New City

Gloom churned within the clouds overhead, turning the sky and earth alike a murky gray. The bitter cold of the far north crossed the empty, endless snow desert, passed over the scarred and ravaged Three Northern Prefectures, and reached this obscure borderland at the northern edge of the capital region. Sparse white flakes drifted down upon the world.

It was snowing again.

A bearded middle-aged man lifted his eyes and glared at that damned old Heaven. Then, dragging several mountain beasts behind him, he slowly emerged from the forest and headed toward the plains ahead.

There stood a city, not particularly large.

Huizhou.

A county town once infamous throughout Great Yan for its destruction—the place where the Prime Minister's third son had been assassinated.

Of course, the deaths of the common folk throughout the city during that assassination had once provoked fury in the imperial court as well. But once the anger had passed, the matter was simply brushed aside.

Laughable, lamentable—a city full of commoners had mattered less than a single nobleman.

Thinking back on those memories that had abruptly surfaced in his mind, Luo Yuanqi pulled his fur cloak tighter around himself and let out a soft, unconscious sigh.

He had once been a court official in the Ministry of War. His rank had not been high. During the war in the north, he had taken the blame for his superior and been forced into retirement. Yet instead of remaining in the Capital City and waiting for reinstatement, he had willingly transferred himself to the north with nothing but hot blood and courage, hoping to kill enemies and serve his country as a martial apprentice.

But a real battlefield was, in the end, nothing like the memorials submitted in the Capital City. All the burning passion he had