Crossing the Great Desert... Was My Choice Wrong? What, I Still Have to Keep Going?
A mission?
What kind of mission?
One that only I could accomplish?
Shen Le desperately racked his brains, trying to sort through this body's memories. Since that Tibetan Empire incursion, when they had attacked the beacon towers and carried off the population, it had been...
Five years?
Ten years?
Ah, it had already been ten years. Ten years holding fast in the desert, ten years with no news from home. In those ten years, the once spirited youth had become weathered and worn.
Over those ten years, he had watched the Tibetan Empire and Uyghurs grow ever stronger, while the Tang army received less and less support from the Central Plains, until there was almost none at all.
By now, only Anxi and Beiting, the two Protectorates supporting one another like horns, could barely hold on and preserve a remnant of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions, surrounded by wolves on every side...
He clasped his fists and called out loudly:
"General! I would rather die than fail the trust you have placed in me!"
"Good—"
The general spun around and slammed his palm onto the table before him. The entire table shuddered with a boom.
"I order you to lead a squad of ten north to Kucha and meet with the Grand Protector-General. Then, join forces with the men he dispatches and proceed to—Chang'an!"
Shen Le gave a slight start. Or rather, the soul belonging to A-Li, sleeping within this body, trembled faintly.
Ever since the first year of Yongtai, when their group had accompanied the Grand Protector-General on an inspection tour of the Hexi Corridor and Anxi, only to be forced to remain in Anxi, the Protectorate had tried almost every year