Liu Bei: My younger brother is a deity.

Chapter 31 A Young Man's Journey

In late November, Zhuoxian County was freezing cold, and the bare branches crackled and creaked in the wind.

The fields on both sides of the official road were long gone, barren and stretching to the horizon, gray and endless.

Liu Bei, Liu Quan, and Liu Deran bid farewell to Liu's mother and Liu Yuanqi at the village entrance.

Liu's mother stood under the big mulberry tree, her head wrapped in a blue cloth, and stuffed a pair of newly made cloth shoes into Liu Quan's arms.

She then looked at her son.

His lips trembled for a long time before he finally managed to say, "Take care of yourself when you get out there."

Liu Bei knelt down and kowtowed three times. When he stood up, his eyes were red.

Liu Quan also kowtowed three times.

He was grateful to his mother for treating him like her own son.

After Liu Deran kowtowed three times to his father, he shrank into the carriage.

This guy was of average health and couldn't stand the cold wind, so he wrapped himself up like a dumpling, only peeking out through the gap in the curtain with his eyes showing.

The carriage was newly made; although it wasn't particularly grand, it was sturdy and spacious enough to comfortably seat four or five people.

Thick mattresses were laid out in the carriage, and a heater was tucked into a corner.

The group arrived at Zhangjiazhuang and met up with Zhang Fei.

Zhang Fei, along with twenty of his household retainers, had been waiting outside the manor for a long time.

Upon seeing Liu Bei, he immediately exclaimed, "Zhang Yide of Yan greets Brother Xuande!"

Liu Bei laughed loudly, reined in his horse, and said, "Liu Xuande, descendant of Prince Jing of Zhongshan from Zhuo County, greets Yide!"

Zhang Fei grinned, revealing a set of white teeth: "Haha, Brother Xuande!"

At this moment, Liu Deran poked his head out from the gap in the carriage curtain, hunched his neck, and shouted, "Meng Zhou greets Yide!"

Zhang Fei clasped his hands in greeting and replied, "Greetings, Brother Meng Zhou."

Liu Deran also imitated Liu Bei and let out a hearty laugh, but unexpectedly a snot spurted out from his nose.

His face flushed, and he quickly shrank back.

Zhang Fei laughed heartily, turned his horse around, and rode alongside Liu Quan, asking happily, "Quan, what's your courtesy name? Has Lord Liu given you one?"

Liu Quan nodded.

Five days ago, he went to see Liu Yuanqi. Liu Yuanqi pondered for a long time in the hall, flipping through several books, and finally picked up his brush and wrote two characters on the bamboo slips—Yuan Gu.

"Yuan means beginning; Gu means firm. Only by being firm at the beginning can one become a great vessel."

Liu Yuanqi put down his pen, looked at Liu Quan's face, and his gaze held an indescribable meaning.

"Ah Quan, you are no ordinary person. Your arrival in my family is a great blessing for the Liu clan. I only hope that no matter where you go in the future, you will never forget Zhuo County, and you will never forget the Liu clan..."

"Yide, from now on you shall call me Yuangu."

"Yuan Gu, haha, beautiful calligraphy."

…………

Once the group left Zhuo County, they embarked on the official road.

This road has been a thoroughfare connecting north and south since ancient times, leading north to the border and south to Luoyang. Along the way, there were pavilions and post stations, making it a place where carriages and horses rumbled and merchants roamed endlessly.

However, after traveling for two days, Liu Bei and his party discovered that the official road was far less bustling than the legends had described.

The road was wide, but the rammed earth surface had been neglected for years, with gullies carved out by rainwater, and horses kicked up a cloud of choking dust when they stepped on it.

There was a pavilion every thirty li along the official road.

However, most of those pavilions are now abandoned.

The roof was covered with withered grass, and the walls were covered with dead vines; it was completely uninhabitable.

They had no choice but to sleep outdoors along the official road.

They finally arrived at a place called Dukang Pavilion. The pavilion itself was not abandoned, but the pavilion owner was a hunched old man who ignored them.

"Hot water?" The old man grinned at Zhang Fei's question, revealing a few yellow teeth. "Young man, look at my stove. It hasn't been lit for half a year. If you want hot water, go boil it yourself."

Zhang Fei glared, about to lash out, but Liu Bei grabbed him.

Liu Quan didn't say anything. He unloaded a small bronze cauldron from his horse, had Zhang Fei's men fetch water from the river, and then gathered some dry branches to start a fire in the open space outside the pavilion.

Liu Quan then took out two dry cakes from his satchel, threw them into the pot, sprinkled some salt, and began to cook porridge.

The aroma quickly spread, and the old man unconsciously came closer, squatted down to the side, sniffed, and stared longingly at the porridge bubbling in the pot.

Once the porridge was cooked, Liu Quan first ladled out a bowl and handed it to the old man.

The old man paused for a moment, took it with both hands, lowered his head and took a sip. He remained silent for a long time, but his eyes reddened.

"Young man," the old man put down his bowl, his voice a little hoarse, "you are a good person. But good people who walk this path are likely to suffer."

"Why?" Liu Quan asked.

The old man looked up and gazed south, then lowered his voice and said, "Beyond Yi County lies the territory of Zhongshan, and it's not peaceful there. A band of bandits has emerged and robbed all the horses at the post station, and many traveling merchants have been robbed."

Liu Bei frowned.

Zhongshan?

Wasn't their ancestor, the "Prince of Zhongshan," enfeoffed in this very place?

"Why didn't you report it to the authorities?" Liu Bei asked.

"Who said we didn't report it?" The old man sneered. "When the Mi family's caravan in Xuzhou was robbed in the early autumn, they reported it to the authorities. But no sooner had they reported it than the robbers who had taken the goods stormed into the inn and killed the manager and all twenty-one of the staff."

"Officials and traitors collude," Liu Quan said coldly. "The local powerful families are probably also involved."

"Old man," Liu Bei asked again, "why are all the post stations along this road abandoned?"

"Abandoned? Someone still has to repair it. The imperial court has issued an order allocating five thousand coins per year for the repair of each pavilion, but this money just disappears once it reaches the local area."

"Those above say they dialed it, those below say they didn't receive it, who knows which bastard ate the middle part?"

"The pavilion owner has no salary and relies entirely on tips from passing merchants to make a living. Who would be willing to work for the court under such circumstances? They've all disappeared without a trace."

When the old man mentioned the word "imperial court," there was not a trace of reverence in his tone.

Instead, he spoke of a group of Taoist priests in yellow robes who had recently been treating the people in nearby villages for free, his words filled with reverence.

The Yellow-Robed Taoist?

Liu Quan's eyes flickered, but he didn't reply and lowered his head to drink his porridge.

The next morning, they continued their journey south.

After passing Dukang Pavilion and traveling less than twenty li, they saw a young man in tattered clothes kneeling by the roadside.

The man was accompanied by two emaciated children.

Beside the man stood a wooden sign with four crookedly written characters: "Selling oneself to survive."

Seeing that the man was young and physically healthy, Zhang Fei couldn't help but question him: "You have hands and feet; you could easily survive by farming a few acres of land. Why do you need to sell yourself?"

The man smiled wryly and said, "Where is there land to farm?"

Zhang Fei pointed in astonishment at the vast expanse of barren fields not far from the roadside, "Isn't this land? Are you just lazy?"

The man couldn't help but retort, "I am a poor man, and these days lazy poor people are all long gone."

He then sneered twice, "Even the lazy ones are about to be driven to their deaths."

He stood up, his stature surprisingly tall, and pointed angrily at the barren land behind him:

"You want me to farm these lands? Ha! Do you know that all these lands belong to the Guo family? If I farm them, it will be considered stealing land. Not only will the crops not be mine, but I will also be kidnapped and made a servant. If I disobey, I will be beaten to death."

The surname Guo that the man referred to was the Guo clan, a prominent family in Zhongshan County.

Empress Guo Shengtong, wife of Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu, came from the Guo clan of Zhongshan.

Liu Deran, inside the carriage, lifted the curtain and asked curiously, "Since you've already sold yourself into servitude, why don't you just go and become a servant in the Guo family? Wouldn't that be the same?"

The man sneered, "Though I am lowly, I am not one that just anyone would serve. The reason my family has fallen to this state is because of the Guo family..."

As the man recounted his story, everyone learned that his family was originally an ordinary villager in Zhongshan, living a simple and uneventful life, which, though difficult, they managed to get by.

Until one of the stewards of the Guo family took a liking to the man's sister-in-law.

The man's sister-in-law refused and was forcibly taken back by the Guo family steward and his men.

The man's older brother went to confront the woman and was beaten until he vomited blood.

Several days later, the naked body of the man's sister-in-law was dumped at the man's doorstep.

The man's elder brother died of rage after witnessing his wife's brutal assault and body being dumped.

Fearing that the Guo family would not let them go, the man fled with his two young nephews overnight.

Having neither money nor food with him, the man had no choice but to sell himself to survive.

The man, his eyes red, pointed to two children beside him and said, "These are my two poor nephews."