Inside the grand tent of the Cangyuan Khanate.
The night wind beyond the frontier howled like a wailing ghost, hurling sand and gravel viciously against the thick oxhide tent.
Helian Cang, son of the Wolf King, sat cross-legged behind a broad desk.
His sharp, sinister eyes were like those of a lone wolf prowling the grasslands. At that moment, his light brown gaze was fixed on the dozen or so secret reports and parchment scrolls scattered across the desk, colder than the wind outside.
The air inside the tent seemed frozen.
Several Cangyuan Khanate generals stood below him, not daring to breathe too loudly. Their commander had maintained this posture without uttering a word for a full half-hour.
At last, Helian Cang moved.
He extended his large, calloused hand and divided the intelligence reports on the desk into three distinctly separate piles.
“Summon the scout officer responsible for consolidating intelligence on the Dasheng Empire.”
Helian Cang’s voice was low and gravelly, carrying an unquestionable authority.
A moment later, a lean Cangyuan intelligence officer hurried into the tent and dropped to one knee.
Without looking at him, Helian Cang pointed to the pile on the far left and said coldly, “These are the reports you purchased at great expense from our spies embedded in the capital and Linbei City, here in the Northern Frontier, over the past fortnight and in the last few days. Read them aloud yourself.”
The scout officer swallowed nervously and lowered his head to read, steeling himself as he recited the reports from memory.
“The Dasheng Emperor has assigned fifty thousand elite capital troops to Prince Su, currently stationed in the rear to handle defensive duties. The Emperor has ordered Prince Su to recover the lost Northern Frontier territories within three months. Prince Su has had a serious confrontation with the capital troops and even publicly dismissed one of their officers. The capital troops and the original Northern Frontier commanders are at odds. Linbei City has received an additional three thousand crossbowmen. The Northern Frontier army has transferred two thousand cavalrymen. The granaries in Linbei City have recently taken in one hundred thousand shi of grain… Furthermore, a secret report from our network in the capital claims that Prince Su is unable to control the situation and is on the verge of defeat.”
“Excellent. On the verge of defeat.”
Helian Cang’s lips curled into a cold smile devoid of warmth. He then pointed to the middle pile.
“These reports were compiled from the major trade routes and grain merchants involved in smuggling. Read them next.”
“Yes… A month ago, the Northern Frontier suffered a grain shortage, and grain prices soared. This year, grain is cheap in Jiangnan. If we purchase large quantities now and wait for Northern Frontier prices to rise another round, we can make a substantial profit. However, the latest intelligence indicates… that large numbers of Jiangnan grain merchants have flooded into Beiming Port, and grain prices in the Northern Frontier have suddenly plummeted. In addition, Prince Su has ordered an investigation into ‘abnormal grain movements across the three Northern Frontier prefectures.’”
Helian Cang nodded. Finally, he drove his thick finger down hard onto the newest stack of parchment on the far right.
“And these are the military reports brought back by the scouts I personally dispatched, using their own eyes—and risking their lives!”
His voice suddenly rose, exploding through the tent like thunder.
“The scouts witnessed Linbei City’s training grounds operating day and night, with its defenses growing increasingly stringent. The Northern Frontier army is building siege engines on a massive scale outside Baishui Pass, while Dasheng scouts are active in the area with unusual frequency. New military camps have appeared south of Linbei City, and the number of tents on its western side has increased. The number of large Jiangnan ships at Beiming Port is thirty percent higher than in previous years!”
Helian Cang rose to his feet, snatched up the secret report claiming that Prince Su was on the verge of defeat, and threw it straight into the brazier.
Flames devoured it in an instant.
“If a commander is about to be defeated, would he order his troops to drill day and night? Would he have siege engines built at Baishui Pass? Would he send out large numbers of scouts to operate actively along the front lines? Would he redeploy troops as well?!”
Helian Cang stared down at the scout officer.
“Tell me. Who sent us this report?”
“R-Reporting to Your Excellency, it came from our network in the capital…”
“And the previous report about the sudden collapse in Northern Frontier grain prices?”
“From our commercial informants at Beiming Port…”
Helian Cang drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the murderous rage churning inside him, then lowered himself back into his fur-covered chair.
He realized this was not a case of a single spy being deceived.
Someone on the Dasheng side was using an invisible hand to plant carefully calibrated pieces of intelligence into different channels.
“Have you still not figured it out?”
Helian Cang looked at the generals exchanging bewildered glances. For once, a rare gravity entered his voice.
“These reports are contradicting one another.”
Someone was using intelligence to conceal other intelligence.
“And the most troublesome part isn’t the false information.”
Helian Cang picked up a secret report, his eyes dark and calculating.
“False information is actually easy to investigate. The truly difficult thing to investigate is the truth.”
The generals stared at him in astonishment.
“Someone on the Dasheng side is breaking the truth into fragments and feeding those fragments into different ears.”
Helian Cang spoke coldly. “The Emperor’s demand that the lost territories be recovered within three months is true. Prince Su’s investigation into the grain supply is true. Even the fact that the fifty thousand capital troops have been assigned to the rear matches what our scouts have observed. Taken individually, every piece of intelligence is true.”
He slammed the report onto the desk.
“But when we put all the pieces together, what we see is a false map!”
He pointed to the pile of intelligence representing the trade routes.
“Let’s start with grain. I want to ask you all one question. Can our people still secretly purchase grain through Beiming Port?”
A deputy general responsible for logistics was drenched in cold sweat. He answered in a low voice, “Reporting to Your Excellency… no. The smugglers who were originally willing to do business with us have either disappeared or abruptly stopped accepting orders. These days, secretly purchasing even a single shi of grain in the Northern Frontier is harder than climbing to heaven!”
“Merchants pursue profit. Grain is cheap in Jiangnan, so they should be flocking here to make a fortune. Yet now they are all suddenly obeying the rules.”
Helian Cang tapped his fingers lightly against the desk.
“Prince Su’s grain investigation has changed their behavior. The collapse in Northern Frontier grain prices certainly isn’t because crops have suddenly sprouted out of the earth. But one thing is clear: someone is replenishing the Northern Frontier granaries on Prince Su’s behalf.”
A thoughtful glint passed through Helian Cang’s eyes.
And whoever that person is, they may have more money than Prince Su himself.
If grain and money became Prince Su’s backing, then he would be a formidable opponent who could not be brought down quickly.
But which faction within the Dasheng court had begun placing its bets on this unpopular prince?
The generals all drew sharp breaths.
“Commander,” an older general said with a frown, “if Prince Su has already resolved his logistical problems, and our scouts have confirmed that his troops are building siege engines outside Baishui Pass, then the latest report claiming that Prince Su is about to attack Baishui Pass should be true. Should we reinforce the pass immediately?”
Helian Cang did not answer at once. His gaze settled on the stack of parchment representing the scouts’ reports.
“Baishui Pass…”
His fingers tapped lightly against the desk.
“Fifty thousand capital troops. The Emperor gave him fifty thousand elite soldiers, correct?”
“Yes.”
“According to our scouts, which troops have been clashing with us along the front lines, conducting patrols, and building siege engines outside Baishui Pass?”
The old general paused, recalling the reports.
“Judging by their banners and armor, they are all border troops originally stationed in the Northern Frontier. As for the capital troops… the scouts say most of them have been assigned to the rear, where they are being put to hard labor, such as repairing city walls and digging trenches.”
“That isn’t surprising, Commander,” a deputy general interjected. “Didn’t our spies report that the capital troops and the Northern Frontier commanders were at odds? The border troops are taking advantage of their home-ground superiority to suppress the capital troops and use them as laborers!”
“The capital troops and the Northern Frontier troops are at odds…”
Helian Cang let out a cold snort.
“Their hostility is real. But that doesn’t mean the capital troops can only dig trenches.”
He raised his eyes, his gaze sharp as a blade.
“An army of fifty thousand is meant to fight wars, not repair walls for the border troops. Unless… Prince Su has no intention of letting us know where those fifty thousand men really are.”
He paused, his voice sinking until it was almost hoarse.
“When that blade finally leaves its sheath, it certainly won’t be in a muddy trench.”
“Then… is he actually going to attack Baishui Pass or not?”
By now, the generals were thoroughly confused.
“He is.”
Helian Cang stared at Baishui Pass on the map.
Before the generals could react, he continued, “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the place he truly wants us to defend.”
“The attack on Baishui Pass may not be a lie,” Helian Cang said, his eyes blazing. “The real deception is what he wants us to believe.”
An unprecedented sense of danger settled over the tent. The generals were so unnerved by the indistinguishable truths and falsehoods that their hearts pounded with anxiety.
They had initially been brimming with confidence. Large quantities of grain had arrived, and their troops were gathering.
Now, however, they were no longer so certain.
Helian Cang gave a cold laugh, a fervent glint flashing in his eyes—the excitement of a player facing a worthy opponent across a chessboard.
He turned and strode back to his seat of command, issuing three military orders in succession.
“First order: Send word to the commander of Baishui Pass. Monitor the enemy’s movements closely. If Dasheng attacks, Baishui Pass must not be abandoned. However, if the enemy breaches the outer defensive line, an orderly withdrawal of three li is permitted. There must be no rout, and the pass must never be abandoned without authorization!”
Helian Cang’s eyes flashed brilliantly.
“Retreat one step, and we are testing them. Retreat ten li, and we are a defeated army. I want to see just how much strength Prince Su is hiding in that fist he has extended toward us!”
“Second order.” His voice turned utterly merciless. “Determine the current grain reserves of every one of our divisions. At our present rate of consumption, how long can they last? If full-scale hostilities break out tomorrow, will we still be able to purchase even one more shi of grain?”
“Third order.” His voice sank completely, carrying an almost imperceptible note of apprehension. “Investigate the whereabouts of those fifty thousand capital troops again. Do not tell me they are ‘reportedly stationed in Linbei City.’ I want to know exactly where those fifty thousand men are—and whether they even exist as reported!”
The three orders delivered, the generals accepted their commands solemnly and filed out of the tent.
The now-empty tent held only Helian Cang.
He returned to the military map.
His rough fingers traced a path from the prosperous Jiangnan region of Dasheng, up through Beiming Port, past Linbei City, and finally to the defensive line at Baishui Pass.
Jiangnan’s ships. Beiming Port’s grain. Missing grain merchants. Severed supply routes…
Several pieces of intelligence that were half true and half false, the silent severing of a grain route, and an army of fifty thousand capital troops that seemed to have vanished like ghosts.
In Helian Cang’s mind, these scattered points gradually connected into a vast, intricate web.
“What he truly intends to attack may not be Baishui Pass…”
Helian Cang murmured to himself.
“Xiao Yuan…”
He quietly uttered the name.
This son of the Wolf King of the Cangyuan Khanate was probing through the fog of war, searching for the true direction of his opponent’s blade.
The three-month war had not yet truly begun along the border between the Northern Frontier and the Cangyuan Khanate.
Swords had not yet crossed, but the Dasheng prince stationed far away in Linbei City had already, without a sound, deprived him of his sight and seized him by the throat.
“You aren’t trying to take a city.”
Helian Cang stared at Beiming Port on the map. An unprecedented gravity and fighting spirit rose within him, like a lone wolf on the grasslands catching the scent of blood.
“You’re forcing me to walk into your game of my own accord.”
He gave a cold laugh and slowly clenched his fist.
“Very well. If you want to play chess, I’ll play along. This time, I will uproot you from this land once and for all!”
◆◇◆◇◆
“Perfect timing.”
When Su Muchen returned from Guichen Studio to the Northern Frontier administrative headquarters, night had already fallen.
The study in the main courtyard was brightly lit. Xiao Yuan, Xia Lanshi, and Xiao were all there.
Bringing the night wind in with him, Su Muchen walked over and lined up three finely crafted wooden boxes of different designs on the long desk.
“Here, one for each of you. The group is paying for them. They said it’s a small token of support for our work, so there’s no additional charge.”
He opened the boxes one by one. Inside lay three precision-crafted quartz watches.
“These are our backup plan,” Su Muchen explained. “If the master watch used by the army malfunctions or gets damaged in an accident, we won’t be left without a way to synchronize the time.”
Xiao picked one up.
Back in the modern world, he had always worn a tactical smartwatch packed with complicated functions. But after arriving in this era, all those high-tech devices had become useless scrap metal.
Now that he was taking charge of training the forty-eight members of the special operations unit, he certainly needed an accurate timekeeping instrument.
Su Muchen then pushed a particularly exquisite wooden box toward Xiao Yuan.
“You can’t carry anything electrical, so I specifically found a purely mechanical watch for you.”
Xiao Yuan accepted the box.
Although Su Muchen had already given him a pocket watch earlier, which he still carried close to his body every day, this one was different.
It was the master watch that would be used to synchronize the standard time for the entire army.
After everything he had experienced over the past few months, Xiao Yuan’s perspective had broadened considerably. At a glance, he could tell that the mechanical watch was expensive.
He gently ran his fingertips along the cool edge of the watch face and said thoughtfully, “It seems this prince will have to find something suitable to give in return.”
Beside him, Xiao remarked coolly, “Don’t bother. That old man has enough money to bludgeon someone to death with. He won’t miss this little bit.”
Xia Lanshi caught the key phrase and raised an eyebrow.
“Old man… who?”
“The head of the collateral branch, Su Huaishan,” Su Muchen explained. “Xiao’s grandfather.”
Hearing Xiao refer to his own grandfather as “that old man,” Xia Lanshi couldn’t help smiling.
It was clear that the relationship between grandfather and grandson was hardly what anyone would call harmonious.
“How about this?” Su Muchen suggested. “Jingyuan, find some time to write a piece of calligraphy for him. I’ll deliver it on your behalf. The gesture is what matters. I remember seeing quite a few works by famous calligraphers and painters hanging in the conference hall at Jiyuan. He should appreciate that sort of thing.”
Su Muchen felt that Xiao Yuan’s calligraphy was vigorous and distinctive. With Xiao Yuan’s status behind it, and the fact that he came from another world, the piece would certainly carry special significance.
Xiao Yuan nodded slightly.
Since the other party had no shortage of gold or silver, a piece of calligraphy would indeed be an elegant and appropriate gift.
“By the way, all the ‘special strategic watches’ intended for officers of every rank, messengers, timekeepers, and the special operations unit have been delivered to storage,” Su Muchen continued, bringing the conversation back to business. “We have all the tools we need. Now we just have to figure out how to get the entire army accustomed to the new time system as quickly as possible.”
“Military Advisor Su need not worry about that.”
Xia Lanshi fastened the new watch around his wrist and spoke calmly.
“Those of us who received pocket watches first have already grown accustomed to the new time system. We simply lacked enough instruments to introduce it on a wider scale. Now everything is ready. All we need is the final push.”
“The army will officially adopt the ‘new time system’: one day will be divided into twenty-four hours, each hour into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds,” Xia Lanshi explained methodically. “‘Hour,’ ‘minute,’ and ‘second’ will become the official units used in military orders. During the initial transition period, orders will primarily use the new time system, with the old system included as a secondary reference. For example, an order issued for ‘six o’clock’ will have ‘the middle of the Mao hour’ noted alongside it to prevent confusion among the troops.”
He paused before continuing.
“As for the beginning of each day, it will be set at midnight, zero hours and zero minutes. This will make it easier to standardize the dates in military reports. From now on, the army will no longer need to rely on the time of sunrise or celestial observations to determine the hour.”
Xiao Yuan took over in a deep voice, his gaze passing beyond the sand table toward the darkness outside.
“Messengers, timekeepers, and officers of every rank must internalize these rules as quickly as possible. As for the ordinary soldiers, they do not need to read a watch. They only need to understand the signals.”
Xia Lanshi nodded in agreement.
“Exactly. General Pei can incorporate fixed time signals into the army’s daily drills. For example, at precisely six o’clock, the first bell rings and the first battalion changes guard. The soldiers can develop muscle memory through the regular sounds of drums, horns, and bells, completely freeing themselves from dependence on daylight.”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze passed beyond the sand table toward the distant darkness.
“This system isn’t just for the war ahead. In the future, the entire Northern Frontier—and eventually the whole Dasheng Empire—must become accustomed to this standard.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the study door was pushed open silently after four measured, rhythmic knocks.
A shadow guard hurried inside and presented Xiao Yuan with a top-secret letter sealed in dark red wax.
Xiao Yuan broke the seal and unfolded the report, his eyes rapidly scanning the page.
A moment later, his gaze abruptly sharpened. Without saying a word, he handed the report directly to Xia Lanshi.
This was the result of the intelligence network they had set in motion several months earlier. At last, the net had drawn tight.
Their target had been one of the most heavily guarded places in the Dasheng Empire: the Imperial Secret Archives.
The archives were divided into three levels.
The outer repository held government edicts, military reports, and memorials submitted by former officials throughout the dynasties.
The inner repository held imperial genealogies, the Emperor’s private annotations, and confidential correspondence. Only senior officials of the inner court were permitted access.
Deepest of all was the third level, the Hidden Repository, which stored royal taboos, secrets from previous dynasties, and incomplete records of imperial bloodlines. It had no complete catalogue, and only the Emperor himself and a handful of his most trusted ministers were permitted to enter.
They had spent months and enormous sums of money bribing insiders, then conducted their document comparisons with extreme restraint.
All to confirm one thing: How much did the imperial family actually know about the Gate?
Although their people had been unable to enter the third level, they had pieced together a startling picture from the indexes of the first two repositories, access records, and fragments of discarded annotations.
Xia Lanshi finished reading the report at a glance, then spread it flat on the desk, his expression grave.
“The investigation has revealed three key points.”
He pointed to the first section.
“First, we compared the secret records in the imperial family’s outer repository with the publicly circulated history of the founding of the Dasheng Empire. The two correspond closely, but neither makes the slightest mention of the Gate or the Su clan.”
“There is something suspicious here.”
Xia Lanshi pointed to the first sheet.
“Six hundred years ago, around the founding of the Dasheng Empire, several objects and pieces of knowledge appeared that were far beyond the technological capabilities of that era. I would venture to speculate that the founding Emperor of Dasheng may himself have been a Gate Master. For some reason, however, he personally erased the historical traces of the Su clan and the Gate.”
“The second key point lies in the daily records and secret archives of successive emperors.”
Xia Lanshi turned to the second page.
“Over the past six hundred years, the reigns of two other emperors also saw the appearance of similarly ‘advanced’ objects and knowledge. One lived more than five hundred years ago, and the other… four hundred years ago.”
The moment the words four hundred years were spoken, the atmosphere in the study seemed to grow several degrees colder.
Only now did Su Muchen suddenly understand.
So the founding Emperor of Dasheng might himself have been a Gate Master, and other Gate Masters had appeared five hundred and four hundred years ago as well. That meant the Gate Keys of those eras must have brought objects and knowledge with them, too.
No wonder he had found it strange before. In this world, in addition to Chinese numerals, they also used a system of “simple numerals” for certain calculations.
They were actually Arabic numerals.
Certain expressions were also used here in much the same way as in the modern world.
He had assumed that Dasheng had imported such knowledge from overseas. But now, perhaps it had been brought here by other Gate Keys.
“Four hundred years ago, that Emperor repeatedly ordered the retrieval of old files related to the Su clan,” Xia Lanshi continued. “From fragments of discarded annotations, our informant managed to piece together several phrases…”
He raised his head, his gaze sharp as a blade.
“‘Guichen.’ ‘The Su clan.’ ‘The Gate.’ ‘Imperial blood.’ ‘Original scrolls sealed away.’ ‘Not to be disclosed to outsiders.’”
He lifted his eyes slightly.
“However, there is no mention of the term ‘Gate Key.’ At least, not in the old records from the outer and inner repositories.”
“Four hundred years ago…” Xiao Yuan said coldly. “That was when Sheng Xiaying became the Gate Master, followed by the massacre that wiped out the Dasheng Su clan.”
Xiao, who had been leaning against the bookshelf and listening all this time, folded his arms and calmly supplied another missing piece of the puzzle.
“The Su clan existed even before the founding of Dasheng. Its origins go so far back that even I can’t say exactly where they began. But the disastrous entanglement between the Su and Sheng clans started roughly five hundred years ago.”
“The timeline matches.”
The clues in Xia Lanshi’s mind suddenly fell into place.
“More than five hundred years ago, Dasheng entered the beginning of its golden age. That suggests the alliance between the Su and Sheng clans may have begun with the Emperor who became a Gate Master. If these surviving records haven’t been deliberately altered, then we can at least infer that the Sheng clan’s research into the Gate and the bloodline of Gate Masters—and the later, utterly deranged ‘Blood Theft Project’—had been brewing for at least a century before producing Sheng Xiaying. Ultimately, it ended in the catastrophic extermination of the Su family.”
This was a conspiracy that had been cultivated over generations. Even today, the Sheng clan continued to cling to incomplete scraps of information, using them to nurture one tragedy after another.
Xia Lanshi felt a complicated mixture of emotions. He found these people utterly foolish, yet those who were deeply entangled in their schemes could not even see what they were doing.
They believed themselves to be in the right, never realizing how many crucial pieces of information were missing from their hands.
Xia Lanshi collected his thoughts and lightly tapped the end of the report.
“Since the Su family’s extermination, the Imperial Secret Archives’ access records have shown no further anomalies related to the Gate over the past four hundred years. In other words, until Your Highness appeared, Dasheng may have gone a full four centuries without a Gate Master.”
He still remembered what he had read in The Record of Guichen’s Guests. There had been very few Gate Masters surnamed Xiao, and the records revealed a long gap between them.
Xiao nodded, confirming this inference.
“That is correct. According to the Gatekeepers’ records, there have never been many Gate Masters born of Dasheng’s imperial bloodline. During this period, the ‘guests’ received by Guichen Studio all came from other worlds. But this wasn’t a punishment imposed by the Gate. It simply happened that the Gate judged a Gate Master unnecessary at the time.”
Xiao Yuan furrowed his brow slightly, sharply identifying the heart of the matter.
“That only explains the Gate’s rules and the imperial family’s attitude. What about the Northern Frontier?”
“That is precisely what makes the third report so alarming.”
Xia Lanshi drew a deep breath, his tone growing extraordinarily grave.
“If we use four hundred years ago as the dividing line, the situation in the Northern Frontier was remarkably stable before then. Almost all of those ‘advanced objects and knowledge’ appeared in the Northern Frontier. But after the Su family disappeared, the invisible defensive line protecting the region began to collapse.”
Xia Lanshi looked at Xiao Yuan, each word landing like a hammer.
“The Su family’s role in the Northern Frontier was never limited to ‘guarding the Gate.’ They also possessed comprehensive knowledge of the region’s terrain, the defenses surrounding the ancient Gate, specialized medical care, special supplies, and the coordination of trade routes. They even mediated among the various peoples of the Northern Frontier.”
“The Su family wasn’t the Northern Frontier’s only pillar, but it was the beam that should never have been allowed to break.”
Xia Lanshi spoke slowly.
“After the Su family was gone, the Northern Frontier didn’t descend into immediate chaos. Instead, it began to bleed away its strength silently. A little lost each year, a little more every decade… until twenty-five years ago, when the three major strategic strongholds fell one after another. Then, twenty years ago, the Northern Frontier’s foremost military city burned for seven days and seven nights, ultimately becoming a dead city.”
“Historians in later generations will only write that the Northern Frontier garrison was weak and its commanders incompetent.”
Xia Lanshi gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.
“But the true decline of the Northern Frontier began with the massacre four hundred years ago.”
He turned to look at Su Muchen and Xiao, a trace of respect in his eyes.
“And the facts prove it. Ever since the Su clan’s Gate Key and Gatekeeper returned to the Northern Frontier, the region has been recovering at an astonishing speed.”
Xia Lanshi even found himself entertaining a pessimistic thought. If the Gate had never opened in the first place, perhaps Sheng Yuanli’s next step after his attempt to steal the bloodline would have been to annex Dasheng itself. Meanwhile, Helian Cang of the Northern Di had long coveted Dasheng. If Xiao Yuan had not been guarding the Northern Frontier, might that same blaze eventually have spread into the heart of the empire?
Now, much of their ability to hold the line came from the assistance of the Su clan on the other side of the Gate.
After listening to this painstaking analysis, Xiao Yuan tapped his fingers lightly against the desk and asked the most pressing question of all.
“Then… how much does the man sitting on the Dragon Throne actually know?”
“Our people cannot enter the Hidden Repository, the third and innermost level.”
Xia Lanshi pondered for a moment.
“But judging by the clues scattered throughout the first two levels, the Emperor’s understanding of the Gate is likely much the same as ours was at the beginning: a handful of extremely fragmented pieces of information. Combined with a gap of four hundred years, even if he knows something, he might well dismiss it as myth. If His Majesty has truly connected the recent abnormalities in the Northern Frontier to the Gate, confirmed that a Gate Master has appeared, and even discovered that Your Highness is that Gate Master…”
Xia Lanshi paused, his gaze turning cold.
“Then he would certainly have done more than simply issue an imperial decree ordering you to recover the lost territories within three months.”
“On that point, I can actually give you all some reassurance.”
Xiao suddenly spoke.
Everyone immediately turned toward him, a hint of wariness flashing through their eyes in unison.
They were genuinely afraid that Xiao might say something he shouldn’t and trigger the Gate’s punishment on the spot.
Seeing how everyone looked as though they were facing a formidable enemy, Xiao rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“Relax. This part is safe to discuss. The imperial family’s knowledge of the Gate is definitely incomplete. Your deductions are entirely correct.”
“Why are you so certain?” Xiao Yuan asked.
“Because the Su family never truly trusted the imperial family.”
Xiao gave a cold laugh.
“An emperor sits at the very pinnacle of power. It’s far too easy for suspicion and greed to blind him. Concealment was the Su family’s baseline for self-preservation. Besides, even within the Su clan, the direct line and the collateral branches kept separate collections of ancient texts.”
At this point, Xiao shot Su Muchen a sidelong glance, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“In other words, throughout history, there has only been one particularly thickheaded fool bold enough to take the direct line’s Original Record of Returning Through the Gate, the collateral branch’s Scattered Records of Returning Through the Gate, and even the complete translated edition of the Sheng Clan’s Fragmentary Records, and present the whole collection to the imperial family.”
When Xiao had first handed The Original Record of Returning Through the Gate to Su Muchen, he had specifically warned him, “This book must never fall into anyone else’s hands.”
Yet this young master had promptly turned around and handed the important ancient text over to Xiao Yuan.
Later, he hadn’t even bothered pretending otherwise. He had directly requested The Scattered Records of Returning Through the Gate from the collateral branch and handed that to Xiao Yuan, too.
Xiao couldn’t help reflecting once again that the bloodline of the Su clan’s direct branch was truly pure to an absurd degree.
Caught by this unexpected verbal arrow, Su Muchen opened his mouth to protest, only to realize that he really had laid all the family secrets bare before Xiao Yuan. He sheepishly rubbed his nose.
“You were there at the time, too. You didn’t stop him, did you?” Xiao Yuan said mildly, defending Su Muchen without drawing attention to it.
Xiao had been secretly monitoring Su Muchen all along. If something truly could not be done, he would have intervened and stopped it long ago.
In fact, Xiao had even supplemented their knowledge of the Gate on several occasions in the past.
“That’s right. I didn’t stop him.”
Xiao admitted it openly. His gaze swept over Xiao Yuan and Xia Lanshi, and his playful expression faded.
“Because I judged that it was better for you to have a comprehensive understanding of everything than to let you take incomplete information and stumble around making wild guesses and costly mistakes. Besides… you and I are more than mere acquaintances. Only when you fully understand these matters will you realize what the Gate truly is and how dangerous the price behind it can be. Only through understanding can you learn reverence.”
He paused. His gaze deepened, and an indescribable pressure entered his voice.
“I believe you won’t leave these things behind in written records. Because some things, once written into the history books, are no longer secrets.”
Su Muchen froze.
Only then did he realize that Xiao had been so forthcoming not merely to ensure that they understood the Gate and feared its power. He was also deliberately preventing certain deadly pieces of knowledge from flowing back into the river of history.
The Sheng clan had misunderstood the Gate precisely because their knowledge of it was incomplete.
“Then you still have the nerve to criticize me!”
Su Muchen came back to his senses and glared at him irritably.
He suspected Xiao had simply wanted an excuse to tease him.
Xiao laughed and shrugged, unconcerned.
“Incidentally, the relationship between the direct line and our collateral branch was always terrible in the past. We had different positions and principles, so we fought plenty of times. Forced marriages, abducting Gate Keys who tried to run away and dragging them back, installing tracking devices on them to monitor them constantly… all of that was commonplace.”
Xia Lanshi couldn’t help smiling as he listened.
As the last surviving member of the modern Su clan’s direct line, Su Muchen should have borne the responsibility of continuing the family bloodline. Instead, he had run off with Prince Su.
Xia Lanshi could easily imagine the collateral branch patriarch’s state of mind right now.
If Xiao had been the kind of Gatekeeper who obeyed the patriarch’s orders, forcibly dragged Su Muchen back to the modern world, and found him someone to marry, then they probably wouldn’t all be standing here now.
The corner of Su Muchen’s mouth twitched.
“…I can understand that very well now.”
After all, Xiao had genuinely tried to prevent him from getting together with Xiao Yuan. The collateral branch had even issued him an outright ultimatum demanding that he marry. The two sides had clashed over it before.
Xiao Yuan paid no attention to their usual bickering. He mentally reorganized all the clues.
“In other words, the situation now is this…”
He calmly summarized the facts.
“The knowledge held by the Su family is fragmented. The secrets known to the imperial family are incomplete. And the information possessed by the Sheng family consists of scattered pieces.”
And now—
Xiao Yuan’s eyes darkened.
He suddenly realized that, having gathered all the knowledge scattered throughout those ancient texts and possessing both a Gate Key and a Gatekeeper, he had reached a position that emperors and ambitious men had desperately sought for centuries.
If he truly wished to, he could make use of the power he had already gained control over.
But precisely because he understood the enormous price such power demanded, he had to assess the matter with even greater caution. Could he justify making millions of people pay with their lives to satisfy his own ambitions?
And he did not want to put Su Muchen in a difficult position.
Because Su Muchen had entrusted him with his complete trust.
Meanwhile, Xia Lanshi thought to himself that the only person who truly knew the whole truth was Xiao, standing before them—a man who had endured countless cycles of time. The price he had paid was beyond what anyone else could imagine.
“The Emperor probably hasn’t connected the changes in the Northern Frontier to the Gate yet…”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze gradually turned cold, like an abyss freezing over.
“But that is only true for now.”
That old fox Sheng Yuanli had very likely already sensed that a Gate Master had been born into the world.
It was only a matter of time before the Emperor grew suspicious as well.
The time left to him was far more limited than he had imagined.
This was about more than simply winning the war against the Northern Di within the allotted time.
Before the Emperor realized what was happening, he had to rapidly strengthen every aspect of the Northern Frontier: its military, grain supplies, city defenses, medical infrastructure, economy, and even its intelligence network spread throughout the empire.
He would turn the Northern Frontier into an impregnable fortress.
From now on, neither the imperial power in the Dasheng capital nor the Cangyuan Khanate beyond the frontier would ever again be able to see the Northern Frontier’s true hand.