The world behind the door was a deeper, narrower ice chamber than the main cavern. The air was almost stagnant, the cold like fine needles, piercing skin from every pore. It felt like a corner forgotten by time, silent save for their suppressed breathing and heartbeats.
Chu Hongying's eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. Using the vastly diminished sliver of light seeping through the door crack, she surveyed her surroundings. The walls weren't natural but bore rough, man-made chisel marks, covered in deep and shallow grooves. Moving closer, her heart clenched—they were last words written in long-dried, blackened blood, alongside simple military formation diagrams and supply route markings hastily scratched with weapons, interspersed with desperate warnings and resentful curses... The handwriting varied, but all carried a visceral sense of tragedy and desperation.
These were the traces left by the Chu army soldiers trapped here in their final moments.
She moved slowly along the ice wall, her fingertips brushing against the cold grooves, as if she could touch the fading warmth of that bloody battle over a decade ago. Suddenly, her steps froze, her gaze locked on the scene at the center of the ice chamber—
There, a tall figure was completely encased in translucent, dark ice. He wore the tattered armor of a Chu army general, and even after the erosion of time and ice, he still stood tall, spear in hand, eyes wide with fury, as if ready to burst forth from the ice and take his enemies with him. The contours of his brow bone and nose bridge bore a striking resemblance to her father's face in her memory.
Nailed to the chest armor of the ice-encased general with a broken spearhead was a tattered battle standard. The flag was faded, its edges curled and torn, but on the brass flag holder, a deeply carved, weathered character "Lu" reflected a faint, tenacious cold light in the gloom.
"Third... Third Uncle..." Chu Hongying's throat felt as if an invisible hand were choking it, her voice dry and trembling, barely coherent. She recognized him—her father's blood brother, Lu Yunlan, the valiant general renowned for his courage throughout the Chu army! So, he had fallen here in the end... The wound frozen for ten years was torn open anew by this tragic sight, raw and bleeding.
She stumbled forward, reaching out to touch the icy seal, but stopped an inch away, her fingertips trembling uncontrollably.
Just as her mind was reeling, unable to master herself—
Thump—
A suppressed, muffled sound came from beside her.
Chu Hongying whirled around. Shen Yuzhu's face had turned from pale to a terrifying greyish-blue, a trickle of dark blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, and his body slid weakly down the ice wall, his breath as faint as a guttering candle. The chill poison within him, triggered by the successive shocks and his forced exertion, had finally erupted completely, like a runaway horse charging straight for his heart meridian!
"Yuzhu!"
Chu Hongying cried out in alarm, all grief and shock instantly replaced by sheer panic. She lunged forward, catching him before he hit the ground, holding him half in her arms. Where she touched him, his body was cold and stiff as the stones in this ice cave, only the blood at his lips holding a trace of ominous warmth.
She could attend to nothing else. Quickly sitting cross-legged, she steadied Shen Yuzhu with his back to her. Placing her palms firmly against his icy back, the scorching, purely Yang energy within her surged forth like a bursting dam, forcibly rushing into his nearly frozen, parched, and blocked meridians.
"Urgh—" Shen Yuzhu let out a pained groan the moment her energy invaded, his body convulsing violently. The blood seeping from his lips now contained faint, visible wisps of white chill!
Chu Hongying's heart felt torn apart. She could clearly "see" the situation inside him—meridians broken and blocked in multiple places, tangled and heavy like a frozen river riddled with cracks, and deep within that extreme cold, a sinister, domineering toxicity was frantically devouring his faint life force. Her energy was like fire thrown into an icy sea; though vast and warm, it was constantly consumed in its collision with the accumulated chill poison.
Anxiety, anger, and a thread of fear she hadn't even noticed herself intertwined within her. She suddenly withdrew one hand, instead gripping Shen Yuzhu's icy wrist with crushing force, almost enough to shatter the bone. She forced his face towards her, her gaze burning like fire,死死 staring into his eyes, which were clenched in pain and trying to avoid hers. Her voice squeezed through gritted teeth:
"Shen Yuzhu! Look at me! Who are you?! This injury, this brand, where did they come from?! If you speak a single false word, if you truly are the death guard he says has no traitors—how can I trust you now?! Why don't I... why don't I just kill you now, and be done with it!" The last words trembled on the verge of breakdown.
Shen Yuzhu was stunned by the near-mad pain and desperation in her eyes. His eyelashes fluttered violently, like a dying butterfly. His lips moved a few times before, as if expending his last strength, he slowly opened his eyes and met her burning gaze. The eyes that were always warm and smiling now held only a desolate exhaustion and a strange calm.
"I... cough..." He started to speak but was wracked by a coughing fit that brought up more blood-flecked ice shards. His voice was hoarse, almost a sigh. "I was... a death guard trained by the Wolf Talon Camp. The Snow Wolf Valley battle... was supposed to be my final mission."
Chu Hongying's fingers on his wrist tightened sharply, the blood in her eyes deepening.
"But I... defected." He closed his eyes, as if speaking those words took all his courage. "Just before the massacre began... I saw something I shouldn't have... This brand is a shame and a curse I cannot wash away. This chill poison... is the 'Punishment of the Wolf's Devourment' planted when I defected, the price..." He gasped, opening his eyes to look at her again, his gaze vulnerable yet clear. "...and also the motivation that forces me to uncover the truth of Snow Wolf Valley, to find the true 'hand that draws the bow'... to keep living."
Chu Hongying felt as if struck by a sledgehammer, a loud roar echoing in her heart. She looked at his pale, fragile face, the blood constantly seeping from his lips, the faint but stubborn persistence in the desolation of his eyes... The fingers on his pulse point, gathered with force enough to sever heart meridians, simply couldn't press down.
Was he telling the truth? Was this just another layer of sophisticated disguise?
Just as her mind wavered, trust and suspicion locked in a final, brutal struggle—
Crack...
A very faint sound of cracking ice came from the ice pillar encasing Lu Yunlan's remains nearby.
Both turned to look.
From a fissure near the base of the pillar, a slender object, tightly wrapped in oilcloth, was being slowly pushed out by some force. The cloth was dark, almost blending with the ice, and would have been impossible to spot had it not been exposed now.
Releasing Shen Yuzhu, Chu Hongying cautiously approached and carefully pried open the brittle oilcloth with the tip of her spear.
What was revealed wasn't some divine weapon, but a scroll made of yellowish, leather-like material. Unfurling it, she read the writing by the residual faint blue light of the wall sigils—words written in long-dried, blackened blood! The handwriting was rushed and frantic, clearly scribbled in extreme desperation, yet still carrying a determined force that seemed to pierce the page:
"The Ministry of War fire seal is genuine."
"The Seventh Prince in the capital exchanged secret letters with deployment maps."
"If the Lu clan perishes, the Northern Border will be pacified, the court stabilized."
— Lu Yunlan, last testament
These few lines struck Chu Hongying's mind like successive thunderclaps!
The Ministry of War fire seal! The Seventh Prince of the capital! Deployment maps! Trading the destruction of the Lu clan for peace on the northern border and stability in the court!
So Helian Sha hadn't been lying! So the "arrow from behind" truly came from higher up! So the Chu army, from start to finish, had been the sacrificial pawns in a meticulously planned inside job! "Daughter of the traitorous Lu clan"... this title she had borne for over a decade was such a laughably cruel injustice!
Her fingers trembled so violently she could barely hold the lightweight leather scroll. The blood in her veins seemed to freeze instantly, only to boil and burn the next moment. Boundless rage, ingrained grievance, and soul-corroding desolation surged and roared within her chest like lava, threatening to tear her apart!
She crumpled the scroll tightly in her fist, the tough leather groaning under the strain.
Just as the truth was revealed, bringing even greater despair—
"General! General! Are you in there?!"
From outside the hidden door came the faint, frantic cries of Lu Wanning, tinged with sobs!
"Overseer Gu Changfeng has brought men nearby! But, but something terrible has happened at the camp! The granaries have suddenly caught fire, the blaze is huge, spreading rapidly! Morale... morale is in complete chaos!"
Chu Hongying's head snapped up!
Simultaneously, through the narrow door crack, she saw the flickering red light reflected on the ice walls outside! The light was so fierce it overpowered the sigils' blue glow. The white snow and ice outside were dyed an ominous shade of blood.
The granaries burned! Morale in chaos!
The internal traitor unresolved, enemies surrounding them, the capital's dark hand hidden behind the scenes, and now, the very foundation of her foothold—the Northern Frontier camp—was burning from within!
She took a deep breath, the air filled with the cold of the ice cave and the scorching heat of blood and fire, flooding her lungs. She bent down, looping the arm of the weak, barely-standing Shen Yuzhu over her shoulder, using all her strength to support him. Her other hand clutched the blood-stained leather scroll, her knuckles white from the force.
Her gaze swept one last time over her third uncle, frozen in his battle stance, over the silent accusations written in blood on the walls, over Shen Yuzhu's pale but calm profile, and finally, fixed on the hidden door that separated inside from out, yet couldn't block the crisis and conspiracies.
Outside, the blizzard still raged, but now it was stained bloody by the soaring beacon fires.
A new war, and even more turbulent undercurrents, were already raging fiercely in places she couldn't see.
"Let's go!" she squeezed out a hoarse, resolute syllable from the depths of her throat.