Green Mountain

Winter of the 31st year of Jianing, the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month.

A fierce wind outside Guyuan whipped up the yellow earth into the sky, and then it gently floated down, producing a rain-like rustling sound as it fell upon people.

On the walls of Guyuan City, soldiers wrapped their mouths and noses with grey scarves and dozed off leaning against the crenels.

At that moment, a sound of camel bells came from the distance.

The soldiers pulled down their scarves a bit and looked out from the city, only to see a long caravan approaching on the dusty official road stretching beyond sight.

Here the road was rugged, even the official road was pitted and bumpy. Horses and ox carts couldn’t travel here; even wheel replacements were required every few dozen miles. All merchants from the Central Plains had to switch to camels and mules at Taiyuan Prefecture to continue their journey.

The soldiers squinted and sized up the caravan, muttering quietly, "It’s almost New Year’s Day, and yet someone comes to this godforsaken place? Eh, an official?"

In the caravan, servants walked in front leading the camels by their reins, with people sitting atop the camels behind them.

If it were a merchant group, the merchants would loathe nothing more than to load the camel humps with goods, never willing to sit on them themselves. Only officials would do such a thing.

After a while, the caravan arrived below the city. The soldiers, hands on their waist knives, shouted loudly, "Who goes there?"

A servant holding the reins raised his hand and cupped it in salute, "Esteemed military officer, our master is Junior Scholar Chen Liqin from the Master’s Mansion, Secondary Fourth-rank, sent here by the Crown Prince’s orders! Open the gates quickly!"