Chapter 1382 Entering the city
After leaving Mianzhou City, we have to go all the way to Liangzhou. Manbao and his friends took this route once last year, but it was summer then, and it was very hot.
It was still the first month of the lunar year, and the weather was still cold. They themselves could not tell which period of the year would be more tiring to travel.
Manbao would occasionally pick some medicinal herbs and boil them into a pot of medicinal soup for everyone to drink for epidemic prevention. Everyone drank it obediently, even she drank it with a bitter face.
This is to prevent epidemics. Otherwise, it is easy to get sick due to the unpredictable temperature.
But the closer they got to the capital, the more settled the weather became, with strong winds and cold weather persisting for days. Manbao and his companions only rode their horses once before setting off after noon, and otherwise stayed in the carriage.
The passion of San Tou, San Ya and Si Tou for their first long journey gradually cooled down. Along the way, they would stop to rest and stay in inns in small towns and county towns, or in post stations outside the city at night.
However, when they were traveling from Liangzhou to the capital, one night they slowed down a little and missed the post station ahead and the village behind, so they had to sleep in the wild.
But the three families brought many servants with them, so they sat together and made several big bonfires, and they were not afraid. Old Lady Liu, Mr. Zhuang and Zheng slept in the carriage, while the young people including Bai Shan excitedly grilled and played around the bonfire for most of the night. The next day, everyone was lying in the carriage and couldn't get up.
But the carriage was bumpy and they couldn't sleep well.
Bai Shan and his friends already had experience. When they couldn't sleep well, they got off the car and rode horses to get rid of their sleepiness. They decided to have a good sleep after arriving in the capital.
But Santou and the others didn't do that. They couldn't help falling asleep when they were tired. Even when the young lady and the others asked them to sit on the shaft of the cart to get some fresh air to refresh their heads, saying that it would make them feel better, they were unwilling to do so.
Rather than facing the cold wind, they would rather hide in the car and take a nap.
Then they started to feel back pain, neck soreness, and discomfort all over.
The three of them came crying to Manbao for treatment. Manbao could only look at them with regret and said, "This medicine is useless. Why don't you twist it slowly and I will teach you?"
Bai Erlang gloated at the side, "I told you not to fall asleep in the car, but you still didn't believe me. Are you suffering?"
Santou said, "Didn't you sleep in the car before?"
"That's different," Bai Erlang said. "That's called a nap, you know? It's like taking a nap, it's not sleeping at all."
The three of them were stunned, even Bai Shan and Man Bao were shocked by these remarks. Then they thought about it carefully and realized that it was true, so they nodded in agreement.
The three of them had no choice but to gently turn their necks and rub their lower backs from time to time, and Manbao would occasionally give them a massage.
For this reason, she took the opportunity to go into the teaching room to ask Teacher Mo for massage methods while she was resting her eyes in the car, and then tried it on the three of them. However, the effect seemed to be very average, and she even accidentally made the fourth child's neck worse.
Sitou was about to cry out loud. Manbao had no choice but to use acupuncture to relieve the pain because he didn't dare to press him anymore.
The three of them arrived at the capital in this painful state. They had a lot of complaints at first, but when they saw the tall city walls of the capital from afar, they were speechless and instantly felt no more soreness in their necks and lower backs.
The three of them leaned over the window and looked forward, their eyes fixed on it. "It's so huge!"
“It’s so high!”
Even though Bai Shan and Man Bao had seen it several times, they still thought the city wall was very majestic.
It was almost noon at this time, and there were many people queuing up to enter and exit the city. Their convoy looked quite large from other places, but it was not noticeable compared with the convoys converging from various avenues.
They slowly merged into the traffic flow and joined the convoy.
Bai Shan waited in the car for a while, but felt the car was going very slowly, so he jumped out and went to find his grandmother. "Grandma, Manbao and I will ride back on horseback first and clean up the house and wait for you."
Old Madam Liu knew they couldn't sit still. They were already at the city gate, so she didn't want to restrict them too much. So she waved her hand and said, "Go."
Bai Shan was delighted and immediately ran back to find Man Bao and Bai Erlang, "Let's go, let's ride into the city."
The three men in the carriage behind heard it and immediately leaned over the window and asked, "Auntie, are you going to abandon us?"
Manbao: "Fifth brother is right behind."
The four of them squeezed out the third brother and came up to him pitifully, saying, "But aunt, we want to go with you."
Bai Shan pointed to the guards who had already brought their horses over and said, "It's simple. You ride with them."
When the guards who originally came with only two guards saw this, they immediately went to call another guard over.
The nine men and six horses left the convoy and ran to line up at another small gate in front. Soon it was their turn to go in.
The three men sat behind the guards, looking as if they had never seen the world before. After entering the city gate, they looked around. Seeing the very wide streets in the city and the crowds of pedestrians on the road, the three men were amazed.
When they saw a few Hu people who were obviously different from them, the three of them opened their mouths wide. Although they restrained themselves, they couldn't help but stare at them again and again.
The Hu people walking on the road noticed their gaze and turned to look at them. Seeing that they looked like they had never seen the world, they muttered softly, "Country bumpkins."
Then he walked away with his hands shaken and his head held high.
San Ya swallowed and asked, "Aunt, is that a Hu person?"
Manbao took a look and said, "That's a merchant from the Western Regions, also a Hu person."
She said, "Don't stare at them all the time. They'll feel embarrassed. Look at them first, then look away, then turn your head back and look again. That way, they won't notice."
The three of them thought what she said made sense, so they did the same thing whenever they saw rare people and things on the rest of the journey.
Eunuch Wu, who was waiting for them in the city gate tower, happened to see all of this and was speechless.
The soldier behind him bowed and said, "Sir, they have gone far away."
Eunuch Wu finally reacted and immediately went downstairs and got in the carriage to chase them.
There were many pedestrians on the road, so they did not dare to let the horses go, but just let them trot forward. If they encountered a congested road, they had to rein in the horses and move forward slowly.
But the pedestrian path and the car path are separate, so it's okay.
A horse-drawn carriage rumbled up from behind. Manbao didn't look back, but simply whipped his horse to the side and walked slowly to avoid it.
But the carriage drove alongside her, the window opened, and Eunuch Wu's smiling face peeked out from inside, "Young Doctor Zhou, how are you?"
Manbao looked down and was surprised. "Eunuch Wu, what a coincidence! Are you out of the palace for fun today too?"
Eunuch Wu laughed and said, "Young Doctor Zhou, you're joking. How can I leave the palace so easily? I'm waiting for you at the city gate on your orders."
See you at 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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