He let out a soft "Eh?" as he immediately recognized that the horses making their way through the street below were not quite pure steeds. They were crossbreeds that had a mix of bo beast[1] blood. The giveaways were their oversized heads, sharp teeth, blue-red bodies, and crimson eyes.
These mounts were known as aberrant horses. Bred with bo beast bloodlines, they were fast as the wind, had remarkable stamina, and bore aggressive temperaments with a taste for flesh. On the battlefield, they were deadly assets.
You could line up twenty premium horses and still not find one that matched a single aberrant horse in overall combat value.
Of course, there were still upper, middle, and lower grades when it came to aberrant horses. He Lingchuan's own prized mount was an aberrant horse, a gift from a small kingdom to the west to the Grand Administrator of Qiansong Commandery. It was hand-picked for quality and was of outstanding stock, and it was more or less on par with the two below.
If the mounts are already so extraordinary, then what about their riders?
The two riders came one after the other. In front was a youth in white robes, around seventeen or eighteen years old, with fine eyebrows, bright eyes, and an unmistakable glint of sharpness in his gaze. Behind him rode a man in gray, wearing a conical hat that obscured his face from He Lingchuan's vantage point.
Suspended in the air ahead of the youth in white was a spirit pearl the size of a goose egg, spinning rapidly at a constant distance from him. As the horses galloped forward, the crowd in their path was forcefully pushed aside by an invisible aura, clearing a path for them to ride through.
The aura coming from the pearl was anything but gentle. Pedestrians were knocked sprawling in all directions. One particularly rotund fellow was sent flying into a nearby food stall, squashing the vendor's freshly steamed rice cakes into a pancake.
Naturally, the vendor was unhappy about the fact, and the two men immediately got into a shouting match.
This was a world of strange forces and unexplainable powers, so He Lingchuan was not particularly surprised by the display before him. He just gave a dry chuckle. "Riding horses at full gallop through such a bustling street, how domineering."
In major cities throughout Yuan, dismounting and leading one's horse through crowded areas was standard law. Though Heishui City did allow mounted travel, speed was strictly limited. Anyone galloping through the streets like this would be dragged down from their mount and given twenty lashes and fined five taels of silver on the spot, and harsher penalties would be meted out if anyone was injured.
The locals here were tough, and so were most of the people who passed through, so the punishments for breaking the laws had to be just as tough to keep them in line.
Liu Baobao, hearing this, snuck a glance at He Lingchuan. Isn't this exactly how you usually ride through the city, though?
The two riders were just about to pass below the restaurant. The street below formed a T-intersection, and as they turned onto a side road, the foot traffic noticeably thinned. The youth in white withdrew his spirit pearl. After all, keeping it active consumes energy.
Just then, a boy darted into the road. His rattle drum had been knocked from his hands by a passerby and flew—by sheer misfortune—right into the center of the street.
The boy immediately chased after his toy, and this led him straight into the path of the galloping aberrant horse.
His parents screamed from behind and rushed forward but were blocked by the crowd and could not reach him in time.
The rider showed no signs of slowing. At that speed, the massive hooves of the horse would trample the child violently.
He Lingchuan sighed inwardly. Again?! Why is there always a kid diving into the way of traffic, no matter what world I'm in?
Thankfully, he was no longer as he was previously. He did not need to act himself anymore.
"Uncle Hao." One hand propped under his chin, He Lingchuan casually pointed downward with the other.
Uncle Hao, who had been silently standing beside him like a shadow, now drew two copper coins from his sleeve and flicked them downward with a sharp motion.
The two copper coins struck the ground directly in front of the aberrant horse, spaced just over a meter apart. If the rider dared to charge ahead, the coins would likely strike the horse's legs or belly. The use of two coins was a deliberate precaution—if the rider tried to deflect one, the second would still find its mark. They would have to stop or face the consequences.
Uncle Hao's two copper coins were not something anyone could easily intercept. He Lingchuan had seen him use one to shoot clean through a bear's skull before. And the cranium of a full-grown bear was no joke. At the very least, it was certainly not any weaker than the bodies of the two aberrant horses currently below.
Sure enough, the youth in white quickly assessed the danger and yanked hard on the reins. The aberrant horse reared up with a shrill whinny, skidding to a halt just in time. Its hooves stopped less than two and a half meters from the boy.
1. There isn't really an exact depiction of a bo beast (驳兽), though they are basically chimeras. They are commonly depicted to have the body of a horse and then possess the traits of either dragons, lions, birds, a mix of those, or all of them at once. ☜