Yase's brows tightened, but he didn't fail to notice the mournful expression on the old man's face.
Met with another silence from the young man, the old man chuckled dryly. His eyes hovered over the carriage as if he could see through the wooden planks.
"When he was a great river, those peasants were like fish leaping in his current to catch a single drop of his grace. Now that he has run dry, leaving only cracked earth, he has become dust that chokes them…
…a nuisance to be brushed off the sleeves of the world."
The old man sighed wearily.
When the meal was done, Yase wiped his mouth and stood. He avoided the imperial silver and took out his own copper, handing it over to the old couple. Just as he reached for the reins, the old man caught his sleeve.
Yase felt something warm pressed against his palm. He looked down, his eyes falling on a single piece of hot sesame bun, carefully wrapped in oil paper.
He shook his head. "I don't need it," he said, trying to put the bun back into the old man's hands.
"It isn't for you," the elder replied with a small smile, his eyes shifting to the carriage. "The final destination is too far, and the half-dead have a way of becoming all-dead if the journey is too cruel."
Afraid the young man would remain stubborn, the elder turned back immediately and busied himself with his stall.
Yase looked down at the hot bun.
All-dead…
His jaw clenched at the word. Wrapping cloth around the hot bun, Yase placed it inside the basket and took the reins to continue the journey.
The old man's eyes remained fixed on the carriage, squinting against the shimmering heat of the burning sun. He watched until the wheeled wood dissolved into a tiny dot, swallowed by the distant horizon.
Glancing at her dazed husband, the woman smacked his arm lightly. "What are you looking at? If we had set up our stall on the Qingshi Road like I said, we would be seeing the glint of silver by now!" she harrumphed bitterly.
The old man didn't bicker back. Instead, a layer of gloss coated his eyes. "Shufang…" he called to his wife in a daze. "The little boy will no longer visit our shop for noodles," he whispered.
The old woman huffed, convinced that her husband's mind was finally addled by old age. Ignoring him, she turned to the clay stove where the water in the pot was already beginning to bubble. She tossed a handful of coarse noodles into it to settle their stomachs.
By the time the carriage reached Jinhe Town, the afternoon had bled into twilight. Yase halted the carriage at the town gates only long enough to present the imperial token into the hands of the trembling officers.
With the news of Lord Yue's rot spreading far and wide in the State of Yan, the guards didn't offer a welcome. Instead, they urged Yase to pass through the town as quickly as possible. They even refused to let him dismount for a meal, offering only a pail of water for the horse, eager to send the sleeping curse far away from their walls.
Jinhe was a prosperous town, its land largely occupied by influential officials belonging to the imperial court. The town's roads were once filled with a constant buzz of people—wives of the wealthy lining up to buy silk cloth and rose powder, restaurants opening early to host important officials gathered for meetings.
Exquisite jades and ethereal incense once spilled from the shopfronts of Jinhe, ensnaring the eyes of passersby, while talk of political tides was whispered in every teahouse with as much fervor as morning prayers.
But today, the contrast was unbelievable.
The busy town had plunged into a deep silence. The heavy doors of luxury boutiques were now shut tight, with large iron locks resting against the wood. Even the mouthwatering aroma of food was overshadowed by the thick scent of incenses lit by the townspeople in front of their households.
One might think these people were paying their last respects to Lord Yue, but Yase knew better.
The incenses… were nothing but a barrier to stop the spirit of the dead from entering their homes and disturbing them.
What heartless people, Yase thought.
These were the same people who once flung their gates wide open, begging Lord Yue to grace their halls. These were the sycophants who would have offered incenses to his very footsteps and built a temple around them.
But now they burned them to keep his ghost at bay.
As the carriage passed, Yase watched a few women step out of their houses to splash water in their courtyards, only to retreat inside again in haste.
He tightened the reins in his palm and flicked them, urging the horse to quicken its pace.
His heart burned with stinging pain; he was in agony. He desperately wanted to yell, to thrash, to beat some sense into their fear-stricken minds. He wanted to roar against the suffocating silence of Jinhe—that… that…
He is not dead…
He is alive…
Lord Yue is ALIVE.