The long return journey unfolded beneath a gray sky heavy with unspoken grief. Not a word was exchanged. The once-proud column of soldiers—some limping, others barely keeping upright—advanced in near silence along the muddy, time-worn roads. Even the horses seemed subdued, their hooves muffled against the soft earth, their breath rising in quiet clouds.
No one sang. No one spoke of victory. No one dared hope.
At the center of the procession rode An Lu, cloaked in a silence as heavy as the iron of his weathered armor. His once-pristine breastplate was now dulled by blood, scratched by battle, and thick with the grime of defeat. He rode straight-backed, as always, but there was a weight in his posture, a stiffness that betrayed more than mere fatigue. His eyes, shadowed by the low brim of his helmet, looked not at the road ahead but at something beyond it. Something distant. Something lost.
Beside him, astride a modest steed, was Yuan Guo—the aged strategist whose name had once sent shivers through enemy courts. He too said nothing, the deep lines of his face unreadable. His sharp eyes, however, missed nothing: not the soldiers dragging their feet, not the broken standards tucked beneath cloaks, not the glances cast over shoulders toward the north. Toward the place they had left behind in ashes.
Behind them stretched the broken remains of an army. Not the triumphant kind returning from conquest, but the hollow-eyed survivors of a campaign gone terribly wrong. What remained were fragments: nobles who had lost everything, soldiers who had tasted humiliation, officers whose ranks had been emptied by the dead. Together, they moved like the echo of a once-mighty force—present in body, but wounded in spirit.
And then, on the third day, the battered column beheld the shape of Guangling.
Guangling—fortress and city, jewel of the western territories, and ancestral seat of power for the house of An Lu. With its tall granite walls and black-tiled roofs, its intricate bridges and layered towers, it had long been a symbol of unshakable might. Here, rivers had been tamed. Here, armies had been raised. Here, scholars and generals had gathered beneath the same roof.
To many, Guangling was more than just a city. It was the last line between imperial order and total collapse.
But now, those same walls seemed to hesitate.
As the army approached the northern gates, no drums were beaten, no banners waved, no fanfare was raised. There was no delegation of ministers awaiting their lord's return. No priests offering blessings. No crowds cheering from the parapets.
Only guards. Silent. Watchful. Unmoving.
And yet, the gates opened.
There was no resistance. No rebellion. The city, bound to An Lu by blood, by gold, by history, let him in.
Because here, he still ruled. His name remained law, etched into every decree, every tax scroll, every military ledger. The city's magistrates had all been appointed by his hand. Its treasury had grown under his eye. The commoners still whispered stories of the barbarian sieges he had broken, of the grain shipments he had secured in times of famine.
But something was missing.
The people did not cheer.
Children no longer chased the hooves of the warhorses.
And behind every half-closed shutter, behind every drawn curtain, there were eyes—watching, waiting, weighing the worth of a fallen general.
That evening, An Lu took no audience. He did not dress in court robes. He did not call a council.
Instead, he withdrew into the West Palace, a stark military compound within the city's inner ring. There, in the room where so many campaigns had been mapped, so many victories dreamed, he sat without his armor. Only a simple robe covered his frame as he stared into the half-light of dusk. The walls around him still bore faded tapestries and war maps from decades past.
And yet, the room felt foreign. Cold.
The silence was not restful. It was tense. Pressing.
His hands remained on the stone armrests of his seat. His gaze was locked on the horizon. Out there, the city murmured. Beneath his feet, Guangling still lived—but it no longer breathed with certainty.
He knew it.
It wasn't hatred in the air.
It was hesitation.
The next morning, just past dawn, Yuan Guo entered the chamber with his usual stoic presence. The old strategist carried no ceremonial symbols, no retinue of guards. Just his walking staff and a single silent aide who remained by the door.
An Lu didn't rise to greet him. He remained seated in a carved chair just below the central dais. Not because he felt diminished—but because the throne of command felt distant, symbolic, irrelevant.
Yuan Guo lowered himself onto the seat opposite him without waiting for permission. There was no need for formalities between them now. They were no longer warlords, but survivors.
—"What do you see?" An Lu asked, voice low, steady.
Yuan Guo's eyes glinted faintly under the flickering lanterns.
—"A city that still respects you… but one that has learned to hold its breath."
An Lu exhaled, slow and bitter.
—"They speak of me like I'm already gone."
—"They speak cautiously. Like merchants counting coin after a fire."
—"Luo Wen?"
—"Him, yes. But not only him," Yuan Guo said, adjusting his sleeves. "They speak of the Emperor still breathing. They speak of rebellion rising in the south. They speak of barbarians in the west regrouping. The world no longer fears a single war—it fears the unraveling of all order."
An Lu leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze sharp.
—"And yet I am the only one left with an army."
—"Exactly," Yuan Guo replied. "Which makes you the last anchor of what we once called the coalition… or its final executioner."
Elsewhere in the palace, the whispers had already begun.
The nobles of Guangling, once loyal to An Lu to the last breath, now held private gatherings. Their loyalty hadn't broken—but it had fractured. Some murmured about protecting the city from chaos. Others suggested alliances with Luo Wen.