I am invincible, that's why I lie down. You're using your entire clan to rebel?

The first soldier to step out of the gate hadn't even touched the ground yet.

Yunluan's sword had already slashed across his throat.

He didn't see any blood, but felt a chill spread from the side of his neck, and then he fell forward.

The second person who stepped out the door saw it, his foot suddenly stopped, and he froze there as if nailed to the threshold. Then he turned and ran back.

But he had only run two steps when Yunluan's sword arrived, piercing his neck from behind and the tip emerging from his throat. He glanced down at the blood-stained tip of the sword, as if he wanted to reach out and touch it, but before he could even raise his hand, he had already fallen to the ground.

Someone turned and ran towards the side fence, his shoulder hitting the wooden fence with a dull thud. The fence shook slightly, but didn't break.

He took a step back, preparing to ram the fence a second time, but before he could exert any force, a dark silver sword pierced through his shoulder blade from behind and embedded itself in the wooden fence, pinning him there.

Someone tried to climb over the earthen wall, his fingers already digging into the mud crevices. Just as he was about to climb up, the sword's edge grazed his ankle, and he plummeted downwards, crashing against the base of the wall, curling up in a ball, never to rise again.

Some finally realized that running away was futile. They turned around, gripped their knives tightly, let out a low growl from deep in their throats, and then charged towards Yun Luan.

The blades traced arcs in the firelight, slashing at the figure standing at the camp gate from different angles, but each time the blades were about to touch the hem of her clothes, they missed.

And every time her sword fell, it would stop a person's movements.

Before some people fell, they were still crawling towards the village gate, their hands leaving shallow marks on the sandy ground.

Someone was kneeling on the ground, his hands supporting him, his forehead pressed against the ashes, trembling all over. But when Yunluan walked past him, the tip of her sword lightly grazed the back of his neck, and he stopped moving.

That one-sided cleanup ended quickly.

It happened so fast that some people hadn't even fully understood what was happening before they collapsed.

They caught up with those who were still desperately fleeing before they could run more than twenty steps.

The sounds stopped just before the blood had a chance to fully soak the sand on the ground.

The fire was still burning, and the firewood occasionally cracked, making a few soft popping sounds.

The firelight illuminated the motionless figures in the camp, and also the figure in dark, tight-fitting clothing.

Yunluan sheathed her sword, walked back to the doorway, and stood once again beside the wooden gate that had been pushed open, like a tree that had just been blown by the wind and had returned to calm.

Tuoba Yan stood in front of the main tent, remaining motionless.

He did not attempt to escape from beginning to end, nor did he rush towards the gate or fence like the others.

He stood there, like someone watching a rainstorm that had nothing to do with him, quietly standing under the eaves, waiting for the rain to stop.

His gaze fell on the figure sheathing his sword, then on the scattered, motionless figures, before he turned and walked back to the main tent.

His pace didn't quicken, nor did he panic, as if he had something he absolutely had to do, something that had to be done before something else happened.

The curtain of the main tent fell behind him, blocking out the firelight and the figures that were no longer moving.

He walked to the desk, bent down, opened the bottom drawer, and took out a blank parchment and a charcoal pencil.

He laid the paper on the table with steady movements, then lowered his head and began to write.

He wrote quickly, his handwriting crisp and clean, as if he wasn't sure how much time he had left.

He wrote only three lines: "South of Fengling Ferry, the old military camp was attacked. The enemy was a single man, dressed in gray, whose strength far surpassed that of a Zhixuan Realm expert. Our entire force was wiped out. The information is reliable; please report to the royal court immediately."

After he finished writing, he didn't pause. He folded the paper into a long, thin strip, took a thin bamboo tube from his waist, stuffed the rolled-up paper into it, sealed it, sealed the opening of the bamboo tube with wax, and tied it with a thin rope.

Then he turned and walked to the corner of the tent, where a bamboo cage was half-covered by an old cloth.

He lifted the curtain, and inside the cage sat a gray-white homing pigeon, tilting its head to look at him.

He tied the bamboo tube to the pigeon's leg very gently, so as not to disturb it.

The carrier pigeon stood quietly in his palm, like an object that had completed its mission.

A gust of wind seeped in through the gaps in the tent flap, causing the thin rope to sway slightly.

Tuoba Yan stood up, walked to the tent flap, lifted the curtain, and turned his head slightly as if to check the wind direction outside.

Then he released his hand, and the carrier pigeon flapped its wings, took flight from his palm, circled briefly above the camp, and then flew toward the northern horizon, passing through the hazy clouds, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely.

Tuoba Yan stood at the tent entrance, gazing in the direction where the carrier pigeon had disappeared, as if waiting for something or confirming something. Only when even the shadow of the carrier pigeon could no longer be seen did he lower the curtain and turn around.

Then he saw Qin Mu.

Qin Mu had entered the main tent at some point. He was standing in front of the desk, looking down at the parchment spread out on the table—not the one that had already been written on, but another one, pressed against the corner of the table, as if it were a spare.

There was nothing written on the paper, but Qin Mu's gaze fell on it as if he were looking at something waiting to be filled in.

He didn't look up, but simply spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft: "Finished writing?"

Tuoba Yan stood still, without saying a word.

He slowly lowered his hand from the tent flap.

Qin Mu picked up the blank parchment, examined it in the firelight, and then put it back: "I know you wrote it. I can sense that you just did something."

Tuoba Yan looked at him and suddenly realized something—he knew he would send a message, and he had no intention of stopping him.

He stood there, watching Qin Mu put the parchment back on the corner of the table, watching him turn around.

Tuoba Yan spoke up: "Aren't you going to stop me?"

Qin Mu glanced at him: "Why should I stop you? Only by spreading the news can more people know what happened here."

Tuoba Yan's gaze suddenly froze.

He stood there, his fingers slowly sliding down the curtain and landing at his side.

He could hear his heart beating steadily in his chest, but the smile on his face didn't fade; instead, it deepened even more than before.

"Aren't you a little too confident in your own abilities?" he asked, his voice low and steady as if stating a fact he had already confirmed.

He turned his head slightly, his gaze falling on Qin Mu, as if he were re-measuring something, as if he were confirming just how heavy and thick the stone in front of him really was.

He saw Qin Mu standing there, relaxed, with his hands hanging at his sides, not even in a fighting stance.

Qin Mu smiled, offering no explanation or further comment.

Tuoba Yan moved.

His movements were completely unexpected; his body tensed up in an instant, his boots made a dull thud on the ground, and he sped towards Qin Mu.

His speed was faster than any of his previous moves, carrying something he could only squeeze out in desperate situations.

He opened his palm, his five fingers slightly bent, and cut towards Qin Mu's throat.

The air was torn apart at the edge of his palm, producing a short, sharp whistling sound.

Qin Mu did not retreat.

He stood still, his gaze fixed on Tuoba Yan's approaching figure, as if he were looking at a floating object slowly approaching the shore.

When Tuoba Yan's palm was still a hand's distance from his throat, Qin Mu raised his right hand.

The movement was slow, even somewhat relaxed, like reaching out to part a drooping branch in a courtyard.

He flipped his wrist, his fingertips landing on the base of Tuoba Yan's palm, and gave it a gentle push.

Tuoba Yan felt as if he had bumped into a wall—not a hard wall, but a soft one that he could sink into but could not penetrate.

His palm strike seemed to be held down by an invisible hand, all the force was dissipated in that instant, and his entire arm went numb from the shock.

He heard a faint sound from his wrist, not a crack, but more like a bone giving a warning that it was about to give out.

His body involuntarily bounced backward, flipping half a circle in the air before landing on his knees first. He braced himself for a moment and then slid forward a step.

Two shallow tracks, plowed by the soles of his boots, were left on the sandy ground, and a small patch of dust rose where he landed.

Qin Mu lowered his hand, as if brushing away a speck of dust that had settled on his shoulder.

Tuoba Yan's fingers, which were supporting him on the ground, trembled slightly. His palms remained in the same open position as before, and his fingers were not fully closed.

He lowered his head, his chest heaving violently. He opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but a sweet, metallic taste surged up from deep in his throat. Before he could swallow it back, the blood rushed to his throat, spilled from the corner of his mouth, dripped down his chin, and onto the sandy ground, spreading into a small, dark red, damp stain.

He raised his head, his voice hoarse: "Who...who are you?"

When he asked that question, he didn't even realize that he had said "you" instead of "Your Excellency".

He knelt on the ground, his knees sinking into the sand, his arms still supporting him on the ground. The blood had not completely stopped flowing down his chin, but he seemed to care no more.

Qin Mu looked at him and spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft, but carrying a tone that Tuoba Yan had never heard from any of the Northern Border people before: "Does your Northern Barbarian eyes only see the people of the Northern Border, and not the people of Great Qin?"

Tuoba Yan's pupils contracted slightly.

He looked at Qin Mu as if he were re-examining a seal he had seen many times before. His lips parted slightly, but before he could speak, Qin Mu had already moved.

This time his movements were faster than before, as if he had already completed the steps that needed to be confirmed.

His left hand rose slightly, the movement so fast that its trajectory was almost invisible, and it precisely swept across Tuoba Yan's legs.

A very short, muffled sound, like bones being severed, came from the air.

Tuoba Yan didn't even feel pain immediately; he only felt his weight suddenly change direction.

When he looked down, he found that his legs below the knees were empty.

Blood gushed from the fracture, seeping into the sand and quickly turning the grayish-yellow ground a dark color.

His body swayed, and he suddenly fell to the side and forward, his palms bracing against the ground, but his fingers could no longer hold on.

He let out a short, sharp sound, as if it were being forced into his throat. The sound was not loud, but it was as sharp as a string that had been stretched too tight and finally snapped.

His shoulders were trembling violently, but he gritted his teeth and did not fall to the ground.

Qin Mu raised his hand, and gently clenched it in the air, as if gathering an invisible thread.

Tuoba Yan's body was lifted off the ground, arced through the air, and landed next to the kneeling figure at the camp entrance.

His wife knelt on the ground, her hands still tied behind her back, her gaze falling on Tuoba Yan, moving from his face to his broken leg, and then back to his face.

Her lips were trembling, but she didn't make a sound.

Qin Mu walked up to them, stopped, and looked down at Tuoba Yan: "I will give you the time it takes for an incense stick to burn to properly repent for what you have done."

The moment the word "朕" (Zhen, meaning "I" or "the Emperor") was uttered, Tuoba Yan's wife was the first to react.

Her eyes widened suddenly, her pupils contracting sharply and then dilating abruptly.

Her lips trembled violently as she tried to say something, but before she could utter a word, she collapsed as if all her strength had been drained away.

Tuoba Yan also raised his head. When he heard that word, it felt as if something was pressing down on him from above.

His mouth was open, blood seeping from the corner of his lips, but he seemed to have forgotten the pain at that moment. His eyes, which had been somewhat blurred by the intense pain, seemed to have been touched again by something, and his pupils shrank to a very thin line.

He looked at Qin Mu as if he were looking at something he couldn't explain logically, staring at him for a long time, as if to make sure he hadn't misheard.

The fire burned quietly in the center of the camp, occasionally sending up a cluster of tiny sparks.

A gust of wind blew in from outside the village gate, causing the withered branches of the pomegranate tree to sway slightly.

Qin Mu stood in the wind, the hem of his gray robe fluttering slightly, like someone waiting for the last grain of sand to run out of an hourglass, unhurried and unperturbed, simply standing there quietly.

Yunluan has returned.

The sound of footsteps stretched from the village gate, treading over sand, over ashes, and over the bodies that were no longer moving.

Every step was taken with extreme steadiness, without hesitation or pause.

She walked to Qin Mu's side and stopped.

She had already sheathed the sword, and the bloodstains on the blade were wiped off by her casual hand along the edge of her clothes, leaving a dark red scratch.

Her gaze fell on the two figures kneeling on the ground, as if she were looking at two objects waiting to be dealt with.

"Begin to repent."

Her voice was not loud, carrying her usual, almost mechanical flatness.

When those four words fell into the air, Tuoba Yan's wife was the first to raise her head.

She had been keeping her head down, as if she was still processing the weight of that one word.

Upon hearing Yunluan's words, her eyelashes trembled violently. Then she opened her mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out.

Tuoba Yan remained kneeling there.

The bleeding from his severed leg had not completely stopped and was slowly seeping into the sand, turning that small patch of ground a dark brown.

His face was as white as paper, and beads of sweat were trickling down his forehead, sliding down his temples and dripping onto his collar, leaving a small, dark, damp stain.

His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to speak, but the blood still lingered at the corner of his mouth. He swallowed, the movement seeming to aggravate the wound, causing his brows to furrow slightly, but he still did not make a sound.

Yunluan did not urge her further.

She simply stood there quietly, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

Her gaze fell on the slowly dying fire in the center of the camp, as if she were counting how long it could burn, or as if she wasn't looking at anything at all.

The wind blew in again from the direction of the village gate, causing the withered branches of the pomegranate tree to sway slightly.

The dry branches clattered together, making a very faint sound.

Tuoba Yan's wife finally uttered a sound, initially just a broken, breathy sound, which gradually pieced together into a complete word: "I..."

She paused, as if to make sure she could continue with that word, "What I said..."

She closed her eyes, as if trying to brush certain images away from her, but found that she couldn't.

She began, her voice hoarse and broken: "The first one was last autumn... a merchant on his journey... with a few companions... our people said they were coming from the North to do business..."

The wind blew in from outside the village gate again, stirring the withered branches of the pomegranate tree and making a soft rustling sound.

Qin Mu remained standing there, waiting quietly.