As the morning mist over the Northern Frontier was pierced by the first rays of sunlight, Shen Mingyue stood on the watchtower of the Yunzhou City wall, the brass barrel of her telescope still chill with the night's frost. Tighter she wrapped her cloak, watching the gentle wisps of smoke rising from the distant grassland. Villages once silenced by the fires of war were stirring with life once more. Curling softly against the sky, the smoke traced gentle arcs, weaving with the morning glow on the horizon into a warm and peaceful scene. Suddenly, the rapid thud of hooves shattered the calm as a messenger galloped close and vaulted from the saddle. Dew still clung to his armor, and the sweat on his chest had crystallized into salt in the morning breeze. "Your Highness! General Gu set an ambush in the Black Pine Forest and completely wiped out a hundred-man enemy reconnaissance unit!"
A slight smile touched Shen Mingyue's lips as she pivoted the telescope toward the Black Pine Forest. That very terrain had been reinforced under her and Gu Jinghong's direction, its dense foliage now masking hidden outposts and traps like a crouching beast. Three months prior, when a neighboring state had launched a probing assault amid a blizzard, their cavalry had barely stepped into the forest before triggering a chain of tripwire bells, followed by cascading boulders and plunging logs that sent screams echoing through the snowy valley. This annihilation of the scouting party was merely the lat…
Chapter 120