When his father and brothers died, Xiao Jinshu lost all hope for support from the court and the emperor. What kept him going as he defended Mobei was the blood and spirits of his family; his father and brothers had spilled their blood on this ground, and he would do the same.

When he received a message by falcon informing him that Emperor Jingren would be personally leading an expedition, Xiao Jinshu didn’t believe it. When his father had frequently attended court, he’d had the good fortune to see the late emperor, and the heroic ruler he had longed to behold had resolved into a capricious man seated on the throne. Xiao Jinshu had been preternaturally shrewd all his life; he had seen the late emperor’s dread of the Xiao family at a glance and had become even more opposed to his father’s decision to marry his little sister into that pit of vipers. But an imperial decree could not be disobeyed, and his sister had married. Though she was empress, she had borne no children after all these years. Could Emperor Jingren truly honor his sister? Xiao Jinshu doubted it.

Could the gloomy and suspicious late emperor have raised a ruler who would willingly live and die alongside the people of the border?

Xiao Jinshu didn’t believe that at all.

But he still plastered the message with the imperial seal affixed to it on the city walls. He didn’t care whether Emperor Jingren came or not; he only wanted the people of the border city to see this news. People who had hope survived. He needed time, just a little more time, to send as many women and children from the city as he could and let them get as far away as possible. At least they could reach a nearby city; at least the children’s lives could be saved.

Fortunately, Huyan Xi had been injured in an assassination attempt, which had given them some breathing room. The herding tribes attacked the city every day, but these attacks weren’t serious, only attempts to scare them. Xiao Jinshu knew that the herding tribes were acting like a cat that had caught a mouse: the cat would tease the mouse now and then, listen to its screams and keep it on the run, all for its own amusement.

Xiao Jinshu didn’t feel humiliated by this. Instead, he hoped the herding tribes would keep toying with them, giving him time to get people out of the city.

When Huyan Xi recovered, the cat would get tired of playing, and it would be time for the city to fall.

But Xiao Jinshu had never thought that reinforcements would arrive so soon!

The vanguard, consisting of a thousand light cavalry, reached Mobei not ten days after the army messenger had been dispatched to ask the court for reinforcements.

The vanguard told Xiao Jinshu that the army’s main force had set out at the same time as them, and His Majesty was on the road with a supply train hastening toward Mobei. Soon he would arrive, if only the people of Mobei could hold out.

The bright yellow imperial decree and well-equipped cavalrymen gave hope to the weary city. The men stood up and climbed to the top of the city walls with pickaxes and sickles. Even the women and children stopped leaving; they heated water and oil at the rear, bringing it to the top of the wall via their families’ men so the scalding liquid could be poured over the heads of the herding tribes’ soldiers as they attacked.

Mobei’s defenses lost the herding tribes many skilled fighters, and they ceased to tease the city as though it were a mouse. Mobei City had a moment to catch its breath. But Xiao Jinshu understood that this was the calm before the storm. They were waiting, waiting until Huyan Xi’s injury no longer held him back. Then they would regroup and launch a sustained offensive against Mobei.

Sure enough, eleven days after the vanguard arrived, an attack on the city by the massed forces of the herding tribes began. This time, Huyan Xi sat on horseback outside the city walls with every appearance of vigor, showing no sign of having been injured.

With Huyan Xi present, the method of attack against the city changed at once. First they shot flaming arrows, killing the defenders on the walls, then commenced the escalade. Xiao Jinshu knew that the only thing for them to do was to hold out however they could, so he sent more people to defend the walls, which only evinced a second rain of flaming arrows. Huyan Xi had a team of divine archers; their arrows never struck their own warriors, only the soldiers on the walls.

Fortunately, they hadn’t been merely biding their time in the city; Xiao Jinshu had urgently summoned the city’s carpenters and blacksmiths to construct catapults. Soldiers took refuge not far from the city walls and hurled stones. They didn’t need to worry about being hit by the arrows, and their stones were aimed only at the ladders set against the walls. After a few hits, the ladders went down.

After repulsing another attack by the enemy army, Mobei’s soldiers and people breathed a sigh of relief. Only Xiao Jinshu’s brow was tightly furrowed.

He was frowning because Huyan Xi had yet to join the fighting. Huyan Xi’s abilities were simply unimaginable. In his family, his fourth brother had been the best fighter, but he had lasted no more than ten rounds against Huyan Xi. Huyan Xi was too good a warrior. Once he entered the fray, Mobei City seemed to turn to paper. None of their weapons stood a chance against him.

This was why his father and brothers had been willing to die to assassinate Huyan Xi, or even to gravely injure him. If Huyan Xi were not among the force attacking the city, there was still hope.

Huyan Xi seemed fully recovered now, but he didn’t fight. Did he think it would be beneath him, or was he standing at the head of his forces only to encourage them because his wound still troubled him?

Xiao Jinshu couldn’t be sure. All he could do now was lead the soldiers and people of Mobei as they repelled the herding tribes’ attacks one after another.

As for the vanguard of the force sent by the court, upon their arrival they had told him that they would be entirely at Xiao Jinshu’s disposal; they would not defy any of his orders. This team was extremely useful. They really did obey Xiao Jinshu’s every order, just as they had said. He could have ordered them to die, and they would have gone to do it without batting an eye.

Such a team… Did this mean he could look forward to the arrival of the court’s army?

But as soon as Huyan Xi joined the fight, it wouldn’t matter how many people they had. He had seen Huyan Xi’s strength. It truly was as Li Bai’s poem described it: “Killing ten in one step, leaving nothing unscathed.” An entire army couldn’t stop Huyan Xi. No matter how many people came, in the face of Huyan Xi’s strength, morale would collapse, and then…

The emperor was marching with the army!

Xiao Jinshu clenched his first. If he had to offer his life, he would still protect Emperor Jingren!

The attack on the city continued till evening. The sun set early in Mobei. Now the sky was red, and the herding tribes ceased their attack.

They had made it through another day. Xiao Jinshu slowly let out a breath, but then he heard Huyan Xi’s voice from outside the city walls.

His voice wasn’t loud, but it passed through the wall and reached the ears of so many. It was evident how plentiful his internal force was.

“Counsellor Xiao, it is as you guessed. I have refrained from entering the battle because my injury has yet to heal. I came here at the head of my forces today because I feared the greater part of your reinforcements would arrive. I forced myself from my bed as soon as I could crawl in order to attack the city so that I wouldn’t miss this once in a lifetime chance before the army came. As king, I honor the generals of the Xiao family for injuring me at the cost of their lives. I had meant to leave the Xiaos one disabled representative to carry on the family line, but now I see that won’t do.”

This was a rather rude thing for Huyan Xi to say. The soldiers at Xiao Jinshu’s side were red-eyed with anger and wanted to go out to fight him at once.

But Xiao Jinshu’s expression remained calm. He couldn’t send his own voice so far, so he wrote a large message on a streamer in the script of the herding tribes, which he ordered to be hung from the city wall. The message read: The monkey plays at being king while the tiger is away.

Huyan Xi had called himself king—this was a rank he had given himself. After unifying the grasslands, he had proclaimed himself the King of the Northern Frontier, a title he intended to bring to the imperial capital, there to establish a new dynasty. He had used the lives of the Xiao family to insult Xiao Jinshu, so Xiao Jinshu had called him a monkey. In a contest of glibness, at any rate, Huyan Xi couldn’t best Xiao Jinshu.

When he saw the writing on the note, Huyan Xi’s smile did not falter. He said in a loud voice, “Counsellor Xiao, I had not meant to be so unfeeling, but you remain obstinate.”

Then he gave a slight wave of the hand, and four soldiers of the herding tribes came forward, each with a pole raised high, each pole with a human head tied to it. These were the heads of Marquis Zhenbei and his sons!

The people of Mobei felt their eyes prickle, and several impulsive soldiers wanted to climb down the walls at once to launch into battle, but Xiao Jinshu called them to a halt.

“Everybody stop!” Xiao Jinshu’s eyes were bloodshot. He was livid with rage, his voice hoarse, but he still said, “They want to provoke us into opening the city gates and doing battle with them, so they can use the opportunity to invade the city. Huyan Xi has yet to recover from his injury. This is all he can do. We cannot allow ourselves to be goaded. We must resist, resist until reinforcements arrive, and then we will offer Huyan Xi’s head as a sacrifice to tens of thousands of Mobei soldiers!”

Everyone stopped. Some emotional soldiers furtively wiped tears from their eyes. That was their marquis, those were their three generals—the generals who had eaten and slept alongside them despite their high birth!

And they had to hold back when they saw their generals insulted like this?

Suddenly, a voice came to their ears just as Huyan Xi’s had. This voice was deep and low, with concealed fury in it. “Huyan Xi, you are making a huge mistake if you think you can force my brother to open the city gates this way. My third brother practiced writing ‘endurance’ so many times that all the brushes in our house went bald. But while he may be able to endure it, I cannot!”

That final “cannot” was a sudden explosion, bursting in the ears of the herding tribes’ soldiers. The less stalwart soldiers began to bleed from the ears at once; it seemed that the voice had ruptured their eardrums.

“Who’s that?” Xiao Jinshu looked into the city from his wheelchair.

Two people astride a single horse came racing toward him with a cloud of dust flying up behind them. In the space of a few breaths, they reached Xiao Jinshu. One of the people on the horse wore a yellow robe and gold armor. His countenance was filled with solemnity and might. The other was tall and sturdy, brimming with murderous energy, and unexpectedly, his features were more than a little similar to Xiao Jinshu’s own!

This tall, sturdy man in black armor put his arms around the waist of the gold-armored man and lifted him down from the horse, placing him in a chair. He nodded to Xiao Jinshu and said, “Protect His Majesty. I will go retrieve our father and brothers’ remains.”

Then he was off like a shot.

What? His Majesty?

Xiao Jinshu’s gaze had followed the black-armored man, but when he heard this, his head whipped around to the one in gold armor, and he saw that beneath that armor was a military robe of bright yellow, embroidered with a five-clawed dragon. No one in all the land save he who sat above Jinluan Hall would dare to garb himself thus!

“Y-Your Majesty?” Xiao Jinshu’s legs had been amputated. He had no need to kneel. He performed a salute as he stammered, “Greetings, Your Majesty. Where is the army?”

He had no time now to concern himself with questions of etiquette. His question was urgent.

Emperor Jingren rose from his chair and said calmly, “The army is behind us and will arrive in another hour. Beloved Subject Xiao, you and the people of Mobei have held the city for over twenty days. This is to your immense merit. You may all rest a little.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty…” Wait, no, what was he thanking him for! The emperor had come ahead while the army was still behind. How could they rest? They couldn’t rest at all! They would have to work harder!

“No need to worry.” Emperor Jingren’s lips curled in a slight smile. “The General of the North alone is sufficient to cow the enemy forces. Let us mount the tower to watch.”

Wait, no, it was dangerous in the tower. There might be stray arrows. Who would bear responsibility if His Majesty were injured? No one could bear it!

But Xiao Jinshu couldn’t stop Emperor Jingren. The young emperor was agile; in a few leaps, he reached the top of the tower. Standing on high, he looked down, his gold armor dazzling. It was as if a banner above his head said, “I am the emperor, come and catch me.”

Xiao Jinshu ordered his men to carry him up. He thought that for a time at least he could bodily block any arrows that came flying at the emperor.

When he reached the top of the top of the city walls, his heart leapt to his throat at the sight of a dense rain of arrows. As expected, the divine archers had stepped in, but they weren’t aiming at Emperor Jingren. Their arrows flew at that nameless black-armored man.

That man wielded a saber and rode alone into the enemy camp. Where he passed, arrows snapped. No one could get close to him. In a blink, he had nearly reached the center of the enemy’s battle formation.

Seeing that their arrows did no good, several commanders among the herding tribes came forward with their soldiers, and each soldier was cut down by the black-armored man as smoothly as though he were slicing melons. No one was left alive in his wake.

He was simply a god of battle!

“Your Majesty, who is that man?” Xiao Jinshu asked in surprise. “How can he be so mighty?”

 “Xiao Jinyi.” Seeing Xiao Jinshu on the brink of collapse, Emperor Jingren smiled gently. “Our…General of the North.”