Chapitre 136: The City of Sujing
"Don't you dare follow that stick!" Aurelia yells, "it's not even pointing in any of the three directions, how did you even manage that, neither end is pointing towards one of the three routes. Spin it again."
"Fine," I say, giving the stick another spin, "and nothing changed, it's still pointing in the same direction."
"I'll spin it," Aurelia says.
With the flick of her wrist, Aurelia uses her telekinesis to spin the stick. Eventually, the front end of the stick points towards Shenzhou. The only problem is that she used too much force and bent the stick causing the back end to also be pointing towards Yamato.
"And you had a problem with me spinning it."
"It's not my fault that this flimsy piece of wood bends so easily."
"I'll go get another stick. And this time I'll spin it since the both of you can't seem to manage such a simple task," Lia says.
So she says, but when push comes to shove, Lia ends up breaking the new stick as she tries to spin it.
Lifting the corners of her mouth up slightly, Aurelia says, "simple, right. Very simple task indeed."
As the two begin some light bickering, I walk over and look at each of the signs. After giving it a small bit of thought I return, saying, "let's just head to Shenzhou."
"Not that I disagree or anything but why Shenzhou?" Aurelia asks.
"I went ahead and looked at the three signs, apparently the city belonging to the Empire of Shenzhou is the closest to us, making it the shortest walk of the three."
"I looked at those signs earlier as well, but I didn't see anything that looked like a measure of distance. It doesn't help I can't really read them though," Lia says.
"Indeed, that language comprehension ability you have certainly come's in handy at times like this," Aurelia says.
Given the current time, no matter where we go we would have to spend a night over on the mountain. The City of Sujing is the closest of the three choices we have, only needing to spend a single night out in the mountains before arriving. With how far the other two places are, we would spend one night in the mountains and probably another night elsewhere before entering the city proper.
As the night fell on our trip down the mountain, we decided to set up a camp once we found a large enough flat area. Just in case, I set up some small fortifications again despite not being too worried over an ambush. Since it's been a while since I last slept I'm starting to get a little drowsy, so for some added protection in addition to the fortifications around the camp, I returned to my Dragon form to sleep through the night.
The night passed by peacefully as the rising sun shines over us, bringing a new day to our journey. As I'm taking down the walls I made last night, I find a few scratch marks, indicating that there was something clawing away at the fortifications over the night. But they don't seem to deep nor large, so it was probably some insignificant small fry just passing by.
After a quick morning refresher, we clear away our campsite and continue down the mountain. It doesn't take long from there to reach the foot of the mountain as we exit the mountains forestation and come to a long and wide road, stretching across a large open grassland. In the distance, I can just barely spot a river that leads into what seems to be a city, although from here the details are hard to see.
As we follow the road towards the city, the details come into view and as expected, the city's appearance is as if I had walked onto the filming set of some period drama set in ancient China. As we close in on the city from the mountain, several other roads converge on the path leading up to the city as we pass by the local people of this land. While the style of clothing differs from each new person we pass, the basic layout is the same, consisting mostly of loose robes of varying sizes. The difference in class is very apparent as the more well off folk have much neater clothing and are being carried along in some kind of carriage while the peasants are very easy to identify with their much more haggard look.
But regardless of their social class, rich or poor, they all watch us intently as we pass by them, whispering to any companions they might have. But from what I can hear, it isn't anything too bad, mostly how strange our clothes are, especially mine. But they all seem to have some varying degrees of respect once they come to the conclusion that we had arrived from the mountain path.
Before long we arrive at the entrance to the City of Sujing. Standing before us is a massive opened gate along the equally large stone walls that surround the city. As expected there is a queue of people along the side of the gateway awaiting their turn for inspection. For a moment I had brief thoughts of ignoring the queue and just walking through the gateway, but thankfully some prat did so ahead of me. The fool was very quickly taken down by the guards and beaten senseless before being sent away.
"How dare you mere border guards treat my dignified self in such a manner. I am an emissary of the Yamato Empire, I will make sure the Chrysanthemum Emperor here's of this transgression!"
Hearing the mans words, both the guards and some of the more well off looking people just spit in his direction, sending the so called emissary away.
Aurelia decides to start making small talk with our neighbours in the queue, asking about what just happened.
"But if he is really an emissary of the Yamato Empire, would this not cause diplomatic issues?" Aurelia asks the travelling pair next to us.
"You come from the outside so I guess you wouldn't know, but the relationship between the three ruling powers is a very fragile one. The upper classes of each nation typically don't get along with each other and wars between the three are common," the middle-aged man says.
"You don't seem to be subject to this prejudice, yet you look to be quite well off yourself, even if you and your partner are travelling on foot," Aurelia mentions.
"We're travelling merchants, so for the sake of business and profit, people in our profession need to be open minded. Anyways, I should probably introduce myself, the name's Liu Mu, as I mentioned earlier, I'm currently a travelling merchant. This here is my daughter and apprentice, go and introduce yourself, Wanjing."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, I am Liu Wanjing. I am studying under my father in hopes of one day being his successor as the traveller in the family business. We do not seem to be too far apart in age, so I hope we can get along. The stories I've heard when I was little told that all the outsiders of the past had gone on to become people of greatness, I hope when the time comes you pay patronage to our family's shops, it would be a great advertisement opportunity for us."
"I assure you, I didn't teach her about this kind of stuff. My daughter's a natural in business so my father wants her to become the next head, but she insists on travelling as I do. As a father, I'm happy my daughter wants to follow in my footsteps, but I can't help but worry for her safety."
"She certainly seems to have a good head on her shoulders, so if she at least learned basic self-defence I would worry too much if I were you," Aurelia says, "oh, where are my manners, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Aurelia Lausiel, Lausiel being by surname, in most places outside of here the surname comes after the given name. These two here are my travel companions."
"Nice to meet you both, my name is Lia Straellum, a Dragonoid and scholar."
"Dragonoids? I never knew they also lived outside of Shengdi, you should be careful about walking around when you are here, not only in Shenzhou but all of Shengdi.
"Cordelia."
"Cory, you could at least try to be a little more polite," Lia whispers.
"Uhh, I'm a Dragon, nice to meet you."
"Right, anyways, our turn for inspections is coming up. My family run has both a restaurant and an inn here in Sujing, I would appreciate it if decide to make use of our services during your stay here. Until next time," Liu Mu says as he and Liu Wanjing head towards the guard station for the inspection.
Not too long after the Liu duo got called in was our turn as we are lead into the guard station.
"You look a little odd, where did you come from?" a guard asks.
"We had passed the trials and came from the outside. If you don't believe us you can ask the Mountain Lord about this matter," Aurelia says.
"No, we believe you. A few days ago the mountain bells tolled for the first time in thousands of years, coupled with your strange manner of dress and an unknown language, it would make sense if your outsiders. But I was unaware that the Dragonoids existed outside our lands. Be mindful of your appearance and don't cause any trouble."
"If you don't mind me asking, what is so special about Dragonoids here? The pair before us had said something similar," Lia asks.
"It would be good for you to know so listen well. The only Dragonoids in Shengdi are the illustrious imperial family of Shenzhou who rules over the Dragon Throne and these lands. All Dragonoids here are decent from the imperial family, so be mindful of this when you walk around. Now get moving, there are still plenty of people we need to move through here."
Sending us away in through the gateway, we finally enter the City of Sujing.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Akkre_Kojuuin
Akkre_Kojuuin This was longer than I thought it would be. The entire first section of the chapter was me struggling to figure out where to send them, eventually, I just rolled a die and moved on.
Have a nice day everyone.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone