Early the next morning, Yang Ge led fifty fully armed members of the Road Pavilion Embroidered Uniform Guard eighteen li out of town to welcome the Imperial Envoy.
Yet they were not even the earliest arrivals. A large contingent of County Soldiers and yamen runners had reached the post station the night before to make preparations.
Out came the red ribbons and green decorations again.
Out came the displays of fruit and bountiful harvests again.
In a single night, over a hundred County Soldiers and yamen runners had somehow created a garden ablaze with purple and crimson amid the white snow.
Even Yang Ge felt sorry for them when he saw it. Instead of sleeping, they had spent the night out in the snow putting all this together...
Shortly after they reached the post station, the officials and gentry of Road Pavilion arrived.
The moment that great, swarming crowd entered the post station, they turned the scenery the soldiers and runners had spent all night arranging into a foul mess. Even Yang Ge found it an eyesore.
Worse still, when those officials and gentlemen spotted Yang Ge standing ahead of Fang Ke, wearing his half-face demon mask, they called their friends over and crowded around to pay their respects.
Every one of them spouted literary flourishes and chewed over their words, yet every one followed precisely the same script.
First, openly or obliquely or with feigned casualness, they mentioned some great figure at court. Then they invited Yang Ge to all manner of banquets, dropping hints of bribery such as, "We shall certainly ensure you return thoroughly satisfied, my lord"...
Yang Ge was sick to death of them, yet could hardly unleash a torrent of abuse to drive these flies away.
*If you really were close relatives of some lord