"On your first journey, you managed to travel this far. Brother, your luck is truly remarkable." The man froze for a moment, then gave a dry laugh before he could not help speaking up.
"Not at all, not at all. My luck has indeed been pretty good," Wei He replied.
"Since that is the case, why not come over to our side and sit for a while, Brother? We can also chat about tomorrow's arrangements. What do you say?" the man asked again.
"Then I'll have to trouble you."
Wei He returned to the courtyard to inform Jiang Su, then followed the middle-aged man to an adjoining courtyard enclosed by earthen walls.
The two courtyards were separated by only one wall. They were close enough that he was not worried about anything happening because of the distance.
A bonfire blazed fiercely in the middle of the courtyard.
Wei He sat in a circle with the old merchant leader, the veiled woman in black, and two young men.
The rest of the caravan members sat around the courtyard in twos and threes, eating dry rations and tending to their personal belongings.
Wei He knew nothing about Cangjian Gorge. With skill came courage, so he simply came alone to make contact with them.
He could both probe their background a little and gather some relevant information.
The one leading this group was the old man surnamed Wang, the very man who had first spoken to Wei He. His name was Wang Zichong.
At that moment, he carefully put away a rolled-up map that he had just organized, apparently having been making annotations on it.
Once he had put it away, he raised his head and looked at Wei He.
"Young brother, you must have come from one of the nearby cities, right?