He even dragged a belt off one of the corpses and strung it taut between two trees. Whenever enemies approached, he would chirp for the sparrow balls to dive-bomb it with all their might. The belt would snap tight in an instant, and if they were lucky, it could daze several foes at once.
What had once been mere nuisances turned into fatal distractions amid the chaos of battle. The very next moment, the cold gleam of a red-tasseled spear would flash before their eyes.
“Chirp!”
Refreshing!
Shen Jiujiu hopped about in smug satisfaction, but from the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed someone rummaging through the underbrush as if searching for something.
Little Bird immediately recalled how, in the original story, Sui Ziming had first been struck by a poison arrow before succumbing to exhaustion.
Even when Pei Du later tried to investigate, he found neither Sui Ziming’s body nor any traces of the poison arrow, and all leads went cold.
So…
Where was the poison arrow?
There had been two in total. Sui Ziming had blocked the first one at the very beginning, while the second had struck home only to be deflected by his chain mail before he casually discarded it somewhere.
Realizing the man was likely hunting for the poison arrow, Shen Jiujiu began scouring the battlefield. At the same time, he chirped urgently, rallying the little sparrows to join the search.
Even if Sui Ziming hadn’t been hit, the fact that Prince Wu’s men hadn’t dared hand over his body to Pei Du meant there was definitely something fishy going on!
What could be so special about Sui Ziming’s corpse? Nothing, except for the poison.
The assassins had to avoid the clash of blades and Sui Ziming’s attention while searching, but a flock of fist-sized birds proved surprisingly nimble amid the grass and treeshade, their wide field of vision giving them the edge.
It wasn’t long before Little Bird’s legion spotted the poison arrow—the very one that had once lodged in Sui Ziming’s chain mail.
Shen Jiujiu steered clear of the toxic arrowhead and pried open his beak to seize the shaft, but even straining his wings with every ounce of strength, he couldn’t budge the arrow lying still in the grass.
Shen Jiujiu: “…”
Never was the gulf between birds and humans so starkly apparent.
He had half a mind to summon the sparrow balls for help, but just then he spotted the black-clad man who seemed to have noticed them, heading straight their way.
In this moment of peril, Shen Jiujiu grew remarkably calm.
The grayish-white little bird crouched amid the grass, releasing his grip on the arrow shaft as a flicker of calculation passed through his eyes
Unless he could hide the poison arrow completely, these meticulous killers—and Sui Ziming’s protagonist halo—would almost certainly see it snatched away. He and his sparrow helpers would likely end up decapitated to boot.
His bird claws scraped against the ground, and an idea struck.
Shen Jiujiu let out a few low chirps, and the sparrows scattered in all directions.
The grayish-white long-tailed bird waddled to a spot nearby, then took flight and used its plump body to flatten a broad-leafed grass stem. With its beak, it tugged free two or three wide, sturdy leaves, clamped them in its mouth, and scurried back to the poison arrow.
Shen Jiujiu draped the leaves over the gleaming, lethal arrowhead, then deftly folded more layers beneath his claws for padding before grinding them vigorously against the tip.
The sparrow balls, having received their orders, swooped back one after another, dropping off leaves and grass stems beside him.
Shen Jiujiu peeled back the leaves with a claw to confirm they bore faint bluish stains, then carefully folded over the uncontaminated sections. Layering on more leaves brought by the sparrows, he bound the whole package securely with grass stems.
Amid the flock’s synchronized, feigned-panic liftoff—which provided perfect cover—Shen Jiujiu snatched up the green leafy bundle in his beak and stashed it high in a tree branch.
A little over half a shichen later.
The waves of ambushers, emerging like cockroaches one batch after another, finally petered out.
Sui Ziming slumped against a tree trunk. The mask that had covered his face was long gone, his hair undone and disheveled, but his grip on the spear remained firm.
After several brutal clashes, the wounds crisscrossing his body were impossible to distinguish as fresh or reopened. Blood and scabs had crusted with dirt into hard shells that fused with his undergarments, tearing at his flesh with every slight movement.
Even the mightiest general couldn’t fend off so many hands with just two fists—let alone hundreds.
Sui Ziming raised a hand to wipe his face, his palm grazing a gash on his cheekbone. He hissed through his teeth at the sharp pain.
Shen Jiujiu, who had held back from interfering lest he cause trouble, couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He swooped down, circled Sui Ziming once, and finally alighted with a gentle flap of wings atop A Sa’s head beside him.
A Sa’s feathers were soaked across a wide swath, leaving the beast looking thoroughly bedraggled. It was impossible to tell if the blood came from its own injuries or the enemy.
Only now did Shen Jiujiu understand why Sui Ziming was so formidable and imposing—why even the ever-cautious Pei Du trusted him implicitly—yet in the original tale, he had still perished silently in this very forest.
Over that half shichen, the ambushers had surged forth relentlessly, like cockroaches from the cracks, heedless of their own lives in their ruthless determination to leave Sui Ziming here at any cost.
Yet Shen Jiujiu still couldn’t fathom why Prince Wu’s faction would go to such extremes to kill him. He’d never heard of any such deep-seated grudge against Sui Ziming or the Sui family.
Perched on A Sa’s head, Shen Jiujiu patted Sui Ziming with his wing, chirping insistently to keep him awake. “Chirp, chirp chirp.”
His voice carried a rare softness and urgency.
Sui Ziming’s hand pressed to his waist, but his utterly spent fingers refused to obey, allowing blood to seep steadily out.
“Jiujiu…”
He drew a ragged breath. The wound in his chest felt like it was being wrenched by invisible claws, fine beads of sweat beading on his forehead, yet his lips curved into that familiar, infuriating grin.
Sui Ziming slowly raised his gaze to the red-tasseled spear still standing upright before him.
“Wasn’t I awesome just now?”
Shen Jiujiu snapped to attention like a proper little bird soldier, puffing out his chest and delivering two resounding “chirps!” brimming with utter conviction.
Sui Ziming burst into laughter.
Mid-laugh, he coughed twice more.
“Of course I was… Every child of the Sui family—man or woman—is a master of the red-tasseled spear. We may not have trained under the same elders, but every stance and strike bears the shadow of our forebears.”
“Great General Sui Qing was my father. He fell reclaiming lost territory on the battlefield.”
“My eldest sister, Sui Ying, died defending the borderlands. My second brother, Sui Ning, held an empty city to the last. My third brother, Sui Lü, led a strike deep into the Hunnu Royal City… They all perished in the saddle, beneath the Sui family banner.”
“Jiujiu, the Great Zhou of old wasn’t like this.”
“Long ago, the auspicious beasts perched on the palace rooftops could gaze out over the fertile fields stretching a thousand miles, where the common folk tilled the soil. The candlelight in Purple Chen Hall shone bright enough to illuminate the envoys bearing tribute from nations far and wide.”
“In those days, the city’s people lived in peace and plenty, the soldiers in their camps brimmed with vigor and spirit, and they said even the waters of the moat carried the sweet scent of rice and grain.”
Sui Ziming spoke on, then broke into laughter once more.
“Though I’ve never laid eyes on it myself, haha.”
Shen Jiujiu had no idea what the Great Zhou Dynasty had been like in the old days. Neither did Shen Xinian.
From the start, they had only ever known this gutless husk of an empire, rotten clean through to the marrow and held together solely by the unyielding spines of its last civil and military officials.
A rotting hulk of a ship, destined to be capsized by the Long Aotian Male Lead, who would raise a new glorious dynasty from its wreckage.
Modern sensibilities made it seem only natural to him: dynasties rose and fell like the seasons. The old had to give way to the new. Clinging to the past was nothing but stubborn delusion.
But…
“As a boy, I swore I’d outshine my elder sister and brothers—grow strong enough to take up the old man’s battle standard.”
“Then they were all gone. The Sui family banner lies furled in the ancestral hall now, reeking only of incense ash.”
“Every night in my dreams, I see the day I shoulder that flag again. Standing tall at the borderlands. On the battlefield. Amid the wind and sand.”
Shen Jiujiu stayed silent.
No matter if Sui Ziming survived this trial or not, he would likely never leave the Capital for the rest of his days.
He was the Sui family’s last blood heir, descendant of the clan that had once rallied its forces without imperial summons and marched a thousand li to the throne’s defense.
The Canlang Army holding the borderlands had once been called the Sui Family Army.
So whether the Emperor or Prince Wu emerged victorious in the end, they would shackle this eagle with a leg ring and let him waste away in the Capital. They’d never grant him so much as a fingerhold on military power.
Sui Ziming understood this far better than Shen Jiujiu did.
He had understood it since boyhood.
A rustling stirred from deep in the woods. The assassins, weapons in hand, bared their fangs from the shadows once again.
Sui Ziming gave a low, derisive chuckle. “That was my life’s boldest ambition… Never thought I’d end up flipping the boat right here in the gutter, not even making it a stone’s throw.”
“At least let me out of the Capital… tsk.”
He paused, then braced himself upright, his spear held ramrod straight.
“Jiujiu, I know you’re sharp. This time, do as I say. Go.”
Shen Jiujiu flapped his wings but held his ground, a low whine rumbling in his throat.
Sui Ziming eyed the Little Bird Dumpling huddled motionless atop the Haidongqing’s head, helplessness flickering in his gaze. “Be good now. Those aren’t reinforcements coming.”
Shen Jiujiu didn’t budge.
He knew full well they weren’t reinforcements. Sunlight was already flashing off those blades, dazzling his little bird eyes.
Shen Jiujiu simply refused to believe it. He’d poured his heart into this, and still, nothing had changed.
As a man, he’d fought to save his mother, Xie Jingtang—only for her fate to hang in uncertain limbo.
As a bird, he’d fought to save Sui Ziming. Yet after all his circling efforts, they seemed barreling straight back to the scripted plot.
How could he swallow that?
Gazing at Sui Ziming’s back, spear gripped firm, Shen Jiujiu at last grasped the truest shape of the man.
Pei Du’s cousin. The prodigy general barely past his twentieth year. The Sui family’s grinning, irreverent young master.
All true, in part.
But not the whole.
The real Sui Ziming was a warrior who would break before he bent.
How bitter, how furious must the original story’s Sui Ziming have felt? The one slain by a poison arrow’s treachery, his body left forever in these Capital Suburbs wilds, his tale reduced to a handful of throwaway lines.
In that instant, abrupt hoofbeats thundered into earshot, chased by the sharpening clash of steel on steel.
Doubt flashed in the assassins’ eyes; their strikes faltered.
Shen Jiujiu and Sui Ziming froze in unison.
The little sparrows’ chatter spiked shrill—one, two, three—and like mushrooms sprouting after rain, heads popped from every thicket in the woods. They chorused back toward the source of the calls.
Shen Jiujiu flung his wings wide in wild excitement. “Cheep—!!!”
Sui Ziming, locked in standoff with his encircling foes, suddenly barked a laugh. His grip slackened; he toppled backward, sprawling flat on the blood-soaked earth.
Shen Jiujiu feared the worst and flurried over, clamping onto Sui Ziming’s nose. He pressed a wing to the man’s nostrils, checking for breath.
Sui Ziming parted his lips and puffed a gust straight into Shen Jiujiu’s feathers.
Shen Jiujiu itched to retaliate but took pity on the wounded wretch. He pivoted, clambered up Sui Ziming’s nose to his brow, planted himself there as sentry, and scanned for lurking threats.
Sui Ziming’s voice came faint, laced with blood loss’s pallor, yet bubbling irrepressibly with mirth. “Jiujiu, get a good look.”
“That rider on horseback? That’s the real Pei Du.”
“Your little bird instincts are as dodgy as your acting. Don’t go getting duped again without a clue.”
Shen Jiujiu dipped low and nipped Sui Ziming’s forehead, staunchly defending his benefactor’s honor on the spot.
Shut your trap, you jinx.
You danced right up to death’s doorstep this time.
Took every ounce of this little bird’s grit!
Battlefields aside for now—just stay alive from here on out, you hear?
“Over a tad to the left… yeah, itches there. Right, scratch.” Sui Ziming bossed him around without a shred of shame.
Shen Jiujiu fought the impulse to rake the idiot’s scalp bloody but relented with a grumble, dutifully scratching at his temple.
A sudden gale whistled in. Shen Jiujiu ducked on instinct, tucking his head underwing, and gaped at the longsword that had just sheared the sneak attacker’s legs clean off.
