A-Pan wiped away her tears and followed the crowd in a daze. Only when she reached the front did her shackles come off, and immediately, like the others, her wrists were bound with several coils of hemp rope.
This frozen, snowbound hell plunged one into the abyss.
She stood among the crowd as if she had lost her very soul.
She saw some people with wooden expressions, some weeping quietly into their hands, some with sallow faces, some dazed and confused, and some who looked burning with fever, suddenly collapsing into the snow, unconscious within moments.
Whoever it was, there was no need to look closely—one glance was enough to clearly see the layers of whip welts on their exposed skin.
The crowd screamed and scattered. “Ah! Someone’s dead!”
A commotion broke out among the crowd, and several overseers rushed over, raising their whips and shouting, “What’s all the yelling about! Every last one of you, stand still!”
Then, amid the shouts and muffled sobs, she heard a very familiar low call: “A-Pan!”
A-Pan whirled around and saw Yun Jiang, her face covered in red rashes, pushing through the women as she stumbled toward her through the snow. “Dear sister! You’re still alive!”
A-Pan’s eyes welled up, and she threw herself into Yun Jiang’s arms.
After days of enslavement and plunder, she had barely managed to kindle a spark of hope, only to have it cast aside like a worn-out shoe. Now she was being sent to the front lines to comfort the troops. The grievance and terror weighing on her heart nearly made her burst into tears on the spot.
But no matter what, seeing Yun Jiang was like finding her backbone again. Her frantic, unsettled heart finally found some place to rest.
She pressed her hand to her chest, lowered her voice, and called out softly, “Sister! Are you alright?”
The moment she opened her mouth, she choked on a mouthful of wind and snow.
Yun Jiang smiled. Her face was clearly pale from the cold, yet the red rashes looked strangely vivid. Seizing a moment when no one was watching, she whispered in A-Pan’s ear, “I’m fine! I faked it! I told them I had the pox!”
Indeed, Yun Jiang had been clever since childhood, and being two years older, she always had good ways to escape any situation. It was no surprise she had managed to avoid this.
But what about after today? How many of them would survive?
A-Pan’s heart trembled with fear, and she dared not think further.
The overseer finished counting heads and trotted over to report, “General Wu, everyone’s accounted for!”
The general surnamed Wu mounted his horse and issued the order, “All of you, keep up! Move out now!”
Several hundred women of Zhongshan, like stray dogs, stumbled forward through the snow under the lash of horsewhips.
They left Wei Ying without knowing which direction they were headed. Though daylight had fully broken, the wilderness was a vast expanse of white—nothing distinguishable.
The northwest wind whipped snow pellets into their faces, making it impossible to keep their eyes open. The overseers’ chaotic horse hooves splashed black slush everywhere, startling the crowd into terror.
Snow had piled thick on the mountain path. A-Pan and Yun Jiang supported each other, stepping deep and shallow as they walked, not daring to rest even when exhausted.
Most of the Zhongshan women had been serving for days and nights without respite, making walking all the more difficult. But the general surnamed Wu still found them too slow and lashed out with his whip, striking them about the head and face.
“Listen up! If we don’t reach the front lines by nightfall, this general has a hundred ways to make you suffer! If you don’t believe me, we’ll just have to try them out!”
The Zhongshan women huddled shoulder to shoulder, hungry and frozen, stumbling and staggering along.
In the distance, they could faintly hear the shouts of men and the neighing of horses from both armies, along with war drums and horns—likely the Wei army that had set out at dawn had already engaged the Zhaojun thirty li away.
The Wei soldiers escorting them urged them on more urgently at the sound, whips cracking down again and again. “Damn it! Move faster! Faster! If you dawdle and delay the king’s orders, you’ll be sorry!”
A frail woman fell to the ground and collapsed, unable to get back up. The overseer whipped her body with all his might, cursing without pause, “Get up! You bitch! Get up!”
The woman’s face was flushed red with fever, her whole body trembling and shaking. The whip fell on her like striking stiff, dead flesh. Her eyes were unfocused as she murmured to herself in the snow, “Mother… Chun Niang… Chun Niang has no strength left…”
The general surnamed Wu, hearing this, rode over. Seeing the situation, he drew his curved blade with a clang, swept his gaze across the crowd, gave a few dry laughs, and shouted, “Watch closely!”
The moment the words left his mouth, the great blade flew through the air and pierced through Chun Niang’s chest and abdomen. Hot blood burst forth in all directions, blooming into a horrifying camellia red against the snow.
Chun Niang let out a low, miserable cry, then weakly murmured once more, “Moth… mother…”
The crowd trembled in terror, recoiling in shock, not daring to look.
They could still hear the general’s vicious roar, “If you don’t walk, you die!”
A-Pan and Yun Jiang clung to each other, holding tight. Even she, who had never lacked for ideas, now had red-rimmed eyes, desperately suppressing her sobs. “A-Pan… we have no way out… none…”
Indeed—if not sent to comfort the troops, they would die beneath the enemy’s blades. At the end of the road, a woman of a fallen nation had no third path to take.
A-Pan raised his sleeve to wipe away Yun Jiang’s tears, comforting her with words that held almost no possibility, “Sister, there will always be a way. There will always be one.”
The journey was fraught with peril, and one by one, countless more died along the way.
Some froze to death alive.
Some fell and were immediately pierced through by the blades of the Wei soldiers.
Some, stricken with terror, seized a moment of Wei carelessness and fled madly into the woods.
When one ran, more followed.
The crowd descended into chaos. The Wei soldiers shouted and gave chase on horseback, cutting down the fleeing with their blades. Crimson blood splattered in every direction, staining the pristine white snow a deep red.
Amid the curses, screams, and wails, a chaotic thunder of hooves could be heard approaching.
In the open wilderness, birds scattered and beasts fled in alarm. The Wei horses grew restless and agitated, making their riders all the more frantic. Whips cracked and snapped across the crowd, “Move! Move! Hurry the hell up!”
Soon, chariots and horses thundered in, and a banner bearing the character “Zhao” snapped and fluttered violently in the wind and snow.
A vast, dark mass of Zhao soldiers flooded in, scattering the Wei soldiers and the Zhongshan women like wind dispersing clouds.
The cries and sword flashes that had just begun to fade erupted once more amid the storm.
The Zhongshan women fled in every direction while the Wei soldiers shouted and scrambled to recapture them, but the retreating Zhao forces crashed into them, sending men and horses tumbling.
A turning point had come.
Seizing the chaos, A-Pan snatched a weapon dropped by a Zhao soldier and cut through the ropes, then grabbed Yun Jiang’s hand tightly. “Sister! Run!”
Run!
Run!
Run with all your might, even if it kills you!
Against the tide of both Wei and Zhao armies, they stumbled and staggered, fleeing east and west.
They ran for what seemed like an eternity, until the sound of Zhao chariots and horses gradually faded into the distance, but the Wei pursuers’ shouts pressed close behind them, the thundering hooves mixed with clear threats: “Stop! Damn it! Keep running and we’ll kill you all!”
A-Pan and Yun Jiang were forced apart by the pursuing soldiers, each fleeing to who knows where.
One of her straw sandals had been lost along the way, but she had no time to retrieve it. The killers were right behind her, and A-Pan could feel the black mud kicked up by their horses’ hooves splattering onto her robes and hair.
Barefoot, she ran through the freezing snow. After the night before and this half-day of desperate flight, what strength did she have left? A single stumble sent her crashing face-first into the snow.
The Wei soldier behind her reined in his horse sharply. A biting, murderous aura whistled sharply past her ear. A-Pan instinctively looked back and saw the soldier’s great blade already swinging down toward her head.
Not far away, a piercing, anguished cry suddenly rang out—a voice that sounded exactly like Yun Jiang.
A-Pan suppressed with all her might the sob threatening to escape her throat, and shut her eyes tight.
Alas!