After leaving Zhenyang and passing through a town or two, they began to see more low hills along the way. As they traveled the post road, a continuous range of mountains often stretched across the distant wilderness, rising and falling with their progress as though keeping them company.
It was April, and spring had deepened. Across the green countryside, flowers blossomed on the trees and orioles flitted everywhere; mountain flowers spread like seas, and sunlit gossamer drifted like smoke. The clear breeze sweeping over the spring fields gathered countless scents of flowers and grass, mingling them into a pure, richly fragrant wine and offering it to the travelers amid that radiant, misty landscape.
Walking freely through spring for the first time, the boy who had once spent his days struggling to make a living finally understood why the books he read so often said, "Spring scenery is poetry, spring sunshine is wine." Before, he had always thought these were merely phrases scholars devised to display their eloquence. Yet spring remained as it had always been. Only now, gradually emerging from his years of hardship and opening his heart completely, could he truly appreciate the loveliness of this sunlit, hazy landscape and marvel that the ancients had not deceived him.
Gradually, as they traveled farther, they encountered fewer and fewer people. The post road veered northwest, slowly winding into a tall, continuous mountain range. It seemed they would have to follow the mountain road a long way before reaching another inhabited place.
Once they entered the mountains, spring took on a different face. In the silent spring hills, birds called into emptiness; along deserted trails, lavish blossoms fell unwitnessed. Whenever a mountain breeze passed, flowers drifted like rain from the nameless trees.
Before long, Xing Yan, Qiong Rong, and Xueyi were