Isolated town in northern border region

After reading Tuge's plea for help, Xiao Lie did not hesitate for long.

He first returned to the northern frontier to summon Zhou Xun and Tie Muyun, who were on their honeymoon, and then called Xiao Xiong back from the Canglang Cavalry's encampment.

He stood in the middle of the tent and got straight to the point: "The grassland is on fire, and it has been burning for more than half a month. The herders have nowhere to graze their cattle and sheep, and they are migrating south."

His voice was not loud. "Tuge is my sworn brother. The people of the grasslands are also friends of the Chu Kingdom."

He glanced at Zhou Xun and said, "You just got married, so we shouldn't have sent you out."

Zhou Xun replied, "Your Highness, I can distinguish between what is important and what is not."

Xiao Lie glanced at Tie Muyun again: "You go too."

Tie Muyun nodded: "Okay."

Xiao Lie turned to Xiao Xiong: "The grassland is your homeland, you lead the way."

Xiao Xiong clasped his hands in a fist and said, "This subordinate understands."

Three days later, a disaster relief team led by Zhou Xun, Tie Muyun, and Xiao Xiong set off from northern Xinjiang. The vehicles were loaded with food, tents, herbs, and veterinary tools, and headed north along the official road into the grasslands.

The message arrived before the convoy.

When the tribes on the grasslands who were worried about the fire learned that the King of the Northern Frontier had sent people, some stood at the door of their yurts for a long time, while others rode their horses to the crossroads where they had to go and waited.

The first tribal elder to encounter the caravan paused for a moment upon seeing the wagons laden with supplies, then said, "The King of the Northern Frontier still remembers us."

He turned and waved to the tribespeople behind him, "Make room in the yurt for the guests."

That night, as Tie Muyun knelt by the fire bandaging the burns of a herdsman, the herdsman whispered to her, "Has the King of the Northern Frontier forgotten us?"

Tie Muyun finished bandaging: "I haven't forgotten."

The herdsman looked down at the clean strip of cloth in his hand and didn't ask any more questions.

While listening to several old herders describe the direction the fire was spreading in another tent, Xiao Xiong suddenly interjected, "Don't worry, the prince won't abandon the grasslands."

The old herdsman glanced at him: "Aren't you from the grasslands?"

Xiao Xiong nodded: "I am a grassland person. But I am now working for the King of the Northern Frontier."

The old herdsman was silent for a moment, then said, "That's good."

He didn't ask any further questions, but simply shoved a piece of dried cow dung from the edge of the fire into it, as if adding the last layer of soil to some unsealed ditch.

The disaster relief team spent half a month visiting more than a dozen affected tribes, distributing food, medicine, tents and fodder, and helping the herders to re-delineate temporary pastures.

Some herders were initially wary, but when they saw the craftsmen from northern Xinjiang using cement to repair the irrigation canals, they squatted down and watched for an entire afternoon.

Someone asked, "Does this grayish-brown stuff really keep out water after it dries?"

The craftsman patted the solidified canal wall: "Try kicking it."

The man hesitated for a moment, then actually kicked it, but the cement ditch wall didn't budge.

He didn't say anything more, but squatted down and touched the smooth surface with his finger, as if he was using his fingertip to check which section of a long-abandoned irrigation canal would be reconnected.

The irrigation canal extends down the terrain, converging the previously scattered water sources into a narrow stream, which is slowly but steadily spreading towards a depression that has not yet been irrigated.

As evening fell, he placed a bag of dried meat from his own home at the entrance of the craftsman's tent without leaving his name or saying hello.

When the craftsman saw the bag of dried meat the next morning, he only said three words: "That's thoughtful."

After the news spread, herders brought sheep milk and dry food in droves, and someone put a small stone from the grassland on a bag of dry food.

Zhou Xun put the stones into a cloth bag, intending to take them back to the capital.

More than a month later, the fire was still not completely extinguished.

Zhou Xun sent people to dig several firebreaks around the fire. The fire on the outer perimeter did gradually die down, but the fire in the central area continued to burn.

Zhou Xun stood at the edge of the firebreak, looking at the still-smoking ground in the distance, and said to Tie Muyun beside him, "The fire on the outer perimeter has been extinguished, but the one in the middle is still burning."

Tie Muyun followed his gaze and said, "Then let's wait a few more days."

Another half month passed, but the fire still hadn't gone out.

Zhou Xun finally couldn't sit still any longer, so he had several buckets of water poured onto the fire.

The moment the water hit the ground, the flames shot up several feet, emitting a muffled roar and scorching the hems of the clothes of several soldiers nearby.

Tie Muyun grabbed Zhou Xun and pulled him back a few steps. The flames almost grazed Zhou Xun's hair, leaving a scorching stream of air, like the sound of a sudden gust of wind.

Zhou Xun wiped the ash from his face and looked at the surging flames, as if he were truly getting to know the land for the first time, reassessing its surface with a long pause.

He squatted at the edge of the firebreak, watching the flames grow even more intense after being doused with water. He remained silent for a long time before saying to Tie Muyun beside him, "Something's wrong with this."

Tie Muyun stood behind him and put down the bucket of water in his hand: "It's not that the fire is wrong, it's that the ground is wrong."

She glanced at the scorched earth beneath her feet. "There's something underneath that's impervious to water and fire."

Zhou Xun stood up and dusted off his hands: "Write a letter to the Prince."

Tie Muyun nodded, turned around and walked back to his tent.

When the letter arrived in the capital, Xiao Lie was reading a test firing report on a new type of artillery.

He opened the letter and read it once. He frowned at first, then read it again, put the letter down, leaned back in his chair, and remained silent for a long time.

The clerk standing by the door waited for a reply. After a while, he finally spoke: "Write to Zhou Xun that water cannot extinguish the fire; instead, cover it with sand."

After the clerk accepted the order and left, Xiao Lie remained seated.

He picked up the letter again, his gaze lingered on the words "ignites upon contact with water" for a moment, then put it down again.

A moment later, Xu De pushed open the door and came in: "Your Highness, what happened to Zhou Xun?"

Xiao Lie handed over the letter, and Xu De did not respond immediately after reading it.

After a while, he put the letter back on the table: "The oil on the floor?"

Xiao Lie walked to the window and looked north: "It's underground oil. A huge area."

His voice was low, as if he were stating something he no longer needed to confirm.

He stood by the window for a long time, watching the wind outside rush in along the window sill, like an iron pen waiting to be used.

He turned and walked back to the desk, spread out the paper, and began to write a letter: "Zhou Xun, stop all open flame operations. Do not use water to extinguish the fire; instead, cover it with sand. Send people to guard the perimeter of the fire and do not allow anyone to approach. I will make further arrangements later."

After folding the letter and handing it to the messenger, he did not leave his desk.

He spread out a new sheet of paper and began writing a business plan.

He wrote slowly, each stroke deliberate and steady.

As darkness fell outside the window, lamps were lit in the imperial study, their flames flickering a few times before settling down.

The first line he wrote was: "At the site of the grassland fire, there is oil underground, the reserves of which are unknown, but preliminary judgment suggests they far exceed all existing known mineral deposits."

He paused for a moment, then continued writing: "Oil can be refined into lamp oil, lubricating oil, and fuel oil, which can be used to replace coal as a power source for steam engines. If successful, trains, ships, and factories can be freed from their dependence on coal mines."

He paused for a moment when he wrote the word "train," and then added a line of smaller text below: "Transportation capacity can be increased by at least 100%."

Then he turned to a page and began writing the equipment list, his handwriting denser than the previous two pages, as if he were using a fine pen to mark each of the unfinished parts on an unfinished assembly line.

The next morning, Xu De waited for a while at the door of the Imperial Study before knocking and entering.

He saw Xiao Lie asleep on the table, with a thick stack of papers covered in writing in front of him.

He didn't wake him, but simply draped a thin blanket over his shoulders and then stepped back to the doorway to wait.

When Xiao Lie woke up, it was already broad daylight. As he straightened up, the thin blanket on his shoulders slipped to the ground.

He glanced at the stack of papers on the table, arranged them in order, read them through from beginning to end, and then added a line at the end of the last page with a vermilion pen: "Oil storage tanks, oil refineries, and precision lathes—three lines advancing in parallel."

He rolled up the paper and put it in the drawer, then stood up and stretched his stiff shoulders. He walked to the window and opened it, letting the morning breeze in, carrying the dry, cold air characteristic of early winter in northern Xinjiang.

He stood by the window for a while, as if waiting for a wind that hadn't yet arrived, to determine which fold of the terrain the marked pipelines would follow after crossing the meadow and permafrost.

A guard brought in a bowl of porridge and placed it on the table. He glanced back at it, then turned back to look out the window.

A moment later, he walked to the desk, picked up his pen, and wrote another line on a new sheet of paper: "Send people to the grasslands to collect samples and bring them back to the northern frontier for testing."

He folded the letter, sealed it with wax, called the messenger, and then picked up the bowl of porridge that was already half-cold. He finished it in a few gulps, put the bowl down, and sat back down at his desk to start writing an instruction.

At the same time, a rumor began to circulate among the people.

In the teahouse, someone holding a teacup said, "That fire on the grassland is a heavenly fire. The fact that it has been burning for so long and cannot be extinguished is a warning from heaven."

Someone chimed in, "What warning?"

The first person lowered his voice: "The King of Shibei is going to conquer the world."

Someone nearby remained silent for a moment: "When he destroyed the Chen Kingdom, he said he wanted to conquer the whole world, but after he finished, he didn't conquer anyone else."

Another voice chimed in, "That's because he's waiting. When the time is right, he'll make his move."

The news spread from north to south, from teahouses to fields and villages.

An old man sitting on a stone mill at the village entrance didn't immediately respond after hearing the passerby's account. He ground the soil with the sole of his shoe, as if re-measuring the depth of an old mark to see how long it could hold: "If the prince really attacks, will our son still have to join the army?"

The person next to him did not answer.

Neither of them glanced at the other again. They each took a few steps in their own direction, paused for a moment, as if waiting for an unresolved echo to settle before deciding which direction to take next, and then continued on their way.

Among the people of Chu, some did not believe it, saying that the king had just finished fighting the state of Chen and would not be so quick to wage war again; others were skeptical, fearing that if it were true, the men in their families would be conscripted again.

Many more remained silent, like a layer of water slowly spreading out, waiting to see which side the rumor would ultimately land on before deciding which direction they would flow in.

Several regulars in the teahouse whispered, "If the prince really fights, the world will probably descend into chaos."

An elderly man at the next table put down his teacup and said, "Whether things are chaotic or not is not for us to decide. But what has the Prince done all these years, and wasn't it all to reduce the number of deaths?"

He didn't say much, stood up, paid for the tea, and left.

The warmth of the tea lingered on the cup for a moment before being cooled by the wind blowing in from the doorway.

The neighboring countries reacted more directly.

At a market on the border of Yan, several vendors whispered among themselves as they packed up their stalls. Someone said that the King of Northern Chu would not be satisfied with just the territory of Chen.

At a post station in the Shu Kingdom, a fast horse changed its saddle at nightfall and continued galloping south.

The matter was not openly discussed in the Jing Kingdom's court, but Jiang Jun had several secret reports sent back from the border on his desk. After reading them, he did not make any annotations, but put them under the paperweight and waited for them to dry on their own and become old slips of paper that no longer needed to be read again.

The edges of the pages revealed several parallel creases under the paperweight. He reached out and pressed them down, then withdrew his hand, as if to confirm whether the crease would extend further before closing.

Jiang Jun sat under the lamp, looking at the narrow shadow cast by the lamplight on the edge of the stack of secret reports. It was as if he was re-evaluating how many unmarked gaps were left on a certain border line through the light and shadow that had not yet fully closed, waiting for them to decide on their own when they would become a border line that no longer needed to be checked.

On the grassland, Zhou Xun led his men to cover the still-burning area with sand.

A few days later, the flames were completely extinguished, leaving only a scorched ground with dark liquid seeping from the cracks, reflecting slightly in the sunlight.

Zhou Xun squatted down and used the tip of his knife to pick up a little oil. The oil droplet slowly gathered on the blade and then slid back down the blade into the crack in the ground, as if reconfirming its flow direction.

He glanced at the shape of the oil stain that had spread across the muddy ground, extending about a foot southeastward along the depression.

He stood up and said to the soldier next to him, "Fence off that area, put up a sign, and keep out the unauthorized."

The soldier accepted the order and left.

Zhou Xun stood there for a while, then sheathed his sword and turned back to the camp. The oil stain slowly seeped into the muddy ground along the low-lying areas, like a new mark seeping from the bottom of an old, drying riverbed, waiting for someone to follow its texture to determine which deeper depression it would flow into.

When the wind blew from the depths of the grassland, the edge of the oil stain rippled slightly before returning to stillness, as if confirming where its boundary would stop at an unformed crack.

After receiving the report that "the fire has been extinguished," Xiao Lie did not reply immediately. Instead, he folded the letter and put it in the drawer, then took out the unfinished plan and continued writing.

A copper kettle hangs above the stove, its spout pointing north. The white steam it emits slowly deflects along the wind, as if blocked by an invisible boundary, before gathering back into a straight line.

At the entrance of an unfinished oil storage tank not far away, the newly applied plaster on the inner wall of the tank had not yet dried completely, and several downward-sloping water streaks had seeped out, not yet flowing into the water layer at the bottom of the tank.

Xiao Lie squatted by the pool and reached out to touch the bottom of the watermark. A thin layer of wet mud clung to his fingertip.

He pulled his hand back, wiped it on his trouser leg, and glanced again at the watermark that hadn't yet flowed into the bottom of the pool. It was as if he was using that not-yet-dry mark to measure a timeline he hadn't fully traversed, waiting for the pool walls to dry completely before he could determine on which day the first drop of oil would flow down that sloping channel into the bottom of the pool.