Snow fell again at dawn.
This time it was not a wind-whipped blizzard, but a quiet, densely falling snow that descended straight down, as if heaven and earth were sewing together an oversized burial shroud for this blood-soaked land. When the flakes landed on ground scorched by yesterday's Heartfire, they made faint sizzling sounds—like residual warmth still resisting this white covering, like memory fighting oblivion.
Lu Wanning had cleared a ten-meter square area by the broken wall in the southwest corner of the fortress.
She did not build an altar. She simply moved the bodies of those who had died in last night's battle one by one, arranging them side by side on stone ground swept clean of snow. Fifty-seven. Some intact, some broken, some barely recognizable as human forms. She refused all help from the soldiers, performing this work alone—each movement excruciatingly slow, excruciatingly steady, like a ceremony where no mistakes were permitted.
Her tools were simple: a bundle of Li-silver thread, seven Cold Mountain soul-calming needles of varying lengths, and a stone lamp burning with pale blue soulfire.
When she was moving the thirty-second body, Shen Yuzhu appeared in the broken wall's shadow.
He leaned against ice-cracked stone, one hand pressed to his temple, blue-black light seeping between his fingers. The mirror patterns in his heterochromatic eyes flowed backward uncontrollably, reflecting final soul-shadow remnants:
A soldier looking south toward home as he died, his soul-shadow entwined with the imagery of cooking smoke.
A herdsman dying with half a frozen ration clasped in his hand, his soul-shadow echoing with sheepdog barks.
A boy no more than fifteen, his pupils fixed on last night's banner unfurling in flames—that crimson hue branded into his soul-shadow's deepest layer.
Too many remnants. Too broken. Too painful.
Lu Wanning noticed. She didn't turn back, continuing her work—she was using Li-silver thread to stitch closed a chest wound pierced clean through by a spear. The needle was Cold Mountain forged, its tail carved with intricate soul-resting sigils. Each insertion made the wound edges glow with a faint, moonlight-like halo that briefly solidified the dissipating "soul-trace remnants."
"You're slowing their absorption by the Order-Net," Shen Yuzhu rasped, his voice like sandpaper on ice.
Her needle paused mid-air.
She finally looked at him. Those heterochromatic eyes held no reproach, only a physician's icy focus when facing stubborn illness.
"I'm not stitching wounds," she said, her tone as calm as if stating a medical principle. "I'm stitching fractured causal links. Flesh rots, souls scatter, but the thread of 'this person fought and died here'—if stitched firm enough, the Order-Net needs more effort to completely devour it."
She lowered her head and continued stitching. The silver thread passing through frozen flesh made faint sizzling sounds, as if burning something intangible.
"You focus on staying alive," she said again, her voice dropping half a notch. "I'm responsible for making the dead leave traces. That's our division of labor."
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes.
The mirror patterns still flowed backward behind his eyelids, but that maddening pain, because of her words, strangely found an anchor.
Not far away, soldiers began to gather.
They didn't dare come too close, standing twenty paces away, silently watching. No one cried, no one spoke, no one even coughed. Wind scraped against the edges of the hemp cloth temporarily covering the bodies, making a monotonous, paper-tearing sound.
Every soldier knew: beneath those cloths lay people who yesterday had shared rations with them, traded curses, raised banners shoulder-to-shoulder.
Chu Hongying stood at the broken window on the main tower's second level, looking down from above.
She wore no armor, only thin dark traveling clothes, the Crimson Flame Bloodlock fully exposed on her arm, showing a dark, congealed-blood hue in the dawn light. The lock's patterns pulsed faintly beneath her skin—not burning hot, but with a deeper rhythm like magma flowing slowly in the earth's veins.
She felt those bodies.
Not through sight, but through the Bloodlock's connection to this land—each added body created another faint, icy "soul-trace void" in the earth veins. Not lost power, but the emptiness left when a "once-existed" imprint was forcibly carved away.
Her hand pressed against the window frame, the wood groaning under her strength.
Gu Changfeng came up the stairs, his footsteps heavy as if crushing something unseen. His face was iron-gray, eyes bloodshot, his wind domain unconsciously expanding and contracting around him, stirring accumulated dust and chill.
"They're watching," he said hoarsely, pointing below. "They're waiting for us to give... some answer."
Chu Hongying didn't reply.
She watched Lu Wanning stitching needle by thread, watched Shen Yuzhu suppressing pain against the wall, watched snow quietly covering everything.
Then she said: "The answer is right there. In Wanning's needle, in Yuzhu's quiet endurance, in the fact we're still standing here breathing."
Gu Changfeng stared blankly.
He looked at her profile. That face held no grief, no anger, only a near-cruel acceptance. As if she'd already taken these deaths, this weight, these silent questions, all into the burden she must carry.
"...Don't you feel terrible?" he finally asked.
She looked at him. Her eyes were deep brown in the dawn light, but her pupils held a tiny, inextinguishable crimson point.
"Terrible," she said, very calmly. "But feeling terrible is a luxury. Right now we can only do one thing—" She pointed downward. "Remember. And make remembering itself into a weapon."
When stitching the forty-third body, Lu Wanning's needle hesitated.
This body was different. He wore the Empire's standard-issue light armor, but the plating had been violently torn open, revealing skin beneath that was pale as parchment. More importantly: his face.
He was young—no more than twenty. A high browbone, a straight nose, the corners of his mouth still holding the faintest upward curve, as if he had died smiling. But when Lu Wanning's fingers brushed his neck, she sensed it—wrongness.
The soul-remnants were almost absent.
Dead for over six hours, yet there was almost no normal residue of soul-trace. Typically, the dead retained faint, lingering soul-qi, echoes of the obsessions held in life. But around this body—
—empty.
As if it had been scrubbed thoroughly clean.
"Yuzhu." Her voice held tension for the first time.
Shen Yuzhu pushed off the wall and walked over. The mirror patterns in his eyes, upon seeing this body, erupted with piercing azure light—not actively triggered, but forcibly activated by some intense "Order-Net imprint" remaining within.
"Step back," he said hoarsely, simultaneously reaching out to block Lu Wanning.
Too late.
The body's brow split open in a thin seam.
Not a wound. No bleeding. Just flesh parting sideways, revealing beneath a pale, mirror-like bone layer. Silver talisman patterns surfaced on it, flowing, rearranging at astonishing speed—
Forming law maxims.
Forming discipline statutes.
Forming an inhuman, purely orderly proclamation.
Shen Yuzhu's mirror patterns frantically parsed the law information. He grunted, fresh blood seeping from the corners of his mouth, but didn't look away.
"He's... 'echoing,'" he said through gritted teeth, each word squeezed from between them. "Body embedded with an Order-Net imprint. Death isn't the endpoint; it's the trigger for a 'soul-trace recovery ritual'—"
Before he finished, the body opened its mouth.
No sound emerged.
But a pale light screen manifested, hovering three feet above. It flowed with cold, orderly law text—not written characters, but Order-Net discipline sigils directly imprinted on reality's fabric.
Shen Yuzhu's mirror patterns forcibly decoded them. His voice trembled with suppressed horror when he spoke:
[Unit Registry: Garrison-Seven·Mirror-Guard·C Platoon·Four-One-Nine]
[Status: Physical Vessel Destroyed (Permanent)]
[Final Mandate: Purge All Unregistered Life Signs]
[Erasure Count: Eleven (Civilians Seven, Non-Standard Combatants Four)]
[Performance Evaluation: Second-Upper]
[Emotion-Cognition Integrity: Zero]
[Pain-Feedback Threshold: Infinite]
[Self-Designation: Recovered]
[Disposal: Vessel Recovery, Soul-Imprint Extraction, Remains Incineration]
The screen paused, then displayed final text in a heavier font:
[Final Conclusion: This Unit Has Fulfilled Its Assigned Mandate. No Mourning Required. No Memory Required. No Meaning Assignment Required. —Empire Order-Net·Law Command Division]
The light dissipated.
The brow seam closed. The young face returned to calm, as if everything had been an illusion.
But the surrounding soldiers all froze where they stood.
They didn't understand the law text, but they understood Shen Yuzhu's decoding. They saw those final words.
No Mourning Required. No Memory Required. No Meaning Assignment Required.
Twelve words, like twelve ice spikes, simultaneously piercing every heart present.
The first to break was a young soldier—no more than eighteen, his face still holding unfaded youth. He pointed at the body, his voice sharp as tearing cloth:
"He killed eleven... eleven people! And the Empire says 'No Memory Required'? Then our fallen brothers?! Are they also 'No Mourning Required'?!"
No one answered him.
Only the snow falling, dense, quiet, endless.
Lu Wanning slowly straightened. The soul-calming needle in her hand still glowed, but that light seemed suddenly weak, powerless. She looked at the body, at that young face, at her half-stitched wound.
Then she did something unexpected.
She crouched and continued stitching.
Needle tip piercing, silver thread passing through, the moonlight halo glowing again. Her movements were slower, steadier than before, each stitch like a silent protest.
"Wanning..." Shen Yuzhu started to say something.
"Shut up." She didn't look up, her voice cold as ice. "In my hands, he's my patient. A patient dies, I stitch the wound—it's my duty. As for how the Empire writes his 'Final Conclusion'—" She raised her head, heterochromatic eyes kindling with icy flame for the first time: "None of my damn business."
Those words were soft.
But everyone present heard them clearly.
By the time Chu Hongying descended the main tower, the square's atmosphere had changed.
No longer simply heavy, but a simmering, soon-boiling suppression. Soldiers surrounded that special body, surrounded Lu Wanning and Shen Yuzhu, no one speaking, but everyone's eyes burning with the same question:
What are we fighting?
Gu Changfeng followed behind her, hand on his sword hilt. His wind domain unconsciously expanded, stirring ground snow into vortices—the sign of his teetering emotions.
She walked to the crowd's center.
First she glanced at Lu Wanning. The physician had finished stitching, was washing her hands with snowmelt, movements still calm but knuckles white.
She glanced at Shen Yuzhu. The young mirror-bearer was leaning against a broken pillar, eyes closed, breathing heavily. The light from his mirror-patterns was faint but steady, and the blood at the corners of his mouth had already dried.
Then she looked at the body.
She looked for a long time.
So long the surrounding soldiers grew restless, so long Gu Changfeng nearly spoke. Then she said:
"Yuzhu. Can you make them 'see'?"
Shen Yuzhu opened his eyes.
"...See what?"
"The truth. Not through your decoding. Let them see with their own eyes—what the Empire turns living people into."
Shen Yuzhu was silent for three breaths.
Then he nodded.
He walked to the body and knelt. Hands hovering an inch above the forehead, palms down. The mirror patterns in his eyes lit again—but this time not with passive backflow, but with active, precise, deeply penetrating reflection.
Azure light seeped from his palms like water, enveloping the body's head.
The next moment—
Three feet above, the air began to waver.
Scenes, memory fragments, appeared like shards of broken mirrors floating, piecing together, unfolding. Not simple images, but multi-layered soul-trace superimpositions:
The deepest layer held this young man's original soul-fragments—
the cooking smoke of his hometown, his mother's hands mending clothes, the quickening joy of first wearing a uniform…
The middle layer was imprinted with the remnants of transformation—
bound upon a cold altar, law-carving knives scraping across his brow, a soul-imprint branded into the sea of his consciousness, emotion and cognition stripped away strand by strand while his soul screamed (a scream muffled by law, leaving only twisted tremors of soul-wave)…
The surface layer was the discipline flow and behavior recordings after becoming a "Mirror-Guard." Those recordings were cold, precise, devoid of any emotional color, like an artifact's operation log:
[Morning: Patrol mandate, route Garrison-Seven·Zone Three]
[Late Morning: Encounter refugee group, execute dispersal, employ non-lethal force]
[Noon: Spiritual energy replenishment, consume standard soul-paste]
[Afternoon: Emotion-cognition self-check, integrity zero, meets specification]
The scenes flowed to last night, the recordings growing dense:
[Evening: Detect unregistered high-intensity spiritual energy reaction (Heartfire)]
[Night: Receive purge mandate, target: all rebellion units]
[First Watch: Enter combat status, pain-feedback threshold adjusted to infinite]
[Third Watch: Erasure target seven (civilians)...
Then the final recording:
[Fourth Watch: Encounter high-energy individual (blood-anchor unit), physical vessel destruction unavoidable]
[Final Mandate: Activate vessel soul-trace recovery ritual]
[Self-designation recovery completed...]
[This unit's mission concludes.]
The scene stopped on that final line. Pale. Cold. Like an epitaph inscription.
The entire square fell dead silent.
Only the wind sweeping snow-foam, and the soldiers' suppressed, ragged breathing.
That eighteen-year-old soldier suddenly knelt on the ground.
He covered his face, shoulders shaking violently, but couldn't produce crying sounds—as if even the ability to weep had been stolen by the witnessed truth.
"They..." His voice squeezed through his fingers, hoarse like broken bellows. "They don't feel pain... don't feel fear... don't even feel they're killing..."
He looked up, face streaked with tears, but eyes empty:
"Then yesterday... what were we fighting?"
This question smashed into everyone's heart.
Shen Yuzhu withdrew his hand. His face was pale as paper, his whole body swaying unsteadily, but he forced himself upright and looked at Chu Hongying.
Chu Hongying didn't answer the soldier's question.
She walked to the body, crouched, reached out—not to touch, but hovering above that young face.
"He was once human," she said, her voice not loud but unnervingly clear. "He had a name, he had a family, he could laugh and cry, he could fear and be brave."
Her hand descended, gently brushing the body's eyelids closed.
"Then the Empire turned him into an 'instrument.'"
She stood, turned facing all the soldiers. Her gaze was like a blade, cutting across every bewildered, pained face.
"You ask, what are we fighting?"
"I'll tell you—"
"We're fighting the order that 'turns people into instruments.'"
"We're fighting the discipline that 'strips away pain, strips away fear, strips away memory.'"
"We're fighting a world that believes life can be simplified to a 'performance evaluation.'"
She paused, took a deep breath. The northern border's icy air seared her lungs, but made the flame in her eyes burn all the clearer.
"So, from today onward—"
"We don't just fight to stay alive."
"We fight for the 'right to feel pain.'"
"We fight for the 'right to remember the dead.'"
"We fight for 'every life should have its own name, not a registry number'—we fight for that."
Dead silence.
Then the first sound emerged.
It was that kneeling young soldier. He swayed to his feet, wiped the tears from his face, walked to the body, imitated Chu Hongying, knelt, reached out to brush the other not-quite-closed eyelid.
"What's your name?" he whispered, as if asking the body, asking himself.
No one answered.
But he answered himself:
"Doesn't matter... I'll give you one."
He pulled out a small knife from his chest—not a weapon, but a rough ration-cutting knife. He walked to the nearby broken wall, started carving characters into the frozen stone surface.
Laborious work. The stone too hard, the knife too dull. But stroke by stroke, he carved with extreme earnestness.
Finished, he stepped back.
Everyone saw that line:
"Tomb of the Nameless—He Was Once Human."
Simple. Awkward. Even the grammar somewhat flawed.
But every soldier present, seeing those words, felt their eyes redden.
Just then, the abnormality returned.
That body suddenly began to turn to ash.
Not rotting, not decomposing—literal ashing. Skin flaking like burnt incense, revealing pale bones beneath. The bones too rapidly lost substance, turning into powdery, silver-speckled dust, beginning to scatter in the wind.
The process was frighteningly fast.
In barely ten breaths, the body had mostly disappeared, leaving only a pile of gray-white powder, and a few un-ashed light armor fragments.
Lu Wanning reacted first.
"Order-Net remote soul-trace recovery!" she snapped, her wrist flicking out three soul-calming needles in the same instant. The needle-tips sank into the ground around the pile of powder, forming a triangular barrier. A halo of moonlight bloomed, temporarily arresting the dissolution.
But it was too late.
The body's upper half was already completely gone, including that young face.
The young soldier stared blankly at the powder, at his freshly carved "Tomb of the Nameless," then at the empty ground.
The small knife in his hand clattered to the stone.
Then he laughed.
The laughter was low, hoarse, as if something had shattered in his throat.
"Ha... haha..." He laughed, tears flowing harder. "Not even the body... won't let it remain... Empire... how afraid you are... afraid we'll remember something..."
The laughter echoed, more piercing than crying.
The other soldiers' emotions were ignited by this laughter.
"They won't even leave whole bodies!"
"Afraid we'll discover something?!"
"What are we fighting?! Even the dead's dignity gets stripped?!"
Commotion began spreading.
Fear, anger, powerlessness—fermenting into a dangerous, nearly out-of-control collective emotion. Several soldiers gripped their weapons, eyes beginning to redden—not with battle-intent, but with a need to destroy something to vent.
Gu Changfeng's wind domain, in that moment, spiraled completely out of control.
It was not his active doing.
But the boiling, despairing, angry collective emotions, like intangible waves, impacted his perception as "wind-anchor." He heard—not with ears, but with his domain's innate resonance with environmental emotions:
Kill back! Kill them all!
We'll die anyway! Might as well tear something apart!
This world's hopeless... hopeless...
Too many voices. Too chaotic. Too despairing.
Gu Changfeng's temples throbbed, forehead veins bulging. He felt his consciousness sea stuffed with a million madly fluttering insects, those insects gnawing his reason, screaming, urging him—
Join them.
Go mad together.
Destroy together.
"Shut up—!!"
He finally roared.
Not at the soldiers, but at the voices in his consciousness sea.
But the moment the roar left his mouth, his wind domain exploded.
With him as the center, snow within a ten-zhang radius was violently lifted, forming a white, high-speed rotating snowstorm ring! Snowflakes like blades shrieked through the air, several soldiers standing close were blown stumbling back.
Gu Changfeng stood at the storm's center, eyes crimson, his hair whipping wildly in the tempestuous currents. He drew the Cloud-Edge Blade; the steel sang, its resonance with his domain producing a saw-toothed, dragon-cry shriek.
He didn't slash at anyone.
He pointed the blade tip south—toward the Empire.
"Everyone fucking listen clear—!!"
His voice erupted like thunder, overwhelming wind shrieks, all commotion:
"The Empire wants to turn us into registry numbers! Into instruments! Into things not even worthy of leaving bodies when dead!"
"Then let it see—"
"—see if registry numbers bleed!"
"—see if instruments roar!"
"—see how unworthy things—hack holes in its perfect order!!"
He violently turned, the blade tip sweeping across every face present:
"Feel despair? Hopeless? Might as well go mad?"
"Then go mad!"
"But not at our own people! Not at this banner! Not at people still willing to remember your names!"
He turned the blade, pointing at the powder Lu Wanning had barely solidified:
"At it."
"At the bastards who created it."
"At that emperor sitting in the Mirror Palace—treating people as instruments—go mad!"
The last "mad" left his mouth as he slashed down!
Not at the ground, but at the intangible law connection between the powder and the Order-Net.
The Cloud-Edge Blade's edge tore the air, producing a pale azure, substance-like wind blade. The wind blade sank into the powder, struck no entity, but everyone heard—
"Shriip—"
Like cloth forcibly torn.
Immediately, the powder pile violently boiled, silver light points flashing frantically, then before their eyes—completely dissipated.
Not even the last residue remained.
Gu Changfeng sheathed his blade, breathing heavily. His domain slowly calmed, the snowstorm fell, the ground around him clean as if swept.
He looked at the stunned soldiers, said hoarsely:
"This is madness. Mad at what deserves madness, madden till it yields results."
He walked to the young soldier, bent, picked up the fallen knife, pressed it back into his hand.
"Don't discard the knife," he said, his voice lowered now, but holding a strange gentleness. "Keep it. For every Mirror-Guard killed from now on, carve a stroke on the wall—carve till the whole wall can't fit more."
The young soldier gripped the knife, hand still shaking, but his eyes were different now.
They held a light.
Not hope's light.
But a hatred-tempered, cold-hard-as-iron resolve.
Chu Hongying didn't stop Gu Changfeng from start to finish.
She only watched. Watched him lose control, watched him roar, watched him sever the Order-Net's law connection with one slash.
Then, after the wind calmed, she walked toward the broken wall.
Toward the young soldier's carved line:
"Tomb of the Nameless—He Was Once Human."
She reached out, fingertips brushing the carving marks. The stone surface icy, the marks rough, but every stroke carried the deepest effort.
"The characters are too shallow," she said.
The young soldier froze.
Chu Hongying looked at him, then at all the soldiers:
"Stone weathers, snow buries, time fades marks—until they disappear."
She paused, then did something that made everyone's pupils contract.
She raised her left hand, her right hand gripped the tip of the Storm-Piercer—and drew it lightly across.
Her palm split with an inch-long wound.
Blood welled.
Not spurting, but slowly, steadily flowing, its color not bright red, but darker like congealed flame. The blood, leaving her body, didn't drip, but hovered mid-air, held by an intangible force.
The Bloodlock on her arm hummed low, patterns glowing, magma flowing beneath the skin.
She pressed her bleeding palm onto the carved line.
Blood seeped into the marks.
Something miraculous happened—the stone seemed to come alive, greedily absorbing the blood. The marks began to glow—not a bloody crimson, but a warm, ember-like crimson halo. This halo flowed along the strokes of the characters, illuminating every one of them, etching them deeper and clearer, as if carved into the stone's very heart.
Not only that.
The halo spread from the carved characters, extending across the wall surface like roots, forming intricate vein-like patterns. Where the patterns passed, the stone's texture seemed to subtly change—harder, denser, more resistant to weathering and erosion.
Chu Hongying withdrew her hand.
The wound on her palm had already stopped bleeding, the edges glowing faint red, visibly healing.
She looked at the glowing wall and said:
"From today, this wall is called the 'Soul Stele.'"
"All fallen names will be carved here."
"Carved in blood."
"Not because blood is precious—but because blood dries, turns to dark brown scabs, and remains forever in the stone. Even if the Empire buries it with more snow, grinds at it with more time, it will not be scrubbed away."
She turned, facing everyone:
"Now, line up."
"Call out all the fallen names you remember—true names, nicknames, even just 'that big-bearded laugher,' all are acceptable."
"I'll carve the first one."
She walked to a blank area on the wall, her blood-stained fingertips hovering above the stone surface.
Three breaths of silence.
Then she carved the first name:
"Iron-Head Wang."
That was the old soldier who first charged at the Mirror-Guards last night, body-blocking a strike, creating a spear opportunity for her. He had no family, only this nickname from a hard head.
Blood seeped in, glowed, solidified.
Second name:
"Batu'er."
The old herdsman who always secretly shared rations with children, died with a half-undelivered milk curd in his pocket.
Third, fourth...
She carved slowly. With each name, she paused briefly, as if remembering that face, that voice, that life's final moment.
The soldiers began lining up.
First was that young soldier. He walked before Chu Hongying, voice still shaking:
"Li, Li Two-Dog... my fellow villager. Left cheek scarred, laughed foolishly."
Chu Hongying nodded and carved it.
Second was one-armed veteran Chen Old-Four. He reported three names, all soldiers he had led.
Third was a Cold Mountain disciple. He hesitated, then said:
"White Feather... my senior brother. Didn't support raising the banner, but died blocking in front of me."
Chu Hongying glanced at him, and still carved it.
The line grew longer.
Not just soldiers. Herders came, refugees came, even among those originally neutral Cold Mountain disciples, a few silently stood at the line's end.
Names appeared one after another on the wall.
"Bold Zhao"
"Little Bell" (a singing-loving girl)
"Blind Old Chen" (actually just squinting)
"Fast Runner" (because he was always delivering messages)
Some had surname and given name, some only nicknames, some even just descriptive features.
But every one was seriously carved, blood-soaked, light-lit.
When Lu Wanning approached, Chu Hongying had already carved over seventy names, her palm cut again—the Bloodlock's healing ability had limits too.
"Enough." Wanning gripped her wrist, voice cold but movements gentle. "Keep bleeding, your blood thins, the marks won't hold soul force."
Chu Hongying looked at her and shook her head:
"Not enough."
"As long as someone remembers, as long as someone reports names—it's not enough."
Wanning fell silent.
Then she released her grip, pulled a new roll of Li-silver thread from her waist.
"I'll help you," she said, her tone still holding little warmth, but her heterochromatic eyes reflecting the wall's bloodlight. "Silver thread locks soul-traces, blood marks lock form—a double seal. The Order-Net will need tenfold the effort to devour it."
She began weaving an intricate silver network in the wall seams around the carved characters. The silver threads contacting the bloodlight warmed slightly, resonating with the blood marks and forming a more stable structure.
Shen Yuzhu also walked over.
His face was still pale, but his eyes were clear. He looked at the wall's growing names, at the bloodlight and silver woven net, and said softly:
"I'll overlay a layer of mirror-imprint carving marks on each name."
"Not for protection—but for 'anchoring.'"
"As long as this name exists, as long as this wall stands, my mirror-imprint can sense its existence anywhere. If the Empire tries to secretly devour it... I'll know."
He raised his hand, fingertips glowing azure. The light transformed into countless hair-thin traces, drifting toward the wall, lightly landing on every name, covering them with an invisible yet real "mirror-imprint."
Gu Changfeng finally walked over.
He didn't speak, just drew the Cloud-Edge Blade, walked to the wall—then, with the blade tip, carved four large characters at the very top:
"CRIMSON HEART UNDYING"
Carved deep. Every stroke carried the wind domain's sharpness and weight, stone chips flying.
After carving, he stepped back two paces, looked at those four characters, then at the wall's dense names, and suddenly said:
"The wind will remember."
"Every time I blow past this wall, I'll carry these names—to every inch of the northern borderlands."
"Let the wind live for them."
Four people. Four powers. Different ways, jointly protecting this wall.
Protecting these names.
Protecting these proofs of what had "once existed."
As the final name was carved, the last of the daylight fell, its deepening glow mirroring the ember-like warmth now held within the stone.
Golden twilight slanted across the wall, bloodlight, silver light, the mirror-imprint's blue, the stone's own luster—all interwoven, forming an indescribable, tragic yet warm hue.
On the wall, three hundred twenty-one names in total.
Some complete, some fragmentary, some perhaps never matching specific people.
But they were all there.
Silently. Solidly. Existing.
Chu Hongying stepped back several paces, looked at the whole wall, looked for a long time.
Then she said:
"This is the Crimson Heart Army's first true banner."
"Not cloth-made, but of stone and blood."
"Not flying in the sky, but standing on the ground."
"But it will live—longer than any banner."
Deep night, inside the medical tent.
Lu Wanning lit a storm-proof lantern, its dim glow falling upon the sparse furnishings—racks of medicinal herbs, a diagnosis table draped with clean hempen cloth, and in the corner, neat stacks of bandages and boxes of silver needles.
Shen Yuzhu sat on a low stool beside the table, eyes closed, allowing Wanning to examine the mirror patterns on his skin.
"The backflow has stopped, but your foundation is damaged," Wanning's voice was preternaturally clear in the quiet of the tent. "For the next three days, you must not use mirror-imprints for deep reflection, especially not to contact Order-Net imprints. One more time, and the patterns may shatter permanently."
Shen Yuzhu opened his eyes.
The light of the patterns had faded considerably, the cracks grown shallower, yet the depths of his pupils still held a residual void-sensation, the aftereffect of soul-trace overload.
"Wanning," he suddenly said. "Those Mirror-Guards... is the transformation process reversible?"
Wanning's hand paused.
She withdrew the inspection needle, turned to organize the medicine box, her back toward him:
"Emotion-cognition, once stripped, causes permanent damage. The soul-imprint fuses with the consciousness sea; forcibly peeling it away causes soul dispersion. The pain threshold adjusted to infinite rewires the meridian system; even if sensation were restored, normal perception is impossible..."
She stopped, didn't finish.
But the meaning was already clear: Irreversible.
Shen Yuzhu fell silent.
Inside the tent, only the wick's crackling.
After a long while, he said softly:
"Then we... are we actually killing people, or destroying instruments?"
This question was too heavy; the tent's temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.
Wanning turned back and looked at him.
Those heterochromatic eyes seemed especially calm under the lantern light, but also especially deep.
"Is there a difference?" she countered. "When a person is transformed into an instrument, killing them, and destroying an instrument—for the executor, what difference does it make?"
Shen Yuzhu couldn't answer.
Wanning walked back to the table, picked up a soul-calming needle, examined the tip against the light:
"But I can tell you another fact."
"That ashing body today... when I solidified that powder pile, I sensed something."
She lowered the needle, her gaze settling on the darkness beyond the tent:
"That wasn't simple 'soul-trace recovery.' The powder contained soul poison—trace amounts, but indeed present. A kind I've never seen before, acting on the soul's origin rather than the body."
Shen Yuzhu's pupils contracted sharply.
"You mean..."
"The Empire might be using Mirror-Guard bodies as some kind of... 'soul-trace pollution source,'" Wanning's voice lowered. "Body turns to ash, soul poison releases into the environment, spreading through earth veins, water sources, even the air. Today was just one body, but if the battlefield has hundreds, thousands of such bodies ashing simultaneously—"
She didn't continue.
But Shen Yuzhu already understood.
Large-scale soul-trace pollution.
Water source poisoning.
A plague's breeding ground.
This wasn't a battlefield tactic.
This was a tactic of extermination.
"They don't want to defeat us," Shen Yuzhu's voice grew taut. "They want this land... to never again sustain life."
Wanning nodded.
"So what we're racing isn't just time," she said, her tone holding the icy clarity of a physician facing a terminal illness. "What we're racing is how long this land can still 'live.'"
The tent flap was lifted at that moment.
Chu Hongying stood at the entrance, the Bloodlock on her arm emitting a faint red light in the darkness. She'd clearly heard the latter half of the conversation, her face showing no surprise, only a long-anticipated calm.
"Yuzhu," she said. "What's the Order-Net's current monitoring level on us?"
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes, sensing briefly.
The mirror patterns transmitted a faint stinging—feedback from high-intensity observation.
"First-Upper," he opened his eyes. "And still rising. They're not just observing anymore; they've already started predictive modeling of our next moves."
Chu Hongying entered the tent.
She carried the night wind's chill, and a faint scent of blood—not her own, but carried from the wall-carving.
"Then let them predict," she said, her voice flat, yet holding an iron-cutting force. "But tell me: if we now actively sever all connections with the Order-Net—sever mirror-imprint perception, sever the Bloodlock's earth vein resonance, sever the wind domain's environmental emotion reception, sever the reason veins' spiritual energy monitoring—what happens?"
This question was too extreme.
Shen Yuzhu and Lu Wanning simultaneously froze.
Severing all connections meant becoming "blind," "deaf," unable to sense the Empire's movements, predict dangers, even coordinate combat.
But simultaneously—
"The Order-Net loses its observation windows into us," Shen Yuzhu slowly said, eyes brightening. "They can't collect soul-trace data anymore, can't run predictive models, can't precisely calculate the timing for harvest."
"What's the cost?" Chu Hongying asked.
"We'll enter spiritual perception darkness," Wanning answered, her voice calm. "Won't know where the enemy is, when water sources get poisoned, when plague erupts—can only react passively."
Chu Hongying nodded.
She walked to the storm-proof lantern inside the tent, reached out—not adjusting the wick, but pinching the flame between her fingers.
The flame danced at her fingertips, didn't burn her, instead grew brighter.
"Then let the darkness descend," she said, eyes reflecting the firelight. "But don't forget—"
She released her hand, the flame restored to normal.
"—we ourselves are the light source."
She looked at Shen Yuzhu and Lu Wanning:
"Yuzhu, starting tomorrow, your mirror-imprints are only for internal use—monitor water purity, predict weather, analyze heart fluctuations. Don't extend outward one more chi."
"Wanning, your reason veins are only for medical and resource allocation—monitor the wounded, purify possible pollution, ensure provisions safety. Don't perceive any Order-Net spiritual flows."
"Changfeng, I'll inform him. His wind domain is only for patrol and warning—don't resonate with environmental emotions anymore."
She paused, her gaze like a blade:
"We'll seal ourselves shut."
"Let the Empire's eyes—suddenly go blind."
Shen Yuzhu and Lu Wanning exchanged glances.
They both saw the same thing in each other's eyes: This is dangerous, but it might be the only way out.
"What about you?" Wanning asked. "Your Bloodlock's earth vein connection is deepest; to sever it, the pain would be ten times ours."
Chu Hongying raised her arm.
The Bloodlock glowed beneath her skin, patterns flowing slowly like living things. She looked at it, looked for a long time, then said:
"I won't sever it."
The two froze.
"I'll make it—reverse resonate." Chu Hongying's voice lowered, yet held a terrifying resolve. "Since the Bloodlock connects to earth veins, I'll use that connection. Not to receive information, but to release chaos."
"Release what chaos?" Shen Yuzhu had a sense of foreboding.
Chu Hongying looked at him, the corner of her mouth curling into a faint, icy arc:
"I'll release 'disordered soul-trace fluctuations.'"
"The Empire's Order-Net is built upon absolute order and prediction. So, I'll turn the earth veins into chaos—make spiritual flows lose their regularity, make life soul-traces randomly appear and disappear, make the entire northern borderlands, in the perception of the Order-Net, become an unparsable, constantly distorting nightmare."
She spoke calmly.
But Shen Yuzhu and Lu Wanning both felt a chill.
This wasn't resistance.
This was mutual destruction.
Turning the northern borderlands into an Order-Net incomprehensible chaos meant this land itself would become difficult to inhabit—earth vein chaos might trigger quakes, avalanches, climate abnormalities; soul-trace disturbances might mutate creatures; might even affect the people living here spiritually.
"Hongying..." Shen Yuzhu made to stop her.
"I know the consequences," Chu Hongying cut him off. "But these are our choices: either we get thoroughly analyzed bit by bit, harvested completely; or we overturn the game board, let everyone lose."
She walked to the tent entrance and lifted the flap.
Outside, cold wind poured in, blowing the lantern flame into a violent sway.
She looked back and finally said:
"Three days."
"Give me three days to prepare. Three days later—"
"I'll destabilize the earth veins. I'll make the entire northern borderlands, in the Empire's eyes, 'disappear.'"
She walked out.
The tent flap fell, blocking the wind, blocking her silhouette.
Shen Yuzhu and Lu Wanning sat inside the tent, for a long time without speaking.
The lantern swayed, casting flickering shadows on the tent cloth.
Finally, Wanning said softly:
"She'll soul-disperse."
Not a question, a statement.
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes.
"I know," he said. "But she'll drag the entire Empire's Order-Net system down with her."
He opened his eyes. The patterns' light was completely dimmed, only the depths of his pupils holding azure embers.
"So we only have three days."
"Within three days, find a way to prevent her soul-dispersal."
"Or—"
He stopped, didn't continue.
But Wanning understood.
Or, find a way to make her sacrifice more valuable.
Outside, the night wind howled.
The Crimson Heart Banner whipped wildly atop the fortress's highest point, the dark patterns on its surface glowing with a faint bloodlight under the moonlight, like a heart stubbornly beating against the eternal night.
And a thousand li away, in the depths of the Mirror Palace, the new Emperor stood before flowing mirror walls and suddenly frowned.
On the walls, that four-colored soul-trace fluctuation representing the northern borderlands node—"Garrison-Seven"—
had suddenly begun to tremble unsteadily.
Not strengthening, not weakening.
But flickering in an unparsable, chaotic state that violated all predictive models.
His fingertips hovered before the walls, unmoving for a long time.
That inhumanly handsome face, for the first time, showed—
Puzzlement.