Day Eight: The Heartache
The eighth morning arrived in an eerie silence. For the first time in seven days, the walls of the Jin Mansion were quiet.
No siege towers crawled across the battlefield, no ladders appeared beneath the walls, and no formations of Wu soldiers advanced toward the fortress.
Even the distant enemy camp seemed unusually still. Luo He was taking advantage of that silence.
He was lying in a wooden lounge chair beneath the shade of a tree in the inner courtyard, finally allowing himself to rest.
It was not the comfortable sleep of a man at peace, but just the exhausted sleep of someone whose physical body had simply reached its limit.
Jin Mulan had spent the previous seven days refusing to properly rest. She had not slept for seven nights.
Neither had he had a proper sleep in three nights in a row.
Every time Luo He urged her to leave the battlements, she refused. The fortress needed its commander. The soldiers needed to see her standing.
As long as the enemy remained outside the walls, she would not leave her position. Luo He had eventually stopped arguing.
Instead, he had avoided the bed entirely. He knew that if Jin Mulan discovered that he had gone to rest comfortably while she remained awake on the walls, he would never hear the end of it.
So he had retreated to his study, opened a book, sat in a chair, and pretended to work. Then he had fallen into a rest. It was perhaps the only way he could rest without angering his wife.
Above him, Jin Mulan remained on the battlements. Her armor was still on her body. Her spear in her hand. Her eyes remained fixed on the distant Wu camp.
Seven days. Seven nights. The last time she had slept properly had been beside Luo He before he left. Since then, she had barely closed her eyes.
She had watched thousands of soldiers die. She had watched the walls shake beneath bombardment.
She had watched men collapse from exhaustion and seen fresh enemies replace every fallen soldier.
Yet every time someone told her to rest, she gave the same answer. After the siege. There would always be an after.
Until there wasn't. Jin Mulan suddenly pressed a hand against her chest. For an instant, the soldiers around her thought she had been wounded.
Then her knees gave way. Her body collapsed against the stone. Several soldiers rushed forward and caught her before she struck the wall completely.
One immediately removed the wrist guard from her arm and pressed his fingers against her pulse. His expression changed. There was nothing.
He checked again. Still nothing. Panic spread across the wall. A veteran soldier immediately ran toward the courtyard to summon Luo He.
He arrived moments later. The instant he saw his wife lying motionless, the former exhaustion disappeared from his face.
He dropped beside her and checked her pulse himself.
Nothing. Her heart had stopped. For several seconds, Luo He simply stared. Then his expression hardened.
He ordered the soldiers to carry to her room inside the mansion and summoned a veteran commander to take control of the battlements.
Jin Mulan's armor was removed, and Luo He immediately began administering first aid. He pressed against her chest again and again.
Nothing. He continued. Still nothing.
His hands remained steady, but his breathing grew increasingly heavy. He perfectly understood exactly what was happening.
Seven days without sleep had finally caught up with her. Her body had simply collapsed under the strain. There was no defibrillator.
No modern medical equipment. Nothing that could reliably restart a stopped heart. So Luo He relied on the only thing he possessed.
He rubbed his palms together and concentrated the electrical energy within his body. Then he pressed both hands against her chest.
A surge passed through her. Her body arched slightly. Nothing happened. Luo He tried again. A stronger charge. Still nothing.
He prepared a third attempt. Before he could release it, Jin Mulan suddenly convulsed. Her chest rose. A violent breath entered her lungs.
Her heart began beating again. Luo He immediately leaned over her. Her eyes slowly opened. For a moment, she seemed confused. Then she recognized him. She tried to rise.
Luo He immediately pressed her back against the bed. She had barely regained consciousness, yet her first thought was already the battlements.
She needed to return. The walls needed her. The soldiers needed her. Luo He refused.
He told her that she had held the fortress for seven days and that the command was now his responsibility. She had already pushed her body beyond its limits, and another attempt to return to the wall could kill her.
Jin Mulan stubbornly resisted. Luo He finally threatened, half jokingly and half seriously, to chain her to the bed himself if she tried to leave again.
The humor disappeared from his eyes when he told her that he could not bear losing her over a war that was already approaching its end.
The reinforcements had arrived. The situation had changed. The fortress no longer needed her to stand on the wall every moment.
Eventually, Jin Mulan surrendered. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to rest. Only after Luo He was certain she had actually settled beneath the blankets did he leave the room.
The moment he stepped outside, the softness disappeared from his face. The commander had returned.
He immediately ordered the veteran commander to gather every available cavalryman. There were only around a thousand left.
The veteran commander hesitated. The Wu army possessed roughly sixteen thousand cavalry alone, and that's in addition to its infantry forces.
The Jin soldiers had barely survived the siege and were exhausted to the point of collapse. Yet Luo He had no intention of defending anymore.
Day Eight: Relieving the Siege
Luo He looked over the remaining Jin cavalry.
After seven days of fighting, barely a thousand men were still in sufficient condition to mount their horses and fight.
They were exhausted, wounded, and uncertain about what their young lord intended. Luo He gave them only one instruction.
"Prepare to ride." He commanded.
The commanders exchanged glances. Nobody understood what he was planning. Then Luo He finally revealed it. Their reinforcements had arrived.
And the thousand remaining Jin cavalry would serve as the bait. The mansion gates opened. Luo He mounted his horse and rode out at the head of the formation.
A thousand cavalrymen followed.
The Wu camp stood roughly six hundred meters away. A massive wooden fence surrounded it, reinforced by watchtowers and a heavy wooden gate.
The camp had been strongly constructed specifically to prevent sudden attacks from the mansion. The Wu soldiers believed themselves safe.
They were not.
The moment the Jin cavalry emerged, the guards on the perimeter spotted them.
Shouts erupted. Messengers ran toward the inner camp.
But by the time the warning reached the command tents, Luo He's cavalry had already crossed much of the distance.
The Wu camp erupted into confusion. Ballistas positioned along the Jin walls began firing.
Heavy bolts screamed through the air and crashed toward the enemy camp. Many missed entirely, but enough struck the wooden defenses to create panic among the soldiers inside.
Luo He's cavalry continued forward. Crossbows rose. The Jin soldiers fired repeatedly toward the wooden palisade.
The watchtowers became the first targets. Men stationed inside them barely had time to react before crossbow bolts struck through the openings.
Several collapsed from the towers, while others abandoned their positions. The purpose was not to kill the entire camp. It was to create confusion.
And confusion was exactly what Luo He needed. Inside the camp, Elder Zhoung finally emerged. He drew his sword and began shouting orders.
Soldiers rushed to form ranks. Others searched for weapons. Some had only just awakened. The camp had not expected an attack.
Men ran through the tents half-dressed, grabbing armor with one hand and weapons with the other. Some had armor but no weapons. Others had weapons but had not yet managed to put on their armor.
The Jin cavalry reached the wooden gate. Luo He handed a small package to one of the veteran soldiers. The soldier understood immediately.
He rode forward, dismounted near the gate, and forced his sword between two wooden supports.
He secured the package against the gate, lit the fuse, and immediately sprinted back toward the cavalry.
A heartbeat later... BOOM!
The wooden gate exploded. Fragments of timber flew outward. The entrance was torn open. Luo He raised his sword. The thousand Jin cavalry charged through.