The Martial World Was a Hard Road

With that little trouble settled, the caravan moved on.

Everyone was glad they hadn't had to fight the mounted bandits.

Everyone except Han Feng. He kept grumbling under his breath.

"Why? Why didn't we fight?"

He muttered to himself for a while, then finally sidled up to Pan Long and asked, "Brother Long, tell me. Why didn't we fight?"

Pan Long had expected him to ask, though he hadn't thought Han Feng would hold out this long. He was secretly pleased.

The kid's grown up a little.

His pleasure showed in his smile. "Why should we fight?" he asked.

"We're merchants, they're bandits, and they were going to rob us!" Han Feng replied as though the answer were obvious.

Pan Long shook his head. "But they withdrew. They didn't rob us."

"That's because they got paid!" Han Feng looked thoroughly unhappy. "They didn't even shoot a single arrow, and we obediently handed over money! Brother Long, how is that right?"

Ha! He still can't make sense of it.

"A-Feng," Pan Long asked, "how many people do you think would have died if we'd fought just now?"

Han Feng considered it. "There were quite a few bandits. Even with experts on our side, we'd probably have lost eight or ten people."

"Right. Eight or ten... Maybe more?"

"Right."

"Then why should those people die?" Pan Long continued. "What would we gain from their deaths?"

Han Feng was at a loss for words. After a long pause, he said, "We're men of the Northlands. When someone tries to rob us, shouldn't we cut them down first? Even if we die, we can't just cower the moment someone waves a blade at us!"

That was a Northerner's way of thinking. Pan Long nodded in agreement before saying, "You're right. If the two of us were traveling the Martial World and someone dared rob us, I'd draw my blade and cut them down without a word. But today, it isn't the two of us traveling the Martial World. It's the Chang'an Commerce Guild."

"What's the difference?" Han Feng asked, puzzled.

"Of course there's a difference. The Chang'an Commerce Guild is made up of merchants. When they make a choice, they look at profit first. Fighting the bandits would cost plenty of lives, and paying to bury those people would be no small expense. Not to mention the extra pay they'd owe the guards afterward. That's another hefty sum." Pan Long counted off the costs for him. "By comparison, paying the bandits a little to send them away is plainly the better bargain."

Han Feng frowned, looking thoroughly displeased.

As a typical Northerner, he could understand Pan Long's point, but he didn't want to accept it.

After a long while, he muttered, "Those bandits were useless! I thought they'd be fierce, but they came with all those men and made such a show of force, only to be sent away with one little pouch of silver. There couldn't have been more than twenty or thirty taels in it. Is that even enough to split between them?"

Pan Long smiled. He knew Han Feng understood now; he was just sulking.

"Bandits are people too," he said. "They fear death like anyone else. They may make their living licking blood from the edge of a blade, but why wouldn't they take a chance to earn money without risking their lives, even if it meant earning less? Besides, our caravan is strong. Even if they'd fought us with their lives on the line, could they have won?"

"Definitely not!" Han Feng said with complete confidence.

"Then what would be the point of risking their lives? The pouch didn't hold much, but at least they got something. They didn't break the rule that a thief never leaves empty-handed. For them, that'll do."

Han Feng thought it over, but he still seemed unwilling to let it go. "That's enough?"

"More than enough. The bandits already wanted to retreat. They just needed to save face. The Chang'an Commerce Guild gave them that, so of course they left. A-Feng, when we travel the Martial World, letting someone save a little face isn't a bad thing. Often, it's enough to avoid a fight."

Pan Ying, who had been listening nearby, spoke up. "A-Long's right! Leave others some dignity when you travel the Martial World, and you'll spare yourself trouble. We Northerners aren't afraid of a fight, but why force others to fight us? Even if we could win a hundred battles out of a hundred, weren't those people born of fathers and mothers too? Why insist on killing them?"

"Don't bandits deserve to die?" Han Feng shot back. "Every one of them is steeped in evil. Don't they deserve it?"

"We aren't imperial soldiers, and we haven't taken a bounty to wipe them out. What's it to us whether the bandits deserve to die?" Zhao Lin said. "There are far too many people in this world who deserve death. We can't kill every one we meet. If the circumstances are right, or the danger is urgent, then kill them. But today wasn't a good time to draw our blades, so let it go. They were lucky. There are plenty of bandits in the Black Gobi, and plenty more robbers beyond it. Now that you're out traveling the Martial World, you'll have your chance to meet them."

Both men were veterans of the Martial World. Countless flashes of blades and swords had long since worn away their hot blood. Seeing Han Feng so full of fervor and righteous conviction, neither could resist offering him a few words of advice.

The Martial World was treacherous. Sometimes a chivalrous heart could get you killed!

Pan Long was no greenhorn like Han Feng. He understood at once what his elders meant, but merely smiled and said nothing.

He didn't agree with them, but he didn't want to argue either.

Veterans put safety first; young people wanted to settle debts and grudges to their hearts' content. They wanted different things from life. There was nothing to argue about.

Personally, he leaned toward Han Feng's view. But life wasn't a game. There were no save files to reload and no coming back from the dead. A little caution wouldn't hurt.

After a while, he saw that Han Feng was still glum, looking like a sulky child. Pan Long couldn't help smiling and shaking his head. He went over, patted Han Feng's shoulder, smiled at him, and nodded in comfort and encouragement.

Han Feng understood at once. His anger turned to delight, and his spirits returned. Before long, he had ridden to the front of the caravan, romping about like a husky.

Watching him, Zhao Lin and Pan Ying couldn't help lamenting how wonderful it was to be young. Pan Long, meanwhile, thought that a companion like Han Feng, who could recover his energy at any moment, might not add much to the caravan's strength, but certainly did wonders for its morale.

He quietly decided that once they had left the caravan, if they met more bandits, he would charge in beside Han Feng and start cutting them down without a word!

Bandits were never innocent anyway. Killing the lot of them would count as ridding the people of a scourge!

That night, the caravan made camp in the Black Gobi. They circled their wagons to form a barricade and assigned dozens of people to patrol it without pause. Everyone remained tense all night.

The mounted bandits they had seen during the day were numerous and fairly disciplined. They had taken the money and left, but what if they attacked at night?

Besides, the Black Gobi was full of bandits. Even if that group had gone, who was to say another wouldn't come after dark?

Worse still, what if several bands joined forces to swallow the Chang'an Commerce Guild's caravan whole?

Any of those things could happen. The Chang'an Commerce Guild was one of the largest merchant guilds in Yong Province. Its caravan was huge, and it carried a great deal of cargo. To any bandit gang in the Black Gobi, it was a fat prize.

The bandits were greedy and vicious. To devour that prize, they could easily work with other gangs, and they wouldn't care how many people died.

After all, the more people who died, the fewer there would be to share the spoils!

Pan Long and the others understood that too. So although they weren't on night watch, they still couldn't sleep soundly.

They couldn't take off their clothes or armor, and they had to keep their weapons close. If necessary, they could rise and fight at any moment.

More than once, Pan Long dreamed that the bandits had attacked. He would draw his blade in a rush to meet them, only to wake with a start. He would lie down again, then soon dream of another attack.

After this happened several times, the eastern sky finally began to pale. The caravan hastily packed up and set off again.

Three days passed like that, leaving everyone exhausted.

If bandits attacked now, the caravan might suffer a crushing loss.

But the bandits never came. On the fifth day, they finally spotted a city standing at the edge of the Black Gobi: Jade Gate City, once the northwesternmost stronghold of Great Xia's Yong Province.

In those days, the Nine Provinces of Great Xia had ended there. Only after expedition upon expedition crossed the black desert and opened up the barren land bit by bit had the Northlands, its people, and Great Xia's new territory northwest of Yong Province come into being.

Jade Gate City had gradually changed from the front line of the frontier into a military hub supporting the Golden City Defense Line farther ahead. It also kept watch over the Black Gobi, occasionally suppressing bandits who caused too much trouble.

The city's most famous feature was the bandits' heads that always hung from its gatehouse, trophies of the imperial troops' campaigns against them.

Every so often, Jade Gate City's troops would strike out and sweep through the Black Gobi. They would return with however many heads they managed to take, preserve them with lime, and hang them from the gatehouse. There they remained through wind and rain, a warning to scoundrels in every direction.

Rumor in the Martial World had it that all the bandits' heads ever hung from Jade Gate City's gatehouse, laid end to end, could circle the city several times.

Rumor also had it that whenever the wind rose at night, countless bandit ghosts could be heard weeping softly, mourning their deaths.

But Pan Long and the others paid none of that any mind.

After days of exhaustion, even the ever-curious Han Feng wanted nothing more than to reach the inn booked by the caravan and sleep soundly in a bed.

Pan Long felt the same. Lacking experience in the Martial World, he couldn't sleep like a log amid danger the way the veterans could. Nightmares had woken him almost every night. He was worn out and needed a proper sleep.

There were plenty of other greenhorns like them in the caravan. Soon snores filled the inn, loud enough to be heard from far away.

Ah! I meant to schedule this for twelve, but my finger slipped and I posted it now...

(The end)