Hu Xiaotian watched the little boat disappear from sight before continuing on his way. Azure Cloud County's walls were low and dilapidated. Although it was noon, there were still few carts or horses outside the gate. The two old soldiers guarding it were chatting about everyday affairs, too lazy even to glance at passing travelers. They were even more lax than the guards in Xiezhou. Such morale and military bearing could be found in every corner of Great Kang. After more than five hundred years of glorious history, the Great Kang dynasty was declining day by day, just like every dynasty before it.
Once they entered the town, most of the passersby around them wore shabby clothes. The houses were low and rundown, and an air of desolation and decay pervaded the narrow streets.
It was the first visit for all three of them, so they found their surroundings rather surprising and kept looking this way and that. Liang Dazhuang swallowed and said, "This place can't compare with Capital City. It doesn't even compare with Xiezhou."
No shit! Hu Xiaotian thought. Azure Cloud is just a little county town. How can you put it alongside Great Kang's imperial capital or a famous city in Western Sichuan? Isn't that like comparing county-level officials with deputy-provincial and ministerial ranks?
Liang Dazhuang said, "There isn't even one decent house in this whole county town. It's dirt-poor."
Hu Xiaotian felt much the same. His father was ruthless enough to ship him off to this godforsaken backwater where birds wouldn't shit and hens wouldn't lay eggs. Worse still, even here in Azure Cloud County, he wasn't the top man. He was only a County Deputy, with a magistrate above him. Everywhere he looked was bleak and desolate. There probably wasn't a scrap of fat to