There is no longer a Commander Feihong in this world.

On the day General Feihong fell in battle and died for her country, the azaleas in the courtyard of the Pei family residence in the imperial capital bloomed with a blazing, vivid red, as if mirroring the endless sea of blood spilled by the fifty thousand soldiers of Chelan City in the northern frontier—crimson, boundless, and scorching.

Could even a god of war suffer defeat?

Did the Pei clan endanger their soldiers in pursuit of glory?

Did the Pei clan harbor sinister intentions, plotting treachery for years?

Was the Pei clan’s collusion with the enemy irrefutably proven?

One accusation after another, each word from the people’s lips and pens seemed to sentence the Feihong General—who had protected the homeland and won every battle for decades—to death long before any trial.

But could it truly be called a death sentence? After all, she had already perished in the north, utterly and completely. At most, after dying in battle, she had been granted the disgrace of utter ruin.

Who was General Feihong? The legitimate eldest daughter of the late Marquis Wujing, the current Marquis Wujing herself, and the Grand General of the Five Cities of the Northern Frontier—Pei Xueyao.

The title “Feihong”—“Soaring Swan Goose”—was an honor granted by the Emperor and the people in those years when Pei Xueyao was invincible on the battlefield.

Yet honors bestowed may just as easily be withdrawn. What the Emperor and the people give, they may also turn into a charge of treason and death.

Thus, with a single defeat and the loss of fifty thousand lives, the illustrious and formidable House of Marquis Wujing collapsed overnight.

The people of the capital claimed that all one hundred and fifty-six members of the Marquis Wujing’s household were executed for defying imperial orders, each presented with poisoned wine, white silk, or a dagger.

They spoke with certainty, even detailing how one hundred and fifty-six members of the Crane Command escorted the execution: fifty-nine took the poisoned wine, forty-seven the white silk, and fifty were given daggers. In the end, one hundred and fifty-five corpses were carried out.

Wait—why was there one body missing?

Ah, it was said that the young heir of the Marquis, at the last moment, had been summoned to the palace, where he took poison alongside Consort Pei.

So that explained it!

Speaking of that young heir, I once glimpsed him on the street some years ago—a truly striking youth, with rosy lips, pearly teeth, and radiant beauty, the very picture of elegance.

What a pity. Such a splendid young man, dragged down by his mother’s fate, forced to die the son of a traitor.

Isn’t it so? Pei Zhaojin, the Marquis’s heir, had but just turned thirteen this year, only to die in utter silence at the very height of his youth.

According to unofficial histories, in the eighth year of Chengxiao, in the late spring of Emperor Jinghe’s reign, General Feihong—Pei Xueyao—recklessly pursued glory at the Battle of Chelan City, leading to the tragic deaths of fifty thousand soldiers, and in the end, died a martyr for her country.