The deep, resonant boom of the morning drum rolled across the rooftops of Chang'an, a vibration I felt in my bones, signaling the opening of the city gates. In the late summer pre-dawn chill, Xiao Qi and I led our mule out from the silent, imposing grounds of the Feng estate. We navigated the still-shadowed streets, a lone cart in the growing trickle of merchants and travelers making their way south. The immense Mingde Gate, the city's main southern portal, loomed before us, a monument of timber and stone more fortress than archway. As the massive, iron-studded doors groaned open, we passed through the city wall, leaving the gilded cage of the city of Great Peace behind and stepping onto the dusty road that led into the vast, unknown heart of the provinces.

  I'd elected to be well provisioned, our covered cart containing a storehouse of grain, dried fruits, vegetables and meat. I'd elected to bring several waterskins and a barrel for good measure. I spared no expense, and in theory we'd be set for a trip over and back and over again, but traveling in this era was something I'd rather be over, than underprepared for. A tent, a foldable desk, extra clothing and several packs of gear rounded out my preparations.

  The cart was, as I had suspected, an instrument of torture. The unsprung axle translated every rut and rock on the packed-earth road into a violent jolt that vibrated up my spine. I swore my next technology to bring to life would be spring suspension, but alas spring steel was currently beyond my reach. Despite a relatively comfortable cushion, after a short, bruising attempt at riding the cart, I gave up and decided the steady rhythm of walking was far more comfortable. Xiao Qi, after a few minutes of being bounced around atop the driver's bench like a kernel of corn in a hot pan, quickly followed my example, walking proudly beside the mule with a look of profound relief.

  We didn't get far on our first day, as it took us time to figure out how to drive our mule and properly secure the cart’s contents. Not to mention the lack of a proper map. By late afternoon we'd ventured down the wrong fork and found ourselves at a small temple.

  We were greeted not by an old abbot, but by two surprised daoist nuns, Jìngxī and Língzhú, both around my age. They moved with a quiet, harmonious grace as they offered us cool water, their smiles warm and genuine. As we rested in the shade of their small, well-tended courtyard, my eyes were drawn to a striking sculpture placed near the main altar: a pair of Fenghuang, their stone feathers intricately intertwined in a soaring embrace.

  My scholarly habits died hard. "A beautiful piece," I remarked to one of the nuns, who was refilling our water skins. "Though the sculptor seems to have made a small error. These are both Huang, the female bird. A proper pair should be a Feng and a Huang."

  The two nuns exchanged a look, and a soft, musical giggle escaped them, a sound like wind chimes in a summer breeze.

  As we prepared to leave and return to the main road, Xiao Qi, who had been quietly looking at a shelf of smaller, more abstract carvings, tugged on my sleeve. "Master," he whispered, his young face a mask of innocent curiosity, "What are those phallus-shaped statues for?" He used less polite wording. He whispered to me “Don't you think the two masters behave strangely?”

  Heat flooded my cheeks. I could feel two pairs of eyeballs drilling into the back of my head as the pieces finally slammed together in my mind. I was an idiot.

  "They are... ritual objects," I stammered, as the nuns' howled in laughter. I placed a hand on Xiao Qi's shoulder and guided him firmly toward the gate, eager to make my escape. "Be polite. The nuns are clearly just very close friends. I will explain... when you are older." He simply nodded, though I saw him cast a final, puzzled look back at the temple and its two keep caretakers, doubled over in mirth.

  For three days, we traveled east. The landscape was a rolling tapestry of vibrant green farmland and small, thatch-roofed villages, the road busy with the traffic of a healthy empire. We'd passed through the towering gateway of TongGuan and into the Shan Prefecture.

  Each evening, as the sun bled orange and purple across the sky, we would pull the cart off the road and the mapping lessons would begin. I showed Xiao Qi how to float the magnetized needle-fish I acquired in a bowl of water to find a consistent north-south line. I taught him to sketch the day's journey, not as a sterile, straight line, but as a living curve that followed the terrain. I invented symbols for landmarks, a small square for a village, a circle with a dot for a well, a triangle for a notable hill. The concept of contour lines, of showing the steepness of a hill with tightly packed drawn lines, was completely alien to him, but he was a rapt student, his brow furrowed in fierce concentration as he made his own clumsy but earnest copies on scraps of paper with one of his new pencils. Seeing his inherent potential, I decided to mix in some simple reading and writing into his curriculum, along with maths to go with the cartography, much to his delight.

  We'd be hard pressed to achieve great accuracy, eyeballing most of the rivers, hills and roads. But as we traveled Xiao Qi would run back and forth, his footsteps a constant patter on the roadstones (and quieter once the stones gave way to dirt), sketching the route along the way to be improved upon later. We'd find ourselves taking a short, two hour break when the sun was hottest where Xiao Qi would recover his stamina.

  To be honest I started feeling a little better about this whole thing. I still missed my life and family back in my own time, but the longer I spent here the more it felt like a distant memory. The pain never quite faded, but it went from a sharp pain to more of a dull ache, and one I could occasionally forget for a brief moment when fully engrossed in teaching Xiao Qi.

  Not to say I didn't think of my fiancée, but missing her didn't feel quite so… debilitating.

  Late afternoon on the fourth day, the traffic had thinned. We were now well clear of the city and into a less populated area, with wooded hills closing in on either side of the road, their dense foliage casting long, cool shadows against the slanted sun. As we rounded a bend, I saw a small group approaching from the south, a dark smudge of movement against the sunlit road, heading towards Chang'an.

  It was a grim procession. Two men in the brown uniforms of official bailiffs, guānchāi, walked with a proprietary swagger, short staves resting on their shoulders and dao hanging from their hips. Between them trudged a line of a dozen people, roped together at the neck like beasts of burden. Prisoners of some sort each wore a heavy wooden cangue, a jiāsuǒ, a square pillory that pinned their head and hands, forcing them into a permanent, stooped posture.

  They were caked in the dust of the road, their clothes little more than rags, their feet bare and bloody from doubtlessly a distant journey. I saw gaunt-faced men, their expressions numb with exhaustion, also several women and to my horror, even two children, a boy and a girl no older than ten, stumbling to keep up. A defiant glint caught my eye, a young lady met my gaze for a fleeting second, her eyes holding a blaze of emotion I couldn't quite place before she forced them back to the unforgiving ground. They were all specters of humanity, their faces expressions of hollow-eyed despair.

  One of the guards barked a command, shoving a man and hitting him with a stick. "Keep moving, scum! The capital won't wait for your tired feet!"

  Xiao Qi had slowed, his hand clutching the mule's lead, his face pale as he stared at the prisoners. Evidently this was not a common sight and I saw in his eyes the terrifying reminder that in this world, fortunes could be undone overnight, that the line between comfort and a wooden collar was perilously thin.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I gestured for Xiao Qi to stay put and stepped forward, positioning myself respectfully on the side of the road. As the lead bailiff drew near, I gave him a short, formal bow, my hands clasped before me.

  “Greetings, Officer,” I said, my voice calm and polite. “A hot day for a long walk. My boy and I have fresh water, if you and your colleague would care for some.”

  The lead bailiff, a burly man with a sun-burnt face and a cruel set to his mouth, halted the procession with a raised hand. His eyes narrowed, taking in my fine silk robes, the well-made sword at my hip, and the sturdy cart. He recognized me as someone of a higher station, someone it would be unwise to simply shove aside. His partner, a leaner, more weaselly-looking man, licked his dry lips at the mention of water.

  “Water, you say?” the leader grunted. He nodded, the gesture curt. “Aye. We'll take some.”

  Xiao Qi, seeing my signal, quickly unlatched our water barrel and filled two clean wooden cups, scurrying forward to offer them to the guards. They drank greedily, the sound loud in the sudden quiet, wiping their mouths on their sleeves.

  I let them finish before I inquired, “What manner of criminals are you transporting? To Chang'an, no less, I presume.”

  The lead bailiff let out a short, derisive laugh, gesturing with his thumb towards the miserable line of prisoners who had collapsed into the dust at the brief reprieve. “Criminals? Not exactly. This is what's left of the Chen clan. Family of Chen Huarong, the former Regional Inspector down in LuoYang.”

  The name rang no bells, for me anyways.

  He savored the moment, clearly proud of his important task. “Seems the good Inspector got caught with his hand a little too deep in the imperial coffers. Corruption. The Son of Heaven himself decreed the entire clan is forfeit. Stripped of rank and property.” He spat on the ground near the prisoners' feet, a glob of brown phlegm landing inches from a woman's foot. “Most of the men are bound for the frontier mines. The women and children… they're being taken to the capital to be assigned as official slaves.”

  I recognised the term, most servants were bonded servants, although I'd argue the term slave could be used interchangeably. Xiao Qi was a prime example, he had told me his parents sold him for grain during particularly bad years of harvest in exchange for lifesaving rice, and hoped that he'd be better off serving a large household. Official slaves though, were a fate probably worse than that, they were owned by the government through criminal punishment, war or other means, and usually relegated to do whatever dirty (or skilled work for that matter) was required.

  As he spoke, the young woman I had noticed before flinched, her shoulders hunching further under the weight of the wooden cangue. The other prisoners remained motionless, their faces blank with a despair too deep for expression.

  The bailiff drained his cup and shoved it back towards a wide-eyed Xiao Qi. “Well, we've wasted enough daylight talking,” he grunted, readying his spear to move on. “These curs don't walk themselves.”

  “Before you go,” I said, holding his gaze with an expression of polite concern. I reached into the cart and produced one of the rolled-up map copies Xiao Qi and I had been painstakingly making. “LuoYang is far away. Perhaps this will be of some use. It shows the streams and villages between here and the next major town. A map to guide your travels to Chang'an.”

  As I handed him the scroll, my movements were fluid. Within the roll, my fingers had tucked three silver liǎng pieces, a small fortune. The bailiff, intrigued by the offer of a map, took it with a skeptical grunt. He felt the unexpected, heavy weight. His pupils widened for a fraction of a second before his face became a mask of professional indifference. He fumbled with the scroll, letting the coins fall discreetly into his palm, which he immediately closed into a fist.

  His entire demeanor changed. The gruff impatience melted away, replaced by a greedy, conspiratorial warmth. He looked from the silver in his hand to my face, a new, profound understanding in his eyes. This was a language he understood far better than official decrees.

  “A map...” he said, his voice now oily and friendly. “How very... thoughtful of you, Scholar…?” "Zhang," I replied. "Scholar Zhang! A very fine map, I'm sure." He puffed out his chest slightly. "Have I been to the capital? No, first time! A great honor, you see, being entrusted with such... high-profile cargo.” He leaned in a little closer, lowering his voice. “A real shame about the Chens, eh? Shows you what happens when you cross the wrong man in the ministries. One day you're dining on porcelain, the next you're wearing a wooden collar.”

  He pocketed the silver with a single, deft movement. The prisoners had taken the opportunity to sink to the dusty road, a few precious moments of rest for their aching bodies. The young woman watched me, her face unreadable, her eyes tracing the exchange of the map and the hidden silver.

  The bailiff gave me a greasy, knowing smile. “So,” he asked, his voice now full of possibility, “is there anything else a generous, map-making scholar might need to know?”

  My smile was disarming, my tone reasonable. “Just a conversation about the road ahead. Bandits, roadblocks, what not.” I gestured with my chin towards the cart. “For future maps.” Then, as if it were an afterthought, I added, “And perhaps a drink of water for these poor fellows here while we talk.”

  The lead bailiff's smile widened. The silver was a powerful lubricant. "Ah, a prudent man! Of course." He glanced at the prisoners and scoffed. “Water for them? A waste.” But he saw me, his new benefactor, waiting. He gave a short, dismissive wave of his hand. “Bah, fine. But be quick about it. We're on the Emperor's time.”

  Permission granted.

  As I engaged the bailiffs in conversation about a bandit-infested stretch of forest called “Black Wind Ridge,” Xiao Qi grabbed a ladle and moved down the line of prisoners. The sound was one of pure, animal relief as they drank with desperate thirst, water spilling down their chins and onto the wooden cangues.

  Xiao Qi reached the young woman. He offered the ladle of water, his hands steady. She looked up, her face smudged with dirt but her eyes clear and intelligent. She drank slowly, carefully, before handing the ladle back. Her voice was dry, but with an unusual clarity and underlying power.

  “Thank you,” she said, her gaze directed not at Xiao Qi, but across the space at me. I pretended not to notice.

  The bailiff also mentioned a new “road tax” to pass through Shanzhou , although they'd avoided it since they were on official business.

  Having shared his wisdom, the lead bailiff's patience wore thin. "Right then, that's enough of a holiday for these pigs," he said gruffly. "Time to move."

  I watched them prepare to leave, a final question forming on my lips. “That's not quite as big of a family as I'd expect from an official," I remarked, the sight of the children in their wooden restraints a particularly sharp thorn in my conscience.

  The bailiff shrugged, his expression one of utter indifference. “An official's clan can be a hundred strong,” he said with a callous chuckle. “We only take the ones worth transporting. Some of the men fought back, they were cut down where they stood. A few of the prettier maids were sold to a teahouse in the last town to cover our costs. This is just the valuable stock. The direct bloodline.”

  He gave a final, dismissive nod. “Get up, you slugs!” he barked at the prisoners, kicking dust towards them. His partner joined him, and together they herded the miserable group back onto the road, their forms slowly shrinking into the distance. I was left standing there, the bailiff's casual cruelty echoing in my ears, the image of the children burning its way into my mind.

  We stopped early that evening. The food I cooked tasted like ash. My mind was not on maps or provisions; it was on the small, slow-moving procession somewhere on the road ahead. They couldn't have gotten far.

  Night fell, deep and silent. The moon, nearly full, cast a silver, spectral light over the landscape. Xiao Qi, exhausted from the day's travel and emotional turmoil, was fast asleep by the fire. The world was still.

  This was my chance. I rose silently, my hand going to the hilt of my sword. I melted into the shadows of the trees lining the road, moving south, my footsteps quiet on the packed earth. I moved with unburdened purpose. The group had been moving relatively slowly, they'd be lucky to make a few li after our encounter. It didn't take long. After an hour of steady progress, I spotted the faint, distant flicker of a campfire through the trees. I'd found them.

  Leaving the road, I circled wide through the woods, approaching their camp from downwind. The plan formed in my mind: a swift, silent strike to neutralize the guards, free the prisoners, and vanish back into the night. It was reckless. It was unsanctioned. It was necessary.

  I slipped between two ancient, gnarled pines, my eyes fixed on the two figures of the bailiffs silhouetted against their fire. I was less than a hundred paces away. My hand tightened on my sword's hilt.

  It was not a sound that stopped me, but the sudden absence of it. The chirping of crickets, the rustle of leaves, it all ceased, swallowed by a pocket of absolute silence in the living woods. I felt like a rodent being swooped down on by an owl. A figure resolved itself from the deeper shadows to my left and stepped in between myself and the camp.

  The figure stood perfectly still, a void in the moonlight. He was dressed in simple, dark clothing, his face obscured by a plain, featureless wooden mask. He made no threatening gesture, yet his presence was a physical weight, a silent, unmovable wall between me and my objective. I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs.