Crack, crack.
A hem brushed past, snapping branches that sprang back.
Snow piled on the shrubs rustled down, forming parallel, crisscrossing ridges tipped with sharp cones across the ground.
Jiangnan had no major snow, but that did not mean it had no snow. Especially in January and February, Minor Snow often fell across Southern Zhili these past two days, a thin layer clinging to the earth and leaving the soil half exposed, brown and white intermingled.
When snow fell upon roof tiles, it became a pattern of black and white, swelling high above like water birds painted in a single sweeping stroke across an impressionistic landscape.
"I'm exhausted. It's cold and miserable too. If I'd known, I wouldn't have come."
"Damn it, I actually got seasick. I didn't sleep a wink all night!"
"I just slipped and fell. I'm covered in mud..."
Not all of the hundred-odd people knew one another. Worried about the dangers mentioned in the trial, they traveled through the mountain forest in twos and threes, seeking out acquaintances to form little groups. Within one group that vaguely held the lead, a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy craned his neck and looked about in every direction.
"Brother Hanwen, something doesn't feel right."
"Hm?" Du Hanwen, standing in the middle of the group, looked up. "What makes you say that?"
"Brother Hanwen, you know my father used to be a centurion in the army. He nearly became a chiliarch. He told me that if there are no birds in the woods, there must be an ambush! We're charging in here in such a noisy mess that we've scared all the birds away. Could something go wrong?"
Du Hanwen glanced back.
Previously, he had kept his head down and hurried along without paying much attention. Now that he looked again—