"Your Majesty! Treat my family well!"
The headless general wore battered armor. The head cradled in his hands kept opening and closing its mouth as it spoke, fresh blood pouring endlessly from its lips like water surging from a well dug into the earth, as though it would never run dry.
"Your Majesty! I gave my life in loyal service to you!"
Pierced through the heart by ten thousand arrows, the general remained standing, never falling, though the plates of his armor split apart one after another.
"Your Majesty, open your eyes and look at us. It hurts so much."
The corpses of soldiers and officers were covered in burns from head to toe, as though they had walked out of the lava of the hell of endless suffering. Their faces were hideous beyond measure, and anyone could sense the boundless agony they had endured before death.
"Your Majesty, do you still remember us?
Do you still remember us?
Do you still remember us?"
Countless voices rang in his ears like crashing thunder, like divine voices descending from heaven. They lingered in his mind, then engraved themselves there completely, pounding ceaselessly like great bells and mighty drums.
"I remember!"
In his bedchamber, the emperor startled awake and abruptly sat up, gasping for breath. His face was deathly pale, and cold sweat had soaked his entire body.
The slender, graceful beauty woke with a start, then embraced the emperor and soothed him softly. "Your Majesty, Your Majesty."
"I am incompetent!
I am incompetent!"
The emperor clung to the beauty and wept in anguish.
A cold wind swept through Chang'an. Pure white snowflakes fell over the city, soon covering every corner, yet they could not conceal the white mourning cloth spread throughout Chang'an City.
The biting cold chilled people's hearts. An