The pale-eyed ghost quickly glanced this way, met Zhao Douan's gaze, then whooshed her head back around, silently gazing at the wet embroidered tip of her shoe.
"Fine," Zhao Douan sighed. The old man was terribly crafty, utterly refusing to reveal the slightest bit, but there was nothing to be done.
He leaned on the railing, looking towards the port and the city ahead, saying,
"Hu Ting... I've heard in the capital about a place at the Linfeng and Huai River border. It was first built as a docking port during the excavation of the Grand Canal in the previous dynasty, and then gradually developed over time.
"To this day, it's still listed as a 'town' in the records of the six ministries. Yet its scale has long been greater than that of any county, simply because it stands alone, a single territory, with merchant ships passing through the canal, exchanging goods at this port. It can't become a county without enough villages and towns to be its subordinates.
