Chapter 4
Chapter 4: The Last Attempt to Persuade Him to Surrender
It had been more than a month since the Barbarian State’s last assault.
Gu Chang An still patrolled the watchtower day and night. He knew this silence.
It was the hush before the storm.
That day, several fierce camels appeared outside the city.
At their head rode a woman in a red skirt, a pale purple scarf wrapped at her neck. She removed her felt hat and studied Kucha City as if it were a wound that refused to close.
“Bleak,” she said, voice clear enough to cut through wind and distance. “So desolate. This city doesn’t belong in a desert so vast and wild.”
Gu Chang An stood on the wall, still as a blade set upright. “I think it’s beautiful.”
The woman smiled faintly, as if amused by his stubbornness. “Tuo Ba Wei Yang,” she said. “Commandery Princess of the Barbarian Emperor’s nation.”
Gu Chang An did not answer.
Her smile widened. She lifted her pale face and asked, almost gently, “Are you not afraid of death?”
Gu Chang An’s expression did not change. His voice drifted on the wind, calm to the point of chill. “If you can tolerate this city, I can live. If you can’t… I’ll kill you.”
“Then surrender.” Tuo Ba Wei Yang flicked a hand toward an attendant, who produced a document patterned with coiling python and dragon.
“Ride through the Martial World and drink with rivers and mountains,” she said, “or sing in the court and point your sword at battlefields—choose what you want. The Empire will allow it.”
Her tone hardened. “This is the first formal offer. It is also the last. Think carefully.”
With two fingers, she pinched the document and snapped her wrist.
It shot toward the wall like a thrown dagger.
Clang!
A bronze blade flashed.
The document shattered in midair, turning to dust.
Tuo Ba Wei Yang’s eyes darkened. “The An Xi Army died until it was left alone. When it reached the underworld, only then did it ask where its descendants were. An ant shaking a tree is foolish. An egg striking stone is a joke.”
“As long as the ant doesn’t regret it,” Gu Chang An said, and smiled.
“Stubborn loyalty!” Her voice sharpened, cutting. “We’ve sealed the news for sixty years. The Central Plains will never know your An Xi Army’s story. Shen Zhou is split into seven kingdoms—who dares even touch Yumen Pass?”
She leaned forward slightly, gaze fierce. “I don’t want to make you more desperate than you already are. The Heavenly Dao favors the Barbarian Emperor’s nation. Our fortune rises as yours dries up. The glory of the Central Plains is gone.”
“Don’t get worked up,” Gu Chang An said blandly.
“Am I worked up?” she snapped back, then spoke as if scolding iron for not becoming steel. “You, Gu Chang An, should have made your name echo through the world—not died here in silence!”
Her eyes flashed. “The Tang Dynasty deserves to collapse. Stubborn loyalty won’t be praised. It will be spat on.”
Gu Chang An fell silent.
It was true: the reason An Xi had been stranded in the Western Regions, the reason the people had suffered and scattered, was the sin of those who feasted in comfort. Xuan Zong, Li Long Ji, and the scholar-officials who hid behind saint books—names that deserved to be nailed to history’s pillar of shame.
But An Xi had held for sixty years not for any emperor.
It had held for the spirit of the Central Plains.
That pride that had existed since ancient times.
Seeing his silence, Tuo Ba Wei Yang mistook it for wavering. Her tone softened. “Do you want to be a savior? A lone brave man isn’t salvation. It’s only a struggle—an unwilling thrashing inside a trap.”
Gu Chang An lifted his gaze to the clouds drifting over the desert, the sky so clean it looked washed raw.
“I don’t have faith,” he said. “I only believe in my conscience. That’s enough for me.”
He looked back at her, voice lowering, steady and absolute. “In my heart, whether Great Tang is dead or alive, I will still guard this city—because this is land of the Central Plains.”
He paused, watching her anger build. “Han and barbarians cannot stand together. You can call it ridiculous. You can laugh at me for clinging to spirit while standing in despair.”
His eyes hardened. “But don’t insult me with surrender.”
“My elders held for sixty years without ever begging to yield,” he said quietly. “How can I have the face to speak the word ‘surrender’?”
Tuo Ba Wei Yang tightened her grip on the whip until her knuckles whitened. She forced down her fury. This trip was doomed to fail.
“Commandery Princess,” a hooked-nosed attendant murmured, “don’t forget the sanction officer’s instructions.”
Tuo Ba Wei Yang’s deep blue eyes flickered. Then she changed her tone, smoothing it into something almost gentle.
“If you surrender,” she said, “you can marry me.”
The sanction officer understood what she was dealing with. Spiritual energy had revived first in the Barbarian Abyss, then spread toward Shen Zhou’s coasts, filling thirty thousand li around Yumen Pass. The farther out, the thinner it became.
Kucha City had almost none.
And yet Gu Chang An had cultivated strength that defied reason.
The air grew strangely still.
Silence answered her.
To cover the awkwardness, Tuo Ba Wei Yang forced a smile. “A wife. Power. Wealth. Aren’t those what men of the Central Plains want most?”
Gu Chang An shook his head. “As long as I’m here, the city stands. Go back.”
“So there’s nothing to discuss?” Her face went cold, pride stung raw. She pointed at Kucha City as if it offended her eyes. “It exists for one day, and that day is an insult to the Barbarian Emperor’s nation. It stands here in the Western Regions like a thorn!”
She drew a sharp breath, voice rising. “The Empire has tolerated it for sixty years only because it didn’t want to waste troopers’ lives. But one day, it will pay any price. It will burn the city, smash the tombstones, and erase this mark of the Central Plains!”
A blade sang.
Cold and bright.
Gu Chang An’s bronze sword shot from the wall and dropped with killing intent.
“Back!” attendants cried out, panicking. They snapped gleaming hooked ropes from the backs of their camels, casting from five directions at once.
Impact slammed the air. Sword energy spilled outward like a shockwave.
People and camels toppled into the sand.
Gu Chang An’s voice came down from the wall, calm and merciless. “I’m only one man of Hua Xia. But my faith in defending this land is rock. Unshakable.”
His eyes were indifferent.
“Get out.”
Tuo Ba Wei Yang’s breath hitched. If not for the experts at her side blocking with everything they had, she would have died there in the desert.
“The Empire will give you a grand burial,” she said, voice tight, trying to claw back pride with words.
“Wait,” Gu Chang An answered.
Yellow sand rose as the group fled toward the horizon, disappearing into the bleeding gold of dusk.
Through dust and distance, Tuo Ba Wei Yang looked back.
The white figure still stood alone on the wall.
Still stood in that absurd, stubborn dark abyss.
If she respected his courage, then she would fulfill his pride.
And she hoped that in the underworld, he would not curse her for being blind.