If I, a death row inmate, am not to become a demon, am I to become a member of the Imperial Guard?

The cave is very deep.

The wind blew in from the cave entrance, carrying the scent of decaying leaves and damp earth, causing the flames to flicker.

Qin Shuang leaned against the cold stone wall, her soaked robes clinging to her skin, the chill seeping into her bones. She stared at the fire. The flickering flames cast shadows on her face. That face, always shrouded in frost, now held only an empty calm.

Beside her lay the Embroidered Spring Blade. The scabbard was covered in mud, and the rope binding the hilt was stiffened by blood.

There were only the two of them in the cave.

The silence, like water, slowly rose above one's head, making it hard to breathe.

Zhou Yang sat casually on the other side of the fire. He held a twig in his hand, poking at the fire with a light crackling sound. Sparks flew up, casting fleeting shadows on his expressionless face.

He changed into clean clothes, which he had taken from some unfortunate fellow. The ordinary coarse cloth shorts looked remarkably neat on him. The heavy smell of blood had dissipated, leaving only a faint scent of smoke.

I don't know how much time has passed.

It might take an hour, or it might only take the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

Qin Shuang finally moved. She raised her head, her voice hoarse, as if she had sandpaper stuck in her throat.

"South or north?"

She asked directly. This was the most practical problem at hand. To the south lay the treacherous and miasma-ridden Ten Thousand Mountains, far from the reach of the emperor, making it easy to hide. To the north lay the harsh and cold land beyond the Great Wall; once beyond the Great Wall, the reach of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Zhenwu Guard would be significantly reduced.

This is a question that a fugitive should consider.

Zhou Yang paused for a moment. He threw away the branch in his hand and looked up.

His gaze wasn't on her, but rather pierced through the cave, looking towards the pitch-black world outside. He stared intently, as if he could penetrate the boundless night and see far into the distance.

In the distance lies the direction of Anyang Prefecture. Further still, there is the capital.

At the heart of that power vortex.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Zhou Yang spoke, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, as if he were talking about something trivial.

Qin Shuang was stunned. She frowned, her eyes revealing undisguised confusion for the first time. "What did you say?"

She thought she had misheard. Or perhaps the man had suffered some mental breakdown after experiencing that bloody massacre.

"I said," Zhou Yang withdrew his gaze and finally looked at her, "we're not going anywhere."

His eyes were calm, like a bottomless lake. There was no madness, no escaping in them, only a cold, clear calculation.

"Why?" Qin Shuang pressed. "Commander Chen is dead, but you killed him, and so many Zhenwu Guards as well. Wanted posters are probably plastered all over Anyang Prefecture, no, the entire Jianghuai Province! If we don't leave, we're just waiting to die!"

Her voice rose slightly, tinged with urgency. She wasn't afraid of death, but she didn't want to die so inexplicably in a cave. She certainly didn't want to die with a madman.

Zhou Yang smiled.

The smile was faint, just a slight curve at the corner of the mouth, yet it carried a chilling coldness that sent shivers down one's spine.

"Qin Shuang, you were once a centurion in the Embroidered Uniform Guard," he said slowly. "Tell me, where could a fugitive, wanted by the imperial court and personally pursued by the Zhenwu Guard, possibly escape to?"

Qin Shuang was speechless.

Yes, where can we escape to?

To the south, the mountains serve as a natural barrier, but they are also a dead end. The government can seal off the mountains and slowly wear them down. Moreover, who knows if the Heavenly Principle Sect members are hiding in the mountains?

Heading north, beyond the Great Wall, may seem like a path of freedom, but it follows a different set of survival rules. For the two unarmed men, going there would only hasten their demise.

The world is vast, yet there is nowhere for them to find refuge.

"To run is to die," Zhou Yang concluded, his tone as calm as if he were commenting on the weather. "You're no longer a commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and I'm just a businessman who made a fortune only to get into huge trouble. We're both just pieces swept off the chessboard."

He paused, then picked up a piece of dry firewood and added it to the fire.

"Those who are swept away have only two choices. Either they are casually thrown into a fire and burned, or..."

He looked up, and the firelight burned in his pupils.

"...and drag the hand that was playing chess into the fire too."

Qin Shuang's heart skipped a beat. Looking at Zhou Yang, she suddenly felt that this man was utterly unfamiliar. She had always thought of him as a greedy, cowardly, and slippery fellow. A very useful knife, a sophisticated egoist.

But now, she saw something more dangerous than the abyss in those eyes.

"What do you want to do?" she asked in a low voice, enunciating each word clearly.

"Chen Qianhu is just a dog," Zhou Yang said. "If a dog bites someone, just kill it. But the owner who unleashed the dog deserves an explanation."

He tapped his knee lightly with his fingers.

"This debt cannot be left unresolved."

Qin Shuang finally understood. She wanted to laugh, but found that she couldn't move her lips at all. He wasn't trying to escape; he was trying to... bite back. To bite that high and mighty behemoth that could crush them with a flick of its wrist.

"You're insane," she uttered. "You're crazy."

"Perhaps," Zhou Yang said noncommittally, "but it's better than sitting around waiting to die."

He stood up and walked to the cave entrance. The night wind blew the hem of his clothes, and his back looked somewhat thin in the darkness, yet he was like a nail driven into the night, unmoving.

"Qin Shuang, you have no way out." He didn't turn around. "Your identity, your past, everything about you and the Chen family makes you the biggest stain on this case. Even if you escape alone, do you think the court will let you go? They will use you as bait, or directly as a scapegoat to cover up the scandal of the murder of the Zhenwu Guard commander."

Every word was like a cold knife, precisely piercing Qin Shuang's heart.

She knew Zhou Yang was right. From the moment she stepped onto the waterside pavilion, there was no turning back. She had buried her past with her own hands.

Silence fell once again in the cave.

Only the fire was burning.

Qin Shuang lowered her head, watching the flickering flames. The moment the veil was torn off, she thought she had been reborn. But now it seemed she had merely jumped from one cage into another, a larger and more dangerous one.

The only key to this cage is held in the hands of the madman next to him.

a long time.

She raised her head, her gaze now clear. In those beautiful phoenix eyes, there was no longer confusion or fear, only a resolute determination to burn her bridges.

"it is good."

She only said one word.

Zhou Yang turned around and looked at her.

"I'll go with you," Qin Shuang said steadily, "but I need to know what your plan is."

"It's simple." Zhou Yang walked back to the fire, sat down again, and put on that lazy businessman's expression once more. "Since we can't escape, let's go where there are more people."

"The capital?"

"Yes, the capital," Zhou Yang laughed. "It's a den of wolves and tigers, but also the most bustling place in the world. The more dangerous a place is, the safer it is. They would never expect that we would walk right into their doorstep."

He held up one finger.

"The first step is to survive. Get to the capital as quickly as possible."

He extended his second finger.

"The second step is to find a way to infiltrate. The capital is a melting pot of all sorts of people, from all walks of life. Finding a place to hide is much easier than living like a savage in the mountains."

He held up his third finger.

"The third step, and the most important one," he looked at Qin Shuang, a chilling smile creeping into his eyes, "Save money. Save enough money to buy a faster knife, or to buy someone who will risk their life for us."

He wasn't talking about gold and silver jewelry.

Qin Shuang understood. He was referring to intelligence, power, and the resources to contend with the Zhenwu Guard and the bigwigs in the court.

"I'm a businessman," Zhou Yang said, spreading his hands. "I never do business that loses money. They ruined my business this time, so I have to make them pay me back double."

The firelight illuminated their faces.

One is a crazy plan, the other is a fate that must be accepted.

Qin Shuang looked at the man before her, the man who had torn off her veil, declared her "freedom," yet dragged her into an even deeper abyss. She suddenly felt that perhaps this was her fate.

She pulled a small tag from her pocket and tossed it over.

Zhou Yang reached out and caught it. It was a black iron token, heavy in his hand, with an ancient character "镇" (zhen, meaning "suppress") engraved on it.

"A token of the Zhenwu Guard," Qin Shuang said calmly. "I took it from Commander Chen. Perhaps it will come in handy in the future."

Zhou Yang weighed the token in his hand and smiled.

"Not bad." He put the token into his pocket. "Consider this our initial seed money."

He stood up and dusted himself off.

"It's almost dawn. We'll leave once we've rested enough. From now on, we're fugitives, and also... partners."

He pronounced the last four words with exceptional clarity.

Qin Shuang did not refute. She simply hugged the embroidered spring knife back to her chest, the coldness of the hilt bringing her a sense of peace.

Outside the cave, a faint glimmer of dawn appeared on the horizon.

A new day has begun.

For many in Anyang County, this was the beginning of chaos and fear. But for the two people in the cave, it was the only path forward, a path of no return.