Cui Haocang finished reading the secret letter the scout had brought, and his face turned black in an instant.

He looked up at Yuan Long and his men ahead, then turned his gaze on the scout. "Damn you," he snapped. "Why is something this important only reaching me now?"

The scout was terrified. His voice shook. "Forgive me, General. I brought the letter the moment I got it. I didn't dare waste a single moment."

Cui Haocang knew, really, that none of this was the scout's fault.

They had been on a forced march the whole way, and no message could reach him directly... It had to go to Gaotian City first, and then someone had to be sent after them.

Seeing his face, Li Xing asked in a low voice, "General, what's happened?"

Cui Haocang handed him the secret letter.

Li Xing took it and read it, and the blood drained from his face too. "The Nanyue army, more than fifty thousand men, went into the Great Xuan's southern frontier pass and never came out. This... this, this..."

Cui Haocang's voice was grave. "It's a monstrous scheme. We've all fallen for it.

Fifteen thousand Nanyue men were cut down, and the rest were all taken prisoner.

And the battle was over in just a few hours... Even if every one of Yuan Long's seventy thousand men were a brave and seasoned fighter, they couldn't have finished it that fast. Someone must have helped them."

Li Xing's eyes narrowed. "Could it be the Great Xuan court's hundred thousand?" he blurted out.

Cui Haocang gave a small nod. "That's what I think too. We've all been had. The way it looks now... Yuan Long never betrayed the Great Xuan's court at all. They've been putting on an act the whole time.

This is a trap they laid carefully for Nanyue and for us, and we've all fallen into it."

Li Xing was starting to panic. "General, what do we do now?"

Cui Haocang lowered his voice. "Don't panic. Yuan Long brought so few men probably to put us off our guard...…