steps to run after him, but he gradually makes himself slow to a stop, and turns around.
“Xunchun!” Duan Ling says anxiously.
Xunchun’s abdomen has been punctured; her gown is soaked through with blood. Duan Ling quickly helps her inside. Ding Zhi arrives, and with a startled cry she hurries to them to check the state of Xunchun’s injuries.
At the same time, the Southern Chen army is approaching the Western Hills, two hundred miles away from Shangjing.2 The rain has begun abruptly and it only seems to grow; the terrain beneath the mountains is all full of mud. The entire army fords the river, and nearly forty-thousand people draw nearer to the back of the Mongol army.
“Dispatch —” a scout is running toward them.
“The Mongolian reinforcements have arrived, troops outside Shangjing total one hundred thousand!”
Li Jianhong is drenched. Rivulets of rain flow down his armour, saturating all of his clothes, colder than anything he has ever felt.
“Did they breach the city?”
His own voice sounds like it’s coming from a great distance away. Li Jianhong feels as though it doesn’t even belong to him anymore.
“They’re fighting in the streets.” The scout says breathlessly, “The vanguard unit saved a group of students who fled Biyong College. They say that Yelü Dashi is dead.”
“Bring them here,” Li Jianhong says.
Several students approach, covered in dirt and mud. They wring the muddy water from their clothes and kneel down in front of Li Jianhong.
“General!” The student wails, “General, save us —”
“How many people got away?” Li Jianhong asks, his breath coming in short.
“We’re the only ones!” The student says, sobbing, “The dean told us to run first, and he was shot by the Mongolians …”
The world seems to spin around Li Jianhong; having been on a forced march for days, his mental faculties have been stretched to their limits. As he hears this, vertigo overcomes him.
But that’s when a sudden calamity strikes — one of the students looks up suddenly and with a flick of his tongue, several hidden needles fly through the rain to bury themselves in Li Jianhong’s right hand. Li Jianhong quickly backs up and draws his sword with his left hand. As he turns around, the assassin disguised as a student happened to pounce right at that moment, and Li Jianhong puts a sword through his throat.
“Your Majesty!”
Colour drains out of his personal guards’ faces, and they flock forward, soon filling those “students” so full of holes with their arrows they resemble a bees’ nest. Li Jianhong’s right hand has been hit by the needles, and within moments a sense of numbness has spread through his entire right arm. He presses the ring finger that the needles are buried in onto his sword decisively, cutting off the entire finger. Black blood pours from the wound until it turns dark red, but the poison has already seeped into his arm.
“Get the doctor!” Someone is calling out.
“No need.” Li Jianhong says, “Send the order down that we’re pulling the tents and leaving. Tell the Khitan soldiers among us that Shangjing hasn’t been breached yet and we still have a chance. Make sure they know not to let up!”
That afternoon, Li Jianhong leads the Liao army of ten-thousand and the Chen cavalry of forty-thousand through arduous terrain into the Western Hills, through narrow gorges, braving crumbling cliff sides, taking shortcuts as they hurry to Shangjing.
“Dispatch —”
The vanguard unit ahead of him shuffles around. One man spurs his horse towards Li Jianhong in the heavy rain.
“There’s an ambush ahead.” Wu Du takes off his helmet; there’s mud all over his face. He says to Li Jianhong, “Nearly ten thousand men are guarding the road inside the Western Hills ravine. Let’s go around, Your Majesty. It’s too dangerous.”
“Run over them,” Li Jianhong says, and follows this with a resolute shout, “Khitan army, come with me! Take the vanguard! Great Chen’s troops will be right behind you! We’ll be through the Western Hills within two hours! Archers, follow me!”
Wu Du looks shocked, but Li Jianhong simply tosses two long sabres at him. Wanlibenxiao takes the lead and charges into the ravine.
Right behind him, their hearts still in Shangjing, the Khitan army charges into the ravine with an earth-shattering shout, each with a shield before them to protect the charging central unit, their horses’ hooves kicking up muddy water as they go. Li Jianhong heads his near fifty-thousand men and collides ruthlessly with the Mongol army’s defensive formation.
The Mongol army had laid traps of flash flood and logs all along the alternative path, and as soon as Li Jianhong decided to detour around the ambush they would have set them all off. They never imagined that Li Jianhong would instead attempt to crush them head-on. Just as the two sides meet, he raises Zhenshanhe and cuts a Mongol soldier right through the shield, and his flesh and blood fly off to either side of Li Jianhong. Li Jianhong’s scarlet cape flutters behind him; wherever he goes the ground he covers is like a meat grinder, flashes of light is shining off his sword, and ahead of the shadow it casts, he runs mercilessly over the perilous ravine.
The Khitan army charges through, followed closely by the forty-thousand cavalry of Chen; for a moment, their forces converge into a powerful current, overcoming the Mongol army’s perimetre. Li Jianhong’s arm grows weak from killing and he nearly can’t see what’s in front of him any more; rain flows into his eyes, turning his vision into an indistinct blur. In the thick of battle, the poison that hasn’t totally left his body spreads up his arm, seeping into his heart.
His lips have turned deathly pale, but he’s still charging through the battlefield with all his strength. They’re less than a thousand steps away from the mouth of the ravine now; the exit is right in front of him. On the precipice above comes the whistling of wind as something cuts through the air — one man is dropping towards the army like an ape.
In that very instant, all the times Li Jianhong has stared death in the face before gives him an intuition-like premonition. In a blink, he leans back and steps onto the back of his horse, leaping into the air. Wanlibenxiao whinnies and dodges to one side. Right then, an assassin flies down with a giant sword in hand, and chops the Khitan soldier that has stepped into the space where Li Jianhong used to occupy into two!
The corner of the assassin’s mouth turns up a fraction of an angle.
The earth beneath them shakes, rain pours down around them like buckets of water, lighting strikes, and thunder roars; neither side can hear whatever the other side is saying any longer, but the assassin’s silhouette moves with extreme dexterity amidst this great military force, locking onto Li Jianhong’s position before stepping past warhorses and soldiers to run right at him with that giant sword on his back. Li Jianhong leaps onto the cliff. The assassin catches up to him; his sword leaves its sheath.
Li Jianhong draws Zhenshanhe and the assassin draws his great sword. The two swords clash together in a clang of metal on metal, an echoing ring that reverberates through the ravine; it is immediately overcome by the thunderous warcry below.
Wu Du is charging at the mouth of the ravine along with the army, and picking out that sound in the middle of the rainstorm, he suddenly looks up towards Li Jianhong.
Li Jianhong doesn’t say anything more. The assassin and Li Jianhong exchange ten-odd moves in front of the cliffs, moving like a tornado, each move coming quicker than the last. The assassin’s sword comes at him like a tempestuous gale; Li Jianhong’s sword style cuts with the fury of a stormy sea. By the tail-end of the fight, all of their movements are driven by the instinct of those who stand at the summit of the martial arts. A flash of lightning sparks across the boundless sky; the only thing reflected in Li Jianhong’s pupils is that sword.
Duanchenyuan —
Life is bitterly short; break your ties to samsara.
Li Jianhong bellows in rage and goes sword-to-sword against it with Zhenshanhe, but his heart feels like there’s a knife twisting in it, making his left hand tremble violently. The two swords collide once more, and as soon as the points touch, Li Jianhong lets his sword grind all the way up Duanchenyuan. The assassin throws all his strength into a leap backwards, and four of his fingers are at once pared off!
Duanchenyuan slashes across Li Jianhong’s bracer, and blood pours down his left hand. Li Jianhong pounces forward to throw himself at the assassin, and as he’s just about to put his sword right through him, the assassin suddenly opens his mouth and spits out a bunch of tiny needles, each as small as a cow’s hair.
At that moment, Wu Du finally manages to catch up to him. He spreads his hands apart and pushes them forward. A black magnetic disk appears at the palm-guard between his hands, drawing to it every last needle, and with a series of sharp tinkling noises, they land on the disk. Li Jianhong keeps charging ahead, but the assassin has already dropped down the cliff into the crowded battlefield.
Li Jianhong props himself up with his sword. His vision has gone pitch black.
“Your Majesty?!” Wu Du says loudly.
“Making you atone for your crimes by working for me,” Li Jianhong says, “Was one of the very few correct decisions I’ve ever made in my entire lifetime …”
Wu Du says, “Your Majesty, I’ve obtained their concealed weapons. It’s probably snake poison. I’ll go get the antidote made right away.”
Li Jianhong stands there panting for moments. He can feel the poison spreading through his body with the ferocity of the fight, and it’s already made him slightly numb. He tries his best to move the energy through his meridians, pushing the poison back onto his right arm.
“Let me rest for a bit.” Li Jianhong says grimly, while staring at his army down below in the ravine, catching his breath.
Wu Du dares not speak. He stands there waiting for a while, until Li Jianhong recovers and sheathes Zhenshanhe. Li Jianhong says, “Let’s go!”
When the army charges out of the ravine they can already see Shangjing in the distance. Beneath the torrential rainstorm the city walls have already crumbled in places. Above Shangjing, rolling black smoke rises up to the sky.
“Dispatch —” A messenger runs toward him. “The passage to Xiliang has been opened, Princess Helian has returned to her homeland, troops using the Zhongjing Road have already passed Xiliang and they’re coming here as quickly as they can —!”
“Where are they?” Li Jianhong stares at the blurry silhouette of Shangjing. In the deluge, the Mongol army has already noticed that reinforcements have arrived. They turn the rear unit into vanguard and allocate fifty-thousand men to deal with them.
“They can arrive in two days!” The messenger says.
“Where’s Wu Du?” Li Jianhong’s voice is hoarse and deep.
“He’s gone to put together an antidote for Your Majesty,” his personal guard says, “He’s gone to the Altyn-tagh and he can be back in half a day.”
“Good. Come with me and charge their formation.” Li Jianhong says, “We’ll charge our way into Shangjing —!”
Before his words finish reverberating, the last decisive battle finally unfolds; under Li Jianhong’s command, forty-thousand reinforcement troops from Southern Chen and the ten-thousand strong Khitan army storms into the hastily constructed giant formation put together by the Mongol army, with a force that shakes the very earth.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
Near Beijing. ↩︎
A ear-splitting crack traverses the horizon as a clap of thunder splits the dark clouds above. Countless lightning bolts cut through the sky like soaring dragons pouring out of the sea, all of them flying towards Shangjing at the same time.
It has begun to rain heavily; an all-pervasive, drenching downpour madly funnels water from heaven to earth, putting out the inferno that rages through the city. From afar comes the sound of the Mongol army’s gong, signalling their temporary retreat.
Coughing, Duan Ling makes his way out of the ruins, and after taking several turns in the alleyways he returns to the Viburnum. The inside of the Viburnum is the very picture of tranquility.
“Xunchun! Someone killed the coachman —”
He dashes through the winding gallery, and his voice comes to an abrupt stop. There are two people in the front courtyard, standing beneath the pouring rain.
Xunchun’s gorgeous gown is drenched by the rain. Her wet hair is pasted to the face. She’s holding Zhanshanhai.
Lang Junxia has on a conical hat, and he stands in the courtyard, holding Qingfengjian. They stand off against each other with some distance between them.
Duan Ling’s steps slow as he walks into the courtyard. He stares at Lang Junxia in a daze.
“It’s me. I’ve come to get you. It’s too dangerous here.”
“Don’t leave with him! Your Highness!”
For a moment, Duan Ling actually feels a bit at a loss.
“Shangjing will definitely be breached today. You can’t stay here any longer.”
“His Majesty told me that unless he’s here personally, no one can take him.”
The rainstorm seems omnipresent; the sound of falling water is already so loud that there’s no way anyone can hear a conversation. There is another crack of thunder. Duan Ling cries out, “Stop it!”
Before he finishes speaking, Xunchun has already launched her attack. but Lang Junxia’s sword turns a near imperceptible angle, reflecting the bright flash of lightning, shining it into Xunchun’s eyes.
Xunchun’s eyes narrow, but from that point on she’s already lost the initiative. Lang Junxia goes right for Xunchun’s throat with his sword; she turns around, stepping onto a flowing stream of rainwater, her red gown fluttering as it spins up the water around her.
A million drops of rain seems to freeze in the instant the lighting strikes, the world refracting in each crystalline droplet of rain, as though fossilising this moment in time — Duan Ling drawing his sword, Xunchun stepping back into a defensive stance, Lang Junxia’s sword thrusting forward.
Xunchun pulls out her hair pin, and throws it.
Lang Junxia’s move punctures Xunchun’s abdomen, while Xunchun’s hairpin spins through the air, piercing through water droplets all along the way to bursting, burying itself beneath Lang Junxia’s ribs.
In the next instant, Lang Junxia slashes across with Qingfengjian, but Xunchun risks taking this attack head-on and rushes towards him, her hands extended, and both her palms connect with Lang Junxia’s chest. Her internal energy erupts inside Lang Junxia’s body where it’s blocked by the meridian point sealed by her hair pin — and the vibration at once damages his internal organs.
Lang Junxia turns back, stepping onto the side of the wooden pillar and rushes at Duan Ling; Duan Ling immediately draws his sword and points it at Lang Junxia. Clearly having been hurt rather badly, Lang Junxia doesn’t stop in time and stumbles at the sword. Duan Ling backs away right away out of fear of hurting him.
Only then does blood spray from Lang Junxia’s mouth; the sword in Duan Ling’s hand is now covered in his blood. Afterwards, Lang Junxia runs out of the Viburnum and disappears. Right before he leaves, their eyes meet, and the look in Lang Junxia eyes makes Duan Ling keenly aware of something, but it stays on the tip of his tongue.
Rain is coming down in buckets. Duan Ling takes several steps to run after him, but he gradually makes himself slow to a stop, and turns around.
“Xunchun!” Duan Ling says anxiously.
Xunchun’s abdomen has been punctured; her gown is soaked through with blood. Duan Ling quickly helps her inside. Ding Zhi arrives, and with a startled cry she hurries to them to check the state of Xunchun’s injuries.
At the same time, the Southern Chen army is approaching the Western Hills, two hundred miles away from Shangjing.2 The rain has begun abruptly and it only seems to grow; the terrain beneath the mountains is all full of mud. The entire army fords the river, and nearly forty-thousand people draw nearer to the back of the Mongol army.
“Dispatch —” a scout is running toward them.
“The Mongolian reinforcements have arrived, troops outside Shangjing total one hundred thousand!”
Li Jianhong is drenched. Rivulets of rain flow down his armour, saturating all of his clothes, colder than anything he has ever felt.
“Did they breach the city?”
His own voice sounds like it’s coming from a great distance away. Li Jianhong feels as though it doesn’t even belong to him anymore.
“They’re fighting in the streets.” The scout says breathlessly, “The vanguard unit saved a group of students who fled Biyong College. They say that Yelü Dashi is dead.”
“Bring them here,” Li Jianhong says.
Several students approach, covered in dirt and mud. They wring the muddy water from their clothes and kneel down in front of Li Jianhong.
“General!” The student wails, “General, save us —”
“How many people got away?” Li Jianhong asks, his breath coming in short.
“We’re the only ones!” The student says, sobbing, “The dean told us to run first, and he was shot by the Mongolians …”
The world seems to spin around Li Jianhong; having been on a forced march for days, his mental faculties have been stretched to their limits. As he hears this, vertigo overcomes him.
But that’s when a sudden calamity strikes — one of the students looks up suddenly and with a flick of his tongue, several hidden needles fly through the rain to bury themselves in Li Jianhong’s right hand. Li Jianhong quickly backs up and draws his sword with his left hand. As he turns around, the assassin disguised as a student happened to pounce right at that moment, and Li Jianhong puts a sword through his throat.
“Your Majesty!”
Colour drains out of his personal guards’ faces, and they flock forward, soon filling those “students” so full of holes with their arrows they resemble a bees’ nest. Li Jianhong’s right hand has been hit by the needles, and within moments a sense of numbness has spread through his entire right arm. He presses the ring finger that the needles are buried in onto his sword decisively, cutting off the entire finger. Black blood pours from the wound until it turns dark red, but the poison has already seeped into his arm.
“Get the doctor!” Someone is calling out.
“No need.” Li Jianhong says, “Send the order down that we’re pulling the tents and leaving. Tell the Khitan soldiers among us that Shangjing hasn’t been breached yet and we still have a chance. Make sure they know not to let up!”
That afternoon, Li Jianhong leads the Liao army of ten-thousand and the Chen cavalry of forty-thousand through arduous terrain into the Western Hills, through narrow gorges, braving crumbling cliff sides, taking shortcuts as they hurry to Shangjing.
“Dispatch —”
The vanguard unit ahead of him shuffles around. One man spurs his horse towards Li Jianhong in the heavy rain.
“There’s an ambush ahead.” Wu Du takes off his helmet; there’s mud all over his face. He says to Li Jianhong, “Nearly ten thousand men are guarding the road inside the Western Hills ravine. Let’s go around, Your Majesty. It’s too dangerous.”
“Run over them,” Li Jianhong says, and follows this with a resolute shout, “Khitan army, come with me! Take the vanguard! Great Chen’s troops will be right behind you! We’ll be through the Western Hills within two hours! Archers, follow me!”
Wu Du looks shocked, but Li Jianhong simply tosses two long sabres at him. Wanlibenxiao takes the lead and charges into the ravine.
Right behind him, their hearts still in Shangjing, the Khitan army charges into the ravine with an earth-shattering shout, each with a shield before them to protect the charging central unit, their horses’ hooves kicking up muddy water as they go. Li Jianhong heads his near fifty-thousand men and collides ruthlessly with the Mongol army’s defensive formation.
The Mongol army had laid traps of flash flood and logs all along the alternative path, and as soon as Li Jianhong decided to detour around the ambush they would have set them all off. They never imagined that Li Jianhong would instead attempt to crush them head-on. Just as the two sides meet, he raises Zhenshanhe and cuts a Mongol soldier right through the shield, and his flesh and blood fly off to either side of Li Jianhong. Li Jianhong’s scarlet cape flutters behind him; wherever he goes the ground he covers is like a meat grinder, flashes of light is shining off his sword, and ahead of the shadow it casts, he runs mercilessly over the perilous ravine.
The Khitan army charges through, followed closely by the forty-thousand cavalry of Chen; for a moment, their forces converge into a powerful current, overcoming the Mongol army’s perimetre. Li Jianhong’s arm grows weak from killing and he nearly can’t see what’s in front of him any more; rain flows into his eyes, turning his vision into an indistinct blur. In the thick of battle, the poison that hasn’t totally left his body spreads up his arm, seeping into his heart.
His lips have turned deathly pale, but he’s still charging through the battlefield with all his strength. They’re less than a thousand steps away from the mouth of the ravine now; the exit is right in front of him. On the precipice above comes the whistling of wind as something cuts through the air — one man is dropping towards the army like an ape.
In that very instant, all the times Li Jianhong has stared death in the face before gives him an intuition-like premonition. In a blink, he leans back and steps onto the back of his horse, leaping into the air. Wanlibenxiao whinnies and dodges to one side. Right then, an assassin flies down with a giant sword in hand, and chops the Khitan soldier that has stepped into the space where Li Jianhong used to occupy into two!
The corner of the assassin’s mouth turns up a fraction of an angle.
The earth beneath them shakes, rain pours down around them like buckets of water, lighting strikes, and thunder roars; neither side can hear whatever the other side is saying any longer, but the assassin’s silhouette moves with extreme dexterity amidst this great military force, locking onto Li Jianhong’s position before stepping past warhorses and soldiers to run right at him with that giant sword on his back. Li Jianhong leaps onto the cliff. The assassin catches up to him; his sword leaves its sheath.
Li Jianhong draws Zhenshanhe and the assassin draws his great sword. The two swords clash together in a clang of metal on metal, an echoing ring that reverberates through the ravine; it is immediately overcome by the thunderous warcry below.
Wu Du is charging at the mouth of the ravine along with the army, and picking out that sound in the middle of the rainstorm, he suddenly looks up towards Li Jianhong.
Li Jianhong doesn’t say anything more. The assassin and Li Jianhong exchange ten-odd moves in front of the cliffs, moving like a tornado, each move coming quicker than the last. The assassin’s sword comes at him like a tempestuous gale; Li Jianhong’s sword style cuts with the fury of a stormy sea. By the tail-end of the fight, all of their movements are driven by the instinct of those who stand at the summit of the martial arts. A flash of lightning sparks across the boundless sky; the only thing reflected in Li Jianhong’s pupils is that sword.
Duanchenyuan —
Life is bitterly short; break your ties to samsara.
Li Jianhong bellows in rage and goes sword-to-sword against it with Zhenshanhe, but his heart feels like there’s a knife twisting in it, making his left hand tremble violently. The two swords collide once more, and as soon as the points touch, Li Jianhong lets his sword grind all the way up Duanchenyuan. The assassin throws all his strength into a leap backwards, and four of his fingers are at once pared off!
Duanchenyuan slashes across Li Jianhong’s bracer, and blood pours down his left hand. Li Jianhong pounces forward to throw himself at the assassin, and as he’s just about to put his sword right through him, the assassin suddenly opens his mouth and spits out a bunch of tiny needles, each as small as a cow’s hair.
At that moment, Wu Du finally manages to catch up to him. He spreads his hands apart and pushes them forward. A black magnetic disk appears at the palm-guard between his hands, drawing to it every last needle, and with a series of sharp tinkling noises, they land on the disk. Li Jianhong keeps charging ahead, but the assassin has already dropped down the cliff into the crowded battlefield.
Li Jianhong props himself up with his sword. His vision has gone pitch black.
“Your Majesty?!” Wu Du says loudly.
“Making you atone for your crimes by working for me,” Li Jianhong says, “Was one of the very few correct decisions I’ve ever made in my entire lifetime …”
Wu Du says, “Your Majesty, I’ve obtained their concealed weapons. It’s probably snake poison. I’ll go get the antidote made right away.”
Li Jianhong stands there panting for moments. He can feel the poison spreading through his body with the ferocity of the fight, and it’s already made him slightly numb. He tries his best to move the energy through his meridians, pushing the poison back onto his right arm.
“Let me rest for a bit.” Li Jianhong says grimly, while staring at his army down below in the ravine, catching his breath.
Wu Du dares not speak. He stands there waiting for a while, until Li Jianhong recovers and sheathes Zhenshanhe. Li Jianhong says, “Let’s go!”
When the army charges out of the ravine they can already see Shangjing in the distance. Beneath the torrential rainstorm the city walls have already crumbled in places. Above Shangjing, rolling black smoke rises up to the sky.
“Dispatch —” A messenger runs toward him. “The passage to Xiliang has been opened, Princess Helian has returned to her homeland, troops using the Zhongjing Road have already passed Xiliang and they’re coming here as quickly as they can —!”
“Where are they?” Li Jianhong stares at the blurry silhouette of Shangjing. In the deluge, the Mongol army has already noticed that reinforcements have arrived. They turn the rear unit into vanguard and allocate fifty-thousand men to deal with them.
“They can arrive in two days!” The messenger says.
“Where’s Wu Du?” Li Jianhong’s voice is hoarse and deep.
“He’s gone to put together an antidote for Your Majesty,” his personal guard says, “He’s gone to the Altyn-tagh and he can be back in half a day.”
“Good. Come with me and charge their formation.” Li Jianhong says, “We’ll charge our way into Shangjing —!”
Before his words finish reverberating, the last decisive battle finally unfolds; under Li Jianhong’s command, forty-thousand reinforcement troops from Southern Chen and the ten-thousand strong Khitan army storms into the hastily constructed giant formation put together by the Mongol army, with a force that shakes the very earth.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
Near Beijing. ↩︎
