Near the end of the Hour of the Tiger.
The main hall of the Zhenbeiguan General’s Residence.
Several braziers of smokeless animal charcoal glowed scarlet in the center of the room, the embers occasionally crackling, yet failing to dispel the bone-deep chill that permeated the hall. Tie Lanshan, draped in heavy chainmail, sat upright in a tiger-skin-covered armchair, his face bearing the ashen pallor of successive sleepless nights.
Xu Qinghuan sat in the high-backed rosewood chair to the right, holding a small, delicate copper hand warmer. Qingque stood behind her, hands at her sides, silent. Xu Chengguang stood on the left, one hand resting lightly on the horizontal saber at his waist.
At the foot of the steps before the hall, Zhao Heng, the deputy city patrol commander, was covered in frost. His hand pressed firmly on his saber handle, he stood like a deity guarding the gate.
Suddenly, the urgent clatter of boots striking the ground broke the silence outside, shattering the frost in the courtyard.
Zhao Cheng was approaching the main hall, carrying a coarse sack in his hand. The bottom of the sack was seeping thick, viscous blood, a gruesome sight.
He strode to the center of the hall, bent his knees, and knelt down heavily.
“Zhao Cheng, Western Pass Brigadier, has a secret matter to report and has come to pledge my allegiance!”
His voice was resolute, carrying a desperate, tragic weight.
Tie Lanshan looked over with interest, his gaze passing over the long desk.
“I remember you, the veteran soldier from the Western Pass gate tower. What is that you’re carrying?”
Zhao Cheng did not answer. Instead, he threw the sack heavily forward.
The coarse rope around its neck came loose.
A head, completely encrusted with quicklime, rolled out, leaving a trail of white ash on the dark brick floor. The flesh at the neck, burned and curled by the lime, was utterly unrecognizable.
Zhao Cheng reached into his bosom and pulled out half a piece of yellowed, grimy paper—a travel permit, singed at the edges—along with a bronze token covered in green verdigris. He raised both above his head.
“Marshal! This head belongs to a spy sent by the Helian tribe to make contact. This bronze token is the death warrant left with me five years ago by the traitor Chen Changfeng!”
Upon hearing this, Zhao Heng strode forward.
He did not touch the bloody head but snatched the bronze token from Zhao Cheng’s hand, rubbing his thumb vigorously across its surface. The top layer of green rust was scraped away, revealing a very fine, slanted notch along the edge on the reverse side.
Zhao Heng slammed the token onto Tie Lanshan’s desk and cursed loudly.
“Marshal, it matches! This is the old garrison identity tag issued to officers of the rank of camp commander and above here at Zhenbeiguan five years ago.”
Ignoring Zhao Heng’s clamor, Tie Lanshan picked up the half-sheeted travel permit and examined the faint yellow lettering on it.
“Tell me clearly. What happened?”
Zhao Cheng knocked his forehead hard against the floor, producing a series of dull thuds.
“Marshal, please see clearly! Five years ago, I committed a military crime and was almost beheaded. It was Chen Changfeng who bribed with horses to spare my worthless life. He said back then that one day I would have to repay the favor.”
Zhao Cheng lifted his head, his face smeared with black grime, tears carving two dirty channels through it.
“Now the barbarian army is pressing on the pass. He sent this spy, smuggled in among the refugees, to order me to be the traitor within and open the city gates! No matter how ignorant I am, I can tell friend from foe.”
“The soldiers stationed on the Western Pass gate tower are all brothers who eat from the same pot! Inside the pass also lives my only son, just three years old! Once the barbarians enter the pass, they leave nothing—not even a chicken or dog!”
He gnashed his teeth in grievance and spoke of his motive.
“I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I butchered the spy and brought this death warrant to you to report and confess. Whether you want to kill me or slice me, I would not dare utter a single complaint!”
After listening, Tie Lanshan pointed at the travel permit.
“Do you recognize the writing on this?”
“Yes. It’s the old marketplace code used by smugglers and grain traders at the border years ago. When Chen Changfeng was in charge of the Food Transport Bureau back then, he knew this racket language best.”
Zhao Cheng shuffled forward on his knees and pointed to the first line on the paper.
“‘Three dan of wheat, discounted to four taels and seven mace.’ ‘Wheat’ means the hour of night. ‘Three’ is the third watch. ‘Dan’ is the direction. The price corresponds to the defensive formation for the northern part of the Western Pass route.”
He interpreted the text word by word: “The decoded meaning is: ‘On a picked night, during the Hour of the Ox, prepare to rendezvous at the horse ramp of the northern lesser gate.’”
Then, he fluently interpreted the rest of the coded entries regarding cloth and salt as steps for breaching defenses, signals, and beacon fires to coordinate the attack. Every word was clear, his delivery smooth without a single stumble.
Xu Chengguang, who had been listening closely nearby, quickly walked to the hanging geography map, pointed his finger at the location of the northern lesser gate.
“Marshal. Yesterday, the Left Luli King lost his teeth biting into our new northern wall, costing him over a thousand men. His army has pulled back thirty li.”
“By common logic, our northern garrison would be negligent over the next few days. Although the horse ramp at the northern lesser gate is narrow, it leads directly to the inner street of the military fort.”
Xu Chengguang flicked his wrist, his fingertip tracing a straight path into the heart of the Zhenbeiguan defense area.
“The Hour of the Ox is exactly when people are weary and horses are tired. If Chen Changfeng uses his internal contact to quietly unlock the northern lesser gate, ten thousand heavy infantry without torches, men with bits strapped and horses shod in felt, then enter. In less than half an hour, his army could drive from north to south, punching a hole straight through our camp from one end to the other!”
Following Xu Chengguang’s pointing finger, Tie Lanshan gave a cold snort.
“A clever scheme! Feint to the east and attack in the west. He chose the very place we thought was safest to put his knife.”
“Does he, Chen Changfeng, truly think all the men in this pass are made of mud?”
The Old Marshal stepped down from the dais, personally reached out, grasped Zhao Cheng’s arm, and pulled him forcefully upward.
“A fine man! You have brought me a precious head! By upholding righteousness at the expense of personal ties, you’ve saved tens of thousands of lives in this pass. The Marshal grants you the first accolade!”
Zhao Cheng bowed his head repeatedly, saying “unworthy,” his body trembling slightly, seeming deeply moved.
Zhao Heng added by the side,
“Marshal! Now that we know the bastard is coming to the northern lesser gate, let’s lay a trap! Trick them into coming in and then capture them like turtles in a jar!”
Tie Lanshan nodded, mulled over the deployment for a moment, then turned to look at Xu Chengguang.
“General Xu, you will hold the line with your own troops when the time comes.”
“Zhao Heng, go to the crossbow battalion and dispatch three thousand heavy crossbowmen. Station them all in the hidden bunkers on both sides of the northern lesser gate.
Stock up on fire oil, rolling logs, and trip ropes. Once the front ranks of their vanguard crowd into the gateway, drop the iron portcullis. The Old Marshal wants that northern horse ramp to become Chen Changfeng’s burial ground!”
At once, the atmosphere in the hall shifted dramatically. The previous feeling of suffocation from the siege of heavy troops vanished, replaced by a surge of fighting spirit.
Everyone sprang into action, except Xu Qinghuan, who didn’t budge.
She remained seated steadily in her rosewood chair, the silver-grade charcoal in her hand warmer keeping her fingertips pleasantly warm.
Only when Tie Lanshan had finished issuing all the military orders and a brief silence fell over the hall did Xu Qinghuan place her hand warmer on the side table.
She patted her sleeves, stood up, and walked to the center of the hall.
She did not address Tie Lanshan, nor did she glance at Zhao Heng.
She bent down, and with two long, slender, and spotlessly clean fingers, she picked up the travel permit from the desk, which still reeked of mutton.
Qingque, quick on the uptake, immediately stepped closer, lifting a lantern.
The firelight illuminated the paper’s surface. As Xu Qinghuan looked at the numbers for grain, oil, cloth, and salt printed on it, her facial expression did not change in the slightest.
Over the past half year, she had pored over no fewer than eight hundred to a thousand files concerning the grain tribute system reforms of Great Qian’s northern border towns.
Her family, the Xu family, controlled the Ministry of Revenue, and her father, Xu Youde, was a seasoned accountant. She had already gained a thorough understanding of those various dusty, moldy local ledgers, market practices, and measurement systems from all over.
After all! This is a matter regarding my life and personal fortune! Hey!
Xu Qinghuan thought silently to herself, beginning to recall:
Five years ago, at the Tongzhou trading post, three bushels of wheat could fetch four liang and seven qian of silver on the black market.
But that was old history.
Two years ago, the Grand Qian Minister of Revenue, Xu Youde, went mad in the imperial court. He smashed the livelihoods of salt and grain merchants across the board, enforced new laws, and abolished all the old northern grain-measurement posts.
After standardizing measurements and the heavy snow at the beginning of this year stabilizing prices, the current market rate for grain means that three bushels of wheat, based on the Ministry's official ledgers, come out to at most three liang and two qian.
According to the new market standards, if these words were plugged into the code of a border pass battle map, what they'd translate to wouldn't be "North-Side Horse Path."
It would be "West City Corner."
The West Gate's defenses are the weakest, and it happens to be right next to that stretch of gray-white cement wall. The passage is extremely narrow, barely wide enough for a cart on an ordinary day.
Now this was getting interesting.
Xu Qinghuan pinched the rough paper, turning it over in her hand.
If Zhao Cheng had truly cut ties with Chen Changfeng over these past five years, and had gotten this pass only at the last moment, using the current market code would never yield the translation "four liang and seven qian."
The fact that he could recite the old market code from five years ago so fluently, word for word, could only mean one thing:
In those five years, their private correspondence had never stopped.
Those old codes from half a decade ago had become second nature for their covert dealings.
More crucially, he was lying.
Chen Changfeng had deliberately sent that severed head to set the stage for Zhao Cheng's act of defection.
Zhao Cheng had intentionally used the old accounting, directing the result toward "North-Side Horse Path."
This was meant to trick Tie Lanshan into pulling all the elite ambush troops from the pass to the north to freeze in the wind.
Once the northern defenses were stripped away, Chen Changfeng's main force would slam without resistance into the weakly guarded West City Corner.
This was a scheme within a scheme—a borrowed knife to slit their own throat, turning the main army of Zhenbei Pass into a tool to open the door for the enemy.
Everyone in the hall was watching Xu Qinghuan.
Xu Chengguang saw her staring at the paper in silence and asked:
"Imperial Commissioner Xu, is there something wrong with the code?"
Xu Qinghuan didn't answer him.
She folded the pass twice, pressed it against her palm, and walked step by step to stand before Zhao Cheng.
She stopped, looking down at the West Pass brigade commander who had just claimed a great victory.
Her tone was unhurried, not even carrying a hint of harsh accusation—just an ordinary, simple question.
"Brigade Commander Zhao, let me ask you something. Using which year's market rates did you translate the phrase 'North Horse Path'?"
The moment those words were spoken, Zhao Cheng, who had been lost in dreams of being enfeoffed a marquis, froze.
