Chapter [B5] 5 — Rules of Engagement

Chapter [B5] 5 — Rules of Engagement

Another scene appeared before me, a different palace.

Shi Qing sat on his throne with a blank expression. The attendants standing along the walls were alert but did not speak. Servants checked the Chi Lamps and refilled them. Guards waited with their hands resting on the hilts of their weapons.

The four divine beasts stood before Shi Qing in their human forms. The Black Tortoise with a serpent around his neck, the Azure Dragon with scales littering his body, the Vermilion Bird with feathers, and the White Tiger with stripes. Even as humans, their supreme, divine auras filled the hall.

“Cai Xiaotong is dead.” Shi Qing leaned his head back. He looked like he wanted to cry but could not. “To think they would go this far. I assume you all know what this means.”

Xuanwu spoke first, pensive. “We do not have much choice. It is war. The court will fracture.”

“The court is already broken,” the Vermillion Bird said, pain in its voice. “Only blood will force it to move before it is too late.”

Shi Qing stared at the steps below the throne as if he could see bodies there. When he finally raised his eyes, the light inside them had dimmed even further. “We begin preparations. Lock down the capital’s formations and evacuate the outer districts. Summon every Celestial Lord. I will not let the heavens fall while I still breathe.”

The assent of the divine beasts was a quiet thing, more feeling than action, and none spoke aloud.

In that silence, Shi Qing nodded and stood, and the light shifted as time slid past.

The doors opened to the central corridor. A messenger, still breathing hard from running through the palace, handed over a carved tablet with an update from the field-master. Shi Qing read it while walking.

He passed the inner gate, stepped into the courtyard, and climbed into a plain carriage. No one would mistake it for a parade vehicle, this was built for utility and not show. The imperial guard rode ahead and behind, the carriage moving through the capital with a clear path.

The city’s outer districts were in motion. Residents were leaving under the supervision of officials. Men tightened ropes, sealed crates of dried food with red wax, and counted rolls of bandages. I was surprised to see that there were just as many mortals in this age of glory as there were in our times, despite the vast strength gap between them and cultivators in this era.

“...the world does not let go of its natural blessings easily, Lu Jie,” Ki said, once again answering my thoughts before I could voice them. “There is far more to balance than merely life and death.”

Always more to learn. In an odd way, I found that comforting. Some things remained true even to immortals.

Harried stewards directed pedestrians and carts toward side streets. Bells rang to alert other gates to open so the column would not slow.

The field of conflict lay on a plain north of the Yawning Death Gorge, well away from the nearest village and twice as far again from the city walls.

Runners planted formation flags in straight lines to mark the boundary that common soldiers and civilians were not to cross. Physicians set up tents close enough to carry the injured quickly but far enough that fighting would not sweep over them if the line shifted.

Four figures reached the plain not long after, arriving independently from Shi Qing as though to make it clear they were not part of his retinue. They did not announce themselves with trumpets. The Black Tortoise approached first, the Azure Dragon reached the line second. The Vermilion Bird and the White Tiger followed with equal pace, third and fourth. They did not address one another, only looking over the prepared positions, checking the spacing of the forward flags, and refreshing small protective arrays that the soldiers carried.

They then settled behind Shi Qing.

Shi Qing… didn’t look too good, and it was obvious to anyone who’d seen him before all of this had taken place. The lines below his eyes, his expression of melancholy… Grief was still rooted in his heart, clearly.

“Report.”

“Outer districts cleared,” the commander replied, bowing. “We established three fallback lines between here and the second ring. Civilians pulled back to the monastery ridge. The clerks completed the name censuses at dawn. Auxiliary stores have been moved to the west road.”

Shi Qing nodded once. “Good. They will arrive soon.”

And arrive they did.

On the eastern rise, the enemy lifted their own flag. White-feathered banners went up in formation over a dense assembly of soldiers and officers. They were just as orderly as Shi Qing’s men. They set the banners, aligned their ranks, and waited. A path opened through the center. 𝙧₳Ɲŏ𝔟ÊṢ

Shi Yan Yun walked along that path, wore light armor beneath a robe, and he too, did not speak. The armor plates he wore had been hammered thin and overlapped like scales. The surface absorbed most of the light and reflected a narrow pale edge. As he passed, the grass around his feet stopped moving in the wind, like time itself froze around him. Yao Chuanli walked half a step behind.

A formation token clicked once between his fingers and disappeared into his sleeve, not noticed by anyone.

Six masked elders moved in a triangle behind them at a distance that would let them respond but not obscure the two leaders from view.

Ki stood to my left and observed in a low voice, “If there is such a thing as a clean war, this was set up to resemble one, at the start.”

What happened next gave me an idea of what she meant.

Banners dipped.

Envoys stepped out to the midline with gold plates and long, needle-thin styluses. The eldest envoy held the first plate up so both armies could see the blank shine.

“We begin,” she said. “Clause one.”

A scribe beside her spoke, voice even. “The field of battle is this plain. No city walls shall be approached.”

“Recorded,” the eldest envoy said, and scratched the words into gold with the stylus. Sparks spat and died.

Shi Yan Yun inclined his head. “Agreed.”

Shi Qing’s field-master lifted two fingers. “Agreed.”

“Clause two,” the scribe continued. “Only soldiers and units named on the rolls may take part.”

Yao Chuanli stepped forward a half pace. “Our rolls have been delivered. Cross-check them if you like.”

“We did,” another envoy said dryly. “We continue.”

She etched, then held the plate toward the imperial side. A junior officer leaned in, eyes tracking the grooves, then nodded to Shi Qing.

“Clause three,” the scribe said. “Engagement shall be between Celestial Lords and their selected retinues. No conscripts pulled from plows.”

A younger envoy glanced up. “We do not yearn for death and destruction to spread our cities.”

“None of us do,” Shi Qing said quietly.

The first envoy looked to both lines. “Objections?”

Shi Yan Yun’s sleeves stirred. “None.”

Yao Chuanli added, “On this, we are firm.”

“Witnessed?”

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“Witnessed,” said Shi Qing.

“Witnessed,” said Shi Yan Yun.

Representatives from both sides stepped in. One of Shi Qing’s generals pressed his iron seal into the wax with both hands. “For the court.”

Yao Chuanli pressed his too—an austere square with spare lines.

The four divine beasts did not step forward, but the air grew calmer as the plates cooled.

The last envoy checked the seals, then stacked the plates in both hands and bowed to the empty air between armies. “The oaths are written,” she said. “If you break them, the penalties will follow you.”

“Let them,” the White Tiger murmured.

“Brother Qing,” Shi Yan Yun said, his tone level. “Stand down. Return to the capital, teach your heir. Let us handle the division of the heavens while you ensure the succession remains stable. You have the position to do it.”

“I have only duty,” Shi Qing said. “I cannot step away while the realm is at risk.”

Yao Chuanli spoke without amplifying his voice. “It is no risk, brother. If we remove the bottlenecks, we can make cultivation safe and practical for everyone with the proper preparation. I am tired of recording famine numbers and asking governors to limit food requisitions because cycles refuse to adapt. Our plan reduces preventable harm. This new cycle will improve the material lives of common people. Of everyone. The Divine Beasts, this world, it is hoarding the resources.”

“You killed Brother Cai,” Shi Qing retorted. “Do not use reform to cover murder. What you seek is impossible, Yao Chuanli. The world cannot give you what you seek, no matter how you would twist the heavens, it cannot adapt to your demands.”

Yao’s jaw tightened.

Shi Yan Yun extended his hand, palm level to the ground. “We will not be ended so easily. If you truly stand in opposition, then we have nothing more to say.”

“I cannot stand by.” Shi Qing stepped back. “If you will not be stopped by reason, then it must be by force.”

The parley ended. Both sides returned to their positions.

Trumpeters at the edges raised their horns. The eldest envoy lifted a palm and the field quieted to the edge of breath.

“On the first call,” she said, “you may begin.” She glanced once at Shi Qing, once at Shi Yan Yun, and finally at Yao Chuanli, before she lowered her hand.

The trumpets sang.

The lines formed, flags rose, and the killing started.

Shi Qing’s twenty-two stepped forward first—iron discipline, tight stances, killing forms drilled until muscle and meridian moved together. Across the field, Shi Yan Yun’s nineteen and Yao Chuanli’s twenty spread into triangles around concealed array stakes. If not for the Divine Beasts, Shi Qing would’ve lost just due to the sheer number difference.

Spears from Shi Qing’s left surged in a six-count advance. Their tips flared with thin bands of steel-cold qi. The opposing circle didn’t meet them head-on; a lead officer slashed a glyph in the dirt with his heel and his line rotated two paces left. The spearpoints scraped past armor instead of opening throats. One defender was a half-beat late. A spear hammered through his collarbone, threw him down, and pinned him to the shale. He jerked twice and went still.

White talismans flashed and snapped to ash. Mud blossomed under a charging cohort as Yao’s formation masters drove water up through the shale. Boots sank to the ankle; legs stopped. Before panic took hold, wind lifted from the rear ranks lightening bodies just enough to wrench free. A man fell anyway; the suction took his boot, and a hammer from Shi Yan Yun’s second file smashed his ribs before he could rise. He choked pink froth and stopped moving.

South of center, the ground groaned. Three horned beasts tore out of a summoning ring, hooves shredding stones, eyes filmed white. They lowered heads for a trampling crush.

The White Tiger walked in, not hurrying. His blade came up once, twice, three times. Necks parted cleanly. The beasts crashed, legs spasming, blood pooling along fissures in the slate. Formation officers sprinted in with bags of sand and rings of salt, kicked the glowing marks apart, and snuffed the array while the Tiger checked his edge and turned away.

The probes ended. Both sides committed.

Shi Qing’s Lords made up for their lacking numbers with viciousness. A woman with copper cuffs chopped a talisman in half mid-glow, caught the backlash in her sleeve, and redirected it through her palm into a man’s chest; the bone caved in and he fell without a sound. A short Lord with a hooked sword caught an enemy wrist, twisted, and took the hand at the forearm. He stamped on it as he passed so no one could stitch it back.

Yao’s formation masters, however, played the long game. Stakes hidden under the shale lit one after another. A square of air turned thick; a spear captain hit it, stumbled, and two blades took him while he fought the invisible drag. A strip of ground shed its friction; cavalry tore across, hooves skidding; one Chi Beast crashed and rolled, and its rider snapped his neck on the stone edge. On the next breath, a cooling curtain swept across Shi Qing’s right, making bamboo paper brittle mid-burn; talismans cracked instead of firing. The Vermilion Bird answered by heating a corridor a pace above the field; arrows entering it softened and sagged, fell to harmless hooks before they reached flesh.

In the second rank, the heir showed off his skills. The enemy captain across from him favored his left foot at moments when he unleashed his Chi. That was all the heir needed, to pierce the man through the throat with his spear. An opportune moment.

The heir would make a fantastic sniper, I couldn’t help but think.

But the battle didn’t stop. If anything, the heir’s actions only intensified the rage on Shi Yan Yun’s side. A Jade Halberd Lord from Shi Yan Yun’s line vaulted over corpses into Shi Qing’s front rank, halberd screaming with compressed qi. He took an arm at the elbow, spun, and cut down into a thigh. Blood sheeted, dark and hot.

The Black Tortoise pivoted into him, one shoulder knocking onto the man’s chest.

The halberd skated off a field that no eye could see, and the Lord rocked back three paces, ribs thrumming. He summoned his halberd back into his hand, even as he coughed droves of blood. The Tortoise stepped once, planted, and pressed down. Several of Shi Yan Yun’s men that had slipped forward sagged as if their bones had been filled with lead, crumpling onto the ground.

But Yao Chuanli’s formation masters wouldn’t just stay idle and let Xuanwu rampage.

An array snapped into place under Shi Qing’s center. The tremor crawled up bone. Domains shivered. One Lord lost his footing and went to a knee. An axe came down. His helm held, but the force broke his neck. He died with his eyes open.

“Break that circle,” Shi Qing ordered.

Three formation specialists dashed into the humming lines, driving iron nails along a mapped pattern. Arrows chewed the earth around their legs. One took a shaft under the scapula and kept running; the head tore out through his chest when he dove and rolled. He spat blood, jammed the last nail, and grinned with red teeth as the array stuttered and blew apart in a shock of cold wind. He fell on his back and stared at the sky until someone dragged him away. He stopped blinking halfway to the tent.

On the far left, a Lord skimmed above heads, knives glittering. He slit a throat, planted a blade in a temple, and reached for a third kill—then jolted as the White Tiger’s sword punched through his lower back and out his belly. The Tiger kicked him forward off the blade and finished the two men the Lord had wounded before they bled out and dragged the line with them.

The Azure Dragon caught the Chi attacks with his palm, compressed it into a ball the size of a melon, and shoved it into a hammerman’s chest. The man flew five paces and didn’t rise.

The Vermilion Bird marked a corridor through the dust, held heat in a line so healers could drag a fallen Lord through without taking arrows. An enemy arrow caught him in the shoulder while he did it. He broke the shaft off with his teeth, spat the splinter, and kept the path hot until the stretcher cleared.

Bodies piled fast. A spear captain on Shi Yan Yun’s side took a blade in the hip and kept commanding while two men held him up; he bled out between syllables and dropped as his last order carried. A talisman adept barked a seal that he should never have tried with a punctured lung; the paper flared wrong, blew his chest open, and set two allies on fire. Their screams lasted four heartbeats. A boy with freckles and a new scar sliced at a leg and missed; the return cut took him under the jaw. He fell like a sack and twitched until his limbs stilled.

It was… hellish. I’d witnessed war, of course, been the Emperor who watched it silently, so I wasn’t… shocked, but it made me feel dismayed nonetheless to see such death and destruction.

At midday, the light dimmed as a cloud drifted across the sun. The air held a metallic tang. On the eastern hill, a white banner rose, making me raise an eyebrow. A white banner already?

Yao Chuanli walked to a point where his voice would carry toward the second rank and addressed the heir. “Crown Prince,” he called. “A word.”

The heir did not move, only watched his counterpart coldly.

Yao Chuanli continued his slow advance, hands wide placatingly. “Crown Prince. My brother and I will accept the blame of what follows, but hear this. The cycle you defend has not fed a single child nor cooled any fever. It is men and women who do these things. When we are done with this pointless slaughter, we will change the structures that obstruct them. Your father could step back and prepare you, or join us in building schools and clinics instead of ordering funerals. He could close the line of emperors who burn themselves to keep a system functioning that returns nothing to them. I will swear on my meridians that no blade will be drawn while we speak.”

The White Tiger angled his head slightly, his eyes narrowing.

The heir sought his father with his eyes. Shi Qing’s face did not display grief or anger, only raising his right hand half a finger’s height and lowering it, leaving the choice to his son.

The heir took five guards and approached the square that had been designated as neutral ground. He stopped at the marked line two paces inside the square, holding his back straight, not bowing, not showing any respect.

Yao Chuanli’s and Shi Yan Yun’s expressions darkened just the slightest bit.

“My father has told me of your arguments, your desires,” the heir said, low enough that only those close by could hear. “He refuses your plan because it is ill advised, because you are drunk on arrogance. If you hope I will persuade him to accept your terms, I must refuse.”

“I came to ask you to live, to offer you another chance to end this needless bloodshed.” Yao Chuanli’s voice was low, as close to pleading as I’d ever seen from the man, his face controlled but not enough to conceal his genuine concern. It suddenly struck me that, with how close the four rulers had been up until now, this young man was probably the next thing to his own son. “If either of you fall today, this field will collapse into uncontrolled fighting. Take your men, pull back to the second line. Save your soldiers and stand aside instead of dying and assisting no one. You leave us no choice, with the way you act. This is a war you have chosen, not us. Our quarrel is with the heavens, not our brothers.”

The heir looked toward his father again, and the expression on Yao Chaunli’s face flattened. “Father—”

Shi Yan Yun acted. In one quick silent motion he extended his fingers and drew them together. A narrow discharge of white energy left his hand and crossed the distance to the heir’s throat in a blink, before anyone could even think to react.

The prince’s breath cut off. He fell forward and did not rise.