A Female Emperor.
Meet new people

Once he reached the top of the mountain today was near afternoon, the sun that was originally directly above the head was now gone and almost drowned in the western horizon. Li Ying now stopped his horse for a moment, staring at the scenery behind the beautiful looking mountain.

Lucky behind there is not a dry and barren desert, although in front there is still a forest filled with trees. But not far from him Li Ying can now see a village and a stretch of rice fields owned by residents. The village was not too big, but not too small. There are a lot of houses that look lined up from up here. If he were to descend from the mountain now, perhaps he would reach the village at night.

“We are lucky, in front there is a village. I'll find a place to spend the night, then buy some food as stock!” Li Ying said.

After that, he immediately directed his horse to get closer to the village. Down the mountain, walk a few kilos to the front through the forest, then cross the rice fields before finally reaching the village. And sure enough, by the time Li Ying reached the village it was already late at night. Many doors were closed, the streets were deserted. Even if someone passes by, it may be one or two people. You could say it's late at night, everyone must have gone to sleep.

But even so, it seems that there are some buildings that still look bright. It must be a restaurant or something. It looks like this is a market, although some places are closed, others are still open. One of them was the restaurant that was beside the road, it was right where Li Ying was going through.

The two-story dining house looks so bright, it still looks very crowded even though it's late at night. Around him there were many people passing by, coming in and out of the building.

Seeing this, Li Ying walked closer, since entering the village he had already come down from the horse and walked on foot. The little girl told her horse to stay by the side of the building, gave her some fruit to eat and stroked her head before entering the restaurant.

“Ah, great cooking aroma!” Li Ying muttered to himself, touching his suddenly hungry stomach after inhaling the delicious aroma of the dishes he served.

Most of the visitors are men. There are some women, but it seems they came here with a partner. The moment Li Ying walked inside no one noticed it. His body was so short and small, whereas the people here on average had a tall and somewhat thin body.

When the girl passed the tables to find an empty place, she occasionally glanced at some visitors and listened to their conversation. Most of them were just having a casual chat and occasionally threw a joke sentence, it was indeed a common thing. But what concerns Li Ying is their speech dialect, the language is still the same but the tone and manner of pronunciation are different.

“It looks like I have really gone very far!” He muttered to himself.

The little girl continued to look around, looking for an empty place to sit but never found it. As a result he chose to go upstairs, it seemed like the lower floor was full.

With his little legs the girl climbed the stairs one by one, and when he was on the floor he was on the road apparently there was also crowded. But lucky Li Ying saw that in the corner there was an empty table. It was actually right on the corner side of the room, one table with four chairs on each side of its desk.

Li Ying decided to sit down on one of the chairs at the table, leaning on his tired self after a full day of horse riding. “Hah! It's bad for my backbone.” He murmured, while patting his back that felt sore.

The little girl kept quiet there for a few minutes, waiting for a waiter to come over to record her order. Several times there were adults who glanced at him, looked at him for a while with a strange gaze—maybe they were wondering, why is there a little child sitting alone here? Especially now it's late at night.

They seemed to be looking for an empty place just like him. At first Li Ying was completely indifferent to them, thinking of them like an insignificant past wind. However, he overheard their conversation, and Li Ying began to be interested in quietly listening.

“Whose horse is that? I'm sure it's a very nice horse!” Say one of them.

The man walking beside her replied. “You mean the horse next to the building? Well, the horse does look really good!” He said, agreeing with the opinion.

“You think so too? Then the horse is really good!” He again praised the horse he had seen just a moment ago.

“Master, so are you going to take it?” Ask the person next to him.

And the man answered. “If I meet the owner, I will buy it. Sure at a good price, but I guess the person who owns the horse will find it hard to give it to me!” The answer.

Hearing that, Li Ying frowned. They seemed to be talking about his horse, the horse parked next to the building. Unexpectedly, the two men were apparently walking towards him. Noticing that, Li Ying immediately turned his eyes, looked at the empty wall and pretended not to see them.

“We are sitting here only, it looks like this place is empty!” Said the man who continuously praised his horse earlier. While the person beside him only nodded briefly.

They were sitting at the same table as Li Ying, the little girl just kept quiet as if she didn't care. While the two people are still talking, discussing other things without realizing its existence.

“So after the affair here is finished, maybe tomorrow afternoon we can..” He stopped his chatter, hanging his words in the middle of the road.

While being engrossed in chatting, accidentally his gaze was fixed on a tiny face that was now staring at him. In his heart he wondered what it was? It was a little boy, sitting opposite to himself. Seeing his comrade silent, the person who was chatting with him immediately turned his head and looked towards Li Ying.

He slightly leaned his body to the side, looking slightly down so that he could see the tiny figure more clearly.

“Whose son is this? Since when did he sit there?” The man sitting opposite Li Ying asked, slightly surprised by the sudden presence of another figure.