Woman

Little Yanzhi drew in a breath of the cool late-autumn air and closed her eyes to savor it, as though using the method to purge every bit of filth from her body. At the same time, she remained steadily seated on horseback, utterly unaffected by the jolting road.

She liked riding horses.

"Flame Colt is a rare fine horse. Old King Yue Zhu's eye never fails. If I were you, I'd never lend it to anyone—not even Dudun."

Little Yanzhi had brought up the subject several times already. Shangguan Ru merely shrugged and gave much the same answer each time. "We're traveling slowly anyway. Flame Colt won't have many chances to run free. It's better to lend him to someone who needs him more."

Little Yanzhi glanced back at the long procession. "Being a woman is such a hassle. Why can't we be like men and bring only a few hundred light cavalry, spur our horses all the way, set out at dawn, and arrive by evening? Why do we have to spend two whole days traveling like this?"

"Because you're Little Yanzhi." Shangguan Ru smiled. The long string of carriages behind them had nothing to do with her. "It's like Old Khan King. The higher your status, the less freedom you have to act as you please. I imagine that even when he moved the entire Dragon Court, he couldn't 'spur his horse all the way,' either."

"Haha, that old bastard." Little Yanzhi did not lower her voice in the slightest. To the tribes of the grasslands, Old Khan King was a god; in her eyes, he was forever a gaunt old lecher. "Believe me, sometimes he does 'spur his horse all the way.' Once he could no longer run across the grasslands, he used women's bodies as the