After leaving Hanchuan, the road north proved even harder to travel than everyone had anticipated.
There were still signs of human habitation outside Hanchuan City. Along both sides of the official road, they could occasionally see withered trees bent beneath the snow and half-collapsed earthen walls. But after traveling another twenty-odd li north, the road seemed to be swallowed little by little by the wind and snow. The wagon ruts that had still been recognizable gradually disappeared beneath the snow, while the boundary markers by the roadside were only half exposed, their characters obscured beneath frost.
The horses’ hooves sank into the snow, making dull sounds.
The procession moved very slowly.
Xiao Yuan had not brought many people with him. He had only brought his personal guards, scouts, several soldiers familiar with the roads around Hanchuan, as well as Xia Lanshi and Chi Banyue.
Hanchuan City had only just stabilized. Qin Feng could not leave, as the granaries, auxiliary warehouses, city defenses, and trial planting fields all required him to remain in charge. Xiao Yuan also did not want too many people accompanying them deep into Qingshi Village. A large procession would only make them an obvious target in the eyes of the bandits and the Crown Prince’s hidden agents.
Xia Lanshi sat inside the carriage. The gaps around the carriage windows had been sealed with thick cloth, leaving only a very narrow opening for ventilation. A brazier had been placed inside, a thick blanket spread beneath his feet, and beside him was a pile of nutritional fluids, rehydration salts, heat patches, and several packets of medicine labeled, “Do not reduce the dosage without permission,” all prepared by Su Muchen.
Chi Banyue rode beside the carriage, occasionally lifting the curtain to take a look at him.
When she lifted it for the third time, Xia Lanshi finally looked up helplessly.
“…Miss Banyue.”
Chi Banyue smiled brightly at him. “I’m just making sure you’re still alive.”
Xia Lanshi: “…”
Xia Lanshi wondered whether he was truly that fragile, as though a little wind and snow and a little jostling could actually kill him.
He lowered his head and glanced at the route map in his hand before slowly saying, “If I were dead, the carriage should be quieter than it is now.”
Chi Banyue raised an eyebrow. “You’re pretty quiet right now, too.”
“So?”
“So I have to watch you even more closely.” Chi Banyue was completely justified in her own mind. “Doctor Su said that when someone like you suddenly becomes quiet, it usually doesn’t mean you’re resting. It means you’re secretly using up your life.”
Xia Lanshi fell silent for a moment, unable to find anything to refute.
Because Su Muchen had been frighteningly accurate.
He could only set down the route map and reach for the packet of nutritional fluid beside him.
Chi Banyue watched him obediently drink it before finally lowering the carriage curtain.
Outside the carriage, Xiao Yuan was riding on horseback. He glanced back once. Hearing the faint sounds from inside the carriage, his expression eased slightly before he quickly turned his gaze forward again.
The wind and snow grew heavier.
When the scout returned from ahead, a thin layer of snow covered his body, and his expression did not look good.
“Your Highness, the official road ahead is blocked by snow. Part of the mountain wall along the main road leading to Qingshi Village has collapsed, so neither carts nor horses can pass. If we want to go around it, we can only take the hunters’ trail on the western side.”
The veteran soldier sent from Hanchuan darkened at the words “hunters’ trail.”
“Your Highness, that road is difficult to travel. The snow is deep, the slopes are steep, and there’s also a stretch of old forest beside it. Light cavalry can manage it, but the carriage will probably have trouble getting through.”
Chi Banyue glanced at the carriage.
Xia Lanshi could not possibly abandon the carriage and ride a horse.
For him to make it north with them now was already thanks to the strange yet effective things Su Muchen had used to keep him going. If he were made to ride a horse through the wind and snow along the hunters’ trail, he might collapse before they even reached Qingshi Village.
Xiao Yuan asked, “Is there another route?”
The veteran soldier gritted his teeth and thought for a moment.
“There is a longer detour. It would take two more days. But Qingshi Village has lost contact with us. Two days is too long.”
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
This was the most ruthless part of the Crown Prince’s scheme.
He did not need to kill anyone himself.
As long as he cut off a section of road and delayed them for two days, the wind and snow, hunger, and panic would do the killing for him.
Xiao Yuan looked at the mountain road obscured by the snowy mist. After a moment, he said, “Take the hunters’ trail.”
Chi Banyue frowned.
“What about the carriage?”
Xiao Yuan said, “Take it apart.”
Everyone froze.
Xiao Yuan looked at the veteran soldier. “How many people can walk abreast at the narrowest point of the hunters’ trail?”
“Two. If the snow is deep, only one person can lead a horse.”
“Then remove the carriage body and turn it into a sled.” Xiao Yuan said, “Reduce the horses’ load and choose the two steadiest horses to pull it. The others will take turns supporting the carriage. Use ropes to pull it through the mountain sections.”
Chi Banyue’s eyebrows lifted.
“When did Your Highness learn this?”
Xiao Yuan did not answer immediately.
He remembered a page Su Muchen had tucked into the contingency plans last night.
—Snowfield Transport: If the wheels fail, remove them to reduce weight and switch to dragging the baseboard. Do not force the carriage forward, to prevent the horses from becoming trapped in the snow. On slopes, use ropes to pull from both front and rear. Keep patients secured and warm to prevent hypothermia.
There was also a very ugly little diagram on that page.
It was so ugly that anyone could tell at a glance that Su Muchen had drawn it.
A faint smile flashed through Xiao Yuan’s eyes before disappearing. He then said, “Doctor Su said so.”
Chi Banyue: “…”
The veteran soldier: “…”
For some reason, the moment those words were spoken, the tense atmosphere actually settled in a strange way.
It was as though, as long as that unseen Doctor Su had already thought of it beforehand, this difficult snow-covered road ahead was not completely without a solution.
Inside the carriage, Xia Lanshi could not help letting out a soft laugh when he heard that.
He lifted the curtain and looked outside.
“Your Highness, although Doctor Su’s drawing wasn’t very good, the method should work.”
Xiao Yuan glanced at him.
“You saw it?”
“Your Highness left it on the table last night. I happened to see it.”
Chi Banyue immediately turned around.
“Weren’t you supposed to be asleep last night?”
Xia Lanshi: “…”
He suddenly realized that he had let something slip.
Xiao Yuan said calmly, “When we reach Qingshi Village, tell Doctor Su the truth.”
Xia Lanshi: “…”
Chi Banyue smiled very happily.
“Lord Xia, you’re done for.”
Xia Lanshi let out a soft sigh.
He felt that the person he most needed to guard against in the northern frontier now might not be the Crown Prince at all, but the various new rules Doctor Su kept sending over from behind a door.
◆◇◆◇◆
The procession stopped beneath a sheltered slope for half an hour.
The personal guards worked quickly. They removed the carriage wheels, leaving the baseboard and carriage body, reinforced them with ropes, then tied flattened wooden boards underneath so that the carriage could be dragged across the snow. The method was crude, but effective. At the very least, it was much better than letting the wheels sink into the snow and leaving them unable to move.
When Xia Lanshi was temporarily helped down from the carriage, the wind and snow struck him in the face, making him cough several times.
Chi Banyue immediately wrapped his cloak more tightly around him.
“You’d better not develop a fever right now.”
Xia Lanshi coughed until the corners of his eyes turned slightly red, yet he still said gently, “I’ll try.”
“Trying is useless.” Chi Banyue stuffed a heat patch into his sleeve, then pulled his mask properly into place. “Doctor Su said that in the early stages of hypothermia, you don’t necessarily feel cold. Instead, your reactions may become sluggish. If you feel especially energetic, that’s what’s suspicious.”
Xia Lanshi watched her skillfully recite this long string of instructions and suddenly said, “Miss Banyue.”
“Hm?”
“You really look like Doctor Su’s personal disciple now.”
Chi Banyue smiled.
“Then you’re one of Doctor Su’s most difficult patients to manage.”
“One of?”
Chi Banyue’s gaze drifted toward Xiao Yuan.
“The other one is over there.”
Xia Lanshi followed her gaze.
Xiao Yuan was inspecting the dragging ropes. His black cloak billowed in the wind, his tall figure sharp as a blade. No matter how one looked at him, he did not resemble a patient.
But they all knew that the injuries on this Prince Su were actually not fully healed either.
He was simply too good at making people forget about it.
Xia Lanshi lowered his eyes and said softly, “His Highness is much more obedient than before.”
Chi Banyue was startled.
Xia Lanshi said nothing more.
Because he had noticed it, too.
After finishing his inspection of the ropes, Xiao Yuan did not, as he had in the past, personally carry the heaviest supplies. Instead, he divided the task among his personal guards and merely made sure that the arrangements were in order.
The Xiao Yuan of the past would never have done this.
He had never cared whether he was injured, nor whether his wounds would split open. Whatever could be done, he would do it himself, as though only by doing so could he ensure that nothing went wrong.
But now, he had begun letting others take over.
He had begun conserving his strength.
He had begun remembering that someone had told him, “Don’t treat yourself as though you’re made of iron.”
A person’s change often did not begin with anything earth-shattering.
Instead, it happened in these details so subtle that almost no one noticed them.
◆◇◆◇◆
At the same time, the door of Guichen Studio failed to open for the first time as expected.
Su Muchen stood in the back room, looking at that silent old door, a second batch of Qingshi Village supplies still in his hands.
It was already past midnight.
Usually, at this hour, if Xiao Yuan were coming, at least a faint white light would seep through the crack beneath the door.
But tonight, there was nothing.
The door was as quiet as a piece of silent wood.
Su Muchen stood there for a long time.
Xiao leaned against the door, his expression unusually serious.
“It could be that the wind and snow are too heavy in the direction of Qingshi Village. Or perhaps Xiao Yuan’s side is currently traveling, and there isn’t a suitable door point.”
Su Muchen said nothing.
He lowered his eyes and glanced at the supply pack in his hands.
Inside were separately packaged hemostatic dressings, fever-reducing medicine, rehydration salts, compressed dry rations, heat patches, and a small hand-crank emergency lamp. Besides those, there was also the newly revised “Supplementary Guide for Treating Snowfield Injuries” that he had just hurriedly finished.
If the door did not open, these things could only remain in his hands.
They were completely useless.
The feeling made his chest feel tight.
Xiao looked at him and said quietly, “Muchen, you need to rest.”
“I’m not tired.”
Xiao said nothing, merely looking at him.
After a moment, Su Muchen laughed first.
“That’s what patients say most often, isn’t it?”
For once, Xiao did not smile.
Su Muchen placed the supply pack on the table, turned back to the counter, and opened his laptop.
When the screen lit up, it reflected the heavy dark circles beneath his eyes.
He no longer stared at the door. Instead, he opened a new document.
Qingshi Village Disconnection Scenario Analysis.
He began listing the possibilities.
Avalanche blocking the roads.
Food supplies running out in the village.
Bandits occupying the village.
Fake refugees infiltrating the village.
An outbreak of disease.
Contaminated water sources.
Villagers being held hostage.
The northern sentry’s grain route being intercepted.
After each possibility, he wrote down the measures Xiao Yuan could take, as well as the risks that needed to be considered.
Xiao stood beside him and watched for a while before suddenly saying, “Even if you write all this, he can’t see it right now.”
Su Muchen’s fingers did not stop.
“He’ll see it eventually.”
“What if the door never opens?”
Su Muchen’s movements stopped.
Those words were like a very fine needle, piercing the place he least wanted touched.
After a long time, he finally said quietly, “Then I still have to write it all down first.”
Xiao looked at him.
Su Muchen did not raise his head.
“If the door opens, I can’t have nothing ready.”
His voice was very soft.
Yet it made Xiao fall silent.
He suddenly felt that Su Muchen really was very much like Old Master Su.
Not in appearance.
But in that stubbornness of lighting the lamp even when he was clearly afraid.
In his heart, he actually understood very well that Su Muchen had already fallen too deeply into this.
Far too deeply.
So deeply that he could no longer pull himself out.
If one day the door were to close completely, or if Xiao Yuan no longer needed him, what would become of Su Muchen?
But he was only the gatekeeper.
All he could do was silently guard the door and witness the outcome, whether that outcome was good or bad.
◆◇◆◇◆
The hunters’ trail was more difficult to traverse than they had imagined.
In the afternoon, the wind and snow suddenly intensified. The small path that had originally been trampled out by old hunters was covered by snow, and in many places they could only rely on the Hanchuan veterans to identify the terrain.
The modified carriage moved extremely slowly as it was dragged along. Whenever they encountered an uphill section, the two horses in front pulled it while four personal guards at the rear held the carriage steady with ropes, preventing it from sliding backward.
Xia Lanshi sat inside the carriage and was unexpectedly steadier than they had anticipated.
Although some jostling was unavoidable, dragging the carriage on the sled was far better than having wheels sink into the snow. His complexion was somewhat pale, but he was no longer coughing as badly.
Every so often, Chi Banyue would hand him a mouthful of warm water, watch him drink it, and then feel his hands to make sure they were still warm.
At first, Xia Lanshi felt this was somewhat excessive.
By the third time, he was already too lazy to resist.
When Chi Banyue lifted the curtain, he even voluntarily held out his hand.
Chi Banyue looked at him and smiled.
“That’s a lot of progress.”
Xia Lanshi withdrew his hand expressionlessly.
“You’re too kind.”
By now, he had learned to conserve his energy where it was unnecessary to spend it.
This could also be considered one of the results of Doctor Su’s recuperation plan.
When the procession reached dusk, the scout ahead suddenly reported something unusual.
“Your Highness, there’s smoke in the woods ahead.”
Xiao Yuan reined in his horse.
Amid the wind and snow, the scout pointed toward the depths of the old forest to the northwest.
The terrain there was low and the trees dense. If not for someone with considerable experience, it would have been easy to miss that wisp of gray smoke being scattered by the wind.
The Hanchuan veteran frowned.
“There are no hunters’ huts around here. Anyone daring to start a fire in the forest during snow season is either lost or deliberately hiding.”
Xiao Yuan looked at that wisp of smoke.
“Send a scout to investigate.”
The scout acknowledged the order and rode off.
Chi Banyue rode forward and said quietly, “Bandits?”
“Not necessarily.” Xiao Yuan said, “They could also be fake refugees.”
There was not much difference between the two.
If they were ordinary refugees, starting a fire in the forest in weather like this most likely meant they had nowhere else to go.
But if they were fake refugees, the fire could be bait.
Before long, the scout returned, his expression even graver than before.
“Your Highness, there are more than ten people in the forest. They are dressed like commoners fleeing a disaster, including the elderly and the weak. But the footprints around them don’t look right. There are horse tracks behind the forest, as though someone deliberately left them there.”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze turned cold.
Xia Lanshi heard this from inside the carriage and lifted the curtain.
“It’s bait.”
Xiao Yuan looked at him.
Xia Lanshi said softly, “If we don’t save them, the other side can spread the word that Prince Su saw people in danger and refused to help. If we do save them, and there is an ambush in the forest, they can use it to hold up the entire procession. More importantly, they may want to see whether Your Highness will take out any of those ‘strange items.'”
Doctor Su’s medicine, marching pills, heat patches, rehydration salts.
These things had been disguised in Hanchuan as overseas goods confiscated by Linzhou. But if they appeared again along the road to Qingshi Village, and happened to be beside Xiao Yuan every single time, then no matter how crude the disguise was, it would gradually wear thin.
Chi Banyue sneered.
“The Crown Prince’s people really are like lingering ghosts.”
Xia Lanshi lowered his eyes.
“It may not only be the Crown Prince’s people.”
Everyone looked at him.
Xia Lanshi said, “If there are already bandits and fake refugees around Qingshi Village, they may not all obey the Eastern Palace. In a famine-stricken land, human lives are the easiest things to buy, and the easiest things to lose control of.”
Xiao Yuan was silent for a moment before giving his order.
“Split into two groups. On the surface, send people to rescue them. Secretly, circle around behind them and investigate the horse tracks. All relief supplies will consist only of ordinary grain and hot water brought from Hanchuan. Do not use the marching pills or medicine. If anyone is seriously injured, handle it according to the circumstances.”
At this point, he paused.
“When rescuing them, check their hands first.”
One of the personal guards froze, then immediately understood.
People who had truly fled a disaster would generally have cracked, rough, injured palms and knuckles from the cold. If someone pretending to be a refugee was actually accustomed to wielding knives or bows, no matter how they changed their clothes, they might not be able to conceal the calluses and marks on their hands.
This was precisely what Su Muchen had written in the contingency plan.
—Identifying Disaster Victims: Look at their shoe soles, hands, eyes, and belongings. Genuine refugees will focus mostly on food, water, and their families. Pretenders will be more concerned with approaching the procession and observing the guards.
When Xiao Yuan had first seen this line, he had asked Su Muchen how he knew these things.
Su Muchen had merely said that he had researched information about disasters and wars, and had read many cases of fraud.
At the time, Xiao Yuan had thought that although Su Muchen’s world had no court intrigues or flashes of blades, it was not clean either.
He simply had no sword in his hands, so he had learned to see through people by other means.
The personal guards quickly took action.
On the surface, one group approached the forest carrying hot water and ordinary dry rations. In secret, Chi Banyue led two of the most capable personal guards around to the rear of the forest to investigate the horse tracks.
Xiao Yuan remained where he was, his gaze cold and heavy.
Inside the carriage, Xia Lanshi held a brazier in his hands and spoke in a low voice.
“Your Highness, the game around Qingshi Village has already begun.”
Xiao Yuan looked at the wisp of gray smoke in the distant forest.
“Mm.”
He knew.
From the moment he left Hanchuan City, he had already stepped into the next web.
Only this time, he was no longer completely unprepared.
In his sleeve were the contingency plans written by Su Muchen. In his breast pocket was that packet of medicine.
Behind him were Xia Lanshi and Chi Banyue.
Far away, Hanchuan remained as a retreat.
And on the other side of the door, someone was waiting.
Xiao Yuan tightened his grip on the reins, his voice calm.
“Then let’s see whether this web can truly trap this prince.”
The wind and snow swept across the hunters’ trail.
The gray smoke in the forest swayed.
They had yet to reach Qingshi Village, but the first hidden thread of the trap had already revealed itself.