Xu Zhan kicked aside Aletan's still-twitching severed arm, then bent down to pull a rolled sheepskin from the saddlebag on the fallen warhorse.
He held this half in his left hand and fished the other half he’d taken from Ma Jin'an out of his jacket, matching them together.
The torn edges fit perfectly, even the crease that Ma Jin'an had twisted aligned.
Xu Zhan stared at the joined city-defense map for a breath, then pressed his index finger—stained with blood and bits of flesh—hard onto the sheepskin, leaving a dark red fingerprint.
Not a piece missing.
Huh, not bad.
He rolled up the sheepskin, tucked it inside his armor, and turned his gaze to the sky.
That gray prairie eagle was still circling in the night, letting out a long screech, about to fly far off to the north.
“General, the eagle’s been released,” his deputy said, riding up close, his grip on the long-handled saber tight. “Should we have the archers shoot it down? At over three hundred yards, it’ll be tough.”
Xu Zhan shook his head.
“Why shoot it?” Xu Zhan wrapped the reins around his left wrist again. “The eagle’s carrying a note in its beak, not the map.”
The deputy paused, confused.
“That wounded soldier under Chen Changfeng—how many words could he scratch onto a strip of cloth?” Xu Zhan glanced toward the thickening dust in the north. “Just some useless crap like ‘Ambush in Zhenbei City, half the map taken.’”
“An empty message won’t pry a single brick loose from Zhenbei Pass.”
The deputy understood.
The map was still tucked inside Xu Zhan’s armor. All the eagle carried off was a frightening rumor. Even if Chen Changfeng got the message, he’d have nothing useful in hand.
“But the two traitors…” the deputy pointed at the ground.
He Minghu lay sprawled face-up in a pool of blood, his chest caved into a hollow pit, long dead.
Ma Jin'an was pinned to the cliff wall by a broken spear, his limbs dangling, a few dried blood bubbles clinging to the corners of his mouth.
“Dead is fine.” Xu Zhan looked away.
The deputy didn’t quite get it. Those two had been bait to lure Chen Changfeng. Now the bait itself was gone, but Xu Zhan didn’t seem the least bit worried.
Xu Zhan caught his confusion and, for once, added an explanation.
“The big fish didn’t bite. This bait’s useless now.” Xu Zhan hoisted his blood-dripping mace and draped it over the saddle. “Let two lightly wounded Helian soldiers go.”
“Let them go?” the deputy’s eyes widened. “General, won’t that tip off Chen Changfeng?”
“That’s exactly the point.” Xu Zhan mounted his horse, looking down at the few Helian stragglers cowering behind their horses’ rumps. “Let them go back and exaggerate—paint my One Arm as something monstrous.”
“The more they hype it up, the less Chen Changfeng will dare to push forward.”
Xu Zhan heeled his horse, and it snorted.
“A man like him would rather believe in the supernatural than take any risk. That forward camp three miles away—after his men hear these stragglers’ tales, they might not even move tonight.”
A chill ran through the deputy’s entire body.
A retreat could also be a move in the psychological game.
This general might talk little on normal days, but the twists and turns in his head were no less sharp than the young lady’s.
The dust cloud to the north was now visible in outline, and the ground tremors came in quicker succession—the unmistakable sound of hundreds of riders charging at full speed.
“Pull back.” Xu Zhan turned his horse. “All of you, gag your horses and wrap their hooves. Fall back to the General-in-Chief’s defense line. Take no prisoners alive.”
The horses bit down on bamboo mouthpieces, and their hooves were wrapped in thick cotton cloth, landing without even a muffled thud.
This unit had come in silence and left in silence, vanishing into the darkness beyond the barren flats in no time.
Behind them, in the hollow, only the corpses of the two traitors, the dead Aletan, scattered, shattered armor plates, and the Helian elite ground to pulp remained.
The few wounded soldiers let loose scrambled onto their horses, not even bothering to straighten their helmets, and fled north at full tilt.
…
Three miles from the barren flats, at the support camp.
Three hundred Helian forward cavalry stood in formation, both men and horses armored, waiting for the “great gift from Zhenbei City” Chen Changfeng had promised.
Bayaer reined in his horse, growing impatient.
According to Mr. Chen, a high-ranking Daqian official was coming tonight with the map to defect—a huge exploit that could shake Zhenbei Pass.
He’d deliberately picked the best hundred riders from the camp for a show of strength.
But they waited and waited, and instead of some high official, three scared-shitless stragglers came riding back.
The one in front had blood streaming down his right leg, lying on his horse’s back, his face deathly pale.
“Where’s the gift!” Bayaer spurred his horse forward and grabbed the straggler by the collar. “Where’s Chiliarich Aletan? Where’s the map? Where are the two Daqian officials?”
The straggler’s teeth chattered uncontrollably, unable to get out a single coherent sentence.
“Talk!” Bayaer slapped him.
“Aletan…” the straggler stammered, his voice trembling and broken, “Aletan’s arm… it’s gone… lying in that puddle…”
Bayaer froze.
“What did you say?”
“Twenty heavily armored brothers…” the straggler stared blankly, as if seeing that barren flat again, “all crushed… all crushed into pulp…”
Bayaer took a step back.
“Twenty? Who did it? How many men did Daqian send?”
“One.” The straggler’s lips quivered. “Just… just one man.”
“One man?” Bayaer could barely hear him. “What kind of one man could take down twenty armored soldiers?”
“One arm.” The straggler held up his own trembling hand, making a gesture. “That man… only had one left arm.”
“His right sleeve… it was empty!”
The camp fell silent.
The cavalrymen exchanged looks, and someone couldn’t help snorting.
“A cripple with one arm, crushing twenty heavy infantry? You think us brothers are made of paper?”
“Lord, it’s true!”
The straggler, still shaken out of his wits, was so frantic he was slapping his saddle.
“He was swinging a black iron rod—one swing, and horses’ legs and armor snapped together! Aletan’s curved saber hit his shoulder, and it did nothing…”
An old scribe nearby, who’d been stroking his beard, suddenly jerked his hand.
This scribe handled camp documents and had served under several Tumen leaders, with far broader knowledge than these rough soldiers. He stepped forward, sucking in a cold breath.
“One-arm… breaking formations, single-handedly defeating a crowd of armored men?” the scribe muttered to himself, his excitement growing until his beard stood on end. “A man like that—this has to be Xiang Yu reborn!”
The camp went still for a moment.
Then, all heads turned to the old scribe in eerie unison.
“Who’s Xiang Yu?”
“What tribe is he from?”
“Under which Tumen leader’s command does a warrior like Xiang Yu serve?”
The old scribe was left speechless by the barrage of questions.
“Tougher than Bayatur in front of the Khan’s tent?” a young cavalryman asked wide-eyed. “Bayatur can lift a calf with one hand!”
“Xiang Yu… Xiang Yu was…” The old scribe opened his mouth. He’d only read miscellaneous Chinese histories; there was no way he could explain the Chu-Han conflict to these grassland warriors in a few words. “Xiang Yu was a great general. He had the strength to lift a cauldron, and ten thousand men couldn’t stop him…”
“Which city is he in now? Let’s attack and capture him!” Bayaer perked up.
The old scribe’s face turned red.
“Can’t capture him… He… died long ago.”
"Dead?" Bayaer frowned. "How long ago?"
The old scribe counted on his fingers for a while, growing more uncertain the longer he calculated.
"Anyway... anyway, it's been over a thousand years."
The camp erupted.
"A dead man over a thousand years old?"
"Are you saying the one who crushed twenty of our brothers tonight was someone who's been dead for centuries?"
"A corpse that crawled out of its grave to butcher us?!"
The wounded soldier who brought the news turned even paler; shrinking his neck, he quietly added, "Anyway... that man was fiercer than anyone. He used a dead horse as a shield to block arrows, and the arrows couldn't even pierce through."
"When he retreated, he was soaked in blood, like he had been pulled from a pool of gore. One of our brothers, as he was fleeing, yelled that he was an iron-cudgel demon crawling out of hell..."
"Iron-cudgel demon?!"
"Xiang Yu reborn!"
"A man dead for centuries..."
A hundred elite Helian soldiers looked at one another, their hands gripping their sabers trembling slightly. The eagerness for an easy victory had been doused cold by the words of these few battered survivors.
In the midst of this chaos, one man sitting in the corner of the tent did not stir.
He was a strategist sent by Chen Changfeng to oversee the backup—surnamed Qin, dressed in the robes of a Great Qian scholar, conspicuously out of place among the Helian troops.
He had not interrupted a single word the entire time, only listening, his expression steadily darkening.
When the noise had finally settled, he spoke slowly, and a few nearby cavalrymen instinctively fell silent.
"You've all missed the point," Counselor Qin said, rising to his feet and looking out toward the northern wasteland.
"Whether or not that One Arm can fight is secondary." He paused. "Think about it—if he was able to kill twenty heavily armored men, why did he deliberately let three of them live to return?"
No one in the camp could answer.
"This is exactly the effect he wants," Counselor Qin said, lowering his voice further. "Let them live to spread his fearsome reputation—to make others describe a one-armed man as Xiang Yu, a demon crawling from hell, so that you yourselves are afraid first."
He took two paces, his gaze sweeping over the bewildered faces.
"This isn't just killing."
"This is Xu Qinghuan using your own mouths to deliver a declaration of war to the royal court."
The tent fell completely silent.
Bayaer swallowed hard.
He didn't fully grasp these intricate schemes, but the Counselor's words sent a chill down his neck.
"Then... what do we do now?" Bayaer turned to Counselor Qin. "Shall we muster everyone and strike tonight?"
Counselor Qin shook his head.
"We haven't even retrieved the map, and we know nothing of that One Arm's background, yet you want to charge in blind with a hundred horsemen at night?" He gave a cold laugh. "That's exactly what they want."
Bayaer's face flushed red and then white.
Recalling the twenty corpses smashed to pulp on that barren beach, he swallowed the bravado that had been at the tip of his tongue.
"Send a message." Counselor Qin stared north. "This matter is beyond my authority, and even Mr. Chen may not be able to decide. We need the royal court to make the call."
Bayaer snapped into action, grabbing the eagle cage from a nearby guardsman.
The prairie eagle inside flapped its wings in alarm.
Bayaer tore off a strip of cloth, scrawled a few lines on it, stuffed it into the copper tube tied to the eagle's leg, and hurled the bird into the sky.
"Let it be Xiang Yu or a demon!" Bayaer roared, the panic in his voice barely concealed. "If such a monster has appeared, dispatch it by urgent relay and report to the royal court!"
The prairie eagle shot upward on its wings, circled the camp once, and then, fixing its course northward, plunged into the boundless night, vanishing in a flash.
Counselor Qin watched the fading eagle shadow, pulling his collar tighter.
"Iron-cudgel demon," he murmured again, furrowing his brow. "Let's hope those people at the royal court understand what these four words truly mean."
The direction into which the eagle shadow disappeared led to the brightly lit tent of the Helian overlord nearly a thousand miles away.
A military report, sparked by this one-armed warrior, was riding on the eagle's wings toward the highest seat of the prairie.
