Worried as he was about Zhong Xiuwen and the others, Ning Chen didn't put himself in danger.

They were hauling too much loot right now, and they were short of troops.

At a time like this, the most important thing was to get the loot back to the Great Xuan first.

So Ning Chen ordered the army to move even faster for the rest of the journey.

While Ning Chen had his worries, Kang Luo was having an even worse time of it in Xiangzhou.

The night they escaped from the chancellor's residence, he'd immediately led a surprise attack on Xiangzhou's east gate and joined up with the hundred and twenty thousand Nanyue troops outside the city.

His house had been robbed, the woman he loved had been taken, Zhang Tianlun had just played him, and right after that a lowly concubine had set him up.

Kang Luo felt this had been the most miserable year of his life.

He'd even had a fortune-teller dragged in to read his fate and tell him whether the stars were set against him this year.

What worried him most right now was that with the Nanyue imperial city taken and his father the emperor having abandoned the people and fled, the people had lost faith in the throne... and his brothers and sisters would use the chance to seize power.

He had to get back to Nanyue as fast as he could to come to the throne's aid and guard the sovereign, and the hundred and forty thousand men under his command were crucial now.

So he didn't want to go to war with Zhang Tianlun. He wanted to settle things by negotiating... All he wanted was enough grain to lead his army back to Nanyue.

But the negotiations weren't going well.

Zhang Tianlun had figured out that Kang Luo didn't want a fight, and he kept stringing him along.

These days Kang Luo was unable to sleep or eat easy.

Kang Xiao wasn't doing well either. Lately he'd been drowning his sorrows in wine every day.

He'd had someone look into it.…