The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

The camp of the Xiutu King's tribe is no longer what it used to be.

The white felt tents that were once scattered like stars are now connected into a gray-black sea, stretching from one end of the valley to the other, densely packed, like a cloud that has been blown to the ground by the wind and can never be rolled up again.

Countless iron pots were set up in the open space between the tents, bubbling with meat broth and some kind of dark paste. The steam condensed into a persistent grayish-white mist in the cold air.

The camp was surrounded by a newly dug trench, the bottom of which was filled with sharpened wooden stakes. The tops of the stakes were blackened and hardened by fire, and they gleamed mattely in the moonlight.

A row of dark shadows stood silently and motionless on the outer side of the trench, like a row of old flagpoles stuck in the ground.

After the Qiyan tribe was destroyed, Agula successively annexed several other tribes, including the Tiele, Wuhuan, and Baidi.

Some small tribes surrendered without a second thought, offering up cattle, sheep, and able-bodied men without even putting up a fight.

Agula did not kill those who surrendered, but instead dispersed and reorganized all able-bodied men, merging them into the ranks of various centurions. Once incorporated, they were treated according to military law, and anyone who showed the slightest dissent was publicly beheaded, their head hung on a flagpole.

The flagpoles stood in the center of the camp in an open space, with a dozen or so human heads hanging from the top. After drying, they shrank to the size of a fist, their faces unrecognizable, swaying slightly in the wind like a string of forgotten wind chimes.

People on the grasslands began to turn pale at the mere mention of "Xiu Tu".

Those who fled said that a dark creature crouched outside Agula's royal tent, its eyes glowing green, and that it never went out, night after night.

Thus, names like the Ghost Division and the Asura Division quietly spread across the grasslands.

Some people say privately that Agula is no longer human, and his shadow is scattered in the moonlight.

Some say that he sat by the fire in the middle of the night, but the firelight couldn't penetrate his face, as if there was something separating him from the light.

Inside the main tent, the brazier burned bright red.

The charcoal was made from old elm wood that the soldiers of the Xiutu tribe had cut down from dozens of miles away. One pot could burn all night. The charcoal pieces crackled in the fire, and waves of heat rushed out from the pot, forcing the cold air in the tent back to the farthest corner.

Agula sat at the head of the table, which was covered with a tiger skin. The tiger skin was from a white-browed tiger that he had hunted himself last autumn. The tiger's head fur was still attached to the back of the chair, and two polished obsidian stones were embedded in the tiger's eyes, glowing faintly in the firelight.

He was darker and thinner than he had been months ago, with high cheekbones that cast deep shadows on his face, and the angles of his brow bones were more defined than before, like a knife that had been repeatedly sharpened.

His eyes were eerily bright.

It's not that healthy sheen; it's the cold, hard reflection of sand and gravel after it's been polished, like two pieces of broken porcelain embedded in your eye sockets. When you stare at it, you feel like you're being measured by something, not by a living person.

He rarely smiles now.

Even his closest comrade-in-arms from back then no longer dared to cause trouble with him at banquets.

Someone tried it. Last month, an old centurion who had followed him for eleven years got drunk at the victory celebration banquet, patted Agula on the shoulder and called him "Brother Agula". Agula did not get angry or scold him, but just turned his head and glanced at the man.

No one knows how long that glance lasted, maybe only two breaths.

The centurion suddenly released his grip, took a half step back, his face as white as mutton fat, and sobered up considerably. He never raised his head in front of Agula again after that.

Yin Protector sat in the closest position to him, his gray robe now adorned with several silver lines that flickered in the firelight, as if something was slowly flowing within the robe's lining.

His demeanor was much more composed than before, and his posture was relaxed yet not slouching, like a fully drawn bow placed on a stand.

It looks loose, but you know it could spring back at any moment.

To his left sat the Ghost Protector, a gaunt man as thin as a bamboo pole, wrapped in a dark green robe whose edges were worn and frayed, yet he had never replaced it.

Only a section of his neck was visible at his collar, which was covered with dense, dark blue tattoos. The patterns resembled some kind of twisted vine, climbing from under his collar to the edge of his jaw and disappearing behind his ear.

The man never spoke, only occasionally coughing with his head down. A faint smell of death always wafted from his sleeve, like the smell of old, rotten wood that had been soaked in rain. It wasn't strong, but once you smelled it, you couldn't forget it.

Below them are the Protectors of the Underworld.

He was a large, imposing figure, towering over everyone else in the tent by more than half a head. His shoulders were as broad as a door panel, and when he sat there, he resembled a lifeless iron tower.

His skin was extremely white, as if he had never seen sunlight, and his lips were so pale they were almost invisible.

He drinks with only one hand, his right hand always hanging by his side, like a tool not intended to be used.

Someone once accidentally touched the hem of his robe with their fingertip while handing him wine, and that person immediately withdrew their hand as if bitten by a snake.

Later, that person secretly told others that the underworld protector's robe was cold, not just cool, but a kind of utter coldness where there was no temperature and nothing at all.

The Li family's envoy sat to Agula's left, about half a table away from him.

The man was in his forties, dressed in fine silk from Suzhou, with a collar trimmed with extremely fine silver rat fur. He wore a white jade pendant at his waist, which was engraved with the Li family's "Fire Virtue Hanging Needle" clan emblem.

His face was gentle, his cheeks fair from years of indoor living, making him seem like someone who had fallen from another world compared to the rough faces of those in the tent, worn down by the wind and sand of the grasslands.

His name was Li Shuo, a cousin of Li Chongxi, who managed the Li family's trade routes with the northern border in Jinyang for several years.

The wind on the grassland had rubbed his fair face dry and cracked, and his eyes were chapped with several shallow cuts, yet he still wore a smile.

The kind of smile that scions of prominent families cultivate at banquets, a smile that always commands respect.

According to the custom on the grasslands, when a distinguished person arrives, they must first be offered a bowl of dismounting wine. Li Shuo did not refuse, took a silver bowl filled with mare's milk wine, tilted his head back and drank it all.

A drop of wine slid down the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve, the movement unhurried. Then he put down the bowl and exchanged a few pleasantries with Agula about the weather on the grassland and the quality of the hay this winter.

He speaks Mandarin very fluently, interspersed with a few everyday phrases from the grasslands, which sound natural and as if he has genuinely studied it.

After several rounds of drinks, he raised his second bowl of mare's milk wine to Agula, his tone becoming more formal: "Your Majesty's military prowess is unparalleled. Within a few months, three-tenths of the grasslands have fallen under the control of the Xiutu King. My lord in Jinyang was delighted to hear of this."

He paused, then smiled, a genuine smile emanating from the wrinkles around his eyes. "Starting next month, we'll be sending another 30% of the horses from the Northern Border to Your Majesty. They're all top-quality Hexi horses. The horse farms in Jinyang have received a new batch of stallions this year—long legs, thick hooves, they can run a hundred miles without breaking a sweat, perfect for Your Majesty's elite troops."

Agula didn't drink it right away.

He held the bowl, his gaze fixed on Li Shuo above the rim, as if watching a fish that had swum to the shore but had stopped in the shallows.

His voice was neither loud nor soft, like metal scraping slowly across coarse cloth: "Where is the weapon I asked for?"

Li Shuo paused for a moment when he heard this question, but that moment was extremely brief.

He continued speaking without changing his expression or tone: "We can't give you more crossbows, but the arrows and scimitars are ready. The first batch will be shipped via the trade route outside Yanmen Pass and will arrive in about half a month."

"If Your Majesty were to conquer the Hunxie King's tribe again..."

He raised his wine bowl slightly towards Agula, as if holding a chess piece already placed on a chessboard, "That thing isn't entirely unnecessarily untouchable."

After saying this, he took a sip of the wine in his bowl, the rim of the bowl covering the lower half of his face, leaving only his eyes visible.

Those eyes looked at Agula from behind the rim of the bowl, gentle and calm, revealing no superfluous emotions.

Yin Protector suddenly laughed.

The laughter wasn't loud, but it sounded like fingernails scraping across a drumhead, carrying a subtle, sharp quality that sent a slight shiver down one's neck.

He leaned back in his chair, the silver threads of his grey robe flashing in the firelight. His gaze fell on Li Shuo, and he spoke slowly and deliberately: "Envoy Li, you certainly know how to calculate. Your Li family helped the King on the grasslands, and now you want to use him as a tool. But when our Holy Sect was refining Yin Corpses for the King, we didn't hear of you contributing a single effort."

He paused, then lazily added, "Every Yin Corpse we send out is a human skeleton salvaged from the battlefield. Envoy Li's hands probably haven't even touched blood."

Li Shuo was not annoyed.

He put down the wine bowl, ran his fingertip along the rim, and then turned to look at Protector Yin. His gentle smile remained unchanged, but beneath the soft exterior of his words, a hint of hardness began to emerge: "The Holy Sect wanted people, and we gave them to them. They wanted medicine, and we gave them to them. Those cartloads of medicinal herbs and talismans that travel from Jinyang to the grasslands every month—whose trade routes did they use? Who cleared the checkpoints for you?"

He chuckled, his voice slow and deliberate, like peeling an old walnut, "The Li family's backbone isn't necessarily weaker than anyone else's, and besides..."

He raised his gaze, moving from the Yin Protector's face to the Ghost Protector's face, half-hidden in his hood, and then back to the Yin Protector. "We're sitting under the same tent now, can you tell who's bleeding more and who's bleeding less?"

He smiled.

But that smile was like frost on a face, about to crack at the slightest touch.

The tent was quiet for a brief two breaths.

Yin Protector did not respond. He simply picked up the wine bowl in front of him, smelled it, and then put it down.

The silver thread on his grey robe flashed silently as he lowered his head, like a half-closed eye.

Agula slammed the wine bowl down on the table with a loud "bang," splashing a few drops of the remaining wine onto the tiger-skin chair, leaving dark water stains.

The tent fell silent instantly.

Even the ghost protector who had been coughing with his head down paused for a moment, lifting half of his face under his hood and turning it towards Agula.

The Underworld Protector sat upright, motionless, like a stone statue that had just heard a sound and was waiting for the next instruction.

Agula raised his head, his gaze sweeping from the Yin Protector to Li Shuo, then to the Ghost Protector, and finally landing on the empty wine bowl in front of him.

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a calm that had been suppressed for a long time and then readjusted, a calmness that seemed to be slowly hammered out, each strike steady and even: "Enough said. When did the wolves on the grasslands learn to steal meat from sheep before they're even dead?"

His words were spoken casually, yet they caused the smile on Li Shuo's face to fade slightly.

Even the Yin Protector raised his eyelids to look at him, as if it were the first time he had heard such words from Agula's mouth.

Agula looked at Li Shuo.

His gaze wasn't deliberately intensified, but Li Shuo felt it was like an iron weight placed on a scale, quietly pressing down and tilting the entire scale in his favor: "I want both the horse and the sword, but don't take me for a fool. You Han people have a saying..."

He paused, as if retrieving a rarely uttered phrase from his memory, and only spoke when he found the right place: "When the birds are all gone, the good bow is put away."

He leaned forward slightly, the obsidian eyes of the tiger head on the tiger-skin chair flashing in the firelight: "Once I've devoured the Hunxie King's tribe for you, are you planning to use me like those other corpses and then bury me?"

Li Shuo quickly got up.

He rose with a dramatic leap, almost springing up, his hands clasped in front of him, his waist bent at a full thirty degrees, and he bowed respectfully to Agula. His voice was half an octave higher than before, carrying a hurried tone as if he had been wronged: "Your Majesty is too kind! The Li family and Your Majesty have a long-standing alliance. When the head of the family sent me here, he personally said that there are not many capable people on the grasslands, and Your Majesty is the only one worthy of the Li family's full assistance. I did not make this up."

He straightened up, sat down again, a thin layer of sweat beading on his forehead, shimmering in the firelight. His voice, however, had regained its composure, returning to its previous gentle, consultative tone. "In Jinyang, the patriarch's letter mentioned that if Your Majesty is willing, our two families can arrange a marriage between our children. Your Majesty's youngest prince is six years old this year, isn't he? The Li family has several daughters of marriageable age; though not born of the principal wife, they are all the patriarch's nieces."

Agula did not respond immediately.

He sat back in his chair, his gaze lingering on Li Shuo's face for a moment, as if waiting to see if he would say anything more.

Li Shuo didn't say anything more.

Those eyes held only a calm, slightly sweaty sincerity; regardless of what else might be hidden beneath, at least the surface was perfectly smooth.

Yin Protector lazily chimed in from the side.

His voice was more relaxed than before, regaining its "it doesn't matter" tone, as if he were paving the way for Agula: "Your Majesty, rest assured, as long as the Holy Church exists, you will always be the king of the grasslands. Even if one day all the birds are gone, the Holy Church will still let Your Majesty see a higher sky."

When he said the words "a higher sky," he slightly raised his chin, and his eyes under his hood glanced towards Agula, with a kind of ambiguous certainty that others couldn't quite understand.

The words sounded like a promise, but the person making the promise didn't clearly explain what that "higher sky" actually meant.

Agula did not respond.

He tilted his head back and gulped down the last bowl of mare's milk wine. The strong liquor went down his throat, bitter and fishy, ​​just like every bowl of wine he had drunk in the past few months. It burned his esophagus and turned into a warm, heavy feeling in his stomach.

He placed the empty bowl on the table, the bottom of which hit the tiger-skin chair with a dull thud. Then he stood up and walked to the tent entrance.

He lifted the curtain.

Outside, the wind and snow started again, and the snowflakes hit the tent flaps with a dense rustling sound, like countless fine needles pricking the fabric at the same time.

In the distance, soldiers were drilling. Dozens of young men were practicing slashing under an old flag. The glint of their blades flashed in the snow, like a group of white fish splashing in the snow.

Several fast horses galloped back from outside the camp, their hooves breaking through the snow. They stopped at the edge of the camp in front of the ditch, and the scouts dismounted and ran quickly toward the main tent.

Agula watched for a while.

Snowflakes landed on his face, turning into tiny water droplets that trickled down his cheekbones.

He didn't wipe it, letting the fine water droplets seep into the cracks on his cheekbone.

He suddenly spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft, as if he were talking about something he had decided long ago: "The Hunxie King's tribe."

He paused, as if giving the people in the tent behind him time to process the first two words, before continuing, "Next month, I want them to disappear."

He spoke very calmly, as if he were saying that they would have mutton for dinner, but there was not a trace of hesitation beneath that calmness.

Li Shuo picked up his wine bowl, but didn't toast anyone. He just took a sip, the rim of the bowl obscuring the smile that was slowly tightening on his face.

Yin Hufa leaned back in his chair, a slight curve to the corner of his mouth, like the expression of someone seeing the card they most wanted finally revealed in front of a candle.

The Ghost Protector coughed twice and added in a hoarse voice, his tone like sandpaper slowly rubbing against sheet metal: "That old Wuzhu has to die first. He's seen Yin Corpses and knows that the most yang things can break them. He knows too much. As long as he lives, the Hunxie King's tribe might learn the solution from him."

Agula did not turn around.

He remained standing at the tent entrance, gazing at the campsite outside that was being re-covered by the wind and snow, and simply uttered a soft "hmm."

The sound was very soft, like the confirmation sound made by someone who has made a decision and completed the final formalities.

He reached out and pulled the tent flap open a little wider, and the wind and snow rushed in, causing the flames in the tent to all dip and then stand up again, like a group of startled creatures raising their heads at the same time.

In that instant, everyone's shadow was stretched out, cast onto the walls of the animal-hide tent, distorted into bizarre outlines by the firelight, like a group of ghosts with their own thoughts exchanging glances that only they could understand.

The wind blew in through the tent flap, stirring up the charcoal ash in the brazier, which then fell back down, landing on everyone's shoulders and knees.

Agula did not close the tent curtain.

He stood there, his back to everyone in the tent, gazing at the sky outside, which was gradually darkening.

The wind on the grassland picked up, rushing in from the valley mouth and blurring the snow line of the distant mountains into a white blur.

The soldiers who had been training in the distance had already sheathed their swords and were leading their horses deeper into the camp. The flag bearer lowered the old flag, folded it neatly, and held it in his arms.

More smoke rose from the campsite, escaping from the gaps in the densely packed tent roofs, scattered by the wind, and then rising again, as if the grassland itself were breathing.

"The Hunxie King's tribe." He repeated the name, as if to confirm it was still in its original place. "On the fifteenth of next month, after the snow stops, we'll make our move."

He placed his hands on his knees, his fingers curling slightly in the tiger's fur before relaxing.