A sand boat was a crude short-distance transport vessel—large timbers lashed together with tung-oil cloth—built by laborers conscripted from various regions for the ease of transporting materials for the reconstruction of the old city walls.

Wherever you saw a fleet of these long timber rafts piled with sand along the banks of the Three Rivers, you could be sure that nearby, a major renovation of some old city wall was underway, or else a local government office was overseeing river channel and canal works. Following such boats were usually local villagers, fulfilling their portion of corvée labor duty.

Elsewhere, this kind of hard labor duty typically rotated once every three years—after autumn’s harvest, the court’s local offices would conscript from each village and town, extracting three months of free labor for the state. That was the corvée system.

But Jindian was different. The closer one lived to Jindian’s waterways, the better one knew: here, corvée duty was annual. Every man who came of age owed three months of labor service each year, and even the women at home had to keep weaving without rest, because Jindian’s local rule demanded that a household of six pay six zhang of cloth annually—a length and a half of full bolts.

Jindian’s taxation was, by far, the heaviest in all of Daliang.

A handful of laborers, thin as firewood, stood on the sand boat calling out to Zhang Yongbao. Zhang Yongbao leaned against the boat’s rail and stared a long while before he finally, barely, recognized them—people from his own home village.

He’d been sold away by his parents and had had no word from home in five years. So he leaned against the rail and began to weep, calling out: “Uncle! Elder! How did you know I was here?”

Truthfully he’d long since forgotten most of their names, but that particular flavor of poverty, those particular gaunt faces—those he could never forget.

The other boat was drifting; so was the opera troupe’s boat, and the two were slowly parting in opposite directions.

The older man, seeing they’d run out of time, called out hastily: “Boy, that’s right! It’s us! Ah—(in dialect)—heard someone up north say there’s an opera boat come through, called the Five Blessings Troupe—soon as I heard that name I thought, this must be you! You’re here!

Wild Dog! No time left—listen to me, your mother’s gone. Don’t cry… it’s been years already, still crying? Listen! Your father sold Yangdan too—sold him to the big trading house in Jindian, the one run by that Cai Xianzi, same one who bought you. Yangdan’s in Aicheng in Jindian now. Go see him if you can, your brother’s pitiful, once you’re there…”

With that, the boat drifted further and further away.

Only once it had vanished entirely from sight did Zhang Yongbao think to shout back, throwing himself against the rail in anguish: “Uncle! Didn’t you say—didn’t you say they only sold me, not Yangdan?! Uncle!!!”

He was about to keep shouting when someone hauled him back by the waist, and before he could react, two slaps landed across his face.

Troupe leader Zhang Shuangxi, face dark with fury, cursed: “You little wretch! Who told you to strain your voice like that, right when it matters most! If tomorrow your flute-voice goes hoarse, I’ll send you straight to that Cai Xianzi, how about that? Reunited with your brother, isn’t that nice? Huh?”

Cai Xianzi was a well-known human trafficker operating around Jindian—his business was large, backed by powerful patrons, and he more or less monopolized the local human trade.

Traffickers had existed for ages, and their form varied by region and custom. In Yandu, for instance, the trade was overseen entirely by guild foremen, without further division, though two kinds of business those foremen never touched: livestock trading—since that required specialized knowledge of judging animals, no time to specially learn it—and, second, human trafficking, which the foremen simply held in contempt.

Later, under the Ministry of War’s Lord Chen, the guild foremen around Yandu were absorbed into the Ministry of Revenue’s oversight and issued formal registration tokens—from then on, guild foremen were officially recognized as part of the court’s apparatus, no longer common laborers but minor clerks.

Take Bai Ruyi, for example—a minor overseer, drawing five dou of rice and two strings and five hundred coins from the court each month, technically a salaried official. Whenever he brokered a deal, the foreman split the commission with the court, and the Ministry of Revenue’s merchant-oversight office in the capital only stamped official seals for the people under a registered foreman’s charge.

Such a system could only exist because Yandu was the heart of Daliang—all the nation’s commerce ultimately funneled there, and once transaction volume grew large enough, the court had no choice but to bring the guild foremen under its wing.

Elsewhere was different. Other regions couldn’t sustain large numbers of registered foremen, nor was there enough business to need their brokering.

So in most places, ordinary traffickers still handled introductions and guarantees themselves.

The trade had its own subdivisions too—rice brokers introduced rice merchants, tea brokers introduced tea merchants… and human traffickers, well, that spoke for itself.

Back in Zhang Yongbao’s home village, parents had a saying to frighten misbehaving children: behave, or tomorrow we’ll send you to Cai Xianzi’s and have him sell you off.

Back then, young Zhang Yongbao had been afraid too—never once imagining the threat would come true.

But his father really had sold him to Cai Xianzi. Or rather, not directly to Cai Xianzi himself, but to one of the trafficking women working under him—an old woman who was a fixture in the town, the one families in desperate straits always sought out when they needed to sell off a child.

As it happened, that old woman was fond of opera, and on good terms with Zhang Shuangxi. The year she bought the boy—then still called Gou Dan—she took one look at his sturdy, regular features and suggested to Zhang Shuangxi that, since the boy wasn’t yet “processed,” and the price was still cheap, he ought to buy him instead.

That was how Zhang Yongbao learned his own worth: two dou of rice, three strings of cash. Bought and sold in one transaction, the old woman had pocketed three strings of profit off his family.

Zhang Yongbao had a twin brother named Yangdan.

As for their parents—not bad people, really, just powerless and poor beyond measure. Naturally, when it came to that, they sold their children—not for the money, but simply hoping the children might survive somewhere else.

They’d had four sons. That year of disaster, they sold three of them.

Of the roughly twenty children sold from that one village, Gou Dan was the only one who ended up somewhere decent. He’d entered the opera world, formally apprenticed, and taken the name Zhang Yongbao. For country folk, becoming an opera performer was considered a fortunate outcome—not too much suffering involved.

And because of him, the small village came to know that there was an opera boat on the Three Rivers called the Five Blessings Troupe, and that their own Gou Dan performed on it, now renamed Zhang Yongbao, destined one day to become a star.

Ever since, any fellow villager who happened to run into an opera troupe would always ask if it was the Five Blessings Troupe.

Today’s encounter, as it happened, was pure coincidence—someone had simply asked in passing, never expecting to actually find them.

She Wanlin stood off to the side and watched Little Bao get beaten, not stepping in to stop it.

Zhang Yongbao, knowing he’d caused trouble, didn’t even try to cover his face—just took the blows.

Zhang Shuangxi struck him several more times, careful to avoid the face, landing the blows on his back instead.

Old Chou always said—looking after them for a while wasn’t enough to look after them for a lifetime; if you wanted fewer children in the world to suffer like this, you had to master real skill, become like your ancestors, hold power at court. He didn’t ask the boy for great accomplishments—only that all his life, in everything he did, he’d remember children like these, and never grow careless about it.

Truthfully, She Wanlin already never let himself grow careless.

Performing opera came with its own hazards, and for boys this age going through voice change, it was a critical period—handled poorly, no matter how well-built the boy grew up, his voice could be ruined for good.

Zhang Shuangxi guarded these children’s voices more carefully than his own life. He couldn’t allow this kind of reckless shouting.

After the beating, he clearly wasn’t feeling good about it either—wanted to say something, but in the end just put his hands on his hips and walked off.

Once he’d gone, the other children crowded around to comfort Zhang Yongbao.

She Wanlin heard Little Bao mutter, covering his face: “They said they’d only sell me… they said they’d only sell me…”

Unable to bear listening, he quietly slipped back to the cabin and threw himself face-down on the bed without moving.

After a long while, he heard Old Chou beside him, voice carrying a hint of amusement: “Can’t take it, huh?”

She Wanlin rolled over to face the wall.

Old Chou laughed again.

“…You’ve got good fortune—chose your reincarnation well, landed parents with real ability, a grandfather who could hold up the sky. Me, back in my day, I never accepted my fate. It was hard too, back then—I kept thinking, ah, why was I born into that family…”

He suddenly went quiet, and after a long pause, mocked himself: “But you are born into this family. Where’s the fairness in that? Nowhere to argue it. You just get what you get.”

No one requested a show that day, so the Five Blessings Troupe gave up on the small dock and, after paying the toll, continued on toward Jindian.

From boarding the boat to now, they’d covered only a few hundred li, yet nearly every ten li brought some new checkpoint, some new fee to pay. Fortunately, Manager Zhang had found new business, and everyone on the boat could at least eat their fill now—two meals a day.

As for the delayed travel of Uncle Ping and his nephew, the troupe leader had mentioned it—perhaps they’d like to switch to a different boat?

Old Chou had considered it at first, but after asking around, found it wasn’t possible.

Jindian’s rule was: however you entered, that’s how you had to leave. The Five Blessings Troupe had brought these two in with them; if they left tomorrow without the uncle and nephew still aboard, the troupe would be held accountable.

They were bound together now, no untangling it. Fortunately, neither Old Chou nor She Wanlin was in any hurry, and even if they had been, they wouldn’t abandon the troupe to trouble over it. So they simply made do.

Another night passed, and the next morning, the boat finally reached a place called Shu’ao Town in Jindian’s Licheng Prefecture.

This troupe was used to familiar patrons on their route—they’d passed through here before, and there was a wealthy family surnamed Tian who always requested a show at the Dragon King Temple whenever they came through.

Supposedly it was a show for the Dragon King’s benefit, but really it was just an excuse to spend a little money and liven things up.

And for the common folk within ten li of the place, hoping for a bit of excitement, the Tian family’s patronage was often the only source of it.

Zhang Shuangxi said the Tian family was a kind and generous household, so every time they passed through, he made a point of visiting to ask whether they’d like a show.

The Five Blessings Troupe was the sort that could be hired cheaply—they had their own boat, so they could take on short river-bank performances. Larger troupes, the kind with a hundred or more performers, only played the grand theaters in the prefectural cities; if a respectable household wanted one of those, they’d need to cover travel costs or hire a boat to fetch them, and once hired, the minimum engagement was three days.

There was another kind of troupe, too—She Wanlin’s own family kept one. Not many performers, upkeep more than double the Five Blessings Troupe’s, kept in a corner of the back garden. He’d vaguely heard they were also bought as children, but never formally apprenticed—just trained by an instructor, performing only for the household. The one advantage was that if their voices broke, they simply got sent to the estate to learn some other trade, and a new one would be bought to replace them.

In any case, well-off families rarely sold off their people.

If the head of household wanted to watch, it wasn’t called “hiring a show”—it was “summoning them to perform.”

Beyond the opera troupe, his family also kept storytellers, acrobats, even people to wrestle and ride horses with him… Looking back now, it didn’t seem shameful at all—in Daliang’s capital, thick with nobility, households wealthy enough to keep their own opera troupes were still the rare minority.

Shu’ao couldn’t afford a grand troupe—only something like the Five Blessings Troupe. They had no fancy stage curtains or valuable equipment, but they were seasoned travelers, and their stage-building skills had been honed sharp: half a day to build the stage, a full day to perform, and within two days they could satisfy an entire village.

She Wanlin had come to admire this kind of troupe most of all—cycling through the same handful of repertoire pieces over and over, yet somehow surviving along the Three Rivers. Compared to the capital’s Qingfeng troupe, establishing yourself as a proper troupe in the capital took real skill and effort.

The Five Blessings Troupe finally disembarked, going ashore.

Manager Zhang, carrying tea cakes, went to pay his respects to the Tian family. They agreed to spend fifteen strings of cash for a lively performance of The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea.

Honestly, business on the river these past few days had earned more than this, and with far less effort.

But this was the kind of steady, long-term business Manager Zhang refused to let go of, no matter what.

The visit took less than an hour to settle. This time they needed more hands, so even Old Pi and Old Xue had to go help.

That left She Wanlin and Old Chou in charge of watching the boat, sending the rest of the troupe ashore.

“Ah, every day it’s so lively around here, and the moment everyone leaves, it feels strange not to be used to it.”

Old Chou sighed, watching the troupe being carried off by donkey cart, his tone full of loneliness.

She Wanlin looked at him. “Uncle, they haven’t gone far, have they? If you want, go along with them.”

Old Chou rolled his eyes, then stomped his foot and stepped ashore too, turning back to look at a rather startled She Wanlin. “Good nephew, our place is running a bit low on supplies. There’s a town fifteen li ahead—I’ll go stock up on some things, or else tomorrow when they’re back and the boat sets off again, eating and dressing well will be even harder. The checkpoints ahead are strict, ugh… miserable place.”

He didn’t like it here either.

With that, he walked off, and within a few breaths, She Wanlin could no longer see him.

So he’d been left all alone?

She Wanlin looked around, unable to quite believe it, then looked back at the empty boat behind him. Since birth, he’d been kidnapped away from home—he’d never once been alone before.

His solitude didn’t last long. Soon a large crowd came drifting toward him from the distance—startling him at first—and as they drew closer, all eyes turned his way, making him increasingly self-conscious.

It was just a crowd of villagers come to gawk—though what exactly was so interesting about a docked, run-down opera boat, he couldn’t say. Still, they came, old and young supporting each other, to watch from the riverbank.

Some of the more brazen aunties even brought washbasins, doing their laundry while watching him for entertainment.

Dozens of people gathered close, though none of them approached or bothered him directly—just stood on the bank, chatting, laughing, pointing.

She Wanlin couldn’t bear the attention and retreated into the cabin, peering out through a gap in the window.

This was his first time seeing Jindian’s common people up close. How to put it—unlike the traders paddling their little boats for business, that had been a kind of wealth; this was poverty, plain and raw.

How poor? The kind of clothes beggars back in Qingfeng used to wear—these people wore the equivalent now. And that wasn’t even a fair comparison, since Old Chou, back in his beggar days, had been practically nobility among beggars—his clothes were hand-me-downs from uncles and cousins who no longer wanted them. He’d just kept them dirty.

Looking back now, he realized that had been deliberate.

In earlier days, She Wanlin might have been shocked by this kind of poverty. Not anymore. There were poor people everywhere; typically, in an ordinary household, at most the head of the family had one decent outfit fit for receiving guests.

Living with spirit and dignity despite ragged, patched clothes, clothes that barely covered the body—none of that was inherently shameful. What struck him most, entering Jindian, was that the people here wore despair on their faces, deadness in their eyes.

Wrong womb, wrong soil to be born into—every level of Jindian’s local government seemed devoted to a single true purpose: making life harder for its people.

Households like the Tian family who’d hired the show today—they were the ones actually holding up the local community. When there were disputes, hardships, troubles too difficult to overcome, the local people rarely bothered the county officials at all—they simply found a trusted, upstanding figure locally and settled things among themselves.

Which was exactly why Tan Shouyi was so despicable.

To She Wanlin, Jindian had always just meant the seasonal gift boxes—Jindian cured meats, dried vegetables, bamboo crafts, fine cloth… every time, at least three full cartloads.

His mother had once mentioned that none of it was worth much—altogether maybe fifty strings of cash at most.

But the gifts Jindian sent elsewhere—those were worth a great deal. Rare beasts sent across ten thousand li, jade and ornamental stones shipped down the long river.

Last year, if he remembered right, at the eldest prince’s household banquet, when Young Master Hua had taken him along to enjoy the festivities, there’d been a man-height jade rockery mountain displayed in the center of the main hall.

The rockery had been carved with exquisite detail—layered mountains and waters, jagged peaks, towering pines, an ancient pagoda and temple, with a rising morning sun perched above it all—simply titled Sunrise in the East.

Rare not just for its size but for its craftsmanship too—the biggest, most beautiful piece of carved jade She Wanlin had ever seen outside the imperial palace itself.

At the time, it reminded him of the childhood story he’d once heard, of returning the jade to Zhao—how the jade of Bian He was said to be so fine, so beautiful, so priceless, yet the man from Chu, Bian, had tried to present it to his king, and the king hadn’t believed him, and had his feet cut off for it… until finally a later king recognized its worth and vindicated him.

Back then, still a child, he’d angrily declared that this Bian fellow from Chu was a fool—if the king didn’t believe him, why not just crack the stone open himself and show him directly?

His grandfather had laughed at his childish naivety, then, once he’d finished laughing, taken him to the household treasury, found a modest piece of jade, and sent it to the palace craftsmen who specialized in jade ornaments—found two seasoned jade-cutting artisans, who used a bow strung with animal sinew coated in diamond grit, grinding it down bit by bit.

The stone wasn’t large, yet it took a full fifteen days of labor before the outer skin finally cracked to reveal the jade flesh within.

Afterward, his grandfather told him: as for the two kings in the story of Bian He’s jade—one was simply blind to it, and the other, well, the truth was he was just too poor. He genuinely couldn’t have afforded to have it cut, either.

Even now, a piece of presentable jade in Madam Lu’s shop started at no less than ten strings of cash.

It wasn’t that the jade itself was so precious—its value lay in the labor. Especially in ancient times, even a king might not have had the means to spare.

And yet that Sunrise in the East rockery from back then—every favored consort in the palace had one, and every prince, favored or not, owned at least one or two pieces just like it—all gifts from the Tan family.

Jindian produced jade, and the Tan family sent it every year.

There wasn’t a soul in Yandu who didn’t love the Tan family—except his own household, which truly saw it as nothing but a windfall for everyone else.

But the Fuiu princely household was different. If a gift came bearing Grand Tutor Tan Shouyi’s personal card, and the item was an ordinary local product, Grandfather would accept it.

But if it came under the seal of Jindian’s provincial administration office, the household refused it.

She Wanlin used to not understand why his grandfather made such a fuss over whose card accompanied a gift. Now he understood—Grandfather outranked Tan Shouyi in both office and title, colleagues within the same court. He could accept Tan Shouyi’s personal gestures of respect as a subordinate to a superior, but he would not accept tribute from Jindian itself.

Probably because he’d long known that household was rotten to the core, but hadn’t wanted to embarrass His Majesty directly—after all, these days, the one who held the greatest favor in the palace wasn’t even a prince, but that treacherous dog Tan Weixin.

Children, when picking playmates, always clustered by preference—and among the group She Wanlin ran with, not one of them liked Tan Weixin. It wasn’t even that he’d done anything specifically wrong—just that something about him always felt indefinably false.

Before, She Wanlin used to wonder—everyone held it in, and the man hadn’t actually done anything, so why treat him with such constant, cold rejection?

Now he understood—it was because the whole family was rotten, and all these years, his usually hands-off grandfather had been using this small method to slap the Tan family in the face, again and again.

Grandfather despised them and didn’t care in the least about offending them.

But was that enough?

Before entering Jindian, She Wanlin hadn’t known. Now that he was here, he felt that even the bamboo lacquerware his family had once accepted as gifts was itself a kind of sin.

In just a few hundred li of Jindian’s waterways, this single opera boat had already been fleeced more than twenty times. He’d made up his mind—once he got back to Yandu, he would spend the rest of his life at odds with the Tan family.

Forget the bamboo crafts—even a single leaf from a Jindian tree carried, in his eyes now, enough sin to earn eighteen layers of hell.

Lost in these thoughts, he drifted into a doze.

Half-asleep, half-awake, he heard someone calling for him from below the boat again.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he went out to look—it was Zhang Yongchun and Zhang Yongbao, carrying a large basket, bringing him food.

She Wanlin, touched and a little startled, pointed at himself. “For me?”

Little Bao—still yesterday sobbing half the night—now grinning without a care in the world, one cheek and eye still swollen, called out loudly: “Yes! For Manager Ping and the young master both. Our troupe leader said the two of you had it hard watching the boat, so today and tomorrow’s meals are on us.”

Zhang Yongchun steadied the basket. “Young Master, the Tian household opened up a huge pot of tofu, cooked with loads of good oil—we snuck two scoops over just for you two!”

Little Bao nodded eagerly. “That’s right, that’s right! Our master was going to hit him for having no manners, but we told him it was for you two, and he just told us to hurry up and deliver it, then hurry back!”

She Wanlin found a rope and bucket, lowered it down, and hauled the basket up. Inside were two large bowls of coarse rice topped with a layer of tofu and mixed vegetables—not plain boiled greens, there was real oil in it. It smelled genuinely good.

He found empty bowls, transferred the food, then lowered the basket back down. “Not coming back tonight?”

The two shameless boys just grinned without a hint of guilt, and the onlookers around them laughed along.

She Wanlin thought—maybe never having known good things wasn’t entirely a bad thing. This kind of happiness, right now, might be the real thing.

The basket wasn’t heavy, but the two boys insisted on carrying it together anyway. As they walked off, the crowd along the bank followed noisily after them.

Once they were out of sight, She Wanlin sat by the railing, cradling a bowl of tofu and rice, eating while lost in thought.

He decided he now had a grand ambition: return to Yandu, and at the very least, bring down the Tan family—then trade his own fief lands for territory here. Once that was done, he’d tear down every checkpoint along Jindian’s waterways… let anyone come and go as they pleased.

Eating too eagerly, a few grains of rice fell into the water, drawing fish to fight over them. Amused, She Wanlin flicked a piece of tofu into the river and watched several small fish surface, dragging it down as they sank…

Jindian’s river water was remarkably clear—it left his feet, soaking in it, looking pale and almost luminous. The water more than lived up to the word “pure”—transparent all the way down, and he could see the grass swaying on the riverbed, gathered together like a meadow, dense and soft…

What a lovely place…

Just as his mind wandered off, She Wanlin suddenly heard the sound of cattle lowing.

He looked up, startled.

A few days earlier, Old Chou had mentioned that beyond Daliang’s own people, Jindian was also home to many tribal peoples—groups who looked different, dressed differently; the larger tribes had their own written language, and even the smaller ones worshipped different gods.

He never expected to actually witness it today.

It was an enormous herd of long-haired, long-horned cattle—at a glance, easily several hundred head, terrifying in scale. Still several hundred paces off, and already the smell of dung and pungent grass carried over on the wind.

In any case, here they came—a great black mass of cattle, and as he blinked, the herders driving them came into view.

Wait—were they women?

Indeed—riding the horses that drove the herd was a group of women who looked remarkably fierce and capable.

These tribal women had skin a deep reddish-brown; She Wanlin’s crude comparison, but they truly did resemble wild geese—except maybe not just geese, other birds too—dark red, vividly colored, healthy-looking, dressed in leather robes, heads crowned with feathers and elaborate silver-and-coral jewelry. A handful of these women alone were herding several hundred head of cattle.

Impressive.

In any case, She Wanlin was seeing, for the first time in his life, both the largest herd of cattle and the wildest women he’d ever laid eyes on.

He was looking at them as scenery; they, no doubt, were looking at him the same way.

There he sat, on the old boat over the clear green river, a plump, handsome, fair-skinned young boy cradling a rice bowl—when he caught sight of them, his star-bright eyes went round as full moons, sparkling and striking.

The women, faces set and tense as they passed, one of them reined her horse to a stop upon spotting She Wanlin and, without a hint of shyness, stared openly at him.

Unafraid, She Wanlin called out curiously: “Miss? You all—how many cattle is that?”

The woman sat on her horse; dark-skinned but striking, and even seated, she was clearly tall.

Hearing him call out to her, she pointed at her own nose and asked, in stiff court speech: “Miss?”

Wasn’t she a young woman? Then he’d been rude.

Embarrassed, She Wanlin set down his bowl, stood, straightened his clothes, adjusted his trouser legs… and bowed to her. “This lady, forgive me—I’m from out of town, haven’t seen much of the world, and this is my first time seeing so many cattle at once. My apologies for the rudeness!”

Raised with a noble family’s etiquette training since childhood, his movements were genuinely elegant and graceful.

The “lady” pondered for a long moment over what the word meant, and once she understood, threw her head back and laughed uproariously from atop her horse, jangling with even more silver jewelry, her head shaking the ornaments into a chiming clatter.

Women of Daliang never laughed like that—like a wild falcon, taking flight the instant it wanted to, small but untamed.

She Wanlin liked that unrestrained quality and laughed along, flashing a mouth of good white teeth.

Once she’d finished laughing, she looked him over with open admiration. “I’m not a lady, I’m a maiden. How old are you? Your teeth are so white? Young sir, are you from another prefecture?”

Well now—how was he supposed to answer that? Thank you for admiring my white teeth? You flatter me?

But She Wanlin was easygoing by nature, with few internal rules holding him back, so he just laughed and asked, “Which tribe are you from? Why does the young miss wear so much silver jewelry? Is this how your people always dress? And why are you herding so many cattle?”

The young woman looked utterly delighted, raised her riding crop, lifted her chin, and answered with a grin: “Wearing all this silver? That’s because you Liang people are far too wicked—we have to carry our wealth on our bodies. The moment you people show up, we run off, and you can’t take a single thing from us! Hahaha…”

She’d called him wicked, yet somehow he couldn’t manage to get angry at her.

She Wanlin thought this young woman had a quality strikingly similar to Chou Chou—his own Chou Chou back home was similarly reckless and unrestrained, hitting him whenever the mood struck—especially these past few years, not even bothering to find an excuse anymore.

Ah, Chou Chou. He suddenly missed her terribly.

Leave without a word, and next time he’d surely get hit for it. Getting hit, fine—just please, no drugging him this time.

Seeing She Wanlin suddenly fall silent, the young woman asked, “Hey, young sir? Are you upset? My grandmother says it’s not like that—that Liang people have good ones too, we just haven’t met them, and you’re one of the good ones—you’re handsome, your teeth are big and white…”

…Was that supposed to be a compliment?

She Wanlin scratched his head, thanked her sincerely, then asked, “Thank you for the kind words, miss. Where are you all driving this herd to?”

The young woman smiled. “To Aicheng, delivering them to Old Master Tan’s household, for the New Year offering…”

Just then, a middle-aged tribeswoman rode up and called out urgently: “Lianghaya, it’s getting late, we need to go. This is Liang people’s land—if our cattle eat their grass, there’ll be trouble, and that’s more hassle than it’s worth.”

So this wild little falcon’s name was Lianghaya.

But Lianghaya didn’t move, instead pointing at She Wanlin and saying, “Sister, look at him, isn’t he pale? His nose bridge is like a mountain peak, his teeth like pearls—paler than any young man in our whole settlement, right?”

The middle-aged woman glanced at She Wanlin, then behind him at the boat—clearly a woman who’d seen the world—and said with a smile, “Lianghaya, all the young men on these boats look nice. It’s getting late—we’ll come back another day, they’re always drifting along this river, plenty of chances to see him again.”

But Lianghaya refused to budge. She studied She Wanlin closely, so intently that he began to feel unsettled, and finally said, “Young sir, I like you, you’re so pale…”

She Wanlin sucked in a startled breath—right as Old Chou, carrying a huge bundle on his back and two more sacks in his hands, made his way back from town. Spotting the herd of cattle from afar, along with several women of the Junang tribe, his heart immediately lurched with unease.

He’d barely managed to squeeze his way out from among the long-haired cattle when he heard an earth-shattering declaration.

The tribeswoman was saying to his little young lord: “Young sir, are your parents around? I’ll trade five cattle for you—no, ten cattle. Deal?”

The bundle on his back hit the ground. Old Chou’s voice tore out in anguish: “No deal! Not for a hundred head, not for ten thousand head!!”