"What?"
Wang Chong was dumbfounded, not daring to believe his ears. Hulayeg's actions were simply too shocking. Not even Wang Chong had expected him to use this sort of move.
"But will this move of his really be useful?"
Hulayeg's residence had been personally raided by the Fourth Prince, and before the Battle of Qixi Armory, this Fourth Prince had followed the Blue Wolf Protector-General Agudu Lan for a long time, listening to the latter's orders every day. His impression of Hulayeg was definitely not very good. In normal circumstances, it would already be quite good if he hadn't lunged at this traitor and taken a bite out of Hulayeg. It was almost impossible for Hulayeg to change his impression of him.
"Why else would he use the ruse of self-injury? Xu Keyi was really beating him, not holding back at all. As for Hulayeg, he was lying on the ground, his face ashen and his forehead drenched in sweat as he begged Xu Keyi to beat him even harder. I have to say that this Turkic horse merchant truly does have some ability. The Turkic Fourth Prince was imprisoned with him for several days. Every day, the Turkic Fourth Prince would hear the Turkic Fourth Prince ramble on about how he was only doing business with us. Moreover, in order to save him, the Turkic Fourth Prince had been ruthlessly beaten.
Xu Yi-qin covered her mouth with a smile.
"Oh? If that's really the case, then this fellow is truly worthy of respect! It seems like he's going all out to return to the Turkic steppe. "
As he listened to Xu Yi-qin's bell-like laughter, a hint of a smile appeared in Wang Chong's eyes.
"Forget it. Let him handle this matter!"
… …
At the same time, on the distant Mount Sanmi, where the tent of the Western Turkic Khaganate was located, a furious roar shook the heavens.
"What? They actually refused us again! Did they really think that our Western Turks would agree to such an impossible condition? "
Ishbara Khagan paced back and forth in the enormous golden tent like an enraged lion. All of Mount Sanmi trembled at his roars.
"Khagan, we've already asked again and again, but the other party insists on five hundred thousand of the best Turkic warhorses and refuses to relent. He also said that if we don't agree, he'll send the Fourth Prince's corpse to Mount Sanmi. "
In the tent, a scout knelt on the ground, trembling with fear. His head was almost buried between his thighs, and he didn't even dare to raise his head to take a look.
"Bastard! Then let them deliver the Fourth Prince's corpse! Tell them that five hundred thousand of the best Turkic warhorses is impossible! "
Ishbara Khagan was furious. His furious voice was like a clap of thunder that flashed through the sky above Mount Sanmi, causing the minds of everyone who heard it to tremble in fear. The scout prostrated on the ground, not daring to say a word.
"Hurry up and go!"
Ishbara Khan's eyes widened as he shouted angrily.
"Yes!"
Trembling all over, the scout turned and left, not daring to say another word. However, just as the scout reached the exit of the tent, boom, the earth shook, and black gas filled the air. An invisible black wall suddenly descended from the sky, enveloping the entire tent. The Turkic scout was caught off guard and slammed into the black wall of energy, his body staggering and almost falling to the ground.
"Paying respects to Lord Priest!"
But this had happened so suddenly that the Turkic scout did not immediately stand up. Instead, he prostrated on the ground, his head even lower in panic. In the tent, the furious Ishbara Khagan inhaled sharply the moment the black wall appeared. His expression became much more sober.
The entire tent was silent.
"Blackwater Shaman!"
Ishbara Khagan suddenly called out as he glanced outside the tent.
"Khagan, quell your anger. The matter of the Fourth Prince must be considered at length. Do not let your emotions affect your decisions."
At the exit of the tent, light and shadow changed. With a hoarse and old voice, a figure about five feet tall with a hunched back slowly walked in from outside the tent. His black robe reached the ground, and he was holding a black skull staff. At that moment, shadows began to flicker in the tent, with the black-robed figure at the center. Countless savage images of beasts surged out of the black-robed figure's body like streams of light.
Not only that, the moment the black-robed figure appeared, the golden tent began to emit a strange odor. It smelled like a bear, but also like a tiger. In short, it felt like a herd of animals had surged into the tent.
In the entire Western Turkic Khaganate, there was only one special existence that could give off this sort of feeling and charge into Ishbara Khagan's tent: the shaman priests.
No one knew how the shaman priests had come to be, only that they had appeared in the history of the Turkic steppe ever since the birth of the Turkic people, and they possessed an extremely lofty status. The legends said that the shaman priests could communicate with all animals and the gods in the heavens. They knew the past and could also see the future. Their bodies were shrouded in a dense fog, concealing countless secrets.
Moreover, all the shaman priests possessed a mysterious power that could not be explained with common sense. This power was not martial arts, but it was even more terrifying and mysterious. The people of the steppe called it sorcery.
The most famous legend of the shaman priests was that more than one thousand years ago, during the reign of the strongest emperor of the Central Plains, Emperor Wu of Han, powerful cavalry from the Central Plains had swept through the steppe and desert, repeatedly driving back the elite cavalry of the Turks. The Turkic steppe had been covered in corpses and rivers of blood. At the height of its power and at its peak, the Turkic Empire had encountered one of the most unyielding Emperors of the Central Plains, and after a series of wars, it had rapidly declined and become extremely weak.
This was something that had never happened on the steppe before.
And in the final battle, Emperor Wu of Han of the Central Plains sent his last powerful cavalry on a northern expedition against the Turks, intending to exterminate the Turks and put an end to any future troubles. At that time, all the people of the steppe were trembling in fear and apprehension, feeling that a great calamity was about to befall them. At that time, the strongest shaman of the Turkic steppe had led several hundred shaman priests on the path the army of the Central Plains had to take in order to cast shaman arts. The strongest army of the other Great Emperor of the Central Plains had suffered grievous casualties and sicknesses, and they had even begun to fight with the warlocks of the Central Plains.
Although the shaman priests had suffered grievous losses, with only a few remaining, they had still succeeded in destroying the most powerful cavalry army in history sent by the Great Emperor of the Central Plains, saving the Turkic people from extinction. For this reason, all the Turkic Khagans had treated the shaman priests with great respect, and the most respected of all the shaman priests was the branch left behind by that shaman leader.
The Blackwater Shaman was a branch left behind by that mighty shaman leader!
"Although five hundred thousand warhorses are precious, the value of the Fourth Prince cannot be compared to five hundred thousand warhorses. He is connected to the fate and future of our Western Turkic Khaganate. Khagan, you've read the oracle, so you should understand this."
The Blackwater Shaman leaned on his bone staff and slowly walked over.
"But the Western Turkic Khaganate does not have five hundred thousand of the best Turkic warhorses. This is an impossible mission!"
The word 'oracle' immediately made Ishbara Khagan much more clear-headed, but he quickly became enraged. The Turks were a people who lived on horseback, and they didn't have much of anything else but warhorses. But that also depended on what kind of horse it was. There were as many ordinary warhorses as one could want, and there were also millions of good horses. But the Western Turkic Khaganate probably did not have that many of the best and rarest warhorses, and even if they did, they would never give them to a Han. Wouldn't that be giving aid to the enemy?
After all, the Western Turkic Khaganate was still at war with the Tang dynasty. He could never agree to such a condition.
"Five hundred thousand of the best Turkic warhorses is naturally impossible, but the City of Steel cannot be left unnegotiated, and the Fourth Prince cannot be saved. Five hundred thousand warhorses was just a small trick used by the other party to raise the final price of the transaction. If they really didn't want to negotiate, the Fourth Prince would already be dead. There would have been no need to refuse Khagan again and again. For the future of the Western Turkic Khaganate, Khagan must remain calm. "
The Blackwater Shaman's lips moved as he slowly spoke. His face was shrouded in a black mist that acted like a veil, making it impossible to see his true appearance.
Ishbara Khagan's face froze, and he was momentarily speechless.
There was a reason why Ishbara Khagan favored the Fourth Prince. The steppe was facing an enormous crisis, one that was far more terrifying than any other in history. The first to feel this terror were the shaman priests of the steppe. They could hear the voices of the gods and knew the mysteries of the past and the future. Events of the past had proven the power of the shaman priests countless times.
The steppe would one day be destroyed, and that day would not be too far off!
This was a prophecy that Ishbara Khagan had heard since he was a child.
Very few people on the steppe knew of this secret, and only Ishbara Khagan, as a member of the imperial family, knew of it. From that moment on, he had been deeply uneasy, all the way until the birth of the Fourth Prince. 'This child is the hope of the entire Turkic steppe', 'His existence concerns the future of everyone', 'When the time comes, he will awaken to his mission and lead the Turks out of that dreadful calamity'. The prophecy of the shaman priests regarding this child had been deeply branded into Ishbara Khagan's mind.
This was also why he doted on the Fourth Prince so much. Just as the shaman priests had said, his value was immeasurable.
"Are we really going to be threatened by a teenage child who still smells of his mother's milk?"
Ishbara Khagan unwillingly said. As an illustrious sovereign of the steppe, Ishbara Khagan's reputation resounded through the kingdoms of the steppe. Even the Protector-Generals and Great Generals of the Central Plains had to be wary of him. But now, a teenage boy from the City of Steel was asking for a sky-high price and wantonly threatening him. As the Western Turkic Khagan, how could Ishbara Khagan tolerate this?
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