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

When Saghtai returned to the Left Wise King's territory, it was just dawn.

His horse stopped almost kneeling at the camp gate, its hooves trembling uncontrollably, the white foam at the corner of its mouth frozen into icicles, hanging on the bit like a string of fine shards of glass.

When he dismounted, his leg bent, and he held onto the saddle for a moment before regaining his balance.

Two attendants followed behind. One of them squatted down as soon as his feet touched the ground after dismounting from his horse, and it took him a while to catch his breath before he stood up.

He entered the main tent, where the brazier was still burning. The embers, covered in ash from the night, were now parted to reveal the dark red embers beneath.

Altan was reading a parchment letter by the firelight. The words on the letter were written in charcoal, and the ink was faint. He had to get very close to see them clearly.

Hearing footsteps, he looked up and saw that the snow on Saghtai's shoulder was melting into a dark water stain by the heat in the tent. He didn't ask anything, but simply folded the sheepskin letter and placed it on the corner of the table, then waited for Saghtai to speak.

Sahatai brought back the original message from the Hunxie King's tribe.

From Baridang's words, "This Khan only trusts the scimitar and the horse beneath him," to Huletai's outburst and Khanmu's statement, "I'm afraid all the horses of the Left Wise King's tribe have run away."

The brief silence in the tent when he took out the piece of black cloth, the two old wizards echoing his words, and finally, Bardang's action of raising the golden cup to drink mare's milk wine.

He didn't miss a single detail, even mimicking the tone of voice of the two wizards—hoarse, dry, like two old sheepskins rubbing against each other.

After he finished speaking, the tent fell silent for a few moments.

Only the occasional soft pop from the wood in the hearth would interrupt his words, before fading back into silence.

Altan listened to everything but did not react much.

He was sitting by the fire pit, holding a bowl of milk tea that was already half-cold, with the rim of the bowl resting on his lap. When Sahetai finished speaking, he picked up the bowl and took a sip.

The milk tea in the bowl had gone cold, but after finishing it, he calmly put the bowl back before speaking. His voice was as calm and deep as charcoal that had burned all night: "This man, Baridang, has roamed the grasslands for decades. His bones are harder than stone. He doesn't believe in evil, so let him enjoy himself for a few more days."

He paused, reached out and picked up the parchment letter from the corner of the table, glanced at it, and then threw it into the fire.

The sheepskin roll curled at the edges in the fire, then with a "whoosh," flames shot in from the opening, and within moments the entire sheepskin burned into a thin, gray-black, curled sheet, which then slowly crumbled into ashes in the fire.

"But we can't wait any longer." He pulled his hand back from above the fire pit and placed it on his lap, the firelight illuminating the lines of several old scars on the back of his hand.

Besides Saghtai, there were several veteran generals in the tent.

Old Wuzhu sat in the corner, scraping an old shovel with a bone scraper. The shovel had been worn for many years, with a shallow arc in the middle. When the bone scraper scraped it, it made a soft rustling sound, like a worm gnawing on the inner wall of old wood.

After listening to Saghtai's retelling, he didn't stop what he was doing, but after a few strokes, he suddenly slowed down.

He placed the stone knife on his lap, put down the bone fragment, rubbed the surface of the stone knife knife with his palm, and then hummed.

The snort was short, carried a thick layer of impatience worn down by time as it came from his nose: "Baridang's two sons, each more arrogant than the last. The elder one only has his own sword hilt in his eyes, while the younger one probably hasn't even seriously shot at a target more than a few times."

He paused, then added his conclusion: "But it's not a problem if a person is arrogant; if they're so arrogant that they don't even look at the sky, they'll be struck by lightning."

His words silenced the tent for a moment.

Altan didn't reply, but instead turned his head to look at Saghtai: "Tell me again what you saw along the way, starting with what you saw from the outer edge of the Xiutu tribe's camp."

Saghtai then repeated himself from the beginning.

This time he went into more detail, including the sights he saw on his return journey from Black Wolf Mountain when he detoured past the outskirts of the Xiutu tribe's territory.

The newly formed cavalry, dressed in a motley collection of leather armor, drilled in the snow in groups of three or five, the sound of their hooves crushing the frozen earth like a rumbling thunder.

The black cloth sheds used to cover the corpses were erected at the deepest part of the camp. Two guards with spears stood in front of each shed. When the wind lifted a corner of the cloth curtain hanging from the shed entrance, it revealed rows of dark silhouettes standing motionless inside.

He paused for a moment when he recounted witnessing several bound prisoners of war being dragged into those black sheds, as if the image was stuck in his throat. He swallowed hard before letting it out: "When those people came out, they had turned into a pile of dry firewood, their flesh collapsed, as if something had sucked them dry."

"Only a skeleton remained, covered in wrinkled skin, piled on a cart and hauled away, its whereabouts unknown."

After he said that, he didn't look at anyone else.

He looked down at the felt floor in front of him, illuminated by the firelight, and clenched his fingers on his knees before letting them relax.

Upon hearing this, everyone's faces darkened.

One of the young centurions frowned even more deeply at this moment. His lips parted slightly and then closed again, as if he had something stuck in his throat, but the weight of the words he had just spoken prevented him from speaking.

The other leader, the one in charge of the grasslands behind the Left Wise King's territory, put down the wine bowl he had been holding for a long time without drinking from, and the bottom of the bowl made a dull thud when it landed on the felt.

Altan stood up.

He stood up slowly, first supporting his knees with his hands before straightening his back, like someone who has been sitting for a long time habitually checking that his legs are still behaving themselves.

He walked to the tent entrance and lifted the curtain.

The snow was still falling outside, and the sky was gray. Looking out from the tent flap, you could see a thick layer of snow on the wooden fence at the edge of the camp, like a low wall that had been half-painted but then abandoned.

In the distance, several scouts galloped back from the north, the snow kicked up by their hooves being swirled in the wind, spinning once in mid-air before falling back to the ground.

He turned his back to the crowd, gazing at the snow-covered wilderness, and spoke.

The voice came from behind, not loud, but every word was clear and distinct, like a pebble thrown into frozen ground, sinking in instantly: "We must beg the Great Zhou."

The entire tent was filled with astonishment.

The young centurion was the first to jump up, bouncing from his seat as if his trousers had been burned, his voice trembling: "Commander!"

He took a step forward, then, realizing it was inappropriate, took a half-step back, but his voice still boomed, "How many years has the Great Zhou fought against us? How many of our brothers have the northern border troops killed? My father died outside Yanmen Pass when I was only twelve years old. What kind of nonsense is this, going to beg them?"

His words elicited a murmur of agreement from the tent.

Another leader frowned and chimed in, "Commander, it's not that we're unwilling to submit, but the Emperor of Great Zhou is busy arresting people in the capital. I've heard he's even killing his own officials."

"Sending someone now would probably mean they wouldn't even get past the border; they'd be shot back by a scout patrolling the frontier. They have their own troubles to deal with; they don't have time to concern themselves with matters on the grasslands."

He spoke with his brows furrowed and his fingers tapping on the table, as if trying to convince himself that the idea was indeed not feasible.

Altan remained standing at the tent entrance, without turning around.

He waited until he had finished speaking before slightly tilting his head, the sunlight filtering through the tent framing his profile with a cold, hard edge: "That's why we need to be quick."

He turned around.

The firelight in the tent shone on his face from the side, casting dark shadows around his eyes, but his eyes shone brightly in those shadows: "It is precisely because they are in chaos that we need to stabilize the north. Whether the Great Zhou Emperor arrests people or kills officials in the capital is their own business."

"But if the entire grassland falls into the hands of Agula and those ghosts..." He paused, letting the weight of his words deepen, "the northern border of the Great Zhou will be the first to be disturbed. No matter how high the walls of Yanmen Pass are, they can't stop those immortal things from scaling them."

He walked back to the hearth, but instead of sitting down, he stood there looking down at the flames: "No matter how much the Han people hate us, they would never want to see a bunch of inhuman creatures standing outside Yanmen Pass."

"They hate us because we robbed their grain and killed their caravans, but at least we are human beings just like them; we also get hungry, cold, and die."

"Those people..." He pointed north, "are no longer human. The Han people have been confronting each other for three hundred years and know how to negotiate, but the Han people have never negotiated with a bunch of ghosts."

In the corner, Old Wuzhu put away the knife, stone, and bone fragments.

He moved slowly, putting the odds and ends back into the leather bag one by one, tying it up, before raising his eyes to look at Altan.

His voice was a little hoarse than before, as if he had a mouthful of sand: "The commander is right. We can no longer rely solely on the grasslands for our affairs."

He pressed his hand on his lame leg, as if pressing on some old wound: "I've fought against the Great Northern Army and drunk with the Xiutu tribe. I know the true colors of these two groups. Agula is no longer human. Even his own people gossip about him behind his back, telling him about the rules of the grasslands..."

He shook his head. "It's no use. To fight ghosts, sometimes you have to borrow fire from the Han people."

Altan looked at the old man and nodded.

The nod was very slight, but Old Wuzhu saw it and nodded back slightly.

The two were separated by a fire pit and a considerable distance, but that nod was like a silent contract, branded in the firelight.

Altan turned towards Saghtai.

Saghtai remained seated, his head bowed as he rubbed a wet patch on the edge of his boot, soaked by snowmelt, with his fingers.

Altan said, "You've been to the border, and your Mandarin is the best among us."

Saghtai raised his head.

"Make preparations. Take the message from the Hunxie King's tribe with you. Whether they believe it or not doesn't matter. Just deliver it to the people of Da Zhou as is. Also, take a few scouts who have seen the Yin Corpse and head to Yunzhou."

Altan spoke slowly, but the intervals between each instruction were very short, as if he had already mentally rehearsed each step several times. "When you get outside Yunzhou City, don't rush to deliver the message. First, find an old general named Han Chong, the Han Chong from the Wild Wolf Gully Alliance. If he's still alive..."

Saghtai clasped his hands in a fist salute.

Before making the fist salute, he pressed his hand against his chest, a subconscious trace of a grassland etiquette, before changing the gesture to the Han Chinese fist salute.

His voice was strained when he spoke, as if his throat hadn't fully recovered after being exposed to the cold wind all the way: "Commander, it's easy for me to go."

He paused, as if searching for a way to express his concerns without being offensive: "But what if the surrounding generals don't believe the steppe people? When they see I'm from the Left Wise King's tribe, their first thought will probably be 'spy.' How can I convince them that the Left Wise King's tribe has genuinely come seeking help, and not just to lure us in?"

Altan paused for a moment.

His gaze shifted from Saghtai's face to a spot in the tent, as if he were rummaging through his memory for something he hadn't touched in a long time.

He raised his hand and took a bronze wolf-head pendant from his waist.

The bronze plaque wasn't large, about a size smaller than the palm of your hand. Its edges had been worn smooth and rounded, and the wolf head pattern gleamed with an old, dark bronze hue in the firelight.

Each of the wolf's eyes was inlaid with an extremely fine turquoise, the surface of which had been worn smooth, leaving only a faint trace of color.

He held the bronze plaque in his palm for a moment, as if checking its temperature, and then handed it to Sahetai: "This is a token left by the former commander and the old general Han Chong of the Great Zhou when they made an alliance at Yelanggou. That alliance was not for fighting, but to retreat ten miles on each side of Yelanggou so that the passing herdsmen could safely cross that mountain pass."

"After the alliance meeting, the first commander gave this bronze token to Han Chong, who immediately returned an iron talisman. Later, when Han Chong was transferred to Yunzhou, he returned the bronze token before leaving, saying, 'The things of the grassland people should remain in the hands of the grassland people.'"

He placed the bronze medal in Saghtai's outstretched palm.

The bronze medal was slightly warm when it was placed on the ground.

It was warmed by Altan's body heat, and the wolf head patterns on it rose slightly between the lines of Saghtai's palm: "If he were still alive, upon seeing this, he would know that the one who came was not the enemy."

Saghtai held the bronze medal in both hands.

The edge of the bronze medal pressed against his palm, the slightly hot sensation seeping into his skin like a small stone that had been exposed to the sun for a long time finally being dug out of a sand dune.

He glanced down at the worn turquoise wolf eyes on the bronze plaque, then tucked it into his pocket, securing it to the inside, and pressed it against the outside to make sure it wouldn't slip out while riding.

Altan turned and walked to the sand table.

The sand table was something that came from the border of the Great Zhou Dynasty. The wooden frame was filled with fine sand, and several small flags were stuck on it with wooden sticks to mark the location of each tribe.

He pointed with his scabbard to the south side of the sand table, at the location of Yunzhou: "Go. Don't let Agula's men intercept you."

He looked up at Saghtai, his gaze lingering for a moment in the firelight: "No matter how heavy the snow on the grassland, it can't extinguish the fire."

He paused, his voice lowering until only a few people nearby could hear him: "Tell the people of Great Zhou that what the Left Wise King's tribe wants to discuss is not surrender, but borrowing troops, fire, and a way to survive."

Saghtai nodded emphatically.

He silently repeated those four words in his mind: borrow soldiers, borrow fire, and find a way out.

He didn't say "I will definitely do it" because he didn't know if he could.

He only said one sentence: "Commander, I'm leaving now."

"Take those two scouts who have seen the Yin Corpse and go around to the west. Don't take the main road. Although the Hunxie King's people don't trust us, if someone passes the news to Agula's ears, you'll be sitting ducks on the road."

Altan said, picking up a sheepskin map from the corner of the table, rolling it up, and handing it to him. "Follow this old pastoral road. No matter how heavy the snow, it won't be too deep, and the horses can walk. You should reach the outskirts of Yunzhou in three days. Once you arrive, find a place outside the city to rest for the night, and deliver the message at dawn."

Saghtai took the map and stuffed it into his saddlebag.

The firelight cast a shadow over Altan's face, and the depth in his eyes was more profound than any words could express.

Saghtai did not speak, but simply placed his right hand on his chest, nodded slightly to Altan, and then lifted the tent flap and went out.

The snow fell even heavier.

The wind whipped up white vapor and swept across the camp, as if it wanted to swallow the entire grassland.

Saghtai mounted his horse, which snorted and shook its mane in the cold wind.

He was followed by four scouts.

Two of them had seen the Yin Corpse with their own eyes, and the other two had worked on the border for several years and knew the locations of the beacon towers on the outskirts of Yunzhou.

The five horses rode together, their hooves pawing the snow twice before galloping south.

The sound of hooves was carried by the wind for a short distance before being drowned out, like a few pebbles thrown into a rapid stream, their sound swallowed up before it could even spread.

Inside the large tent, the brazier burned bright red.

Altan stood motionless in front of the sand table, his scabbard still resting in the position of Yunzhou, not yet put away.

He stared at the snow line running from north to south. The line was just a symbol on the sand table, but he knew that the real line was now lying across the grassland, like a curtain slowly closing.

Old Wuzhu stood up from the corner and walked to his side.

He was leaning on an old cane.

The tip of the cane had been worn smooth and rounded by his palm, like a piece of wood that had been polished for many years.

He looked at the location of Yunzhou on the sand table and whispered, "Do you think they'll believe that?"

Altan did not turn his head.

His gaze remained fixed on the snow line, his voice low, as if speaking to a sand table: "Whether they believe it or not is their business; whether we speak out or not is our business."

Outside the tent, someone blew a cow horn.

The low, deep sound of the horn rose from the center of the camp, pierced through the snow, and carried far, far away in the wind, like a dark gray thread sewn into the vast white world.

That was the battle horn of the Left Wise King's tribe. When the old herdsmen heard it, they knew that someone was gathering the tribesmen for a meeting, and when the young cavalrymen heard it, they knew that they were about to go to war again.

This time, however, it was no longer for the sake of conquest, but for a path to survival that no one could have imagined.

The horn's sound gradually faded in the wind, like a cut thread that floated in the air a few times before finally falling into the snow and disappearing from sight.