This way of doing things closely resembled the Wind and Cloud Tower's methods. If the Longwind Inn was one of its outposts, that would actually make things simpler.
"Anything that can be settled by exchanging benefits is the simplest kind of business. Still, we should observe for a while first," Zhao Feng said.
Su Qingwan turned her head to glance at him. In the moonlight, Zhao Feng's sharply defined profile stood out against his luminous white skin, making him look as though he had been sculpted.
She suddenly smiled. "You're cautious about everything you do."
"Habit," Zhao Feng said evenly.
Early the next morning, before the sky had fully brightened, the gates of White Spring Pass slowly opened with a heavy creak.
Zhao Feng and Su Qingwan left the pass through the morning mist. Ahead of them, Zhou Meng had changed into an ordinary border dweller's clothes, with a battered felt hat on his head and a short knife tucked at his waist, and was leading the way.
Zhao Feng wore a coarse gray-brown robe, his hair secured with nothing more than a wooden hairpin. He looked like an ordinary itinerant merchant who traveled far and wide. Su Qingwan remained in disguise, dressed as that delicate-looking attendant.
They headed northwest after leaving White Spring Pass. Less than ten li out, the official road gradually disappeared, replaced by a dirt track trampled into the boundless Gobi by people and livestock. Rutted and uneven, it made for difficult walking. Vast stretches of gray-yellow desert lay on either side, sparsely dotted with camel thorn and sea buckthorn that swayed in the windblown sand.
Desolation and barrenness showed everywhere.
As they continued, more travelers, carts, and horses appeared on the road. There were veiled merchants from the Western Regions riding camels, Northern Barbarian herders