The Warrior from the End of the River
The merchants from Qi and I stared blankly at the bizarre spectacle unfolding before our eyes. Pat!Crunch, crunch.Clack. Munch, munch... Was she even chewing? The person we took for a castaway was quite literally inhaling the food. Whether from sheer starvation or a complete lack of table manners, she ignored the chopsticks entirely and seized everything with both hands. Only after demolishing what must have been five full portions did she finally stop this act that could scarcely be called a meal and turn her attention toward us.
“Hahaha! I owe you a tremendous debt! I truly thought I would starve to death out here!”
She shouted in a loud, powerful voice that could rival Lian Po’s. Yet where his voice boomed like thunder rolling from a cave, hers carried a rough, hoarse edge. It made sense—she was a woman.
“Ahem. A woman should conduct herself with more propriety…”
I ignored the caravan leader’s quiet grumbling and asked her directly, “May I ask what brought you to such a place?”
“Ah, my story? I heard Mount Tai possessed such magnificent spiritual energy that I came all the way to Qi to see it for myself. But I lost my way coming down, and there wasn’t a single village or soul in sight. I somehow reached the foot of the mountain, yet I hadn’t eaten properly the entire time. The hunger grew so terrible I simply lay down where I was!”
According to her, she was a traveler who had journeyed to Qi simply to view Mount Tai, the greatest of all mountains under heaven. She had set out to climb it, become lost, wandered in circles, and barely managed to descend. Unable to find any inhabited settlement and weakened by hunger, she had collapsed by the roadside.
Even in the mountains, shouldn’t there be plenty to eat?
Setting aside the poisonous mushrooms even experts avoided, the slopes teemed with edible plants and wildlife. In this era of scarcity, ordinary people carried practical knowledge of which wild grasses could be foraged.
Then she is no ordinary commoner.
I narrowed my eyes and studied her more closely. Until now I had been so mesmerized by her gluttonous performance that I hadn’t truly looked. At first glance she seemed anything but noble. Her clothes were little more than rags, her face and hair filthy. Yet those could be explained by her ordeal. Closer inspection revealed subtle signs that her origins were not lowly.
Her physique alone was extraordinary. In an age when balanced nutrition was difficult to obtain, a large frame was often the mark of high birth. While exceptions existed, nobles were, on average, far taller and broader than commoners or the lowly. Among the women I had met in this world, the tallest had been Xinlingjun, who stood just over 170 centimeters—a height that would be considered tall even in modern times. The woman before me now was easily half a span taller, likely surpassing 180 centimeters. Moreover, the body visible through her torn garments was packed with dense, powerful muscle. No wonder she had required such an enormous quantity of food.
Her speech was equally telling. Though her tone was blunt and unrefined, the vocabulary itself leaned toward aristocratic usage, making her exact station difficult to determine.
Perhaps a fallen noble.
The shi class that formed the backbone of the Warring States era was a complex stratum—lesser aristocrats, learned scholars, reformist thinkers seeking to supplant the old nobility. Many came from once-proud houses that had declined and now wandered the realm in search of opportunity. She might well be one of them.
Her training is formidable, and that object at her waist is an iron mace? She appears to be from a martial lineage.
I had formed a rough estimation. Seeing her face clearly would have confirmed it, but the dirt and grime made that impossible. A pity.
“Ahem. Young man, you appear to be the leader of this party. Am I correct?”
While I had been assessing her, she had apparently been assessing us. She pointed straight at me.
The caravan leader, perhaps stung by her words, stepped forward at once. “No, that is incorrect! I am the person in charge of this caravan.”
“Hmm? Is that so? Yet the one who offered me food was that young man over there. You do not appear to be father and son.”
“That is…”
She had heard our earlier conversation? Her ears must be as sharp as mine or Jeong’s. We had spoken at quite a distance.
To the flustered leader who could find no reply, I produced the credential tablet of Nogucheon that I had not yet used on this journey and showed it to him.
“From this moment forward, I will manage this trade mission in Manager No’s stead.”
“This is… why did you not reveal it from the beginning?”
The leader’s hands trembled as he accepted the tablet, his gaze darting back and forth between it and my face.
“I did not hide it on purpose. Nor do I intend to report your conduct to Manager No, so rest easy.”
I took the tablet back, tucked it away, and motioned the leader to step aside as I moved forward.
“With this, I am officially in command. Have you anything to say to me?”
“Nothing so grand. I have received kindness, and it is only right that I repay it in kind. Take me into your group. At the very least, I can earn the price of the meal I have eaten.”
She patted the iron mace at her side. Her confidence in her own strength was plain.
“Do you even know where we are headed?”
“It does not matter. When repaying a debt, one cannot put one’s own convenience first. Simply tell me. I will guard you to your destination, wherever it may be.”
Her bearing declared that the identity or number of any enemies was irrelevant. It was tremendous confidence.
My instincts had been correct. This woman was no hollow braggart; she was the genuine article, filled with real substance. That was why I had finally produced the credential I had kept hidden until now.
“Very well. We accept you into our party. We will provide food and shelter. In return, will you act as our escort?”
“Oh! If you will even provide meals and lodging, I would be grateful indeed! Though now I feel I am receiving far more than I give, and it makes me uneasy.”
“Then how about you repay us by telling the story of how you came to Mount Tai? This is my first time traveling the world, after all.”
“Good! Let us do exactly that!”
She slapped her knee repeatedly, beaming with satisfaction.
The sound is remarkably crisp and loud, yet her knee doesn’t even redden. Her endurance must be exceptional.
“By the way, may I know your name? Since we will be traveling together, constantly referring to each other as ‘that side’ and ‘this side’ feels rather awkward.”
“Ah! Now that you mention it, we have not even exchanged names. Ahem, my apologies. I should have asked my benefactor’s name first.”
She rose abruptly and offered a greeting in a unique style I had never encountered. It resembled the etiquette of the Central Plains yet differed in subtle ways, suggesting she came from the distant frontier.
“I am Yeo Hong-seong, from the end of the great river! And what is my benefactor’s name?”
“I am called Choe Hyeok, from the state of Zhao.”
I gave the name from my previous life that I was currently using as an alias rather than my present name, Ji Dan, while rapidly searching my memory for any recollection of Yeo Hong-seong. Nothing came to mind. In my previous life, my knowledge of this era had been limited to the Four Books and Five Classics and the Four Gentlemen. Although I had met many people in this life, I had never heard that name. Still, I trusted my instincts. This person was undoubtedly a remarkable hero.
Even after Yeo Hong-seong joined our group, we continued our steady march toward Linzi. Having revealed my close connection to Nogucheon, I was moved from the crowded ox cart into the carriage previously used by the caravan leader. I had not demanded it; he had offered it himself as an apology for his earlier discourtesy. I seated Yeo Hong-seong beside me, and we spoke comfortably as the wheels turned.
“So you are from Chu, Lady Yeo.”
The “river” she had mentioned in her introduction referred to the Yangtze. In this era, “He” and “Jiang” were not ordinary nouns for rivers but proper names reserved for the Yellow River and the Yangtze. What later generations would simply call rivers were known as “waters”—the Yi Water, the Huai Water, and so on. If she came from the distant end of the Yangtze, her homeland could only be the state of Chu, which ruled all the lands south of that mighty river.
One might have expected her to brighten at the mention of her homeland in a foreign place, yet Yeo Hong-seong’s reaction remained strangely lukewarm.
“Well, that is true, but to be precise I should say I come from the land of Yue. It has become Chu territory now, so calling myself a person of Chu is not entirely wrong. Still, Yue is the more accurate answer.”