Ten miles beyond the pass, yellow sand blotted out the sun.
Sukh, a ten-man leader of the Helian cavalry, rode at the head of a dozen horsemen along the desolate banks of the Blackwater River, galloping hard under military orders.
Under cover of night and the terrain, this light cavalry squad silently approached the Northern Gate to probe the isolated fortress’s weaknesses.
At the Blackwater River, the river wind carried a biting chill that stung the face.
Sukh reined in his horse, lifting his gaze to cross the turbulent current and fix on the fortress that stood like a throat-strangling choke point.
In that single glance, this hardened man, who had seen countless lives lost on the steppes, felt a chill creep in.
The northern section of the Northern Gate had a new wall rising several dozen feet into the air.
The wall stood sheer as a cliff, cutting off the passage between the Yin Mountains and the Blackwater River.
What was most terrifying was that its surface showed none of the usual military construction marks of interlocking gray bricks or rice-lime mortar joints. Instead, it was a single, cold, seamless expanse of gray-white.
This great gray-white hulk was wedged between two ancient blackened stone walls, mottled from a century of wind and frost, looking wholly out of place.
The old walls bore the scars of blades and axes, their mortar fissures hosting dark red blood-moss-physical evidence of years and warfare.
This new wall, smooth and seamless, exuded an alien, inhuman stillness.
Sukh urged his horse forward another hundred paces along the riverbank, using the pale moonlight filtering through clouds to peer at it.
The wall’s surface was bizarrely smooth, free of any protruding brick corner or sunken crack!
A few crows flew over the ramparts, trying to alight, but their claws slipped before they flew off with mournful cries.
“Squad leader, could these southerners have gotten mountain spirits to haul a whole stone here?”
The cavalryman beside him whispered, a note of fear in his voice:
“There’s nothing to grab onto at all. Even a ladder would slide right off.”
Sukh did not answer.
Staring at that flawless gray wall, he calculated just how hard it would be to storm.
If that seamless rock was solid, it was a true iron wall.
Turning his horse, he lashed its whip hard:
“Back to camp!”
At the Red Willow Beach camp, outside the Left Luli King’s tent,
Bayaer, a commander of a thousand, was pacing in resentment, having been refused a battle charge earlier that day.
When Sukh came stumbling back to report, Bayaer listened with narrowed eyes, then was stunned for a moment.
Soon after, he laughed loudly, contempt filling his tone.
“A gray-white, seamless wall? Not even a single brick?”
Bayaer grabbed Sukh by the collar of his leather armor, pulling him close, spraying spittle across his face:
“You fool! Scared by the southerners’ trickery!”
He shoved Sukh out of the way and strode into the Left Luli King’s golden tent.
Before he even stood still, his coarse voice shook the candlelight inside.
“King! The southerners are at their wit’s end!”
Bayaer knelt on one knee, saluting:
“My cavalry just scouted the new wall’s base. It’s high and terrifying, but it’s plain gray-white, with no brick seams at all!”
Rising to his feet, he gestured contemptuously:
“Those corrupt officials in the Grand Qian Ministry of Public Works must be scamming the imperial court. They slapped together a hollow shell with cheap plant ash mixed with lime mortar as a stopgap!”
“It looks fierce, but all I need is a few battering rams, and a good strike will knock a big hole through it!”
A few deputy generals in the tent chuckled along.
One bearded general raised his voice in agreement:
“Bayaer speaks sense! The southerners love fakery. That gray wall is a paper tiger just waiting to break!”
The Left Luli King, Ashina Dubi, stood beside a sheepskin sand table, listening to Bayaer’s report without a word.
Having campaigned for half a lifetime, with dozens of battles against the Grand Qian border forces, he knew well that southerners always built fortifications with solid stone and large bricks.
In the White Wolf River bloodbath sixty years ago, the Helian armored cavalry had smashed into those gray brick walls head-on.
Such a towering wall without brick seams was unusual.
It was either a secret technique from Grand Qian, or there was something deeper at play.
A brute like Bayaer, whose muscles outweighed his wits, could only be half-trusted.
Raising his hand, Ashina Dubi cut off Bayaer’s wailing.
“Go, invite Mr. Chen.”
Soon, Chen Changfeng, who had been reading military texts, stepped inside the tent.
This Han military strategist, who had abandoned the name Chen Henian, wore a plain black robe, his figure lean and upright.
Standing among the fully armored steppe chieftains, his cold and noble expression carried a hint of resentment, utterly lacking the roughness of the grasslands.
“Gully King, any news from Grand Qian?”
Chen Changfeng clasped his hands in a fellow’s salute.
Ashina Dubi repeated what Sukh had found out about the mysterious wall, asking:
“Military advisor, as a southerner, do you know what this gray wall is?”
Lowering his eyes, Chen Changfeng considered for a moment.
In his mind, he recalled an old intelligence report from months earlier.
Back then, Deputy General He Minghu of the Northern Gate and Imperial Supervisor Ma Jin’an had not yet died under Xu Zhan’s maces. They had slipped out an inconspicuous letter through secret channels.
Hidden in the letter were a few complaints: that Grand Qian had adopted some new method to build this new wall in the north.
It mentioned something about the wall’s color changing and the materials being strange-should be the Ministry of Revenue’s leeches skimming project funds and using inferior substitutes.
A botched job like that, it could not withstand several volleys of catapult fire.
At the time, Chen Changfeng had dismissed it as common corruption in Grand Qian’s bureaucracy, not taking it seriously.
Now, seeing the two pieces of evidence match, the truth behind the wall became clear.
He raised his eyes to Ashina Dubi, his voice cold as a mountain spring:
“King, your worries are unnecessary. This wall is proof of Grand Qian officials’ corruption.”
The generals present all blinked in surprise.
Chen Changfeng stood with hands behind his back, dripping with contempt for the Southern Dynasties’ bureaucracy:
“The Southern Dynasty’s officials always bleed every coin dry.”
“If even thirty percent of the silver allocated for wall repairs ever actually lands on the bricks, that is a vast conscience.”
“That coward Ma Ji’an, in the very letter before his death, complained about this wall, saying the materials were odd and that the Ministry of Revenue had fobbed them off with inferior stuff.”
He paced two steps, pointing at the Northern Gate on the sand table:
“Those gray-white surfaces are nothing but cheap lime powder mixed with some earth to slop together a pretense.”
“Such an outwardly strong, inwardly brittle, mildewy piece of work wouldn’t hold against a volley of catapult fire, let alone battering rams, before the truth comes out.”
Chen Changfeng’s reasoning was airtight, logically consistent.
He knew the Grand Qian civil official corps too well. For the sake of silver, nothing was too depraved.
Patch together a showy mud wall to cheat military funds was utterly routine.
Ashina Dubi listened, and the tightness in his brow eased slightly.
Chen Changfeng’s judgment had filled the holes in his suspicion.
The greed of the southern civil officials had long been legendary.
If anyone would use mud for a fortress wall, it would be those greedy officials…
But his inherently suspicious nature-and the very skill that kept him alive through a lifetime of warfare-still left him wary to some degree.
“Issue the order,”
Ashina Dubi said, pointing at the northern section of the sand table:
“Mark the position of this gray wall. On the day of the assault, first mobilize the catapults and test it with heavy stones.”
“If it is as the strategist says, we will tear open the breach at this point in Zhenbei Pass.”
Chen Changfeng’s certainty finally quelled the lingering doubts in Ashina Dubi’s heart.
Once the siege plans were settled in the tent, the conversation naturally turned to rear supply lines.
Tens of thousands of troops consumed men and horses daily, and the grain supplies were an insatiable pit.
“The resupply from Baiyin Grasslands should arrive today by my reckoning.”
Ashina Dubi turned to his trusted quartermaster:
“Has the courier sent to hasten the grain returned any news?”
The quartermaster hurried forward and bowed his head in reply:
“Your Majesty, the courier sent to the grasslands has not been seen, nor has any word been received.”
The air in the tent grew still for a moment.
Ashina Dubi rested his hand on his sword hilt, silent.
The Baiyin Grasslands were the lifeline of the great army; the courier should have brought back word half a day ago at the latest.
He glanced at the raging sandstorm outside the tent, dismissing it as distance and weather delaying the journey, not bothering to probe deeper.
The Great Qian border troops were already trapped within Zhenbei Pass, and north of the Yin Mountains lay the territory of the Heran Royal Court—who could cross this hundred-thousand-strong army to threaten the Baiyin Grasslands?
“Enough.”
Ashina Dubi let out a cold snort, his tone resolute:
“Since the fish is already in the pot, why rush?”
“Send orders to all camps: seal off the area tightly. Do not let even a bird fly out of the pass.”
“Once the sandstorm subsides, I will level this lonely city!”
A certain Qin standing off to the side stroked his beard and echoed:
“Your Majesty is wise. The encirclement is complete; Zhenbei Pass is a dead end. We need only wait for good tidings.”
“These hundred thousand iron cavalry will soon slake their thirst at the Heishui River and march straight on the capital!”
The officers in the tent roared their assent, each one eager and certain of victory.
But Chen Changfeng, upon hearing the news, could not shake an ominous feeling.
He pondered back and forth but could not figure out what it might be.
He prayed silently in his heart, hoping it was not an issue at the grasslands.
But reality rarely aligned with men’s wishes—and they knew nothing of it.
Three days earlier, at Baiyin Grasslands.
