Barrier Slope, the longest stretch of sloping road several dozen miles outside Dazhi City, was actually a mountain range stretching across the landscape. It was simply carpeted in Heart-Wrapping Grass, making it look like a slope.
The road was far from level over those dozens of miles, and the loads were enormous, yet the Fine-Scaled Steeds could still pull them at a gallop, charging straight up the long slope with pounding hooves.
The two carts loaded with Spirit Rice climbed to the crest and stopped. Huang Yingying stood up atop the towering rice sacks and looked around, only to find the surroundings empty, with no one in sight.
"Fang, where are they? Are you sure this is the delivery spot?" Huang Yingying called.
The assistant looking around from the other cart replied, "It's right. Surely there can't be another place called Barrier Slope?"
Then he suddenly pointed at the road on the other side of the slope and shouted, "I wonder if that's them."
They followed his gaze and saw a cart racing toward them along the road.
Huang Yingying stroked his little mustache and muttered, "Loading it all onto one cart won't be easy, will it?"
Despite saying that, he waited patiently.
But after the cart charged up the slope, its occupants glanced at them without stopping, then raced down the other side toward Dazhi City.
"Hey, what's going on? Are they really going to make us wait until dark?" Huang Yingying grumbled and cursed. The Sandalwood Gold in his pocket was burning a hole in it, and those gorgeously dressed girls were waiting for him.
Yet just after that cart disappeared into the distance, movement suddenly came from the woods of Heart-Wrapping Grass on both sides. The rice shop's men initially thought the buyers had arrived, but instead,