Sun Zheng was about to speak when his eyes suddenly sharpened. He pointed at the tall man with a trembling finger. “You… you… aren’t you the Garlic-Head Hero?”
No wonder he hadn’t seen that man again since this morning. So that was what had happened!
Xie Nanxiao froze for a moment, then suddenly understood. “You ran into Garlic. He’s my useless younger brother. Did he do another good deed? There’s no need to thank me—he just likes helping people.”
Sun Zheng ground his teeth. “What younger brother? What helping people? He seized all three of our ships! Don’t pretend you don’t know what’s going on. Even if you’ve changed into a Jinyang military uniform, I’d still recognize you.”
Then he remembered something and suddenly understood. “Oh, I see. This is your Jinyang army’s way of putting us in our place, isn’t it? This was all Princess Jinyang’s idea?”
Xie Nanxiao was stunned. “Why would you say that, Lord Sun? My lord has always conducted herself openly and honorably. If she has something to do, she puts it out in the open.”
“Besides, my younger brother has always acted out of chivalry. He must have seized your ships because of some misunderstanding. Once we clear that up, everything will be fine.”
Sun Zheng was furious. “What misunderstanding? In three days, he charged us more than thirty thousand taels of silver and only gave us cabbage porridge to eat!”
Xie Nanxiao helplessly spread his hands. “I understand what you’re saying. He provided you with food at sea and transported your people here. More than thirty thousand is a reasonable price.”
Sun Zheng was practically laughing from anger. “Reasonable? Tell me, what part of that is reasonable?”
“Wait.” He finally realized something. “Wasn’t all of this done by you? You disguised yourself as the Salted Fish Pirate and robbed our ship and our goods. Otherwise, why would we have needed Garlic’s help?”
Xie Nanxiao froze. “What? You ran into Salted Fish Flips Over? Ah, I’m ashamed to say that he’s also my younger brother. Sigh, let’s not bring him up.”
Sun Zheng felt as though he was about to lose his mind. “Garlic is your younger brother, and Salted Fish is also your younger brother. How many younger brothers do you have?”
Xie Nanxiao’s face was full of shame. “Salted Fish Flips Over is my second brother. Garlic is my third brother.”
He sighed. “It’s a long story. Years ago, the two of them had a falling-out and fought a great battle. They even used only their left hands.”
“In the end, both sides suffered. My third brother blinded my second brother’s left eye, and my second brother blinded my third brother’s right eye. From then on, they became sworn enemies.”
“After that, my second brother robbed people at sea, while my third brother rescued them at sea. They treated it like a competition. There was nothing I could do to control them. Shameful, shameful. Truly shameful.”
The veins on Sun Zheng’s forehead throbbed. Suppressing his anger, he said, “Since it was your younger brother who robbed us, then return our ship and goods.”
Xie Nanxiao spread his hands. “My second brother has committed countless misdeeds and was expelled from the family long ago. He no longer counts as my brother, so there’s nothing I can do about what you’re asking. His actions have nothing to do with me.”
“As for my third brother, Garlic, I know him well. He would have clearly stated his prices. He couldn’t possibly have cheated you.”
Sun Zheng: “…”
He actually had no way to argue. The man really had stated his prices clearly.
Ji Wangfei frowned. He did not want to waste any more time on the matter. “Is there a doctor in Feng’an County? We have dozens of wounded men, and their condition is quite serious.”
Xie Nanxiao was still considerate. “There’s a clinic. I can take you there. But do you have any carriages?”
Ji Wangfei: “…”
As an honest man, Xie Nanxiao naturally did not cheat them. Instead, he called over some carriages whose drivers specialized in soliciting passengers at the docks and had them carry the group into Feng’an City.
As for the price, that depended on what the drivers demanded.
Ji Wangfei stared at the gray-white road. It was so clean that there was not even a withered leaf on it, and there were no potholes or uneven patches anywhere. It was almost unbelievably smooth. “What is this?”
Xie Nanxiao rode along the horse path and explained with a smile, “This is a cement road.”
Considering that horses were still the main form of transportation in this era, Jiang Jin had made some adjustments when designing the roads.
Cement roads could accommodate horses, but they were unsuitable for horses to gallop on, especially at high speed for long periods.
Cement was hard and lacked sufficient cushioning and shock absorption. Horses running on it could easily slip and fall, causing considerable damage to their hooves and legs.
Therefore, the broadest section in the middle was the cement road, intended for horse-drawn carriages, ox carts, and flatbed carts.
On one side of the cement road was a footpath, and on the other was a horse path.
The footpath was narrower and also made of cement, making it clean and easy to walk on.
The horse path was fairly wide. It consisted of earth beneath a layer of sand and gravel.
This arrangement accommodated all the forms of transportation used in this era.
Just as Xie Nanxiao was leading the group into Feng’an County, Nan Wen encountered trouble in Chongzhou, where he had been harassing the Jie army.
Watching a woman in the distance fighting desperately against the Jie soldiers, he fell into a daze. He felt that she looked familiar, but for a moment he could not remember who she was.
Zhao Er could not help asking, “Should we save them? The bandits are at a disadvantage. If this continues, they may all be wiped out.”
They had originally planned to ambush the Jie soldiers here, but instead had come upon a group of Han Chinese bandits battling them.
The leader of the bandits appeared to be a woman.
But when Nan Wen saw that woman, he stopped moving. For a while, Zhao Er even suspected that Nan Wen had developed improper thoughts about her.
Nan Wen came back to himself. “Save them, of course! As long as they’re Jie soldiers, we fight them. Let’s go!”
With that, he strode toward the two sides locked in battle.
When An Yun saw Nan Wen, she nearly let the saber in her hand fly from her grasp. Fortunately, she quickly steadied herself, then kicked forward and sent the Jie soldier she had just slashed to the ground.
With the sudden arrival of the Han Chinese, the Jie soldiers’ numerical advantage was immediately reversed. They did not dare to continue fighting and prepared to retreat.
But by then, it was no longer up to them whether they could leave.
In less than fifteen minutes, Nan Wen and his men had annihilated the entire group of Jie soldiers.
“Search the battlefield,” he ordered quickly.
“No!” shouted a young man beside An Yun. “At least half of these men were killed by us. We should get at least half the spoils.”
Nan Wen nodded. “Fine. Search the battlefield first and leave as quickly as possible. We’ll divide the spoils afterward.”
Only then did the young man secretly relax. He led his men to join the search for loot, examining everything with even greater care. They stripped even the clothes from the Jie soldiers and carried them away.
An Yun hesitated for a moment, then walked over. “May I ask if you’re General Nan?”
Now that they were closer, Nan Wen finally recognized the woman before him. “You… you’re Lady An?”
It was no wonder he had failed to recognize her. An Yun had changed far too much.
In the past, she had worn fine clothes and had been a charming, even somewhat willful young lady. Now her face was darkened by the sun, she wore coarse hemp clothing, and she held a large saber in her hand. She was the very picture of a bandit.
An Yun smiled. “It’s me.”
Meeting an old acquaintance amid the chaos of war was worth being happy about. Nan Wen broke into a broad, delighted smile. “I thought I’d mistaken you. What are you doing here?”
An Yun’s expression turned complicated. “After Chongzhou fell, I followed my father into the mountains. Later, my father died, and I became a bandit.”
She summed it up in a single sentence, but the hardships and dangers she had endured could easily be imagined.
Nan Wen was not good with words and did not know how to comfort her. After a long while, he finally said, “Being a bandit is pretty good. Just don’t chase after every man you see in the future. I’m afraid you won’t be able to afford to feed them.”
