In a countryside manor located in Shazhou...
“Father!”
A young man excitedly rushed into the manor, only to sense something amiss with the atmosphere. Another man was with his father in the guest hall, and soldiers were stationed along the corridor.
“Big brother, you’re back! Let me tell you... Ah?!”
The excited young man was about to share the news he had just heard when he noticed that his big brother was still wearing Tibetan clothes. His cheeks twitched.
“Big brother, why are you still dressed like that?!” the young man exclaimed. “Don’t you know the Tangs are making a comeback! The Gatling Buddha has already conquered Tingzhou with the Anxi predecessors!”
He patted his clothes and continued, “See, I have already switched my clothes back!”
Shu Yichao had been focusing on Transoxania and the Iron Gate Pass, but he spawned new troops even from the slaughtering of livestock, which resulted in him constantly having spare troops on hand.
Not one to waste troops, he had been dispatching them to conduct small-scale attacks to the east.
It didn’t sound like anything much on the surface—he would just be harassing some of the provinces under the Tibetan Empire’s rule; it wouldn’t amount to anything much.
But what Shu Yichao considered ‘small-scale’ was relative to his entire undead army.
So, the Tibetan garrison troops found themselves attacked by 70,000 to 80,000 undead troops now and then.
How many soldiers could cities in Karasahr and Xizhou have?
At most a couple thousand.
The Tibetan general stationed in Karasahr initially intended to mount a resistance. He gathered troops from various places, eventually rallying together an army of ten thousand.
They set forth to confront the undead army, and in the end, they eradicated all 60,000 terracotta soldiers with a thousand casualties. It was a glorious victory!
The Tibetan general gleefully strutted back to his city.
But before they could even conclude the celebration banquet, they received a report that the second wave of terracotta soldiers was at their doorstep. The drunk Tibetan general didn’t think much and led his army out again.
He wasn’t that lucky this time around.
The Tibetan army was massacred in front of the entire city. Karasahr was overrun, and the Tibetan slave owners were purged.
From that day on, nearby cities dared not venture out to confront the undead army anymore.
He didn’t think that his big brother would have other thoughts in mind.
“Shut up!” Sotri Bohey roared angrily. “How dare you mislead others with lies?!”
He beckoned a Tibetan soldier to step forth, hold the young man against the ground, and whip him. The young man’s back quickly turned bloody, and he howled in pain.
“Enough!” Old Man Suo slammed the table again. “Your younger brother might not know better, but you should be more mature. What have you learned in the years you spent studying in the Holy City?! Even the Tsenpo would not inflict such violence on her younger brother!”
“Hmph!” Sotri Bohey finally gestured for the Tibetan soldier to stop. He looked into his younger brother’s hate-filled eyes and calmly answered, “I’m doing this for his own good. He needs to be taught a lesson. Otherwise, he won’t know how to watch his mouth.
“You said that the Tangs are making a comeback, but it’s just the Shu army. They are causing a huge commotion now, but that’s because the Tibetan Empire’s archmages haven’t intervened yet. Once the archmages make a move, the Shu army will find themselves put in a spot.
“The Anxi army has been attacking the Iron Gate Pass for a year now, but how did that turn out? The Iron Gate Pass remains impregnable!
“The Shu army has been quelled two times now; how difficult would the third time be?” Sotri Bohey sneered.
“It’s different this time!” the young man lying on the ground blurted out.
Bam!
A Tibetan soldier stomped his leg down on the young man’s abdomen, silencing him.
“...” Old Man Suo’s veins popped. He took a few deep breaths before finally asking, “What do you want? Are you here to trample on your father?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Sotri Bohey replied with a smile, but there was no warmth in his eyes. “I don’t want to waste time, so I’ll get straight to the point. You sent a letter to the west a year ago; who did you send that letter to?”
“I often send letters out,” Old Man Suo replied without batting an eyelid. “I need to maintain ties with my friends and business partners. How am I to know which letter you are referring to?”
“Stop feigning ignorance!” Sotri Bohey shook his head. “Father, you’re too naive. What makes you think that the recipient will burn the letter right away? What makes you think that the other party won’t use the letter against you?”
Old Man Suo remained unfazed. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“...”
Sotri Bohey reached into his robe and pulled out a yellowed letter. The handwriting on the letter was familiar.
Old Man Suo was so shocked that he blurted out, “No, that’s impossible!”
How could Vice Commander Mi make such a huge slip-up?