Bitao Sect, the Water Fortress in Jadewater Marsh.
The news reached Wei Ping before noon.
A Bitao Sect spy had ridden hard from Chiyan Valley, changing horses twice along the way. By the time he reached the Water Fortress, he was too exhausted to speak a full sentence.
He shoved a sealed letter into Wei Ping's hand, then collapsed on the dock.
Wei Ping read the letter three times. The gloom on his face deepened, layer upon layer, until it seemed set in stone.
"Impossible."
He slapped the letter onto the desk and looked up at the spy, his voice heavy.
"Did you see this with your own eyes?"
The spy lay on the floor, gasping for a long while before he managed to raise his head.
"By the time I... I reached the outskirts of Chiyan Valley, the fighting at the pass was over."
"The Northern Frontier Army's tents were still there, but everyone had withdrawn. Supplies were strewn everywhere."
"I stopped a wounded soldier who'd fallen behind. He said... General Xiao was dead, even the Demon Blade had shattered, and the Thirty Thousand Cavalry had scattered and fled south."
"The Red-Robed Death Soldiers were collecting the bodies. Northern Frontier Army banners lay trampled into the mud all over the mountain."
Wei Ping was silent for a long time.
He slowly sank back into his chair, fingers tapping absently on the desk, now lightly, now hard.
Even after all that tapping, he could not settle into a rhythm.
Xiao Jin, the Grand General Who Conquers the North, was dead.
The man who had split the shield formation at Cross Ridge with a single stroke, cut Cao Hongshen in two, and forced Wei Ping to his knees in surrender had died outside Chiyan Valley.
He had died somewhere no one