Outside Changjiu Farmstead.
Some twenty people and six two-headed oxen laden with goods were parked there.
The leader appeared to be a traveling merchant. A few mercenaries followed alongside the group, while the rest, their hands and feet bound in shackles, were probably slaves.
Staring blankly at everything before him, Sun Shiqi's eyes were filled with bewilderment. He almost thought he was hallucinating.
"This is... the northern outskirts?"
Iron wire was wrapped around the shoulder-high wooden fence. Beyond it lay crisscrossing streets and neat brick-and-wood houses. Pedestrians came and went along the roads—children at play, vendors selling wares, and old farmers on their way to work in the fields.
Most of the locals wore coats made from hyena hide, but the weather had recently warmed, and many had tied their coats around their waists. Some wealthier people had already changed into cloth clothes.
Looking farther ahead, he saw towering concrete walls and watchtowers, with soldiers in black uniforms and rifles slung over their backs standing atop them.
Gazing at the thriving little town before him, Sun Shiqi took out his map and checked it repeatedly, confirming that he had not taken a wrong turn.
Yet that was precisely why he found it even harder to believe his eyes.
"Strange..."
Sun Shiqi kept muttering to himself.
"Where did such a huge survivor settlement spring up from?"
Before winter began last year, he had come here twice.
Back then, he had still been a penniless traveling merchant, leading a two-headed ox across the wasteland to scrape out a living. By trading with the Blue Coats in the park, he had made a small fortune.
After acquiring some capital, he seized upon the historic opportunity created by River Valley Province's continuing turmoil. He sold slaves from Red River Town to the southern Jin