The Road Was Hard

After a rest, the caravan set out again.

Once they crossed the Black Gobi, the road became much easier. More importantly, they no longer had to worry about hundreds or thousands of horse bandits attacking in the middle of the night. Everyone could sleep soundly, and the hardship of the journey eased considerably.

The caravan headed southeast, passing through several towns.

These towns south of the Black Gobi lay in what had been the northwest of the Nine Provinces in the old era, a region long known for its barren land and poverty. Its fields produced little, and unlike the Northlands, it had few resources in the wild. There were not enough quality goods to buy here. Only caravans without the means to go elsewhere came here to do business.

Naturally, those caravans had not lingered until now. They had already set off for home.

Merchants pursued profit; the sooner they recouped their investment, the better. For small merchants especially, leaving a day earlier meant earning money a day earlier—and facing one day less risk.

Besides, many merchants had borrowed money to buy their goods. Repaying their loans a day earlier meant paying one day less interest. That was hard silver!

A large guild like the Chang'an Commerce Guild was not pressed for a day or two, but even they did not dare delay too long. If ten days or half a month slipped by, autumn could give way to winter, or even to the snow season. Then they would be in serious trouble.

The Northlands' winter snow season was dangerous. If they failed to cross Ghost Gate Mountain, which stretched across central Yong Province and marked the geographical boundary of the "northwest region," before the heavy snows began, they would have to stay where they were for months.

Crossing Ghost Gate Mountain in a snowstorm was unthinkable. One or two martial arts masters could manage it, but an entire caravan never could.

Ghost Gate Mountain was rugged, its paths cut through towering peaks and steep ridges. In many places, the road was not even wide enough for three people abreast. Even a caravan needed martial arts masters to guard it and temporary plank bridges to help it struggle through. And still, many people died there every year. The mules, horses, carts, and cargo lost were beyond counting.

That was in weather without wind, rain, or snow. Trying to cross Ghost Gate Mountain with snow filling the sky, frost covering the ground, and bitter winds howling...

No caravan in history had done it. An army once had, and lost six-tenths of its troops. Fortunately, the remaining four-tenths caught the enemy by surprise, and somehow won the battle.

Yet even Dou Yong, the celebrated general who won that battle, had stressed, "This victory was entirely due to Heaven's protection, not our own merit." The danger was easy to imagine.

The Chang'an Commerce Guild could not cross Ghost Gate Mountain in a blizzard either. Overall, though, their luck had been good this year. They had met a little wind and snow along the way, but it had never grown into a storm. The sky had stayed gloomy, but had not turned into what Northerners dreaded most: a "Sima face." By the time Ghost Gate Mountain stood close ahead, there were still some twenty days before the snow season usually began.

Twenty-odd days gave them a comfortable margin.

They rested for a full day in Marshal Dou Town at the foot of Ghost Gate Mountain, giving both people and animals time to recover. The next day, they left all their baggage with the town branch to handle at its own pace, took only their goods and the most basic supplies, and started up the mountain.

"Heavens! This mountain road..." Han Feng, who had also sold his horse in Marshal Dou Town, swallowed as he stared at the narrow, rugged path ahead. "Can we get through that?"

Before them rose a path so steep that an ordinary person would probably have to crawl up it. Its slope looked sharp enough for someone to sit down and slide all the way from the summit to the foot. The tiers of "steps" along it were only a little flatter than the rest.

Even without luggage, a person needed some martial skill to get up those steps with relative ease. An ordinary person would struggle just to climb them. And the caravan had carts and animals. How were they supposed to get through?

"Brother Long, do you have a way?"

What way could I have? Call in a heavy-lift helicopter?

Pan Long shook his head.

They soon learned how it would be done.

The caravan unhitched the mules and horses from the carts, and strongmen carried the animals up the steps on their backs. Then they took the wheels off the carts, set them up as pulleys at the top, and used ropes to haul the carts, now little more than crates, up the slope bit by bit.

Han Feng stared, dumbfounded. He had never dreamed goods could be transported like that.

Pan Long nodded faintly, though a question nagged at him.

The Chang'an Commerce Guild could manage this, but what about smaller guilds? For independent traders with one cart and two people, it was utterly impossible.

How did they get past this steep slope?

After puzzling over it without finding an answer, he went to ask Zhao Lin, whom a caravan manager had just called over to discuss something.

"We don't normally take this road," Zhao Lin replied, to his surprise. "Today is an exception."

"Why?" Choosing the easy road over the hard one was only natural. Why choose the hard road over the easy one?

Zhao Lin sighed and explained, "Something happened on the other road. The Nanping Trade Association and the King of Nine Mountains had fallen out. Four Innate Realm masters are fighting there right now. There's nowhere to dodge on the mountain path, and two or three hundred bystanders have already been killed. The plank bridges are wrecked, and they may even bring down the path itself. We can't afford to get caught up in that trouble, so we have to go around."

Pan Long pictured several masters on the level of his fathers fighting on plank bridges above sheer cliffs, and wiped cold sweat from his brow.

Just as Zhao Lin had said, they could not afford that trouble. A "master" like him would not even need to be caught in the aftershocks of their fight. If they broke a plank bridge beneath him, he would simply fall to his death.

No wonder the Chang'an Commerce Guild would rather wear itself out crossing mountains and ridges than take the comparatively easier road.

However troublesome a mountain path was, it was nothing beside four Innate Realm masters fighting in earnest!

They crossed one mountain after another. The rugged paths made everyone miserable, and complaints spread through the caravan. But as they crested one summit, they caught sight of the battle in the distance.

Several figures darted between sheer cliffs, with thunderous crashes sounding without end. Even from far away, they could see long stretches of plank bridge breaking off and falling down the cliffs. From time to time came the dying screams of ordinary people caught in the fighting. Worst were the unlucky souls whose cries trailed from high above to far below. Just hearing them made everyone's scalp prickle.

"Aaah—"

Another scream cut off abruptly. Han Feng shuddered and asked quietly, "Dead?"

"Probably," Pan Long answered under his breath.

"That's terrifying!" Han Feng said. "I'd rather be hacked to death by a mob than die for no reason like that!"

"I'd rather not die at all."

Han Feng froze for a moment, then laughed too.

"You're right, Brother Long. Staying alive is best!" he said, full of hope. "But that's not enough! I'm going to become a martial arts master, enter the Innate Realm, earn a fortune, and get rich. Then I'll take a beautiful wife and a big, chubby son home, all three of us decked out in red!"

Pan Long gave him a sidelong look and swallowed a snort.

The boy's still wet behind the ears, and he's already thinking about that? Young people these days!

Back in my day!

Well, he had nothing much to boast about from back then. At most, he had managed not to join the country's thirty-odd million bachelors...

Thinking about it that way, he suddenly felt Han Feng's hopes for his life were remarkably sensible and down-to-earth. The boy might even achieve them.

At the very least, they were far more realistic than his own goal of "destroying the Nine Provinces Grand Array and correcting Di Jiazi's mistake."

After seeing the carnage on the plank road, the Chang'an Commerce Guild's people were instantly full of energy. Not one of them complained again. They carried the heavy goods in their hands and on their shoulders, inching forward along the rugged mountain path.

The sun was sinking west, but the caravan manager still had not ordered them to make camp. Worried, Han Feng asked, "If we don't camp now, won't it be too late to set everything up?"

Zhao Lin glanced at him and gave a wry smile. "What camp? We're traveling through the night."

"What?!" Pan Long was startled too. "Out here in these desolate mountains, we won't even be able to see the road at night. How can we keep going?"

"With torches."

"How much light can a torch give us?"

"There's no other way," Pan Ying said with a sigh. "Nights in the mountains are extremely dangerous, and the worst thing is being attacked while we rest. Staying up one night won't hurt us as long as we eat and drink enough. If we sleep on this wind-lashed mountain, we're more likely to end up with frostbite."

Pan Long and Han Feng looked at each other, both with the same thought: What the hell?

Neither had imagined the caravan would travel at night on such a steep mountain path.

How was that any different from marching to their deaths?

Plenty of others felt the same. Complaints soon rose all around them, everyone protesting against traveling at night.

But a moment later, the Chang'an Commerce Guild revealed the astonishing depth of its resources.

One glowing stone after another was fastened to the carts and saddles. These inferior gems came from the South Sea and were useless for anything but giving off light. In the darkness, though, they provided the travelers with vital illumination. It was nowhere near daylight, but enough for the caravan to make out the road, if only just.

With the darkness dealt with, everyone felt much more at ease. Then the caravan handed out a special medicinal wine. Pan Long drank just one cup and felt a ball of fire rise in his belly and spread through his body. The mountain wind, which had grown colder as the sun set, suddenly felt merely cool.

It was Fire Wine. He had drunk it before in Dingfeng Town. Made with several medicinal ingredients, Fire Wine temporarily changed a person's constitution, drawing out stored energy and converting it more quickly into heat to maintain body temperature.

It was not cheap. The people of Dingfeng Town generally drank it only when keeping watch during the autumn hunt. Giving a cup to every person in an entire caravan, as the Chang'an Commerce Guild had done, cost an astonishing sum.

Pan Long estimated that those cups of Fire Wine alone had cost at least five or six hundred taels of silver.

But he understood the Chang'an Commerce Guild's choice. Traveling a mountain road at night was dangerous enough, and this one was so rugged that the risk was daunting. Without spending heavily, they would never keep the caravan's spirits up.

Once people's hearts scattered, how could anyone lead the caravan?

Besides... without the Fire Wine's help, they probably could not make it over the mountains ahead in one piece.

Pan Long looked at the dark mountain road and the distant peaks crouching like giant beasts. He sighed silently.

People say traveling ten thousand miles beats reading ten thousand books. But before setting out, how could I have known that "traveling ten thousand miles" would be this hard?

(End of chapter)