The camp didn't really fall asleep. It simply gave out.
Once night settled in, exhaustion took the edge off everything. Fires burned low, kept alive out of habit rather than celebration. Men ate when food was handed to them, drank when water came their way, then sank down wherever there was room. The feeling of victory faded quickly. What lingered was heaviness.
Liang Wei stayed at the margins.
She sat where the ground sloped away from the main paths, her back against a supply crate, knees drawn up just enough to rest her arms. The sword remained wrapped at her side, quiet for the moment, though she was aware of it all the same, less an object than a presence. Her spear leaned close by, returned after inspection with nothing more than a nod, as if it needed no explanation.
Around her, voices drifted in pieces.
"…marshal's really dead."
"…they say one strike, straight through…"
"…never seen a spear used like that…"
Closer to the fires, another conversation took shape, lower and less certain.
" heard stories like this before."
"About what?"
"People killing commanders like it's nothing."
"That's just skill."
"Not always."
There was a pause. Then the voices dropped. "They say in the south, there was a woman. Didn't swing a blade. Just touched them. Men fell like their breath had been pulled out."
Someone scoffed. Someone else didn't.
"Witchcraft," a third voice muttered. "That's banned. Has been for generations."
"Banned doesn't mean gone."
Liang Wei's fingers curled slightly against her sleeve.
"They burned her," someone said. "At least that's what I heard. Central Kingdom made an example. Soul arts, spellcasting, anything like that. No trials. Just fire."
"…do you think it's real?"
Silence answered first. Then a shrug.
"Doesn't matter. If it is, you don't want to be near it." The fire crackled.
The conversation drifted on, turning to safer things. Drink. Wounds. Sleep. Liang Wei remained where she was until the noise thinned.
When she finally stood, she did so slowly, the ache in her body making itself known now that the fighting was done. She stopped at the edge of the firelight, where shadow softened her outline, and loosened the wrappings at her side just enough to press her palm against the cloth.
The sword stayed quiet. Something still stirred beneath the wrappings, faint and expectant, like a breath held too long.
She pulled her hand back at once and secured the bindings tighter than before.
Not here.
Not now.
She returned to her assigned space and lay down fully clothed, one arm tucked beneath her head, the other resting loosely at her side. The ground was hard. The air smelled of smoke and iron and damp earth. Sleep came in fragments, shallow and restless.
In one, she saw Xu Yuncheng's back again, broad and unmoving as he packed her things with infuriating calm. In another, she stood on the slope where loose stone slid underfoot, watching something unseen sink into the ground and disappear.
She woke before dawn.
The camp stirred slowly around her, quieter than the morning before the battle. Loss lingered now, counted and named. Orders would follow soon. Reports would be written. Names would travel.
Somewhere far from Bing Ya, a message was already on its way to the Central Kingdom.
It would report an unauthorized campaign. A fallen marshal. A nameless soldier on the left flank who held the line when others failed.
It would say nothing of the heat beneath the wrappings at her side. Nothing of a blade that seemed to listen. Nothing of how death lingered, as if something had been left undone.
Liang Wei straightened and reached for her spear.
The day was not done with her yet.