18: Those soldiers belong to Li Chengqian!

The biting wind of late night was like a knife, whistling like ghosts as it swept over the battlements of the city wall.

The soldiers guarding the pass tightened their armor, but still couldn't ward off the bone-chilling cold.

"Halt! Halt—!"

A desperate roar, sharp and piercing, cut through the dead silence of the night, drawing closer from afar.

The sentry on the city tower suddenly craned his head out, seeing a lone rider galloping wildly from the vast snowy plain. The figure on horseback swayed precariously, as if he could be blown off by the fierce wind at any moment.

"Open the city gates! Quickly, open the city gates!"

The voice was hoarse like a broken gong, filled with blood and despair.

The city gate guards dared not delay. The heavy drawbridge slowly lowered with the creaking sound of the winch.

The warhorse was already exhausted. The moment it rushed over the drawbridge, it let out a mournful cry and collapsed with a thud, white steam and bloody foam gushing from its mouth and nostrils.

The messenger on horseback tumbled to the ground. He was covered in blood, his armor riddled with gaping holes, and his left arm was severed at the shoulder, crudely bound with a strip of cloth.

He struggled to his feet, trembling as he retrieved a scroll of silk, sealed with fire wax, from a black dispatch tube he had clutched tightly to his chest.

"Eight... eight hundred li urgent... extremely urgent... present... present to Your Majesty..."

He used his last ounce of strength to thrust the silk scroll into the hands of the city gate captain, his eyes wide open, and then fell backward, stiff and unmoving.

There was no further sound.

The captain looked at the black feather on the silk scroll and the fire wax almost soaked through with blood, feeling a chill shoot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.

He dared not delay for a moment, roaring hoarsely, "Change horses! The best thousand-li horse! Immediately! Send it to Chang'an! Any delay will be dealt with by military law!"

...Inside Ganlu Hall, the lamps were brightly lit.

Li Shimin had just dismissed the eunuch who delivered the message, but the anger and suspicion in his heart had not yet subsided.

The five hundred taels of gold, rather than a reward, was more like a gauntlet he had thrown at that rebellious son.

A contest between father and son, between sovereign and subject, had already begun.

He wearily rubbed his temples, about to undress and rest, when a series of hurried and flustered footsteps sounded from outside the hall.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

A eunuch stumbled in, his face pale, his voice trembling.

"Urgent report from the north! Eight hundred li urgent!"

Li Shimin's movements paused, his sleepiness completely gone.

He spun around abruptly, his gaze like lightning.

The eunuch held up the black dispatch tube in his hand. The ominous black feather was particularly glaring in the candlelight.

Li Shimin snatched the dispatch tube, his fingertips pressing slightly, and the hard fire wax shattered with a snap.

He pulled out the silk scroll, stained with blood and wind, and unrolled it.

The handwriting on it was hurried and scrawled, seemingly written in a state of extreme terror.

The report came from the Grand Governor of The General Governor's Mansion of Dingxiang, Li Jing.

"Your subject, Li Jing, humbly reports in fear... The Xiongnu gathered an army of one hundred and fifty thousand and launched a surprise attack on our military camp last night. However... Heavenly God descended, neither human nor ghost... In a single night, the Xiongnu's one hundred and fifty thousand strong army was completely annihilated on the battlefield, their corpses piled like mountains, blood flowing like rivers..."

Li Shimin's breathing suddenly caught.

One hundred and fifty thousand troops, completely annihilated in one night?

How could this be!

Even if a Heavenly God descended, such power would be impossible!

Was Li Jing insane?

Or was there a shocking rebellion in the north that he couldn't control, and he was using such an absurd excuse to deceive his sovereign?

He suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart and continued to read.

"On the bodies of the enemy soldiers, no wounds from our Great Tang standard weapons were found; all were killed with a single sword stroke to the throat... On the battlefield, not a single soldier was left alive. Only on the heart of the Xiongnu chief's body was this item found..."

Below the silk scroll was a hastily drawn charcoal sketch.

A small, unadorned token.

On the front of the token were two elegantly written seal characters—Shu Mountain.

And on the back of the token, there was only one character.

A character that made his pupils shrink to pinpricks.

—Qian.

"Clang!"

The glazed cup in his hand slipped and shattered into pieces on the golden brick floor.

Li Shimin's face instantly turned paler than paper, and fine cold sweat seeped from his forehead.

His hand trembled, not from anger, but from a fear that originated from the depths of his Soul.

Shu Mountain... he had never heard this name before.

Within the Great Tang's borders, when did such a terrifying force, capable of annihilating one hundred and fifty thousand troops in a single night, appear?

Who were they?

Where did they come from?

What did they want?

And that character "Qian" was like a red-hot branding iron, searing his heart.

He remembered his son's calm and indifferent face a few hours earlier.

He remembered the phrase "Well done."

He remembered the "challenge letter" of five hundred taels of gold.

Could it be... could all of this not be a coincidence?

A bone-chilling cold rose from his tailbone, instantly sweeping through his entire body.

He felt as if he stood on the edge of a bottomless abyss, with unfathomable darkness below him, and in that darkness, a pair of eyes was coldly watching him.

He had always thought he was the player, the one who controlled everything.

But only now did he realize with terror that he might... have long been a pawn on someone else's chessboard.

"Someone!"

Li Shimin's voice was hoarse and dry, filled with an unprecedented urgency.

"Deliver My decree! Immediately! At once! Summon Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, and Zhangsun Wuji to the palace for a discussion!"

...The night was deep, and within the imperial city, palace lanterns glowed faintly, casting long, slender shadows of the three Great Tang ministers.

Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, and Zhangsun Wuji hurried along, their faces all solemn.

Being urgently summoned to the palace by the emperor in the middle of the night surely meant a major event that could shake the foundations of the nation had occurred.

As they stepped into Ganlu Hall, they immediately felt a suffocating pressure.

Li Shimin was not seated on the Dragon throne, but stood in the center of the hall, clad in an outer robe, his back to them, motionless, like a stone statue.

"Your Majesty."

The three bowed in salute.

Li Shimin slowly turned around. His face, in the flickering candlelight, appeared unpredictable, and his eyes held a look of shock and unease they had never seen before.

"Take a look."

He tossed the silk scroll onto the table.

Zhangsun Wuji was closest. He stepped forward, picked up the silk scroll, and after just one glance, his brows furrowed tightly.

He said nothing, passing the silk scroll to Fang Xuanling beside him.