novelraw Chapter 79: The Former Glory of Yun County
Chapter 79: The Former Glory of Yun County
There was no choice but to cave.
The people of the north had a fierce temperament, but if you fell into the hands of the authorities, the worst you would face was beheading. If the authorities weren't around, however, that was a different story entirely. There was a local saying that if you caught a trafficker who had kidnapped children, you fed them yellow millet rice.
Freshly steamed yellow millet rice dipped in cold water and fed down the throat felt fine going in, not hot at all, but once the delayed heat kicked in from the inside, it could burn the stomach and intestines to shreds.
Bandits who felt no loyalty to their communities and committed murder and arson without a shred of remorse were more despicable than traffickers, and would naturally receive even more elevated treatment.
A few strokes of the rod, and the inside men confessed everything cleanly.
Including Liu Datou and those rooted out on the Zhao family's side, not a single one was wrongly accused.
Having survived the ordeal and with the New Year upon them, Liu Da went out and bought a generous supply of food and drink, then came home and had his mother and wife start making dumplings.
That evening, the whole family sat together on the kang, eating hot dumplings filled with pickled cabbage and oil residue, listening to the crack and pop of firecrackers outside. Liu Po couldn't stop wiping at her eyes.
It had been so terrifyingly close. Now that the whole family could sit here together, whole and unharmed, she didn't dare ask for anything more.
Liu Da raised his cup and proposed the first toast to his third brother Li Qiuchen. There was nothing more that needed to be said about that.He set down his cup, ate a dumpling, and then said out of nowhere, "Ma, Third Brother and I have both taken on work with Boss Tang. After the New Year we'll be heading to the county seat. Why don't you and Xiulan come along with us, and bring Second Brother too."
Liu Po's heart was moved by the idea.
Her family didn't scrape their living from the soil. Moving wasn't out of the question, and after everything they had just been through, her nerves were still unsettled.
But after thinking it over, she shook her head and said, "You make it sound easy. What about this big courtyard of ours, are we just supposed to abandon it? And your father's grave is here too. You take Xiulan to the city, that's fine. What can anyone do to one old woman? Besides, your second brother still has a few more years before he finishes his apprenticeship..."
Li Qiuchen smiled and said, "Godmother, just listen to big brother. If you don't go, how can sister-in-law go? Would anyone really leave you here alone? With big brother and me there, second brother can always find some work to put food on the table, and that tailor's apprenticeship isn't something he has to stick to. Besides, it's not far from here to the county seat. Coming and going is easy."
Hearing him put it that way, Liu Po wavered even more.
"I've heard that things are expensive in the county seat. Everything costs money..."
"You can't think of it that way. Yes, prices in the county seat are higher, but look at it from the other side. What little we have, kept in the county seat, won't draw anyone's eye or attract anyone's greed. Isn't that worth something too?"
That last point went straight to the heart of Liu Po's concerns.
She nodded at once and said, "I'm getting old, my mind gets muddled more and more. From now on I'll leave family matters to you brothers. Whatever you say goes."
As for Second Brother's opinion?
Liu Er kept his head down and ate his dumplings. He had no opinion. Whatever was fine.
Imperial Calendar Year 8012. This was the number Li Qiuchen only came to know as the old year gave way to the new.
The symbolic meaning of that number was simple: the Great Chu Empire had stood for a full eight thousand years since its founding.
Truly old and yet still enduring.
The day after the first day of the New Year, Boss Tang's merchant caravan began to move out.
Liu Po stayed home to pack their belongings, while Liu Da and Li Qiuchen set off together with Boss Tang's caravan.
Li Qiuchen didn't know why Boss Tang had lingered in Blue Stone Platform for so long. If being stranded by the blizzard at the start made sense, then insisting on staying through the New Year after the bandits had already been dealt with made very little sense at all.
What was there in Blue Stone Platform worth keeping him here from the third day of the twelfth month all the way through the second day of the first month?
Li Qiuchen couldn't think of anything, so the only answer had to lie on the county seat's end.
Yun County sat at the northernmost point of Linyuan Province under the Blackwater Garrison of the northern frontier. Legend held that ten thousand years ago, an immortal had come here to draw fire from the earth to forge a sword. The earth-fire rose in towering columns, wreathing a hundred li in all directions with cloud and smoke, and from this the place had taken its name, Yunzhong, meaning Within the Clouds.
When the immortal drew the sword and departed, the site used for the forging was left behind as a ten-thousand-foot abyss, said to reach all the way to the heart of the earth.
In later ages, when the early settlers pushed their way to this land, they discovered mineral veins within the abyss and found that the geothermal heat could warm them through the cold, so they built a city here.
It was said that in those days the area produced all manner of precious minerals, and merchant caravans from the south flowed through without cease. At its peak it had grown into a prosperous place of over a million households, and called itself the Heavenly Furnace of the Northern Frontier.
But that was something that had happened several thousand years ago.
The Yun County of today no longer bore any trace of that former sight of earth-fire rising and cloud-smoke swirling. Its permanent population had dropped sharply to around two hundred thousand households, but even a dead camel is larger than a horse. It could still be counted among the major towns of the northern frontier.
Li Qiuchen followed Boss Tang's merchant caravan riding hard southward. After a full day and night of travel, he looked up from the vast snowy plain and saw a sharp and strangely shaped peak rising from the earth.
The mountain wasn't actually very tall, but its shape was peculiar in a way that was hard to describe, something like the base left over after a 3D printing job, rough and unfinished in its outline.
The mountain had in fact been pushed upward from below. Beneath it lay the Heavenly Furnace where the immortal had forged the sword, which later became the great mine pit.
This mine pit ran from north to south and did not go straight down but angled diagonally into the earth.
Yun County had gradually grown up around this mine pit.
From a great distance, Li Qiuchen could already make out a long dark band standing out against the snow. It was the outer city wall of Yun County, cast entirely from iron and steel, towering and imposing, looking impervious to any assault but it had long since been abandoned.
Not because a city wall was no longer needed, but because the scale of Yun County itself had contracted to a fifth of its peak extent. Many of the buildings in the outer areas had crumbled and collapsed over the course of several thousand years, returning to dust.
Only this magnificent iron city wall remained, telling travelers who passed beneath it of the glorious history Yun County had once known.
By comparison, Blue Stone Platform really was just a roadside inn.
After passing through this wall, there was still another two hours of travel before reaching the actual city of Yun County.
Somewhere along the way, an additional person had appeared within Boss Tang's merchant caravan.
This person went by the name Yan Hui. He was also a Chu man, and appeared sharp and capable. Judging by Boss Tang's manner toward him, he was without doubt a genuine trusted confidant.
Li Qiuchen suspected that Boss Tang had sent this man ahead to the county seat in advance, entrusting him with some mysterious task that wasn't meant for outside ears.
Besides Yan Hui, Boss Tang also had an accountant by his side, a man named Chen Liang. This person kept a low profile and was sparing with words. Li Qiuchen had not even noticed his existence at first, and only learned of him when Boss Tang took the initiative to introduce him to both Li Qiuchen and Liu Da.
Now that made more sense.
It was impossible for him to be a truly hands-off boss who kept no watch on anything and placed unconditional trust in an outsider like Liu Da.
For the leader of a merchant caravan to have no left hand or right hand would have been genuinely strange.
They arrived at the city gate at dusk, presented their travel documents and entered the city, then found an inn and settled in. Boss Tang gathered everyone together and briefly outlined the organizational structure of the team going forward and what the plans were.
Boss Tang intended to establish a business presence in the county seat. A residence and a shop front had already been found, taken over from another party, fully equipped with everything needed, and ready to use after a simple tidying up.
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