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The legendary Tong Pass rose before them, its imposing gates a welcome sight but also a glaring admission of failure. The mighty Wei army, once the terror of the north, filed through the pass not in triumphant columns, but in a bedraggled, silent stream. They carried the dust of Hongnong on their shoulders and the echo of unnatural thunder in their ears.
Cao Cao stood on a newly erected observation platform inside the pass, his figure seeming smaller against the immense, ancient fortifications. He oversaw the chaotic influx with a face carved from granite, but his eyes were hollow.
The advisors around him, Guo Jia who was swathed in blankets even in the mild air, Xi Zhicai with a grim and efficient face, Jia Kui and Tian Feng directing logistics, worked with a frantic energy to transform the rout into some semblance of order. Xun Yu stood silently beside his emperor, a pillar of quiet concern.
It was then that Cao Pi, dusty and travel worn, found his way through the throngs of soldiers to the platform. At the sight of his second son, alive and whole, a flicker of raw, paternal relief broke through Cao Cao's stony mask. He stepped forward, his hand half reaching out.
"Zihuan! You are safe." The words were a breath of genuine feeling. But his eyes, scanning behind his son, found no one else. The relief curdled, turning sharp and cold. "Where," he asked, his voice dropping, "is your elder brother?"
Cao Pi stopped a few paces away. The journey, the guilt, the terror, all crashed down upon him at that moment. He did not speak.
Instead, he sank to his knees on the rough wooden planks of the platform, his head bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the wood. The action was so abject, so full of dread, that it sent a bolt of ice through Cao Cao's heart.
Xun Yu stiffened. Guo Jia, from behind Cao Cao, watched with sharp, sorrowful eyes.
"Imperial Father…" Cao Pi's voice was muffled, choked. "This unfilial son… has committed a grave sin."
"Where is Zixiu, your elder brother, Zihuan?" Cao Cao repeated, each word a chip of ice.
Cao Pi flinched. "He… he is… captured." The admission was torn from him. "At the western gate… Dian Wei and Ji Ling were upon us. There was no time. Elder Brother… he ordered me to run. He turned back. He held them off… for me." A sob racked his frame. "I left him. I ran. And I heard… I heard them take him."
For a heartbeat, there was absolute stillness. Then, a storm broke.
Cao Cao's face, already pale, drained of all remaining color. The controlled anguish, the strategic despair of losing Hongnong, was nothing compared to this. This was personal. This was his flesh and blood, his firstborn, his heir, in the hands of his greatest rival.
A wave of pure, unadulterated rage, hotter than any forge and colder than any mountain stream, surged through him. It bypassed his reason, his statesmanship, everything.
"YOU LEFT HIM?!"
The roar was animal, raw with a pain that was both imperial and profoundly paternal. He took a violent step forward, his hand lashing out not as an emperor, but as a furious, grief stricken father.
The slap connected with Cao Pi's cheek with a sharp crack that echoed in the sudden silence on the platform. Cao Pi reeled sideways but did not cry out, accepting the blow as his due.
"You coward! You wretched little—!" Cao Cao raised his hand again, his body trembling with the force of his emotion.
"YOUR MAJESTY, NO!"
Xun Yu moved with surprising speed, stepping between father and son, his hands coming up not to strike, but to placate, to physically interpose himself. He grasped Cao Cao's raised arm, his grip firm but respectful. "Your Majesty, please! Control your anger! Think of your health!"
Guo Jia's voice cut through from the side as well. "The headache, my lord! Do not summon it!"
Their words were a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. Cao Cao fought against the tidal wave of fury and despair, his chest heaving. The blinding, familiar pain behind his eyes threatened to spike, a specter he knew could felling him permanently.
Xun Yu's intervention was as much about saving Cao Pi from further violence as it was about preventing Cao Cao from triggering a fatal episode.
Xun Yu held his emperor's gaze, his own eyes pleading. "Crown Prince Cao Ang's fate is not known. Capture is not death. Lie Fan is ruthless, but he is not a mindless butcher. He values talent, he understands value. The Crown Prince is alive. He must be alive. To lose your composure now is to lose him twice."
Slowly, painfully, the murderous rage receded from Cao Cao's eyes, replaced by a deep, shuddering agony. He lowered his arm, pulling it from Xun Yu's grasp. He looked down at Cao Pi, who remained on his knees, a red welt rising on his pale face, his body shaking with silent sobs.
The bond was cracked, perhaps irrevocably. But Xun Yu was right. Cao Ang was alive. And as long as he lived, there was a thread, however slender, connecting Cao Cao to his son, and to a potential future beyond complete ruin.
The war for the land had reached a desperate point at Tong Pass. But now, a more intimate, more torturous war had begun, a war for a son's life, waged across a gulf of enmity and captured walls. The weight on Cao Cao's shoulders, already immense, now bore the crushing addition of a father's worst fear.
The slap's echo seemed to linger on the platform long after the sound had faded, replaced by the distant, weary clamor of the retreating army. The welt on Cao Pi's cheek was a livid brand, a physical testament to his failure and his father's shattered heart. The air crackled with a tension more volatile than any battlefield.
Cao Cao, breathing heavily, his fist still clenched from the aborted second strike, looked down at his kneeling son not with paternal love, but with the cold, assessing gaze of a ruler surveying a catastrophic flaw. The raw fury had been banked, but the ice remained.
"Get up," he commanded, his voice stripped of all emotion.
Cao Pi, his body wracked with silent tremors, pushed himself to his feet. He kept his head bowed, unable to meet his father's eyes.
"If your brother lives," Cao Cao continued, each word measured and heavy as a headsman's axe, "his fate will decide yours. His suffering, his treatment, his very life… they will be the measure of your penance. Do you understand?"
A fresh tear traced a path through the dust on Cao Pi's cheek. "This unfilial son understands. I accept any punishment, any judgment."
Cao Cao gave a sharp, dismissive jerk of his head toward two waiting imperial guards. "Escort the Second Prince to the eastern officers' quarters. He is to remain there. He may rest, and he may reflect. He does not leave unless I personally command it. Is that clear?"
The guards, their faces impassive but their eyes uneasy, saluted. They stepped forward, bowing slightly to Cao Pi. "Your Highness… please. Forgive us."
Cao Pi offered no resistance. He gave one last, pleading, apologetic look at his father, a look that sought forgiveness, understanding, anything but this glacial dismissal, before allowing himself to be led away, a prince becoming a prisoner in his own father's last fortress.
As Cao Pi's figure disappeared into the throng, Xun Yu let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He moved closer to Cao Cao, his voice low and urgent.
"Your Majesty… when the storm in your heart has passed, you must speak with him again. Truly speak. The bond cannot be left like this. The Second Prince's spirit… if it breaks under this guilt, or if he feels utterly abandoned, the damage will be deeper than any military defeat. He must remain a pillar, not a splinter."
Cao Cao did not turn. His eyes were fixed on the bustling activity below, soldiers fortifying the gate, hauling supplies, but he was seeing none of it. He was seeing the western gate of Hongnong, seeing Cao Ang turning, sword in hand, buying seconds with his freedom.
"When my heart is calm?" he echoed, the words bitter. "Wenruo, look at him. My son. My heir's protector. He ran. He left his brother to the wolves. How can I look at him without seeing that? Without feeling the shame?"
"It is not cowardice, Your Majesty," Xun Yu insisted, his tone gentle but firm. "It was obedience. The Crown Prince gave an order. A tactical order. If Prince Cao Pi had disobeyed, if he had stayed in a futile gesture, then Lie Fan would have both your sons. The Crown Prince's sacrifice would have been for nothing, and our enemy's hand in any future negotiation would be immeasurably stronger. Prince Cao Pi took the harder path. He carried the shame so that his brother's courage would not be wasted."
It was the cold, logical analysis of a strategist, and it was meant to appeal to the ruler in Cao Cao, not the father. For a long moment, Cao Cao was silent, absorbing the words.
He gave a single, curt nod, an acknowledgment of the logic, but his stiff posture revealed it did nothing to thaw the ice in his soul. He offered no further response to Xun Yu, simply turning his gaze back to the fortifications, a statue of grim resolve slowly encasing a heart of lead.
Xun Yu exchanged a worried glance with Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai. The two other advisors, witnessing the scene, wore identical expressions of deep concern. The loss of Hongnong was a military disaster.
The capture of Cao Ang was a political and personal catastrophe. But the fracture between Cao Cao and his remaining capable son? That was a crack in the very foundation of the Wei's will to resist. A leader consumed by private anguish was a leader half-blinded.
Beside him, having witnessed the distribution and the pacification, stood Crown Prince Muchen. The boy's earlier nerves were gone, replaced by a quiet, observant confidence.
Flanking him, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao were less statuesque now, their vigilance tempered by the secured environment, but their hands never strayed far from their weapons. Behind Lie Fan, his veteran generals Zhang Liao,Huang Zhong, and Taishi Ci, awaited orders.
Muchen watched the movement below, his young mind absorbing the scale, the logistics, the sheer controlled power of it. This, he thought, is what I will command one day. Not just to break, but to move, to flow, to conquer. The ambition was no longer abstract, it had the taste of dust and the rhythm of marching boots.
Lie Fan's voice broke his reverie, addressed to the generals. "The army's status?"
Zhang Liao stepped forward. "Reorganized and ready, Your Majesty. Master Sima Yi, Chen Deng, and the other masters are finalizing the logistics, ammunition for the new cannons, grain sacks, arrow bundles. By noon, the vanguard can begin the march west. The main host will follow by dusk."
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 35 (202 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 9)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 966 (+20)
VIT: 623 (+20)
AGI: 623 (+10)
INT: 667
CHR: 98
WIS: 549
WILL: 432
ATR Points: 0