It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

"Don't you think that taking that so-called shortcut has only made things more complicated?!" Jiang Yan questioned everyone else, and also herself.

She knew that as long as the direction was roughly right and she followed the outer mountain, she wouldn't go astray. She really didn't understand why so many people would fall into the same mindset. Then, her IQ plummeted and she followed suit.

Upon hearing Jiang Yan's doubts, Bai Er hesitated for a long time before reluctantly saying, "This is the lord's idea."

Fu Jian knew of a mountain road that could bypass surveillance and lead directly to Peishan Town. He told his men to consider this route, and everyone worked hard in that direction.

"This is the only option, there's no room for negotiation." Jiang Yan still felt that as long as the goal was achieved, Fu Jian wouldn't care which path they took, especially since they didn't seem to have taken this path before.

“It’s negotiable, but the one that my lord wants is said to be the closest, and besides—what my lord wants is the best.”

Jiang Yan: ...

She got it.

The next day, the group, having chosen a direction based on Jiang Yan's intuition, once again braved the wind and snow.

She walked and stopped along the way, constantly adjusting her direction according to the terrain. Just before night fell once again, Jiang Yan found the forest she knew.

The trees and everything else had completely changed, but she recognized the earthen slope in the distance at a glance. At that time, she was lying on her side on the cart, only able to open half of her eyes to observe the terrain within her field of vision countless times, and then deduce the scenario of escaping and hiding.

The earthen slope was one of the chosen hiding places. There were three large, exposed rocks on the middle of the side, forming a triangular shape with an off-center center of gravity. Due to weathering and rain, the moonlight would diffuse and scatter tiny glimmers of light.

Even though it was mostly covered by snow, there were still faint glimmers of light showing through.

The formation changed, and this time Jiang Yan was at the very front.

She circled around, making sure she wasn't mistaken, and immediately relaxed. The rest of the journey was easy, and she still had a chance to get back to Dongshan Village for the festival.

In contrast to Jiang Yan's relaxed state, the rest of the pathfinding team were highly motivated, supporting Jiang Yan and rushing forward almost non-stop according to the prompts.

Is it urgent or not?

Eight days later, Jiang Yan stood on a small fork in the mountain path that she had cleared with tree branches, waiting for the group to make the last mark in the forest before saying, "If you go down this mountain path and walk quickly for another two hours, you will reach Peishan Town. But there is a village at the foot of the mountain, so it is best to travel after nightfall to avoid being noticed."

After finishing her business, Jiang Yan turned her head and asked the person next to her in a low voice, "When are we going back?" It's been dragging on for so long, it must have caused a lot of delays.

"It's not yet time."

Jiang Yan, who had spent two nights in Peishan Town after descending the mountain, felt a long-lost sense of tension. Their group split up; some had infiltrated the capital beforehand, some had gone to Peishan Town like her, and others had gone to Zhongyang County, which was even further away.

Jiang Yan later learned that although they were the main group searching for the way, they were not the only ones, and Bai Er's words contained both truth and falsehood.

As she grasped the memories and led everyone smoothly onto the road, the leader immediately sent out a message that the rest of the group would arrive in three or four days, following the trail markers.

Peishan Town is adjacent to Kyoto. During the New Year, it is bustling with people, full of joy and excitement, as if it has never experienced any upheavals in the world, making Jiang Yan feel as if she were in another world.

She sat in the guesthouse room, quietly observing the outside world through a crack in the window.

The latest news is that the spies planted by the Central Plains Prefecture in Rongcheng County have discovered the unusual activity and successfully reported it. Now it depends on which side can seize the initiative.

Out of gratitude for the protection shown by Xie Changqiong, the former Crown Prince's wife, Governor Mo of Zhongyuan Prefecture, under the relentless persuasion of his daughter, recently showed a clear inclination to cooperate with the Xie family.

After this decision, assassinations against the Governor's Mansion became more frequent. A few years earlier, Wu Dande was worried that Mo Xian would use his grandson's royal bloodline as an excuse to interfere; now, it was the Mo family that was being targeted for retaliation.

……

On the fifth day of their stay in Peishan Town, Jiang Yan and her companions tampered with the food and water at the post station, successfully poisoning the Mo family's subordinates who were reporting to Zhongyang County, as well as everyone at the post station. They then quickly moved to another hiding place.

Fushiken has already led his troops to the vicinity and is expected to launch a lightning attack on Kyoto after nightfall.

The movement of a large group of people could not be kept secret from the townspeople, but they lacked channels to report it. As long as they delayed the messengers, the Central Plains Prefecture would fall behind.

The drugs they administered were just enough to make someone fall into a deep sleep for at least an hour.

That night, Jiang Yan and her companions climbed up the back mountain and looked towards Kyoto. The firelight above was bright red, and thick smoke was billowing up.

One of them looked around for a long time, then picked out several spots and said, "Let's go up and guard them."

What are we guarding? Udande, who has already ascended the throne in Kyoto, likes to eliminate problems completely, and the lords of the Song and Fu families naturally do not want to leave him as a future threat.

Of the four city gates of Kyoto, Jiang Yan and his team were tasked with guarding the vital northwest passage.

If the Emperor Wu hastily chose this direction during his escape, entering Peishan Town would be tantamount to walking into a trap, so he would have no choice but to take this only mountain pass.

However, considering that the possibility of escaping here is very low, the deployment was perfunctory, and they even brought Jiang Yan over to broaden her horizons and gain experience.

To be honest, Jiang Yan just wanted to refuse this thoughtful gesture.

……

In the latter half of the night, sounds finally broke out in this quiet mountain forest.

Jiang Yan glanced down quietly; they were probably the first group of people who had fled Kyoto in a panic.

This is a mountain hollow nestled against the mountainside, where the cold wind is lessened somewhat. The leader of the group quickly observed the area and decided to stop here.

The crowd, who had been walking with their heads down, relaxed a little, and Jiang Yan was finally able to catch a glimpse of some of them.

Even with the moonlight reflecting off the snow, it was still pitch black overall, making it difficult to see people's faces.

Jiang Yan was a little worried: Why don't they gather some firewood to start a fire in this cold weather?

But then I thought about how my hiding place wasn't exactly hidden, and what if the people gathering firewood found me... Oh well, let's just freeze for now.

In the next half hour, several more groups of refugees arrived.

Jiang Yan and her companions had sneaked in when the place became crowded and chaotic. They pretended not to know each other and quietly sat around a campfire on the edge, observing everyone present from all angles.

She had never seen what Udand looked like in person, only his portrait. He was of medium height, thin, slightly hunched at the waist, and had a bluish-black complexion.

I heard that he was so obese back then that when the poisoned dagger was stabbed, it only slightly injured his right kidney and did not penetrate it. In addition, because of the fat he had consumed, he did not die of hunger from high fever and coma for eight or nine days. He managed to snatch his life back from the jaws of death, but his body was completely ruined.

Jiang Yan recalled Yang Jishi's complaints back then: "He's in a coma, his life hanging in the balance. With such a good opportunity, why didn't those officials in the capital, who always seem to be enduring humiliation, think of adding insult to injury?!"