Shen Jue and Feng Chunya reined in their horses, standing before the vast army.
With a single command, ten thousand elite soldiers set out at once. They marched down the official road of the western suburbs, shaking the roadside trees until their leaves rustled.
The endless clattering of armor sounded like a dark grey thundercloud rolling across the earth.
The morning wind whipped the bright red banner embroidered with the characters “Zhenbei” until it snapped sharply, its corners fluttering.
Not far away, Shen Ying and the Child Emperor reined in their horses and watched from afar.
The Child Emperor gripped his reins tightly, his mouth slightly agape as he stared forward without blinking.
The steps of those soldiers were terrifyingly uniform.
Thousands of boots rose and fell in perfect unison.
It was as if this army were not made of flesh and blood, but was a precision-engineered beast of steel.
“This...” The Child Emperor's throat tightened.
It took him a long moment to find his voice. “Such a highly disciplined and strictly obedient elite army... I am afraid those good-for-nothings in the capital cannot even begin to compare.”
The Imperial Guards who protected the imperial city looked majestic enough, but during daily drills, they either claimed illness or slacked off.
Such a solemn atmosphere, where ten thousand men moved as one, was virtually impossible to find among those Imperial Guards.
Shen Ying ignored the Child Emperor. Her gaze remained fixed on Feng Chunya's back, her eyes filled with admiration and envy.
“One day, I will become a great general even more formidable than my brothers and Feng Chunya!” she said with determination.
The commoners of Xindu City had long since received the news.
Before dawn, they gathered on both sides of the long street.
Shoulder to shoulder, they lined up from the city gate all the way to the archway three li away. Adults carried children on their shoulders, and elderly folk leaned against the walls with their walking sticks. No one made a sound; they simply watched the columns of soldiers, accompanying them all the way out of the city gate.
They did not dare draw too close, fearing they would disrupt the march. Instead, they watched from a distance, standing on their tiptoes and craning their necks, their eyes eagerly searching the solemn ranks.
When they saw their own friends and family standing tall and proud among the ranks, they felt a mixture of sorrow and pride.
Right then, at the end of the long street, a hunched figure squeezed out of the crowd, trembling.
It was a white-haired old grandmother.
Her back was hunched like a bow, and she carried a medium-sized bamboo basket on her left arm. The basket was covered with a faded blue cloth, through the seams of which steam was rising.
Likely due to her frail legs, she walked very slowly, each step seemingly exhausting all her strength.
Some tried to support her, but she waved them away.
The old grandmother shuffled toward the edge of the marching column, muttering something under her breath.
No one could hear her clearly.
A young soldier of about eighteen or nineteen on the outermost edge of the column noticed her. His footsteps paused slightly, and he instinctively reached out to steady her. “Grandmother, please don't come over. The army is marching, be careful not to get bumped...”
The old grandmother lifted a withered hand to pull back the blue cloth. The basket was packed with dozens of eggs, each carefully wrapped in straw and still piping hot.
With a trembling hand, she picked one up and held it out to the young soldier. “Eat... eat before you go...”
Her aged voice was slurred and indistinct.
A middle-aged woman quickly caught up from behind, grabbing the old grandmother's arm. She spoke to the soldier with a face full of apology. “Please don't mind her, Officer. This is my mother-in-law. Decades ago, my brother-in-law was conscripted by the imperial court to fight in a war and never returned. Now that my mother-in-law is old, her mind has grown muddled. She probably mistook you for him. Please don't take it to heart.”
“Mother, let's go home.”
The daughter-in-law tried to coax her away, but the old grandmother was incredibly stubborn. The hand holding the egg remained perfectly still, the blue veins on her wrist bulging, her arm so thin it was nothing but skin and bones.
She stared at the young soldier's face. A sudden spark lit up her cloudy eyes, as if she were looking at someone else through this youthful, slightly childish face.
“A'chang...” she murmured. “Last time, you said... you said you wanted to eat boiled eggs... Mother boiled so many for you...”
The young soldier's eyes suddenly welled with tears.
He recognized that look.
When he left home, his grandmother had looked at him the exact same way, stuffing two eggs into his arms and telling him to eat them if he got hungry on the road.
At the time, he had readily agreed, but turned around and secretly left the eggs back in the house.
Only after he had walked two li did he discover that his grandmother had somehow slipped them back into his pack.
“Grandmother,” he said, keeping his voice down as he struggled to sound steady. “I cannot take your things. It is the army's rule—we cannot take so much as a single needle or thread from the commoners.”
The old grandmother could not understand these words.
She simply stubbornly forced the egg into his hand, repeating the same few words over and over.
“Eat... you need to eat to have the strength to walk...”
The burning heat of the egg seeped through its shell, searing into the young soldier's palm. He could no longer hold back his tears.
“Grandmother.” He sniffled, quickly wiping his face with his sleeve, his voice as raspy as sandpaper. “Don't send me off anymore. Please go back...”
Seeing him accept her egg, the old grandmother grinned, revealing a mouth with only a few teeth left. A look of contented, childlike joy spread across her wrinkled face.
Right after, she grabbed another egg from the basket to stuff into the young soldier's arms, but he had already turned around and rejoined the marching ranks.
He walked very quickly, almost as if he were fleeing.
Holding the egg high, the old grandmother watched his receding back and called out, “A'chang...”
No one answered.
The daughter-in-law took the egg from the old grandmother's hand, carefully placed it back into the basket, and said softly, “Mother, didn't A'chang already tell you? He is going to make a name for himself and earn lots of money so you can eat meat with every meal.”
The old grandmother stood in place, the wind blowing her gray hair into a messy tangle against her cheeks. “I don't want money, and I don't want meat. I only want my A'chang to come back...”
Two lines of cloudy tears flowed from her eyes.
“He will come back. Let's go home and wait.”
The daughter-in-law supporting the old grandmother slowly turned around, walking step by step back into the depths of the long street.
At the city gate, the ten thousand elite soldiers had already formed their ranks.
The dark mass of the army spread across the open wilderness. Their armor gleamed like scales, and their spearheads rose like a forest, a solemn and imposing aura washing over the area.
Shen Jue and Feng Chunya reined in their horses, standing at the front of the formation.
Everyone looked up at the sky.
Suddenly, the light in the sky shifted dramatically.
A narrow rift tore through the clouds, and purple light spilled from the crack, gradually painting the entire sky.
Amidst the purple light, a figure slowly materialized.
The Divine Lady stepped onto the void. With every step she took, ripples of pale purple spread out beneath her feet, blooming with delicate shadows of wisteria flowers that vanished in an instant.
Before long, she arrived in front of the army.
Ten thousand elite soldiers knelt on one knee in unison. The thunderous clatter of their armor shook the flags atop the city walls.
“We welcome the Divine Lady!”
The roar of their voices surged into the sky, reaching the Ninth Heaven.
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