Chapter 6: Beauty Bids Farewell

Finally, after purchasing some daily necessities in Liangzhou, Liu Zheng instructed Liu Dahao to prepare plenty of green fabric; though he did not understand why, Liu Dahao followed the instructions anyway.

The sun set in the west.

Liangzhou is often filled with red clouds.

One person.

Two donkeys, and some luggage.

Slowly leaving the city.

This matter spread throughout all of Liangzhou in an instant. The dignified richest man in Liangzhou, Liu Dahao, was being led by his own spendthrift son to the desolate, ungovernable land of Yinzhou.

Along the way, many people followed to watch.

Hearing that the young master of the Liu Family was leaving Liangzhou, the countless courtesans and top flower-girls of the pleasure districts saw him off with tears in their eyes.

Once he left...

Their income would be much less! The repeated, resentful cries of "You heartless man" and "Young Master Liu" spread through every street and alley.

There were those who gloated.

There were those who felt sympathy and pity.

There were those who humiliated and slapped faces.

There was even a group of children running behind the donkeys, singing a nursery rhyme that no one knew who had just composed.

"Old man of the Liu Family, riding the donkey backward."

"Leave Liangzhou, Disrupt Heaven's Will."

"Feng Sanniang, Never Stopping Hooves."

"Yinzhou Beach, Looking East and West!"

Feng Sanniang was Liu Zheng's mother. She was another quite extraordinary figure; as a woman, Feng Sanniang was a professional escort guard! When this major event occurred, she happened to be escorting a caravan to Jinghua, but Liu Dahao had already sent a letter. Even if she rushed back from Jinghua, it would take at least a month.

The father and son of the Liu Family had long prepared themselves mentally to be "lashed" by Feng Sanniang.

"It even rhymes!"

Hearing these nursery rhymes, Liu Zheng laughed heartily, not taking them to heart.

"County Marquis Liu, the road ahead is long, you must take good care of your safety!"

"Old Master Liu, we await the day you return to Liangzhou!"

On the road, many of Liu Dahao's old friends still came to see him off, and many of the original servants and maids of the Liu Family were there, their eyes blurred with tears, reluctant to part. Liu Dahao was a generous man and had left behind a good reputation.

"Farewell, everyone, farewell!"

Liu Dahao's eyes were also red.

"Hahahaha, County Marquis Liu is going to take up a high official post, why be so mournful?"

Just then, a fat man in brocade robes arrived in a carriage pulled by eight horses, with twenty or thirty servants and thugs surrounding him, acting extremely arrogant.

As soon as this person arrived, the crowds on the street scattered, fearing they would be trampled by the horses.

"Old Qian, I knew you wouldn't be missing today. Once I leave, you'll be the richest man in Liangzhou; surely you don't have to be this petty?" Liu Dahao snorted coldly.

That Qian Buqun chuckled: "Brother Liu, that is where you are wrong. The business you spent your whole life building is all falling into my hands, so why would I come to mock you? I am here to give a gift!"

"A gift?"

Liu Dahao sneered.

This Qian Buqun was the very merchant promoted by Chen Ping; with Liu Dahao down and out and Qian Buqun on the rise, Chen Ping had finally removed a thorn in his side, and Qian Buqun, a petty man drunk on his own success, naturally had to come and humiliate him.

"That's right, bring it up for Brother Liu!"

A look of mockery flashed in Qian Buqun's eyes as he laughed heartily.

The men complied, and to everyone's surprise, they carried up two willow-wood coffins.

"You..."

Liu Dahao was furious.

The whole scene erupted in an uproar; everyone said that Qian Buqun had gone too far—to gift someone a coffin, wasn't that cursing them to die?

Qian Buqun, however, spoke with feigned earnestness: "Brother Liu, you must understand my intentions! Yinzhou is an ungovernable land; if you encounter bandits or highwaymen on the road, you wouldn't want to leave your corpses exposed in the wilderness, right?"

The gang of servants burst into loud laughter.

"Old Qian, you..."

Liu Dahao was trembling with rage.

Liu Zheng, however, stopped his father and chuckled: "Willow-wood coffins are not cheap. Uncle Qian, you are very thoughtful, but the two donkeys really cannot pull them; why not just give us the cash equivalent, Uncle Qian?"

Qian Buqun was stunned, then reacted, his expression turning strange: "Cash equivalent?"

"It means you give him the silver so he can enjoy himself one last time!"

Someone said.

Qian Buqun looked up and laughed: "Good, good, good! I never expected that a hero like Brother Liu would produce such a piece of work. Fine, cash equivalent—two coffins, two hundred taels of silver!"

Liu Zheng smiled, and under the mocking gazes of the crowd, reached out his hand to receive it.

"Enough!"

At this moment, a fast horse galloped over. A sharp cry rang out, and a horsewhip landed on Liu Zheng's wrist; the latter felt a sudden pain and was about to curse, but seeing that the person was Chen Ruoshi in red attire, he swallowed the insults he was about to utter.

Chen Ruoshi glared at Liu Zheng in disappointment and shouted: "Liu Zheng, do you really want to be that greedy wretch? Do you know, do you know... you!"

The harsh words did not come out.

Liu Zheng looked displeased: "Know what? What does it have to do with you if I like money?"

He was very unhappy.

That was two hundred taels of silver!

Yinzhou was barren; two hundred taels of silver was enough for ten households to eat for a year!

"You, you, you, you're going to be the death of me! If you're greedy for that money, this young lady will give it to you! But I have one condition."

Chen Ruoshi glared at Liu Zheng, her delicate body trembling, the expression in her eyes complex.

"Speak!"

Liu Zheng was overjoyed; someone was actually sending him money?

"That poem from yesterday, give me another one! If this young lady is satisfied, all of this is yours!"

Chen Ruoshi took out a money bag, ripples of emotion flickering in her eyes.

More?

Liu Zheng was stunned, then chuckled.

He never thought that the Tang and Song poetry he was forced to memorize by his teachers in his past life would be so valuable.

"Ten years of life and death, two vast and boundless worlds; not thinking of you, yet naturally hard to forget."

"A thousand miles of lonely grave, nowhere to speak of my sorrow. Even if we met, you would not recognize me; dust covers my face, my temples like frost."

"In the night, a quiet dream suddenly returns home; by the small window, you are combing your hair. We look at each other without a word, only a thousand lines of tears. I imagine the place where the heart breaks every year, the moonlit night, the short pine ridge."

"You, you..."

Chen Ruoshi's eyes turned red; it was as if she felt the sorrow of parting, suddenly feeling her heart torn to pieces.

"I'll count it as yours!"

As she spoke, she flicked her hand through the air, and a money bag carrying the warmth and fragrance of a woman's body was tossed over.

Liu Zheng gave a brilliant smile, weighed it—there were several hundred taels—and held it to his nose to take a deep sniff, looking completely infatuated, then casually said thanks.

"Lecher!"

Chen Ruoshi's cheeks flushed red, and she said angrily.

She had clearly thought of a whole bunch of things to say to him on the road, but seeing Liu Zheng's spineless appearance—being humiliated and still shamelessly reaching out for money, and even giving him all her private savings—he was actually like this!

But the poems he looked at her with during yesterday's Poetry Gathering, and that eternal masterpiece just now...

She couldn't force another word out.

"Miss Chen..."

Qian Buqun wanted to greet her.

"Get lost!"

Chen Ruoshi barked.

Qian Buqun slunk away, and Chen Ruoshi glared at Liu Zheng again: "Yinzhou is a place beyond governance, the journey is treacherous, take care of yourself! If you can't stay there, come back to Liangzhou; relying on writing poems to sell for money is still better than dying of old age over there!"

After saying this, she didn't look at Liu Zheng again, pulled the reins, and galloped away on her horse.

Liu Zheng and Liu Dahao looked at each other.

Could it be that this girl really has taken a fancy to him?

Ha!

Among the three prefectures, Yinzhou is actually the closest to Liangzhou. It is just too barren, and its presence has never been strong. But even though it is the closest, the two of them still needed to ride donkeys for seven days and six nights.

Three days in a row.

The further they went, the more desolate it became; on the first two days, they could still see taverns on the road to stay at, but by the third day, they hadn't seen a soul for several hours.

In the desert and Gobi, someone like Liu Dahao who lived in luxury couldn't stand it at all and complained incessantly.

But what surprised him was that his son, on the contrary, had undiminished interest along the way.

"Zheng, what are you excited about this time?"

Seeing Liu Zheng holding a stone and shooing away several crows in the sky with a look of joy, Liu Dahao gulped down a large mouthful of water and asked.

The weather was scorching, and he hadn't stopped drinking water along the way; fortunately, the two of them had anticipated this situation and prepared plenty of fresh water on the donkeys' backs.

"Old man, do you have a strange feeling?"

Liu Zheng asked with a smile.

Both were on the donkeys' backs; although their faces were quite parched, there wasn't much dust on their bodies.

Liu Dahao said: "Strange?"

Liu Zheng nodded: "Why is it that when the donkeys go downhill, their speed slows down instead, and they look very strained? But sometimes when going uphill, they move as if flying; this clearly makes no sense!"

Liu Dahao thought about it and realized it was indeed so; seeing the sky growing dark, he said in horror: "Zheng, do you mean we've walked into a ghost city?"

"Pfft..."

Liu Zheng spat out a mouthful of water, choking himself, and gave Liu Dahao a helpless glare, shaking his head: "The magnetic field here is wrong!"

"What is a magnetic field?"

Liu Zheng didn't know how to explain it either.

But he knew that there was only one possibility for this kind of magnetic field disturbance: there was a large-scale mine here! Although he didn't know yet if it was an Iron Mine, a gold mine, a silver mine, or bauxite, etc., any of them could cause such a situation! And it must be a mine with an astonishing reserve to be like this!

"It really is a treasure land!"

Liu Zheng laughed heartily, his heart filled with excitement.

On that sheepskin map, it showed that this was "Wangshanpo" within the jurisdiction of Yangzhou, which was closest to Yinzhou. Perhaps due to the influence of the magnetic field, people who came here would experience deviations in direction and momentum, hence the meaning of "looking at the mountain and running a horse to death." Yangzhou was equally barren, just slightly better than Yinzhou.

He must take it in the future!

A sharp glint flashed in Liu Zheng's eyes.

Since he had the intention, under Liu Zheng's request, they entered Yangzhou to stay for the night before dark.

Liu Dahao was already exhausted and naturally had no objections.

Before the sun set, the two finally arrived in Yangzhou.

Who would have thought that just after entering the city, intending to find a place to eat.

A burst of killing sounds from weapons clashing rang out.

The two people, carrying a massive sum of money, were simultaneously terrified and hurriedly dodged.

That group of people, however, was already rushing toward this side.