Zhao Chengxiao heard Qiu Yi's polite words, smiled and puffed out his chest and said: "Your Highness, if you have anything to say, just tell me! I don't have any skills, but I'm still strong and can handle it. I didn't work as a bandit for nothing!"
Seeing Zhao Chengxiao's heroic appearance, Qiu Yizi couldn't help but shout "good" but turned around and said to Yiran and Yelu, "Zhao Chengxiao and I will go ahead. After leaving Tongguan, we will take Qingzhou and wait for the prince in Anhe Town. You should also speed up your journey, go to Linzhou along the main road first, and also stay in Anhe Town. This Anhe Town is the only way for Youyan to enter the interior of the country. We will wait for the prince here, okay?"
Yiran bowed his head and said thoughtfully, "We have to travel through mountains and rivers and travel day and night. You have to be careful. Otherwise...or you can follow me on the main road. I have many Bohai warriors with me. I can select two or three of them and go ahead according to your plan. I think it won't be a big deal. If you are still worried, you can let Yelu go."
Qiu Yizhi was anxious and worried. He felt that if he didn't do it himself, he would have failed his adoptive father, the prince, and he could no longer hear the deep affection in Yiran's words. He only heard him explain: "Qingzhou is full of mountain paths and there are many bandits who cut off the paths. This trip is just a matter of rushing, but in fact it is similar to breaking through a pass. I was a little relieved after Zhao Chengxiao went there twice. If a stranger went in, I'm afraid he would never come back."
"Then let Yelu and Zhao Chengxiao go. These two heroes admire each other, and their going will surely not delay important matters." Yiran said again.
Yelu also chimed in, "I grew up on horseback since I was born, so I think my archery and horsemanship are not worse than Brother Zhao's. Send me, and Your Highness Yi will rest assured."
"How could I not trust Brother Yelu?" Qiu Yizi sighed, "My foster father is like a second parent to me. If I don't go there in person, I will feel uneasy. How come you don't understand my feelings?"
After hearing this, Yiran sighed and said, "When have you ever understood my feelings?"
After hearing this, Qiu Yizi blushed and her heart began to beat wildly. She stole a glance at Yiran's shy look and tried to calm her turbulent emotions. Then she said, "I have made up my mind about this matter. Princess, please do not persuade me. As for your kindness, I will repay you with gratitude in the future."
After hearing this, Yiran could only nod silently.
Qiu Yizhi was relieved to see that the Princess of Bohai finally agreed to his plan. Seeing that his beloved horse was already very weak, he asked Yelu to take good care of the horse and select two other horses to lend him.
Yelu was also a horse lover. When he entered Luoyang, he brought more than a dozen good horses from the grassland. He agreed immediately.
So Qiu Yizi and Zhao Chengxiao mounted their horses, waved goodbye to the crowd, and galloped away, leaving only a cloud of dust raised behind their horses' hooves.
The two horses Yelu lent to Qiu Yizhi were not as strong as the Ferghana horses, but they were also rare and fine horses. The two of them rode their horses at full speed, resting only for an hour at lunch, and arrived at Tongguan before sunset.
Qiu Yizi originally wanted to leave the pass overnight and travel at night, but after the emperor's death, the defense of Tongguan became tighter. The gate was sealed just after the afternoon, and no one was allowed to pass.
Qiu Yizi had no choice but to find an inn nearby to stay in. After a busy day, Qiu Yizi and Zhao Chengxiao were exhausted. They ate a quick dinner and fell asleep.
The next morning, they both got up and set off again.
Qiu Yizi was so anxious that he just wanted to see his adoptive father as soon as possible, so he didn't care about hiding his identity. He just took out the token in his pocket, pretended to be a person from the Persuasion Bureau to handle urgent official business, and cut in line and went straight to the Tongguan Gate.
When the soldiers guarding the pass saw the token from the Ministry of Persuasion, they were all silent and dared not block the inspection. Qiu Yizhi passed through the pass unhindered.
After passing Tongguan, Zhao Chengxiao led the way and turned north to Qingzhou.
Qingzhou is connected from north to south by the Luliang Mountain, which stretches for hundreds of miles. The official road winds through the mountains, which is indeed very difficult to walk on. Fortunately, the two horses under his crotch have been carefully trained and have a very steady pace. They gallop on the rugged mountain road as if they were walking on flat ground. In one morning, they have carried their masters for nearly a hundred miles.
Seeing that the sun was high in the sky, Qiu Yizhi felt a little hot, so he gradually stopped his horse and asked Zhao Chengxiao to stop for lunch. In order to save time, the two of them prepared dry food and snacks in the inn when they set out early in the morning, so they just found a big tree to sit under and swallowed it with clear water, which was considered lunch.
After closing their eyes and resting for a while, the two of them mounted their horses and set off again.
After walking a few miles, I saw that the path in the distance was piled with cut branches and was no longer passable.
Qiu Yizhi saw this, slowed down, and asked, "Brother Zhao, was this done by bandits who were robbing the road?"
Zhao Chengxiao also tightened the reins and replied, "That's right. The last two times we passed this place, there weren't as many branches and debris as today. With the help of your horse, I easily jumped over it. It may be difficult to pass today. I hope the bandits have gone to rest so that we can pass slowly."
Before Zhao Chengxiao finished speaking, he saw more than a dozen people coming out of the bushes on both sides of the path and slowly surrounding the two of them. The leader was a tall, dark-skinned man with a full beard and a fat face. He held a mountain axe in his hand and muttered, "I opened this road, I planted this tree..."
Qiu Yizi didn't have time to listen to the bandit's words, so she said, "It's just a bribe, what's your price?"
The fat black man was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "You are so cool, kid. This is a small road, not as good as the Imperial Avenue in Luoyang, so it is much cheaper. Ten taels of silver per person, a total of twenty taels."
Qiu Yizi said "Oh", took out a piece of gold from his bag, threw it to the bandit leader and said, "This piece of gold weighs more than three taels, which is enough to pay for the passage. Can you let us pass?"
The bandit leader took it and saw that it was indeed a piece of pure gold of excellent quality. He also thought that since this young man was so generous, he must have brought with him more than ten times the value of this piece of gold, so he said, "This is the travel expenses for the two of you. The travel expenses for the two horses are calculated separately..."
After hearing this, Qiu Yizi impatiently took out another piece of gold of similar size from the package and said, "Okay, stop talking nonsense. I'll give you this ingot of gold too. Just let us go!" After that, he sat on the horse and threw the piece of gold in his hand over again.
The fat black bandit leader took the gold but did not give way. With golden light in his eyes, he called out to his brothers, "Brothers, big deal is coming! If we can knock down these two dead guys, we will never have to worry about food and clothing for the rest of our lives!" After saying that, he raised his weapon in his hand and was about to move forward to commit the crime.
Seeing this, Zhao Chengxiao quickly turned his horse to block Qiu Yizhi and said to the bandit, "Do you know Zhao Heizi from Yunmeng Mountain?"
The bandit was stunned again and asked, "Is it Zhao Heizi who strangled the flower-eyed leopard to death? What happened?"
"My name is Zhao Heizi, and I have some urgent matters to attend to right now. As the saying goes, if the mountains don't move, the water will move; if the water doesn't move, people will move. In the world of martial arts, it's hard to guarantee anything will happen. Big brother, please give me a favor today and let us go. If you have any difficulties in the future, I will repay you with gratitude." Zhao Chengxiao answered majestically while sitting upright on his horse.
The bandit laughed and said, "Face? I have no tomorrow. Now I have bought your face, when will you return it? How much is your face worth, Zhao Heizi? Do you think you are the leader of the martial arts world?"
This sentence reminded Qiu Yizhi: "Martial Arts Alliance Leader? Do you know who the current Martial Arts Alliance Leader is?"
"Humph! It seems you haven't seen the world. The current leader of the martial arts world is the hero Yuchi." At this point, the fat black man's face lit up, "A few days ago, the hero Yuchi passed by me and drank a glass of wine from me!"
After hearing this, Qiu Yizhi remembered that when he and Yuchi Lianghong were drinking and sworn brotherhood at Qinggui Tower in Anhe Town, he heard him say that he was going to Qingzhou to do some things, and he must have made friends with some underworld figures when doing things. So he asked the bandit loudly, "Do you know that Yuchi Lianghong made a sworn brother in Anhe Town?"
The bandit leader was stunned again after hearing this.
It turned out that when Yuchi Lianghong passed by here that day, the bandit leader wanted to rob this knight with outstanding martial arts skills, but Yuchi Lianghong knocked down more than a dozen people with just three punches and two kicks. This is how they got to know each other and invited him into the mountain stronghold to have a few drinks. Yuchi Lianghong and this bandit had very different status in the underworld. In fact, they didn't say a few words, but he mentioned that he recognized a young hero as his brother in Anhe Town...
Thinking of this, the fat black man saw that Qiu Yizhi looked similar to the brother described by Yuchi Lianghong, and quickly changed his expression to a respectful one and said, "Could this young man be the brother of the hero Yuchi?"
Qiu Yizhi replied: "My brother's martial arts reputation is one of the best in the world. Who dares to pretend to be his brother?"
The bandit leader heard Qiu Yizhi's firm tone and became more humble: "It's really a flood that washed away the Dragon King Temple." Then he threw away the axe in his hand, slowly walked to Qiu Yizhi's horse, handed him the two gold bars he had thrown to him, and said, "If I had known that you were the brother of the hero Yuchi, I would not have dared to cause trouble for you even if I had the courage of a bear and a leopard!"
Qiu Yizi was full of things on her mind and didn't want to argue with him any more. She didn't take the gold and said, "Okay, okay. But I'm in a hurry to get on with my journey. We can talk about it later if we have a chance. As for this little bit of gold, it's just a treat for you guys."
As he spoke, he loosened the reins slightly, drove the horse around, avoiding dead branches and rocks, and moved forward slowly.
How could the bandit leader dare to stop them? He followed Ma Hou all the way for a long time, and repeatedly reminded them not to mention the matter in front of Yuchi Lianghong again. Then he respectfully saw Qiu Yizi and Zhao Chengxiao off.
In this way, the two men encountered a total of six gangs of bandits along the way. They rode their horses to break through the obstacles for three of them, spent some gold and silver to get rid of one of them, and the remaining two were no longer troubled after they reported the name of Yuchi Lianghong.
Therefore, although there were some twists and turns along the way, it was not difficult.
By noon of the second day after leaving Tongguan, the two could see the tallest and most magnificent restaurant in Anhe Town - Qingguilou.
This Qingguilou is a restaurant under Zhou Cijing's name. When Qiu Yizhi was ordered to rush from Guangyang to the capital Luoyang, she stayed here. So the two of them rode downstairs and showed the name card Zhou Cijing gave to Qiu Yizhi to the waiter who greeted them.
Not long after, the restaurant owner Sun Shouqian came out to greet them personally. Seeing that it was not Zhou Cijing himself, he did not neglect them. Just as he was about to welcome the two into the restaurant, he heard Qiu Yizi say, "I am here on the orders of Mr. Zhou to wait and welcome Prince Youyan. I wonder if the prince has been here before?"
Sun Shouqian asked in return: "Is the prince going to come to the interior to do some business?"
Qiu Yi was startled, and then he realized that he had come all the way from Luoyang, and the news of the emperor's death might not have reached here yet. However, he did not want to tell him in detail, so he said, "This is the task assigned by my uncle, Mr. Zhou. Since he said so, it should be correct."
Sun Shouqian listened, nodded and replied: "I have been here every day, but I have never seen the Prince of Youyan pass through here. However, this Anhe Town is the only way from Youyan to Beijing, so the prince must not have crossed the Yellow River yet. If the prince really wants to come to the interior to do business, you just need to wait here for a few more days and you will be able to wait for him."
Qiu Yizi thought what he said made sense, so she said, "Please, Manager Sun, please help me arrange a quiet and elegant seat. After lunch, we will find a ferry to go back to Youyan."
Seeing that Qiu Yizhi's schedule was so urgent, Sun Shouqian thought that something serious had happened to his family, but he did not dare to ask more questions. He led the two to the top floor of Qinggui Building where Qiu Yizhi and Yuchi Lianghong had sat before, and ordered the servants to put some light snacks on the table before going downstairs. (To be continued)