The sun had sunk a little farther west, and the cold, wrapped around pellets of snow, drilled straight down people's collars.
The crowd beneath the city walls grew ever more crowded, all manner of smells mingling into a stagnant, filthy stench.
Fang Yuan shielded Liu Wanwan and Little Bean Sprout as they struggled through the crowd, quietly asking everyone they met about the Black Tiger Hall.
After asking several people, he got either blank shakes of the head or evasive glances and guarded waves before they hurried away.
That name seemed to carry some ominous meaning here.
Fang Yuan's brow furrowed slightly. Things did not seem as smooth as he had expected.
Just as he frowned, an old man with white hair and beard, leaning beneath a crumbling wall, raised his cloudy eyes and beckoned to him.
Fang Yuan approached. The old man looked him over, then glanced at the two women clinging tightly together behind him, and spoke in a hoarse, low voice:
"Young man, you're looking for the Black Tiger Hall?"
Fang Yuan nodded. "That's right. Do you know of them, sir?"
The old man pointed at the sky, where the gray-white light had begun to take on the haze of dusk.
"At this hour every day, their people... ought to be coming out soon."
He paused, his gaze falling on Fang Yuan's heavy basket as he sighed.
"Young man, you're trying to find a way into the city, aren't you?"
When Fang Yuan nodded again, the wrinkles on the old man's face deepened.
"That's no good road... Take an old man's advice. Their travel permits may sound nice, but they only let you stay in the city for one month!
"After one month, if you can't settle down and register a household, if you can't obtain proper