One Lifetime Is Never Enough

1.31 To The Capital (2)

Although Wu JianRui was extremely worried to leave her husband by himself in Ming town, she did not really have any say in it. Being the wife of a military general, it was always the norm for her to be separated at times from Ji ChanFang. 

Over the past few days, they had to prepare for their departure - minus Ji ChanFang. Their party should be as discreet as possible, lest any possible spy of the Dong tribe found out that the majority of Ji family members had left the estate. Fortunately, with the Royal Princes and Zhen BuFeng also masking their departure, this became easier.

Before long, Wu JianRui and Meng-momo; Hai FenChu, Ji LanBai, and BaiYulan, as well as Ji LanBai's group of five maids, boarded a few carriages, which were to depart at different times during the same day. Each of the departing carriage was escorted by either some Imperial Guards, Zhen BuFeng, or Ji SongLi.

HeShan and SunChen also joined their group, each riding a horse. There was no reason for them to stay in Ming town, when their only students would not be around anymore. They were also now so used to be in LanBai and YuLan's companies when they performed in public view, they decided to return to the capital city. With both young ladies at the capital city, surely there would be more opportunities and profit to be made.

The last idea was actually HeShan's - being always an opportunist that he was.

Hardly any of Ji guards accompanied them at this time, to give impression that apart from some official mission by Ji SongLi, none of the other Ji family members were in those departing groups. Ji SongLi however, still chose two Ji family's guards to accompany him. None of them carried the Ji family token or wore any distinct garbs, nor wielded their normal engraved swords that might give away their identities.

Ji ChanFang and some of his personally chosen military men stayed at Ji estate, lying in wait. The family servants also stayed behind and worked normally, though now they had far less masters to serve.

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From the town of Ming to the capital city of Da Lang, it merely took around half-a-day travelling by a fast horse. However as they moved pretty slowly, their group only reached the outer-skirt of the Capital when it was already dark.

Da Lang was dubbed as the most secure and flourished city of the Zhang Empire, and for good reasons.

The city had three layers of stone walls, with the inner area housing estates of more prominent families and officials of the dynasty. The expansive Imperial Palace was located at the city center, surrounded by deep moat and tall stonewalls, only linked by public roads by several heavily guarded bridges. Lesser officials, common people, merchants, and other general populace lived in the second and third layer of the city, each ring protected by thick stone walls, also guarded by the best of city guards.

Although it sounded pretty simple, the capital city was also the most populated city, and the biggest. To travel from one layer to the other, it would take almost another day, then another if one wished to view the outer walls of the Imperial Palace.

Ji SongLi's group - after non-stop travelling - finally reached the outermost area of the capital city.

Both Madams were exhausted and everyone were in less than optimal spirit after being boxed in their carriages for the majority of the day, so they decided to find an inn for an overnight rest.

The inn they had chosen was a recommendation of the Princes as the establishment had hosted some important officials before as well. Therefore their professionalism and lodging quality should not be questioned.