Autumn wind curled around Mount Daqing in the north of the State of Zhao. Most of the rattan vines had dried and withered, and leaves floated down from the mountain into the river below. Perhaps they, like that gourd bottle from years ago, would eventually reach the Milky Way Sea and then float on to the Great Tang in the Eastern Lands.
Beneath Mount Daqing lay three counties. Yunjie County was the most flourishing of the three. It wasn't very large, but it bustled with people. When market day came, people from the whole mountain region gathered there, and a hubbub of voices would fill the air.
On this day, a young man wearing a clean, blue scholar's robe walked into Yunjie, seemingly restless with emotion. Though he was a stranger, his face looked familiar. It was, of course, Meng Hao.
