The masked men in black were completely surrounded; blocked in the front and pursued from behind, with mountain walls and cliffs on both sides, their path of escape was sealed shut.

Yet, these men were clearly well-trained desperadoes.

Even though they were surrounded like an iron barrel, not a single one of them dropped their weapons to surrender.

With their backs to one another and fierce glints in their eyes, they charged at the guards and reinforcements without fear of death, each strike desperate, every move intended to drag their opponents down with them.

Empress Su Mingyue held her longsword and charged at the very front.

Her swordsmanship was bold and sweeping, a stark contrast to her cool and indifferent appearance, and the power erupting from within her small frame exceeded anything Zhou Ming could have imagined.

From the cave entrance, Zhou Ming looked out from afar and saw only that moon-white figure weaving through the flash of blades and swords.

Her sword was not fast, but it was extremely precise; every strike she delivered aimed unerringly for a throat or a wrist.

The tip of her sword grazed the side of a masked man's neck, spraying a streak of crimson.

The scimitar in that man's hand was only halfway raised before he fell backward.

Blood splashed onto her face, but she did not even wipe it away, her gaze as cold as tempered ice.

She lowered her body to dodge a longsword slashing toward her, then backhanded her blade in an upward sweep, the edge slicing open the second masked man's chest and abdomen.

Using the momentum, she turned, her longsword sweeping out with the force of her rotation, the blade slicing precisely into the third masked man's knee.

The man screamed and dropped to one knee; before he could raise his blade to parry, her sword tip was already pressed against his throat.

The four head maidservants followed her closely, never leaving her side, their short swords flying as they specifically parried attacks coming from her flanks.

Dongmei alone intercepted two longswords simultaneously slashing at Empress Su Mingyue's back; sparks from the clashing weapons flew past her temples, yet she did not even furrow her brow.

The men in black fell one after another, forced to retreat step by step as the encirclement tightened further.

Their accomplices became fewer and fewer until, in the end, the few remaining were forced into a corner against a cliff wall, their backs pressed against the rock, with nowhere left to retreat.

With the battle having reached this point, the outcome was decided.

Empress Su Mingyue ceased her movements, her sword tip pointing toward the ground as blood dripped drop by drop from the spine of the blade into the soil.

She breathed slightly, her gaze sweeping over the masked men trapped in this desperate situation before her.

She did not say, "Those who surrender will be spared."

She could see from their eyes that these men would not surrender.

In those pairs of eyes, there was no desire to survive, no fear, no hesitation—only a deathly, numb silence.

As expected, the remaining few masked men exchanged a glance.

What was exchanged in that glance was not fear, nor hesitation, but a silent, tacit understanding.

The next moment, they simultaneously turned their longswords against their own throats.

The sound of blades slicing across throats was dull and brief.

Several corpses hit the ground almost simultaneously; the heavy, dull thuds echoed between the cliff walls for a moment before returning to silence.

Zhou Ming stood at the cave entrance, watching this scene from afar.

He saw Empress Su Mingyue standing amidst the pile of corpses, the longsword in her hand still dripping blood.

She lowered her head, glanced at her blood-stained hands, and then slowly raised her head, her gaze piercing through the devastation covering the mountainside, though it was unclear what she was looking at.

Zhou Ming followed her gaze and saw Yuyang Commandery clearly visible at the foot of the mountain.

The wind blew across the broken wooden board in his hand, causing it to emit a slight tremor.

Zhou Ming finally withdrew the foot he had rested at the cave entrance, stepped out of the cave, and then leaned against the cliff wall, letting out a long, silent breath.

He had survived.

Inside the cave, everyone huddled together, not daring to let out a loud breath.

The sounds of shouting, the clashing of blades, and screams from outside flooded into the cave all at once, each sound exploding as if right against their ears.

Some covered their mouths, not daring to cry out; some buried their faces in their maidservants' shoulders, trembling; others stared wide-eyed in the direction of the cave entrance, as if waiting for a verdict of unknown consequence.

Only when the urgent, rhythmic sound of horses' hooves rumbled up from below the mountain path, and someone outside the cave shouted at the top of their lungs, "Reinforcements have arrived!", was the deathly silence inside the cave finally broken.

First, a few maids and matrons collapsed to the ground, panting heavily as if they had just been fished out from the bottom of a river.

The young masters and Young Misses looked at one another, a sense of surreal bewilderment slowly appearing on their faces, as if they still could not believe they had truly survived.

It was unclear who was the first to cry out, but the sound gradually shifted from suppressed sobs to wailing; then, as if contagious, several Young Misses began to cry together in a group.

The crying was not born of sadness or grievance, but was a pure catharsis that could only be squeezed out after surviving a disaster.

"Let's go out, let's go see," someone said.

Only then did the group support one another and stagger out of the cave entrance in a line.

Outside, the ground was strewn with corpses lying in disarray; broken blades and snapped swords were scattered among the bodies, some still deeply embedded in the chests of the dead.

The corpses were in various poses; some maintained the posture of fighting with blades just before death, their eyes wide open, faces full of unwillingness.

Others were curled on the ground, having long lost any trace of Life Qi, with severed arms and limbs visible everywhere, and the breeze carrying the stench of blood toward them.

Then, they saw the few corpses of the masked men in black lying in the corner against the cliff wall.

Those corpses were piled up in disarray, with the cuts on their throats still oozing dark red liquid, staining the soil beneath them a deep black.

And then, they saw Empress Su Mingyue.

She stood in front of that pile of corpses, still holding the longsword she had picked up from the ground, the tip pointing toward the ground, the bloodstains on the spine of the blade half-dried, congealing into winding, dark red patterns.

The moon-white outer garment she wore was already unrecognizable, the cuffs torn, and the hem of her skirt smeared with blood.

The blood splattered across her bodice ran from her shoulder down to her waist, indistinguishable as to whether it was her own or someone else's.

Her face was also stained with a few streaks of dried blood, one of which ran diagonally from her temple across the bridge of her nose, almost splitting her cool, indifferent face in two.

She turned around to look at the crowd, her phoenix eyes devoid of any extraneous expression.

Her pupils were still as black and as cold as a piece of ink jade that had been soaked in a frigid spring for a thousand years, so calm that it made one's heart crawl.

The entire scene was deathly silent.

The few Young Misses who had been wailing aloud just moments ago had their voices cut off as if by a pair of scissors.

They stared at Empress Su Mingyue, lips trembling, tears still streaming down, but their cries were forcibly choked back in their throats.

No one spoke. Not a single person spoke.

Of these young masters and Young Misses, who among them did not usually live in luxury with throngs of servants?

Who among them did not put on airs and maintain their dignity in front of others?

Who among them was not arrogant, overbearing, and fearless of heaven or earth?

Yet at this moment, standing before Empress Su Mingyue, they all made the exact same reaction simultaneously:

Avoid eye contact, take a half-step back, and shut their mouths.

It was not respect for power, nor gratitude for a favor, but something more primitive and instinctive.

It was like a rabbit seeing a hawk, or a herd of deer smelling the scent of a tiger or leopard.

After a person has killed and been stained with blood, there is something indescribable about them; ordinary people might not be able to describe it, but they can feel it in their very bones the instant they meet that person's gaze.

And this quality on Empress Su Mingyue was so intense that it was almost becoming tangible.

The person before them was no longer the indifferent, moderately talented noble daughter of the Marquis's estate they had addressed as "Sister" at the poetry gathering.

She had spent the time it takes for an incense stick to burn fighting in the midst of flashing blades, having personally taken who knows how many lives, with the blood on her face not yet dry.

She stood just like that, as if waiting for the next person worthy of her drawing her sword.

It was unclear who lowered their head first.

One, two, three—eventually, everyone lowered their heads.

It was not a bow, nor a greeting; it was that they no longer had the courage to even meet her gaze.