Chapter 39 - Not a surprise

 

Feng Long and Yu Lexuan go to Zhang Yi, who is grinding the flowers he harvested before. He bows to Feng Long as he enters:

-His majesty is wise!

-You may rise, please... We received letters from Huangshan, one of them was addressed to you. On the other, Ding Qi has thanked us for sending the raw materials for the tests.

Feng Long hands over the letters to Zhang Yi, who reads them:

-This is expected, Huangshan is crossed by an important shipping route between Anhui and other empires. And they barely tested people living nearby the palace. Our empire is close to the sea, but we do not have large cities, our terrain is tough to cross, and no shipping route passes through us. Huangshan, and not only it, must receive loads of people from Hefei. It was not an accident that the only two positives we found in the empire were people living close to Huangshan. I also noticed that Zhang Xiaofan wrote down the formulae he's using, it seems to me that exchanging letters will be a smart move and reduce the edge the disease has now. 

Feng Long smiles:

-That's exactly what I thought. We must keep this channel open with them, and even to other empires. 

-Your majesty, what do you think about sending someone to Jiangsu? It's been a long time since we last sent an envoy there, and as much as I can remember, their emperor is likely to help us. - Yu Lexuan smiles.

-I thought about going there myself. I feel that they might not be aware as well of the current situation.

-I will not accept Your Majesty risking your own life, just send a letter! - Yu Lexuan intervenes.

-Well, maybe I should do my part on this fight. Zhong Kunyi may help me during this time since you and Zhong Yi have already traveled to Huangshan, and Xia Chunyu is an old friend, I'd like to see him once again.

-Well, if Your Majesty wants to do it, I will not disagree. 

-This is not going to be that dangerous. I only need to cover 120 li by horse, the remaining part, 500 li, will be done entirely by boat, departing from our city. It should only take a day to get there, as we can sail continuously and the currents are strong downstream now. This time, maybe I can invite Zhong Kunyi and hold some talks on a new economic agreement.

-Your Majesty is wise! - Zhang Yi and Yu Lexuan bow to him.

-You can rise. I'll pack some belongings and make this trip. But first, we should reply to Ding Qi's letter. 

Zhang Yi and Feng Long write together a letter to be sent back to Ding Qi. As they finish, Feng long puts it inside the small container in the back of the pigeon and allows it to return to Huangshan.

Feng Long and Yu Lexuan return to the palace. Yu Lexuan is visibly tense, as Feng Long will take part in a relatively long trip, even though most of it will be done by boat and within Zhejiang, and considering that Zhong Kunyi will accompany him, the risk of something going wrong is very low. 

 

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