Chapter 43

Chapter 43

With the mule cart, they moved much faster each day, and everyone suffered a little less.

Zhu Laosan and Li Si had not fully recovered yet, so they were put in charge of driving the cart. At least that meant both of them could sit on it and rest.

The Xiao Family was not familiar with the lands outside Shanhai Pass, especially Jin Bao. Since she was little, the farthest place she had ever been was the back mountain of Sanjiacun.

If she had not been exiled together with the Xiao Family this time, she never would have known the world was so vast.

At first, everyone thought it might not be so bad to travel all the way to the Northern Frontier like this. But before even a day had passed, their mood changed.

The willows, poplars, and locust trees that could be seen everywhere inside the pass no longer lined the road.

In their place were clumps of short, drought-resistant thornbushes, coated all over in gray-white dust.

Now and then, they passed vast reed marshes. The damp, salty wind blowing in from the Bohai Sea made the reeds rustle loudly.

The official road was no longer a smooth, tamped-earth path. It had become narrow and bumpy.

Most of the road surface was covered in deep ruts baked pale by the blazing sun.

Scalding sunlight poured down on them.

Their clothes dried after being soaked with sweat, then grew wet again, leaving patches of white salt stains behind.

“Mother, Baby is thirsty.”

Jin Bao leaned listlessly in Pei Wanqing’s arms.

Her delicate lips were covered in dry, peeling skin, and her whole little body had been roasted limp by the heat.

Pei Wanqing held a piece of bundle cloth over their heads as a makeshift parasol, but even so, Jin Bao’s small face had been baked bright red.

Only then did everyone realize that the desolation outside the pass was far harsher than anything described in books.

They had traveled less than fifty li beyond the pass, yet the environment was already this brutal. Just thinking about the road ahead sent a chill through their hearts.

“Good girl, bear with it a little longer. We’ll find water soon.”

Pei Wanqing patiently coaxed Jin Bao. They had set out from Shanhai Pass in the morning, and all the water they had brought was already gone. Now there were only empty waterskins left.

Even the adults could barely endure it, let alone such a small child.

Fortunately, Jin Bao was obedient. Hearing her mother say that, she did not speak again. She just curled weakly in her mother’s arms and lightly licked her lips.

Xiao Che and Xiao Jingmo raised their hands to wipe the sweat from their foreheads. Their feet felt as if they weighed a thousand catties.

Several times, Madam Chen could not keep walking and wanted to stop and rest. Zou Yong came over and lashed her a few times with his whip, forcing her to barely keep up with the group. She had never felt anything so unbearable in her life.

When the sun began to slant westward, they finally reached a small village.

Sharp-eyed Jin Bao spotted an old man watering crops in a field by the roadside.

“Mother, water. Baby wants water.”

Jin Bao pointed at the two buckets of water sitting at the edge of the field. Her voice was as weak as a kitten’s.

Jin Bao was not the only one who saw the water. Madam Chen noticed it at once too.

At that moment, strength surged through Madam Chen’s entire body. All she could see were those two buckets of water. Even the shackles on her feet no longer felt heavy. She threw all her effort into running toward the edge of the field.

Jin Bao was desperately thirsty. She stood up from Pei Wanqing’s arms, climbed down from the mule cart, and ran over.

Just as Jin Bao picked up the dipper, Madam Chen, who had followed close behind, shoved her to the ground. Pei Wanqing, who had also come over, saw it happen and flew into a rage.

“Madam Chen, how dare you push my daughter!”

Pei Wanqing rolled up her sleeves, ready to fight Madam Chen, but Madam Chen dodged aside and, holding the dipper, gulped down the water to her heart’s content.

“Mother! Baby hurts.”

Jin Bao’s crying pulled Pei Wanqing’s attention back. She quickly picked up her daughter, then checked her carefully and discovered that Jin Bao’s two little hands had been scraped open by the clods of dirt on the ground, leaving several bloody scratches.

“Good girl, I’m sorry. Mother didn’t protect you properly.”

Pei Wanqing’s heart ached terribly. She took a clean handkerchief from her robes and bandaged Jin Bao’s little hands.

“You wanted to fight me for water? You really overestimate yourselves. This water is so sweet. Do you all want some too? Kneel down and beg me.”

In truth, the water was almost impossible to swallow, but Madam Chen wanted to show off, so she kept a straight face.

Madam Chen scooped up another full dipper of water, her face full of smug satisfaction.

Pei Wanqing was so angry her teeth itched. Jin Bao had clearly found the water first, but this Madam Chen was utterly shameless, actually fighting a child for it.

“Hey! What are you people doing?”

Madam Chen had finally managed to make Pei Wanqing suffer for once and was secretly delighted when an old man ran over from a nearby cornfield while tying up his waistband.

When he saw that Madam Chen was actually drinking water with his manure dipper, his face filled with disgust.

“You woman, if you wanted water, you could have gone to the village and asked for some. Surely you didn’t need to drink from my family’s manure dipper, did you?”

When Pei Wanqing heard that, she could not hold it in and burst out laughing on the spot.

Madam Chen froze where she stood. After staring at the dipper in her hand for a long moment, she bent over and started retching.

“Madam Chen, is the water sweet? If it’s so sweet, why are you throwing up? What a waste.”

After Pei Wanqing had laughed enough, she could not resist mocking her a little more.
Madam Chen had vomited until her face turned an ugly purplish red.

After Zhu Laosan went forward to ask the old man a few questions, he drove the mule cart into the village and found the village chief. They planned to spend the night there.

The village was not large. Only twenty-some low adobe houses were scattered about.

At the village entrance stood an old elm tree with a crooked trunk. Most of its bark had been stripped away, exposing the grayish-white wood beneath.

It was dinnertime, yet in the entire village, only a sparse few households had fires lit for cooking.

What Jin Bao and the others lacked most right now was water.

After Zhu Laosan negotiated with the village chief, they learned that the village had only one well, located at the western end.

The village chief led everyone to the well.

Xiao Jingmo drew up a bucket of water and filled a waterskin for Jin Bao to drink.

Jin Bao only took one sip before her little face scrunched up.

“Second Brother, it tastes awful.”

Puzzled, Xiao Jingmo took a sip himself. It was salty, bitter, astringent, and carried a heavy alkaline earthiness.

He crouched down and pinched up a handful of soil from the ground. No wonder the water here tasted so terrible. This was saline-alkali land. Drinking too much of this water would be harmful to the body.

“Village Chief, this is the water your village drinks?”

The village chief was a stooped old man. At those words, his cloudy eyes filled with bitterness.

“What else can we do if we don’t drink it? Our people have lived like this for generations. Crops watered with it grow thin and sparse. People who drink it get bloated bellies and no strength. But if we don’t drink it, we die.”

The villagers heard that outsiders had arrived and came over in twos and threes, but they did not dare get too close. They only watched from a distance.

Xiao Che looked at them. Their clothes were ragged, the children were barefoot, their hair was disheveled, their faces dirty. Every one of them was sallow and thin.

For a moment, Xiao Che’s heart wavered. He did not know what kind of life his half a lifetime on the battlefield had brought to the common people in the end.

For dinner, the village chief did everything he could and managed to scrape together a bowl of rice porridge thin enough to reflect a face for each person, along with a small bowl of pickled vegetables.

“Officer, I’m sorry. This is all our village has. Please don’t take offense.”

Zhu Laosan was not particularly moved. He had already been to the Northern Frontier several times and understood a little of how the people outside the pass lived.

Xiao Che glanced at Xiao Jingmo.

Xiao Jingmo quickly took out the dry rations they had brought and handed them to the village chief.

“Village Chief, we brought food with us. Please trouble yourself to heat it up. You can keep the extra as payment.”

The village chief accepted the half sack of white-flour steamed buns, and his eyes went wide.

White flour!

He could never have afforded it in his entire life.

That night, looking up at the sky full of stars, Xiao Che’s fatigue from the day vanished completely. He felt no sleepiness at all.

Jin Bao climbed onto her father’s lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Daddy, why can’t they eat their fill? They’re so pitiful, even more pitiful than Baby was in Sanjiacun.

“Sanjiacun still had grasshoppers, bunnies, and wild chickens. Everyone could eat. But here, there’s nothing at all, only water that tastes bad. Baby wants to help them.”

Xiao Che stroked his daughter’s little head, a faint bitter smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Good girl, Daddy wants to help them too. But right now, we’re still exiled criminals. We can barely protect ourselves. We can’t help them.”

“Then Daddy can become the Emperor. The Emperor can make sure everyone eats their fill.”

Xiao Che hurriedly covered his daughter’s little mouth. Those were not words to be spoken carelessly.

“Good girl, don’t talk nonsense. Go to sleep. We still have to travel tomorrow.”

After coaxing Jin Bao to sleep, Xiao Che found it even harder to rest.

He had always believed that as long as he defended the nation’s borders and protected the peace of its people, he would have nothing to be ashamed of.

But the “life” granted by this land, by this world, left people in such despair.

Could it be that he had truly been wrong?

When the dynasty prospered, the people suffered. When the dynasty fell, the people suffered.

Then what was he supposed to do to free the people from their misery?

That feeling lingered in Xiao Che’s heart until, several days later, the mule cart stopped outside Suizhong City.

The low, dilapidated earthen city walls gave off an even deeper sense of desolation.

Compared with the bustling towns inside the pass, this place looked more like a massive grayish-yellow mound of earth.

At the city gate, Zhu Laosan presented the transit papers. After the guards carefully inspected them and found no issue, they let them through.

There was an official posthouse in Suizhong City, and they could replenish supplies there as well. Prices were much cheaper than outside.

They had just finished arranging lodgings when Cui Jin and Zou Yong entered the room.

Before long, a young attendant came in to deliver water.

“This is from the master. He told me to give it to you.”

The young attendant set down the water, placed the item in his hand on the table, then turned and left.

Cui Jin opened the paper packet. Inside was a packet of medicinal powder.

“Brother Cui, is this powder for us to poison them?”

Zou Yong was somewhat confused. They had not had any chance to act along the way. First, there were too few people on their side. Second, they truly had not had anything useful on hand.

Cui Jin tucked the poison into his clothes and nodded.

“Tonight, we’ll move after they’re sound asleep.”