Novoland: Eagle Flag Chapter 2: Eastern land secret envoy three
The setting sun was blood red, hanging in the western sky, and pillars of cooking smoke rose in front of the tents in the northern capital city, and drifted to the sky before dissipating leisurely.
Amochi shook off the blood on his hands, wiped the sweat on his face with his sleeve, and followed the female slaves in Mrs. Ying's tent to peel the marmots all afternoon. Blown dry in the wind, each one was stuffed like a little fat bear. The red and white marmot meat in the copper basin was cut and marinated one by one, and there would be a good meal at night.
Although it is summer, it is not the fattest autumn for marmots, but this is the fattest thing on the grassland, even venison and mutton are incomparable. When roasted, it has a delicate and fatty fragrance, and it is full of oil when you bite it. The eldest prince's cavalry team surrounded a dirt hill full of marmot holes outside, collected more than a hundred marmots, and sent his companion, Ban Zhalie, to deliver fifty to Mrs. Ying at once. Mrs. Ying's husband, General Muli, is a big shot in the eldest son's shack, everyone knows this.
The old man and Mrs. Ying took care of the fainted son, and Amochi was fine, so he helped the female slaves to peel the otter together. His family ancestors were hunters, and his father still often goes out hunting with a bow and a lasso. When he is lucky, he can bring back a good gazelle with long legs and a fat marmot that is more than a foot long, and his father is happy. He hummed a song and took Amochi to peel and cut the flesh together. That was the happiest time for Amochi, smelling the smell of sheep dung burning in the fire, his whole body was warm.
Amochi's family is not a big noble, and a big noble will not send their children to study astrology. Although Dahesa is a noble figure that ordinary people dare not look up at, but I don’t know how many children who study astrology will have the identity of inheriting Dahesa, and Dahesa who has mastered the will of the pantar **** is not a person after all. God, I don’t know how many generations of Dahesa were burned alive in the war. If you choose the wrong master, Hesa is a witch. His father sent Amochi to study astrology in the Dahesa tent, and when he left he patted his son's head vigorously. To this day, Amochi still thinks about his father's silence at that time, with some vague meanings as if he understood I can't say it again.
"Xiao Hesa is really good at peeling otters." The old female slave came over and handed over a piece of cotton cloth.
Amochi took it and wiped his hands, grinning. He often came to Mrs. Ying's tent, and the female slaves knew him very well, knowing that this young nobleman had no airs, and they all liked to talk to him.
Of course the female slaves didn't have the guts to call him Spectacle Dragon, they all called him Little Hesa. Although Dahesa has never said who will inherit his position, it is well known that the old man likes to bring Amochi with him. But Amochi knew that his arithmetic was not good. He was just working hard, but sometimes he couldn't keep up with the old man's lectures. Sarah was killed.
"How to make the meat?" Amochi handed back the cotton cloth.
"Most of it is reserved for salty dried meat, the remaining half is roasted, and the other half is made of finger meat. My wife said that I will leave Dahesa to eat in the tent tonight before going back."
Amochi slapped his hands and laughed. The hand meat in Mrs. Ying’s tent is the most delicious. Both the old man and him like it. Grab the meat and eat it. As the setting sun fell, the summer grassland was covered with a layer of gloomy crimson. The female slaves gathered together in threes and fives, humming a song that Amochi could not understand in a low voice, and some of them were singing to the otters. Oil the skin, some are beating the meat, and some are holding a blower to ignite sheep dung eggs. There was a kind of lazy and rich joy in his heart, Amo Chi stretched his waist, and looked around.
His heart sank suddenly, and he stared blankly at the east. At sunset, the Red Cloud Mountain stretches across the entire east. It is like a natural barrier separating the barbarians from the feathered city-state of the ancient forest of Ningzhou. A layer of pale gold is bordered on the boundary between the mountain and the sky, which is dazzlingly bright. . But the setting sun couldn't suppress the light of those stars, seven iron-blue stars rose from under the red cloud mountain, their light was cold and cold, like newly sharpened iron swords.
As Amochi himself calculated, the Beichen star cluster really rose from the Tongyun Mountain.
"Pojun, Wuqu, Lianzhen, Wenqu, Lucun, Jumen, Tanlang..." Amochi counted the stars in the cluster one by one.
This is a rare astrology. In this season, Beichen usually sinks under the red clouds and mountains. These seven stars are not one of the twelve main stars on the sky, but in the star charts over the years, their brilliance once shone across the The night sky slowly moves across the sky from the east to the west, and each such movement may last for decades. And what accompanied Beichen was mostly the rising smoke.
Beichen is the star of the **** of war.
"Little Hesa." The old female slave asked carefully.
Amo Chi came back to his senses: "Yeah."
The old female slave looked around, looking a little secretive, but Amochi noticed that the busy female slaves around her suddenly paused and turned their heads to this side.
"Does little Hesa know about the Shizi?" The old female slave lowered her voice.
"What about the prince?"
The old female slave was a little hesitant, and her lips moved for a long time: "I just listened to other people's nonsense, saying that the son is an ominous person."
"Ominous?"
"Little Hesa, we don't understand the will of the gods, but you do. Do people really have fate?"
Amochi pondered for a while: "Star fate is the most complicated thing in astrology. I haven't learned it that deeply. But Dahesa said that to calculate the fate of a person, it is necessary to calculate the trajectories of dozens and hundreds of stars. Even so, the calculation is often inaccurate. It is impossible to infer a person's fate based on a single star..."
"But they said..."
The expression of the old slave girl suddenly changed, she stuffed the cloth towel back into her apron, lowered her head and picked up the copper basin containing the otter meat to wash. Amochi looked up and saw Da Hesa with his hands in his sleeves, walking out of the tent with Mrs. Ying. That tent is for the son, and Amochi heard that the son will not live in the tent of the Zianyan family, but live with the mother.
"Dahesa, let's eat something first." Mrs. Ying's expression was a little melancholy, "The son will wake up."
"Yeah." The old man clasped his arms tightly, bowed his head and nodded.
He has always looked like this, no different from an old herdsman herding sheep, not at all respectable. But Amochi felt that he had something on his mind, his eyes were lowered and he was absent-minded.
"Amochi, I'm eating my wife's hand meat." The old man came over and patted Amochi on the shoulder.
Amo replied, and the moment he turned around, he saw the busy female slaves turning their heads to look at the backs of the three of them in unison. He froze for a moment, feeling that those eyes were so strange, they were not like the simple and kind women he knew at all. The old man noticed his distraction, and as he turned his head to look, the female slaves lowered their heads and went back to work together, as if nothing had happened.
Amochi suddenly felt heavy in his heart.
The fragrant otter meat was served in a small copper basin, and the spicy aroma could be smelled from afar.
Amochi rubbed his palms together, his stomach growled, and the old man slapped him on the head lightly: "You little brat who died of starvation, seeing that the food is like this, how do you do it in the future?"
Amochi no longer has the energy to take care of these things. Mrs. Ying's hand-grabbed otter meat is placed on the black millet rice, red and white, pepper and large salt particles are finely smeared, and fragrant wild vegetables are sprinkled on top. A layer of bark otter oil is covered on the black millet rice, which has the oily aroma of bacon, without any smell of mutton. He grabbed a handful and stuffed it into his mouth, almost biting his fingers.
The old man looked at him with a crooked smile, but he didn't eat any meat. He didn't know when he filled up the cupronickel wine jar again, just staring at the fire in the copper stove for warmth. General Muli didn't go back to his tent for dinner, only Mrs. Ying was by his side sewing a lambskin box to accompany him.
A Mochi ate a few mouthfuls, licked the oil on his hands, looked at Mrs. Ying, and then at the old man.
"Mu Li doesn't want the crown prince to live here." Mrs. Ying wiped the needles with the oil on her hair, and continued sewing with her head down.
"Because of that nonsense?" the old man asked sullenly.
"Yeah."
With a "bang", the old man slammed the wine jar heavily on the small table, "What is the wooden plow itself? Wasn't it just a slave boy back then? Thousands of people trampled on it, tens of thousands trampled on it, and you can't stand up for a lifetime of herding sheep! You can't even touch a horse hair, and you still go to battle? Now that you are a nobleman, you have led the army, and you have this air!"
Muli is the barbarian name of General Liu Hai, who was a sheep-herding slave of the Chao family, a great nobleman. Maharaja Lu Song married the daughter of the Chao family, promoted a wooden plow from the slaves, gave Dong Lu the surname, named him Liu Hai, and now commands the entire barracks of six or seven thousand cavalry. Amochi knew that the old man was very familiar with the wooden plow, but he had never heard him talk about these old things.
Mrs. Ying sighed lowly, but she just sewed without looking up. "I was the one who gave birth to the son, and I can't bear him. The Majesty wanted me to be the mother of the son, and Mu Li didn't dare to really say anything. But even he thought so, and coupled with the discussion below, he always treats the son. Not good."
"What son? He's still a child! Is it the idea of those people in the eldest son's shack for Mu Li to move his mind?"
"The eldest prince really doesn't care about this. No one expects the eldest son to inherit the position of the majesty. If the eldest prince wants to fight, he is also fighting with the third prince. Mu Li is not like this for the sake of the eldest prince."
"Elder Prince! Third Prince!" The old man snorted fiercely, turned his head away and remained silent.
The curtain of the tent was pulled open abruptly, and the slave came in and knelt down: "Dahesa, madam, the prince has woken up!"
The old man jumped up suddenly, as if his body was on fire. Mrs. Ying also hurriedly followed out, and Amochi grabbed a piece of otter meat affectionately, and caught up with the two of them.
An oil lamp was lit in Shizi's tent, under the lamp, sitting in front of the window was a doctor from Dong Lu in a toga, pinching Shizi's wrist to feel his pulse. Seeing three people coming in, he hurriedly reached out to stop them. Dahesa and Mrs. Ying did not dare to make a sound, and stood quietly at the entrance of the tent, watching the doctor take the pulse lightly and covered the prince with a leather mattress. He held up the lamp and motioned for the three of them to go out with him. The old man clearly wanted to go and have a look, but was stopped by the doctor with his eyes. A Mochi knew the identity of that doctor, he was a famous doctor in East Lu, named Lu Ziyu, originally he just traveled to pick herbs, but the majesty offered gold, silver and furs, so he insisted on keeping him.
Amochi glanced at it from afar, and Shizi was lying there quietly, staring at the top of the tent with clear eyes. He tilted his head as they entered, but was silent.
The moment he was about to close the curtain of the tent, he suddenly heard a low voice: "Hesa..."
The old man got excited, snatched the oil lamp from the doctor's hand and ran over, staring at Shizi with his eyes, which surprised Amochi too.
"Hesa...Suma..."
"Suma is fine, Suma is fine." The old man shook his hand, "You will see her tomorrow."
The child nodded, closed his eyes feebly, and quietly stopped breathing.
"Asule! Asule!" The old man froze for a moment, then shouted out of control.
Lu Ziyu went up to explore, and pulled the old man's skirt forcefully, dragging him up. This doctor is also notoriously irritable. When he sees a doctor, nobles and maharajas have to wait outside the tent, without exception.
"I just fell asleep!" Lu Ziyu lowered his voice, "I just woke up because I was restless."
Amochi stood outside the tent, the moonlight came in, he turned his head to look at the handsome face of the child in his sleep, thought of the babbling dumb girl, and thought that the child was only thinking about the little dumb girl. Waking up in weakness.
Madam Ying lowered the curtain of the tent to block his view.
"What are you doing here?" The old man's voice recalled Amochi's thoughts.
In a blink of an eye, he saw a few female slaves sticking to the side of the tent and eavesdropping. They scattered like a herd of frightened deer and fled far away into the darkness. Amochi lit the fire and saw the old face of the old female slave looking back in the evening, with some mysterious expression.
"Mr. Lu, how is your son?" Mrs. Ying asked.
"It's nothing serious, I was too tired along the way. And according to the doctor accompanying the Nine Kings, the prince was rescued from the rebellious army, and he seemed to have been greatly frightened. He ate very little and slept very little these days. Fewer, and often wake up at night for no reason. With his body, of course he can't bear it. Now that he is sick, he can settle down, which is a good thing for him."
"Then the son's old illness..."
"My teacher is not sure about the disease of the heart, and I can't do anything about it. The ancient scrolls say that there is a heart-replenishing technique in the world, which can open the chest and repair the heart. Eight years ago, my teacher returned after seeing the doctor. Dong Lu, has been studying the knowledge of the heart and blood vessels, and even when he died, he still couldn't forget, saying that the art of replenishing the heart may not be able to reproduce in the world." Lu Ziyu sighed, "Manpower is sometimes poor, my qualifications are not as good as the teacher, It's useless to say more."
He bowed slightly and saluted without saying goodbye, and just left with the medicine bag, with regret in his indifferent expression.
The old man and Mrs. Ying looked at his back and were silent for a while.
"I want to borrow my wife's tent tonight, and see how the prince is doing tomorrow morning." The old man said.
"Hesa is going to live, I will let the slaves clean a big tent."
"Don't bother, give me a jar of good spirits." The old man rubbed his belly, "There is also finger meat rice, I'm hungry too."
In the dead of night, Mrs. Ying took her leave and went back to sleep. Only Amochi and Dahesa were left in the tent.
The old man sat cross-legged on the ground, grabbing the otter meat and sipping wine, I don’t know how long he ate like this, humming and singing the tune that the herdsmen often sing on the grassland, it seemed faint drunk. Amochi couldn't sleep, he just leaned against the mouth of the tent and thought about his thoughts, thinking about the prince with clear eyes, thinking about the dumb girl, thinking about the rising of Beichen, and thinking about the vermilion lacquer box that Maharaja took over from the hands of the Nine Kings. Thinking about it, he set up calculation chips on the ground and began to calculate Beichen's trajectory, but the calculations became more and more chaotic, as if something was always missing, and the calculations were not neat.
He messed up his calculations in frustration, and opened the curtain of the tent to get some air. Suddenly, I heard a low voice coming from the wind, and I heard faintly that it seemed to be talking about the prince, and I seemed to hear the word "Gu Xuan". There was a "thud" in his heart, for the fortune tellers of Xingchen, the word "Gu Xuan" is really a taboo word. He peeked over to see Mrs. Ying's female slaves, who seemed to be getting up for the last time at night. They walked with oil lamps in their hands, and glanced at Shizi's tent. The light from the oil lamps made their shadows delicate. Long and erratic, like a ghost traveling in the dark night.
A cold air passed over his back for no reason, and just as he was about to put down the curtain of the tent, the old man who had almost fallen asleep suddenly jumped up. The old man who was staggering just now was now as fierce as a leopard that wanted to eat people. He walked around the tent, picked up the thickest horse stick, kicked open the curtain and strode out. Amochi wanted to hold him back, but he led him into a somersault.
"Hesa, don't!" Amochi chased him out.
He was stunned for a moment, and saw the old man standing next to his white horse with the posture of charging into battle, holding the horse stick. He was wearing a linen robe with his **** open, and the gunshots shone on him, giving him a misty look. layer of red light. He shook twice, hiccupped and breathed out a mouthful of alcohol, then suddenly picked up the iron stirrup on the saddle, and struck vigorously with the horse stick. The metal tremor was extremely harsh in the dim night, as if it would split the parietal bone of a person. The sheep that had already fallen asleep were startled, and the neighing of the horse came from behind. The female slaves were even more frightened, and they knelt down tremblingly, not even daring to go forward, and retreated in panic.
Before the people in the tent came out, the old man threw away the stick, turned around and returned to the tent. Amochi followed and got in, only to see the old man sitting on the bed, slowly wiping the scythe, lighting a pot of cigarettes in the smoke pot with a green jade mouth, and taking a long puff. Smoke billowed up and surrounded him. A Mochi didn't dare to move, the old man was rarely so serious, he looked down at the flickering red light on the smoke pot, and remained silent for a long time.
"Come on!" The old man patted the bed beside him, and let Amochi sit down beside him.
He was silent for a long time, smoking a cigarette.
"Amochi, you are my student, the future of the barbarians may be related to you, so there are some things, the teacher will always tell you." He scratched his bald head, "Just how to say... ..."
"Let's start from the beginning... Let's start with the history of our barbarians." The old man got up and threw a few pieces of dry wood into the bonfire, faint sparks rose up, and the fire shone on his thin face, "Maybe you listen People sing the stories of King Xun and King Chindahan on their horsehair harps, thinking that it is the history of our barbarians. But how many heroes like King Xun and King Chindahan have there been in the barbarians for thousands of years? Really History is under every grass in Hanzhou Grassland.”