Chapter 559: Traveling Merchants and the Western Regions
After breakfast, Merchant Xie kept his promise and invited Song You for a stroll, accompanied by a few other merchants.
This was their destination.
Merchant Xie made this journey once every year. Starting from his grandfather’s time, his family had been traveling this stretch of the Silk Road, which was also known as the Golden Trade Route.
Setting out from Changjing, it was a journey of nine thousand li to reach this place. Without stopping along the way, even with their endurance and pace, it would still take three to four months to get here. A round trip would take seven to eight months in total.
They had to avoid the coldest and hottest periods of the year, so they could manage only one round trip annually.
Merchant Xie had spent half his life walking this road.
The year before last had been the hardest journey. Last year, a spring mysteriously appeared in the desert, making the trip slightly easier than the year before. This year, with the drought easing somewhat, the road became a little more manageable again.
It was merchants like them who sustained the prosperity of the Silk Road. It was also they who built the bridge that connected Eastern and Western civilizations. Take something as simple as the watermelon Song You ate along the way—those, too, were carried from a far-off land by them, transported all that distance just to provide water during the journey.
Perhaps in this era, they were just unremarkable merchants—but in the annals of history, they are destined to be grains of stardust in a brilliant galaxy.
At the same time, they knew Jade City very well.
“Daoist Master, you’re a traveler of the world. Since you’ve come to Jade City, you must visit the eastern gate. It’s the grandest of all the city gates, built with great splendor,” Merchant Xie said to him.
“Whenever envoys from the imperial court or generals from the border garrisons arrive in Jade City, the king himself greets them there. Every morning, the place is bustling, with all kinds of vendors. By late afternoon, hundreds gather there to sing and dance. The people of Jade City love dancing more than anything. With so many dancing together, it’s truly a unique sight.”