When Li Shuang’s consciousness returned, the first thing she felt was the weight of cold earth swallowing her. Half her body was trapped in thick, sucking mud.
She tried to move her legs, but the more she struggled, the deeper she sank. At once, her battlefield-trained instincts took over. She froze, forcing her breath steady. The darkness around her pressed close—damp, suffocating—save for a faint glow some ten zhang away. Through that weak light, she glimpsed another figure lying motionless on the marshy ground.
“Your Highness?” she called softly.
A low groan answered. The man stirred, his movement causing his body to sink slightly.
“Don’t move!” Li Shuang’s voice cut through the gloom, sharp but calm.
Sima Yang stilled at once. “Quicksand?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she replied. “And it’s not natural—it’s a trap.”
She looked up. Above them yawned a large, dark hole, sealed off with heavy wooden stakes. They had fallen through it.
“I finally understand where all those missing trees went,” Li Shuang murmured grimly.
The pieces fell together. The felled trunks weren’t burned or taken—they had been used to build traps beneath the forest floor. But who could have done this, and for what purpose?
Her mind raced back to moments before their fall.
They had entered the forest leading a dozen guards. Li Shuang had planned to keep the Crown Prince at the edge—never risk him going in. But faint cries for help drifted from the shadows, weak yet human. Sima Yang refused to let her go alone, and so, side by side, they crossed into the desolation.
The once-living forest was a graveyard of stumps. The cries led them deeper and deeper, until unease coiled tight in Li Shuang’s chest—this path was leading them toward the same area where that “risen corpse” had first appeared.
Just as she opened her mouth to order a halt, a flash of white sliced through the trees.
A figure lunged from the darkness.
Li Shuang’s blade flew to her hand, but the attacker was faster—seizing Sima Yang and vanishing into the forest.
She and her guards gave chase, but before she could shout a command, the earth caved beneath them.
They fell—tumbling through the void—into an underground chamber filled with the pale gleam of bones. The air was thick, though the old stench of death had faded. Li Shuang caught sight of the white-clad assailant dragging the Crown Prince into a narrow cave. Without hesitation, she followed.
The tunnels twisted like a labyrinth. Splitting the troops, she pressed onward with one guard to the right-hand passage. Suddenly, the white shadow appeared again, swift as wind. Her guard fell before he could react.
Li Shuang turned sharply, sword raised. Steel clashed—not against a blade, but an iron folding fan.
Her eyes narrowed. That man…
The spy who had escaped Lu City’s prison.
He smiled as if greeting an old friend. “Ah, General Li. As formidable as ever.”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Where is His Highness?”
“I’ll take you to him,” he said softly.
Before she could move, two whips lashed out from the shadows. Li Shuang dodged one; Qin Lan, arriving just in time, blocked the other.
He reached to pull her back, but the man’s fan flicked open, slicing through the air. Its ribs caught Qin Lan’s arm, drawing blood, then whipped back in a blur—striking Li Shuang on the back of her head.
Her world went black.
In her fading consciousness, she felt an arm around her, the world spinning, ground giving way—then nothing.
When she awoke again, she was here. Trapped.
Why had he thrown her and Sima Yang down here—and where were the others?
Her mind searched for logic even as the mud crept higher, heavy armor dragging her down inch by inch. What little warmth her body had left was being sucked away by the cold mire.
Unfastening the buckles at her chest and shoulders, she carefully shed the armor. Across from her, Sima Yang lay almost prone, half-floating on the surface. Only his boots had sunk deep into the mud, anchoring him in place.
He didn’t dare move—he knew any wrong shift of weight could seal his fate.
Li Shuang’s gaze flickered between them, mind racing through possibilities.
The man who had ambushed them—his movement, his technique—it had resembled the Black Armored One.
Could they be connected?
Or… had the nightmare returned?
The faint light above flickered. The air grew colder still. And beneath that trembling glow, two figures—Crown Prince and General—lay trapped in the earth’s grasp, as if buried alive in the dark heart of the forest.
The only path to survival was clear—Sima Yang needed a foothold. If he had something solid to push from, he could escape the quicksand’s pull.
“Your Highness,” Li Shuang called, voice steady despite the sinking mire tightening around her. “Do you still have strength left?”
“Yes,” came his curt reply.
“My arm is here,” she said. “You can step on it—to climb out.”
A long silence stretched between them. Then Sima Yang’s voice, low and controlled, carried a trace of disbelief.
“If I step on your arm, once I apply force—what will happen to you?”
“This subject… will find a way.”
“What way?”
Li Shuang fell quiet. There was no way. She knew it; so did he.
If either of them was to live, it had to be him.
Wait too long, and the mud would swallow them both—until even sacrifice became impossible.
To Li Shuang, a general, the choice was simple: sacrifice the piece to protect the king.
“Your Highness,” she said softly, resolute. “We exist to shield you. You must not fall here, not in the Northern Frontier.”
Sima Yang’s voice hardened. “Li Shuang.”
He spoke her name not as a ruler, but as a man recalling the woman he once trusted, once… missed.
“You want me to save myself by killing you?”
She hesitated only for a breath before answering, her tone calm as still water.
“This is the only way to ensure Your Highness survives. If protecting you costs my life, then I beg Your Highness—do not let old feelings cloud the greater situation.”
They both understood what she meant.
The court’s balance was fragile. The Third Prince, backed by the Prime Minister, was already coveting the throne.
If Sima Yang perished here, the Empire’s heart would rot—taking the Empress, the General’s Manor, and all loyal to the Crown Prince with it.
“Your Highness,” Li Shuang continued, her voice gentler now. “I’ve lived on the frontier for years. News travels slow, but I’ve heard… you now have an heir. That court affairs are stabilizing—”
“Li Shuang.” He cut her off. His tone trembled faintly. “When we parted three years ago, you left me to think of you for three years.
Now you want me to think of you for a lifetime?”
Her eyes flickered. Then she forced a faint smile. “This subject dares save Your Highness today only to ask a promise for the future—should I one day speak out of turn, Your Highness will protect me from harm.”
“With me,” he said, voice rough, “no matter what you say, there will never be trouble.”
Li Shuang lowered her gaze, concealing the shimmer in her eyes. She shifted slightly, inching closer through the sucking mud, curling her arm beneath the surface until it pressed against the soles of Sima Yang’s boots.
“Your Highness.”
He did not move. Time seemed to freeze around them—the air thick with silence and unspoken grief.
At last, Sima Yang drew in a breath that trembled almost imperceptibly.
“Li Shuang,” he said. “When you get out of here… whatever you wish, I will grant it.”
She smiled faintly. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Then, with a sudden motion, Sima Yang pushed upward. His body dipped for an instant as his feet pressed against her arm.
Li Shuang felt the crushing weight, the mud swallowing her whole.
In the next heartbeat, Sima Yang broke free, soaring through the air, scattering clumps of mud as he landed on solid stone several zhang away.
When he turned back—she was gone.
The quicksand lay smooth and still, its surface serene as though it had never taken a life.
Sima Yang stood drenched in mud, fists trembling. He scanned the chamber for something—anything—to pull her free. There was nothing.
At last, his jaw tightened. He turned toward the faint glimmer of light and strode forward, his armor clanging heavily against the rock.
The sound faded, echoing into silence.
Then, from the heart of the quicksand, a single bubble rose—pop—breaking the surface.
Above, a wooden board shattered with a thunderous crack. A figure descended like a shadow, plunging into the pit with reckless speed, a gust of icy wind following his fall.
Moments later, the entire pit erupted.
Mud exploded outward, slapping against the stone walls.
And in the pit’s depths, amid the dripping filth, a half-naked man held Li Shuang tightly in his arms.
She had held her breath, her lips sealed, but her face was ghostly pale—tinged blue from lack of air.
Jin’an pressed his palm to her chest, desperate, frantic. “No… you can’t—”
Tears, bright and furious, fell from his crimson eyes, splashing onto her cold face.
“I forbid you to die,” he whispered hoarsely, voice cracking under the weight of despair.
“You cannot die.”
Each word struck like a vow—broken and reborn from pain itself.
She could love another. Marry another. Belong to another.
But she could not die.
If she died… even his grief would have no meaning.
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