She was making a gamble, perhaps judging a gentleman’s heart with a petty person’s mind, but she had to be on guard.

However, just as Qing Xia approached the edge of the great camp, commotion suddenly arose from the direction of the main tent. Soon, large numbers of guards lit torches, and Guli A’shu, draped in his great fur coat and surrounded by a crowd, marched majestically toward Qing Xia’s tent. Before long, the sound of massive gongs suddenly rang out. After brief confusion, the entire army formed ranks, and the thunderous sound of horse hooves roared out of the great tent, rushing away in all directions.

Qing Xia sat quietly in a dilapidated tent used for storing firewood at the very edge of the camp, listening to the chaotic sounds outside, a faint smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She didn’t know whether she was pleased at her accurate predictions or felt disheartened that Xuda Lie had discovered her absence so quickly. But none of this mattered anymore. The woman’s expression was cold as she took a deep breath. After tonight, she would leave this place. Ousi Lanya had many people and was cunning and changeable – she should first find Chu Li before making long-term plans. Moreover, with her absence for so many days without a trace, how worried and anxious would he be?

Thinking of this, Qing Xia’s desire to leave grew even stronger.

The Xiongnu soldiers sent out to search for her didn’t return until dawn, and having found nothing, Guli A’shu flew into a rage, executing seven scout commanders in succession before his anger subsided under the persuasion of various leaders.

The entire Xiongnu camp fell into trembling deadly silence, with everyone being extremely careful, afraid of provoking the Great Khan’s wrath. Just then, the smallest possible incident suddenly occurred – a wood storage tent in the western camp suddenly caught fire. The quartermaster dared not touch the Great Khan’s bad mood at this time, so he suppressed the report and only ordered people to fight the fire while summoning soldiers to go cut wood eighty li south of the camp.

A swift hand chop struck the neck of a short soldier with a full beard.

The shouts for firefighting outside grew louder. After a while, a short soldier with a full beard covering his entire face, making his features unrecognizable, hurriedly ran out carrying a water bucket and diligently joined the firefighting crowd. At dawn, this soldier left camp with the other maintenance workers who had fought the fire to cut wood for winter. The round trip would take a long time, so everyone brought sufficient provisions before setting out. Who would have thought that just as they reached the camp gate, they would encounter Longge Great Khan returning from ancestral worship at Tianzhu Mountain. Seeing him, Qing Xia couldn’t help but feel nervous and quickly retreated behind others, lowering her head.

Longge A’shu had just returned to camp and didn’t yet know what had happened. He was always amiable and unpretentious. Seeing everyone with their large and small bundles, pushing carts, he surprisingly stepped aside and said with a smile, “You go first.”

It was just ordinary courtesy, but because a noble Great Khan was yielding to commoners and even slaves, it moved these soldiers almost to tears. They knelt down with countless thanks before standing up to proceed.

Qing Xia slowly breathed a sigh of relief, but before she could relax, a voice that almost made her jump suddenly rang out.

She heard Longge A’shu make a sound of surprise and say, “You, wait a moment.”

“Hey! The Great King is calling you, why don’t you kneel down?”

An officer nearby said to Qing Xia. Qing Xia’s heart pounded violently as she slowly turned around, knelt on the ground, and gently slid her wrist toward her boot, feeling the hard sharp weapon through the thick fur, repeatedly calculating in her mind how many chances she had of quickly subduing Longge A’shu if he recognized her, and using him as a hostage to escape the Xiongnu camp.

“Oh, it’s nothing, you may rise.” Longge A’shu looked at her silently for a while, then suddenly smiled. He stepped forward, removed the magnificent fur coat from his back, draped it over Qing Xia’s shoulders, and said to the soldiers behind her, “The weather is getting colder, brothers. You have important duties, so be sure to stay safe. When you return, I will personally welcome you at the camp gates!”

These few words were spoken with great momentum, exciting the many soldiers as if they weren’t going out to cut firewood but to carry out some life-or-death mission, filled with the desolation of heroes who might never return.

“Well then, everyone set out.” Longge A’shu said gently. While everyone was turning their heads away, he suddenly gripped Qing Xia’s hand tightly, pressing something into her palm, then said quietly in a tiny voice, “Take care on your journey.”

Only after walking a great distance did Qing Xia open her palm. In her fair palm, now red from the pressure, two gold bars gleamed brilliantly in the bright, dazzling sunlight.

Qing Xia’s eyes suddenly felt a bit sour. She tilted her head back slightly, looking at the blazing sun in the sky, and slowly swallowed a tear, its taste bitter.

However, what Qing Xia didn’t know was that less than five hours after she left, Southern Chu’s Black Guard army, led by the Great Emperor of Southern Chu himself, attacked from three directions – Tianzhu Mountain, Liaowang Sea, and Qili Yuan – in a surprise assault on Guli A’shu’s Xiongnu headquarters. His Imperial Majesty personally led an army of 1.2 million, completely annihilating the entire Xiongnu regime in one blow. Except for the Longge family’s 100,000 family troops far away on the great grasslands, the entire Xiongnu power was eliminated in one sweep. Guli A’shu fled in panic with a group of Xiongnu core members and Longge family princes into the desert, entering Dayuan territory.

The Chu Emperor turned the entire Xiongnu camp upside down, digging three feet into the ground without finding the person he sought. Finally, with a single command, he led his million-strong army in relentless pursuit, following Guli A’shu into the heart of the desert, fighting and killing all the way, bringing blood-red memories and fear to the Western Region nations that had never respected Central Plains authority.

Time was like a mischievous child – in their crisscrossing paths, Chu Li galloped westward while Qing Xia, who had escaped the Xiongnu camp with great difficulty, mounted her horse at this moment, whipped it hard, and rushed eastward at lightning speed.

In the official historical records of the Great Chu royal house, the first expedition to the Western Regions merited only a few brief lines:

“On the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh month of Shenshang’s eighth year, at noon, the Emperor launched a surprise attack against the Xiongnu remnants, achieving great victory, killing more than thirty thousand enemies. The Xiongnu bandit chief Guli A’shu fled in panic. The Emperor ordered pursuit. The nation’s soldiers were exceptionally brave, the Xiongnu fled in disgrace, with countless casualties.”

At sunrise, the sun cast its myriad rays across the white snow. Qing Xia, riding alone, finally saw the distant silhouette of Yanmen Pass.

As she approached Yanmen Pass, sudden changes occurred. Qing Xia unluckily encountered three Xiongnu scouts who became suspicious upon seeing the Xiongnu war horse she rode. After a chase, she was surrounded by more than two hundred fully armed Xiongnu with complete archery equipment.

Qing Xia sensibly didn’t engage with them, honestly dismounting and fabricating a story that she was Guli A’shu’s secret envoy going to the Central Plains to gather intelligence. She acted the part perfectly, with a haughty and indignant manner that truly resembled a Great Khan’s secret messenger.

A man in a blue fur coat with a gloomy expression and slanted eyebrows questioned her sternly about when she had left the great camp and what mission she carried.

After Qing Xia left the Xiongnu camp that day, she had followed the main group cutting wood for two days before finding an opportunity to slip away quietly. Fearing discovery afterward, she had carefully hidden her tracks. So when answering about her departure time, she said three days later than when she actually left. This should have been a seamless answer, since she didn’t know Chu Li had defeated the Xiongnu camp. But unexpectedly, upon hearing this, the other party smiled coldly and ordered her bound and imprisoned as a serious criminal.

Qing Xia didn’t know where the problem lay, but she understood that something she was unaware of must have happened, causing a major flaw in her story. She sat quietly in the Xiongnu prison cart, once again turning west, retracing the path she had previously taken. Finally, four days later, she returned to the Xiongnu camp’s location and learned what had happened there.

Corpses and smoke filled the ground everywhere. The dark red blood had long congealed, looking like ugly scars on a beauty’s body in the vast snowy field, filled with nauseating stench. The man called His Highness Hui by his subordinates looked at Qing Xia with a cold smile and said in a deep voice, “You left here eight days ago? But as far as I know, this place was attacked eleven days ago. Did I hear wrong, or are you lying?”

Qing Xia frowned, her mind racing rapidly. Who exactly, who exactly had such capability to destroy the Xiongnu camp to this extent in one blow? Eastern Qi had already been destroyed, Northern Qin was always low-key, Xichuan was still nominally allied with the Xiongnu on the surface, the Western Region nations simply lacked this strength, and the southern vassal states were even less worth mentioning. Then there was only one answer!

But how would Chu Li know she was in the Xiongnu camp? Even if he learned of her whereabouts through special channels, how could he make such a reckless all-or-nothing attack? Where was he now? Had he really entered the desert to pursue Guli A’shu as they said? What had happened to make him lose his rationality like this? If the Western Region nations united together to oppose him, how would he handle the situation?

The more she thought about it, the paler Qing Xia’s face became. His Highness Hui smiled coldly and was about to speak when suddenly a fierce shout rang out in the distance. Before anyone could react, a cavalry unit thundered down upon them.

A force of about five hundred men approached like a mass of dark clouds, all wearing Xiongnu fur coats and wielding horse sabers. Without even a greeting, they charged into battle. His Highness Hui’s subordinates immediately protected him in the center, fighting desperately against forces twice their number.

His Highness Hui’s gaze swept across the faces of the opposing force, then suddenly shouted, “Luke, did Guli A’shu hire you? At a time like this, does he still want to eliminate everyone?”

The leading Xiongnu man laughed heartily and said, “Your Highness Hui, taking people’s money means eliminating their troubles. We conduct business fairly and cannot reveal our clients’ information. If you’re fortunate enough not to die today, you can pay us to avenge you another day!”