Following the mountain paths accessible to people, Yun Ye, Zhangsun Chong, and Li Huairen split into three routes, each advancing along a path into the deep mountains, unwilling to miss even the slightest hope. After passing through a gorge and climbing over a mountain, before them still lay continuous mountain ranges. Sun Simiao was in the mountains, but their whereabouts remained unknown among the deep clouds.

Yun Ye had no intention of giving up. Behind him were all sturdy men. In the Qinling Mountains, there was no worry about finding food. Before fully armed warriors, any fierce beast was merely a meal on a plate.

What truly made him despair was this ancient road ahead. Sun Simiao wouldn’t actively go to places with people. Although it was already afternoon, the ancient road still had people coming and going in an endless stream. Ox carts, horse carriages, pack horses, and wheelbarrows filled the entire ancient road. From time to time, fast horses passed through on the right side of the ancient road.

It was precisely this five-hundred-li mountain-crossing ancient road that limitedly connected the Guanzhong Plain and the fertile land of Bashu. This narrow passage with lifeline functionality was the famous Baoye Road.

This was also an ancient road of many disasters. Zhang Liang colluded with Liu Bang to implement their strategy of “openly repairing the plank road while secretly crossing at Chencang,” burning the entire plank road in one fire. Zhuge Liang, due to carelessness in losing Jieting, also had to burn a section of the plank road. History books speak rationally, saying this was a flash of military thought brilliance. Storytellers laugh heartily, endlessly narrating how those great figures deceived their opponents, staging one tragic or joyful power farce after another. Don’t these bastards know how many people died building a Baoye Road? The old Liang family just wanted to excavate a small section and had already paid a bloody price, including those laborers buried at the bottom of the valley. For their own interests, could emperors, generals, and ministers so unhesitatingly lay such a poisonous hand on a road as important as a lifeline?

Who would remember them? When the sounds of slaughter gradually subsided, on the ancient road winding through the Qinling hinterland, there were only endless caravans traveling day and night. Postal stations throughout the Qinling Mountains conveyed warm family letters to the south and north. Facing the continuous mountain ranges and the just-drifted smoke of war, passing scholars used their brushes and ink to leave behind their lamentations about great figures.

On both sides of the Baoye Road, most deeply entangled with the history of the Great Han, were carved numerous Han Dynasty relics.

Thirteen Han Dynasty stone inscriptions that had weathered wind and rain and were now blurred and unclear—these were the “Thirteen Examples of Han and Wei,” which over the past two thousand years had profoundly influenced the evolution of Chinese characters and the direction of calligraphic art. Before this time, the complex and hard-to-distinguish seal script underwent earth-shattering changes during the great transformation period of the Han Dynasty. A simpler script, more convenient for writing and recognition—clerical script—pushed Chinese calligraphy toward a more expansive height of civilization.

Facing these mottled yet vigorous, steady and robust square Chinese characters, one could still today feel the Great Han Dynasty’s encompassing spirit that swallowed up all under heaven with overwhelming force.

“Ye Zi, there’s a bastard here who actually wrote a wrong character, yet with such virtue still had the face to carve it in stone? Then I’ll also find some stonemasons to carve my name up there too—how about it? Don’t grin—it’s not shameful. Wrong characters can go up there, so surely my name, which I definitely won’t write wrong, can go up there too, right?”

Cheng Chumo finally discovered something—it turned out he was quite learned after all. He couldn’t wait to jump out and show off.

“Chumo, the bastard you’re talking about was named Cao Cao. These two characters ‘Gun Xue’ were written by him here after he lost to Liu Bei in the struggle for Hanzhong. Of course, he also casually killed Yang Xiu, a clever fellow almost as smart as me.”

“You’re joking, right? Old Cao would write a wrong character? I really like his ‘Song of Changgan.’ Such excellent lines as ‘a thousand li without roosters crowing’—I even memorized it back then. This ‘gun’ character is obviously missing the water radical. If it’s not a mistake, what is it?”

“Actually, I also think Old Cao wrote it wrong. When his subordinates pointed it out to him, he couldn’t save face, so he used the Bao River in the gorge as an excuse, saying something like ‘with such a river here, how could there be a lack of water?'”

“He used the river in the gorge as the water radical?”

“Exactly. That’s what the history books say. As for the real situation, only heaven knows. I also know of an idiot who wrote the two characters ‘insect two,’ parroting others by calling it ‘wind and moon without borders’—all this shameless pattern.”

“Then when I write things in the future, can I remove the wood radical? I write while lying on a desk, and the desk is made of wood—top-quality golden silk nanmu wood!”

“Alright, Chumo, you don’t need to comfort me. We followed the wrong road and didn’t find Daoist Sun. It’s nothing serious—at worst we’ll just turn back and go home. However, our grain is running out. Eating meat all the time will cause problems. That’s why I’m worried about the Daoist.”

“The longer we stay in the wilderness, the more our stamina declines. If we get sick then, it will become unmanageable.”

“No grain? Isn’t this a trade route? Would our two families’ caravans be scarce? Even if we don’t have our families’, don’t other families have them? Look, Uncle Niu’s caravan is coming now, isn’t it? Just ask them for grain.”

Cheng Chumo and Yun Ye stood in the middle of the road. Those small merchants didn’t dare approach. Over a hundred fully armed burly men with disheveled hair looked like mounted bandits or mountain thieves. The timid ones were ready to kneel down and shout “Great King, spare our lives!”

Niu Jiu, the steward of the Niu family, had seen the world. Generally, no one dared to have designs on his family’s caravan. Approaching the front of the procession for a look, he immediately laughed—it was Marquis Yun and Young Master Cheng leading their household warriors in a robbery.

He quickly came forward to pay respects: “Marquis, Young Master, why are you two in the mood to play mounted bandits today? If anyone in this crowd has hot goods, just say the word, and I’ll strip them all for inspection.”

Cheng Chumo flew up with a kick, sending Niu Jiu tumbling head over heels, loudly saying: “Nonsense! Have you ever heard of a marquis and a young master like me coming out to rob roads? No time for idle talk. Quickly prepare some food for us—we’re about to enter the mountains to find someone. Hurry up!”

Kicked once, Niu Jiu wasn’t angry. Military households were like this—not good with words, so they used their feet. These two weren’t much different from his own young master. He quickly gave all the grain from the caravan to Cheng Chumo. He himself didn’t matter—he could replenish at the postal station ahead—but there wasn’t much grain in the caravan, and the Marquis had over a hundred men.

Niu Jiu still had some standing among the caravans. With one call, he collected grain from other merchants’ hands, bundled it up, and sent it over.

“Niu Jiu, after you return, send word to the family that we’ve discovered traces of Master Sun and are searching. It probably won’t take much longer to find him. Tell the family not to worry.”

Niu Jiu nodded in agreement. Yun Ye distributed the grain onto each person’s body, waved his hand, and once again plunged into the mountains. This time, if they still couldn’t find him, they’d have to turn back and go home. In the vast mountain ranges, trying to find six people was truly no different from fishing for a needle in the ocean.

“Three thousand golden worlds in Chang’an, a million jade towers at Mount Zhongnan. A single white cloud cannot hide them—the whole mountain’s red leaves are all for monks” was enough to explain how many Daoists and monks were in the mountains. Yun Ye didn’t want to get involved in disputes between Buddhism and Daoism, but helplessly, the Qinling Mountains were full of Daoist temples and monasteries. In fact, they were the true masters of the Qinling Mountains. To learn of Sun Simiao’s whereabouts, he had to inquire of them.

Strangely, whether Daoist temples or monasteries, all seemed to be in a state of facing a great enemy. Temple gates were tightly closed, monastery doors were firmly shut. Even those who answered the door often carried sticks or shoulder poles, with fierce eyes and arrogant attitudes.

“Ye Zi, if these damn dogs look at me with that kind of eye again, I’ll hack them alive.” After visiting three monasteries without obtaining any useful information, Cheng Chumo involuntarily became anxious and his temper became irritable.

This wouldn’t do—they had to rest. If they continued like this, before finding Daoist Sun, they’d exhaust themselves first. Everyone looked weary. Unknowingly, a month had already passed in the mountains.

After frost, the mountain’s broadleaf forests turned orange-red. The more severe the frost, the more brilliant red the leaves became. Looking from afar, it was like a sea of burning fire.

Yun Ye arranged the camp at the mountain pass. This was the rendezvous point he had agreed upon with Zhangsun Chong and Li Huairen. If they still couldn’t meet Master Sun tomorrow, they’d have to go home. Yun Ye had no reason to keep all of Chang’an’s great wastrels trapped in the Qinling Mountains.

People successively returned. Zhangsun Chong and Li Huairen both came back empty-handed. When a person deliberately hides from others, finding them is too difficult. Out of fear of smallpox, Sun Simiao stubbornly believed that something like little insects still existed in his body. According to his theory, the human body’s circulation was a repetitive process. Without going through several cycles, it was impossible to completely eliminate the body’s residual poison. To be safe, he set himself a maximum circulation value—half a year. Before half a year passed, he wouldn’t come out. Yun Ye understood the old Daoist’s temperament too well.

After a month of sleeping rough and eating in the wind, the wastrels had long lost their initial enthusiasm. What supported them to continue staying in the Qinling Mountains now was simply that no one had proposed going home. All were gritting their teeth, waiting for the first coward to appear. Face was more important than life—they’d always thought so. Unfortunately, not one person withdrew early, not even Chai Lingwu, who had been suffering from diarrhea for three days.

Tonight the moon was bright and stars sparse—a good day. Everyone huddled in their blankets staring blankly at the sky. A dark cloud drifted over from the distance. What was frightening was that this cloud actually produced rumbling sounds, instantly covering the sky densely. When everyone’s hair stood on end with horror, Yun Ye rolled over and told them: “Nothing serious. These are flocks of birds flying south. They don’t dare cross the mountain pass during the day—there are many birds of prey here, so they chose nighttime. Don’t be surprised. Sometimes birds are very intelligent too. What you need to worry about is not letting bird droppings get on you.”

Some flying birds almost grazed the tops of everyone’s heads as they flew past. With Yun Ye’s explanation, everyone calmed down, lying on the ground watching flock after flock of birds swiftly pass overhead.

Faint screams came, along with firelight. Some birds actually flew directly toward the lit areas. Yun Ye heard it, covered his ears, and continued sleeping. Li Ke beside him felt he should go look—after all, he was a prince.

Just as he was about to get up, Yun Ye pressed him down, stuffed him back into his blanket, and told him in a low voice: “What’s happening outside has nothing to do with us.”