"This general, Huang Gai, pays his respects to the Wild Lord!"
Not long after the order was issued, Huang Gai, who had diligently handled logistics and miscellaneous affairs without a word of complaint, arrived at the central command tent.
Facing Xu Kun, he gave a standard military salute with meticulous precision.
"At ease," Xu Kun said calmly.
"Thank you, Wild Lord!" Huang Gai rose, his expression as still as water. He showed no unnecessary curiosity or questions, merely lowered his head and stood solemnly, quietly awaiting Xu Kun's instructions.
It was as if he would accept whatever task came next without condition.
"Huang Gai!" Xu Kun watched him and spoke slowly. "I want you to do something. This matter is exceedingly dangerous. The slightest mistake could mean... your death and the destruction of your soul."
"Do you dare go?"
Huang Gai's expression remained utterly unchanged, as though he had heard not a test of life and death, but an ordinary order.
Without hesitation, he dropped to one knee, his voice steady. "Please give your orders, Wild Lord! This general would die ten thousand deaths without regret!"
A faint smile touched Xu Kun's lips. Then, in the next instant, he said something astonishing.
"I want you... to immediately return to the Black Tortoise Race!"
The moment those words fell, not only was Huang Gai slightly stunned, but even Xuan Bai and Xuan Liao, standing nearby, froze in shock.
Xu Kun had previously revealed to them that, at an appropriate time in the future, they would return to the Black Tortoise Race as hidden pieces. That had been the future path he planned for some of those who had surrendered. But that was a long-term arrangement for after the great war ended and the situation stabilized.
Yet what Xu Kun had said