Seventeenth day of the Seventh Month.
Hellan Royal Court.
A massive dome, stitched from dozens of sun-cured whole ox hides, blocked the scorching sun outside. Ice basins stood in the four corners of the tent, but they could not suppress the thick smell of mutton and strong liquor.
On the throne, covered with a whole tiger skin without a single speck of impurity, the Grand Khan of the Hellans, Ashina Hongfang, lounged lazily. In his broad palm, he twisted a string of glossy, oiled bone beads.
Boom!
A deafening crash exploded from the left side of the tent.
The Right Luli King, Ashina Gudu, slammed his palm heavily onto the low wooden table before him, rattling a pure silver wine jug that rolled off to the ground. The fiery liquor splashed all over the precious Persian woolen rug.
"Eight hundred sets of fine iron armor! Not a single sheet of metal made it back to me!"
Ashina Gudu still clutched a half-raw roasted leg of lamb in his hand. He tore off a large piece of bloody meat, chewing while roaring in a grating voice.
"Those border-guarding bastards of the Great Qian must be tired of living! I sank a fortune into that secret route through White Wolf Valley—three thousand fine horses! All gone to waste!"
A thousand-man commander with a head full of dirty braids stepped forward and wiped the sweat from his face: "Calm yourself, Right King! This time, our men really can't be blamed for missing this."
"The soldiers who escaped say there was no main force of the Great Qian army at White Wolf Valley at all."
"Those southerners were holding some iron lump. When they threw it on the ground, it was like thunder striking dry land—blowing men and horses to pieces!"
"Even stranger, the thing could burn with an eerie white fire. Water couldn't put it out. Touch it once, and both man and his iron armor would burn to ash beside!"
A bald thousand-man commander spat a thick wad of phlegm onto the ground.
"Nonsense! If those southern sheep truly had such world-shaking power, they would have crossed the Yinshan Mountains long ago to grab land. They wouldn't still be hiding like turtles behind the walls of Zhenbei Pass!"
"If you ask me, the cowardly cart drivers lost the goods and made up these ghost stories to fool the Right King!"
"This debt has to be settled!" Ashina Gudu rose to his feet, eyes wide. "Grand Khan! We must send out troops! Butcher those southerners! Raze Zhenbei Pass, grab back our lost armor, and haul their women and grain back to the grasslands!"
The tent erupted in fervor. A crowd of grassland nobles shouted, the commotion nearly bursting into a raid right then.
Just then, a heavy oxhide door flap was yanked open.
The newcomer staggered, but moved quickly.
He was none other than the Great Qian's abandoned son, now honored by the Grand Khan as a guest—the Royal Court's military advisor, Chen Changfeng.
Always dressed in spotless, neatly fitted Han Chinese robes, he was now in utter disarray.
His face was pale, eyes sunken deep, lips cracked and bloodied—clearly, he had ridden several horses to death in a desperate, nonstop journey back.
Ignoring Ashina Gudu's shouting and without tidying his clothes, Chen Changfeng strode straight through the murmuring crowd of commanders and stopped at the center of the royal tent.
He bent both knees.
"Grand Khan!"
Chen Changfeng looked directly up at Ashina Hongfang on the throne.
"Stop clinging to that scrap metal from White Wolf Valley! I beg you, issue the Golden Arrow summon immediately! Every man in the Royal Court who can draw a strong bow must muster and march south at once! At all costs, break through Zhenbei Pass!"
These words struck the noisy tent into sudden silence.
Ashina Gudu froze, staring at Chen Changfeng as if he were a madman.
Then, his anger flared: "Chen, have you lost your wits?"
He strode over, stood over Chen Changfeng, and pointed a finger at his face.
"It's the Seventh Month now! The horses haven't yet fattened for autumn! Do you expect our prairie warriors to ride starved, skin-and-bone steeds into battle? What about grain supplies? You'd let our heroes starve to death halfway south!"
The bald commander frowned, his tone dripping with undisguised skepticism.
"Chen, the Grand Khan respects you as a learned scholar and gives you the second seat in this royal court. But today, your words are just a joke played with the lives of our Hellan warriors. Have you heard a few firecracker pops in the south, been frightened by the Great Qian, and come back to disrupt morale?"
The surrounding nobles nodded in agreement, their looks toward Chen Changfeng growing hostile.
Grasslanders admired valor most and despised cowards who flinched.
Chen Changfeng erupted in anger.
"You bunch of frogs peeping at the sky through a well, seeing nothing but a few sheep and horses!"
"Still scheming about autumn fat? Still waiting for the horses to eat their fill? What the hell do you know?"
His fury would not stop.
"You have no idea what kind of monster has been raised inside Great Qian's Zhenbei City!"
"By the time you're slowly fattening your horses, the Qian's firearms will already be mass-produced! Then, forget razing Zhenbei Pass—their fire weapons could flatten this very royal tent! The times have changed! No matter how fast the grassland cavalry charges, it can never outrun that ghostly fire!"
Ashina Gudu trembled with rage and reached for the blade at his waist.
But knowing Chen was the Grand Khan's trusted man, he forcibly stopped himself from drawing steel. He only ground his teeth in warning: "Chen, this is still the Hellan Realm!"
On the main throne, Ashina Hongfang remained silent all along.
Only now did he stop toying with the bone beads.
He raised his right hand, adorned with a pure gold thumb ring, palm down, and pressed it downward in the air lightly.
Ashina Gudu had no choice but to snort heavily, release the saber hilt, and return to his seat disgruntled. But his eyes remained fixed on the Han man like a hungry wolf.
Ashina Hongfang leaned forward slightly, studying the bedraggled Chen Changfeng.
He did not lash out. Instead, his tone was slow, deliberate, carrying an air of lofty pity.
"Chen, you've been ensnared by appearances."
Hongfang picked up a silver bowl inlaid with turquoise from the low table, blew the froth from his butter tea, and took a small sip.
"I've read the Buddhist books of your Central Plains. The Buddha says all phenomena are illusory."
"Right now, you're restless and agitated—clearly, your heart is possessed by a demon."
He set down the bowl, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the table.
"The Daoists teach: 'The color of a face remains unchanged when Mount Tai crumbles; the eyes do not blink when a deer jumps at the side.' Look at yourself now. Where is the calm, strategizing demeanor of a military advisor?"
His gaze sharpened, piercing into Chen Changfeng's heart.
"Anger is but a hide to mask fear."
"Chen, what are you really afraid of? Are you scared that the Great Qian's walls are too high? That their firearms sound too loud? Or... deep down, in your very bones, are you still afraid of Great Qian's foundations?"
These words, sharp enough to strike a man's soul, nearly shattered Chen Changfeng from within.
He did not argue further.
Chen Changfeng lifted his head, meeting Hongfang's examining gaze: "If you want to debate Buddha and Dao with me, Grand Khan, then I shall answer your Highness with the fate of the Great Qian itself!"
His voice trembled. "Your subject took great risk infiltrating the capital to meet with the master at Clear Wind Temple, the one who understands the fate of the nation and can glimpse the secrets of Heaven. My master, at the cost of his own lifespan, cast a divination for the northern border of Great Qian—"
Chen Changfeng paused.
"The Mandate of Heaven is in chaos!"
"To the north, a flame of calamity has risen that does not belong to the Five Elements. If the Great Khan does not ride south now to smother this fire before it becomes a sweeping blaze, the Helian tribe will never—not in this life, nor the next—set foot south of the border again!"
Pat.
An extremely faint sound came.
Ashina Hongfang had been clutching a string of hard bone beads—he had just snapped the oxhide cord that held them together.
Several pale bone beads fell onto the mottled tiger-fur mat, rolling into the wool rug at the center of the tent.
Just then, movement stirred outside the tent flap.
Thump—thump—
Two children wearing pure silver ghost masks lifted the heavy cowhide door curtain from either side.
A stooped old man walked in slowly, draped in garments sewn from colorful bird feathers.
The Helian Grand Shaman.
The moment he appeared, the unruly thousand-commanders inside the tent lost their arrogance, lowering their heads and clearing a path.
Even Ashina Gudu, who had been the most hot-tempered moments before, stepped back half a pace, placing his right hand over his left breast and bowing deeply in the manner of the steppes.
But hatred lurked beneath his eyes.
The old man ignored the greetings around him. Dragging his heavy steps, he walked straight to the throne.
"Great Khan, the stars of the Eternal Blue Sky… have changed."
As soon as the Grand Shaman spoke, a chill ran down the spines of everyone inside the tent.
"The southern night sky has erupted in a bloody glow that reaches the heavens."
The Grand Shaman continued.
"Last night, on the altar, I cut open a live white ram with my own hands and took its heart for divination."
"The still-beating heart was cast into the sacrificial fire—the flames instantly turned white. The heart did not burn; instead, it was consumed into a handful of white ash."
The Grand Shaman’s withered hands gripped his beast-bone staff and struck it heavily against the ground.
"Master Chen is right. The Mandate of Heaven is indeed in chaos. This is a fire-wolf that will devour the entire steppe. The Eternal Blue Sky is warning us—it is time for war."
The Grand Shaman slowly turned his head, looking at Chen Changfeng on the ground, then back to the Great Khan.
"It will take rivers of blood—tens of thousands of lives—to douse that fire."
"Otherwise, the very roots of the grasslands will be pulled up and wiped clean!"
The Grand Shaman’s words became the final straw.
Ashina Hongfang rose abruptly.
In that moment, he tore off the hypocritical mask of Buddhist meditation and compassion he had worn, revealing the true, blood-crazed fangs of the wolf king of the steppes.
"Let my Golden Arrow be issued!"
"Sound the ox-horn horns—summon all the troops of the eight tribes!" Ashina Hongfang waved his hand toward the south. "Forget the autumn fattening, forget the grass seeds! Every man on the steppes who stands taller than a cartwheel shall mount his horse and take up his curved blade!"
"The army shall stand ready to march south. We will trample Great Qian underfoot!"
