Chapter 7: The Inn at Weiyuan Fort

When traveling long distances in this country, you need a travel permit. It states where you started from and gives a brief description of your appearance.

Of course, the description on the permit had almost nothing to do with the middle-aged man. Other than ‘male’ being accurate, none of the other details matched.

The soldier didn’t make trouble for him. He let him through. Why? Because the two of them kind of knew each other. Not the first time meeting, but not close either.

And the girl on the cart?

The middle-aged man spoke two words softly: “An immortal.”

Did you believe it?

Yes.

White hair and gold eyes were already strange enough, and there was a faint, barely perceptible pressure about her that could affect a person’s mind. The soldier naturally knew this person wasn’t ordinary.

If someone in yellow silk passed by here, the soldier wouldn’t dare stop them either. He had that much sense.

Besides, this wasn’t a real city. Just a courier station. No need for maximum alert.

If they had maximum security, not even the girl could get in, let alone the middle-aged man with the permit. They’d have reasonable grounds to suspect it wasn’t his permit.

Once the cart was inside, it passed the courier station without stopping.

The middle-aged man explained, “That’s for officials. Common folk like me can’t go in.”

The courier station was a place that combined lodging and meals, and you could also swap horses there for free. But it only served certain people, including officials. If you had a horse token, you could eat and drink for free there too.

Too bad they didn’t have one.

The courier station was a safe place, so traveling merchants made sure to remember it. Merchants with a good business sense would open an inn next to the station to provide food and lodging for common folk.

The ecosystem around the station gradually developed. A large station could grow to the size of a county town; a small one was what they saw now.

Counting roughly, there were only seven or eight buildings. A few steps and you’d reach the end.

“May I ask, Honored Immortal, do you plan to stay here long?” The middle-aged man cared about where she was going.

The girl shook her head.

She could tell this wasn’t the ‘town with many people’ she’d read about. She hadn’t reached her initial destination yet.

“Honored Immortal, if you don’t mind, shall we get a room first?” The middle-aged man probed.

She nodded.

The cart stopped in front of a crude house. He led the horse into the yard on foot and parked it.

There was another cart in the yard. Business at the inn was as tepid as ever.

Next to Weiyuan Fort Station was the Fulu Inn. The owner had seen all kinds of people in all his years of running this place.

When he saw the middle-aged man walk in, his smile froze. Well, this one he really hadn’t seen before.

“Guest… what… what happened to you?” The owner remembered the middle-aged man. He’d set out from here a month ago. Back then, he was healthy and spirited.

How did he end up like this a month later?

Then he saw the girl who came in after him. White hair, gold eyes? The owner’s eyes went wide.

Well, he’d never seen anyone like this either.

He’d once met someone with a similar aura, who gave him the feeling of a carefree cloud. But this girl inspired even greater awe. Calling her ‘otherworldly’ wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

“A room. Do you have something better?” The middle-aged man held up two fingers.

The owner spread his hands. No.

If you wanted to stay in comfort, you’d go to the station next door.

If they couldn’t stay at the station, the guests who came to this inn were thrifty traveling merchants or wanderers with little money.

So the Fulu Inn’s decor was just so-so. It was as cheap as possible.

The owner never expected that running a shop in a place like this, he’d welcome a seemingly extraordinary guest like the girl.

He could roughly guess she was connected to the mystical arts. If someone wanted to avoid trouble and keep to themselves, they couldn’t go to the station and had to stay at an inn.

Such guests were rare.

He didn’t know what the middle-aged man and the girl discussed, but the girl nodded several times.

They must have reached an agreement. In the end, the middle-aged man rented two rooms, got the cleanest one in the inn for the girl.

They exchanged a few more words. The girl took the key he handed her and went upstairs.

At the corner of the second floor, she stopped and looked down.

The middle-aged man was talking with the owner, who pointed at some direction on the second floor.

The girl walked down the hallway toward her room. Suddenly, a door beside her opened.

It was a woman around thirty. The expectation on her face slowly faded into disappointment. “Sorry, I mistook you.”

Behind her was a boy.

They seemed to be waiting for someone.

The girl continued down the hallway and reached her room.

Using the key wasn’t hard to figure out. She stuck it in the lock, jiggled it a few times, and the door opened.

She did a quick check of the room, hid her bundle, then picked up her axe and went back to the door. She cracked it open and looked outside, sensing that something was about to happen.

The middle-aged man came upstairs. His footsteps were slow, weighed down by heavy thoughts.

When he reached the hallway, the door from before opened again. Same woman.

Seeing that the person she was waiting for hadn’t come, the disappointment on her face was obvious.

But the middle-aged man didn’t leave. He stopped there.

The woman waited in silence, as if sensing something. She pushed the boy back into the room, then stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

The middle-aged man coughed quietly, then pulled a scroll from his person. “Found it on the road.”

The woman took the scroll. She stared at it for a long time, lost in thought, but didn’t open it.

She paced the hallway for a while, leaning on the railing, then leaning against the wall.

Tears flowed uncontrollably.

After a long time, perhaps having steeled herself, she opened the scroll.

It was also a travel permit.

When she saw its contents, the woman crumpled to the ground and started crying.

The boy inside opened the door and saw his mother crying. He walked over to the middle-aged man and started hitting him.

“You’re a bad guy. You bullied my mom.” He hit him with some force, making the middle-aged man’s legs ache.

The middle-aged man didn’t stay. He quickly went back to his room, which was next to the girl’s.

Sitting on a chair, his heart felt heavy.

He felt safe in the inn. He should have rested, like he used to, using sleep to drive away exhaustion.

But this time he couldn’t sleep.

After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, someone knocked on the door.

It was the woman.

She brought the boy to apologize, and also to thank him.

After the formalities, the boy was sent back to his room. The woman stayed to talk with the middle-aged man for a long time, discussing the details of how he found the remains.

The middle-aged man told her the location. It wasn’t far from the station.

He wanted to advise her not to go. The weather was bad, and there were wild animals. But in the end, he didn’t.

The middle-aged man also took the woman to the yard, where her husband’s goods were.

The girl walked to the window and looked outside. The yard was below, so she could see them and hear their voices.

The middle-aged man carried the clothes and goods from the accident site off the cart, one bag at a time. Fifteen bags. Mostly furs.

Seeing the woman’s reddened eyes, he carried down one more bag.

“These are all the goods I brought back from there. Sixteen bags in total. Count them.” He leaned against the cart, coughing. His health was getting worse.

The woman untied the bags and glanced through them, then made an offer.

“Benefactor, I have no way to transport these goods. I want to sell them to you. What do you think?” The woman clutched her husband’s clothes in one hand and wiped the tears from her eyes with the other.

“Sorry, I can’t buy them.” The middle-aged man seemed to have guessed her thoughts. He explained, “I can’t buy them below market price.”

“But…” The woman spoke tearfully. “I can’t sell them to you above market price.”

The deal didn’t go through.

But selling the goods wasn’t hard. There was another merchant in the inn.

With the middle-aged man’s help, the merchant bought the goods at a price higher than what the Jurchens would have offered, saving him a trip. Both sides profited.

The woman wanted to give the middle-aged man a ten percent broker’s fee. Everyone knew what that fee really meant.

He refused, but she knelt and wouldn’t get up. In the end, he had to accept.

Watching all these hardships of life, the girl understood this world a little deeper.

These people couldn’t represent the true state of the world. But they were the true state of the world.

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