The woman and her companions tensed, ready for action.

Gao Laba was digging at a chunk of yellow clay by the roadside, intending to take it home for pottery. Being the closest to the woman’s group, he raised his head and smiled at her. “Selling smuggled salt? You’ve come to the wrong place. Buying salt here would make more sense.”

The woman looked ready to draw her blade at any moment. “What do you mean?”

Gao Laba hurriedly waved his hands. “Ah! Brave woman, don’t be angry! I’m not mocking you. It’s just… our Gaojia Village never lacks salt. We even have surplus. You truly have come to the wrong place to sell salt.”

The woman: “…”

Having traveled with her salt-smuggling father across the realm since childhood, and later taking over the salt gang after his death, she had never encountered a single small village that didn’t suffer a salt shortage. Villages where people couldn’t afford salt? Absolutely. But villages that didn’t lack salt? That sounded ridiculous.

Narrowing her eyes, the woman scrutinized the village before her with new suspicion.

Just then, the gates of Gaojia Fortress creaked open. The Old Village Chief emerged cheerfully, a small, earth-brown sphere clutched in his hand. He shuffled slowly towards the woman. “Brave woman, selling smuggled salt, are you?”

The woman nodded. “Folks on the rivers and lakes call me Xing Honglang. Salt trader. What wisdom do you share, Elder?”

The Old Village Chief extended his hand, offering the brown ball to Xing Honglang. “Brave woman, try this. A tasty little thing.”

Xing Honglang glanced skeptically at the strange brown sphere, unsure if it was food. Years of traveling the treacherous path demanded caution. Taking uncalled-for food from a stranger was outright foolish.

Seeing her hesitation, the Old Village Chief guessed her thoughts. He turned and offered it to the man behind her instead. “Try it, warrior. I’ll stay right here. If your belly troubles you after eating it, feel free to cut me down with your blade.”

The man looked towards Xing Honglang. She nodded slightly. He accepted the brown sphere, sniffed it cautiously, then gave it the tiniest lick…

That mere lick was enough. His expression transformed instantly, as if experiencing something extraordinary. “Leader!” he gasped, “this thing… it’s delicious… so good! Never tasted anything this wonderful before!”

Xing Honglang: “？？？”

The man pinched off the part he had licked and threw it away, handing the untouched remaining chunk to Xing Honglang. She pinched off minuscule piece with her fingers and tossed it into her mouth. Then, her expression also shifted into one of astonished delight.

The Old Village Chief chuckled. “This is called chocolate. A celestial treasure! What say you? I’ll sell it to you cheap. Buy some here, take it elsewhere—I guarantee you’ll profit more than from selling salt.”

Li Daoxuan, it seemed, had rewarded the old man generously with chocolate. He hadn’t even finished one piece when he sold another bamboo chair and received another reward. Now, he had accumulated so much chocolate at home he could afford to trade some for silver.

Xing Honglang: “How much per catty (斤)?”

Old Village Chief: “Five qian (钱) of silver.”

Xing Honglang: “Bulk discount?”

The Old Village Chief chuckled again. “More than ten catty? I’ll give you a ten percent discount.”

“Deal!” Xing Honglang made a sweeping hand gesture. “I want one hundred catties. You give me thirty percent off.”

The Old Village Chief beamed with joy. “Agreed! Please wait here valiant warriors; I’ll fetch your hundred catties straight away.”

He spun around and hurried back towards the village, his steps light and nimble, his body swaying left and right. He practically danced with the unbridled joy of making money. Chocolate was sweet, but a gray-haired man still needed silver for his eventual coffin expenses.

Li Daoxuan watched the old man’s decidedly “undignified-for-his-age” display and couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly.

However, the Old Village Chief’s impromptu market transaction proved instructive for the other villagers.

One villager swiftly dashed back to his house, returning moments later with a small jar. He addressed Xing Honglang: “Brave woman, here I have a jar of fine sugar. Care to take a look? Guaranteed cheaper than any other source.”

Xing Honglang: “？？？”

The villager opened the jar. Xing Honglang peered inside. Holy heavens. Crystals, shimmering bright, snow-white, utterly translucent sugar. The quality was nothing short of top-grade.

Xing Honglang couldn’t help asking: “And this… how do you price it?”

Villager: “I’ll give it to you at 20% off the market price of ordinary quality sugar.”

Xing Honglang heard this: this was top-quality sugar, actually being sold to her at 20% off ordinary sugar prices. If she took it to the big city and sold it at top-quality prices, wouldn’t she make a huge profit? The profit margin was at least doubled.

“I’ll take this whole jar you have. Do you have more?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Another villager ran over: “My family also has extra sugar, I’ll go bring you a jar too.”

“I have some too.”

“And me too!”

Several villagers ran back to their houses. After a short while, they brought several more jars over.

Xing Honglang had just paid for this batch of sugar, then the Village Chief brought out a large piece of chocolate he had cut, so Xing Honglang paid for the chocolate too…

Barely finishing the busyness, she looked up and saw a man handing over a small jar. He smiled and said: “Brave woman, want some wine? This wine is called Wuliangye, top-quality celestial wine, one sip can make one fly up to heaven.”

Xing Honglang was very surprised: “What kind of times are these? You all actually still have wine?”

The villagers grinned: “Bestowed by the Deity.”

Xing Honglang didn’t know what the Deity was, but she was a bit interested in wine. She poured out a tiny amount and smelled the aroma, which startled her. She tasted a little—52 degrees! It instantly made her whole body dizzy for two seconds.

“Great! Amazing wine,” Xing Honglang said excitedly. “How do you sell this wine?”

Suddenly, her subordinate behind her whispered: “Boss, boss, our silver is all used up.”

“What?” Xing Honglang was shocked. “Used up? How could it be used up? I brought so much silver with me.”

The subordinate whispered back: “Our silver was recently used to buy a batch of salt. The salt isn’t all sold yet, but here you bought a bunch of goods aggressively, so naturally…”

Xing Honglang: …

She suddenly felt something was off: hey, she was clearly out to make money; earlier, when she saw this village, she was planning to sell villagers a batch of salt to earn a big profit. How had she ended up spending all her own money?

Where exactly had this gone wrong?

Hey, hey, is there some mistake here?

She was completely flustered!

Just then, Solar Vehicle No. 2 returned from outside the village—it was Gao Chuwu, Zheng Daniu, and those two young people learning to drive.

Two teaching, two learning, they had taken a big loop outside.

Returning to the village entrance, they saw a group of outsiders surrounded by villagers, a lively scene.

Gao Chuwu foolishly went over to watch the commotion. As soon as he entered the crowd, he spotted Xing Honglang at first sight: “Eh? That woman is really beautiful.”

The nearby villagers were all astonished: she looked like a man; this brave woman, where exactly was she beautiful?…

Xing Honglang is a historical figure. In Year Four of Chongzhen, Zijin Liang united Shanxi gang leaders to form the Thirty-Six Camps, and Xing Honglang was among them. Yet, historical records did not record its gender; the eunuch set her as a woman for the novel’s amusement.