Inside the tent.
Chen Changfeng held a bowl of mare's milk tea, pausing in mid-air.
Ripples appeared on the surface of the tea. Chen Changfeng lowered his eyes to look at it, furrowed his brows, and smoothly placed the clay bowl back on the desk.
Something was wrong.
A faint tremor came from the dirt floor beneath his feet. The wind shaking the tent and horses' hooves striking the ground would not cause such a disturbance.
Besides... the night sky was clear tonight, showing no signs of a thunderstorm.
The wrinkles between Chen Changfeng's brows deepened.
Batur had led a hundred cavalrymen and broken camp just half an hour ago.
Their destination was the sand dunes northeast of Old Crow Spring.
While his mind was racing, the tent flap was violently thrown open from the outside.
A figure tumbled through the doorway.
The newcomer was charred all over, the flesh on his right cheek split open. The wound ran from his temple down to his jaw, with white bone piercing through the bloody flesh, making it hard to distinguish the cheekbone from the jawbone.
His left arm hung limply below the elbow, bent outward, the bones inside mostly shattered.
The injured man lay on the felt rug, dark red blood pooling beneath him.
The man's lips moved, and muffled syllables rolled from his throat, difficult to decipher.
His intact right eye rolled wildly in its socket, showing more white than black, the pupil dilated.
The personal guards on night watch outside gathered around, the light from their torches piercing through the gaps in the tent flap, casting flickering shadows inside.
Two breaths later, footsteps came from the direction of the tents on the left. Huyan Ba stumbled in, his left foot bare and his right foot dragging a leather boot.
Upon entering, Huyan Ba saw the blood on the floor and the charred figure in the pool of blood.
"Who is this?" Huyan Ba crouched down, grabbed the unburnt collar of the injured man's leather armor at the back of his neck, and flipped him over.
The face was severely disfigured, but there was an old knife scar below the right earlobe. This was a ranger under Batur's command; Huyan Ba recognized the mark.
"Where is Batur?" Huyan Ba raised his voice, pulling the injured man up by the collar. "Where are the hundred brothers? Where did they all die?"
The ranger shook his head repeatedly, squeezing out broken words.
"Gone... all gone... fire... growing from under the ground..."
"Bullshit!" Huyan Ba slapped the ranger's intact left cheek. "Speak clearly! What do you mean fire growing from under the ground? Was it the Great Qian's fire arrows? Or did they dig fire trenches?"
Taking the slap, the ranger's head turned to the side, his lips still moving, his voice rising.
"Not fire arrows... not fire trenches! The horses stepped on it... the horses stepped on it and it exploded!"
"Under the ground... explosions everywhere. The front half of Batur's horse... was gone. People flew into the air... they all flew up!"
At this point, the ranger's eyes fixed, and his body twitched uncontrollably.
"The Eternal Heaven is punishing us... The Eternal Heaven is punishing us! We shouldn't have come!"
Huyan Ba was about to press further when a hand pressed onto his shoulder from the side.
Chen Changfeng crouched beside the ranger.
Chen Changfeng swatted away Huyan Ba's fingers gripping the collar, letting the broken body lie back on the rug.
Then, he pulled a short dagger from his boot and heated the blade over the fire.
"Don't move."
Chen Changfeng spat out two words to the ranger.
The tip of the dagger probed into the gaping wound on the ranger's left arm. He found the wound narrow and deep, the edges of the flesh curled outward, the inside filled with gravel and blood clots.
Instantly, the ranger let out a miserable scream, his body arching upward.
Two Helian soldiers who had rushed over upon hearing the commotion stepped forward, pinning down his shoulders and legs.
Chen Changfeng's dagger twisted in the flesh, the blade striking something hard, producing the crisp sound of metal clashing.
He picked the foreign object out and held it up to the firelight.
It turned out to be a four-pointed iron caltrop, less than the size of a thumb, its surface stained with fresh blood.
The craftsmanship of this caltrop was rough, the burrs unpolished, but the four sharp points had been ground to an edge, with a piece of charred flesh hanging from one.
Chen Changfeng pinched the caltrop, turning it over to examine it several times.
Then, he picked out half a piece of broken porcelain from a wound on the side of the ranger's leg. The porcelain had a white background with blue patterns, its edges sharp.
No one in the tent made a sound.
Chen Changfeng stood up and walked to the low table, placing the caltrop and the broken porcelain piece separately on the surface.
The firelight illuminated these two objects. The blood on the surface of the caltrop, baked by the heat, turned a dark brown color.
"Heaven's punishment?"
Chen Changfeng spoke, letting out a cold snort:
"Hmph! It's a firearm!"
"An iron shell, gunpowder, a flint fuse, plus this scrap iron and porcelain pieces stuffed inside."
"The horse's hooves step on it, triggering the mechanism. The gunpowder ignites, then the iron shell bursts, scattering fragments. Within a few steps, both man and horse are shredded!"
"When did the Great Qian people get this kind of thing?"
These words were not directed at Huyan Ba, nor anyone else in the tent.
Chen Changfeng was asking himself.
Huyan Ba stood up straight, his eyes fixed on the two objects on the table, the color draining from his face.
He thought of Batur, the man who had boasted about taking a piss at the base of the city wall, and the hundred brothers who had gone with him.
Among those hundred men were his nephew, veterans who had followed him for eight years, and new recruits just transferred from the Royal Court last month.
A hundred lives.
Not a single intact corpse left behind.
Huyan Ba swallowed hard, his lips opening and closing twice, unable to make a sound.
Fear grew in Huyan Ba's heart.
Chen Changfeng had never seen Huyan Ba with such an expression.
This prairie man killed wolves and slaughtered people, sleeping in his clothes on horseback without ever taking off his sword. Right now, staring at that iron caltrop, his legs actually went weak.
"Ma Jin'an!"
Chen Changfeng gritted his teeth, forcing the name out from between them.
Huyan Ba was slightly stunned: "What?"
"Ma Jin'an! He Minghu!"
It was the first time Huyan Ba had seen this Han strategist shout in anger.
"These two useless pieces of trash! I planted such deep lines in Zhenbei City. They're living it up in the city, keeping an eye on the Great Qian people's every move for us, and the result...!"
Chen Changfeng raised his hand, pointing at the iron caltrop on the table.
"The result is, they haven't sent a single word out about this kind of thing!"
Chen Changfeng's chest heaved. He grabbed the half-full bowl of mare's milk tea from the desk and smashed it against the main support pole in the tent. The clay bowl shattered, white milk splashing onto the wooden pole.
The Helian soldiers in the tent all shrank their necks.
They had never seen Chen Changfeng lose his temper.
When this man plotted to poison water sources or set ambushes to lure the enemy, his face was as calm as water. But right now, his face was flushed red, exuding a terrifying murderous aura.
Huyan Ba snapped back to his senses, licking his cracked lips: "Mr. Chen, you just said you were going back to the Royal Court tomorrow to see the Khan... About this matter..."
"I'm not going back."
Chen Changfeng interrupted.
Chen Changfeng bent down, picked up a piece of broken pottery, twirled it around his fingertips twice, and casually tossed it aside.
His breathing had not yet calmed down, but the words he spat out returned to an icy chill.
"The Royal Court's matters can wait, but this cannot wait."
Chen Changfeng walked to the tent door and lifted the flap to look outside. The cold north wind of the wasteland blew in. The distant horizon hung low, and the night was thick in the direction of Zhenbei City, making it difficult to distinguish any features.
"That Imperial Envoy from the Great Qian..." Chen Changfeng paused slightly, the tent flap crumpling in his hand. "Just how many of these things is she hiding?"
Huyan Ba followed him to the tent door, anxiously asking the strategist: "Sir, then what do we do next..."
Chen Changfeng didn't turn around, his gaze fixed on the southern wasteland.
"Pass down the order. Starting tonight, no ranger is allowed to cross a single step south of Old Crow Spring. Violators will be executed!"
Chen Changfeng let go of the tent flap, returned inside, and sat down at the desk.
"Call your literate clerk here. Have him record exactly what happened tonight, word for word, and seal it up together with these two items."
"Send it to the Royal Court?" Huyan Ba asked.
"No!" Chen Changfeng looked up. The iron caltrop in his palm had grown warm against his skin, its four sharp spikes piercing his flesh and drawing a few beads of blood.
He paid the pain no mind.
"Send it to Zhenbei City first and deliver it to Ma Jin'an."
"Tell him that if he hides even one more thing from me regarding that imperial envoy..."
Chen Changfeng paused, his fingers curling inward to tightly grip the iron caltrop.
"I will make him realize that while the firearms of the Great Qian might not kill him, my methods will make him suffer a fate worse than death..."
