Ashes to Crown

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: A Farewell

Time flies. A day and a night pass in the blink of an eye; a midday nap is over in an instant.

Travelers came and went from the posthouse. Some had just arrived to rest their feet, while others were setting out once more.

The party led by the young Ah Jiu had grown by two people and four horses, making their assembly outside the posthouse even more boisterous.

The two girls had also put on hats and scarves. Dressed in thick, padded cotton clothes and carrying small bundles on their backs, they were bundled up so thickly they looked like little round balls.

They bowed to the Posthouse Minister once more to bid him farewell.

The Posthouse Minister waved his hand. ”Alright, alright, be on your way. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your mother.”

Tears welled in the girls’ eyes as they looked back into the posthouse. Their mother was too unwell to see them off, and they lingered, unwilling to move.

This parting would likely be their last; mother and daughters might never see each other again.

Although the posthouse soldiers had already mounted their horses, they couldn’t bring themselves to rush the girls.

”Hey.” The only one heartless enough to hurry them was Ah Jiu. A hat and scarf obscured his face, revealing only a pair of sharp, phoenix-like eyes with an icy glint. ”Are you leaving or not? If not, you might as well stay here with your mother.”

The kid had a truly capricious temper, ready to turn hostile at a moment’s notice. The Posthouse Minister quickly pushed the two girls toward their horses. ”Go now, go now! Leave early, find your father soon, and have him hurry back to see your mother.”

The two girls hesitated no longer and mounted their horses. Their movements were steady, showing they truly knew how to ride.

Ah Jiu retracted his gaze and spurred his horse. ”Hah!” He took the lead and charged forward.

The other posthouse soldiers spurred their horses as well. Swept up in their midst, the two girls galloped along, disappearing into the distance in the blink of an eye.

The Posthouse Minister stood outside the gate, watching them go with a rather sentimental expression.

”Sir, you’ve done another good deed,” a posthouse soldier said, coming forward to flatter him.

’A good deed?’ The Posthouse Minister patted his plump belly, which his sash could barely contain. Two full moneybags hung from that sash—his reward for being a good man.

”A good man,” Mrs. Yang had thanked him from her bed, her voice as faint as a thread. ”Accepting this money is, in itself, a good deed. Otherwise, when I die, my two children will also lose their lives. What use would this money be then? It’s better to part with it and buy my daughters a chance at survival. As long as you get them to their father’s side, they can live on, even without money.”

He took the money to do a job, honest with all his clients. He had found a path to survival for these two children. When the woman died, he would even arrange her burial, not letting her corpse be abandoned in the wilderness. ’Hmm, put that way, I really am a good man.’

”Get back to work, get back to work,” the Posthouse Minister said with a chuckle, patting his belly as he turned and waddled back inside.

But early the next morning, there was another knock on the Posthouse Minister’s door.

”What is it? Did that Mrs. Yang pass away?” the Posthouse Minister asked, slightly surprised.

The doctor he had called said Mrs. Yang didn’t have long. She had been hanging on by a thread these past few days. ’Could it be that once her daughters were gone, the heavy stone in her heart was lifted, and she finally let go?’

”No,” the posthouse soldier said. ”Lady Yang has hired a cart. She says she’s leaving.”

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A donkey cart was parked in the rear courtyard. Mrs. Yang was inside, half-reclining and wrapped in a tattered cotton coat.

”What are you doing?” the Posthouse Minister asked, perplexed. ”It’s freezing cold, and you’re so ill. How can you possibly travel?”

Mrs. Yang gave a feeble smile. ”Mr. Xu, I still have some breath in me. I want to go back to my hometown. A falling leaf returns to its roots. I don’t want to die a stranger in a strange land.”

’I see.’ The Posthouse Minister sighed. ”Lady Yang, if you rest here, you might still have a chance to see your husband and children again.”

The rigors of the journey would probably kill her immediately.

Mrs. Yang shook her head, her face sorrowful yet tinged with joy. ”As long as they can be reunited, I can be at peace. It will be the same if they come to visit my grave in the future.”

Since she put it that way, the Posthouse Minister didn’t try to persuade her further. ’However,’ he thought, ’if she’s thinking of asking for the money back, making me a true philanthropist for nothing, that is out of the question.’

He touched his sash. ”Lady Yang, you’ll need travel money to get home. In that case—”

Before he could finish, Lady Yang quickly waved her hands. ”I’ve already troubled you far too much, Mr. Xu. I couldn’t possibly let you spend your own money. I have kept some travel funds, enough to get home. A person like me doesn’t need much money anyway; it would just be a burden.”

After speaking, she fell back weakly onto her bedding, a hint of nervousness in her expression.

’That makes sense. Who would really give away their entire fortune?’ he mused. ’She must have given some to her daughters for protection and kept some for herself. Not that I would take every last bit of her fortune, anyway. Taking half is acceptable. I’m not the kind of person who picks the bones clean.’

The Posthouse Minister said amiably, ”Very well. As you wish, my lady. In that case, I wish you a peaceful journey.”

Mrs. Yang hurriedly bobbed her head against the bedding in a gesture of thanks.

”See that this lady gets home safely. That will be a good deed on your part,” the Posthouse Minister instructed the driver with a stern face. ”Don’t you dare mistreat this poor, unfortunate woman. If you do, I will not spare you.”

The driver repeatedly agreed. With a CREAK and a GROAN, the donkey cart pulled out of the posthouse and trundled away down the road.

The Posthouse Minister stood outside the posthouse once more, watching her leave. Patting his stomach, he realized he had sent off the mother and her two daughters in the blink of an eye. He could hardly even remember how the three of them had arrived. It felt like a dream.

He quickly felt for the moneybags at his waist. ’Thank goodness, the money is still there.’

’Then everything is fine. It wasn’t all just an empty dream.’

「Carriages and horses came and went. The sun rose and set.」 The North Cao Town posthouse repeated its daily bustle. It wasn’t always filled with pitiful people in distress, nor was the Posthouse Minister always playing the part of a good man. His days were more often spent sitting indoors, CLACKING away at his abacus and flipping through ledgers, checking income, expenses, and balances.

Occasionally, high-ranking officials and nobles would pass through, but he didn’t need to attend to them personally. Officials came and went, but the posthouse remained. An official might stay in a first-class room this time, but on his next visit, he could just as easily end up in the common bunk room.

However, when officials from the local county government arrived, the Posthouse Minister still had to greet them warmly.

It was an overcast day, and the wind bit at their faces. A charcoal brazier burned in the main hall, where a group of constables were sitting and standing around, cursing the cold and complaining about the quality of the wine.

Seeing the Posthouse Minister enter, a man in his forties, dressed in an official robe, who was sitting in the center and had just tossed his sword onto the table, spoke up. ”It’s not that the wine is bad. It’s that Old Xu has hidden the good stuff.”

The government officers all pointed at the Posthouse Minister and began to clamor good-naturedly.

The Posthouse Minister was familiar with them and took no offense. He pointed at one of the men. ”Cao the Fourth, you know better than anyone where I hide my wine. Go get it yourself.”

The man called Cao the Fourth didn’t stand on ceremony. He called over a few government officers, and they boisterously headed out.

The Posthouse Minister sat down next to the man with the sword. ”Qi Du You, what important matter could possibly trouble you to leave the county government office on such a cold day?”

This Qi Du You was not only his superior in charge of the posthouses, but more importantly, he was the Prefectural Governor’s brother-in-law. He wielded great power within the county and usually only had to lift a finger to get things done, certainly never needing to travel himself in such bitter weather.

Unless it involved a person or a matter he could not afford to offend.

’But I haven’t heard of any major incidents in the county recently?’

Qi Du You picked up a bowl of hot water and drained it in one gulp. ”This matter is, you could say, both big and small.” He set the bowl down hard on the table. ”A young lady from the Capital City has gone missing.”