Chapter 394
That evening, Zhao Ger told Fang Zichen about Feng momo.
Fang Zichen was furious—and embarrassed at the same time.
His son looked like some random person? What was that supposed to mean? If those words had come from anyone other than Feng momo, he'd have suspected someone was trying to drive a wedge between him and Zhao Ger. Was Zheng Peiyao's sister here again? But since it was Feng momo who said it, she was probably just longing for a handsome face.
Fang Zichen had never met Qin Hengxuan, but he'd heard he was quite handsome—the kind of man who made others turn their heads wherever he went. And Guaizai had good taste, just like him. Since Guaizai called him "Handsome Grandpa," the rumors had to be true.
And yet, how could his youngest son possibly resemble him?
Right now, his youngest boy didn't have a single thing to do with the word "handsome." Strip him naked and toss him in a pigpen, and he'd pass for a piglet. How could he possibly look anything like Qin Hengxuan?
Feng momo's eyes must be going bad with age!
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It was rare for him to return, so Fang Zichen stayed in Hezhou City with Zhao Ger for a while. Every now and then, he would take his children out to the training grounds outside the city to have a look. Shi Linjie had been chewed out once before, and now he had tightened things up. The training was harsh, no doubt about it, but the progress was encouraging—at least in the half a year since they'd started, those young men already looked sharp and clear-eyed, their backs straight and proud. Their dark faces were etched with determination and grit, and their whole bearing had changed completely. They stood tall with an air of discipline, and anyone could tell they were a cut above the average man.
Now, when Tang Daniang and the other young women and gers had first been sent to the training grounds, it wasn't just the newly conscripted men who were shocked—even Shi Linjie and Physician Li were taken aback. They couldn't help but wonder—what were women and gers doing in a place like this?
Physician Li was getting on in years, but he wasn't the old-fashioned type—he only blinked in surprise for a moment.
This place was unfamiliar to them. Before this, the furthest most of these young women and gers had ever traveled was the nearest market town. So on this long trek, they couldn't help but feel uneasy and apprehensive.
To save time, the soldiers escorting them pushed the pace relentlessly, barely stopping to rest. And frankly, they didn't think much of the whole affair either—they showed the women and gers no special consideration along the way.
If anything, they pushed them even harder. Almost as if they were doing it on purpose.
They figured the best outcome would be if the women and gers couldn't keep up, started crying, and begged to go back home.
But after two days on the road, the soldiers began to feel uneasy.
Why?
Because the young men were constantly whining, "Officers, please! Let us rest! We can't go any further!"—but not a single one of the women or gers had complained. Not once.
On the second night, as they camped by the roadside, one of the young women took off her shoes. The soldiers happened to glance over—and froze.
The blisters on her feet had long since burst, and the raw skin beneath had been rubbed so badly that it was bleeding again, with blood seeping through the wounds.
The villagers wore coarse, scratchy cloth, and their shoes were even worse—some of them were wearing straw sandals.
Seeing the blood still oozing out, the girl simply scooped up some dirt from the roadside and pressed it onto the wound.
That was how most villagers stopped bleeding—or they'd find some spiderwebs and press those onto the wound. Nothing elaborate, just whatever worked.
The ger next to her had four blisters on the soles of his feet as well, and the girl kindly helped him tend to them.
They were all pitiful souls, huddled together for warmth, helping each other the whole way.
The soldiers exchanged glances.
If they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, they never would have guessed anything was wrong—over the past two days, these women and gers had shown no sign of struggle, hadn't uttered a single complaint, and had kept up the pace just fine. But now it turned out their feet were nearly ruined. And why were the young men fine? Because they were the precious sons of their families. Their parents knew the village was far from Hezhou and that the journey would be tough, so they'd had new shoes made with thick, sturdy soles.
Now the soldiers looked at the young men—the fabric they wore wasn't great, some of it even patched up, but at least it was warm enough. Then they looked at the women and gers...
The soldiers felt a mix of admiration and a strange, heavy weight in their chests.
They might be women and gers, but their endurance—it had to be said—was stronger than the men's.
Of course it hurt to walk like that. But once the arrow is shot, there's no bringing it back.
They couldn't turn back. The only way forward was to keep going—there was no other road for them.
Of the hundred-odd people, nearly all of them were in the same boat as Tang Daniang—worked like beasts of burden since childhood, and when they grew up, traded like goods to the highest bidder.
Whoever offered more bride-price, the family married them off to—never mind whether the man was good or bad.
And what did it matter if he was good? If the mother-in-law turned out to be harsh, they'd be lucky to bring home a pound of meat once a year—their parents wouldn't get much out of it anyway. Better to demand a higher bride-price and be done with it.
After all, a married daughter is like spilled water—she belongs to someone else's family now.
So these women and gers had families, but they couldn't go back. Coming here gave them a chance to live. So they gambled everything, alone, heading toward a place they'd only heard of but never seen.
They couldn't cry out in pain—if they did, the soldiers would send them away.
They couldn't stop—they wanted to live.
No matter how hard or exhausting it got.
Even ants cling to life—how much more so a human being?
And besides, this was nothing compared to the hard labor they were used to at home.
They didn't dare sleep deeply at night, afraid the soldiers would leave them behind. They traveled in constant fear, treading as if on thin ice.
In the end, the soldiers' hearts softened. The next day, they took special care—after every two shichen (4 hours), they called a halt. At night, when they camped in the mountains and saw how thinly dressed the women and gers were, shivering in the cold, they had fires lit and boiled hot water for them to drink.
When camping out in the wilderness, fires were always lit—one for warmth, and second, because if there were wild beasts in the mountains, the fire would keep them at bay. It was safer that way.
But there wasn't much dry firewood to gather, so they couldn't make many fires. Usually, the women and gers couldn't get a spot near the fire—with a few hundred young men around, not all of them were courteous, and the women and gers didn't dare stir up trouble. So they usually ended up far on the outskirts, where they couldn't get any warmth at all, shivering through the night.
This time, the soldiers gave the order, and the young men reluctantly made room.
They reached Hezhou four days later.
By that time, Li Yanmei hadn't arrived yet. Everything at the training grounds was unfamiliar to them—how nervous and scared they were, I won't go into. But later on, not even the Qin family soldiers, let alone the new recruits, dared to look down on them anymore.
They had earned their respect.
Though they were women and gers, their spirit of fearing neither hardship nor fatigue commanded genuine admiration.
Physician Li came back at night and kept praising them, saying these women and gers were diligent in everything they did, that they paid close attention when he taught, and that they had good temperaments—no worse than the young men in the least.
Now that Fang Zichen had some free time, he came specially to see them.
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