Now, once Qiqian’er’s group left Small Nanshan, the hardships truly began.

This was no pleasure trip. Regardless of the fact that the head of Hongpeng Escort Agency came from a scouting background and drew his own salary, that had nothing to do with the actual running of the escort business.

Every meal, every need on the road cost money, and it all fell on Escort Chief Sun to manage carefully with his own hard work—only through his diligence could he afford to keep so many people fed.

This particular job was for the medicine trade, plus a half-fee personal escort—namely Bride Huang and her dowry.

For one escort run, the medicine shop paid one hundred fifty guan, and escorting Bride Huang’s person came to another twenty guan.

For a round trip to Jin Dian, the head escort took the largest cut of the earnings, with the rest distributed by rank of contribution. The lowest-ranked hands—the ones carrying flags, clearing the road, and doing odd chores—earned only five guan a year.

Hard as the work was, one shouldn’t scoff at so little—in any trade besides escort work, apprentices worked for free with no pay at all. Five guan a year was already generous of the head escort.

To let the accompanying hands earn a bit extra on the side, Chief Sun avoided staying at proper post-station inns, opting at most for cart-and-horse inns or the cheapest flophouses.

Sometimes even the cheap flophouses weren’t available, and then they simply camped out in the wilds—whatever saved the most money, that’s what they did.

As for Bride Huang’s party, the women at least had a mule cart to rest in—as for whether it was hardship or not, once you’re out on the road without money, you simply don’t get to be picky.

Huo Qiqian had always believed that in her past life, she’d truly suffered.

Now that she was finally out here, she realized the suffering she’d known before had only been the suffering of staying shut up at home—once out in the world, that counted for nothing.

Take, for instance, one of the escort hands named Peng Shugen. This boy was only twelve this year, yet he’d already been following the escort carts for over a year. Being young, his voice wasn’t loud, his strength wasn’t great, and he hadn’t learned much escort skill yet—so he was good for nothing but odd jobs, helping serve the senior escorts, washing clothes and feeding horses along the road, and keeping watch over the campfire at night.

He was busy all day and couldn’t sleep soundly at night either—the pack animals in the escort agency were worth more than he was, so he wasn’t even allowed to ride in the cart, only permitted to run alongside the convoy. He’d have to run all the way to Jin Dian just to earn his five guan for the year.

Huo Qiqian had noticed this boy on the very first day out—a thin, dark-skinned child who kept an even, unhurried pace running alongside the escort convoy. He had a pair of shoes tucked at his waist that he couldn’t bear to wear, running barefoot instead—and running quite fast at that.

Anyone in the convoy could order him around, anyone could scold or strike him, yet he always smiled through it, and whenever he had a spare moment, he’d pull out his little box and mend shoes for the whole convoy.

Aside from the head escort, who could be hired in from outside, all the escort hands rose up from the bottom—starting out by learning to mend shoes.

Feeling for the pitiable boy, and thinking of her own children, Huo Qiqian privately grumbled a bit to Bai Ying about how hard it all was. But Bai Ying just blinked at her in surprise and said, who isn’t like this? Did she think being alive was easy?

This boy carried no burdens on his back—he simply ran alongside the convoy, did odd jobs, and made at most two long escort runs a year. Setting aside household expenses, he could buy an acre of land back at Small Nanshan every year, and once he’d learned several long routes well enough to guide them himself, he’d earn even more.

Try any other trade instead—apprentices in their thirties were still slaving away for their masters like beasts of burden. Here in the escort trade, in just three to five years, this boy would earn himself a proper nest egg.

So he wasn’t suffering—he was a fortunate person. Besides running the road and mending shoes, what else did he even do? He’d contributed nothing much, and yet he’d already have a nest egg to his name. And here she was, calling the head escort harsh?

Rarely receiving such a blunt lesson, Huo Qiqian thought it over and realized—indeed, it wasn’t so. The hardship she perceived was, after all, only hardship as she herself judged it.

Take, for instance, Granny Zhu, who’d come from Jin Dian—she was a hired laborer, sent out by her employer’s household precisely because she wasn’t property, so there was no fear of her running off.

So although she earned no wages for this trip, once she returned, her employer’s household would raise her rank—from the lowest-tier kitchen hand up to second tier, earning thirty extra coins a month. To her, this hardship was a golden opportunity, and she was overjoyed about it—why should Qiqian feel sorry for her on her behalf?

Learning something new like this every day, within just a few days Huo Qiqian felt she’d become a different person. Though there was still no news about her son settling down anywhere, she found herself inexplicably letting go of many things from her past life.

Making fires in the open countryside, grabbing hot meals at roadside inns—though she endured hardships she’d never known in either lifetime, the journey passed without bandits or robbers, which by escort-trade standards counted as easy living.

The next day, they arrived at a place called Wufeng County, and from here on, the smooth, well-paved official road disappeared, and so did the cart-and-horse inns offering hot water at night.

From this point on, the road they traveled was an ancient path a thousand years old.

Emperor Wu had been a ruler who built up wealth for future generations—since the founding of Great Liang, the court had devoted itself to infrastructure projects, tightening its belt to renovate the roads around Yandu, so that fine official roads led to Yandu from every direction.

A so-called “official road” was, at minimum, a road of pounded earth baked hard like a heated wok—guaranteed not to flood in the rain, not to grow weeds on its surface. That was an official road.

As for the ancient paths, potholes were the norm—the only redeeming feature of any ancient path was that a horse-watering river always ran alongside it, a route carved out step by step over a thousand years by the feet of those who came before.

So if one wanted to judge an age of prosperity, besides looking at whether the common people had food to eat, one also had to look at the state of transportation across the land.

Great Liang’s current age of prosperity had only just begun—it extended past Small Nanshan, but no further than Wufeng County.

Then Huo Qiqian’s eyes were opened once again. She’d assumed that any county seat, however humble, would at least have a city gate and wall.

But Wufeng County had none of that—the soldiers guarding the “city” wore ragged, tattered clothes, propping up a blunt spear, standing atop a raised mound left over from the old city wall. There wasn’t even a gate, yet they still collected an entry fee.

Beneath that mound sat a large basket, and people coming and going into the county simply tossed in money by their own estimation.

Giving one coin was fine, giving two was fine too—if a local didn’t want to pay, they simply didn’t use the “gate,” since there was no wall anyway, and one could enter from anywhere.

But Huo Qiqian’s group had no choice but to use the gate—simply because they were outsiders, and the locals wouldn’t guide them in any other way.

And so, the escort convoy obediently joined the line of people entering the county, waiting to pay the fee.

Huo Qiqian only glanced at it once before returning to her shoe-insole needlework. This Bride Huang was a thoughtful sort, feeling that once she entered her husband’s family, she ought to have some gift of filial devotion to offer the elders at home.

Having lived her life in Yandu, the embroidery on her shoe insoles was done in the capital style. She’d endured real hardship in her life, and her hands were nimble—even by the dim, wavering light in the cart, she threaded her needle without even looking at the stitches, working without a thimble, and finished one insole a day.

Huo Qiqian hadn’t originally planned to help—wasn’t that just idle busywork?—but out of boredom she’d picked one up too, and three days later she still hadn’t finished embroidering even one insole.

Faced with such a genuinely hard worker and her own clumsy self, she no longer dared to try to take over the task.

While entering the county, the escort convoy ran into an incident—some local hooligans, for whatever reason, had set their sights on them, seemingly bumping into Peng Shugen on purpose, then slapping him across the face and kicking him.

The commotion started up outside, and Huo Qiqian set down the insole she was working on and lifted the cart curtain to look out.

What she saw was Chief Sun already dismounted, smiling apologetically as he tried to smooth things over with this bunch of hooligans.

The hooligans merely claimed they’d been bumped into, and Chief Sun immediately slapped his own face, then cupped his hands together and said with a smile, “Ah, I deserve to be struck! My humble troupe has only just passed through your esteemed territory—we hadn’t yet learned the local customs, or we’d have come to pay our respects properly beforehand. You see, this child doesn’t know his manners, daring to raise his head and look at you fine gentlemen—this truly counts as a grave offense. If he’s angered you, he deserves this beating; that you’ve taught him this lesson is thanks to the virtue accumulated by his ancestors…”

As he spoke, he pulled out a handful of coins from inside his robe and handed it to the hooligans, who took the money happily and swaggered off.

Chief Sun’s nickname in the martial world was “Mountain-Crossing Serpent,” which showed he had real skill—yet throughout this journey, he’d remained mild and accommodating, always yielding a step whenever trouble arose, never once picking a fight.

Qiqian’er found this rather puzzling—seeing him so mild-mannered, wasn’t this a bit too much bowing and scraping, too aggrieved a way to behave?

Once the matter was settled and the hooligans had walked off, Peng Shugen finally broke down crying—not from the pain, but from worry that he’d implicated the convoy and cost the chief his money.

But the old escort chief wasn’t angry at all. He pulled the boy up, patted his head, and comforted him: “There now! It’s nothing much, go on and get busy. Ask your elder brothers about it later, and you’ll learn something from this.”

Peng Shugen walked off still sniffling, leaving Huo Qiqian utterly puzzled as she watched.

Getting the whole convoy into the county cost one hundred coins, plus a packet of tobacco leaves bought back in Yandu, given to the old soldier guarding the gate. Once inside, they settled for the night at a place called the Ma Family Inn.

It was nothing more than a drafty, run-down courtyard, offering heated sand to sleep on.

Once they arrived, Huo Qiqian got down from the cart and helped Bride Huang—still wearing her red bridal veil over her head—search for the outhouse. Even a large inn like the one back at Fenglan Mountain her son had passed through had had an outhouse, but Wufeng County’s cart-and-horse inn had none. With no other option, the women found a patch of crops about waist-high behind the inn, and relieved themselves there in a secluded spot while Bai Ying kept watch.

While Bride Huang was busy in the crop field, Huo Qiqian chatted idly with Bai Ying: “This place isn’t even as good as one of our small towns back home.”

Bai Ying, who’d been here before, laughed and said, “Don’t look down on it. Everyone has to pass through here—there’s no way around it. Anyone taking the ancient road has to pass through Wufeng County. Do you know why it’s so run-down?”

Huo Qiqian shook her head, so Bai Ying explained: “Well, back when Great Liang had just been founded, nearly everyone in Wufeng County had died off—the registered population didn’t even reach a thousand. The Ministry of Revenue’s intention was to merge it with the neighboring county, but somehow, to this day, the merger’s never actually happened. So this place has no county magistrate at all—if something goes wrong at home, you have to go beat the drum and cry injustice at the neighboring county’s yamen instead. Isn’t that just delightful?”

Not delightful at all—no wonder the local hooligans could extort people right at the gate with no one to stop them.

Puzzled, Huo Qiqian continued asking Bai Ying, “Why do I feel like Escort Master Sun was acting strangely just now?”

Bai Ying grinned. “You noticed?”

Huo Qiqian, surprised: “Noticed what, exactly?”

Bai Ying: “The old chief was up to something sly just now. What, Your Highness didn’t catch on?”

Huo Qiqian shot her a look. “How many times have I told you to call me Seventh Sister. I’m saying—just now, something felt off to me.”

She hadn’t realized it was deliberate scheming.

Bai Ying glanced behind her, then lowered her voice with a smile: “Those hooligans were clearly used to feeding off the escort trade—they came at us on purpose looking for trouble, and our chief understood exactly what that meant.”

Huo Qiqian didn’t follow: “What did it mean?”

Wasn’t it just extortion?

Bai Ying sniffed, reached over and plucked a few large leaves from the nearby crops to save for later use—she was a woman, yet in the way she sat, stood, and walked, she carried herself entirely like a man.

Qiqian’er suppressed a laugh and looked away as she listened to Bai Ying continue behind her: “…Didn’t you catch it? From the moment Chief Sun opened his mouth, he was already setting a trap. That bit about ‘not daring to look up at you’—back in Yandu, that’s how commoners address hereditary noble households, not daring to look them in the eye when speaking. For some two-bit local hooligan to act like some untouchable elder, demanding tribute like he’s opening a temple gate—that’s asking to get himself killed.”

Huo Qiqian mulled over the implication of this, and finally burst out laughing: “Well now, this world of yours really is quite entertaining. So how did Chief Sun know these hooligans had a grudge against the escort agency?”

This time Bai Ying looked around again before lowering her voice further: “Your Highness doesn’t know this, but privately, they call this ‘soft blade slicing meat’—extracting layer after layer of protection money, that’s an escort-trade tactic. Did you really think Chief Sun was just being endlessly accommodating? Those hooligans weren’t harmless—they came straight for the escort cart, which clearly showed they were used to this kind of thing, used to profiting from it.

Hmph, no telling whose bad graces they’d fallen into, getting themselves blacklisted, which is why they’ve been getting worked over bit by bit like this. Think about it—every time they see an escort convoy, that’s a hundred coins or so guaranteed income for them. Once they’re used to spending that kind of money, and suddenly one day it’s gone, what do you think they’ll do?”

What indeed—they’d end up doing something reckless enough to get themselves killed, whether by impersonating nobility or running into some case gone wrong, either way it would cost them their lives.

As for those noble folk, even if they killed such hooligans, it would amount to no more than a minor fine at most.

Huo Qiqian stood there mulling this over, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt that the wicked people of this world came in many varieties—but it was truly frightening when a good person turned wicked.

Just as she was thinking this, Bride Huang came out supported by Granny Zhu, and Huo Qiqian smiled, going over to help walk her back to the cart.

Bai Ying had been gone a good long while, and returned in the dark carrying a wild blue goat with its neck broken, generously sharing half of it with the escort agency. Since Peng Shugen had been wronged today, she told the agency to let the boy have the sheep’s eyes, and the four hooves besides for him to gnaw on.

At this news, Shugen was overjoyed nearly to the point of madness.

Normally when meat was divided up, he never got a share.

The escort agency, having received the meat, sent over some flatbread and seasonings in return, plus four bundles of dry firewood as thanks.

In truth, this had become routine these past few days—whenever they made camp, Bai Ying would go out and bring back some game, fowl or beast. The beggar clan’s skills weren’t much use against people, but they were unmatched at finding food.

Those in the escort trade were used to this sort of thing and thought nothing of it, but Bride Huang and Granny Zhu found it quite remarkable.

To have meat at every single meal—that made them practically worship the two women like living deities.

Bride Huang cared most about her money, and could manage well enough on her own regardless, but Granny Zhu, who followed her, had been living on thin gruel, and only through meeting Huo Qiqian and Bai Ying did she get meat to share every day, without either woman asking for extra silver in return.

Naturally, Granny Zhu was endlessly grateful and full of flattering words, but Bride Huang, being the sort she was, went so far as to promise Bai Ying a full set of clothes.

When Bai Ying came back and sought out her mistress, Granny Zhu was eyeing the half a wild goat, saying dreamily, “It just doesn’t sit right, eating Sister Bai’s meat day after day for free—so our young mistress said Seventh Sister should go out and buy a few feet of fine cloth, so your Seventh Sister can make you a proper, respectable outfit.”

Bride Huang didn’t know Bai Ying was actually a woman, so she couldn’t make clothes for her—by propriety, making clothes for Bai Ying would require her to ask her husband’s permission first.

Hearing this, Bai Ying was pleased all the same—after all, it showed Bride Huang’s genuine thoughtfulness, unlike those who ate and drank at someone else’s expense day after day and took it entirely for granted.

So she said, “What’s there to feel bad about? It’s no trouble at all, and the meat would just go to waste otherwise—what do I need new clothes for? Mine are perfectly fine.”

“We really must repay you somehow.”

Granny Zhu said this politely, trying to curry favor—in her eyes, Bai Ying was a handsome, considerate escort guard with a bright future ahead. Never mind that she had no land to her name; with hunting skills like these, she’d never worry about supporting a household.

Granny Zhu had her own little scheme in mind—she wanted to match her niece with Bai Ying. Just yesterday she’d tested the waters with Huo Qiqian, nearly making her die laughing.

Bai Ying spent every day close by Huo Qiqian’s side, and to outsiders they passed themselves off as cousins, with Bai Ying calling her “cousin.” So she said, “Tell the young mistress on my behalf—as for my cousin’s needlework skills, don’t get your hopes up.”

One insole taking several days to finish—there was no one clumsier with a needle.

Granny Zhu said politely, “Master Bai, your generosity comes from a good heart, but our young mistress says it’s not right to keep depending on your kindness day after day—wouldn’t that be shameless and ungrateful? Once it’s made, you wear it, and whether it’s more or less, it’s the thought that counts. If your cousin’s hands are slow, I can make it myself just as well…”

Even as she spoke these polite words, her hands moved briskly, cleaning and preparing the goat meat—this granny had come up from kitchen work, after all, and handling meat was no trouble for her.

Before long, the fragrant smell of roasting meat began layering thick over the old inn’s courtyard.

Meanwhile, Huo Qiqian had just left the old inn—not to go buy cloth, but to head out of the county entirely, seeking out the post station two li outside Wufeng County.

Once there, she found the old station master, presented her identity token, and received a bundle in return.

As he handed her the bundle, the station master said with a smile, “You’ve arrived at just the right time—the post horse hasn’t left even half an incense-stick’s time ago, and here you are.”

Huo Qiqian thanked him and handed over the letter tube she’d prepared to the station master.

The station master took it, lit a candle, retrieved the military relay seal, and pressed a layer of wax seal onto the tube’s opening.

Before long, a post rider at Wufeng County station led out a post horse, drew the official seal from the counter, and set off at nightfall, heading straight for Yandu.

Huo Qiqian watched the horse disappear into the distance before shouldering her bundle and leaving—she didn’t need to check its contents; it was just food and clothing her family had prepared for her, worried she might suffer hardship on the road.

Occasionally, when Chen Dasheng had a fit of feeling sentimental, he’d write letters complaining about how impossible the “little pup” was to deal with. Today Huo Qiqian had written back too, telling him everything was going smoothly, no illness or mishap along the way.

All told, neither letter going back and forth contained much of substance, yet they could be delivered swiftly, reaching the other party within just a few days—a luxury that couldn’t be bought with all the money in the world.

In truth, throughout all of Great Liang, no household had better access to information nowadays than the Chen family.

Years earlier, Chen Dasheng had arranged a position for Dingxiang’s son-in-law, Cui You, under the Ministry of War—at the time, a fifth-rank supervisor in charge of postal stations and relay lodges.

Back then, Huo Qiqian hadn’t understood how significant Cui You’s post actually was. Even a wealthy merchant house in Yandu like the Ping family, if they needed to send an urgent letter, would have to rely on merchant routes rather than the postal system if it wouldn’t go through—and even so, reaching their ancestral hometown would take at least a month at the fastest.

Yet if she had urgent business in Jin Dian, using the Ministry of War’s postal relay system, a letter could arrive in seven days—that was the power of controlling the postal network.

As long as she arranged in advance where she’d be staying, then sought out the nearby yamen or post station, there would always be something from home waiting for her to collect.

Beyond that, every single day she wrote a letter home, it would be sent out that same night by the finest post horses in all of Great Liang, and within two days, Chen Dasheng could already be reading it back in Yandu.

In truth, the postal relay system existed to transmit official and military communications, and to provide rest stops for traveling officials.

In the early years after the realm had just been pacified, everyone else was fighting over the lucrative posts, but as for the postal system, most of it had already fallen into disrepair by then—whoever took it over faced nothing but trouble, and everyone knew a great deal of hard, grinding work lay ahead, so the position sat vacant.

But Chen Dasheng hadn’t found it troublesome at all. Back then, he still hadn’t read much, yet he’d always had a feeling this postal system was no small matter.

And so, going purely on instinct, he’d secured a solid position there for his brother-in-law Cui You.

Cui You had no backing in Yandu, so even a mere supervisor post under the Ministry of War’s postal division delighted him beyond measure.

Never mind how many mid-level fifth-rank officials sat idle every year under the Ministry of Personnel’s purview—some waited three to five years without ever landing a real post.

And so, after more than a decade of careful cultivation, the postal network across all of Great Liang now reached every corner, with Cui You diligently keeping his grip on the position—no one, whoever they were, could push him out.

Officially, both the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of War oversaw postal affairs jointly, but if you let the Ministry of Personnel try to reach in and meddle, they simply couldn’t manage it—they had no experience running it, no connections within it, and so their people just kept circling around, unable to get a foothold.

The year before last, the Ministry of Personnel had even offered to trade him a proper fourth-rank position in exchange, and he still hadn’t let go. And no wonder—never mind how many postal stations existed across Great Liang, the postal riders under his management alone numbered over thirteen thousand. Nowadays, this was truly the plum position to hold.

Not to mention his backing came from the Fuluri Prince’s estate—who could possibly push him out?

In truth, each of the Six Ministries had its own rules and its own way of handling affairs, and especially when it came to the appointment and dismissal of mid-level officials, the Emperor mostly had no need to be informed at all.

In short, however much of a local tyrant Tan Shouyi might be in Jin Dian, if he wanted to send any official word out of Jin Dian, it had to pass through the postal relay stations everywhere—and however many days Cui You decided a message should take to arrive, that’s how many days it would take. And if he decided a message should never arrive at all, well, that was entirely possible too.