The cottage air hung thick with the scent of aged medicinal herbs—fragrances of ginseng, angelica, and stranger roots that spoke of ancient knowledge. Silence reigned but for the fire's persistent crackle, its flames casting dancing shadows that seemed to breathe with secrets of their own.
The Medicine Elder stood before the sickbed—a child's face veiling a century-old soul. Her small form seemed to absorb the room's dim light, making her presence both diminutive and immense. Her childish voice rasped, each word cutting like a blade honed through decades of solitude and observation. She circled Chu Hongying with unnatural grace, gaze sharp as a honed knife, peeling back the armor around her heart with terrifying precision.
"Daughter of Lu Heng," she began, the name hanging in the herbal-scented air, "do you know what lies within the 'Lie Feng Spear'? Not merely steel and craftsmanship, but something far more precious."
Chu Hongying gripped her spear, fingers finding familiar grooves in the worn handle. She remained silent as forged steel, yet her knuckles whitened with unspoken tension.
"Before your father drew his final breath," the Elder continued, "he sealed half of the 'Lu Family Mechanism Diagrams' inside the shaft—the very key to the Bronze Door that so many have sought, so many have died for." Her laughter held no warmth, only the chill of ancient truths. "Half rests in your spear, pulsing with legacy and danger. As for the other half..." She paused, letting the silence stretch. "Even I wish to know its resting place. Did you truly believe he left you merely a weapon? Or did you sense there was always more to your inheritance?"
Chu Hongying's pupils narrowed, memories flashing through her mind—her father's hands on this very spear, his whispered warnings, the weight he'd placed on her young shoulders. For ten years, she had seen Lie Feng only as her father's legacy, a symbol to uphold. Now that understanding shifted, leaving her unsteady.
"And now," the Elder's voice sharpened, "you would break the spear and abandon your path for him?" She pointed one slender, childlike finger toward the breathless Shen Yuzhu. "Is he worth such cost? Worth shattering your father's final gift?"
"I do this not for him alone," Chu Hongying's voice remained low but gained steel, "but for the Northern Frontier's peace, for the Lu family's vindication, and so that... no others become pawns in power games that grind lives to dust." Her gaze didn't waver. "If saving one man who has fought beside me makes me a fool, then I embrace the title."
A flicker of approval vanished from the Medicine Elder's eyes like a snuffed candle. She traced a finger through the air; white smoke billowed from nowhere, flooding the room with mist that carried the scent of pine and forgotten places.
"Fine words require testing," her voice turned to ice. "The third question—you must answer within the illusion, where truth cannot hide behind noble speeches."
❖
The illusion descended without mercy, three trials pressing down like physical weights—
Father in chains, snow clinging to his torn armor: "The spear must not break! It is our family's soul!"
Soldiers shouting, their faces twisted with betrayal: "A woman cannot lead! Your very existence undermines everything!"
The man in her arms, his breath ghosting against her neck: "Was there ever... a moment... for me? Not the general, not the ally... just me?"
Illusions layered like crushing stones, each vision more vivid than reality. Chu Hongying clenched the Lie Feng Spear, knuckles white with strain—her father's will, her sole support for ten years, now feeling both impossibly heavy and desperately fragile.
"Choose." The Medicine Elder's voice sliced from the void, cold and final.
Her lips parted without sound. Duty to her father's memory, injustice demanding redress, trust of soldiers who followed her... and that pale, gentle face that had somehow become anchor and vulnerability—all warred within her trembling spirit.
As her mind neared breaking, drowning in impossible choices, a thread of warmth touched her wrist—real and solid amid the phantom terrors.
❖
At the illusion's edge, a hand broke through the fabric of nightmare, clasping her wrist with desperate strength.
Shen Yuzhu.
Though hovering at death's door, pale as the snow outside, he had forced his ravaged will into her torment. Blood stained his lips like crushed berries, his voice a fading thread barely louder than a sigh:
"Hongying... refuse their game." His gaze shone with startling clarity, cutting through the pain that wracked his body. His trembling hand locked onto her pulse, as though forcing his fading breath into her veins, sharing what little life remained. "Choose for yourself... not as general, not as daughter... If you will not live for yourself, I cannot rest even in death."
—Choose for yourself.
The words struck like thunder, shaking the foundations of her being.
Chu Hongying's eyes cleared, the illusions wavering like heat haze. She stood straighter, voice ringing through the dissolving nightmare:
"I choose 'neither'. I choose both."
"The spear is my father's will; the man, my heart. Will I will not forsake; heart I will not betray." The Lie Feng Spear slammed down, its butt cracking the illusory ground like spiderwebs, reality shuddering at the impact. "If the world dares force a choice—then let this world shatter beneath my spear! I will remake it to fit my truth!"
❖
The illusion shattered like glass, fragments of nightmare dissolving into herbal-scented air.
She stood in the cottage, brow damp with effort, chest heaving. Shen Yuzhu lay unconscious on the bed, fresh blood stark against his pale lips. That glance, that grasp—his final strength spent to pull her from despair.
The Medicine Elder stood calmly observing, a subtle curve to her lips that might have been approval or merely curiosity.
"Interesting." Her voice softened, losing its edge of ice. "I expected the spear, or the man... the practical or the emotional. Yet you chose the hardest path—the one that demands you have both, whatever the cost."
She produced golden needles from her sleeve, each tip glowing with an eerie blue light that seemed to drink the room's illumination.
"He can be saved," she stated, "but know this—by shielding both spear and man today, you invite a trial that will demand blood for steel, sacrifice for salvation." Her ancient eyes brushed Chu Hongying's chest wound, seeing deeper than flesh. "This is the consequence you chose when you refused to choose."
Her fingertips flew with impossible speed, needles piercing Shen Yuzhu's seven orifices with precision that spoke of centuries of practice. His body convulsed, the wolf-mark on his nape blazing crimson as live embers, resisting like a conscious thing fighting its own salvation. Unconscious, he groaned through clenched teeth, veins bulging along his neck and temples.
Chu Hongying didn't hesitate. A dagger flashed, a quick cut over her heart. Blood dripped steadily into the waiting bowl, each drop a promise. She lifted his head, spooning the blood-laced brew between his lips with hands that didn't tremble.
Never releasing his icy hand, as though channeling life, will, warmth through their touch—a connection that felt more real than the cottage walls around them.
❖
As the treatment concluded, the Medicine Elder glanced toward the distant mountains visible through the window:
"Has the wolf pup seen his fill? Or does he still hope to snatch what isn't his to take?"
Chu Hongying followed her gaze. Helian Sha stood on a snowy ridge, his figure dark against the white landscape. Fingers absently stroked the wolf fang at his belt. A branch snapped in his grip, blood welling from his palm where splinters pierced flesh. He did not even notice the blood; his gaze was fixed on the flickering shadows in the cottage, on the two forms so close together. His wolf pack crouched low around him, throats rumbling with suppressed energy. Pain flashed through his eyes, swiftly buried under cold pride and older sorrows.
Without a word, he turned and vanished into the blizzard's embrace, a mocking smile on his lips that didn't reach his eyes.
His final look said clearer than words: I await your impossible balance, and the day it breaks you.
❖
Deep night wrapped the cottage in stillness. Shen Yuzhu's breathing steadied, the terrible rattling quality gone, replaced by the soft rhythm of natural sleep.
Chu Hongying watched his sleeping face, tracing the familiar lines in the dimness. Candlelight shadowed his lashes against pale skin, making the teardrop mole stand out like a drop of ink on parchment. In repose, he looked younger, the weight of strategies and survival lifted for a few precious hours.
His fingers twitched, lightly brushing her hand where it rested on the bedcover.
The touch was lighter than breath, yet heavier than an army's roar—shaking her more than any battlefield clash, any command decision, any moment of life-or-death combat.
She did not pull away, letting the contact linger, a silent answer to questions neither had voiced.
In that moment, she wondered not as a general or a daughter, but simply as a woman: "Which weighs more—the spear, or this hand? Which is harder to carry—duty, or care?"
No answer was needed, for in her heart, she already knew.
❖
"The Wolf Pledge is suppressed for now," the Medicine Elder's weary voice drifted from the inner room, "but cold poison wars with wolf toxin in his veins. Seven days of needles and blood exchange await him. Seven days where death sits at his bedside." A pause, filled with the weight of unspoken warnings. "Seven days, seven deaths—each day a dirge sung by spirits waiting to claim him. Should his will falter for even a moment, each needle will drive him closer to the grave rather than pull him back."
Chu Hongying looked up from her vigil. "What must I do? Tell me plainly."
"Guard him," came the simple reply. "Not just his body, but his spirit. Do not let his will to live break, for that fracture would be fatal." A meaningful silence stretched. "Sometimes, a reason to live outweighs any cure. Your presence may be the anchor that keeps him from drifting into darkness."
Chu Hongying glanced down. Shen Yuzhu's fingers had unconsciously hooked her robe hem, a drowning man's desperate grip on driftwood, holding on even in unknowing sleep.
She did not shake him off, did not pull away. She adjusted her position to make his grasp more comfortable, a silent acceptance of this fragile connection.
❖
Beyond the window, the snowstorm continued its endless dance, whiting out the world beyond the cottage walls. The Medicine Elder's voice came once more, softer now:
"Remember today's choice, general's daughter. Remember the path you carved between impossible options."
"When the spear breaks—as all things must break eventually—do not regret. For regret is a poison no herb can counter."
Chu Hongying gazed at Shen Yuzhu's pale, peaceful face, at the slow rise and fall of his chest, and whispered words she'd never thought to speak:
"If that day comes... if I must pay the price for this choice... I accept. Without hesitation."
Candlelight wove their shadows into one, inseparable entity on the wall—a single silhouette that held both warrior and caretaker, spear and hand, duty and love.
On the distant ridge, invisible through the storm, Helian Sha stood among his wolves, watching the cottage where light still glowed, his expression unreadable—pain and pride entwined, longing and bitterness warring in his heart.
The wolves lifted their heads as one, howling into the storm, their cries carrying far across the snow-blanketed landscape, a primal song of warning and waiting.
As if to herald, to anyone who might be listening, that this game of life and death, love and loyalty, had only just begun its next, more dangerous movement.