Beep beep beep…
At that moment, Jinwen and Jinyuan were both working at the district government offices. Their offices were well situated, facing directly toward the main gate.
Hearing the strange noise, both of them leaned out their windows to look, and saw the Master waving up at them from below, with a peculiar little iron room standing beside him.
A crowd of people watched from a distance, wearing expressions of utter astonishment. What had the Master gone and done now?
The two women came downstairs.
"Anything urgent today? If not, I'll take you both out for a spin."
Naturally the two women said there was nothing — and even if there had been, it would have to wait.
"Jinwen, Jinyuan, come on up — this vehicle of mine is tremendous fun!" Jinxiu, who ordinarily did her best to maintain an air of elegance, could no longer hold together her well-bred composure and was waving at them with great enthusiasm.
She couldn't help it — the thing was simply too much fun. It moved entirely on its own, without any horse to pull it. She had never even imagined such a thing possible.
The two women got in with puzzled looks on their faces, and once the vehicle started moving, they too were struck with amazement.
"Master, this little iron room — it moves by itself? But how?"
"Ha! Moving by itself is nothing — we'll drive out of the city and show you what speed and passion really mean!"
All the way to the city outskirts, they naturally drew astonished stares from countless people along the road.
The fellow who had been screaming at the top of his lungs that the Master had been eaten was already being held by the constables — they were taking precautions against any further scenes of chaos or panic.
News that the Master had produced yet another remarkable contraption spread through the entire city almost immediately. People abandoned their work and played truant from their posts just to catch a glimpse of the excitement — but by then, the Master and his "beast" had already left the city behind.
Cement had been produced for quite some time now, and proper paved roads had long since been built connecting Longcheng, Qingjiang Prefecture, Taoyuan Town, and Xinghuo Town. Even the ten townships established at an intermediate stage had all been linked together by cement roads.
"Girls, how would you like to drive out to Taoyuan Town for dinner and come back afterward?"
"Ah — go to Taoyuan Town for dinner?"
"Master, will we make it in time?"
"Of course we will!" Zhao Baihui called out to the wolf cavalry escort through the window: "Sergeant, head on back — we'll return a little later."
"Master, that I cannot do. Unless I am dead, I will not let you out of my sight while we are outside the city."
"How about this, then — once you can no longer keep up with us, once we're completely out of sight, you head back. Does that work?"
The cavalryman hesitated, then gave a nod.
His instincts told him it was impossible — the little iron room had not been moving very quickly on the way here. But the Master's words had almost never proven empty. If they truly could no longer keep up, what else were they to do but turn back?
"Give it a try, then. My ability to look after myself is considerable. If you genuinely can't keep pace, don't push yourselves trying."
"Girls — let's go!"
The system had its shortcomings, but this van possessed every capability of a mature, well-made product. One press of the accelerator and the distance between them and the cavalry opened up in an instant. In the blink of an eye they had left the riders far behind, and the gap only continued to grow.
"Wow — wow — wow — Master, this is unbelievably fast!"
"This is incredible — ah!"
That wild screaming could only be Jinyuan, of course.
The other women and Mingming also lost a little of their composure, though somewhat less dramatically than she had.
Only somewhat, it must be said.
"Master, this — this speed is extraordinary. So much faster than a horse. How long can this thing run? What does it eat?"
Zhao Baihui was quite satisfied with Jinyi's instincts and ability — she was sharper than the other girls. Jinyuan, for instance, was simply shrieking with excitement and demanding they go faster, then faster still. All play and no thought — still very much a child.
"Using the standard kilometers and hours we've promoted: a horse at normal gallop does about twenty kilometers per hour, and can cover two hundred kilometers in a day. At its fastest it might reach fifty or sixty, but it can't sustain that. In other words, a horse can make one round trip between Taoyuan Town or Qingjiang Prefecture in a day."
"This treasure of mine can do a hundred kilometers per hour — it won't go much faster than that — five times the speed of a horse. And while a horse can run for ten hours a day, this thing can run for twenty-four."
"Of course, it has its drawbacks too — poor roads slow it down considerably and wear out the vehicle."
Jinyi had stopped hearing the drawbacks entirely. She quietly did the arithmetic. "That means it could cover nearly five thousand li in a single day. Good heavens — if roads like ours were laid all the way to the capital, you could be there in just over a day."
"That's right, you've got it."
After the initial astonishment passed, Jinyi furrowed her brow and began rapidly calculating the implications.
Just taking the distance from here to the capital: cavalry riding hard would need over ten days; a carriage traveling by road would take one to two months. And now it might be possible to arrive in just over a day?
The change this represented was almost terrifying.
"We're here!"
"Here already?" Jinyi was still deep in thought and felt barely any time had passed. She looked up — and there was Taoyuan Town.
"Good heavens, that was impossibly fast!"
An old woman at the entrance to Taoyuan Town sat down hard on the ground. She had thought some enormous monster was bearing down on her, about to devour her whole — it was so massive, and moving so terribly fast. The fright had knocked her right off her feet.
That was, until someone stepped out of the great beast.
"Is that — is that Magistrate Jinyi?"
Jinyi cast a glance at her Master — look what he'd done, frightening the poor old woman like that. She hurried over to help her up. "Granny Wu, I'm so sorry we startled you. I'll have my Master apologize to you in person."
Granny Wu was tremendously moved. She hadn't expected Magistrate Jinyi — no, District Chief Jinyi — wait, that wasn't right either. Oh, never mind the title. The point was, a person of such standing had remembered her, an ordinary old woman. It was more than she could have hoped for. She'd have plenty to boast about to those gossipy women in the neighborhood for years to come.
"I'm terribly sorry, Granny Wu — I frightened you. I got carried away and forgot to slow down."
Good heavens — the Master is apologizing to me. I can't take it. I think I may faint from happiness.
Once Granny Wu had recovered herself, Zhao Baihui got back in the vehicle and brought Jinyi and the others to a restaurant he had always been fond of and had often visited in the old days.
The proprietor, seeing the Master had returned, was overcome with excitement — he immediately declared the meal on the house and cleared out the other customers. Everyone understood. For the Master's safety, they filed out without complaint, and some quietly left their payment on the table as they went.
The town elders, hearing the Master had come back, were equally overcome with emotion and crowded into the street, all hoping to catch even a distant glimpse of him. The constabulary turned out in full force to manage the crowd.
Finally, the town magistrate Lin Yunxuan arrived.
"Master."
"Yunxuan, come in, come in — have a seat and join us."
Jinyuan got to her feet. "Brother Yunxuan, let me get you a chair."
Lin Yunxuan swept his gaze around the table. It passed over Jinyi and paused for an almost imperceptible moment before moving on.
"I owe you an apology, Yunxuan. You had your wedding at the end of last year, and I was busy — I never made it over."
Everyone at the table winced inwardly. *Busy?* Could he at least commit to his excuses? This sort of thing made it awkward for everyone.
Lin Yunxuan smiled wryly as well. "Master, receiving your gift was already more than enough. It made quite a few people envious, I can tell you."
As he spoke, Lin Yunxuan glanced once more toward Jinyi.
Perhaps she would never know, not until the end of her days, that I once liked — was fond of — her.