Shen Le staggered through the beacon tower, desperately turning over corpses.
Old Huang—the veteran in his fifties who had said just yesterday, "My second son's given me a grandson," the gray-haired old soldier who had been planning to buy a silver bracelet and have someone send it back to his hometown—lay face down on the ground.
He had taken three slashes across the back. His blood had already congealed cold, yet both hands still gripped half a broken blade, its edge buried deep in an enemy's chest.
Dog Boy, one of the two local youths, slumped against the stone wall, his eyes wide open, terror and pain frozen across his face.
A glint of gold protruded diagonally from beneath his breastplate: a gold-tipped, silver-horned hairpin, spoils of war he had received a few days ago.
The boy had cradled the hairpin with delight, saying that once they rotated back to the city, he would use it to propose marriage.
A-Gu, one of the reinforcements who had come from the Central Plains with him—or rather, with A-Li—had had his right arm hacked off at the shoulder. His left hand still clenched that severed arm, Steel Saber and all.
He had fallen to the ground, eyes blazing with fury, left leg bent and right leg extended, still holding the posture of a charge. And there were Zhao Xiaohu, Liu Yusheng, Erzhuma...
They were all gone.
Just this evening, they had sat around the same campfire, fished meat from the same pot of soup, dreamed together of the future, and traded jokes and insults as comrades...
They were all gone.
Not a single one was alive.
They had taken down at least three times their own number. No—Shen Le looked around at the enemy corpses, some white-haired, some still boyish-faced, with the occasional