"Sigh..."
Yang Ge reined in his horse and stared fixedly toward Lu Ting at the horizon’s end.
"Sigh."
Fang Ke raised his hand, signaling the hundred or so riders behind him to also halt.
He looked toward Lu Ting at the end of his sight, then turned his head perplexedly to glance at Yang Ge.
Even though Yang Ge’s face showed no expression, Fang Ke felt an inexplicable heaviness in his heart, a sense of panic as if he were about to lose something
"My lord, what’s wrong?"
He forced a smile, trying to divert his master from whatever was preoccupying him, "Do we need to change clothes and enter the city in batches?"
Upon hearing this, Yang Ge instinctively looked at himself. The purplish-red silk brocade robe reflected a gentle and brilliant light in the sunset... somewhat dazzling.
"We do need to change clothes..."
He chuckled, reached to undo the clasps at his collar, and slowly took off the brocade robe.
Seeing this, Fang Ke hurriedly rode closer to him, offering an arm as a makeshift clothes rack.
Yang Ge placed the robe on his arm, pulled a set of coarse gray clothing from his bag, and changed into it, immediately feeling much more at ease.
Fang Ke stood quietly beside him, not daring to make a sound.
But after Yang Ge had changed his clothes, he still spoke, "Lead the brothers back to the yamen. I won’t be entering the city."
Fang Ke’s heart raced, and he began to speak hurriedly.
Yang Ge laughed and shook his head, murmuring softly, "Fang, I want to go home so badly... desperately..."
Hearing his soft murmur, Fang Ke felt a sting in his nose, struggling to speak but unable to utter a word.
He knew that his lord had no relatives left in this world, and though his martial arts had reached this level today, he could not even find a single piece of clothing from a relative to bury himself with.
Now with the old shopkeeper gone, although the world was vast, where was his home now?
"Then you must tell me where your home is?"
Fang Ke, with blurred vision, forced a smile, "I was still hoping to mooch a bowl of glutinous rice balls at your place for New Year..."
"I’ve taught my sister-in-law how to make glutinous rice balls."
Yang Ge gently patted his shoulder, smiling kindly, "From now on, celebrate New Year at your own home."
Fang Ke’s lips trembled with effort, but tears still flooded his eyes.
"A man should not act like a child. The old saying goes that all parties must end, but as long as our friendship endures, there will be a day of reunion."
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Yang Ge, grabbing his sleeve, clumsily wiped Fang Ke’s face, and said with a smile, "The inn... I’ll trouble you to look after it for a while. Once I’m settled, I’ll come back for them."
"Let’s go!"
He waved with a smile, pulled the Lengyue blade from his saddle, and leapt up, transforming into a golden rainbow speeding toward the south.
Fang Ke turned his head, watching that rainbow disappear into the brilliant evening haze, feeling an emptiness in his heart...
After a while, he finally took a deep breath, grabbed Erhei, who was still stretching his neck peering southwest waiting for his master, and said worriedly, "Back to the city!"
Outside the Yuelai Inn.
Zhao Miao sat in the rocking chair Yang Ge usually favored, gently stroking the head of Huang, who he held in his arms, and spoke softly, "Why hasn’t your dad come back yet?"
Huang, with a sorrowful look, rested its head on her lap, its ears drooping, eyes fixed unmovingly toward the end of the long street.
The dog didn’t know why his old man hadn’t come back, but like before, he would wait for his dad to come home.
Would wait...
...
Yang Ge continued southward and successfully found the Yangtze River.
Then, following the river, he traveled upstream...
The rapidly flowing river under his feet, the narrow riverbank, differed greatly from the broad, gentle Yangtze River of his memory.
Along the way, he found no landmarks to serve as markers... such is the power of immense changes over time.
But the sound of the wind by his ears was exceptionally gentle.
The murkiness and blood scent at the bottom of his heart also gradually faded with the washing of the relentless river...
He flew faster and faster, even though his True Qi was diminishing quicker than it could recover, he felt increasingly light.
Finally, after rounding two large mountains along the river, under the bright moonlight, he stared at a range of mountains progressively familiar to him for a long time, suddenly ecstatic, he shouted, "A ten yuan note!"
He turned around, drew a long tail of flames, and continued upstream.
Past the ten yuan note, home was near!
Almost there!
Almost there!
...
At dawn.
Chongqing Prefecture, Zhongzhou, Linjiang County.
It was market day; countless villagers from Linjiang, carrying bamboo baskets, crowded into the narrow streets built along the mountainside, slowly moving with the bustling crowd
Here, you could hardly see the hairpins and coronets that were most common in the Central Plains; almost everyone, regardless of gender or age, wore white headscarves...
Yang Ge remembered someone saying that old people in Sichuan and Chongqing wore white headscarves to mourn Zhuge, a tradition passed down from generations ago.
He didn’t know if it was true, but seeing such attire again felt incredibly familiar... his grandmother had always worn such a white headscarf when she was alive.
He sat in a dilapidated, greasy little stall, listening to the rising and falling local dialects calling out for sales, taste-testing every food item for sale, and he eventually found a food identical to the childhood flavor he remembered: shadow rice porridge.
A convenient staple made by recooking dried cooked glutinous rice, sweet or savory, which he often ate for breakfast as a child...