A carriage raced through the beautiful fields of the Southeast, following the main road and merging into the stream of busy merchants' vehicles around it, utterly unremarkable.
They began their journey in the most ordinary way, just like common people, stopping when it was time to stop, eating when it was time to eat, and resting when it was time to rest. Everything followed the driver's arrangements, and the middle-aged driver did not even know they were cultivators.
Of course, calling him "uncle" was not right. Given that the two of them were nearly a hundred years old, the driver ought to have called them grandpa and grandma instead.
Because they had to find places to eat and lodgings for the night, and take main roads convenient for horses and carriages, their pace was slow. They covered no more than two hundred li a day, and whenever they reached a larger city, they would change carriages and horses, sometimes even drivers. They would also spend a few days enjoying the local sights, making the journey longer still.
Hou Niao had originally done this out of consideration for his wife's feelings. They had been together for decades, yet the time they had actually spent in each other's company amounted to less than a year. That was rather excessive. But once he truly settled down, his mind no longer a restless monkey and his thoughts a galloping horse as they had been at the start, he gradually began to feel the benefits of traveling this way.
It really was time for a rest. Ever since entering the Dao, he had been like a tireless donkey endlessly turning a millstone, constantly whipping himself onward to grow stronger, never once stopping.
Even his occasional so-called rests had really been spent gathering strength for the