Yang Ge, with his hands on his hips and a face full of smug satisfaction, looked up at the large characters "Luoyang" written above the city gate.
So what if there were no horses and no GPS?
Didn’t he still make it here?
Who would dare call him directionally challenged now?
"Excuse me, young man, could you please move aside?"
Someone gently tapped his shoulder.
"Oh, oh, sorry!"
Yang Ge quickly stepped aside, making way for the old man pulling a cart behind him and even gave him a helpful push.
Then, with a bold swagger, he walked toward the unmanned side of the city gate, pulled out his embroidered guard waist badge, flashed it before the city’s guards, and strode into the dark entrance of the gate.
As soon as he passed through the gatehouse, a blast of warm air hit him in the face.
"Candied hawthorns, candied hawthorns."
"Pancakes, fresh off the griddle."
"Hey, strong man, come over..."
On the straight, wide avenue that stretched endlessly, people surged, brushing shoulders with one another.
There were vendors with their singsong voices.
Young women in new clothes out in groups.
And merchants leading camels along the street, selling exotic goods...
Everywhere, steamers exuded the aromas of food.
Everywhere, the laughter of women and children celebrating filled the air.
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Bright colors, the thick scent of fireworks, and ancient architectural charm...
Just one gatehouse away, yet it felt like stepping into another world.
Hunger and misery were outside the city.
Comfort and wealth within.
Yang Ge, much like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden, held his purse as he aimlessly strolled along the long street, looking all around.
"Young man, give me a stick of candied hawthorns."
"Sir, one pancake, what, one coin for two?"
"Is this nan? Oh, it’s called Hu cake, give me one of those..."
"What’s this you’re selling that smells so good? Lamb bone soup and soaked bread? Can I add ingredients? You have lamb and lamb offal? I’ll take the full bucket, everything you’ve got!"
He sat at a street stall, holding a candied hawthorn in his left hand and a pancake in his right, a Hu cake resting in his lap, eagerly awaiting the lamb soup and soaked bread the owner was bringing him, his face bubbling with joy, inducing envy in a little boy at the next table, who drooled at the sight.
"Little buddy, how old are you?"
Yang Ge, seeing the little boy’s adorable face, waved the remaining pancake in his hand to tease him.
The mother, noticing his handsome and kind demeanor, playfully said to her young child: "Tell the nice man, you’re three years old now!"
"Three years old and already so hearty, that’s great!"
He leaned over, gently pinched the little boy’s cheek, put away the pancake he was teasing him with, and from the full bucket the vendor had just brought, picked up some lamb and pushed it towards the little boy: "Here, enjoy something tasty on uncle!"
The mother quickly declined.
Yang Ge smiled and responded, "It’s no trouble at all," then turned to scoop serving after serving of ingredients into the steaming lamb soup, and then, holding a bowl bigger than his face, slurped the soup noisily.
After sprinting through nearly two hundred li, even with his extraordinary stamina, he was genuinely hungry.
No sooner had he not finished his lamb soup soaked bread than he saw a procession of embroidered guards, their wardens pulling a string of thieves with their hands tied behind their backs with hemp ropes, walking ostentatiously through the street.
Yang Ge quickly swallowed the mouthful of soaked bread he was chewing on and turned his head to loudly ask, "How much do I owe you? One silver coin? That expensive?"
Regretfully pulling out a silver coin from his purse and handing it to the vendor who came to collect the money, his gaze followed the departing queue of embroidered guards. He left his bowl of lamb soup and followed them.
After a few steps, he stepped back, picked up the bowl of lamb soup, and despite the heat, gulped down a big mouthful before turning on his heels and quickly catching up to the embroidered guards.
The grin he wore made the vendor who collected the bowl laugh, boasting, "Isn’t that why our lamb soup soaked bread is renowned!"
The mother tending to the little boy eating, watching his receding figure, sincerely expressed, "He’s really striking..."
Yang Ge trailed far behind the procession of embroidered guards, watching them swagger through the city like street-taming tigers, observing how they casually snatched items from street vendors and tucked them away, with small traders and vendors still smiling and nodding at them in return, noticing how they discreetly received a few purse-like objects from a few hooligan-looking men...
"You really deserve to die!"
Yang Ge nibbled on his pancake and muttered, pondering in his mind that he must be tougher with Shen Fa when he found him...
Such atrocities were never seen in Lu Ting.
When he held the positions of Baihu and Qianhu, although he never hindered his subordinates from making money, he also never allowed them to harm ordinary citizens or decent families, forcing them to make their fortunes by targeting the unscrupulous rich and those corrupt on bribes.
Even after he stepped down from his position in Shangyousuo Qianhu, no official or soldier dared to violate the rules he had established... at least until now, he had not discovered anyone who had violated them.
Yet these capital’s embroidered guards seemed to do so as a matter of routine.
They acted as if it were normal.
Citizens, too, viewed it as commonplace.
After circling Luoyang for who knows how long, the procession of embroidered guards finally lined up and entered a building with a pair of stone lions in front of its cinnabar gates.
Yang Ge walked over and saw: ’Northern Town Prefectural Commissioner’.
"Perfect!"
He looked around, found an unobtrusive spot, and sat down leaning against the wall, hands tucked in, his entire body clad in dusty hemp clothes, his posture curled up, looking every bit like a begging beggar.
He really wasn’t sure whether Shen Fa was at the Northern Town Prefectural Commissioner today or not.