"She's a good person." Sang Sang picked up the bowl of roasted porridge next to him and planned to make another bowl, but was stopped by him.

"What have you been talking about these past few days," Ning Que asked.

Sangsang frowned, trying to remember what he had just said. Then she replied, "You know I don't like to talk...... She was talking about what was happening on the steppe, most of the time. I don't actually remember what she said.

Hearing this, Ning Que immediately felt happy. He munched on the delicious cheese while humming a tune and said, "If she wants to talk to you again, remember to tell her to pay you or ask you to bring more cheese back."

Soon, night fell.

After the water was heated, Sangsang extinguished the fire with water from the creek and walked to the small tent with a bucket of hot water. The people by the stream were very familiar with this, because they often saw the little maid preparing water for Ning Que to wash her feet, and her face showed disdain.

Of course, their contempt was directed at Ning Que.

After washing his feet, Ning Que slipped into the woolen quilt, and then held Sangsang's cold little feet in his arms. He couldn't tell whether it was pain or enjoyment. After yawning twice, he said, "Good night."

Sangsang was more tired than Ning Que, so it didn't take long for him to fall into a deep sleep.

Ning Que was startled, opened his eyes, and looked up at the sky through the tent. It had patches, and he spent a moment focusing on a specific handkerchief.

When he saw the gold-rimmed handkerchief in the maid's hand, he knew he was right. However, he just didn't know what he was right.

Staring at the ceiling of the tent, Ning Que went through all the details and traces since they left Wei City in his mind.

The curtains of the extravagant carriage were firmly closed at all times, and the little boy with a distinctly savage character occasionally left the carriage to play, and the princess rarely appeared. The pretty, but arrogant maid is the one who calls the shots.

Strangely, the maid seemed to enjoy chatting with Sang-sang.

What's even stranger is that she never hides her contempt for him.

Ning Que thinks she is an excellent actress. Back in Weicheng, neither the Prairie Man's attitude nor her own manners and behaviors throughout the journey indicate that she was not a real maid.

This was what confused him, because he never thought that the true nobles of the Tang Empire would care about sympathizing with Sangsang.

However, it doesn't matter to him. In the past few days, he has been paying close attention to this old man. If he guessed correctly, this amiable-looking elder should be the noble existence of the Southern Sect of Haotian Taoism, that is, the one General Ma mentioned earlier.

From a very young age, Ning Que had made up his mind to enter that mysterious world, but to no avail. The existence of a true cultivator was the real reason why he agreed to go to the capital with this group of people.

Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance to talk to the well-protected elder. It was only occasionally when they stopped to eat that of the elders that his gaze met, and he could swear that he felt a sense of kindness and even encouragement in the elder's eyes. This puzzled him again.

Unable to draw conclusions, Ning Que stopped thinking and realized that the little feet he held on his chest refused to warm up at all, and they were as cold as ice, making his chest and abdomen as cold. He frowned worriedly.

The little maid Sangsang went through a lot of hardships when she was a child, surviving in a pile of rotting corpses and in the cold wind and rain. After Ning Que found her, she was critically ill and did not recover for several months.

She had been seen by Dr. Wei, and he even took her to Kaiping, far away, and all the doctors had the same opinion: poor prenatal and weak by nature.

Due to her fragile body and vulnerability to cold, Sangsang almost never sweats, therefore, she is unable to flush out all the harmful toxins that her body produces every day. With time and the accumulation of toxins, she became weaker. This is also the reason why Ning Que followed the doctor's advice and made sure that she endured a lot of physical exercise every day to improve blood circulation, and this was the real reason why, in the eyes of others, he constantly let his skinny, dark-skinned little maid work like a slave.

However, despite a lot of physical exercise, Sang-sang doesn't necessarily warm up her body and now feels cold on a woolen blanket.

Rubbing his cold stomach, Ning Que decided to get up and take out the wine bag made of cowhide, he woke up Sang Sang and handed the wine bag to his mouth.

Sangsang, who was half-asleep, opened his eyes and grabbed the sac without hesitation. She unscrewed the lid and poured the liquid down without leaking a drop. The tent was filled with a strong and spicy smell of prairie wine.

The little maid held the big bag and gulped the liquid as if she were drinking water. Soon, she had drunk nearly half a bag of wine, two of which could easily render a strong adult man unconscious. She didn't stop until her stomach started to bulge. It looks quite brave, if not outright strange.

Then she wiped her lips, and the long eyes in the shape of willow leaves became brighter in the night, and one would not guess that she had been drinking. Smiling at Ning Que, she fell back and fell asleep again.

The smell of wine echoed through the room, and the cold little feet he hugged to his chest gradually warmed up. Ning Que saw a few drops of sweat coming out of the tip of his nose, and finally breathed a sigh of relief, and finally remembered to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Holding the woolen blanket tightly, he slowly closed his eyes. Not far from him sat a worn-out pamphlet entitled "The Word's Response." He usually recites a few pages every night before going to bed, a habit he has adhered to over the years.

"All beings will cultivate in old age and death, so that your life will not be harmed by any evil."

"All things are born, they are not old or sick, they live a long life, and they have the courage to be wise."

As he drifts asleep, his mind and spirit begin to work with the seemingly simple but very abstract and mysterious words on the page.

With the passage of time, the woolen blanket covering Ning Que and Sang Sang seemed to disappear, and the small tent, the grass outside, and the stream also disappeared, turning into a cluster of fog and disappearing. The whole world becomes an abstract realm, he becomes the world, and the world becomes him. In this realm, one can almost feel the subtle breathing of a mysterious rhythm, and the breath of nature slowly fills a warm ocean.

Ning Que was no stranger to this feeling. In fact, since reading the "article" many years ago, he has often been able to feel it. But at the same time, he became acutely aware of the sad fact that this was not a real form of "perception" when meditating, but just a dream.

The vast warm ocean was probably a dream hallucination, for his tightly wrapped little feet were finally beginning to warm up. At least it's a wonderful illusion after all.

Ning Que comforted himself and fell asleep soundly all night.

...

...

When he woke up the next morning, Ning Que slept soundly, even though he looked very surprised and depressed, as if he longed for three more days of sleep.

"Why change course in such a short period of time?"

Looking at the poker-faced maid, he restrained his temper and explained as gently as he could. "We're going to go through Minshan and go straight to Huaxi Road. I won't have a problem with this route.

No one in the tent responded in any way to his concern, not even the maid.

"I'm the guide, and you're not familiar enough with Minshan," Ning Que looked at the maid again, and after a moment of silence, he continued, "I know you're worried about being ambushed. I can assure you that no one can stop you if you listen to me.

The maid glanced at him as if he were insignificant, almost as if to say, who gave you the right to ask me to explain?

When he returned to the tent, Sangsang was packing their things. He told her, "Once we send them off the main road, we are going to separate from them."

He looked at the rudimentary map he had drawn many years ago, pointed to a place and said, "This is the farthest we have got, because if we go any further, if the enemy sends a few cavalry, we will all be annihilated."

"You should go and convince them," Sangsang said, looking at him.

"I guess the princess is expecting reinforcements when they get there. So they won't listen to me. Ning Que replied, "Convincing a bunch of idiots is not my forte.

Sangsang didn't say anything, just looked at him curiously. If there are reinforcements, what do you have to worry about or even decide to give up halfway?

"My gut tells me that something isn't right."

Ning Que replied: "Because I am confident, a strong person who dares to plot to assassinate the fourth princess of the Tang Dynasty should not be as stupid as that woman, I bet that there will be some backup plans."

Sangsang hesitated, but continued to remind him. "You should respect her a little..."

"I already know her true identity," Ning Que raised his eyebrows and said in a mocking tone. "She's a princess, so what? I said it in Wei Cheng, and I insisted, that she really was a stupid princess.

"It's also important to choose the right connection location for migrants. If I had a choice, I would like a wider road than the pine greens.

Ning Que looked at the eye-catching ink dots marked on the hand-drawn map and said, "They chose Beishan Road, not considering that it was a one-way street, with dense forests on both sides. It's the perfect place for an ambush.

After saying this, he fell silent. Then he put the map in his pocket, shook his head, and said self-deprecatingly: "Obviously, the guide, in addition to leading them into the North Mountain Road, must also confuse the enemy. Princess Fool has never believed in General Ma, and neither will she believe me.

"An idiot is leading a group of idiots." Considering the possibility that the troops would reach the Beishan Road and be ambushed, Ning Que felt more and more depressed. He muttered angrily, "She's been on the prairie for almost a year, and she hasn't studied yet." How did she earn her fame?

Ning Que unsheathed the three rusty swords and watered the whetstones in the flask. He began the ancient ritual of sharpening his sword in preparation for the bloody battle that awaited them on the North Mountain Road. It was a futile gesture, perhaps, but at least, it calmed him down.