Past Jingkou County, heading north, the landscape began to work on the spirit in ways that were difficult to resist. To the west and north of Jizhou stretched a mountain range that seemed to go on forever, the official road threading through mountain valleys, green peaks and lush forests on either side easing the heart and lifting the gaze.

At intervals, birdsong rang out over the valleys — clear, musical calls that could never be heard in Jizhou City itself.

Once inside the mountains, even the heat seemed to ease. A mountain breeze swept past, carrying the sweat from one’s skin and leaving only freshness behind.

Gao Xining had no interest in sitting in the carriage. This was her first time traveling so far from Jizhou — though by any measure, they had barely covered a hundred and fifty li.

“What bird is calling over there?”

Gao Xining asked.

Li Chi gestured in the direction of the sound: “You mean over there?”

Then — *whoosh* — the little dog shot out, and in not much time at all shot back, landing on the carriage with a bird pinned neatly beneath its paw. Apparently: *this is the culprit.*

Gao Xining looked at the dog, then at the bird — now half-frightened to death — and felt a little bewildered.

The dog was nothing if not action-oriented. No idle chatter, just results.

Li Chi said: “Let the little thing go.”

The dog looked down at the bird with a distinct air of temptation. No matter how beautiful the plumage, no matter how sweet the song, in the dog’s eyes it was simply a colorful snack.

Li Chi said to let it go, but the dog showed no sign of releasing its hold — in fact showed some inclination to eat.

Gao Xining looked at the dog and said very seriously: “It doesn’t taste good.”

The dog’s paw unclenched. The bird fluttered and flapped its way into freedom.

Li Chi stared. He looked at Gao Xining without speaking, but his expression plainly asked: *how does that work?*

Gao Xining said nothing either, and gave Li Chi a look that said: *figure it out yourself.* Li Chi thought: *it’s obviously because of you,* — and that thought must have shown in his eyes, because Gao Xining’s brow arched slightly. Li Chi quickly said: “Me — it takes after me.”

The dog apparently heard this and took action to register its disagreement. It shifted closer to Gao Xining, pressed its small head against her shoulder, and communicated approximately: *Mother, are you abandoning your child? That man is too ugly.*

Gao Xining looked a little flustered.

“Hungry… so what.”

She turned to look at the distance: “Someone who isn’t hungry must be a cold-blooded creature.”

Li Chi felt this logic probably didn’t hold up, but didn’t dare say so.

“What mountain is this called?”

Gao Xining asked.

Li Chi didn’t know this mountain’s name. They hadn’t traveled this route before — when they came back from Yanshan to Jizhou, they’d taken a different road. Yanshan lay due north of Jizhou; now they were heading northwest, and he had no way of knowing whether this mountain range connected with Yanshan’s.

“It’s called Shuangfeng Mountain.”

Xiahou Yili passed by and supplied the name.

On the carriage behind, Yu Jiuling vaguely caught the name “Shuangfeng Mountain.” He asked Tang Pidi beside him: “Old Tang, why would a mountain be called Shuangfeng — ‘Double Peak’?”

Tang Pidi thought about it and explained: “Generally speaking, a mountain called Shuangfeng is named because two peaks resemble the humps of a camel — hence Shuangfeng Mountain.”

Yu Jiuling looked increasingly puzzled: “How many people in the Central Plains have ever seen a camel? Before anyone had seen a camel, surely the mountain was already called Shuangfeng. If it’s not related to camels, then what are the two peaks of Shuangfeng Mountain actually referring to?”

He fired off several questions in quick succession. Tang Pidi was obliged to think carefully — and then, for reasons he couldn’t quite account for, his face went red.

He shot Yu Jiuling a look: “Filthy mind!”

Yu Jiuling, the picture of innocence: “Why is it filthy? Surely two ordinary mountain peaks can be called Shuangfeng? Why does it have to be two camel humps? You could just call it Camel Peak Mountain. I think your reasoning makes no sense.”

Tang Pidi’s face reddened further. He felt that he was being somewhat vulgar.

Yu Jiuling pressed: “What were you just thinking?!”

Tang Pidi said: “I was thinking that I indeed overthought it. You see, camels can have two humps, or just one. So the name probably has nothing to do with camels.”

Yu Jiuling nodded: “Exactly. Hard to see you admit you’re wrong.”

Tang Pidi thought: *Close call, close call.* Fortunately this man was reasonably easy to deflect, otherwise his lifetime reputation for propriety…

Yu Jiuling sat in the carriage swinging his legs. He asked Tang Pidi: “Do you think there might be mountain bandits hiding out in these hills?”

Tang Pidi said: “In this land of Dachu today, any mountain could be hiding bandits. Even in a time of great peace and prosperity — the greatest prosperity in all of history — mountain bandits would never vanish.”

Yu Jiuling asked: “Why?”

He asked, then worked it out on his own. Why else? Even if the world were in fine order, with no one risking their necks for a meal, no one raising the flag of rebellion out of poverty — even then, the bullies and brigands of the hills would never be wiped out entirely.

He let out a sigh. A carefree young fool had suddenly grown pensive.

Tang Pidi smiled: “You seem to have realized something.”

Yu Jiuling shook his head: “The kind of realization I could do without.”

Up ahead in the first carriage, Xiahou Yili reminded Li Chi: “When I came back from Yunyin Mountain, I traveled with a merchant convoy — many traders together, with quite a few hired guards. Even so, when we passed through Xianzong Mountain ahead, we were stopped. The people who stopped the convoy said it plainly: pay for safe passage, no one gets hurt.”

Li Chi gave a nod.

He’d already posted scouts ahead. If there were an ambush, they would send word in advance.

A place like this would be strange without someone blocking the road. During Jizhou’s most chaotic stretch, any number of people had thrown themselves into the mountains, gathering in numbers until they had real force — perhaps originally all ordinary villagers, but after a few robberies it becomes habit, and gradually they are no longer ordinary villagers.

“There’s probably a mountain stronghold on Xianzong Mountain.”

Xiahou Yili said: “But how many people, what size — those I don’t know.”

Li Chi said: “They may not dare provoke us at all. Still, everyone should stay alert. I’ve already told the whole column to keep their guard up — the mountains don’t only have beautiful scenery, there are wild beasts too. The scouts at the front will give early warning if there’s danger.”

Shuangfeng Mountain would give way to Xianzong Mountain after another forty li or so. That stretch was noticeably more confined, the official road narrowing, sheer cliff faces rising on both sides with jagged rock formations and dense forest growth — perfect terrain for concealment and ambush.

And just then, at the foot of Xianzong Mountain ahead.

A young man of about sixteen or seventeen was riding a horse at a leisurely, unhurried pace coming south from the northwest. He wore a white brocade gown. His features were strikingly beautiful — somewhat more so even than Tang Pidi’s.

Looking only at his face, one could not easily determine whether he was male or female. But his build left no room for ambiguity: broad-shouldered, supple-waisted, lithe and tall. If he was a man, he was more handsome than any man. If he was a woman, she was more beautiful than any woman.

He wasn’t even holding the reins — he’d let the horse walk on its own. He was holding a bamboo flute, rotating it continuously between all five fingers in endlessly shifting configurations, and yet not once did it fall.

From the cliff face nearby came a sudden sharp whistle — at first glance it might have been mistaken for a hawk’s cry.

At the sound, the brocade-clad young man’s brow arched very slightly.

He leaned forward and gave his aged horse a light pat, murmuring softly: “Old yellow horse, I’ve told you — if I ever find a better mount than you, I’ll trade up, and you can retire to pasture. Someone seems to want to block our way. Let me see if they’ve got a better horse than you.”

The old yellow horse snorted twice. Whether it had understood, or simply didn’t care what he said, was impossible to say.

To snort in disdain — the expression was first coined, perhaps, precisely to describe a horse.

Just then, from the trees on both sides of the cliff face, figures came swinging down on ropes — seven or eight of them, daggers at their hips, swaying down onto the road. They let go and landed, fanning out to block the way.

The leader stepped forward a few paces and drew the knife at his waist — pointed at the brocade-clad young man, still in its sheath.

“Hey! Stop!”

The brocade youth paid no attention. The old yellow horse, as if equally deaf, continued walking. The bandits felt the heat of irritation rise.

The leader drew his blade with a hiss, stepped crosswise into the old horse’s path. The horse, head hung low, either didn’t see him or couldn’t be bothered. It just kept plodding forward. One more step and it would walk straight into the bandit chief.

“What the—!”

The bandit chief stepped aside in fury, then grabbed the old horse’s reins. The horse seemed to take a look at him — with an expression that might have been pity.

“Are you deaf?!”

The bandit chief demanded.

The brocade youth shook his head: “No.”

The bandit chief said: “Not deaf and you’re doing this on purpose? I told you to stop — you didn’t hear me?!”

The brocade youth looked faintly put-upon as he answered: “I made an agreement with the horse. Walking is his business — I don’t interfere. When he stops is up to him. Wherever he stops is where I rest.”

“You… made an agreement. With an old horse.”

The bandit chief suddenly roared with laughter and turned to his men: “I thought I’d snagged a fat prize — one look at the fine brocade clothes, you know he’s from money. Who would have thought he’s a fool!”

His men laughed along.

The brocade youth asked: “Are you laughing at me?”

The bandit chief laughed and said: “Who else would we be laughing at?”

The brocade youth looked down at the old horse: “We’ve been laughed at. That’s not good.”

The old horse snorted twice again. The tone seemed to say: *what’s that got to do with me — they’re not laughing at me. I’m just here to walk. Everything else is your problem.*

Not quite an hour later, on the official road.

Li Chi had moved up to the first carriage ahead. He’d placed his repeating crossbow at his side within easy reach. He couldn’t exactly go starting fights in his current state, but his marksmanship still had few rivals.

At that moment, he saw someone coming ahead — apparently tired, lying back across the saddle, letting an old yellow horse walk on at its own pace.

When a horse can be identified at a glance as quite elderly, it at least suggests the rider probably isn’t very wealthy — since a better horse would presumably have been available.

The person on the horse, hearing noise coming toward him, didn’t sit up. The old yellow horse continued with its head low, heading straight for Li Chi’s carriage. They were about to collide. Li Chi quickly asked the driver to move to one side.

But the carriage had already moved to the edge of the road, while the old yellow horse was walking squarely down the center. There was no more room to give — to give further would mean overturning.

So Li Chi called out: “Friend, mind yourself.”

The person didn’t answer, but the horse — looking lethargic to all appearances — glanced at Li Chi and then veered slightly to the side, making way.

Li Chi had spoken and the person ignored him. The horse made way of its own accord. He found this bizarre, even astonishing.

He sat up straight and muttered in disbelief.

“Old horse, you actually made way for someone?”

He seemed to find this wholly surreal, while Li Chi and the others felt it was perfectly unremarkable. Was that not the normal thing to do?

Li Chi looked at the brocade-clad young man. The brocade youth was studying Li Chi with equal curiosity — still apparently unable to understand why the old yellow horse would make way for this person.

So he asked: “Who are you?”

Li Chi answered: “A traveler on the road.”

This answer left the brocade youth briefly stunned. Then he laughed — he found the answer genuinely funny.

Li Chi asked: “May I ask, young sir — you’ve come through Xianzong Mountain ahead. Did you encounter bandits blocking the road?”

The brocade youth answered: “I did.”

Li Chi’s heart gave a small jolt. He encountered bandits, yet here he was, completely unharmed — which spoke for itself. And yet Li Chi’s scouts posted ahead had sent no warning.

So he smiled and asked: “They didn’t rob you?”

The brocade youth answered: “They robbed my money.”

Yu Jiuling came over from behind, curiosity getting the better of him: “How much did they take?”

The brocade youth reached under his robe and pulled out a coin pouch. He opened it, reached in and rummaged around, then answered quite seriously: “Not much. A few dozen taels or so — that was all they had on them.”

—