The boundary of Yuzhou Prefecture.
At this moment, the sky was a dull, grayish-yellow.
And the road below was so muddy there was nowhere to step; the wheels of the Xu family's carriages were sinking into the mire.
Xu Youde lifted the curtain of the rear carriage and poked his head out.
"Pah!" He spat out the sand that had been blown into his mouth by the wind.
"Is this what they call an official road? There isn't even a relay station to rest at! The road repair funds allocated by the imperial court every year must have all been fed to the dogs!"
The old man cursed, pulling his head back in. As the carriage curtain fell, it blocked out the earthy smell from outside.
At the very front of the convoy.
Li Sheng was riding a piebald horse, responsible for scouting the way. The splint on his leg had only recently been removed, and one leg was still not quite agile; an iron crutch hung from the horse's belly.
As they walked, Li Sheng suddenly pulled back on the reins.
The piebald horse's front hooves stomped a deep pit in the mud, and it stopped.
Li Sheng didn't turn around to report, nor did he call for a halt.
He leaned most of his body over the horse's back, stretching his neck out long, looking curiously at a waterlogged depression by the side of the road.
Inside the spacious carriage in the middle.
Xu Qinghuan leaned against a soft cushion, resting with her eyes closed.
Xu Zijin sat opposite her, holding a tattered copy of "Travels in the Great Qian Dynasty," not having turned a page for a long time.
As the carriage stopped, Xu Zijin immediately put the book down.
"Why have we stopped?"
He pushed open the carriage door and stepped down onto the footboard.
Xu Qinghuan opened her eyes, followed him to lift the door curtain, and leaned half her body out.
Following Li Sheng's gaze.
In the air, besides the earthy smell, a rotting stench drifted over.
The depression wasn't large, containing a pool of pitch-black, stagnant water.
On the surface of the water, a mass of something was rolling around.
It was a snake.
Covered in green scales, it was as thick as a grown man's wrist.
It wasn't bleeding, nor had its tail been severed; it was just frantically twisting and thrashing in the mud, splashing up black mud droplets.
Looking closer, Xu Zijin's scalp went numb.
The snake's body was covered in a layer of black, hard-shelled bugs.
They were about the size of a fingernail, with pincer-like mouthparts.
The green snake was driven mad by the pain, rubbing itself hard against the ground, flinging off dozens of black bugs.
But as soon as one batch fell off, a massive swarm immediately surged up from the nearby muddy water, clinging tightly to it.
Layer upon layer.
They forcibly pinned a wrist-thick green snake deep in the mud pit, unable to lift its head.
Xu Zijin's stomach churned.
He took half a step forward, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the green snake's head.
He saw that something had actually grown on its head.
On either side, a fleshy tumor the size of a fingertip bulged out.
The skin at the top of one tumor had been rubbed off, revealing a section of something like white jade.
These were horns!
Xu Zijin immediately thought: This green snake is about to transform into a flood dragon.
The commotion in the depression grew smaller and smaller.
The green snake could no longer thrash; half its body sank into the mud.
Seeing it stop moving, the swarm of bugs quickly changed direction. They no longer bit the hard scales, but instead crawled along the snake's head, towards its eyes, drilling into its nostrils, and surging into its ear holes and slightly open mouth.
"Crunch... crunch..."
The fine sound of gnawing was particularly clear in the quiet wilderness.
Xu Zijin's brows twisted into a knot.
He was a scholar; normally, he wouldn't even kill a chicken.
Moreover, this was a creature that had grown horns. In a scholar's understanding, this represented the fortune of the Heavenly Dao.
He turned to look around and spotted a dead old willow tree growing by the road.
Xu Zijin walked over quickly, grabbed a finger-thick branch with both hands, and snapped it down forcefully.
With a crack, the branch broke.
Holding the branch, he turned to walk towards the depression, intending to pry away the dense black bugs.
The moment he took his first step.
At the very front of the Xu family's convoy, the pitch-black lead horse pulling the main carriage suddenly went mad.
This black horse was usually very docile; right now, without any warning, it suddenly reared up on its hind legs.
Its bucket-thick front legs hung high in the air, then smashed heavily onto the muddy ground.
Mud splattered.
The black horse snorted two thick streams of white air from its nostrils and let out a loud roar toward the depression.
As soon as the neigh rang out.
The dense swarm of black bugs in the depression paused for a beat.
In that moment of pause, a large number of black bugs covering the snake's head fell off, plopping into the muddy water.
With this, the green snake's head was exposed. Its eyes were also fully revealed.
They were a pair of cold, vertical pupils.
There was no pleading, no despair, and certainly no cry for help.
That eye pierced through the mire, looking at the lead horse on the bank, and then swept over Xu Zijin holding the branch.
A chill instantly shot up Xu Zijin's spine, and his feet could no longer take a step.
This was the look of a superior viewing its prey.
Even though it was being gnawed to a gruesome state by insects and ants, it still carried a viciousness that made one's bones turn cold.
A hand reached over from the side, snatching the dead branch from Xu Zijin's hand.
Xu Qinghuan didn't even glance at the snake.
With a backhand swing, she threw the branch far into the half-human-high wild grass.
"Commandery Princess Xu, this... this, are we just going to stand by and do nothing?" Xu Zijin was anxious, questioning in a low voice.
Xu Qinghuan turned around, pointing at the black bugs that had gathered again and were continuing to drill into the snake's mouth.
"Look closely."
Her voice was very flat, flat without any fluctuation.
"This is the Yu boundary, not Jiangning, and certainly not your Hundred Flowers Pavilion where you can reason."
Xu Zijin clenched his fists tightly.
"All things have spirits; it has already grown horns. How can we watch helplessly as it is eaten to death by these lowly insects and ants!"
Xu Qinghuan let out a short laugh.
"All things feed on each other; there is a natural order."
"Your eyes only see its pitiful state; did you see it when it was eating people just now? Do you see that those bugs biting it are doing so to survive?"
She took a step closer, looking directly at Xu Zijin.
"You can't save it."
"It didn't ask you to save it either."
Xu Qinghuan turned her head, looking at the gray official road ahead.
The capital was at the end of this road.
The snake in the depression was a living creature suppressed by a swarm of bugs. Was the Son of Heaven in the imperial court not also bitten tightly by the large and small noble families and officials of this world?
Their Xu family, bringing wealth and lethal weapons into the capital, had become this overbearing black horse that barged in.
A single neigh broke the original rules of eating and being eaten.
Next, either the snake would swallow them whole, or the swarm of bugs would turn around and gnaw them until not even bone fragments remained.
Showing misplaced mercy at a time like this was just asking to die faster.
The curtain of the rear carriage was lifted again.
Xu Youde leaned out half his body, glancing toward the depression.
The old man's facial features immediately twisted together, and he fanned his hand in front of his nose in disgust.
"Oh, my mother's fourth uncle's grandmother! Seeing such filthy things in broad daylight!"
He yelled at Li Sheng in the front at the top of his lungs.
"What are you standing there for! Waiting for dinner! Hurry up and go, hurry up and go! Bad luck!"
Xu Qinghuan turned and got onto the carriage.
Xu Zijin stood where he was, looking at the snake's body that was already completely submerged by the black bugs, and ultimately didn't dare to go pick up the branch again, silently following her onto the carriage.
Li Sheng grabbed the horsewhip and snapped it sharply in the air.
"Giddy up!"
The wheels began to turn once more, squelching as they rolled over the muddy road.
The entire convoy clung to the far side of the official highway, giving the puddle of stagnant water a wide berth.
The carriage moved swiftly.
Amidst the jolts and bumps, Xu Qinghuan leaned against the side of the carriage and reached out to lift a corner of the window curtain.
She cast a glance backward.
As the neighing, pitch-black lead horse passed the depression, its hind hooves kicked up a clump of mud and gravel that traced an arc in the air.
With a splat, the mud landed right in the center of the puddle.
The black, dead water churned for a brief moment.
Then, the surface was empty.
The swarm of black insects was gone, and the horned green snake had vanished as well.
All that remained were rings of murky ripples, slowly washing toward the muddy banks.
The wind in the wilderness grew fiercer, whipping the man-high withered grass back and forth. Its endless, whimpering howl completely drowned out the clatter of horse hooves.
Xu Qinghuan let the curtain fall.
The inside of the carriage darkened.
Xu Zijin leaned against the wooden boards on the opposite side, not uttering a single word.
He still had not opened his copy of the Travels of Great Qian, his hands simply resting on his knees.
They were almost at the capital.
