In the northern lands, three hundred miles away, countless white tents stood pitched across a vast plain. At the center of the encampment stood a massive, four-cornered pavilion tent, easily ten times the size of those surrounding it. Every structural component was crafted from gilded gold, and its bright yellow fabric was threaded with shimmering purple-gold fibers, marking it instantly as an emblem of supreme luxury.
Inside, weapons stood in neat racks of swords and spears, while all the desks, wooden chairs, and bookshelves were made of the rarest agarwood and rosewood.
A spacious bed nearly two and a third meters long lay stretched across the innermost part of the tent. Reclining upon it in an indolent posture was a man wearing a black-and-gold ghost mask. He lay on his side, reading a book, his loose hair spilling about like ink dissolving in water—silky, pitch-black, and seemingly imbued with a boundless, devouring depth.
Chapter 66