Subtitle: Violet Flame Unquenched, Snowstorm Unceased
The Northern Frontier's night was a canvas of frozen silence, so profound that even the softest breath threatened to shatter it. Snow fell in relentless sheets, burying the scars of recent battle under a blanket of white. The air itself seemed to hold its breath, charged with the aftermath of unleashed power and unspoken vows. Across the vast expanse of the icy plain, the lingering glow of the violet flame drifted like a spectral dancer, its light casting long, trembling shadows that wavered between reality and dream. Above, the sky hung suspended between darkness and illumination—a half-lit dome under which fate itself seemed to pause, watching like a silent, impartial god.
Hoofprints, deep and deliberate, pressed into the snow only to be erased moments later by the relentless wind. The Northern Frontier Army moved as a single entity—a river of steel and silence flowing through the white wilderness. Armor plates, polished to a cold, moonlike sheen, caught the otherworldly light, reflecting fragments of the violet haze that clung to the air like memory. At the head of the column, two figures rode side by side, their silence louder than any war cry.
Chu Hongying had not removed her armor. The weight of it was a second skin, a familiar burden she carried as both shield and sentence. The Riftwind Spear lay across her saddle, its silver length still humming with a residual warmth—a tangible echo of the resonance that had bonded it to her will. To her right, Shen Yuzhu rode, his white robes a stark contrast to the grim landscape. The bloodstains on his sleeves stood out like scattered petals on snow—a fragile beauty masking relentless decay.
No words passed between them. None were needed. A tacit understanding, heavier and more complex than speech, lingered in the space between their saddles—a thread woven from shared battles, unspoken fears, and the quiet certainty that their war was far from over.
[Visual Contrast]
Her cold resolve mirrored his frailty; the steel in her gaze reflected the feverish gleam in his. Her hand, clenched around the Riftwind Spear, was the silent counterpoint to the golden needles hidden in his sleeve—one a symbol of open defiance, the other of concealed sacrifice. Together, they embodied the dualities that defined their path: reason and instinct, duty and desire, the visible and the unseen. "Reason" and "Sacrifice" were not mere concepts here—they were twin tracks etched into the snow, parallel paths leading toward an uncertain horizon.
As the ice-laden wind brushed his cheek, Shen Yuzhu suppressed a shudder. An uncontrolled azure light flickered beneath his sleeve—a sinister glow that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. The backlash markings writhed beneath his skin like living tattoos, icy serpents coiling around bone and sinew. Each breath was a battle—a sharp, cold ache deep within his meridians, as though his very life force were crystallizing. With practiced stealth, he drove a golden needle into a pressure point at his wrist. The relief was immediate but fleeting, a small dam against a rising tide. His fingertips, pale and translucent from the strain, trembled almost imperceptibly.
Chu Hongying did not turn. She had learned to read the subtlest shifts in his presence—the catch in his breath, the slight stiffening of his shoulders. She heard the suppressed cough he tried to mask, a sound softer than the wind yet deafening to her ears. Without a word, she nudged her horse, adjusting its pace until she rode a half-step ahead, as if to shield him from the brunt of the gale.
"How much longer can you hold?"
Her words were nearly lost to the wind, stripped of warmth by the cold, yet layered with a tension that betrayed her calm.
Shen Yuzhu smiled faintly, the curve of his lips a fragile thing. His breath plumed in the air, thin as frost. "Long enough to finish this game at your side."
She did not answer. There was no answer to give. Instead, she allowed herself one brief, sidelong glance—a look that held the heat of a fleeting spark in the endless cold, a flash of trust and sorrow quickly buried beneath the armor of her duty.
The rhythm of the night was broken by the drumbeat of approaching hooves. Gu Changfeng emerged from the swirling snow, his horse's coat frosted and heaving. He reined in beside them, his usual lazy smile playing on his lips, though his eyes were sharp as honed steel.
"Quite the send-off in this storm," he said, his voice cutting through the wind. "Seems someone's prepared a 'farewell gift' fifty li ahead."
He lifted his chin slightly, the smile sharpening into something dangerous. "The reception is all arranged."
He produced a sealed letter. The wax seal, imprinted with the insignia of the Seventh Prince's estate, gleamed like a malevolent eye in the dim light.
Chu Hongying took it. Her thumb, calloused and sure, rubbed over the seal as if she could read its meaning through touch alone. Her gaze remained steady, a fortress giving nothing away.
Then, from the shadow of a snowdrift, another figure materialized. Lu Wanning guided her horse forward with effortless grace. The cold, clean scent of herbs trailed in her wake, a refreshing note in the stale air. She offered no greeting, her movements efficient and purposeful. Extending a small ceramic vial to Shen Yuzhu, her eyes met his—a silent exchange of understanding between healer and patient.
"Take this," she said, her voice low but firm. "It will suppress the light devouring for two hours."
Shen Yuzhu accepted the vial. As their fingertips brushed, a warm, greenish glow emanated from her hand, meeting the agitated azure light flickering around his. It was a silent clash—a momentary struggle between healing and corruption—before the cool emerald energy soothed the raging azure, pressing it back into submission.
For a moment, the four of them stood united on the vast, white plain—a general, a strategist, a scion of nobility, and a healer. Their shared glances wove an invisible net, intertwining the overt and the covert, the spoken and the hidden, into a single, unbreakable strand.
The howling wind and snow seemed to sharpen, awakening a ghostly memory in Chu Hongying's mind. Helian Sha's voice, cold and mocking, sliced through the past to echo in the present:
"You need only remain unaware—who is the player, and who is the pawn."
Her head lifted, a slow, deliberate motion. Her gaze, sharp as a blade, pierced the snow curtain, fixing on the dark figure standing atop a distant snow ridge.
He stood as still as the mountains themselves—a silhouette of menace against the bruised sky. Like a lone wolf watching its departing prey, his presence was a promise of future confrontation. That gaze, relentless and calculating, traversed the white mist to settle upon her. It was a silent declaration:
The Northern Di's eyes have never left. This game is far from over.
The residual heat of the violet flame seeped through Chu Hongying's armor, a persistent reminder etched into steel and skin. The Lu family's legacy, the weight of the Northern Frontier—it all converged in the shaft of the Riftwind Spear, a burden and a birthright. This battle, she knew, was only one move in a much larger war.
"Am I the General, the Lu family's last heir... or merely a pawn upon Fate's board?"
The biting wind snatched the whisper from her lips, offering no answer, no solace.
Yet, against her will, her eyes were drawn to the man riding beside her.
Shen Yuzhu's profile was etched against the snowlight, outlined by a faint, ethereal azure halo. He seemed at once fragile and unyielding—a candle flame guttering in the storm, yet stubbornly alight. His presence was a fissure in the rigid structure of her life—a crack through which an unexpected, unwelcome, yet undeniably vital light now streamed.
She gritted her teeth, the cold metal of her helmet pressing into her skin. But within the fortress of her heart, a new resolve crystallized, clearer and more determined than ever before—
"Even if I am a pawn, I will break through this game."
The boundless snowy plains of the Northern Frontier gradually faded behind them, swallowed by the night and the swirling snow. The wind's roar softened to a low, mournful moan—the land's final lament for their departure. Before them, the mountain path twisted like a ribbon of spilled ink, a serpentine track leading into the jaws of another silent, more treacherous battlefield.
Shen Yuzhu's voice was soft, yet it struck the still air with the force of a prophecy. "Once we enter the Capital, you will no longer be the General guarding the Northern Frontier. In their eyes, you will be a 'traitorous general'."
A cold, sharp arc touched Chu Hongying's lips—the ghost of a smile devoid of warmth. "Then let them see with their own eyes," she said, her voice cutting through the gloom, "how a traitorous general can overturn the board."
As the final syllable left her lips, light erupted in the mountain pass ahead. Several clusters of lanterns flared to life, their flames swaying like drunken specters in the night fog.
A line of black-clad figures stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the narrow snow path—a human wall of shadows. Their leader stepped forward, raising a token high. The Seventh Prince's insignia, carved into polished wood, gleamed with an ominous light, catching the lantern glow and throwing it back like a challenge.
Reception?
Or interception?
The last, defiant gleam of the violet flame was finally devoured by the encroaching night, leaving behind only the relentless, howling wind.
A deep, pervasive silence fell upon the Northern Frontier, a land holding its breath.
Far away, beyond the mountains and the swirling snow, the Capital waited—its gates closed, its secrets guarded, its game already in motion.