In the glow of the morning sun, countless refugees, clutching all manner of makeshift weapons and with hungry eyes, trembled as they made their way through the streets toward the royal palace.
From a distance, they looked like a swarm of ants.
They truly were a swarm of ants—in the eyes of mortal kings, and in the eyes of the gods and buddhas of Heaven alike.
Yet after all the Curtain-Raising General’s struggles, was it not all for their sake?
To build a kingdom that was clean and pure...
Every policy General Curtain enacted brought him no personal gain, and yet in the end, it all led to this scene before him.
On the palace walls, the last guards loyal to General Curtain drew their bows in long rows, the cold gleam of their arrows aimed at the refugees. The commander of the guards had already raised his hand, glancing sideways at General Curtain.
"Your Majesty, give the order. With us here, this rabble will never breach the walls."
General Curtain only stared at the refugees, who looked like starving ghosts, his lips pressed together in silence.
Gradually, all the soldiers turned to look at Curtain—even Marshal Silver (Percy Silver) and Thomas Tripitaka, who stood beside him, silently watched.
The morning breeze lifted the banners, brushing across General Curtain’s cheek, making his full beard tremble in the wind.
The rebel soldiers who had rushed to the foot of the wall struck their weapons fruitlessly against the solid stone.
A few emaciated refugees hauled broken ladders to the wall, but the ladders were nowhere near tall enough to reach the top, and they quickly retreated.
More ladders were brought out; they began to lash the short ones together, trying to fashion makeshift Storm Ladders to scale the palace walls.
The hands of the palace guards trembled as they gripped their bows; the last scraps of morale were ebbing away.
General Curtain still stood in silence, letting the crisis unfold.
The commander glanced at General Curtain, his expression faintly bewildered.
He truly could not understand what General Curtain was hesitating over. With a single order, these refugees—not to mention in open battle—could never defeat the palace’s elite troops.
In the end, they were nothing but a starving rabble.
But if this standoff dragged on and morale collapsed completely, not even the mightiest army could reverse the tide.
Soon, a series of elongated Storm Ladders were assembled and raised against the city walls.
The refugees below began to scramble upward with desperate strength.
But these were mere civilians—starving, untrained, and disorganized. They did not realize that such hastily cobbled Storm Ladders could not bear their weight. In moments, two ladders snapped in midair; those climbing them shrieked as they tumbled into the crowd, scattering refugees everywhere.
In stark contrast to the chaos and shouts below, atop the city walls reigned a terrifying silence.
Everyone stood motionless, quietly in place.
Time slipped by; General Curtain remained staring ahead in a daze, his grip on the wall tightening again and again.
Soon, the refugees shifted tactics. Somehow, they hauled massive tree trunks on carts from who knows where, imitating battering rams as they shouted and drove the logs against the palace gates.
Inside the gate, the entire entrance shuddered with each thunderous blow, clouds of dust shaking loose.
A strange tension quickly spread through the hearts of the palace guards.
"Your Majesty, just a few volleys of arrows and these rebels will be crushed! What are we waiting for?" The commander drew his sword with a steely ring, staring at General Curtain in disbelief.
After a long pause, General Curtain let out a faint sigh and asked, "Marshal Silver, do you think I should give the order?"
Marshal Silver did not answer.
After a moment’s hesitation, General Curtain slowly shook his head. "There is no end to the killing—just as before, there is no end. As long as people go hungry, someone will take up arms. And... if I butcher them, what does that make me? A tyrant? Ha, I am not even worthy of being called a tyrant."
Marshal Silver remained silent, merely turning his face to look at General Curtain.
After another long silence, General Curtain pressed his lips together and said, "I... will go out."
"Go out?" For a moment, every commander and soldier around him was stunned.
Marshal Silver and Thomas Tripitaka stood silently, saying nothing.
General Curtain sighed softly: "I will go out. I am the one who started all this. I will go out and... surrender."
Before the soldiers could react, General Curtain turned, pushed through the crowd, and descended the steps.
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty—! You mustn’t go—!"