Zhongnan Mountains

On New Year's Day, Pan Long and Han Feng spent the whole day enjoying themselves in Wugong Town.

As it happened, the first day of the new year was also the Beginning of Spring. With both falling on the same day, the town was especially lively. Festivals, markets, and ceremonies were in full swing. Han Feng dragged Pan Long from one event to the next.

They joined a procession holding a ceremony out in the fields and let themselves be sprinkled with a few drops of water from willow branches. Everyone burst out laughing together.

They wandered around the market and bought heaps of food. Pan Long could barely hold it all in his two hands—and he hardly ate snacks. It was all for Han Feng, who claimed, "My ancestors must have had the blood of a Taotie!"

They watched the festivities as burly men, bare-chested in the bitter cold, carried a statue of a deity through the streets, shouting, "Peace and prosperity for the nation!" Pan Long and Han Feng cheered along with the crowd.

It was a lively day indeed.

But even the liveliest day had to end. On the second day of the new year, they set out with a merchant caravan and headed south.

The caravan from Wugong Town was small, with only fourteen or fifteen people. They transported their goods on donkeys, horses, and wheelbarrows. The pack animals needed no explanation. Wheelbarrows carried less, but they handled rough, narrow terrain better than ordinary carts and could cross the plank roads of the Zhongnan Mountains.

With transport like that, of course, they could not travel fast. They walked and stopped all day, and by dusk had covered only twenty-five or twenty-six li.

"This is way too slow!" Han Feng complained to Pan Long in private as