Mulan was watching and waiting till the enemy arrived. Laying her eyes on the enemy encampment without lowering her guard for even a moment. Yet nothing happened.
No ladders advanced. No siege engines rolled forward. No horns announced another attack. The silence itself became unsettling.
The defenders remained prepared throughout the entire day, sleeping in shifts and eating atop the walls, expecting the enemy to attack at any moment.
But Duke Lu had reached a different conclusion. His infantry had already suffered devastating casualties. Nearly half of his assault force had been destroyed trying to breach the Jin mansions rather weak defenses.
Continuing frontal assaults against Luo He's fortifications would only bleed his remaining soldiers dry. Instead, he chose patience. The Jin mansion was to be surrounded on every side.
If the defenders refused to surrender, then they would simply be starved into submission. More importantly, Duke Lu believed time favored him.
According to the information available to him, the Wu Kingdom's navy was already crushing Jin Sang's pirate stronghold. Once the Pirate Island fell, countless prisoners would be taken.
Those captives could become valuable bargaining chips against Jin Mulan herself. He knew nothing of Elder Zhong's defeat. He knew nothing of Jin Sang's survival.
He knew nothing of the confusion unfolding across the sea. Only Luo He's private intelligence network possessed messenger crows trained to carry reports with such remarkable speed.
Ordinary military communications still required days to travel between battlefields. For Duke Lu, the naval campaign had already ended in Wu's favor. He simply did not know it yet. But he couldn't have been more wrong.
The Emperor of Yue finished reading the detailed report and slowly lowered the parchment, letting the silence settle around him.
When he finally looked up, a faint smile appeared on his face."This boy's reports are always like this," he murmured quietly. "Nothing but facts."
He picked up Jin Mulan's report once more, studying it with careful attention.
Every figure was recorded with the meticulous care of a pragmatist.
The enemy force numbered 34,000 soldiers, 10,000 cavalry and 24,000 infantry. Approximately 12,000 had been killed over the first days of the siege.
The defenders' own casualties were listed just as honestly, without attempting to hide their losses in shadow. No any boastful language at all.
No dramatic embellishment. No any overly exaggerated victories meant to impress the Imperial Court. Just facts.
The Emperor let out a quiet laugh and looked toward the men gathered nearby.
"Most military reports must be read twice." He remarked, tapping the parchment. "The first reading tells you what the commander wants you to believe."
"The second is spent discovering what actually happened. Victories become larger, defeats become smaller, and every general somehow kills twice as many enemies as he truly did."
He held up Jin Mulan's report with visible satisfaction. "But this boy never writes like that. Neither does his wife." His eyes stopped on a single line. He paused there, reading it again.
"General Jin Mulan personally slayed approximately four to five hundred enemy soldiers." The Emperor set the report down and chuckled softly.
"Everything else, I believe." He shook his head with an amused smile, a note of skepticism in his voice.
"But this... Four to five hundred men? Even for a grandmaster, that sounds rather optimistic. Two to three hundred would have been more believable."
He did not cross it out, nor did he dismiss it entirely. Instead, he carefully set the report aside with the others. "I shall leave this one to the battlefield historians."
Little did he know that this would become the only figure in the entire report that he questioned, and the only one that would later prove him completely wrong.
Far away in the Northern Isle when Luo He received the report, he merely smiled upon hearing the same detail which had been doubted by the Yue emporer.
"Only four to five hundred?" He said to himself, leaning back with rather quiet amusement. He laughed, a sound filled with perfect understanding.
"My wife was holding back." He said to Su Kim. To anyone else, the number sounded impossible. To Luo He, it sounded perfectly reasonable.
He knew Jin Mulan better than anyone alive. Before the world, she was calm, disciplined, elegant, and dignified. The image of a flawless general.
Before him, she could be possessive, gentle, affectionate, loving and almost innocent.
But on the battlefield, Luo He knew exactly what kind of monster his beloved wife became once a spear entered her soft and beautiful hands.
There was a precision to her violence, a grace to her lethality, that existed nowhere else in the world. He had witnessed it firsthand, and it frightened him in a very interesting way.
Not because he feared her, but because he understood the depths of what she was capable of. And he was aroused by the fact his wife was terrifying.
There was a reason he had entrusted the defense of the Jin Mansion to her without a single doubt. If anyone could truly kill five hundred men in a single siege, it was his precious Mulan.
For an emperor who had spent decades learning to separate hard truth from exaggeration in battlefield reports, there was no greater treasure than a trusted commander.
And for a husband who had spent years understanding his wife's true nature, there was only one thought, my baby was still holding back.
While Jin Mulan waited upon the walls, waiting to be attacked, Luo He spent the day pursuing an entirely different victory.
Leaving the Northern Isles early that morning after bidding farewell to Su Kim, he returned to the Gin family's military encampment exactly as he had sworne to Gin Xuexin.
This time, however, he did not sneak into her tent under cover of darkness. Instead he requested a formal audience with Marshal Gin Wenyuan and Xuexin's father, Gin Hao.
Luo He proudly entered the great Gin clan encampment with the same calm confidence that had carried him through countless impossible situations.
The camp was orderly despite the distant war, its banners swaying gently beneath the afternoon breeze. Soldiers moved with disciplined purpose.
Yet many paused to glance at the unfamiliar young man walking through their ranks with such casual certainty.
Before presenting himself to the patriarch, Luo He went first to Gin Xuexin's secluded tent. She looked up the moment he entered.
The loneliness that usually lingered in her eyes disappeared almost instantly, replaced by unmistakable joy. Luo He smiled faintly and extended his hand.
"We're going to finally speak with your grandfather." There was no elaborate explanation. No reassurance. No any hesitation.
Gin Xuexin simply placed her hand in his.
"Really?" She asked.
He nodded simply.
"Today." A smile bloomed across her face so brightly that it seemed to erase years of isolation. She followed beside him without the slightest reluctance.
Unlike most members of the clan, she had never feared her grandfather. Gin Wenyuan had always treated her with kindness, and despite his rather stern appearance, she knew the old patriarch cared for her deeply.
If anyone could be persuaded, it would be him. As the two entered the command tent, the atmosphere immediately grew extremely heavy.
Gin Wenyuan sat behind a large campaign table covered with maps. Beside him stood Gin Hao, Xuexin's father, whose sharp eyes immediately settled upon Luo He.
The old patriarch studied the young man in silence. Luo He returned the gaze without lowering his own. He did not bow excessively or attempt to flatter the old Gin patriarch.
Instead, he spoke with disarming honesty. "I am a man without anything," Luo He said. "I possess no noble title of my own. I am not a renowned scholar, nor a famous martial artist. I am simply a man who loves your granddaughter."
He paused before continuing. "So today I have come to ask for her hand." The tent fell silent. Before either elder could respond, Gin Xuexin suddenly stepped forward.
Without caring for dignity, appearances or prestige she knelt before her father and grandfather. Tears welled in her eyes almost immediately. "Grandfather..."
Her voice trembled.
"The second prince has never written to me. He never visits. He has never once asked how I am." She lowered her head.
"But He comes. He remembers me. He speaks with me. He listens. He treats me gently. I have never met anyone who has cared for me the way he does." She looked up through tear-filled eyes.
"So... please. Please let me marry him."
Gin Wenyuan's expression gradually hardened. He had seen this look before.
Not once. Not twice. Many many times throughout his long life.
This was not ordinary affection. This was the unmistakable look of someone whose heart had already chosen this man completely.