Chen Ji clasped his fists and asked, “May I know why General Hu is looking for me?”

The border guard shook his head, “Young Master Chen doesn’t need to ask me. I’m just following orders; I don’t know the details.”

Chen Ji pondered, “What if I don’t go?”

The border guard placed his hand on the hilt of his saber, “What the general entrusts to me, I carry out with all my might, without asking for reasons. If you are unwilling to go, then I will have to take you by force.”

Chen Wenzong stepped forward, his face stern. “Guyuan is not outside the law. Do you think you can just tie someone up without reason?”

The border guard said chillingly, “Try it, and you’ll find out.”

Zhang Xia looked at Li Xuan, “Lord Li, Chen Ji is the Right Palace Guard of the Eastern Palace. If he is taken away like this, it might harm His Highness’s prestige, wouldn’t it? Will the Imperial Guards just stand by and do nothing?”

Li Xuan calmly replied, “Miss Zhang is overstating it. My Imperial Guards will naturally not stand idly by.”

Hearing this, the border guard sneered, “Men, take Young Master Chen!”

With a hiss, dozens of border guards outside the door drew their sabers and sliced open the door curtain, letting the cold wind rush into the inn’s main hall. They held their pudaos, confronting the Imperial Guards, and with their fierce demeanor, actually forced the Imperial Guards back three steps.

Li Xuan roared, “Draw your swords! Protect the Right Palace Guard!”

A fight between the two sides was imminent. Qi Zhenzhu smirked, “I see you border guards are looking for trouble. Taking Chen Ji is fake; finding an excuse to openly break with the Imperial Guards is the real intention!”

The biting cold wind blew, yet everyone’s palms were sweating. If a real fight broke out with the border guards today, the Imperial Guards would have no place in Guyuan.

During the standoff, Chen Ji suddenly smiled brightly, “What are you all doing? There’s no need to spoil the harmony over such a small matter. I’ll go.”

Li Xuan quickly said, “No, you can’t. The border guards have ill intentions. Perhaps it’s because you thwarted their plans earlier, and now they’re deliberately seeking revenge!”

Chen Ji looked back at Li Xuan, “Lord Li, rest assured, I have my own plan.”

With that, he placed Wuyun in Zhang Xia’s arms and quietly instructed, “Stay in your room, don’t go anywhere, and close the doors and windows tightly.”

Zhang Xia hummed in acknowledgment, “Don’t worry.”

Chen Ji went to the stables, led out Zaobao, and left the inn surrounded by border guards. Over a dozen border guards escorted him closely. Zaobao snorted restlessly, and he could only continuously stroke its back to soothe it.

Chen Ji surveyed the guards around him, secretly pondering: He had only met Hu Junxian twice. The first time, the general looked down from the city wall; the second time, they were at loggerheads in Shache Street.

They had no connection, yet he wondered why the general was looking for him.

Was it to capture him and avenge Old Wu? Or did Hu Junxian know he had grain and want to requisition it?

Several thoughts flashed through Chen Ji’s mind at once, but he dismissed each one.

Just as they turned out of Qiuci Street, the border guards smiled gently, “Young Master Chen, please don’t take offense at our earlier words. We meant no disrespect.”

Chen Ji looked puzzled, “Gentlemen, this is…”

The border guard explained, “Before we came, our general said that there’s a rift between the Imperial Guards and the border army. He told us not to appear too close to you in front of the Imperial Guards and the Crown Prince, or it might make your position awkward beside the Crown Prince.”

Chen Ji was slightly taken aback, “What exactly does General Hu want with me?”

The border guard shook his head, “We truly don’t know that.”

At this moment, Guyuan was in ruins. The door panels of shops lining the streets had been dismantled and lay scattered.

Inside the shops, everything was in disarray. Shopkeepers, their wives, children, and assistants were packing their belongings with ashen faces, while some simply sat in their shops, sobbing uncontrollably.

Every so often along the street, there were scattered corpses lying on the ground, their blood mixed with yellow earth and frozen into ice.

The border guards seemed accustomed to it, riding their horses over the corpses without a second glance.

Everything was desolate.

Chen Ji looked at the border guards and asked, puzzled, “Don’t the border guards deal with those local ruffians who plunder the common people?”

The border guard sighed, “Young Master Chen, you’ve misunderstood us. It’s not that we don’t impose discipline; it’s that the chaos is too severe, and we can’t manage it all. Most of the corpses lying on the ground were killed by our border army. Look, that body ten zhang away, he tried to snatch someone’s child last night, and I personally stabbed him to death.”

Chen Ji remained silent.

The border guard lamented, “Young Master Chen was born in a prosperous land; perhaps you haven’t seen such a brutal sight. During the 25th year of Jianing, when the Jing Dynasty’s Celestial Strategy Army besieged Guyuan for two months, that was truly tragic. The elm trees on the streets were stripped of their bark and ground into flour, and their leaves were picked clean. Cases of people exchanging children to eat, or exchanging concubines to eat, happened frequently.”

Another border guard said, “One of Guyuan’s authentic local dishes is ‘Oil-Splashed Spicy Elm Noodles,’ and there’s also ‘Cold Mixed Elm Leaves.’ Merchants passing through here from other regions often say they want to try these ‘delicacies,’ but they can’t even swallow them. The fact that there’s still elm bark in the city now indicates that people aren’t yet desperate from hunger.”

Chen Ji observed the border guards around him, noticing their sunken cheeks and emotionless eyes.

At this moment, shouts for help came from a distance. The leading border guard gestured to his subordinates beside him, and five border guards immediately drew their sabers and headed towards the shouts.

A moment later, sounds of men wailing and begging for mercy came from that direction. The five border guards returned, grumbling as they wiped their blades with their sleeves before sheathing them.

One border guard complained, “The city’s been this chaotic for only two days. Grown men are climbing walls to bully the orphaned children and widows next door – they’re asking for death!”

Chen Ji suggested, “Perhaps stationing guards along the streets would help a lot.”

The border guard glanced at him, “Young Master Chen, you’ll understand once you go up to the city wall. Our border army must guard more important places.”

The group entered the border army’s main camp. On both sides of the road, border soldiers were sleeping in the open air, clad in armor. Some border guards squatted by the roadside, their eyes listless, holding a bowl of hot water and sipping it slowly.

Only when Chen Ji came closer did he see that there were actually a few grains of rice at the bottom of the bowl.

Arriving at the city wall, Chen Ji dismounted and followed a border guard up. His view immediately opened up.

Outside the city, burnt, black ground stretched as far as the eye could see. On the horizon, endless barracks emitted cooking smoke. It was a military formation so magnificent that Chen Ji had never seen anything like it, even in films from his previous life—boundless, as if it stretched to the ends of the earth!

“Young Master Chen, please come this way. The general is waiting.”

The border guard led Chen Ji into the gate tower. Inside, a huge sand table of Guyuan was conspicuously placed, covered with flags of various colors. A sturdy figure stood by the sand table, holding a bowl in his right hand and sipping water slowly.

It was Hu Junxian.

Hearing footsteps, Hu Junxian turned around, surveying Chen Ji up and down like a beast. His thick, wiry beard resembled a lion’s mane.

Chen Ji bowed his head, clasping his fists, “General Hu.”

Hu Junxian grunted in acknowledgment.

Chen Ji looked up and asked, “May I know why General Hu has summoned me?”

Hu Junxian handed the ceramic bowl to his personal guard and casually asked, “Were you the one who found the Jing Dynasty spy on Shache Street?”

Chen Ji answered truthfully, “Yes.”

Hu Junxian then asked, “Did you also kill the owner of Yang’s Fur Shop?”

Chen Ji continued to answer, “Yes.”

Hu Junxian was silent for a moment, “What did Old Wu say before he died?”

Chen Ji’s heart tightened, but he did not answer.

Hu Junxian calmly said, “Don’t worry, I have no intention of causing you trouble.”

Chen Ji thought for a moment and then whispered, “Before he died, Old Wu said, ‘Guyuan, oh Guyuan…'”

Hu Junxian paused slightly, then repeated, with a desolate mix of love and hate, “Guyuan, oh Guyuan…”

Chen Ji did not reply, waiting for Hu Junxian to speak.

After a long time, Hu Junxian looked up at the night outside the city. “I had heard about you before. The day before you arrived in Guyuan, a letter from your teacher, Wang Daosheng, reached here. It’s clear he highly values you.”

“Teacher Wang?” Chen Ji knew that he and his group, traveling with a camel caravan, couldn’t match the speed of a courier horse delivering a letter. He just hadn’t expected Wang Daosheng to specifically write a letter for him.

He asked curiously, “What did the teacher write in his letter?”

Hu Junxian calmly replied, “He said you had turned the tide multiple times in Luocheng but never boasted or sought credit. He praised you with eight characters: ‘radiant but not showy, still waters run deep.'”

Chen Ji humbly said, “I am not worthy of such praise from my teacher.”

Hu Junxian walked out of the gate tower with a solemn expression, resting his hand on the weathered battlements. “I saw everything that happened on Shache Street that day, and I believe Wang Daosheng. Wang Daosheng said you shouldn’t pursue the imperial examination path. However, he has no connection to the Ministry of War now, so he can’t promote you. Thus, he asked me to find a way to keep you in Guyuan… Are you willing?”

“Stay in Guyuan?” Chen Ji was startled.

Hu Junxian offered his terms: “Join my Guyuan border army. After only twenty years of garrisoning the frontier, I guarantee you’ll become the Deputy Commander of Guyuan, a third-rank official. How does that sound?”

Chen Ji shook his head, “Thank you for the general’s kind offer, but my ambition lies elsewhere.”

Hu Junxian grunted, saying nothing more.

Chen Ji was puzzled. If the general intended to recruit him, shouldn’t he say more?

Hu Junxian glanced at his puzzled expression, seemingly guessing his thoughts, and said emotionlessly, “My offer of recruitment was to fulfill Wang Daosheng’s request. Not continuing to recruit you is because I fear you might waste away in this desolate borderland, just like us. What promising young man would come to this godforsaken place? Your teacher didn’t have good intentions, it’s fine not to acknowledge him.”

Chen Ji: “…”

Just then, the sound of hoofbeats echoed from the darkness outside the city.

But as night fell, the torches on the city wall could only illuminate a small area, making it impossible to see outside clearly. Only when the Jing Dynasty cavalry drew near could their position be discerned by the faint light.

The Jing Dynasty cavalryman took the iron-reinforced bow from his back, drew it, and notched an arrow.

Chen Ji cried out, “General, be careful!”

With a whoosh, a sharp sound of cutting air came. Hu Junxian slightly turned his head, and the feathered arrow grazed his cheek, embedding itself diagonally into the gate tower.

A piece of white silk cloth was tied to the arrow, fluttering in the wind.

Chen Ji looked out towards the city again, only to see the Jing Dynasty archer had already turned his horse around and galloped back into the darkness.

A border guard removed the arrow, untied the silk cloth, and read the message written in blood: “Within three days, open the gates and surrender the city. Otherwise, your bones will cover the fields, and the land will be barren for a thousand li!”