Dusk drums from Jiangling's walls pierced the thick fog, their vibrations trembling through Mi Fang's sweat-slick palm as it gripped his sword hilt. Ice crystals on bronze battlements refracted the bloody sunset, casting fractured light across the northern horizon where Fancheng's smoke signals coiled like the contorted faces of Fu Shiren — poisoned by his own hand three moons prior.
"Report—!" A scout's armor clattered with frost shards. "Thirty Wu merchant ships pass Beacon Tower Three!"
Mi Fang's throat convulsed twice before his brocade-clad knees struck icy bricks. "Holds inspected?"
"Sichuan medicinal herbs," the scout barked, his signal flag snapping in the river wind. A suspicious crimson stain darkened the banner's edge.
A silk-ripping pipa chord tore across the waters. Mi Fang's pupils contracted — twenty winters past at Red Cliffs, Zhou Yu's lute master had sounded the same lethal note! Lunging toward the crenellation, he watched silken sails plummet like executed prisoners, revealing black-iron rams studded with wolf's teeth spikes.
A white-clad figure glided atop the waves, his serpent spear forged from steel umbrella ribs. The white-feathered arrow piercing Mi Fang's ceremonial cap came not from the river, but from Lü Meng's [Wu's River General] glacial smirk — colder than the arrow he'd once shot through Gan Ning's helm at Ruxu.
"General! The beacon—" A lieutenant's warning drowned in the gale.
Mi Fang's boot shattered the bronze signal brazier. In the hidden compartment lay the Mojia Mechanized Faceplate*, its surface bleeding golden veins. That rain-lashed night three months ago returned — the straw-cloaked intruder's metallic rasp: "To wear this mask is to inherit the Martial Saint's spirit." Now Mi Fang understood — these veins pulsed with Fu Shiren's lifeblood!
[Author's Note: The Mohist engineering sect's biomechanical relic, believed destroyed during Qin's purge of scholars]
Thunder erupted northward.
A black-clad youth on horseback shattered the Han's ice, his Storm-Blossom Spear scattering seven barbed arrows. Moonlight crystallized his spear-tip blood into the Kan hexagram* — the lost Mojia "Blood Oracle." As the final droplet struck Mi Fang's forehead, Jiangling's triple iron gate bolts exploded inward.
[I Ching symbol for perilous waters]
"This mask thirsts for nine traitors' essence," the youth reversed his spear, tassels grazing Mi Fang's twitching cheek. "Seven souls may fuel Lord Guan's phantom for three dawns."
Lü Meng's arrowhead pressed between the youth's shoulder blades.
Mechanical lotuses bloomed across the river. Hua Tuo's disciple Qingnang* stood umbrella-in-hand upon a steel petal: "The midnight watch approaches. If the hempen anesthesia—" A tectonic roar drowned his warning — the Green Dragon Crescent Blade had cleaved Han River's dike, shaking briny tears from Jiangling's mortar.
[Legendary physician's heir, keeper of the "Green Bag" medical secrets]
As the faceplate clamped over his skull, Mi Fang glimpsed the jade pendant* on the youth's spear — its dragon-tail cloud pattern inset with vermilion gold, identical to the imperial heirloom General Dong Cheng had offered Emperor Xian in 196 AD.
[Historical Context: Part of the failed plot against Cao Cao]
"Treasonous dogs!" Lü Meng's serpent-spear churned the current. "Dare you counterfeit Guan Yunchang—"
Three cold stars flashed. Mi Fang tasted copper as the mask constricted, seven blood threads oozing from his eye sockets — Liu Feng's severed fingers, Meng Da's poison fangs, Yang Huai's lone eye... relics of every Shu general he'd murdered now writhed inside his skull.
The youth's spear became a silver tempest, seventy-two forms of the Storm-Blossom technique raining destruction. Each strike detonated a mechanical lotus, spewing indigo mist. Wu's elites touched the fog — their blades rusted to crimson dust mid-swing.
"Third watch* tolls," Qingnang hurled a bronze clepsydra. "To Maicheng, General!"
[Author's Note: 23:00-01:00 in ancient Chinese timekeeping]
Meteors scarred the northeast sky. Through the mask's fractured vision, Mi Fang saw his doppelganger galloping on Red Hare* while the true Guan Yu — encased in Mojia cryostasis beneath a forest of golden needles — glared through glacial prisons.
[Legendary steed said to race 1000 li daily]
"Lu Xun's fires consume seven hundred li* of camps!" A charred messenger gull splashed into the river.
[Author's Note: 1 li ≈ 500 meters]
The youth impaled the scroll, laughter colder than the Han: "A masterful tiger-luring stratagem." His spear pierced three warships, pinning Lü Meng's mast with needles that mirrored Mi Fang's dying visions — Wu soldiers clawing their throats as Fu Shiren had in his final agony.
Jiangling's western watchtower crumbled. Mo Li, daughter of the Mohist Grandmaster, soared over the battlefield atop a Mechanical Phoenix*. Her Frost Ruler* tapped the breach: "Kan's dark waters, seal!" The Han reversed course, freezing the shattered wall into crystalline ramparts. Lü Meng's sulfur arrows struck — exploding into swarms of ice butterflies.
*1. [Mohist heir commanding biomechanical constructs]
2. [Cosmological tool controlling elemental forces]
"Half a watch remains!" Qingnang's silver needle pierced Mi Fang's crown point. "Time for Lord Guan's double to 'die gloriously'."
Flame serpents coiled Jiangling's walls. Through blood haze, Mi Fang watched his doppelganger leap — Green Dragon Crescent Blade sundering Wu's warship as Guan Yu had beheaded Yan Liang at Baima Slope. Yet within the blade's glare lurked inky tendrils — telltale signs of Mojia energy core overload.
Midnight's zenith arrived as the Big Dipper's handle pointed west.
The mask detonated. Mi Fang's dying consciousness held Lü Meng's body sinking beneath ink-dark waves, and the youth's murmur as he retrieved his spear: "Jing Province's chessboard merely welcomes its first piece."
Northward, the true Green Dragon Blade cleaved the Han, its tidal wave revealing the submerged Mojia Citadel's bronze dome. The youth's poisoned blood seeped through mortar cracks into the underground vault, coalescing into a droplet on Guan Yu's cryo-sealed finger — the slightest twitch rippled through the ice.