The night pressed down upon the walls of Zhenbei City, while wind and sand battered the gates of the post house.
Li Sheng rested his hand on the hilt of the blade at his waist, standing in the center of the courtyard.
Thirty personal guards had already dispersed, securing every side door and vantage point of the post house.
Leave ten men in the front courtyard, ten in the back, and the remaining ten on the roof, working in three shifts.
Li Sheng's finger traced several positions in the air.
Drive all the original post house attendants and servants, along with the cooks, into the west side courtyard.
Lock them in.
Without my orders, not even a fly is allowed out.
If anyone asks, say that the Imperial Envoy prefers quiet and will not see idle personnel.
If anyone dares to speak half a word out of turn, draw your blades immediately without reporting.
We carry the Emperor's sword; we are not here in the Northern Frontier as guests.
Two guards took the order and left.
Not long after, a flurry of footsteps accompanied by complaints echoed from the west courtyard.
Li Sheng stood in the courtyard, listening to the sound of locks clicking into place over there.
He then looked at the hidden sentries already in position on the roof, made a hand signal, and finally turned toward the main hall.
The waters in Zhenbei City were too deep, and the backgrounds of the people in the post house were unknown; keeping them around was a disaster waiting to happen.
The entire post house fell completely under the control of the Xu family's personal guards.
Inside the west wing room, candlelight flickered.
Jenny Huang rolled up her sleeves, currently stacking bamboo tubes into a wooden crate.
In front of her sat a small stove, warming a pot of melted pine resin.
The temperature difference between day and night in the north was extreme, with heavy moisture at night. If she didn't waterproof them, this gunpowder would be nothing but useless dirt at a critical moment.
Dipping her fingertips in the pine resin, she smeared it onto the base of the fuses.
After coating one, she would hold it up to the candlelight to inspect it.
Only after confirming there were no missed gaps would she place it back.
Nearby lay several draft papers filled with diagrams, recording various mixture ratios.
She rubbed her fingers together, picked up an iron skewer, and poked at the gap near the seal of a bamboo tube.
If the pine resin is too thick, the fuse won't burn through; if it's too thin, it won't keep out the frost and dew of the Northern Frontier.
She muttered to herself, yet the movements of her hands remained incredibly steady.
Her mind calculated the armored cavalry she had seen at the city gates during the day.
Ordinary swords and blades could not pierce iron armor.
But these things in her hands, as long as they were stuffed beneath a horse's belly, could blow both man and horse to pieces.
It had to be said that, from a historical perspective, the explosives invented by Jenny Huang had already far surpassed those of the Song Dynasty.
The Imperial Envoy's trap had already been set, and the items in her hands were the sharp blades to break the deadlock.
The main hall.
Xu Qinghuan sat in the seat of honor, a stack of files placed on the wooden desk before her.
These were the generals' resumes she had requested from the Ministry of War's Garrison Department during the day.
The candle wick popped with a spark.
He Minghu, a Secondary Third-Rank Vice General.
Enlisted in the twelfth year of Tiansheng, it took him a full fifteen years to climb from a lowly foot soldier to his current position.
His record was filled with military merits for beheading enemy troops, but Xu Qinghuan's gaze lingered on an entry from the twenty-fifth year of Tiansheng.
That year, He Minghu was reprimanded by the Ministry of War for embezzling military pay and nearly lost his head.
In the end, however, he kept his official post and was even promoted to Vice General two years later.
Who protected him was not written in the files.
But in Xu Qinghuan's mind, she had already run through the network of connections among the Six Ministries in the capital.
The only ones capable of suppressing such a capital offense was the Grand Secretariat.
She turned the page, her eyes falling on the next file.
Ma Jin'an, a Primary Fifth-Rank Supervising Censor of the Army.
Of civil official background, he was once an auditing student of the Minister of War.
His imperial examination ranking wasn't high, yet he was inexplicably assigned to this lucrative Zhenbei City.
One civil, one martial; one holding a sword, the other holding a pen.
These two held Zhenbei City tightly in their grasp, turning even the Assuaging General Tie Lanshan into a mere figurehead.
This should have been a deadlock of mutual restraint.
Xu Qinghuan tapped her fingers against the tabletop, making a rhythmic thumping sound.
She was calculating where He Minghu's bottom line lay, and how big Ma Jin'an's nerve was.
For these two to dare throw Xu Zhan into the death row dungeon, they must have come prepared.
Zhenbei City's supply routes were cut off; outside were the iron cavalry of the Left Luli King, and inside were the red-eyed, starving frontier troops.
He Minghu and Ma Jin'an were gambling.
Gambling that Xu Qinghuan, a Princess from the capital, could not suppress these military ruffians.
Gambling that the Emperor's sword in her hands could not sever this deeply entrenched web of interests.
In the back courtyard of the post house, outside a high wall covered in moss.
A patrolling squad of frontier troops had just passed by, the friction of their iron armor still echoing at the mouth of the alley.
At the base of the wall, a patch of withered, yellow weeds rustled.
A dark figure lay prone in the muddy water, his hands gripping the drainage hole at the base of the wall.
This hole was extremely narrow, normally used only to drain accumulated water from the courtyard.
The walls of the hole were overgrown with moss, emitting a foul stench.
The dark figure squeezed his shoulders into the hole, the bricks scraping against his leather armor.
The moss on the walls was wet and slippery; he could only prop himself up on his elbows to inch forward.
Gritting his teeth, he kicked hard with his legs in the mud, his whole body sliding flat against the dirt into the back courtyard of the post house.
Sewage soaked through his clothes, and as the dirty water seeped into his wounds, the pain made him gasp sharply.
Yet he dared not even breathe heavily.
He had just poked half his body out of the drainage hole and hadn't even had time to wipe the muddy water from his face.
A sudden gust of wind flared.
Li Sheng leapt out from behind a pillar in the shadows, kicking the dark figure squarely in the shoulder.
The dark figure gave a muffled groan, sent rolling twice on the ground by the kick.
Before he could scramble up, Li Sheng's knee was already pressing down on his chest.
The straight blade left its sheath, the edge pressing directly against his neck.
Just pressing down half an inch more would sever his windpipe.
Who are you?
Li Sheng's voice was kept very low, laced with murderous intent.
The dark figure did not struggle; by the moonlight, he clearly saw Li Sheng's attire.
His Adam's apple bobbed, and he spoke in a hoarse voice.
My name is Goudan, a soldier under the command of Centurion Xu of the Vanguard Camp.
I beg an audience with the Imperial Envoy.
Li Sheng's expression shifted slightly.
Centurion Xu was none other than Xu Zhan.
Stand up.
Li Sheng didn't move the blade from his neck, freeing one hand to quickly pat down his waist.
No sharp weapons, only a few shriveled grass roots.
After confirming it was safe, Li Sheng sheathed his sword.
He grabbed Goudan by the back collar and hauled him up from the ground.
Follow me.
If you dare try any tricks, today next year will be the anniversary of your death.
The doors to the main hall were pushed open; night wind carrying sand rushed in, making the candlelight flicker unsteadily.
Li Sheng escorted Goudan into the main hall and shut the doors tightly behind him.
Xu Qinghuan closed the resume in her hands and raised her eyes to look down at the hall.
Goudan's knees gave out, and he knelt prostrate on the floor.
The leather armor on his body was already in tatters, stained with mud and blood.
He raised his head, his face covered in grime.
His lips were chapped and his eye sockets sunken; only his eyes still revealed a trace of human vitality.
Goudan of the Vanguard Camp, paying respects to the Imperial Envoy.
He spoke with a heavy northern accent, every single word uttered with extreme effort.
Xu Qinghuan said nothing, merely watching him.
Seeing this, Goudan continued speaking of his own accord:
The night before last, I was knocked unconscious.
They thought I was dead, so they threw me out to the mass graves outside the city along with two other corpses. I was frozen awake in the middle of the night and crawled out from the pile of dead bodies.
The city gates were closed, so I hid in the corpse trench at the base of the city wall and endured for a day and a night.
I heard the imperial envoy entered the city tonight, which is why I crawled in through the drainage hole.
Goudan's voice carried a mix of relief and weakness.
He gritted his teeth and reached out to untie his leather armor.
He stripped the armor down to his waist and turned around.
Li Sheng gasped.
Whip marks crisscrossed his back, new wounds overlapping old ones; there was hardly a piece of intact skin left.
My Lord.
Goudan turned back and knelt down again, resting his forehead against the blue bricks.
After the thirty-seven brothers of the vanguard camp were thrown into the death row.
He Minghu's men would drag us out every night and whip us with leather lashes soaked in saltwater.
When we fainted, they would wake us up with cold water and continue whipping.
Three brothers couldn't survive it and breathed their last the night before last.
Their bodies were dragged out to feed the wild dogs.
Xu Qinghuan looked at the scars on his back, her finger tracing a mark on the wooden desk.
What did he want you to confess?
They brought a document, but there wasn't a single word on it.
Goudan's body trembled from pain and fear.
He Minghu's personal guards said that as long as we pressed our fingerprints on that blank paper, we could live.
If we refused, they would beat us to death and press them anyway; it would be the same to them.
A wordless document.
Xu Qinghuan lowered her eyes slightly.
First forcing people to sign a blank piece of paper, then filling in the charges themselves afterward.
Once the fingerprints were pressed, the case would become ironclad, leaving no room to overturn the verdict.
He Minghu was trying to kill them all, not intending to leave even a single way out for Xu Zhan.
Where is my second brother?
Xu Qinghuan asked the most crucial question.
Goudan's eyes showed some confusion.
My Lord, dare I ask who your second brother is?
Xu Zhan.
Hearing this, Goudan's eyes immediately turned red.
Centurion Xu was taken away separately by He Minghu's guards half an hour ago. They escorted him to the dungeon at the bottom of the death row.
It is filled with water down there, and the water is infested with blood-sucking leeches.
Goudan swallowed hard.
I heard the jailers gossiping while drinking outside. They said He Minghu issued a strict order to get the Centurion's signature before midnight tonight.
He paused, presumably recalling some terrifying scene.
Once they get it, they will strangle the Centurion with a hemp rope and hang him from the rafters of the cell.
They will publicly report it as suicide out of fear of punishment, saying it will be easier for outsiders to believe.
Xu Qinghuan stood up, walked around the wooden desk, and stepped right in front of Goudan.
What crime is he forcing my second brother to confess to?
Goudan lay prostrate on the blue bricks, his body shaking like a leaf.
He bit his lower lip so hard it bled, before squeezing out the words through his teeth.
Colluding with the enemy and treason.
