Two days later, Wanshui Town, southwestern Wu Prefecture.
At noon, the gloomy sky cast a gray haze over the old town's buildings, making it look like dawn or dusk.
Wanshui Town stood on the banks of the Wu River. It was not large, but with the Wuxi Canal joining the river upstream, plenty of boats passed through, and small-time medicinal herb merchants and martial wanderers often docked here.
The town had only one old street running west to east. Inns and taverns lined both sides, while herb growers crowded the roadside with their stalls.
Compared with the bustle elsewhere, one inn in the town center was much quieter. Its dining hall was silent; the customers at its few occupied tables hurried through their meals, dropped their silver, and left at a brisk pace.
Occasionally, a ravenous martial wanderer would reach the entrance, take one look inside, then turn away.
The few who entered kept their heads down and ate without a word.
The reason for all this was a woman sitting by the inn's window.
More precisely, a very conspicuous woman.
She wore snow-white clothes, with a few red plum blossoms adorning her skirt and white shoes, everything spotless.
She had a slender waist and a full bosom. Though a white gauze Veil Hat concealed her face, her figure alone marked her as a peerless beauty, one in ten thousand.
Such a woman, sitting alone in a shabby inn surrounded by vicious martial-world thugs like wolves and tigers, seemed in constant danger of falling beyond all redemption.
The truth, however, was precisely the opposite.
Women were common in the martial world, beautiful ones were rare, and those who traveled alone rarer still.
Any martial wanderer with a functioning brain knew that a woman who dared dress beautifully and appear alone