217 Lone Peak (1/2)
In the early morning, facing the morning dew, a squad of riders exited the lord's manor, and went straight towards the Azure dragon gate. As the Qingfu horses stepped onto the green stone floors, there sounded out the clean and crisp clatter of horseshoes.
Ouyang Shuo and Song Jia brought four guards, and were prepared to go towards Qiushui County to the east to look for a suitable place for the sect. After the second city wall was built, to differentiate the gates, each gate was given a different name. The core region’s city gates were renamed Azure Dragon Gate to the east, White Tiger Gate to the west, Vermillion Bird Gate to the south, and Black Tortoise Gate to the north. Ouyang Shuo went past the Azure Dragon Gate and passed the Eastern region toward the East gate which was slightly to the north.
Past the East gate, it was the Eastern wilderness. Out of strategic needs, the wild grass and plants were removed and now what remained was an empty and cold plain.
From the East gate, they made an easy straight route towards Shanhai County harbor. Compared to the times of Shanhai Village, the harbor was 20-30 times bigger. Ever since the Advanced Shipyard was moved to Beihai County, the region of water in front of the canyon was all under the jurisdiction of the harbor. As for the harbor, it was run by the Transportation Division. The current Transportation Division officially started taking on the role of modern transportation services.
During the planning, the bridge with linked up the main camp and Qiushui County wasn't built so there were numerous stone resources piled up at both sides. The masons shipped large rocks from the quarry and cut them into smaller pieces before grinding them into rods to use to build the bridge.
After considering that war ships needed to go past this river, the design of the bridge was much more complex than the stone arch bridge in the inner city. Based on the architect Wuchi's first draft, the basic cost reached 500 gold.
The hardest part about building a bridge was to build supports for the bridge in the river. The canyon river had the Friendship river and the Qiushui river flowing into it so the water currents were fast and ferocious. Hence, such supports based on olden building standards were really difficult to make.
Ouyang Shuo briefly checked out the progress of the bridge before carrying on, crossing over using the boat at the harbor. The Qiushui County city wall was already built, and from afar it looked like a small city sitting on the plains.
Outside the city were acres after acres of grain land. Early in the morning there were already farmers getting busy.
”Blockhead, what are they doing in the fields? Are they plucking out the seedlings? Didn't they just plant them?” Song Jia couldn't understand their actions.
Ouyang Shuo laughed in amusement. ”The farmers are plucking out grass and planting the seedlings. It is very easy for weed and wild grass to grow in the fields. If we don't remove them, they will compete with the grain for space and nutrients and affect the harvest.”
”Oh!” Song Jia laughed in embarrassment.
Ouyang Shuo didn't choose to enter Qiushui County, and instead continued south towards the border of the canyon and continued east along the mountain range. In truth, after confirming that Song Jia wanted to build the sect outside of the city, he went to check out the Lianzhou map where there were already clear coordinates.
The difference from the main camp was that on this side of the Qiushui County, they didn't have rocky mountain ranges, but instead a straight forest path, intersecting with the plains to form a unique view. Walking on the plains, there were chances of wild animals like rabbits popping out.
Seeing the wild rabbit, Ouyang Shuo's hunter instincts were piqued as he took out the bow and shot at it. Unfortunately with his basic archery, unless he was lucky, there wasn't a chance for him to hit the nimble rabbit.
The missed arrow made him feel really embarrassed, especially in front of his lover. It turned into rage as he ordered the guards to shoot all the rabbits they met and bring them back to the lord's manor.
Song Jia was giggling at the side, Ouyang Shuo had something that he wasn't good at.
After going around 10 kilometers to the east, Ouyang Shuo signaled for them to stop. He pointed to a mountain peak and asked, ”Can you see that mountain in front?”
Song Jia followed Ouyang Shuo's finger only to see amongst the fog the outlines of the mountain and one lone peak. What was more amazing was that the lone peak was like it was punched by a giant and only half the peak was left, narrowing at the middle part of the mountain, forming a giant platform.
”Great, this will be the place.” Song Jia was elated.
Ouyang Shuo nodded. ”Let's go and take a look.”
”En!” Song Jia couldn't wait.
As no one had visited this place before, there were little tracks of men, and the road up was hard to walk. Ouyang Shuo and his men had no choice but to leave their Qingfu horses at the foot of the mountain and walk up on foot.
The 4 guards wielded the Tang knives and helped to open the road upwards. After walking for 2 hours, they finally reached the platform. Ouyang Shuo and Song Jia also had to rotate their inner strength to reduce their tiredness and fatigue.
The platform was huge, and on first glance it was more than 10 square kilometers, bigger than the Shanhai when it was still a town. Water flowed down from the peak and made a small pond at the foot of the platform, constantly sounding out noises. The water flowed out from the pond onto a small stream on the platform and flowed down it. Under the shine of the sunlight, the water stream formed a rainbow.