Chen Tai sat in his carriage, swaying as he traveled toward Jianye.
The shadow of war had only just passed, and the wounds it had left had yet to heal.
Traveling along this official road, Chen Tai could even see corpses and gnawed remains.
The south had many fierce beasts, and the bones of many who had died in battle had vanished without a trace. Nor were soldiers the only ones who had died; many fleeing commoners had perished too. Along the way, Chen Tai's convoy stopped from time to time to bury them.
Whatever their status, Chen Tai chose to bury them all without distinction.
Sometimes, he also ordered the wild dogs and beasts nearby hunted down. These beasts had very likely eaten human flesh. In that case, they could not be left to harm people and had to be eliminated as soon as possible.
The roads were in terrible condition too. To block Guanqiu Jian's advance, many county towns had chosen to destroy the roads, deliberately obstructing them with stones and dead trees to slow him down.
They had failed to slow Guanqiu Jian, but now they had managed to slow Chen Tai and his party instead.
Almost all the villages along the road were deserted. Without the protection of city walls, the commoners in these outlying villages had not dared stay.
They feared bandits, feared the Wei Army, and feared the Wu army too.
When the carriage stopped at a deserted village, the armored guards first scouted the surroundings. Only after making sure there were no beasts or bandits did they tidy up a reasonably fine residence for Chen Tai and Wang Jing to rest in.
Chen Tai and Wang Jing were traveling to Jianye together, but they had little to say to one another.
Chen Tai's