Before setting out from the capital, Pang Jing had traded lines with his close friends and written dozens of poems about the Western Regions. Half described blizzards sweeping across the sky; the other half were about deserts and wastelands. But when he finally reached Jade City at winter's end, he had forgotten every one of those splendid lines. All he wanted was to burrow into a sturdy house and shut himself away forever from the white world outside.
The capital was heaven on earth, he thought with heartfelt, private conviction.
Before leaving the capital, Pang Jing had wagered with an official that, thanks to the relay stations the Central Plains had built across the Western Regions, he could reach Jade City within a month, taking no longer than he would in summer or autumn. For that reason, when he entered the Western Regions in winter, Pang Jing refused to proceed at a leisurely pace. With only a handful of attendants, he rode without pause, treating himself like a courier carrying urgent intelligence.
He had succeeded. Though frostbite had left the skin peeling from his face and his lips cracked until raw flesh showed, though he had worn out countless horses and camels along the way, and though he had been forced to abandon three exhausted attendants in the frozen wilderness, he had still succeeded. He had made it from the capital to Jade City in just twenty-nine days.
To make his victory indisputable, Pang Jing did not stay at the military camp outside the city. He went straight to North City and, without consulting anyone, took over the City Governor's residence. He ordered his men to find the official seal and stamped himself a travel permit. Together with the permits from the checkpoints and relay stations along the way, he