The snow stopped falling in the coldest hour before dawn.
But it was not peace—it was suffocation.
When Luo Bing knelt beside the eastern slope's water channel, the first light of day had just sliced through the clouds, casting a sickly pallor over the pool of gray-blue water before him. Not the murky gray of yesterday, but a more sinister, living blue that pulsed beneath the ice like the ichor of some deep-sea creature.
He scrambled back to camp, his voice scraping out as if ground by gravel: "General... the water... it's changed..."
Lu Wanning's fingertip touched the water sample, and the Li-silver needle exploded.
Not broken—its intrinsic pattern channels were violently shattered by some ruthless Law, black cracks spiderwebbing from the needle's tail as if torn apart from within. She lifted the fractured needle expressionlessly, studying under the dawn light the strange, writhing gray-blue substance clinging to its tip.
"Order-Poison mutation," she announced, her tone as detached as a sentencing. "Soul-trace residue mixed with Mirror-Guard ashes, spreading through the earth veins at accelerated speed. Contamination rate compared to last night's estimate—"
She paused, her heterochromatic eyes sweeping over the pale, bewildered faces gathered outside the medical tent.
"Three times faster."
"What does that mean?" Gu Changfeng's voice came from behind the crowd. He pushed past the soldiers, his face weary from the night patrols but his eyes still sharp as blades.
"It means," Lu Wanning dropped the broken needle into a prepared lime jar; it hissed violently upon contact, "the water source that would have been fatal in three days, now—"
She looked up, enunciating each word:
"Will kill upon ingestion by noon."
Silence.
Deeper, heavier than last night's. Even the sound of wind sweeping snow felt piercing.
A young soldier suddenly crouched, burying his face in his hands. He did not cry, only his shoulders shook violently, like the spasms of a dying animal.
Gu Changfeng's fists tightened. Instinctively, he wanted to expand his wind domain—to use that power resonating with the environment to steady these crumbling emotions. But the moment the wind stirred, he heard it.
Click.
A faint, ice-cracking sound, from deep within his consciousness.
Then came a thousand voices—not heard with ears, but burrowing directly into his marrow through the wind:
We're going to die anyway…
Run, flee into the mountains, at least we can live a few more days…
This banner… is it really any use…
The voices were chaotic, despairing, filled with violent agitation. Gu Changfeng felt his mind stuffed into a beehive, countless madly buzzing wings gnawing at his reason. The veins on his forehead bulged as he forcefully suppressed his wind domain, the taste of blood rising in his throat.
He could not stand firm.
This realization chilled him more than any enemy's blade. Last night, he had barely held on, but now, with the despair of over three hundred people boiling simultaneously, his proud wind—once resonant with all things—had become the first dam to burst.
"Changfeng." Chu Hongying's voice came from behind him.
She had arrived unnoticed, wearing her usual dark undershirt, the Storm-Piercer spear dragging behind her, its tip plowing a deeper furrow in the snow than yesterday. The Bloodlock on her arm was fully exposed, showing a dull, congealed-blood hue in the dawn light.
Gu Changfeng did not turn, only rasped, "I can't steady them."
"Then don't." Chu Hongying stepped beside him, her gaze sweeping over the crouching, kneeling soldiers with hollow eyes. "Let them see clearly—how things that cannot be steadied are forcibly nailed to the ground."
She turned to face the growing crowd outside the medical tent.
The crowd had already vaguely split into three factions.
To the left was the "grain-raiding faction" led by the one-armed veteran Chen Lao-si—about fifty men, mostly soldiers in broken armor, gripping chipped blades, eyes red as trapped beasts. Behind them stood crudely made battering rams and rope ladders assembled overnight.
To the right was the "escape faction" led by the old herdsman Batu—mostly herders, women, and children, wrapped in tattered fur coats, their eyes evasive but their steps firm toward the camp's north gate. Several young herders were secretly dismantling fence posts, preparing sleds.
On the outskirts stood Cold Mountain Sect's head disciple Bai Ji and his followers, still pristine in white, starkly out of place amidst the surrounding ruin. They did not move, but their hands rested on sword hilts, forming seal gestures, as if awaiting a signal to depart.
Three sides in confrontation, the air taut as a bowstring stretched to its limit.
And Chu Hongying stood in the very center.
She did not draw her spear, did not roar. She simply stood silently, the Bloodlock on her arm faintly glowing with a dark red light, as if magma flowed slowly beneath her skin.
Then she spoke, her voice not loud yet clearly overriding all whispers:
"Finished arguing?"
The entire square fell silent.
"If you're done, then listen." She raised her left hand, pointing behind her. Lu Wanning, Gu Changfeng, and Shen Yuzhu, who was leaning weakly against a post, had already taken their places half a step behind her.
"The water will kill by noon. That is fact."
"You want to raid grain, flee, disband—that is also fact."
She paused, her gaze like a blade cutting across every face.
"But there is another fact."
She turned, walked to the channel edge marked "lethal poison" by Lu Wanning, bent down, and reached out.
"General!" several soldiers cried out in alarm.
Chu Hongying's hand hovered three inches above the water's surface. The patterns on her Bloodlock suddenly brightened, dark red light flowing like a living thing along her arm to her fingertips. Then, a drop of blood seeped from her fingertip.
Not falling.
But suspended.
The blood drop rotated slowly above the gray-blue water, like a miniature, burning heart. The air around it distorted; the gray-blue surface churned violently as if encountering a natural enemy, trying to retreat but pinned by some invisible force.
"Order-Poison is contamination at the Law level." Chu Hongying's voice was calm, as if stating common knowledge. "It defines 'this water is poisonous; drinkers will die.' This is the Empire's pen, writing a death sentence upon this land."
She flicked her fingertip.
The blood drop fell into the water.
Hiss—
A violent corrosion sound erupted. From the point of impact, frantic ripples exploded across the gray-blue surface. Yet, bizarrely, at the center of the ripples appeared a small patch of clarity.
Only the size of a fingernail, transparent, clean, glaring like a wound amidst the sea of gray-blue.
"And we," Chu Hongying straightened, shaking the residual blood from her fingertip, "what we must do is not flee, not accept fate, but—"
She looked up, the crimson fleck in her eyes burning fiercely in the dawn light:
"Write another answer on this death sentence."
Inside the medical tent, the oil lamp cast the shadows of four people onto the coarse hemp walls, swaying like struggling souls.
Lu Wanning spread a hand-drawn map of the camp, her fingertip resting on the eastern slope's water channel. Her fingers still trembled slightly—an aftereffect of overloading her pattern channels—but her voice was terrifyingly steady:
"The mutation of the Order-Poison proves the Order-Net is accelerating its harvest. They are in no hurry to send troops because they know we will first die by the very things we rely on to live."
She looked up, her heterochromatic eyes cold as surgical blades:
"To survive, there is only one method: forcibly tear out a space we can define, under the Order-Net's Law coverage."
"How?" Gu Changfeng asked hoarsely. He leaned against the medicine cabinet, his fingertips wrapped in blood-stained cloth—wounds that had split open this morning when he forced down his wind domain.
"Using the four of us." Lu Wanning's fingertip traced a diamond shape on the map. "Last night, when purifying the water, we unconsciously formed the prototype. Now, we must turn it into a conscious formation."
She named them one by one:
"Chu Hongying, Blood-Anchor. Your Bloodlock can stabilize collective emotions, preventing the field from being torn apart by despair. Standing at the formation's eye, you are the stake driven into frozen earth."
"Shen Yuzhu, Mirror-Trace. Your mirror patterns can analyze the Order-Poison's Law structure, perform reverse deduction, find the purification frequency. You are the formation's eyes, and its dagger."
"Gu Changfeng, Wind-Conduit. Your wind domain can channel the power of us three toward the same direction, preventing backlash. You are the formation's meridians."
"And I," she withdrew her hand, pressing her still-trembling fingertips, "Reason-Boundary. My pattern channels can delineate the scope of 'the world we define,' and harmonize all energy conflicts. I am the formation's skeleton."
The tent fell so quiet, the crackling of the lamp wick could be heard.
Shen Yuzhu leaned by the doorway, his face pale as paper. The aftermath of last night's mirror pattern backflow still gnawed at his nerves; with every breath, he felt icy Law-Residue settling in his veins. Eyes closed, he asked softly:
"The cost?"
"Life channels bound." Lu Wanning's reply held no euphemism. "Once the formation activates, the meridians, soul-traces, even life and death of us four will temporarily become one. If one is severely wounded, all three suffer. If one's meridians shatter completely—"
She paused, uttering the cruel second half:
"The other three will lose all cultivation."
"Is it worth it?" Gu Changfeng asked. He wasn't looking at Wanning, but at Chu Hongying.
Chu Hongying had listened silently until now. Only then did she look up, her gaze sweeping over the three, finally settling on those figures outside the tent—still waiting, still despairing, yet still not leaving.
"It's not about worth," she said, her voice soft yet hammering into frozen earth. "It's that this is the only way."
She walked to the map, pressed her finger on the gray-blue mark representing the water channel:
"This is not war, not negotiation. It is a seizure of the right to define. The Empire says this water is poisonous, that drinking it brings death. Then we will face everyone and tell it—"
She withdrew her hand, clenched her fist:
"Here, we decide."
Shen Yuzhu opened his eyes.
His mirror patterns shimmered faintly in their depths, reflecting the contour of Chu Hongying's profile. He looked at her for a long time, then said softly:
"The formation's eye is most dangerous. Who stands?"
"Me." Chu Hongying did not hesitate.
"You will die." Shen Yuzhu's voice was calm, but beneath that calm seethed something about to boil over. "The Bloodlock connects deepest to the earth veins; the backlash you endure will be ten times ours. If the formation goes out of control, you will be the first to shatter."
"I know." Chu Hongying turned to him, the crimson fleck in her eyes burning like embers in the dim tent. "So Yuzhu, you must see clearly—before I die, the water will surely clear."
Shen Yuzhu's pupils constricted violently.
In that instant, his mirror patterns uncontrollably flared, countless fragmented predictive images flooding his consciousness: Chu Hongying's Bloodlock cracking, her kneeling in the snow, those ever-calm eyes losing their light for the first time…
He saw her die.
Not a premonition, but the high-probability future deduced by his mirror patterns based on Laws.
"No." The word tore from Shen Yuzhu's throat, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable.
He had never spoken in such a tone. That ever-calm, ever-rational mirror-bearer who imprisoned himself with reason now seemed breached by something more primal. He stepped forward, grabbing Chu Hongying's wrist—so hard it made her frown.
"Change the formation eye." He stared at her, deep within his heterochromatic eyes a frantic azure light swirling. "I'll stand. My mirror patterns can analyze the backlash structure, I can—"
"You can't." Chu Hongying interrupted him, her tone still calm, but her other hand covered his tightly gripping one. "Yuzhu, have you forgotten? Last night you asked me, if everyone forgot Chu Hongying, how would I prove I ever existed."
The corner of her mouth lifted faintly:
"Now I answer you—"
"I will make this land remember how I lived."
Shen Yuzhu's fingers loosened one by one.
He looked at her, for a very, very long time. The mirror patterns in his eyes shifted from frantic swirling to gradual calming, finally solidifying into a deep, almost sorrowful blue.
"…Alright." He said, his voice light as falling snow. "Then you must also remember—"
He did not speak the second half.
But Chu Hongying understood.
She nodded.
I will live.
Noon arrived, the snow had stopped, but the sky remained a sickly patient's pallor.
By the eastern slope's water channel, the soldiers were ordered to retreat thirty paces. No one spoke; all held their breath, watching the four figures standing by the water.
Chu Hongying in front, Shen Yuzhu to the left, Gu Changfeng to the right, Lu Wanning behind.
They stood in a loose diamond formation. At their feet, Lu Wanning had earlier cleared a circular area three zhang in diameter. Along its edge, she had drawn intricate pattern-channel sigils with Li-silver powder, pale white lines glowing coldly against the snow.
"Begin." Lu Wanning said.
She moved first—hands forming seals, fingertips tracing through air, leaving three pale white pattern-channel trails. The trails took root upon touching ground, spreading like vines along the silver-powder circle to form a complete formation boundary. The moment the light brightened, the snow within the circle seemed isolated from the outside world, even the wind sounds grew muffled.
Gu Changfeng took a deep breath.
Wind domain—expanded.
But this time, it was not the violent, suppressive wind, but precise, controlled currents. The wind formed an invisible vortex around him, channeling all energy flow within the circle toward the center, toward Chu Hongying. His fingers trembled, the wounds that split yesterday seeping fresh blood droplets. The droplets were swept away by the wind as soon as they emerged, turning into a fine blood mist mingling with the airflow.
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes.
Mirror patterns—fully unleashed.
Azure light seeped from his eyes like mist, enveloping the entire water channel. Countless intricate Law streams flashed, parsed, and reassembled within the light: the Order-Poison's structure, soul-trace residue fluctuations, earth vein energy nodes… All information cascaded like a waterfall, scouring his consciousness sea. His face visibly paled, cold sweat beaded his forehead, but his voice transmitted steadily:
"Order-Poison structure analysis complete… Reverse purification frequency, commencing load."
Finally, Chu Hongying.
She formed no seals, chanted no incantations. She simply raised her left hand, palm upward.
The patterns on her Bloodlock suddenly brightened.
Dark red light surged like magma from deep within the lock-chain, spreading along her arm to her palm, then expanding.
A heavy, warm presence diffused from her as its center. It was not power, not pressure, but something deeper, anchoring straight to the human heart. Like suddenly stepping on a bedrock rooted in the seabed amidst stormy waves.
The soldiers thirty paces away almost simultaneously felt their hearts lighten.
The boiling despair, violent agitation, the urge to destroy everything—in that moment, was pressed down by some invisible force. Not vanished, but forcibly pushed back into some corner of their hearts, leaving room to breathe.
"Is this… the General's power?" a young soldier murmured to himself.
But he was wrong.
This was not Chu Hongying's power alone.
It was the Four Poles Resonance.
The moment the formation activated, Gu Changfeng grunted, all ten fingers simultaneously splitting open with tiny bloody gashes.
Wind domain overload. He felt his meridians pierced by millions of fine needles simultaneously; directing each airflow required staggering willpower. The suppressed despairing emotions had not vanished; they frantically battered the formation's edges, trying to tear an opening. He clenched his teeth, locking all wind currents firmly within the circle, blood dripping from his fingers, blooming stark red plum blossoms on the snow.
Lu Wanning's fingertips trembled violently, pattern-channel feedback surging through her body like high-voltage current.
She knelt on one knee, hands pressed desperately into the snow, barely maintaining the formation boundary's stability. The price of defining order against chaos was her perception being forcibly assimilated by the field's狂暴 energy flow. She "saw"—not with eyes, but with pattern-channel perception—the spreading cracks deep within Chu Hongying's Bloodlock, the vast Law torrents borne by Shen Yuzhu's mirror patterns, the roaring negative emotions within Gu Changfeng's wind domain…
Too much information. Too agonizing.
But she did not let go.
Shen Yuzhu's mirror patterns flashed madly, cracks visibly spreading to the corners of his eyes.
He vomited a mouthful of dark blue, blood-mixed fluid, his whole body swaying on the verge of collapse, yet he still stared fixedly at the water channel. In his "sight," the Order-Poison was no longer a mass of gray-blue pollutant, but countless intricate, chain-like Law patterns. His task was to find these chains' "knot"—the core node bearing all definitions.
Found it.
Three chi deep in the channel bed, a tangled Anchor-Point of soul-trace residue and Law-Maxims.
"Hongying—" he rasped the command, "Channel bed! Three chi! Now!"
Chu Hongying's Bloodlock emitted a strained, dense cracking sound.
Spiderweb-like blood vessels erupted on her skin's surface, dark red light seeping from the cracks, staining her entire left arm a terrifying scorched red. Her face was pale as paper, but her eyes were fierce as wolves, as if her flesh were resisting some intangible Law crushing down.
Hearing Shen Yuzhu's command, she did not hesitate.
Her right hand gripped the Storm-Piercer, reversed the spear tip and stabbed it into her own left palm.
"General!" Dozens of soldiers thirty paces away cried out simultaneously.
But Chu Hongying did not stop.
The spear tip pierced through her palm; the instant blood gushed forth, she plunged the bloodied spear tip fiercely into the snow beneath her feet, deep into the frozen earth.
"By this blood I swear—" her voice tore through wind and snow, hammering into every heart, "This water—shall clear!"
Blood seeped down the spear shaft into the earth.
Simultaneously, the "purification frequency" parsed by Shen Yuzhu's mirror patterns, the energy channeled by Gu Changfeng, the boundary maintained by Lu Wanning—all power converged through Chu Hongying's blood and its connection to the earth veins into a torrent, violently rushing toward the Law-Anchor-Point in the channel bed.
Boom—
A soundless reverberation.
Not heard by ears, but sensed by the soul.
The gray-blue in the water channel began to fade.
Like ink bleaching, like mist dissipating, like an invisible eraser slowly wiping away the "death sentence" the Empire wrote upon this water. Where gray-blue faded, clear water color emerged underneath—transparent, clean, shimmering faintly under the pale daylight.
The entire process lasted barely ten breaths.
But to everyone present, including the four casters, it felt like ten years.
When the last trace of gray-blue vanished at the channel's end, a stream of clear water flowed murmuring across the snow plains. That young soldier thirty paces away was the first to rush out.
He threw himself kneeling by the channel, trembling hands scooping up a palmful of water. Seeing its transparent, untainted color, he buried his face in his palms, shoulders shaking violently.
No sound of crying.
But everyone knew—
He was weeping.
The moment the formation dissolved, all four nearly collapsed simultaneously.
Lu Wanning knelt on the ground, hands braced on frozen earth as she gasped violently, her fingertips still twitching uncontrollably, the numbness from pattern-channel overload spreading from her wrists to her elbows. She tried to move a finger, and failed.
Gu Changfeng leaned on his Cloud-Edge Blade to barely remain standing, residual chaotic wind currents swirling around him, whipping his robes wildly. He looked down at his blood-drenched fingers, his expression somewhat dazed—not at the wounds, but at the unfamiliar fear of power slipping from his control. He never imagined his proud wind, once in harmony with all things, would one day become a beast he must exhaust all strength to barely command.
Shen Yuzhu was the worst off.
After vomiting that mixed blood, he directly pitched forward, mirror pattern light completely extinguished, pupils dilated, breathing so faint it was almost imperceptible. Massive Law backlash was flooding his consciousness sea; the Order-Poison's structure, soul-trace residue fluctuations, even the "death definition" the Empire wrote into the water source—all chaotically piled deep within his awareness, like a soundless avalanche.
Chu Hongying caught him before he hit the ground.
Her left arm still bled—the Storm-Piercer's piercing wound had not healed, the Bloodlock cracks still seeped blood. Yet with that wounded arm, she steadily lifted Shen Yuzhu in a horizontal carry, movements steady as if she hadn't just suffered backlash.
"Wanning," she rasped, "save him."
Lu Wanning barely lifted her head, trembling as she drew silver needles from her waist. But her fingers would not obey; she tried three times before pinching a needle's tail. She bit her tongue, using pain to force concentration, and inserted needles into Shen Yuzhu's neck and brow.
The needle tails vibrated, pale white light glowing again, but far fainter than before, like a candle in the wind.
Gu Changfeng walked to Chu Hongying's side, looking at her blood-drenched left arm, his voice hoarse:
"Hongying… can we truly endure?"
Chu Hongying did not answer immediately.
She turned, gazing at the clear water stream, at those soldiers still standing in the distance—their eyes no longer blank—at the Crimson Heart Banner snapping in the wind above the camp's center.
Then she said:
"We are not 'enduring.'"
She turned her gaze back to Gu Changfeng, the crimson fleck in her eyes burning like embers in the afternoon light:
"We are taking root."
"The deeper the roots, the harder for snow to bury, for wind to uproot."
She raised her blood-stained left arm, pointing at the Soul Stele, at the camp, at this wind-and-snow-scourged land:
"Today we can seize a stream of water from the Empire's grasp; tomorrow we can seize a field, the day after a road—"
She paused, her voice low yet clear, reaching every ear present:
"Until we seize the entire Northern Frontier back into our own hands."
The soldiers listened in silence.
No cheers, no shouts.
But something silent gathered, settled in their eyes, finally hardening into a resolve stronger than iron.
One-armed veteran Chen Lao-si was the first to move.
He walked to the channel, unfastened the worn water skin at his waist, filled it with clear water. Then he walked before Chu Hongying, said nothing, only straightened his hunched back, and with his sole remaining right hand clenched into a fist, heavily thumped his own left chest—
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Three dull thuds—the ancient military salute passed down a century.
Finished, he turned and walked toward the Soul Stele at the camp's center, slowly pouring the water from his skin over the stone surface carved with names.
The second was that young soldier.
After filling his water, he did not go to the stele, but walked to the women and children huddled in corners, giving water to the feverish children in their arms.
Third, fourth…
No orders, no organization.
Over three hundred people just moved silently across the snow plains. Fetching water, sharing water, offering at the stele, feeding children, cleaning wounds…
A crude, friction-filled, yet incredibly tenacious order was born, arduously and surely, within survival instinct, amidst the sound of flowing clear water.
Chu Hongying, holding the unconscious Shen Yuzhu, watched all this quietly.
The blood on her arm still flowed, her wounds still hurt.
But the corner of her mouth lifted, very faintly.
Roots, had taken hold.
Shen Yuzhu briefly awoke at dusk.
He lay on a straw mat in the medical tent; Lu Wanning had just administered the third round of needles. His mirror patterns still glowed faintly, but the cracks' spread had stopped. He opened his eyes, first seeing the rough wooden beams of the tent roof, then Chu Hongying sitting beside him, bandaging her own left arm.
Her movements were slow, because her right hand also trembled. The Storm-Piercer's piercing wound had stopped bleeding, but the Bloodlock's cracks remained shocking, like burn scars branded onto her skin.
"…Water cleared?" Shen Yuzhu rasped.
"Cleared." Chu Hongying did not look up, focused on tying the final knot. "Everyone in camp drank clean water today. Batu took people to clear the channel's upper reaches; at least for three days, the water source is safe."
Shen Yuzhu was silent a moment.
"The cost?"
Chu Hongying's bandaging hand paused.
Then she said: "My Bloodlock, three main patterns cracked. Wanning's pattern channels need at least five days to recover perception. Changfeng's wind domain has permanent cracks; every time he expands it hereafter, meridian pain will accompany."
She looked up at Shen Yuzhu:
"And you, Yuzhu—your mirror patterns are now filled with Order-Poison Law-Residue. Wanning says if it cannot be cleansed within three months, it will gradually contaminate your soul-consciousness, eventually turning you… into another form of Mirror-Guard."
The medical tent fell quiet.
Only the distant sounds of soldiers repairing fences, and mothers softly lulling children to sleep.
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes.
He had actually sensed it long ago. Those cold, chaotic Law streams deep in his consciousness sea, those structural fragments of the Order-Net—inhuman—were taking root in his awareness. They did not belong to him, yet could not be expelled. Like some slowly growing parasitic vine.
"Three months," he repeated softly, "is enough."
"Enough for what?"
"Enough to do many things." Shen Yuzhu opened his eyes, his heterochromatic pupils deep as wells in the dim light. "For instance, before completely becoming a monster, kill all who need killing, protect all who need protecting."
Chu Hongying looked at him, not speaking for a long time.
Then she reached out—not to grip his wrist, but with her fingertips, very lightly touching the mirror pattern cracks at the corners of his eyes.
"It won't happen," she said, her voice low but each word like a vow. "I won't let that happen."
Shen Yuzhu did not avoid her touch.
He looked at her, at those ever-calm yet ever-burning-with-some-undying-flame eyes, and suddenly asked:
"Hongying, if one day… I truly lose control, mirror patterns completely contaminated, become a monster that only follows orders—"
"I will kill you myself."
Chu Hongying interrupted him, her tone as calm as stating the weather.
Shen Yuzhu was stunned.
"Then," she withdrew her hand, continued, "I will carve your name at the very top of the Soul Stele, with my blood. I will tell everyone: this person is Shen Yuzhu; he became a monster so we could drink a mouthful of clean water."
She looked up at him:
"You will become the Crimson Heart Army's first legend."
"And legends," the corner of her mouth lifted faintly, "are never forgotten."
Shen Yuzhu looked at her, for a very, very long time.
Then he also smiled.
That smile shed all the aloofness and fragmentation of his mirror patterns, leaving only a young man in his twenties grasping some certainty amidst desperation—pure warmth.
"Then that's enough." He said.
Enough.
Deep in the night, Shen Yuzhu's mirror patterns again transmitted a stabbing pain.
Not injury relapse, but some external message forcibly loading.
He jerked his eyes open, finding himself not in the medical tent, but in some pure white void space. No boundaries surrounded him, no up or down, only countless flowing pale Law streams cascading like waterfalls from above.
Then, he "saw."
A massive mirror wall formed of flowing Laws, standing at the end of the Law streams. Cold Maxims surfaced on the mirror wall—not read, but directly imprinted into his consciousness:
[Heavenly Mechanism Reflection: Garrison-Seven Node·Four Poles Resonance Body First Combat Verification]
[Law Analysis: Target unit successfully established local counter-definition field within Order-Net defined contamination zone, reversed "Order-Poison" erosion process.]
[Threat Projection: If allowed to develop, may form regional Law antibodies within six months, eroding Order-Net coverage.]
[Imperial Decree: Observation value elevated to "Special Grade." Introduce second tribulation "Night Crow Division·Illusion Poison," observe its heart-fire collapse threshold.]
[Vermilion Edict: Let the flower bloom to its fullest, then grind it to mud. The resulting "purity of despair" shall be superior Law fuel.]
The Maxims dissipated.
The mirror wall also shattered, transforming into billions of pale fragments, surging toward Shen Yuzhu.
"Yuzhu!"
He jolted awake, gasping heavily.
Chu Hongying held his wrist, warmth transmitting from her palm. She had sat beside him at some point; those ever-calm eyes now reflected the flickering oil lamp flame, and the cold sweat on his pale face.
"You had a nightmare." She said.
Shen Yuzhu opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but found his throat too parched to produce sound.
That was not a dream.
It was a warning.
The Order-Net, through his mirror patterns' connection, intentionally let him see. The Empire not only knew they succeeded, but also defined this success as an "achievement worthy of crueler trials."
All their struggles, all their victories, all their newly kindled hope—
In the Empire's eyes, were merely a line of Maxims in an observation log.
To let the "flower bloom to its fullest," so that when "ground to mud," more perfect "despair fuel" could be harvested.
"Hongying…" he rasped, gripping her wrist in return, tight as a drowning man clutching driftwood, "we… from the very beginning we…"
"I know." Chu Hongying calmly interrupted him.
Shen Yuzhu froze.
"You think I didn't sense it?" She released his hand, rose and walked to the medical tent entrance, lifting the flap. The night's cold wind poured in, whipping the oil lamp flame violently. "The Empire is watching us. Every extra day we live, every extra victory we win, on their ledger, our 'value' increases."
She looked back at Shen Yuzhu.
The firelight in her eyes in the darkness was like a blade tempered in blood:
"But Yuzhu, listen well—"
"They want observation, we give them endless variables."
"They want trials, we turn this trial into wildfire that burns through all their papers and brushes."
"They want to wait until the flower blooms fullest before plucking?"
The corner of her mouth lifted faintly, that smile icy and fierce:
"Then we grow fangs, and the moment they reach out—"
"We bite off their hands along with it."
The tent flap fell.
The medical tent returned to dimness.
Shen Yuzhu lay on the straw mat, listening to the distant faint wind, the sporadic crackling of campfires, his own gradually steadying heartbeat.
Then he closed his eyes.
Deep within his mirror patterns, those icy Law-Residues still flowed, those vermilion imperial edicts still flickered.
But this time, he no longer felt cold.
Because Chu Hongying's words were like a red-hot iron nail, hammered fiercely into the deepest fear in his heart, nailing that fear into a ladder.
A ladder to rebellion.
A ladder to vengeance.
A ladder to—
Dawn.