On the wedding day, my wife was abnormal

As Murong Yan looked at the familiar, vigorous handwriting on the letter, her eyes couldn't help but well up with tears.

How could she not know the difficulties ahead?

The daily influx of military intelligence reports, each cold, hard casualty figure piercing her heart like a needle. She knew he must have lost weight and was exhausted. Yet, in his letters, he always reported good news, only wanting to reassure her.

This fool...

She pressed the letter tightly to her face, as if she could feel his presence as he wrote it. A complex mix of sorrow, pride, and endless longing instantly filled her chest.

She misses him.

My heart aches from thinking about it.

She missed his strong, warm embrace, his steady voice that always soothed all her anxieties, and the overflowing, doting look in his eyes when he looked at her.

Without him by her side, this vast palace felt like a magnificent yet cold prison. No matter how high the phoenix throne was, it couldn't compare to a seat beside him; no matter how fine the clothes and delicacies were, they couldn't compare to a segment of orange that he peeled for her with his own hands.

She slowly stood up, barefoot, her feet touching the cool gold brick floor. Her long, messy hair trailed silently behind her as she moved.

She walked to the window, opened it, and let the damp night breeze caress her cheeks and long hair. She looked up at the cold, bright moon in the night sky and murmured to herself, her voice so soft it seemed as if it might be blown away by the wind at any moment.

"My husband...is the same moon over you?"

"Have you...missed me?"

Just as she was immersed in endless longing and was about to turn back to her desk to write him a reply—her movements carried a soft and lingering reluctance, as if she had been completely overwhelmed by longing!

The long, dark gold Suzhou brocade train, stretching five zhang (approximately 10 meters) and spreading out in a messy manner, was subtly stirred by her gentle, longing turn!

The luxurious brocade brushed against the cold ground, making an extremely subtle rustling sound, like a lover's whisper.

As the train gently billowed up, it revealed the "Golden Floor" lining, intricately woven with gold threads, shimmering with a warm and tender light, like the gentlest dream, under the interplay of the cool moonlight outside the window and the dim candlelight inside the palace!

The phoenix pattern covering the entire nightgown and its train instantly burst forth with a golden light unlike anything seen before, filled with endless longing and tender affection, incredibly soft and moving!

In that radiance, there was no imperial majesty, no commander's decisiveness, only a wife's deepest and purest love and longing for her husband on his expedition. Nobility and splendor, at this moment, transformed into the most moving love poem in the world.

The hem of her skirt fell, concealing the warm and soft golden light, along with the deepest secret in her heart.

Murong Yan walked to the desk, spread out the paper again, and picked up her pen. This time, she wrote neither a cold military order nor a majestic imperial edict.

"My lord, this letter is as if we were face to face. The crabapple blossoms in Chang'an have faded, and the new lotus leaves in the pond are turning green. The Persian cat is quite mischievous; it has torn the tassels of the train of the Divine Phoenix Descending to Earth dress. I wanted to punish it, but then I thought of its adorable clumsiness and couldn't bring myself to do it. The front lines are bitterly cold; I hope you take good care of yourself. Do not eat cold food, and wear more clothes as night falls. If there are lotus seeds in the tent, you may have the kitchen cook some soup to ease our longing. I have not asked when I will return; your heart is with mine. I await..."

She wrote very slowly, as if she wanted to pour all her longing into her writing.

Outside the window, the moonlight was soft and the night was cool and still.

Thousands of miles apart, the most distinguished couple in the empire shared the same profound longing under the same bright moon.

......

The war in the northern border region has fallen into a strange stalemate.

Lin Zhen's main force of the Great Qian Dynasty faced off against Wu Wei's main force in the northern desert, separated by hundreds of miles of wilderness. Both sides were very patient, neither willing to easily launch a large-scale decisive battle. The main players on the battlefield became the light cavalry and scouts of both sides.

The vast northern grasslands transformed into a giant chessboard. Countless small-scale forces, like black and white chess pieces, chased, harassed, ambushed, and counter-ambushed each other on this board. Almost every day, small-scale battles broke out in different places. The smoke from beacon towers frequently rose from different directions.

Lin Zhen's command tent became the central hub of this complex game of chess. Every day, a deluge of military intelligence poured in from all directions, and he meticulously relayed each instruction. Like a master chess player, he calmly countered every move Uvi made, while simultaneously searching for his opponent's weaknesses.

However, half a month later, an ominous shadow began to quietly loom over the camp of the Daqian army.

The first to encounter problems was an auxiliary battalion located thirty miles behind the main army. Hundreds of auxiliary soldiers in the battalion, responsible for repairing weapons and caring for the wounded, began to develop a strange illness within just three days. The patients initially only experienced fever and weakness, then began to vomit and have diarrhea, their bodies covered in red rashes, and they would die of exhaustion within a few days.

The army's medical officers tried various methods, but they could not find the cause of the illness or an effective treatment. Panic, like the plague itself, began to spread rapidly throughout the auxiliary troops' camp.

The news quickly reached Lin Zhen's command tent.

"Plague?" Lin Zhen frowned deeply after hearing the military doctor's report. He immediately realized that things were far from simple. It was not uncommon for diseases to break out during military campaigns due to unfamiliar environments and poor sanitation. But this outbreak was too strange; it progressed rapidly, had a high mortality rate, and was concentrated in only one specific camp.

"Immediately seal off that auxiliary camp! No one is allowed to enter or leave at will!" Lin Zhen decisively ordered. "Isolate all patients and burn all their belongings! Order the entire army to pay attention to camp hygiene; all drinking water must be boiled before consumption!"

"Yes!" The physician acknowledged the order and hurriedly withdrew.

"Your Highness," Marshal Zheng Jiao said gravely, "this matter... is probably not as simple as a natural disaster. I fear it is the work of the people of the Northern Desert!"

"I think so too." A cold glint flashed in Lin Zhen's eyes. "So, Uvi can't win in a direct confrontation, so he resorts to these underhanded tactics?"

He immediately ordered "Night Owl" to secretly investigate all recent sources of supplies for the auxiliary troops, especially water and food.

However, one wave has not settled, and one wave has risen again.

On the third day after the plague broke out, another strange thing happened. A small grain convoy, escorted by Zhao Polu's elite cavalry, was suddenly caught in a wildfire only twenty miles from the main camp. Overnight, five hundred shi of military rations and dozens of carts were burned to ashes.

The captain in charge of the matter returned to apologize, saying that they had camped next to a patch of dry grass that night. For some reason, a strong wind suddenly arose in the middle of the night, and a spark in the distance was blown by the wind, instantly igniting the entire patch of grass. The fire spread too quickly, and although they tried their best to put it out, they ultimately failed to save their food supplies.

"Wildfire?" Lin Zhen's expression grew colder as he listened to the captain's report.