Dawn barely broke, and the fragrance of hot porridge and baked flatbread began to spread through the streets and alleys.
“Selling soup, hot soup!”
The voices of those selling hot water as they roamed the streets also arose.
What they called hot soup was actually boiled water. It was a custom passed down since the Chu Dynasty. Due to the plague that existed in the waterways of Jiangnan, people in the city generally did not drink raw water, nor did they rise early to light fires for boiling. Instead, they spent one copper coin to buy a jug of hot water.
Some used it to drink, and some used it to wash.
Early in the morning, they waited at their door for the peddlers carrying their loads. From wash water and hot tea to flatbread and rice porridge, even a shave and haircut could be done in one round. After shaking out their clothes, they could step out the door with dignity.
It was especially lively today. Everyone wore a smile, and even casual chatter when meeting felt extra energetic.
——After a month of anxiety, Jiangxia finally reopened its city gates.
It was heard that the bandits and rebel soldiers from Huaxian to Jiangxia had been completely cleared out. King Ning’s troops had also withdrawn eastward to confront King Wu.
With no more war, how could the people not be happy?
The vendors who did business were prepared before dawn, carrying their loads under the thin, clear light of early morning. After the watchman’s drum, they shattered the silence of night with their shouts.
“Rice cakes, fragrant rice cakes!”
The wonton stall was also crowded with people. A ladle of hot soup was poured into a bowl with chopped scallions, and the aroma drifted far away.
“Ha.”
“What are you laughing at?”
Mo Li asked curiously, turning his head.
Meng Qi shook his head and did not answer.
The King of Jing had died, but Jiangxia did not issue a mourning announcement. At first, it was because Nanping Prefecture deliberately concealed it. By the time the news spread, General Nie was fully focused on defending the city and quelling the rebels. Now that more than twenty-one days had passed, and everyone felt relieved by the restoration of peace, they collectively forgot about this “major” event.
In those times, the death of an emperor or a King was a significant matter, tantamount to the collapse of heaven and earth. Scholars and officials had to wear mourning, and so did the people of the capital or the prefecture. Others did not have to do so, but marriage and slaughter were forbidden. Yet in truly remote places, these prohibitions were basically ignored.
Was it because the poor and lowly had no right to mourn? No.
The imperial court had no control; who could stop hunters from eating meat?
“This kind of scene was delightful,” Meng Qi said, indicating the bustling street.
Mo Li followed Meng Qi’s gaze and then… spotted a peddler selling chestnut cakes.
“Ahem.”
Meng Qi bypassed the barber’s carrying pole as if nothing happened, not even glancing at the chestnut cakes, and walked straight ahead.
Children’s laughter lingered in the air. A woman with a casually tied bun dragged a child unwilling to wear shoes back home. An old lady took clothes to the well. A freshly opened steamer of yellow rice cakes was steaming. Calls from peddlers arose one after another…
Such days were not wealthy, but they were peaceful.
Mo Li and Meng Qi moved through the crowd almost unnoticed, because people were eager to greet their neighbors and familiar vendors. Everyone was eager to find out if everything was well after so many days without seeing one another.
Jiangxia was never short on food, nor was there ever a crisis in city defense, but the people had still been terrified by the Tianshou King’s army.
The continuous greetings and domestic chatter… were like ripples in a river, waves shining under the warm sunlight, stretching from the narrow streets to the crowd gathered by the well and beneath the trees, then passing over rooftops and spreading into the gradually bustling marketplace.
Occasionally, they encountered people from Fengxing Pavilion or disciples of Hengshan Sect on the road. They were also in the midst of the city. Some were busy buying provisions, while others were picking shoes that fit at the cobbler’s—Jiangxia was no longer in danger, but they still had other places to go.
In such an atmosphere, even the stiffest person relaxed a bit.
“Ahem, Mo… Doctor.”
A certain elder of the Hengshan Sect, holding a shoe in his hand, looked up and saw Mo Li, greeting him awkwardly.
“Look at this pair of boots, the soles were firm, and the upper was sewn with triple stitching, sir.”
Mo Li glanced over and knew they would not fit. He continued to search around the shop.
The shop assistant followed him step by step.
“How long would it take to make a new pair?” Meng Qi casually picked out a style and signaled. “Make it just like this, but half an inch smaller.”
He sounded sincere. Others might have thought the shoes were for him. Mo Li could not refute, while the Hengshan elder on the other side wore a doubtful look—after all, he had always seen Meng Qi in an eighty-year-old’s guise.
Leaving the shoe shop, they walked only a short distance before seeing some commotion ahead.
“Who was riding a horse in the busy market?”
Meng Qi’s pupils narrowed, but it was not his turn to take action. The martial artists mixed in the crowd already seized the horse’s reins.
The townsfolk stood in silent fear, hastily retreating.
The one riding the horse fell awkwardly to the ground and jumped up in fury. But he was not alone—there were dozens of riders, making quite a show of force.
“Out of the way, you bunch of lowly commoners!”
That martial artist dodged in a flash with remarkable agility.
Their leader flew into a rage and instantly ordered his men to drive the horses forward, trampling anyone in their way, not caring about the goods of nearby vendors or the startled cries of the citizens.
“It’s you bandits again! Kill them!” The leader’s eyes were bloodshot, shouting like a madman.
Mo Li had just taken a step when the shoe seller, the wonton stall, the cloth shop, and the tea stand simultaneously poured out people.
From the elder of Hengshan to the heads of the Canal Gang, they all surged forward like hungry tigers pouncing on sheep, dragging the mounted riders off their horses.
Screams of pain filled the air.
This was a rare sight. Martial artists usually avoided direct confrontation with the authorities in the city. They might smash a restaurant’s tables and chairs in a brawl and accidentally injure a passerby, but they would leave as soon as the constables appeared.
That was why “martial folk” and “bandits” were viewed the same way, bringing only trouble. Now, even the peddler selling sugar cakes stood frozen, mouth agape, unable to regain his senses.
“General Han, what were you trying to do?”
Someone from Fengxing Pavilion glared and shouted, his tone contemptuous, clearly not taking this group of cavalry seriously.
Mo Li belatedly realized who that leader was.
He did not expect the common folk to whisper among themselves, as if they had heard something.
Meng Qi, with his keen hearing, naturally heard the people asking one another who General Han was and what was going on.
The people of Jiangxia did not even know that King Jing had died, nor that Nanping Prefecture City had almost fallen. Much less did they know that General Han’s wrong decisions had led to a reversal and even collapse of the city’s defences. They were merely surprised and confused.
They were astonished that the martial wanderers would openly clash with the authorities and puzzled that the two sides seemed to know each other.
“That Taoist priest just bought flatbread from me!”
“And that old fellow—he was still holding the shoes from my shop… I never imagined he was some high-flying bandit. He had a full beard, looking as if a gust of wind would topple him. Who could have guessed he would leap once and vanish, then jump again and seize a galloping horse! Such divine strength!”
The elder of the Hengshan Sect, merely looking a bit scrawny, was slandered as though the wind could blow him down: “…”
He was not a rabbit—where did all that left-and-right hopping come from?
It was pitiful. In the martial world, he was considered an esteemed figure, yet now his old face had been utterly disgraced.
That wave of whispers, heard by the dishevelled General Han as he climbed up, sounded like mockery. In his ears, all those furtive glances and expressions on their faces became knives. He had not heard the real content at all, only imagining the same ridicule he had endured countless times in the military these days.
Empty talk, total defeat, and shameful desertion at the last moment!
“Damn it, it was those useless soldiers dragging me down…”
General Han never admitted these accusations, but he could not vent so openly. He needed to gather more former subordinates and leave Jiangxia.
Yet, being flipped onto the ground in the middle of the street, the shame he felt surged to a peak amid the astonished, uncomprehending looks of the crowd.
During this period, life in Jiangxia had crawled for him. General Nie would not see him at all, and though others said nothing to his face, the scorn behind his back never ceased. Now, not only did the roving martial outlaws dare to humiliate him, but even commoners dared point and talk about him?
General Han’s mind buzzed, rage snapping his reason.
He swiftly drew his sabre and violently slashed at the crowd.
“Silence! All of you, shut up! You ignorant wretches dare ridicule me?!”
“……”
Confronting those bloodshot eyes, Mo Li said nothing.
Perhaps it was because he looked rather thin? Or because he stood out in the crowd?
Neither was the answer. General Han had simply chosen a random direction to swing his blade, but he focused on Mo Li because he loathed that young man’s gaze—light as a fallen leaf, floating by before turning away.
Such indifference stung worse than scorn.
The townsfolk near Mo Li shrieked and backed off. Others rushed to intervene, only to discover that General Han’s blade aimed at Mo Li. They could not help but feel it was absurd.
So many people in the street, yet he singled out the one with the highest martial prowess—what kind of luck was that?
This sight was too ridiculous. The elder of the Hengshan Sect even wondered if this general had lost the battle not out of cowardice but due to luck so awful that he could choke on water and break his teeth tripping on flat ground.
“Tell me, do you look down on me? How dare you ants be so insolent!”
General Han, blinded by rage, never noticed how Mo Li had easily sidestepped his blade. He still thought he had swung crookedly. The panic on the faces of those around him fueled his resentment of being overlooked and mocked, allowing him to vent his fury freely.
Meng Qi quietly looked toward the end of the street.
Indeed, dust rose in the distance.
“What’s happening?” Mo Li, annoyed by the flickering blade, mustered his inner strength, causing General Han to plunge forward. He tripped solidly on the stone base of a shop’s fixed banner by the street.
“Ah!”
In the eyes of onlookers, it appeared General Han could not even hold his sabre. Meanwhile, Mo Li took a lucky step back to evade him.
In truth, Meng Qi had his reasons for not taking this “hidden danger” of General Han seriously. The old general of Jiangxia was not foolish, nor was Fengxing Pavilion. Just like the other day, when General Han barged into the residence only to be driven away easily, he was nothing more than a minor nuisance. By rights, he should not have stirred any trouble.
But now he had rallied dozens of men and horses, galloping through the marketplace.
How had General Han procured the horses, reassembled his scattered subordinates, and why did he act as if he were about to leave Jiangxia without anyone stopping him?
General Han had no solid charges against him. Even for failing to defend the city, Jiangxia had no authority to arrest and try him. Besides, he might have powerful connections in Jingzhou, so General Nie did not want to burn bridges outright. Typically, in such cases, they would just pressure him into disgrace, waiting for him to lose his temper and commit an outrageous act, so that they could justifiably detain him.
Meng Qi looked at the soldiers of Jiangxia, who charged in with a roar.
“Han Fu, you dared to steal horses and defect!”
“Seize them all and submit them to General Nie!”
In a flash, the situation reversed. The ones who had strutted about were now bound like dumplings and forcibly taken away.
From start to finish, those Jiangxia soldiers did not speak a word to the martial wanderers who had acted out of righteous indignation, and the marketplace gradually returned to normal.
Meng Qi’s expression still looked displeased.
It was not because of the soldiers’ methods, but because the one giving orders obviously did not care about any casualties General Han might cause. In their eyes, the deaths of some commoners were negligible.
This was the way of officialdom. Even if one replaced the general or changed the prefect, it would still be the same.
The affairs of those in power were always paramount, even after death, while the concerns of those below were insignificant—even their lives.
When would the world change? When would people’s hearts be freed?
“A-Li, the road under heaven is still very long.”
Author’s Note:
Was General Nie a good general? Yes.
Was he a good person? No.
Of course, people are complex. Labelling someone simply as a good person is partial. People, depending on class, position, and personal interests, tended to ignore different things and show different sides.
————
Fat Mouse: A-Li, the road ahead would be long.
Mo Li: …
The usual line would have been “I will walk with you,” but that felt too cheesy. Given the author’s mischievous style, it was probably more like: “Sure, I’ll carry you along the way→_→.”
