Chapter 38 - On The Road Again

Having lost most of our belongings and the horses in the last fight meant we had to forage and hunt for food as we moved south through the Yu province. We had decided against going back to the Ji river, in case our pursuers had posted sentries to look for us, so we used the sun and stars to guide our way forward.

It took us a whole week to get to a town where we haggled with the locals to exchange our meager belongings for two horses and pointers for the city closest to the Western border.

We also found another way to make money: betting on fights. We could get one or two gold teals by fighting in a clandestine ring against some crooks. Min was all for it and I too participated, although I avoided using any form of chi magic, to keep my identity a secret.

Winning the fights wasn’t all that difficult. What was difficult was getting our money from the mobsters who ran the rings. Apparently, they weren’t used to (or happy) strangers winning the normally rigged fights.

Fortunately, we had a bigger dog than the mobsters… meaning me. Min fought in the rings and if anyone wanted to refuse him his winnings, they got the dubious privilege of meeting me.

“How does it feel, sitting on top of yesterday’s earnings?” I asked Min from atop my mount. He was riding a giant horse with a sour disposition. One of the farmers participating in the last ring had bet his horse when he ran out of money. He had been rather put out when he found out he would have to walk home to his wife.

Min laughed good-naturedly “It’s pretty comfy if I do say so myself. It seems the horse is rather happy to be away from his previous owner.”

I laughed along and heard Ling giggle behind me.

Things between us were still tense, and we had barely spoken to each other since we left the spiritual encampment (which is the name I gave to the place where we healed and where I met Guanyin).

I told Min about it, and all he said was that I was lucky the gods had been so understanding.

We stopped for the day a handful of miles south of our previous position and hunted a couple of rabbits for dinner.

“Have you been to Yu before?” I asked Min in between bites. As always, Ling’s food was delicious. I smiled and thanked her, but all she did was nod my way.

Sigh.

“Once or twice.” Fa Min shrugged “My uncle is a merchant; he does business all over Liang and even has some stores in Yu. I remember accompanying him to a town called Chengdu. It’s a day’s away from my uncle’s main house and nearly four days from the western border where the Fa estate is.”

“Are we on the way to Chengdu, then?”

Min nodded, looking at the starry sky “We should be there the day after tomorrow if all goes well.”

Finally, some good news. My sense of direction was… weird. I could tell when we were moving north, south, or in any other direction, but I wasn’t really sure about the distances. I supposed that crossing China during this dynasty was easier than crossing it in the future because the conquered lands were smaller, but it was still very big.

Two days later, we arrived at the town Min had mentioned before, and we made contact with one of his uncle’s couriers. Min and Ling helped the courier sell his goods at the town’s market while I watched from afar. I wasn’t well versed in selling. So, it was a revelation to see this new aspect of Fa Min. When I grew bored, I helped the guys in the back of the tent to classify and haul the goods.

When my identity was revealed to the courier later at Min’s uncle’s house, he nearly fainted. Clearly, it wasn’t common for the royal family to do something as mundane as carrying a pack of pelts from one room to the next.

Fa Min’s uncle, Fa Hou Rong was ecstatic at having us for dinner. However, I wasn’t as eager to place him or his family in danger by staying for too long. I still didn’t know who was after my life, nor what were his resources or ultimate goals… I didn’t want to risk placing innocents in danger for the sake of a comfortable bed.

We bathed, changed clothes, restocked our provisions, and finally left the next morning.

I did ask Hou Rong permission to send a message north to my family’s estate and one for the palace. In the letter, I spoke of our ‘change of plans’, leaving the Ji River to the south. I included a few pointers about visiting this or that place. It was a rather innocuous letter, with little true information in case it was intercepted. If it did arrive at my home, at least my parents would think I went on vacation. As a footnote, I added a small coded poem. I was hoping Zhi had taught my father or mother our code so that they would get some truth from it. If not…. Well, it would sound nice, although the rhyme was a little forced.

My letter to the palace was three lines long. Coded too, for Zhi’s eyes only. I knew that as soon as she got that message, she would take it to her soon-to-be husband, and together they could find out if my enemies were from the palace. I only hoped that they would be discreet about it, I didn’t want to bring them unnecessary trouble.

The following two days were uneventful, which made me curious. Had we really lost our pursuers or were they bidding their time? There had been plenty of opportunities to attack us on the way, and yet nothing happened. I could see that Min and Ling were beginning to think that things would be alright now, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before our enemies came for us.

I doubted that anyone with enough man-force and resources to plan an assassination would quit after a couple of setbacks.. And if this enemy was from the palace, like I feared, then they would have enough resources to keep their manhunt for a while.