Under the combined attack of seven opponents, Hu’erhan gradually fell into a disadvantage and was forced back step by step. Nalan Xuan, who had turned his head and allowed his attention to stray, had already lost the initiative. By the time he tried to withdraw and create distance again, it was too late.
Using Nalan Xuan’s own force against him, Feng Xuanyi caught his wrist with a reverse grip, stepped back half a pace to avoid the brunt of the attack, and slipped free of his grasp. Seeing that he had lost control, Nalan Xuan reacted instantly and raised a leg to attack Feng Xuanyi’s lower body. Feng Xuanyi seemed to have anticipated it. He pulled hard with one hand, bent his knee, and swept his leg across with a rush of force.
With only one leg left beneath him for support, Nalan Xuan had no way to evade. His balance gave way and he began to fall heavily toward the ground. When it came to close combat and raw strength, Nalan Xuan had already learned the difference between them back in Prince Rong’s residence. He thought he was certain to hit the ground, but at the instant he lost his center of gravity, Feng Xuanyi reached a long arm around him from behind and pulled him back.
Before Nalan Xuan could steady himself, he raised an elbow and struck backward. Yet Feng Xuanyi seemed to understand every thought before it formed. He caught the blow effortlessly with one palm, borrowed its force, twisted his wrist, and wrenched both of Nalan Xuan’s arms behind his back.
At the same time, Hu’erhan, who had been fighting the seven men for so long, finally began to run out of strength. Seeing Nalan Xuan captured threw his mind into confusion. He lost focus for a moment. Although he barely managed to evade the sword whistling toward him, he could not avoid the palm strike that followed immediately afterward. The blow knocked him to the ground, and before he could recover, seven swords came down simultaneously around his neck, leaving him unable to move.
Everything changed in the space of an instant. Victory and defeat were decided almost immediately, and the outcome was completely unexpected. Shock flashed briefly through Nalan Xuan’s face, but vanished just as quickly. He showed no distress whatsoever over the overwhelming disadvantage before him and remained entirely composed. Since Feng Xuanyi had come all this way, and since he was such a valuable catch, there was naturally no reason to let him leave peacefully.
“I wonder what could possibly have brought Emperor Huawu all the way here in such fine spirits. This prince failed to welcome you properly. How terribly neglectful of me.” Nalan Xuan raised a brow and greeted the man restraining him from behind with a smile that was not quite a smile.
Before Feng Xuanyi could answer, the seven men below threw down their swords in perfect unison, dropped to their knees, and bowed. “We respectfully greet Your Majesty the Empress and wish Your Majesty good health.”
“Your Majesty the Empress?!” Hu’erhan’s expression was almost identical to the one he had worn outside the city gates when he first learned that Nalan Xuan was Prince Nanyang. His eyes opened wide, his lips parting in utter disbelief.
Even Nalan Xuan himself now wore almost exactly the same stunned expression as Hu’erhan. “Your Majesty the Empress?” He looked around the hall as though searching for someone and only then seemed to realize they were referring to him. He laughed. “My lords, surely you have mistaken someone. Her Majesty the Empress is a person of incomparable rank. Why would such a person leave the imperial palace and come to this wilderness? As for me, I am Prince Nanyang of Xiliang. I ask that you gentlemen not confuse the two.”
The seven men looked uneasily at one another, none daring to move rashly. They remained alert toward Hu’erhan while continuing to kneel respectfully, unwilling to show the slightest negligence.
Even as Nalan Xuan spoke, he secretly struggled against Feng Xuanyi, but the hands locked around his wrists might as well have been iron shackles and did not move in the slightest. Being forced to stand with his back toward Feng Xuanyi made him extremely uncomfortable. A man who doubted everything in the world could never willingly entrust his back to anyone, much less to someone he had already decided was his enemy. Every hair on Nalan Xuan’s body seemed to rise. Every part of him remained intensely alert to the slightest movement behind him. Even something as ordinary as Feng Xuanyi breathing, the warm air brushing across the side of his neck, made Nalan Xuan feel as though he had fallen into an icy cellar filled with cutting wind.
“I lost my empress…” After a long silence, Feng Xuanyi’s low, hoarse voice sounded beside his ear. Unable to see the other man’s expression, Nalan Xuan could somehow hear something almost like a choked sob in the voice alone. He decided he must have gone insane. The idea that Feng Xuanyi might possess any emotion beyond coldness and cruelty was practically a fantasy.
“That truly is earth-shattering news.” Nalan Xuan laughed. “But what does Emperor Huawu losing his empress have to do with this prince? If there is genuine evidence that Her Majesty the Empress is somewhere within Xiliang, then Emperor Huawu may certainly discuss the matter with my sovereign. Coming uninvited into my fief like this, however, leaves this prince positively overwhelmed by the honor.”
Another brief silence followed. When Feng Xuanyi finally spoke again, the plea in his voice was impossible to ignore. “Come back with me.”
He seemed completely unconcerned with losing face as the sovereign of a nation in front of everyone present. To Feng Xuanyi, it was almost as though the entire hall contained no one except Nalan Xuan, still standing with his back toward him. Hu’erhan and the other Xiliang soldiers were stunned to see such a side of Emperor Huawu, a man long renowned for ruthlessness and decisiveness. The seven who had accompanied Feng Xuanyi, however, remained entirely unmoved, as though they had seen it too many times to find anything surprising in it.
“What a joke. I am Prince Nanyang of Xiliang. Going back with the ruler of an enemy nation would be utterly absurd!” Nalan Xuan turned his head. Meeting Feng Xuanyi’s unfathomably deep gaze, he found the situation ridiculous. His lips curved slightly. “Or does Emperor Huawu believe he can retreat from here unharmed? Perhaps you imagine that bringing only seven people is enough to move through Xiliang as though no one lived here at all. Why don’t Emperor Huawu come back to the capital with me instead and meet the Emperor of Xiliang, so our country can properly fulfill the duties of a host?”
As they spoke, Feng Xuanyi’s seven attendants silently escorted the thirty-odd elite Xiliang soldiers who had accompanied Nalan Xuan out of the hall. The hall fell quiet, its decorations crude and simple, leaving only two men of extraordinary status confronting one another.
“Come back with me.”
The pressure restraining Nalan Xuan’s hands loosened slightly. Nalan Xuan seized the opportunity and wrenched himself free. Feng Xuanyi answered him with tenderness, but Nalan Xuan replied with nothing more than a crisp, derisive laugh. “Impossible.”
Ignoring Nalan Xuan’s resistance and the undisguised disgust blazing from his eyes, Feng Xuanyi reached out with unmistakable tenderness, intending to touch that peerlessly beautiful profile. Nalan Xuan slapped his hand away without the slightest mercy.
With a cold snort, Nalan Xuan twisted aside and shot down from the platform toward one of the swords lying on the floor. He spun, leapt, and sent the blade straight toward Feng Xuanyi.
Yet faced with the vicious sword strike, Feng Xuanyi did not evade. Instead, a look of release appeared upon his face. It was almost as though he had completely ignored the dangerous blade in Nalan Xuan’s hand and interpreted the attack only as a beloved person throwing himself into his arms. He remained utterly still and even opened his arms slightly, almost expectantly.
In the midst of the fierce attack, Nalan Xuan saw Feng Xuanyi’s reaction and abruptly changed from his earlier ruthlessness. His brows shifted faintly and the sword veered from its original line. At the very instant it should have struck a vital point, the blade narrowly turned aside and pierced straight through Feng Xuanyi’s left shoulder.
“Your Majesty!” The instant the sword struck, the seven guards rushed back into the hall in alarm, while the Xiliang soldiers outside stared in shock.
“Get out!” The sword had pierced through the shoulder bone and blood instantly soaked Feng Xuanyi’s clothing, yet he showed no reaction whatsoever. Not even his brow moved. His gaze remained fixed tightly upon Nalan Xuan.
“But, Your Majesty—”
“Get out!” Feng Xuanyi rebuked them sharply. “Do not make me say it a third time.”
Though every one of them was filled with worry, an imperial command could not be disobeyed. They hesitated, but eventually withdrew. The last person to close the door was Xuan Guang—the one man who had once represented Feng Xuanyi’s only oversight.
Still unable to put his mind at ease, Xuan Guang risked his life to offer one final plea. “Your Majesty the Empress, please show mer—”
“Get out!” Before the final word could leave Xuan Guang’s mouth, Feng Xuanyi erupted in fury, wrenching the wound in his shoulder open even further.
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