Chapter 868: Silenced Kill Beneath the Veiling Sand

His face was smeared with a layer of Huangtu mixed with sheep fat, his nail beds packed with grime, the hair at his temples clumped together by oil, hanging over his forehead and covering half his face.

He stood in the city‑gate opening, turned back to glance at the fifty Suicide Warriors from the Mingjing Office dressed like him.

Each wore the attire of Grassland caravan workers, a Horizontal Blade hidden beneath a thick leather coat at the waist, daggers tied to the outer side of the legs, and a sleeve crossbow attached inside the cuff.

Fourteen wood‑rimmed carts were lined up, their decks piled with inferior Wine Jars of burning knife and sacks of coarse salt, a welded iron‑clad compartment under the axle, stocked with standard Horizontal Blades wrapped in oilcloth and Crossbows broken into parts.

Gao Jiong flipped onto the lead cart, his butt perched on the axle board, legs swinging, and clenched a willow‑branch whip for urging horses in his hand.

"Move."

Hooves trod the Huangtu, crushing stone slabs beneath the thousand‑pound gate, while the axle creaked a muffled squeak in the cold wind.

The fourteen carts carrying the fifty‑one people slipped out through a ruined pass opening between the Great Wall beacon towers during the dim, gray hours before daylight broke.

No flames lit the beacon mounds on either side of the opening; it was the Hidden Door Gao Jiong had arranged with the Colonel guarding the pass before departure, the Colonel took silver and sent the night‑watch sentinel to the south.

Beyond the Great Wall, the convoy faced endless withered yellow grass and gray‑white alkali flats.

Wind blew in from the northwest, swirling fine sand against faces, stinging painfully.

Gao Jiong raised the collar of his leather coat, shielding the lower half of his face, squinting at the horizon ahead.

"Chief, which road shall we take?"

The Hidden Agent leader seated on the second cart was Songqi, a short, sturdy man in his thirties, with a slash scar running from his eyebrow corner down to his chin on his left cheek, looking far from a good person.

Gao Jiong fished a four‑folded sheepskin map from his chest and pressed a thumb on a point on it.

"Follow this dry riverbed northward, turn west at the fork, skirt around the outer sentry line of the Royal Court patrol cavalry, and sneak into the Qifu Tribe's territory from behind."

Songqi scratched his nose with the whip handle.

"How far to skirt?"

"Two more days' walk."

Songqi grinned.

"Two days is two days; we have enough millet, we won't starve."

Gao Jiong slipped the sheepskin map back into his chest, and gave the horse's hindquarters a light flick with the willow whip.

The convoy pressed northward along the dry riverbed.

On either side of the riverbed lay weathered, crumbling red sandstone, its cliffs sprouting a few clumps of dead camel thorns, roots exposed and bleached white by the wind‑blown sand.

After marching most of the day, the sun shifted from the east to directly overhead.

Gao Jiong retrieved a hard wheat cake from beneath the deck, broke off half, shoved it into his mouth, and chewed a few bites with cool water from his satchel before swallowing.

"Songqi."

"Here."

"Have the men behind string the sleeve crossbow, attach the dagger to the inner side of the wrist, and from now on, if you see any living thing, hold your fire until my hand signal."

The scar at Songqi's mouth corner twitched.

"Chief, you think this road is unsafe?"

Gao Jiong shoved the remaining half of the wheat cake into his cuff.

"Beyond the Great Wall it's anything but smooth; do you think the Grassland is a Back Garden?"

The convoy kept moving.

The riverbed forked ahead; Gao Jiong pointed to the narrower, more off‑center left branch, and the convoy turned into it.

The cliffs on either side of the branch lowered, widening the view, but the wind‑blown sand grew louder, pattering against the canvas with a crackle.

That evening of the next day, the convoy emerged from the riverbed onto a flat stony desert plain.

Gao Jiong leapt down from the deck, squatted, and examined the marks on the stones.

A few fresh horse‑hoof prints, the iron shoe marks shallow yet untouched by the sand.

He brushed his hand over the soil moisture at the base of the prints, then looked up at the direction they extended.

"Songqi, come here."

Songqi ran over and squatted beside him.

"The hoof prints were left at most three to four Imperial Envoy ago, heading from northwest to southeast."

Gao Jiong rose, brushed the dust from his hands, and scanned the northwest horizon.

"Rouran cavalry."

Songqi's hand instinctively reached for the crossbow mechanism inside his cuff.

"How many?"

Gao Jiong counted the number and spacing of the prints in his head.

"Around thirty men, the prints evenly spaced, moving in a patrol formation."

Songqi inhaled.

"Do we slip past them from behind, or halt and wait for them to move on?"

Gao Jiong shook his head.

"There's no time; their route crosses ours, we can't go around."

He pulled a leather wine bag from beneath the deck, gulped a large mouthful of burning knife, the liquor streaming down his mouth corners, carving several channels through the Huangtu on his chin.

"Keep moving; if we meet them, we meet them. I am a smuggler, they are toll‑collecting thugs; each takes what they need."

Songqi's mouth twitched.

"What if we don't take them well?"

Gao Jiong shoved the wine bag back beneath the deck, and cracked the willow whip with a snap.

"Then we don't take them; we just wipe them out."

The convoy rolled over the stony desert, the wheels rattling on the broken stones as if the carts' bones were about to fall apart.

When dusk fell, a wider dry river channel appeared ahead, its bottom dotted with a few crooked poplar trees, and a few skinny horses were tied at the base of the trees.

Gao Jiong squinted his eyes.

The convoy had just turned into the channel when silhouettes emerged on both riverbanks.

Thirty Rouran light cavalry burst from behind the banks, circling half‑round to block the convoy's path, their hooves striking the hard riverbed with a series of dull thuds.

The leading Centurion rode a mottled pinto, his Leather Armor riddled with several holes sewn with fresh cattle tendon, a curved blade and a horn trumpet hanging at his waist.

A palm‑sized purple birthmark stretched from his left eye corner down to his chin, and his broad, weather‑cracked face made him look like someone not to argue with.

The Centurion twirled his Horse Whip in front of the convoy, the tip snapping crisply in the air.

"Stop. Who's there?"

Gao Jiong leapt down from the carriage pole, plastering a twelve‑point grin on his face, his torso bent nearly level with the pole.

"General, greetings. I'm a traveling merchant from Fengzhou, trading coarse salt and fire‑blades on the Grassland for a few Herds of Cattle and Sheep. Small‑scale business, nothing noteworthy."

The Centurion, still mounted, surveyed him from above.

"A merchant from Fengzhou comes to this god‑forsaken place?"

He jabbed his Horse Whip toward the convoy behind him.

"Dozens of big wagons—this isn't a small deal."

Gao Jiong fished a five‑tael silver ingot from his chest and, jogging, handed it to the Centurion's horse.

"General, thank you for your trouble. This modest tribute is my small token; I also have fire‑blades. If you don't mind, I'll bring down two altars to warm the brothers."

The Centurion glanced at the ingot, a corner of his mouth twitching, reached out, weighed it, and slipped it into his own chest.

"Two altars aren't enough—ten altars."

Gao Jiong's smile stiffened for a moment, then he forced it back on.

"General, ten altars is too many; I only brought thirty in total on this trip. If I give you ten, I'll have nothing left to sell at the destination."

The Centurion's Horse Whip snapped down from Gao Jiong's shoulder.

The whip tip struck his Leather Armor with a muffled 'pop', making Gao Jiong sway as his shoulder burned with pain.

"I said ten altars, ten altars. Are you deaf?"

Gao Jiong gritted his teeth, hunched, and took two steps back.

"Yes, yes, yes—General decides. I'll move them now."

He turned toward the convoy; as he passed the third wagon, his left hand slipped into his sleeve and made a sign.

Three fingers extended, thumb and forefinger forming a circle.

Songqi, seated on the fourth wagon, saw the gesture.

"Hold on, don't move yet."

Gao Jiong ordered two workers to haul ten altars of fire‑blades from the fifth wagon and set them on the broken stones at the riverbed.

The Centurion dismounted, pried open the mud seal of an altar, brought it to his nose, and smiled.

"Not bad, quite spicy."

He turned back and waved at his cavalry.

"Brothers, have a couple of drinks before we go."

A few cavalrymen leapt down, gathered around, and poured the Wine Jar into their mouths.

The Centurion gulped several large swallows from the Wine Jar, burped, and, clutching his whip, staggered toward the rear of the convoy.

He reached the ninth wagon and tapped its board with the whip handle.

"What's loaded on this wagon?"

Gao Jiong followed behind, his voice a half‑step faster.

"Coarse salt, General—everything's coarse salt."

The Centurion hummed, not stopping.

He kept walking forward, and when he reached the eleventh wagon, he halted.

This wagon's board sat half an inch lower than the others; the iron sheet under the pole had a corner lifted by the bumpy road, exposing the edge of the oil‑cloth inside.

The Centurion tilted his head, glanced twice, crouched, and pried the oil‑cloth open with the tip of his curved blade.

Beneath the cloth, a row of neatly arranged standard Horizontal Blades reflected a dim metallic sheen.

The Centurion's face changed.

His hand shot to his chest, gripping the horn trumpet at his neck, his lips pressed to its mouthpiece.

He did not blow.

A black short crossbow bolt flew in from the rear‑left, its tip piercing his back of the neck, the point emerging below his Adam's apple, dragging half a white trachea and a spurt of blood.

The horn trumpet slipped from his hand, rolled once on the broken stones.

The Centurion's body tumbled forward, his face smashing into the Mudi beside the wheel, the tail of the bolt swaying faintly in the wind.

Gao Jiong's right hand still held the firing pose of his sleeve crossbow, a wisp of pale white smoke drifting from his cuff.

"Move."

The words squeezed out between his teeth, low‑voiced yet louder than the wind.

Fifty Suicide Warriors of the Mingjing Office switched from caravan laborers to assassins in a single breath.

A Horizontal Blade slid from beneath the Leather Armor, its edge flashing coldly in the dusk.

The rapid clicks of the sleeve crossbow firing filled the air.

Five of the crouching Rouran cavalry, still clutching Wine Jars, were pierced through the heart in the first volley; wine mixed with blood streamed from their mouths as their bodies slumped beside the jars.

When the remaining twenty‑plus riders finally reacted, the Mingjing Office men had already surged forward.

Songqi was the first to leap from the wagon board, two daggers thrust forward and backward into his palm, his short, stocky body pressing to the ground as he charged.

A Rouran cavalryman raised a curved blade over his head, and Songqi slipped sideways under the blade edge, his left-hand dagger thrust upward into the rider's armpit, the blade tip emerging above the collarbone.

The rider's scream was cut off halfway as Songqi's right-hand dagger sliced his throat— the dagger cut across his throat, blood spurted onto the old scar on Songqi's face.

The battle in the river channel was so brief that there was no second round.

All thirty Rouran raiding cavalry fell onto the broken stones and Mudi within less than twenty breaths; some hadn't even drawn their curved blades before being pierced through.

Gao Jiong pulled the crossbow bolt from the centurion's nape, wiped the blood on the centurion's Leather Armor, and reloaded it into the sleeve crossbow's bolt slot.

"Songqi, is it cleaned up?"

Songqi, holding two blood‑stained daggers, stood up beside the last corpse and looked left and right.

"Thirty, not one missing; none of us got killed here."

Gao Jiong crouched beside the centurion's corpse, lifted his collar and looked at the tag hanging on his neck.

The tag was bone‑carved, engraved with Rouran Script.

Gao Jiong tore the tag off and slipped it into his bosom, then straightened his posture.

"Strip them of any identifiable items: the tag, tattooed skin, cut it off, pull off the earrings."

Songqi answered, and led the men to start.

Gao Jiong gestured to the two Suicide Warriors behind him.

"Scatter their horses, throw the tack into the downstream sand pit and bury it, brush away the hoof prints with branches."

The two Suicide Warriors led the suddenly ownerless thin horses away from the river channel's fork toward the distance.

The herd of horses whinnied and vanished into the dusk.

Gao Jiong stood in the middle of the river channel, watching his subordinates drag the thirty naked corpses to the leeward spot behind the riverbank.

"Two li west there is a wolf den; when I arrived I saw it, chop the bodies into pieces and toss them in, crush the bones too, don't leave any whole ones."

The scar on Songqi's mouth twitched again.

"Chief, after chopping thirty people, the brothers' blades must be curved."

Gao Jiong pulled a brand‑new Horizontal Blade from the compartment of the eleventh cart and tossed it to Songqi.

"The compartment is full of blades; when they get curved, replace them."

Songqi caught the blade, grinned, and led the men to haul the corpses toward the wolf den.

The blood seeping in the river channel was covered by three layers of broken stones and dry sand at Gao Jiong's order, and the blood‑stained Wine Jars on the stones were smashed and mixed into the sand.

After one hour, the river channel showed only a few deep wheel ruts, with no trace of any fight.

Gao Jiong sat on the carriage pole, washed the bloodstains from between his fingers with water from his skin bag, and wiped them onto his pant leg.

Songqi returned from the direction of the wolf den, his body marked with several bloodstains of varying depth, his facial expression unruffled.

"Chief, it's done; the old wolves in the den have already started gnawing."

Gao Jiong nodded.

"Get on the cart, keep moving."

The whip cracked.

Fourteen large carts rolled over the stone‑strewn, blood‑covered river channel, pushing onward toward the Qifu Tribe as the night grew ever denser.

Wind‑laden sand, carrying cold from the distant Wilderness, seeped into the convoy's gaps, making the sealing cloth on the Wine Jars flap.

Gao Jiong's fingers rested on the crossbow mechanism at his cuff, his thumb slowly rubbing the icy metal trigger.

His gaze pierced the sand, watching the dark outline of the Grassland ahead.

The Qifu Tribe lay just beyond that line.