(1)
The long night was about to pass in the blink of an eye. After the first rooster crow in the morning, the Lou family's caravan, which had started preparing their luggage and stocking up on food and water a few days ago, gathered in front of the Lou Mansion.
The horse fluttered its furry tail and made some rustling noises. Its long nose took in deep air from time to time, and then made a louder blowing sound, as if it knew it was about to embark on an expedition and was gearing up like the other boys.
As for the newly recruited long-term and short-term workers, some have worked in similar professions before, while others are refugees or even bandits, but they have never killed anyone and do not dare to kill anyone.
They led the horses and luggage and looked eagerly at the entrance of Lou Mansion. I saw several young ladies coming out one after another and getting on the horse and carriage. In the end, only Lou Jinghua was left reluctant to say goodbye to her father.
Lou Yixian still seems to be completely unaware, maybe he still thinks that his daughter is really going here to get married, and will bring back a lot of gold and silver treasures, and maybe a fat grandson, and the grudge between him and the Zhao family will disappear. .
Faced with Lou Jinghua's strange behavior, Lou Yixian only thought that the other party was just recovering from an illness, so he was a little frail and would shed tears easily, so he exchanged casual greetings for a few times and wanted to signal Lou Jinghua to get on the road quickly and leave early. Return early.
Who could have imagined that this farewell would be the last time the Lou family's daughter fulfilled her daughter's duty?
Lou Jinghua always had this premonition in her heart: her father would leave her at any time, just like her mother passed away. At that time, whether it is food, clothing, housing, transportation, or the affairs in the mansion, you will have to take care of it yourself. Therefore, it seems that she is destined to be stronger and more courageous than she imagined. Only by trying her best and accepting it all with dignity can she be worthy of her once glorious family background.
After about ten days of running around and preparing, Zhao Kuo and the Lou family's father and daughter finally formed a decent team, which was enough to guarantee their travel requirements.
The size of the caravan is small, with only thirty people, most of whom are from Qunma Town; fifteen horses, most of which are ponies suitable for trekking through mountains and rivers, and transporting goods; there are also five longbows and several arrows. Everyone carries a sword to guard against dangers they may encounter on the road.
Among them, there were four horses each pulling two carriages. One carriage carried Bai Feng, Murong Yan, Zhao Xiaomei and Ajuan, and the other carriage was bought by Lou Jinghua for herself.
Obviously, the daughter of the Lou family does not want to be condescending. After all, in the eyes of other uninformed people, she is still here to get married. Even if it is difficult to achieve it in the end, she is never willing to lose her dignity in front of everyone. Losing prestige and losing face.
For this reason, Lou Jinghua deliberately kept a distance from everyone along the way. Except when facing Zhao Kuo, she would be as polite as ever. She would avoid contact with other people most of the time. Even if there was an emergency, she would only invite herself. He brought his personal maid to deliver messages and run errands.
Caravans often encounter times when it is difficult to move. For example, the soil in some areas is soft and has been washed away by mud and rocks, making it difficult for carriages and horses to move.
Zhao Kuo, who was really leading the entire caravan, would stand up at this time and show his extraordinary leadership wisdom - he would direct people to help behind the carriage and spread hay and wooden boards on the ground to help the caravan survive. It's been a rough ride.
Sometimes Zhao Kuo would take the lead and fight with his servants. Such scenes were incredible to many people.
Due to the peculiar terrain of Qunma Mountain, every time they walked along a rugged road, they would encounter a vast grassland, where people could often see many horses of all kinds galloping and eating grass. Then after turning over the grassland in front of you, you will see another higher hillside, which is another fertile land.
They passed several horse farms, among which the Lou family's horse farm was supposed to be the largest, but now it has been divided up by several other major horse dealers. The remaining part could not raise many horses, so it was used as pasture by Lou Yixian. Rented out. Today's Lou family caravan is stepping on the land that once belonged to them.
Although not everyone in the caravan had any deep feelings for this land, as long as they heard about the deeds there, they all felt sorry and lamented, and felt sad for Miss Lou in the carriage.
Maybe it's because he's not used to being with those poor and worldly servants. During their breaks, they often get together to drink, gamble, and play games of dice and pairs. The daughter of the Lou family hid far away, drinking and watching tea by herself. She was really angry and had nothing to do, so she borrowed some books from her younger sister to read.
The one who surprised Lou Jinghua the most must be the little girl from the Zhao family. In my previous impression, my little sister was always timid and could not even hold her tongue straight when meeting strangers. But now, she is more playful than anyone else, although she is still very shy.
She thought she could walk safely to Beizhen with such a noble gesture, but what the Lou family's daughter never expected was that she couldn't even survive the first night.
She cried, wishing she could cover herself in the quilt. She couldn't hold back her tears at the thought of her father becoming seriously ill and passing away if things didn't work out. In the end, she chose to find her only support now.
Lou Jinghua took advantage of the darkness and quietly touched outside the tent where Zhao Kuo lived, and then called him out.
The two old acquaintances have always gotten along very naturally, but they have never been so different as tonight.
"Master Zhao, if I die now, no one will feel sorry for me..."
After saying that, Zhao Kuo frowned and stared at the other party, unable to say a word for a long time.
"What should I do if I abandon my father and cannot bring back good news..." After a while, Lou Jinghua couldn't help but shed tears. She sobbed sadly, and even couldn't stand and fell on the lawn. I couldn't stop crying anymore, crying like a child hurt by a fall.
"Hahaha." Zhao Kuo said with a sudden smile, then he went over and helped her to the side, found a higher vantage point to sit down, and said: "Don't worry, you will never betray Uncle Lou. Also, if you If I die, I will feel guilty for the rest of my life!"
Then, Zhao Kuo pointed to the starry moon above his head, counted the days, and began to murmur about the stories that had happened in the past two months. Those were the two months when he had the most adventures in his life. , and all of this is due to the young swordsman named Bai Feng and the mysterious Xianbei witch.
From that night on, Zhao Kuo would come out to Lou Jinghua for heart-to-heart talks almost every night, which greatly improved her extremely pessimistic mood. She also began to learn to let go of herself, to contact and discover people who seemed humble and humble, but were actually extremely interesting.
