"Taishang Laojun, swiftly, in accordance with the decree!"
After that command, the Compass sprang up easily, trembled for a moment, then pointed straight upstream. Sure enough, people were hiding in the Reed Marsh within his patrol sector, and there were probably quite a few.
Carrying the Compass, Zhang Xing soon reached a particularly vast Reed Marsh. After circling it several times, he had already sensed a certain unease and movement within. He chose to walk along its edge toward the river, his hand on his saber—heaven knew how many people were hiding here.
This stretch of the Yi River was neither wide nor swift, but because it lay close to the Eastern Capital and had been dredged many times, its middle seemed fairly deep. It was early winter. Well mouths, water jars, and the like within the Eastern Capital City had already begun to freeze. Here on the Yi River, the muddy banks and Reed Marsh along its edges had frozen too, though after a day of sunshine, only the shaded spots retained their flowers of ice.
Considering that there were still deep mountains to scramble through across the river, and no food either, choosing to swim across would undoubtedly mean the corvée laborers first throwing away half their lives. Those who could not swim would simply die.
No wonder they were hiding in the Reed Marsh, doing nothing but waiting.
But what were they waiting for?
Would the river freeze at night?
Or were they hoping some great hero would descend from the sky, kill this wandering Brocade-Clad dog with a single stroke, then carry them across one by one?
Zhang Xing, however, did not think the river would freeze thickly enough overnight to walk on.
After some thought, the Brocade-clad Patrol Cavalry officer with a White Ribbon at