They headed south.
Hooves clattered through the thin mist of a late-autumn morning.
Leaving Tianjin, Li Xiang, Zhang Yunqing, and Guo Kai traveled light and galloped down the Official Road. There was no grand warlord's procession, no retinue crowding around them. The three riders swept south like the wind, silent and unnoticed.
The Great Xin Dynasty stretched across a vast territory. As they pushed south from the Beiyang Warlords' heartland, the terrain and climate changed before their eyes.
Their horses crossed several natural boundaries. The dry cold and grim austerity of the north gradually receded, and a damp heaviness peculiar to the Two-River Basin began to fill the air.
Since ancient times, the Two-River Basin had been a battleground contested from all sides.
Li Xiang took in everything along the way, gaining a deeper understanding of the age he lived in.
Beside the Official Road, they often saw large groups of refugees in rags, their eyes numb as they dragged their families toward the stable regions under Beiyang's control.
Waist-high weeds filled abandoned fields. Now and then, a few skeletons lay in ditches beside the road.
Human lives were worth less than grass.
In an age of endless wars over Fortune, common people were like beans beneath a millstone, ground to powder.
"Whoa—"
Several days later, as murky yellow dusk stained the horizon, Zhang Yunqing pulled on his reins. His white Spirit Steed gave a low whinny and came to a steady halt atop a rise.
Li Xiang and Guo Kai reined in their horses beside him.
"We're here." Zhang Yunqing sat in the saddle, whip in one hand, and pointed into the distance.
Li Xiang looked up. A vast surge of cold, damp air washed over him, carrying a hint of boundless madness.
Several miles ahead, a river stretched