Chapter 1: An Jing

  The clouds and mountains melded into a single color, and the wind and frost were bitterly cold. In the vast Northern Frontier, heaven ah were cloaked in white.

  Snow swirled across ten thousand li* as though it were p straight from the sky. Even hundred-year-old pines looked as if they might topple uhe weight of the yered white frost, seemingly ready to bow the spines of all living things.

  (*A ese unit that roughly verts to ~0.5km or ~0.3mi.)

  A great river wound across the ndscape, stretg on without end, yet it entered id frost that sealed it, like a silver dragon imprisoned in a cage—uo unfurl its body and forced to lie prostrate beh the expanse of snowy mountains.

  Hoo—

  A bleak, pierg wind blew in from the extreme north, stirring the clouds and striking at anyone in its path.

  The long wind swept across.

  It brushed past distant mountains, abaowns, and blood-red snowfields scattered with corpses… Until at st, it shrouded a voy hastening across the ice pin.

  Amid rolling thunder-like hoofbeats, a group of riders escorted several rge carts at full gallop.

  Snow and ice cut like knives—bitterly bright, yet cold enough to freeze oo the marrow. The trees oher side of the riverbank were bed in crystal ice, standing silent and forbidding.

  The riders broke through the endless white drifts, causing shards of ice to tremble and fall as they advanced into the hushed twilight.

  Their destination y ahead: a t city built against the mountain—Mingshan City, in the Northern Frontier.

  Outside Mingshan City stood a refugee camp.

  Several gaunt refugees crouched around a small bonfire, eyes fixed hungrily on a pot that was beied over the fmes.

  Ihe pot, water was already close to boiling. A tantalizing aroma of meat drifted out, causing passersby to sniff the air and show a covetous gleam in their eyes.

  Those squatting around the fire occasionally exged idle banter. Whenever anyone came too close, they snarled a warning; if the person dared to talk back, they rose to their feet at once.

  Gripping sharpened wooden spears, their eyes shoh the feral green glow of hungry wolves. Most people steered clear of them.

  The soup began to boil, and the meaty smell intensified. They swallowed hard, drool esg the ers of their mouths, their gazes and the poking of the fire growing more urgent.

  But as the earth trembled, the dark shapes rushing from afar drew closer and closer.

  By the time these starving souls looked up, iron-shod hooves had already shattered the makeshift wooden fence, leaping over crude shacks and nding right before them.

  They screamed and scattered, but the pot had no such luck. Hooves stomped down, dousing the fire and overturning the pot, sending water spshing.

  A perfectly good pot of broth rolled off to the side, spilling across the ground.

  A hunk of meat tumbled out—already boiled until it was soft and mushy. From the size of the bones, one could barely tell it iei-rou.” Then the following hooves crushed it into a bloody pulp.

  Rumble-rumble-rumble…

  Not far away, o a row of tumbledown huts, a lean but sturdily built teenager pricked up his ears.

  Moments ago, he had been huddled over a simple stove with a cy pot simmering atop it. Scattered beside him were a few edial herbs, and the co i gave off a bitter smell.

  When he heard the thunder of hooves, he stood up slowly and turoward the sound.

  This youth’s hair was disheveled, and a knife hung at his waist. His thin flesh g to his promi bohough he looked nearly skeletal, there was a certain jagged sharpness about him.

  His eyes shoh pierg crity, his breath was long and steady, and his fists were tightly ched, knuckles covered in small scars and calluses.

  An Ji his gaze fixed on the riders and carts that had barged into the refugee camp.

  All of their horses were tall and handsome Northwestern warhorses, with long necks and powerful legs. Their broad, muscur chests and iron hooves could trample anything daring to block their way.

  The voy halted in the ter of the refugee camp. The riders dismouhen began unloading goods from the carts to form a simple encampment.

  “Jing’er, cough, cough, what are you looking at?”

  A woman’s voice came from behind An Jing.

  “Mother.”

  An Jing turned around and looked at his mother.

  She was a tall woman with an air of distin. In these Northern Frontier nds, ravaged by the Frost Camity, it was rare to find anyone who was not painfully thin. Though she was gaunt, her eyes were spirited.

  However, that spirited woman could now only lie on a b, needing to catch her breath after even a single sentence, often breaking into a cough.

  She had not always been so weak. Five days before, while esg the wastends for Mingshan City, the refugees were ambushed by rampaging horse bandits. An Shen Shi had sin seven of the marauders, but in the final exge with the bandit leader, she was outmatched by a single move and sustained an injury to her lungs.

  Fortunately, after An Jing dispatched his own oppo, he risked his life charging in, knog the man to the ground, strangling him unscious, and then seizing the bandit’s bde to take his head—finally sg the rest of the horse bandits into retreat.

  But the wounds to An Jing’s mother were ultimately severe. Her breathing was bored, and her internal energy was chaoti this refugee camp, with no medie or food, it was unclear how many more days she had left.

  “I was thinking about seeing if I could beg for some food,” An Jing said, turning his gaze to the voy. He instinctively licked his lips, which were cracked and bloodied from the cold. His attempt at moistening them only made them split further, causing fresh blood to appear.

  He licked away the blood a on slowly yet firmly, “They have provisions on those carts—rice, I think.”

  “Maybe they even have medie.”

  “I’m done for…” An Shen Shi’s eyes dimmed; she knew her son wao save her.

  But she uood her own dition. Without special herbs that could heal her wounded lungs and stabilize her breathing, she might survive only three more days at most.

  In the Northern Frontier, afflicted by this Frost Camity, famine, and stant war—even if there were generous souls distributing relief, it was uhey’d have the powerful medies she needed.

  She didn’t want her child to waste his efforts in vain. She hoped that in her final hours, he would simply stay by her side.

  But An Jing had always had his own mind. He realized what his mother inteo say and cut her off by her a bowl. “Mother, drink this medie first.”

  “I boiled white-spotted grass with old Qi-root. It’s simple, but it might help restore some energy and make your breathing a bit smoother.”

  An Shen Shi accepted the bowl from An Jing and dow in one gulp. Though it tasted bitter, the hot liquid warmed her slightly. She felt a little more alert.

  But as she put down the empty bowl, An Jing was already striding toward the voy.

  An Jing was not an ordinary Northern Frontier youth.

  From childhood oen had strange dreams.

  He dreamt of tless high-rise buildings made of steel and crete, t like a forest, eae taller than all the structures in his ty bined.

  He also dreamt of metal birds called airpnes, shooting straight into the clouds, roaming across the heavens in every dire—faster than all the birds of the mountains put together.

  Sometimes he dreamt of terrifying bombs that detonated like miniature suns. When hundreds or even thousands of such suns burst across the nd, the entire world was nearly scorched to nothing.

  I , people spoke often of Heaven’s Fate and believed that from time to time, stars desded into the mortal world. Having awakened some vestige of past wisdom, An Jing had shown exceptional talent from a young age and was naturally regarded by his family as a star desded from the heavens. They provided him with the best possible education, both literary and martial.

  Yet everaordinary intelligend strength could not withstand the sweeping Frost Camity that ravaged the entire Northern Frontier, nor the Northern Barbarians’ army that gathered and marched south.

  As just a boy, there was much that An Jing could not do; his mrievous injury was one such example of his powerlessness.

  But effort could ge fate.

  Even if there was only the slimmest ce, An Jing would do everything he could to find a cure for his mother.

  At that moment, as he approached the riders’ camp, he heard someone call out in a voice full of vigor:

  “Listen up!”

  Among the group of riders astride their tall warhorses, a one-eyed rider dressed in fiire was shouting loudly.

  Around him, the other riders wore bdes and armor, exuding a murderous aura. Their cold gazes swept across the refugees who didn’t dare approach.

  The one-eyed rider called out in a booming voice, “My master is merciful and ot bear to see you disaster victims waiting outside the city to die. He now offers to buy your lives with grain—bee servants in his household!”

  “We only want children and young youths, best if they are under fourteen. If their talents fit the bill, under sixteen is also acceptable!”

  “If you qualify, one person is worth one dou** of rice!”

  (**Another a ese unit, only taken as roughly 10 liters—enough to hold about 6-7 kilograms of rice, depending oy.)

  (End of Chapter)