Chapter 36: To The South
A few days had passed, Zhao Xing spent her days getting ready for midterm exams, every day the day of the journey approached she would feel unease. She felt like she was a prisoner awaiting their sentence. But no matter how she dreaded it, the day they were expected to leave soon arrived.
She was going to dress as a man, but at least her rank would be elevated to that of a potential scholar, that the Crown Prince was aiding. So she wouldn't need to serve but be served.
On this journey, the Crown prince was to go with some other officials, but they chose to leave separately, the reason…well we can only wait and see.
On normal days Zhao Xing would be really happy about being able to come out like this, especially when it was such a long trip.
Her maids stood at the entrance to see her off, she nodded at them and climbed the carriage, with Xiao Chen's help. Once in the carriage, she opened the curtain and looked out the window, clasping her hands together.
Zhang Zhengyang sat next to her in the carriage, He saw how scared she was and shook his head, "You wanted to come now you're scared?" He whispered to her as he leaned in.
Zhao Xing glared at him. Who wasn't afraid of death? She looked back out the window and saw a familiar figure walking by, the lady paused and looked in the direction of their carriage as if curious. She couldn't see her face, because she wore a veil, there was someone else with her, which seemed to be her maid. Their gazes crossed and Zhao Xing felt a shiver.
'Where did I see that person before?'
It was time to set off, this time they went with quite a few simple looking carriages. Zhao Xing didn't bring her books along with her, she was afraid something would happen to them if she did. Everyone wore simple clothes and didn't carry much along with them. The Crown Prince himself wasn't going as the Crown Prince. Especially because of the incident before. At least it'd be good if they didn't recognize him.
They left early that morning. One of Zhao Xing's fear was that she'd go back to her world at an unexpected hour, when the Crown Prince needed her most.
"Master, the Crown Prince has set off." A man in black knelt as he reported to his master who sat by the window at the second floor of a tea house, with a grin on his face. "Is Qing'er on her way here?"
His question was to his attendant in the room. "They should be arriving soon."
The man laughed, "Maybe not so soon…"
Another man next to him wearing noble's clothes stood up and walked around to stand beside the one that just spoke and smiled. "The road to the south is never an easy one, it is full of bandits, rogues that pick fights without care of person as well as wide animals, it's no surprise if the Crown Prince runs into one of these, and is badly injured, no?" He said in a calm voice.
The journey would take about two weeks, considering their cargo, the various times they would have to rest and so on.
Before they realized it they were reaching the city gates. For safety's sake Zhang Zhengyang had them take a different route. He wasn't sure where the enemy lay in wait, but he was going to take the route that was most favorable for him in case there really was an ambush.
The first few days went well, and nothing unusual happened. They would occasionally stop at inns, to rest. The road at this moment was still populated, and merchants regularly passed through these places. But as they travelled longer, they reached places that had been affected by the drought, that were less populated. All this while Zhao Xing didn't return to her world once, much to her relief.
Normally she should feel at ease when no trouble had come to them all this while. But Zhao Xing didn't feel like things were that simple.
"What are you still worried about? Only two days left, we'll be arriving our destination soon." Zhang Zhengyang said with a consoling smile. He said this although he also thought it was weird that nothing had happened so far. He wondered what exactly his brother was plotting against him.
'There's still two days…' Zhao Xing thought. Anything could happen in two days. During their travel, she hadn't seen much of those annoying visions. She tried to console herself that maybe everything would end up fine.
It wasn't until they arrived that Zhao Xing felt that maybe she was worrying for nothing. But then she thought of the road back. Would the enemy attack after they'd finished their task here and were on their way back to the capital?
The other officials had arrived and everyone began to work, with the Crown Prince's leading, as well as his advisor, appointed by the Emperor.
The drought this year had been severe and had affected various small cities in the south. The group had to divide themselves so they could attend to the different cities. Places were no longer as populated as they were before the drought, as people had migrated from the place, to avoid the consequences of the drought. Those that remained were mostly the old, the sick, disabled, some women and children, especially in the city the Crown Prince was assigned to.
People here were in bad condition, and so when they heard that the court had sent people to come to their aide they were very happy, and many of them came out to greet their saviors.
They also placed their complaints, they talked about their hardships. But with the help of the Town leader, the Crown Prince was able to calm the people down.
And so an order was placed that everyone could submit their complaints at the town's hall, which would be looked into.
The Crown Prince resided at the town leader's house. Their family was a simple one, they were a family of five, the father the mother and three children that Zhao Xing soon made friends with.
Everything was done in a precise and orderly manner. Zhao Xing who didn't know much about disaster relief, couldn't really help much in the area of advice. Though she knew in her world drought might have been handled differently due to advanced technology. Unfortunately, these days she hadn't returned to her world and so she couldn't do any research on it. She had been occupied with so many things before, it didn't occur to her she could make some researches about how to handle drought.
The area she could help, she tried her best to do so. She suddenly realized how precious knowledge was. Before she hated studying, and only did so because of her mother. But now had new found respect for learning.
"In all it would take about a month or two for everything to be done." The advisor said as he explained further on all the various things they had to fixe and take care off.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
appricotblossom
appricotblossom Finally the tenth chapter! So I tried publishing a ten chapters at a time, I hope you enjoy it. Comment what you think. I think I strained myself in this last chapter. but truly hope you guys like it, and didn't find it boring. Thank you for reading.
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