A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

The seventh day, at dusk.

As the dilapidated outline of Yangguan Pass appeared on the horizon, the horse beneath Nie Yinniang let out a weary, mournful whinny, almost collapsing to its knees.

She dismounted with a swift, light motion, like a weightless leaf. Heading west, she changed horses three times, each time putting up a struggle before she could even fall.

The Yangguan Pass before her was even more dilapidated than when she had passed through it three years ago.

The city wall is covered with traces of wind and sand erosion, and huge gaps are barely plugged with simple sandbags and wooden planks, like a gaping, toothless mouth.

A few soldiers stood sparsely on the gate wall, their armor worn and faded by the wind and sand. They looked less like a garrison and more like a group of exiled prisoners waiting to die.

Instead of going through the main gate, she gathered her qi and her figure swept up the city wall like a ghost.

The few drowsy taxi drivers were startled by the sudden appearance of the figure. Just as they were about to draw their swords, they saw a black token.

On the token, the flying fish totem of the Embroidered Uniform Pavilion gleamed coldly in the setting sun.

"It's a matter for the Embroidered Uniform Guard." Nie Yinniang's voice was cold, and she spoke sparingly.

An hour later, in a barracks inside the pass that could barely keep out the wind, Nie Yinniang met the commander of Yangguan, an old captain over fifty years old with gray hair.

His surname is Li, and he is an old soldier left over from the previous dynasty.

"You...you've finally arrived." When the old captain saw the token that Nie Yinniang presented, his weathered face showed not awe, but a bitter smile of relief after surviving a disaster. "If you hadn't come, I was thinking of abandoning this pass and running to Yumen Pass with my two thousand men."

Nie Yinniang didn't respond to his question. She simply glanced around the barracks, which lacked even decent tables and chairs, and calmly asked, "Where is the body?"

The old captain sighed and led her to a cellar behind the barracks.

The cellar was cold and damp, filled with a strong stench of blood and decay. On a few planks in the corner lay sixteen corpses covered with tattered straw mats.

"Only one survived. He was still breathing when he was brought in, but he only managed to say a few words before passing away." The old captain's voice was numb. "It was the leader of that caravan, named Zhou Tong."

He lifted the straw mat on the far right.

Zhou Tong's body had already begun to stiffen. He was a burly man from Guanzhong, but now his eyes were wide open, his face frozen with the terror and resentment of dying.

Nie Yinniang squatted down, her gaze not lingering on Zhou Tong's face, but directly on the wounds on his body.

There were a total of seven knife wounds.

She reached out her gloved hand and gently parted the deceased's clothes at the chest. A deep wound, diagonally splitting from the left shoulder to the right rib, revealed the bone and almost ripped open the entire chest.

For the first time, Nie Yinniang's brows furrowed.

She carefully examined the edges of the wound, the broken bone, and the traces of torn muscle.

"This is not a scimitar of the grassland people." She stood up, her voice carrying an undeniable judgment.

The old captain was taken aback: "Not a scimitar? What is it then?"

"It's a straight sword." Nie Yinniang's gaze returned to the corpse, as if she were looking at an object. "And it's a very heavy straight sword, with a blade at least 30% wider than our new military standard-issue swords. Anyone who can use this kind of sword to split human bones must have immense strength."

She paused, then added a deduction that sent chills down the old captain's spine.

"The person who uses this kind of knife is at least half a head taller than us."

The old captain's face turned pale instantly. He remembered Zhou Tong's indistinct words before he died, which he hadn't understood at the time, but now they exploded in his mind like a thunderclap.

"That leader... he also said something." The old captain's voice was a little dry, with a tremor he himself didn't realize. "He said... they have 30,000 men, and they're still heading east."

30,000 people.

Nie Yinniang's pupils remained unchanged, but her hand, hidden in her sleeve, clenched tightly.

Where did they go?

The old captain practically ran back to the dilapidated barracks, where he pulled out a rolled-up sheepskin map with worn edges from a dusty wooden box.

He unfolded the map, his fingers trembling slightly with nervousness, and pointed to a spot in the Gobi Desert two hundred miles west of Yangguan.

"Five days ago, the scouts I sent out last saw them camped here. That place is called 'Ghost Cry Beach'." The old captain's voice trembled with tears. "Since then, none of the three waves of scouts I sent out have returned."

Nie Yinniang's gaze fell on the map, her mind racing with calculations.

Five days ago, the distance was 200 li. An army of 30,000 men, even marching slowly through the desert and Gobi, could still cover 30 li a day.

Five days...that's 150 li.

This means that today, that mysterious army is less than a hundred miles away from Yangguan Pass.

Nie Yinniang's face finally darkened.

She walked to the table and took out the sealing wax and letter tube used by the Embroidered Uniform Guard from her bosom. Without any unnecessary words, she directly wrote an urgent report on the oilcloth paper she carried with her.

The letter was written very quickly, yet the handwriting remained clear and austere.

After writing down the enemy's numbers, weapon characteristics, and approximate location, she added a sentence at the end of the letter.

"Also—they weren't riding horses, they were riding camels."

Before his death, Zhou Tong mentioned this detail intermittently. At the time, no one took it seriously, but Nie Yinniang instantly grasped this crucial piece of information.

Riding camels signifies that this army comes from the depths of the desert, further west and drier than the grasslands. They are capable of crossing the deadly sands that even the Northern Rong cavalry could not traverse.

This is a completely new and unknown enemy.

"Send it out immediately with the highest-ranking carrier falcon, at an urgent speed of 800 li, directly to the Emperor." Nie Yinniang handed the sealed letter to the old captain. "If the carrier falcon is intercepted, use your men; even if it means death, get the letter to Yumen Pass."

"Yes! Understood!" The old captain took the communication tube that felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, turned around and ran out as fast as he could.

Nie Yinniang was left alone in the barracks.

She didn't sit down, but turned around and walked out of the barracks, climbing back up the dilapidated section of the fortified wall.

The sun had completely sunk below the horizon, its last rays swallowed by darkness. The western sky was a deathly, leaden gray expanse.

The wind and sand whipped up pebbles from the ground, which struck the city walls with a mournful sound, like the weeping of countless wronged souls.

Nie Yinniang stood there, motionless, like a stone statue blending into the night. Her gaze was fixed on the west, as if trying to pierce through the endless darkness.

After an unknown amount of time, her ear twitched slightly.

It wasn't the wind.

She squinted and gazed into the distance.

At the edge of the horizon, in that pure darkness, something seemed to be slowly surging.

At first, it was just a line deeper than the night.

But soon, the line began to widen and thicken, like a black tide, silently yet irresistibly spreading towards Yangguang.

Dust began to churn on the horizon.

That's not the wind.

Nie Yinniang knew very well what was going on.

That was an army of 30,000, kicking up clouds of dust as they marched.

They have arrived.