昏昏沉沉，无日无夜.
Lost in a daze, without day or night.

Drifting between sleep and wakefulness, sometimes glimpses emerged: dim skies, human faces, the occasional bumpy road, rain falling, swaying scenery.

His mind was temporarily unfit for thinking; even the sensation of discomfort barely registered. Fleeting images surfaced – memories from his previous life intertwined with those of Ning Liheng from this one. Fragmented childhood recollections flickered into view. His body felt suspended in a state of chaos, allowing memories to come and go as they pleased.

The many things he had done, the scheming and calculations that had consumed so much of his time, the power struggles. The wars of that era may have lacked overt bloodshed, but beneath the surface lay the same crimson reality. As he propelled forward, carrying countless people and their interests, he inevitably incurred debts – lives taken, families shattered, some consciously, others unknowingly.

Those countless decisions, the constant gambles, the resulting ripples across numerous situations, the origins and outcomes, the hard-won successes and crushing failures. Amidst these familiar-as-breathing scenes, small fragments also mingled.

The still-unfamiliar, ancient-style era, a courtyard in the summer rain, a lantern-lit garden at dusk, a small bridge over a stream in the countryside, the white-clad woman serenely playing the zither, turning from the other side of the bridge with a gentle smile. His wife, initially as proud as a rose yet forced to accept her fate, their later interactions, late-night talks in the small building, her strength in illness. She stood behind the small building, holding a torch, looking at him with startled eyes, before setting the building ablaze...

Those fragmented images flickered briefly in the cracks. During moments of slight clarity, other fragments seeped in from the outside world.

"Mr. Ning, we won... we won..."

"Husband..."

"Young master, young master... young master fell down..."

"Hurry, hurry, hurry..."

"Young master Ning, they won't dare come again..."

"Young master Ning, they want to capture you..."

"Young master..."

"Young master, young master..."

"Young master, young master, young master..."

The voices repeated ceaselessly, as if unwilling to stop. He couldn't decipher their meaning, only felt, in clearer moments, that much time had passed, many roads traveled.

Then, at a certain moment, he awoke from his slumber...

************

Time rewinds to the evening of July 11th.

Gray clouds, black earth, raging wind and rain.

The view zooms in on the horizon, to Stone Bridge Crossing. Blood washes away with the current, broken weapons and toppled banners litter the ground, corpses soak in the water, one after another. Lightning flashes across the sky, outlining dark, continuous shapes on the riverside grass. Corpses lay still nearby, but in the distance, figures approached, led by several horsemen, all clad in black.

An Xifu, of the Black Feather Guard.

The black-clad figures scattered across the slaughterhouse-like field, searching for any clues. Moments later, they regrouped in the rain.

The group moved slowly forward, through the corpses. At a certain point, the leaders stopped. Not far ahead lay more scattered bodies, but these were better equipped. One of the bodies, clad in armor, was surrounded by others. This corpse had been decapitated, several blades and spears embedded in it, driven through gaps in the armor. The corpse had likely been bled dry.

Generally, such unrestrained venting was rare on a battlefield, but the scene suggested a frenzy of hacking. The general may have possessed extraordinary skills, but in this situation, he was overwhelmed by the frenzied soldiers, hacked to death, and his head removed.

The black-clad general on horseback glanced at the scene, then looked away.

"Yao Yi..." The murmur echoed in the storm. He glanced south. "Too fast..."

Soon after, the black-clad general gathered his subordinates in the rain. After giving instructions, he waved his hand. The force of fewer than two hundred men split into two groups, galloping in different directions, north and south.

After noon on this day, Lu Qiao's force was the first to be scattered, becoming the first sacrifice to the fanatical Wude Army soldiers. Before dusk, Yao Yi was defeated, and Yao Yi himself was killed. Only then did An Xifu's Black Feather Guard arrive at the battlefield. An hour later, Xue Dounan's division under Fang La clashed with the Wude Camp and was again defeated. The Wude Camp, like an extremely sharp turning spear, thrust directly north...

************

In retrospect, in the scheme that took place on July 10th and 11th, at the border of Suzhou and Huzhou, the ones truly outmaneuvered may not have been Fang La's armies. Strategically, whether dropping gold and silver along the road, using the remaining elite scouts to confuse the enemy, or spreading numerous rumors, it all aimed to distract the enemy temporarily, to create space between the five pursuing armies.

As Ning Yi himself said, once the enemy had time to react, such a large fleeing group could not possibly hide from Fang La's scouts in the hills and waterways near Hangzhou. The success relied not only on planning, but primarily on Yao Yi's underestimation, exploiting their psychological inertia to gain a moment of respite in this delicate situation.

Those who were most severely outmaneuvered were ultimately the Wude Army soldiers themselves.

Dragging everyone into a dead end with no way out, using life and death as leverage, gold, silver and power as bait, coupled with humiliation and hatred, left these people with no other option. Then, constantly repeating the difference between four thousand and one thousand men. The speech initially seemed persuasive, but later became almost inflammatory. Of course, without the pressure of being in a desperate situation, such incitement would not have been effective.

In fact, if not for his existing injuries, Ning Yi might have had to thank Xia Qi. Ning Yi's arrow at the time was almost recklessly indiscriminate, but the entire army had no way out. In addition, Tang Xiuxuan and others implicitly endorsed and supported Ning Yi, making the killing of Xia Qi and his subordinate almost a sacrifice to the flag. Others may have thought Ning Yi was reckless and stumbled upon the solution by accident, but no one else had Ning Yi's decisiveness and air of doing everything as a matter of course. Especially the phrase "Stop your nagging! So long-winded! You’re not a man!" even decided the direction of the battle on a small scale afterward.

The Wude Camp was already a remnant force. Even if everyone's passion was stirred up to the maximum, the officers' role in the first battle against Lu Qiao was not command. The force was driven by passion and despair, desperately fighting Lu Qiao's force. In the situation of four thousand against one thousand, the destructive power generated by this mentality was almost terrifying. After this major victory, almost annihilating Lu Qiao's army, Chen Xingdu and others truly established leadership in this confidence-restored army.

Subsequently, they marched north to raid and kill Yao Yi. Although the entire process was also easy, the degree of destruction was not as terrifying as the first time. This was because they had already escaped danger, and at least a small portion of the people had regained some clarity. After two battles within half a day, the soldiers were immersed in the pleasure of killing, revenge, and vindication, but the physical exhaustion was also extremely serious. When they discussed what to do next, someone said that they should not fight a third battle in a row, otherwise the team would collapse. At that time, someone directly cursed: "Stop your nagging! So long-winded! You’re not a man!" After this matter spread, anyone in the army who had any intention of retreating was ridiculed in this way.

In hindsight, if they had not chosen to fight three battles in one day at that time, so that An Xifu could not timely command the remaining three armies, the result of this battle would probably still be in vain. When An Xifu's Black Feather Guard contacted Shen Zhucheng to the south and connected with Mi Quan to the north, Xue Dounan's division had been defeated, and he could only gather two teams of less than three thousand people, and they were separated by the Wude Camp, which was in a domineering position at the time, making it difficult to respond to each other.

The Wude Camp was already a tired army at that time. However, they had just used the strategy of defeating them one by one to win three battles in a row. In this situation, neither An Xifu nor Liu Dabiao, who arrived later, dared to let the remaining two armies divide and attack them, but they also lost the best opportunity to defeat the Wude Camp.

However, An Xifu was not mediocre. After confirming that Xue Dounan had been defeated, he first let Mi Quan in the north keep a distance from the Wude Camp, and then let Shen Zhucheng continue south on the other side of Stone Bridge Crossing. This was not for battle, but to let Shen Zhucheng's team directly search for the refugees who were stranded in the south. Because although the Wude Camp was advancing rapidly, the refugees following behind them could not do this, and they must have stayed south of Stone Bridge Crossing. He seized this weakness and bit hard.

After that, the Wude Camp turned back at full speed. Thanks to the thousands of guards and martial arts masters left in the camp, An Xifu and Shen Zhucheng did not dare to attack the camp rashly. After that, An Xifu unified Shen Zhucheng's and Mi Quan's teams, while cleaning up the remnants and notifying Qingfeng Village and Xiaoluo Town to cooperate, and began to hunt down this fleeing team. The Wude Camp had also developed ferocity due to these battles, so in the hills south of Huzhou, no one could do anything to anyone for the time being. After the fleeing team gave up the fierce battle, they began to head north all the way.

At this time, An Xifu had already grasped the weakness of the army needing to protect this team of refugees, and harassed them all the way, looking for opportunities to intercept them. Although Chen Xingdu and others had commanding ability, their strategic and tactical foundation was not enough. Ning Yi, whom they originally expected, was now in a coma, and could not think too much about things even when he woke up occasionally. The team could only resist conservatively for a while, and arrived in Fuzhou on July 15th, and received a grand welcome belonging to heroes.

Only Ning Yi, who had the greatest merit, was heavily protected by a team of elite soldiers in a chaotic attack on the camp by An Xifu on the night of July 13th, so he also attracted more firepower, and was finally dispersed in the flames and crowds of this night, and his whereabouts were unknown...

For a long time after that, he did not appear in front of everyone again. After a large amount of publicity and rewards were given to the remnant soldiers of the Wude Camp, the name Ning Liheng, like a fleeting epiphyllum, filled everyone's eyes for a period of time. After The Great Ming Imperial Preceptor Tong Guan arrived in Jiangnan, he was quickly buried by a large number of battle reports and achievements, and disappeared in the memory of most people. Only a small number of people still remembered his name and were silently searching for his subsequent whereabouts...

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ps: The way home is finally settled. These days are the annual meeting, I can't sleep well, and I ate something wrong, food poisoning, it's really tragic to death... Now I finally finished this chapter, I breathed a sigh of relief.