Si's room was barely large enough to fit a single futon mattress. His clothes were wrapped inside a worn sack, and the space was illuminated only by the pale rays of the early morning sun filtering through the narrow window.
He sat cross-legged, eyes shut tight, his body still as a statue. Before him lay a snow-white dagger with a wolf-shaped hilt, resting within an equally pristine white sheath. Beside it was a neatly folded piece of paper.
Instructor Weijie had personally delivered the items earlier that morning, yet Si had not so much as touched them. His attention had been captured by a strange occurrence that followed his victory over Qiang the previous day.
After several months, those familiar messages that once appeared within his vision had returned, but this time they carried something new.
[Distinguish Yourself At the Battle Of Kong'gong pass]
[Total Jinshan Soldiers killed: 0/25]
[Reward: Unknown]
[Penalty: Death]
The Battle of Kong'gong Pass was one in which Yunhe had suffered a crushing defeat, a disaster that claimed nearly eighty percent of its army.
In his past life, Si had not taken part in that battle. Yet now, he had been given a task tied directly to that very battlefield, and with it came a punishment.
Death…
Si's brows twisted deeply at that word, irritation flashing across his face. Having already been denied his ambitions once, the heavens now deemed it fit to threaten him, reducing him to something no better than a pawn bound by unseen strings.
Bi Si, King of Yunhe and the Divine General of Death, had never felt so insulted in all his three hundred years of existence.
His eyes slowly opened as the tension in his expression faded. A quiet sigh slipped from his lips, and just like that, the storm within him settled. The heavens had once toyed with his emotions and shattered his dreams. He had no intention of allowing them to break him a second time.
"I have no means of resisting, so I will play along until I find one. Cursing and raging will not change my situation. Only strength will."
His voice was calm, though a trace of heaviness lingered within it.
The faster he regained his power, the sooner he could shatter the chains the heavens had placed upon him.
"This task also reveals that the Death Banner squad will be involved in the battle of Kong'gong Pass less than a year from now. I will be able to enter the war far sooner than I did in my past life. That is good."
The more he considered it, the less he viewed the task as a burden. In truth, it offered him exactly what he needed. Fame, recognition, and an accelerated path to growth. What he despised was not the opportunity, but the command behind it.
Still, a thought surfaced in his mind.
If he fought at Kong'gong Pass, would the future begin to change?
"The task requires me to distinguish myself, not to win. If Yunhe still loses, then nothing changes, correct?"
A flicker of curiosity passed through him.
He was a general, his knowledge rooted in war and combat. Matters of time, fate, and shifting destinies lay far beyond the reach of his understanding. Rather than dwell on them, he dismissed such thoughts without hesitation.
"Even if the future changes, it does not matter. As long as I regain my cultivation, the central plains will still burn, and I will still ascend the heavens. No matter how much the timeline shifts."
With that, he cast aside his concerns.
His focus returned to the present. Training his squad into a reliable force was far more urgent. At this moment, he was still flesh and blood, far from the invincible general he had once been. To survive the battlefield, he would need more than his own strength.
No one understood the horrors of war better than him.
That was precisely why he refused to overestimate himself.
Unfortunately, with only two out of five members in his squad, their training was limited to physical conditioning and one on one spars. Formation drills could not begin until the squad was complete, and Si had no way of knowing how long it would take for the remaining three positions to be filled. At this point in his past life, he had still been a grave digger, far removed from such concerns.
On this matter, he had no choice but to wait.
Eventually, he pushed those thoughts aside and turned his attention to the dagger and note resting before him. He had fully expected that Yan Cheng would have to die by his hand before Lady Lian ever reached out to him.
Si knew nothing of Qiang's monstrous reputation within the camp. In his previous life, he had been nothing more than a grave digger at this stage, and thus had no understanding of how significant his victory truly was.
In reality, the tale of the slave boy who defeated Tengen Qiang, the Jinshan warrior killer, was spreading at a pace far beyond his imagination. This achievement eclipsed even his defeat of Yan Cheng in his past life, yet he remained completely unaware of it.
He reached for the folded paper and opened it.
"To the one who walks among graves yet stands above the living,
Steel remembers the hand that claims it. So too do I remember the sight of you beneath the storm, unmoved, unbroken… unafraid.
This blade is not a reward. It is a promise.
A promise that I have seen what others have overlooked. A promise that even in filth and ruin, something rare can still take root and rise.
You stand where others kneel. You endure where others shatter. And though the world has buried you among the forgotten, I find myself… unwilling to do the same.
Perhaps it is curiosity. Perhaps it is something far less simple.
Carry this blade as you carried yourself that night, with quiet defiance and unspoken strength. Let it drink deeply, let it sing in your grasp… and let it carve your name into a world that dares to ignore you.
And when the weight of blood and battle grows heavy, when silence returns and the night stretches long…
Remember.
There is someone watching. Someone waiting.
Not for your fall… But for the moment you choose to rise."
A faint tug formed at the corner of Si's lips as he read. That subtle shift gradually deepened, blossoming into something that could almost be called a smile by the time he reached the final line.
Deep within, his heart pounded wildly, yet outwardly his expression barely changed. To any observer, it would hardly qualify as a smile at all.
Without a word, he crumpled the paper, tossed it into his mouth, and swallowed it in a single motion. Such things were not meant to be carried. Not for Lady Lian's sake.
Si then picked up the dagger and unsheathed it without hesitation. His eyes flickered briefly over the inscription carved into the blade before he gave a quiet, indifferent nod.
He had seen weapons of far greater quality.
But for now, this would suffice.
It would serve him well until he found something worthy of replacing it.