By this time, the battlefield cleanup was nearly complete. Though the Qin army’s losses weren’t great, there were new recruits among them, and casualties were inevitable in the hasty encounter. The Xiongnu liked to behead enemies on the battlefield and carry away the heads, so some dead Qin soldiers couldn’t be given proper burials and had to be buried on the spot. Familiar soldiers who witnessed such tragic scenes couldn’t hide their grief and anger, only able to collect the deceased’s clothing and personal cloth pouches, entrusting others to bring them home to establish memorial tombs. Most soldiers were illiterate and didn’t wear military tags, relying only on fellow townsmen to identify each other. If the robes and armor were too blood-stained, they could only take the personal cloth pouches. The Xiongnu corpses also had their heads severed by the Qin army to be brought back for military merit.

During Shang Yang’s reforms, it was stipulated that as long as a soldier beheaded one enemy officer, he could obtain one rank of nobility, one estate, and one servant. The more enemy officer heads killed, the higher the nobility rank obtained. Military merit had twenty levels total, commonly called the Twenty Ranks of Nobility. If a soldier beheaded two enemies on the battlefield, his parents would be immediately freed if they were prisoners, and if his wife and children were slaves, they could immediately become commoners. Should he die in battle, his achievements and noble rank could be passed to his son. Therefore, Qin soldiers fought not merely for the state, but also to change their own impoverished fate—it was the only path to wealth and honor.

This was perhaps the fundamental reason why the Qin army swept across the six states with unmatched courage.

However, this had both advantages and disadvantages. The Qin army had previously experienced incidents of soldiers scrambling for enemy heads on battlefields, even resulting in deaths among their own ranks—quite an ugly affair. Fortunately, Meng Tian maintained strict discipline, and Wang Li consistently restrained his subordinates. The current battlefield cleanup proceeded in orderly fashion, with designated personnel recording military merit attribution.

After inquiring, the young Minister noted at the end of the military report the number of Xiongnu cavalry encountered, enemies killed, and Qin army casualties. Wang Li glanced over it, thinking A’luo’s handwriting was somewhat sloppy, but given the current conditions, he couldn’t be too demanding. He paid it no mind, took out his general’s golden seal from his chest, dipped it in vermillion clay to stamp the document, and handed it to a messenger to rush back to Shangjun.

After reorganizing the troops, Wang Li ordered them to continue forward. Since the Qin army regularly patrolled this area, military outposts were established every few hundred li, each permanently garrisoning five thousand troops in the endless desert for border defense and training. Wang Li’s mission this time was to rotate some of the soldiers.

Their destination was called Wale Outpost, where the commandant had been waiting at the gate, prepared to conduct the standard rotation with the commandant in Wang Li’s force the next day. Cheers erupted throughout Wale Outpost—most importantly, Wang Li had brought abundant grain and weapons this time, and the soldiers not due for rotation had been anticipating this for too long.

After entering Wale Outpost, the cooks lit fires to prepare meals. The young Minister accompanied Wang Li to Wale Outpost once every three months and had a dedicated tent in the outpost. He rested for a while but had no appetite for the food brought by the guards. When darkness fell, Wang Li sent someone to summon him. The young Minister thought they must have extracted some information from the captured cavalry soldier. He immediately left his tent and walked toward the main tent, seeing crowds of people throughout Wale Outpost—Wang Li must have issued some orders.

Inside the main tent, only Wang Li was present. Seeing the young Minister arrive, he immediately spoke: “A’luo, I’m afraid I must trouble you to write another military report.” Though his words spoke of trouble, his tone was quite matter-of-fact. If it were just writing a military report, the chief clerk would be sufficient for the task, but Wang Li had grown accustomed to using A’luo. Moreover, since the latter had personally captured this Xiongnu cavalry soldier, Wang Li remembered to have the merit officer record military achievement for him!

“Speak,” the young Minister resignedly sat cross-legged behind the low table. Brushes, ink, and silk cloth were already prepared on the table—Wang Li’s personal guards were extremely thorough.

“This matter is truly lamentable. Chanyu Touman is indeed foolish, doting on his concubines and wanting to establish his younger son as chanyu, actually sending Prince Modun as a hostage to the Yuezhi Kingdom.” Wang Li clicked his tongue in amazement but wasn’t particularly surprised. What was so remarkable about being a hostage? Their First Emperor had also been a hostage in his time.

The young Minister could tell from Wang Li’s expression that there was more to come, so he didn’t rush to write. Instead, he poured some water and slowly ground the ink cake.

“Do you know what that Chanyu Touman did next? Some days ago, he actually launched a war against the Yuezhi Kingdom, completely disregarding his son’s life or death.” Wang Li sighed heavily. “That boy Modun’s luck is truly terrible, though for your Great Qin, it would be good if he just died in the Yuezhi Kingdom like this.”

The Xiongnu were merely a somewhat larger barbarian tribe. On this vast grassland, there were dozens or even hundreds of tribes. The chanyu position was also elective, not hereditary, so Modun’s life or death wasn’t that important. What mattered was that the Qin army could use this to incite conflicts on the grassland, then sit back and watch tigers fight.

Perhaps Chanyu Touman had similar plans—since the Qin army was stationed in Shangjun and the Xiongnu couldn’t expand southward, he turned his target to other tribes on the grassland. The life or death of a son he didn’t favor apparently wasn’t within Chanyu Touman’s consideration.

“So he escaped? The Xiongnu cavalry we encountered today were looking for him?” The young Minister guessed the outcome from Wang Li’s tone, his refined eyebrows involuntarily furrowing slightly. Having a father emperor who also didn’t value his eldest son and a beloved younger brother, Prince Modun’s similar circumstances to Crown Prince Fu Su made the young Minister somewhat distracted.

“Yes, after receiving the news, Chanyu Touman fears Modun will return to participate in the May sacrificial assembly.” Wang Li tapped the table with his finger, his voice turning cold. “Write in the military report to General Meng, explaining this matter. If we encounter him on a narrow path, we must ensure Modun never returns.”

The young Minister recalled the teams he’d seen on his way to the main tent—soldiers constantly departing to patrol the grassland even at night. So this was the reason. He nodded readily.

Though Wang Li spoke thus, he knew that finding one person in the vast grassland was extremely difficult. His nighttime deployment of troops to search the vicinity was purely due to coincidental timing, with a try-your-luck mentality. Wang Li’s thoughts were chaotic, and unable to sit still, he rose and paced back and forth in the main tent, finally stopping beside the young Minister. When he saw the characters on the silk cloth clearly, he couldn’t help asking in surprise: “Eh? A’luo, what’s wrong with your hand?”

The handwriting on the cloth was even more sloppy than what he’d written on horseback today. Wang Li remembered that over ten years ago, the young Minister’s handwriting had been neat and elegant. He still carried the brocade pouch A’luo had given him, which contained silk writings in A’luo’s hand, hence his question.

The young Minister’s hand holding the brush paused, and he smiled bitterly: “Do you think everyone is like you? I’ve been riding all day and I’m tired too, you know?”

Wang Li touched his nose embarrassedly and coughed lightly: “Then rest quickly after you finish writing.”

Having obtained valuable intelligence, the entire Wale Outpost sprang into action. When the young Minister emerged from the main tent, aside from the soldiers who had just arrived that day and were resting, most of the other soldiers had already gone out on patrol.

The young Minister’s tent was positioned rather remotely, and he walked slowly for quite a while before reaching it. He actually only needed to stay here one night—tomorrow he would return to Shangjun with Wang Li and the rotating soldiers. But with the Modun incident, Wang Li would have to stay here at least three or four days to confirm the situation before returning. Actually, rotation duties could be handled by a commandant leading the team. If not for his insistence on coming here every three months, Wang Li, as Deputy General, wouldn’t need to personally lead the troops.

Using flint to light the oil lamp in the tent, the young Minister boiled a pot of hot water for himself, then sat cross-legged at the low table and took out a palm-sized stone carving from his chest.

This was a stone carving depicting a fierce beast—a formidable big cat that seemed tiger-like but wasn’t quite a tiger, with wild, curly manes, sitting there lazily. The young Minister placed this stone carving on the table, then took out a bronze incense burner from his pack, lit the incense ball inside, and placed the burner in front of the stone carving.

Ethereal smoke rose gracefully from the openwork carvings on the incense burner lid, moving without wind, every wisp curling toward the nearby stone carving, completely enveloping the beast’s head.

Carved on this stone was a divine beast called Suanni. Legend said Suanni devoured tigers and leopards, fierce and terrifying, yet it enjoyed smoke and fire, so offerings must be prepared before making requests.

The young Minister was somewhat weary—after all, the long desert expedition was taxing for him. Moreover, ever since three years ago when Zhao Gao had forced him to take numerous pills and locked him in the Qian character room for a night, his body had become somewhat different from ordinary people.

At the time, he thought the three years spent in the Qian character room were caused by hallucinations, but after being rescued, he discovered things weren’t as he had imagined. He could eat and drink like ordinary people but no longer felt hunger or thirst. He could similarly feel fatigue but could go several days without sleep. His body temperature became ice-cold, and his nails, hair, and beard showed no signs of growth—as if time had stopped flowing for his body.

Perhaps Master’s pill truly could grant immortality!

But he didn’t believe such good fortune came without cost. If one pill could solve what the First Emperor had pursued for decades, why would Master still hide and avoid appearing? Everything in this world followed the principle of equivalent exchange—perhaps he had this opportunity, but there would surely be consequences of backlash.

Such consequences finally manifested under his anxious unease.

The young Minister rolled up his sleeves and expressionlessly looked at the horrifying purplish-blue marks on his pale arms. These marks first appeared two years ago, though perhaps they had existed earlier without his notice. When he discovered them, they were cloud-like, later becoming striped, and in the past six months, some had connected together, forming large patches that were shocking to behold.

Initially, he didn’t know what these were, thinking they might be some kind of rash, casually applying some ointment. But after arriving at the northern frontier and encountering corpses more frequently, he realized these familiar-looking bruises were actually corpse spots!

These were what commoners called blood stasis—corpse spots appeared one to two hours after death. Subsequently, the body’s muscles and joints would begin to stiffen…

The young Minister touched his own cold hands and struggled to flex his finger joints. His hands now had difficulty even holding a brush to write, though he could still manage to write with effort. Perhaps before long, he wouldn’t even be able to bend his fingers or pull the trigger of a crossbow.

A stiff smile appeared on his handsome face that would surely seem extremely strange and bone-chilling to any outsider.

Helplessly rubbing his cheeks with his hands, the young Minister’s own worry was that in some time, his body might begin to decay. Would he helplessly watch himself turn to white bones?

Even harboring hope, as more and more symptoms appeared, the young Minister had to admit that he had probably died the moment he swallowed all those pills.

That he could still walk consciously in the mortal world was probably the effect of Master’s pill. Zhao Gao’s throwing him into the mysteriously designed Qian character room was probably to observe his changes after taking the medicine. He didn’t want to argue with Zhao Gao either—the other party might be waiting for exactly that, using it to coerce him into betraying Crown Prince Fu Su.

Though his life was important, it wasn’t important enough to make him act against his beliefs and dignity.