"Then spend money."
Su Li's answer was crisp and decisive.
Saina wanted to press further, but Elena had already urged her horse forward. Her long fiery-red hair was blown all over her face by the wind, and she irritably tucked it behind her ears.
"Leave the spending to me. You two country bumpkins just make sure you don't embarrass yourselves when we get to Silver Crown City."
"Who's a country bumpkin?" Saina bristled.
"You dipped dried salted fish in salt yesterday and said it tasted bland."
"It was bland!"
Su Li couldn't be bothered to get involved. He squeezed his horse's flank.
The farther south they traveled along the official road, the broader it became. The surface changed from gravel to a smooth avenue paved with blue bricks. The roadside trees on both sides were trimmed with meticulous precision, and vineyards and pastures stretched out in the distance.
It was a completely different world from the desolation around Orenda.
Saina looked around everywhere.
"Su Li, look! Why is that cow so huge?"
"Su Li, look! They're even selling flowers by the roadside!"
"Su Li, look—"
"Can you be quiet for a while?" Elena's temples throbbed.
Saina was wholly justified. "It's my first time traveling far from home. Everything I see is new to me—what's it to you?"
Su Li glanced back. Saina sat atop her white horse, her coarse cloth clothes billowing in the wind. The snowy fullness at her collar, made ever more ample by the Family Group's nourishment, was dazzlingly white beneath the sunlight.
"Watch the road. Don't fall off." Su Li looked away.
By afternoon, the outline of Silver Crown City finally came into view.
Its white walls towered immensely high, while a long line stretched before the city gates.
Merchant caravans, carriages, travelers riding mules—people of