Xu Ziling's trip to Shu hadn't gone perfectly. After his little master Annie had secretly slipped away on her own, and he had no idea where she'd gone, Shi Qingxuan had suddenly changed her mind for some reason. She said she planned to stay at her secluded cottage in the forest for a while and visit friends in Yuhang another time, so she wouldn't be returning with Xu Ziling this time.
In the end, there was nothing he could do. Though a little disappointed, Xu Ziling didn't force the beautiful woman to do anything she didn't want to. He had no choice but to spend the night there, then say his farewells at dawn the next day and set off east alone, preparing to make the lonely journey back to Yuhang just as he had on his way here.
After all, including the time spent traveling, he had already been in Shu for nearly two months. The Lingnan army led by the Song Clan's "Heavenly Saber" Song Que and the Twin Dragons Army led by his brother Kou Zhong had each captured two strategic strongholds in Chu—Jizhou and Qianzhou—and recently joined forces in a victorious reunion. Lin Shihong's Chu would soon vanish into oblivion, just like Lin Shihong himself. At a time like this, the young commander of the Twin Dragons Army naturally needed to hurry back.
Besides, winter was nearly here. If he didn't leave Shu soon, heavy snow would seal off the mountain passes, and the bitter cold would make the already treacherous Shu road even harder to travel.
But!
He had only just left Shu by water and arrived in Jingzhou when certain rumors and bits of intelligence from the martial world made him sense something was amiss. It seemed that Wang Shichong, the King of Luoyang,