Chapter 821

Three days later, the west gate of Tongwan City.

The morning mist hadn't yet dissipated when five large horse carts fully loaded with goods drove slowly out of the city gate tunnel, the cart tracks pressed extremely deep, the creaking sound of wooden wheels grinding over the stone road spreading dully through the mist.

Stacked on the lead cart was fine Shu brocade, the second cart was loaded with Jiangnan's Yuqian Longjing tea, each box wrapped in three layers of oil paper and silk velvet, with two red lanterns written with "Chen's Merchant House" hanging outside the carriage.

Zhang Wenqian stood on the city wall, watching the caravan disappear into the dust at the end of the main road, his lips pressed tightly into a line.

Chu Ci stood beside him, and neither of them spoke.

Below the city gate, Gao Jiong flipped onto his horse, lowered his voice, and waved his hand toward the three hundred Mounted Cavalry behind him.

"Divide into six groups, fifty people per group, thirty li apart, break into small units and follow, no armor allowed, no flags allowed, don't follow too closely."

He took the iron helmet off his head and replaced it with a tattered straw hat.

"The Zhuguo's life is heavier than Heaven; if you lose him, your entire families' lives won't be enough to fill the gap."

The three hundred Mounted Cavalry dispersed silently, like a handful of sand scattered, disappearing into the villages and woodlands on both sides of the main road.

In the carriage, Chen Yan leaned against a pile of silk, shaking an ivory-boned folding fan in his hand, the moon-white silk long robe wrapping his aura of decisive killing power tightly away.

His hair was pinned with a white jade hairpin, a high-quality mutton-fat jade pendant hung at his waist, and two bright green emerald bracelets were worn on his wrists; from head to toe, he exuded the air of a foolish, wealthy playboy.

Hongye sat opposite him, wearing a green cloth narrow-sleeved maid's outfit, her hair simply tied in a low bun, her face devoid of any expression.

Her right hand rested on her knee, the width of her sleeve an inch wider than that of an ordinary maid, and in that inch of space was hidden the hilt of the fine steel short sword.

Chen Yan shook his fan and glanced at her.

"Your expression is too cold; you are a maid serving a young master, not a sword-wielding assassin; lift the corner of your mouth by a fraction."

The corner of Hongye's mouth moved; the curve was very light, as if it had been pulled upward by half an inch by a thread.

Chen Yan looked for two breaths and shook his head.

"Forget it, just say you're mute."

The caravan traveled along the main road all the way west, walking for most of the day, the scenery on both sides of the road gradually changing from golden wheat fields to gray-brown hills.

The sun was fierce in the afternoon, and Chen Yan had the caravan stop at a roadside tea shed to rest.

The tea shed had only a dilapidated thatched roof and two crooked wooden tables, and an old man with gray hair was squatting by the stove boiling a pot of suspicious-looking water.

Chen Yan got off the carriage, unfolded his fan, walked to the wooden table with long strides, and sat down, crossing his legs.

"Shopkeeper, do you have any good tea?"

The old man turned his head to look at this young man wearing a silk long robe, then looked at the five fully loaded large horse carts parked by the road, his eyeballs rolling twice.

"Where is the guest coming from?"

Chen Yan flicked a ten-tael silver ingot from his sleeve, "clapping" it onto the table, shaking the table twice.

"Coming from Jiangnan, selling silk and tea; heard Xiazhou had a bumper harvest this year, so I came to try my luck and do some grain business."

He placed the folding fan beside the silver ingot and grinned at the old man.

"Tea money, no need to give change."

The old man stared at the silver ingot for three breaths, his mouth opening twice, and a kind of complexity flashed in those turbid old eyes that was more than just surprise.

It was fear.

He didn't reach out to take the silver, but instead pushed the silver ingot back toward Chen Yan with his palm, trembling.

"Guest, this money, this old man doesn't dare take it."

Chen Yan's folding fan snapped shut in his palm.

"Think it's too little?"

The old man shook his head frantically, a layer of fine cold sweat squeezing out from his wrinkles.

"It's not that it's too little, it's that this road the guest is taking won't work."

His voice was suppressed to a level that only two people could hear, and he leaned his body two inches toward Chen Yan.

"Thirty li ahead is Yixiantian (A Line of Sky); that place has been occupied by the Iron Wolf Gang; once you go in, you don't come out."

Chen Yan slowly spun the folding fan in his palm, the foolish smile on his face not receding.

"What kind of thing is the Iron Wolf Gang?"

The old man's lips trembled.

"Guest, you're from outside; you don't know the rules of this road."

He looked back at his surroundings, and after confirming that no third person was eavesdropping, his voice lowered by another half.

"The passage fee is ten percent of the base price of the goods; if your cart has iron ore or raw materials for weapons, you have to pay thirty percent."

His finger drew a circle on the table, as if sketching something.

"Those who pay can pass; those who don't—last month, a whole merchant caravan of over thirty people went into Yixiantian and never came out again."

Chen Yan's eyelids jumped slightly, but the curve of his mouth remained motionless.

"What about the government? Doesn't Xiazhou have Chen Zhuguo? Why doesn't he manage this kind of thing?"

The old man's expression became extremely strange when he heard the three words "Chen Zhuguo," as if he wanted to say something but didn't dare, holding it in for three breaths before squeezing out a sentence from between his teeth.

"The Zhuguo can manage Heaven and Earth, but he can't manage the tigers in the mountains."

He pushed the silver back toward Chen Yan by another two inches.

"Guest, take this old man's advice: take your goods and your people and go back the way you came; don't keep going forward."

Chen Yan reached out and picked up the silver ingot, tossed it between his fingers, and then stuffed it back into his sleeve.

He stood up, slung the folding fan over his shoulder, and jerked his chin toward the direction of the bosom.

"Let's go, keep moving forward."

The old man watched his back with his mouth open, those turbid old eyes filled with three words.

Tired of living.

After the caravan got back on the road, they walked for another twenty-plus li, the hills on both sides of the road growing higher and higher, gradually turning into gray-brown sheer cliffs, the sky squeezed into a narrow slit by the cliffs on both sides.

Yixiantian.

Chen Yan lifted the carriage curtain to take a look; the cliffs on both sides of the canyon were like iron plates split by a giant axe, so vertical that there were no footholds for climbing, the terrain so dangerous it made one's heart hair-raising.

When the caravan reached the middle of the canyon, a dull rumbling sound suddenly came from the passage ahead.

Dozens of boulders of various sizes rolled down from the right cliff, smashing onto the road surface of the canyon, kicking up a large cloud of gray dust and blocking the road ahead completely.

At the same time, a dense and frantic sound of horse hooves came from behind, like a herd of wild bulls released from their pens running wild in the dust.

The sound of hooves grew closer, surging from the rear of the canyon.

Chen Yan lifted the carriage curtain, the fan surface spinning half a circle on his fingertips.

Over a hundred fierce bandits riding short-legged horses rushed out from the bend behind the canyon, blocking the retreat of the caravan completely.

Every fierce bandit had a black hemp strip wrapped around their face, revealing only two eyes full of fierce light, the weapons in their hands—knives and spears—uneven and mismatched.

The one in the lead was especially eye-catching.

A one-eyed dragon.

A copper piece was buckled over the position of his left eye, and an evil ghost pattern with bared fangs was engraved on the copper piece. His right hand held a nine-ring broadsword, the nine iron rings on the back of the blade clattering in the jolting of the galloping horse, like a string of funeral bells blowing in the wind.

He reined in his horse, the short-legged horse stopping at a distance of thirty paces from the caravan, snorting as it raised its hooves.

The one-eyed dragon's voice was as loud as if it had been beaten out of a bronze gong.

"Yo, a fat sheep has come!"

He laid the nine-ring broadsword horizontally across his saddle, that single eye scanning the five horse carts of the caravan, his gaze finally landing on the two red lanterns on the lead cart.

"Chen's Merchant House? Coming from Jiangnan? Good, fat enough to flow with oil."

He waved his hand behind him, and the fierce bandits scattered, surrounding the caravan completely.

Chen Yan walked off the horse cart unhurriedly, his folding fan snapping open in his hand, the fan surface painted with a picture of a lady; he fanned it twice and smiled at the one-eyed dragon.

"This good man, do you want to do business or make friends?"

The one-eyed dragon tilted his head and sized him up for two breaths, that single eye scanning from his moon-white long robe to the jade pendant at his waist, and finally to the maid in green clothes behind him.

His mouth split open.

"Do business."

He lifted the nine-ring broadsword from the saddle and pointed it at the five horse carts one by one.

"Leave the silk, leave the tea, leave the silver, and you people can go."

His single eye rolled around and finally settled on Hongye's face.

"No, that maid has to stay too."

Chen Yan snapped the folding fan shut in his palm, the corner of his mouth still hanging with a smile.

"Good man, why hurt the harmony when there's no grudge or enmity? I'm a merchant, not here to cause trouble."

His hand fumbled from his sleeve and pulled out a gold ingot, spinning it between his fingers twice.

"This gold ingot is worth fifty taels; consider it the passage fee. See if you can accommodate us and let us pass."

The one-eyed dragon stared at the gold ingot for a breath, the curve of his mouth expanding by three parts.

He flipped off the horse's back, walked to a distance of three steps in front of Chen Yan, and stood still, the back of the nine-ring broadsword patting his own shoulder twice.

"Kid, is this your first time on this road?"

He pulled a palm-sized iron plaque from his waist, on which was engraved a mark that Chen Yan was very familiar with.

The military secret mark of the Zhechong Prefecture.

The one-eyed dragon shook the iron plaque twice in front of Chen Yan, his voice raising by another level.

"See this? My brother-in-law is a commandant of the Third Battalion of the Zhechong Prefecture in Xiazhou! In western Xiazhou, we are Heaven!"

He stuffed the iron plaque back into his waist, the tip of the nine-ring broadsword raising two inches toward Chen Yan.

"Even if Chen Yan, Chen Zhuguo, came personally today, he'd still have to obediently leave the passage money!"

When Chen Yan heard this sentence, the folding fan in his hand stopped.

The corner of his mouth still hung with a smile, but the curve of that smile changed shape in an instant, turning into something that made the one-eyed dragon's hair stand on end.

He turned his head and looked at the moon-white shadow beside him.

His tone was flat, as if he were ordering a maid to pour a cup of tea.

"Kill."