In the dead of night, a lone horseman galloped out of the Beidi military camp. Waving a white flag of truce, he rode swiftly beneath the city wall, tied a roll of parchment to an arrow, and shot it onto the ramparts. The parchment was stained with horse manure and dried blood, sealed with a ferocious wolf-head impression in red wax. When the garrison soldiers retrieved and unfurled it, a pungent stench assaulted their noses. At the bottom was a palm print pressed in the blood of captives by Tuoba Lie, with dried scabs still clinging to the cracks between the fingers.
Before long, the parchment was cleaned up and presented to Xia Huai'an by General Niu: "Master, a letter urging surrender sent by Beidi."
"Read it aloud," Xia Huai'an said, without taking the parchment. "Let everyone hear it."
Chapter 231