A fox and a fox swam past in a sneaky way.
The ripples on the river were shattered, reflecting the rows of torches on the dark deck, like floating gold.
The officers and soldiers patrolling the edge of the deck dragged their feet sparsely and made a thumping sound on the deck.
Their eyes were sleepy, their steps were staggering, and they looked like they were about to drop the torches in their hands.
The general was scolding: "Are you trying to keep your spirits up? We are almost to Yongcheng, and we are still sleeping, one by one."
The general grabbed another handful of reeds and slapped them on the faces of the officers and soldiers one by one.
The strange thing is that the officers and soldiers seemed to be tickled and remained fearless. After being scolded, he just wiped his face and continued to desecrate his duties.
This kind of laziness is almost impossible in the Qin Dynasty, which has strict laws and regulations.
Great Qin's harshness was almost cruel. Even if he forged a shoddy arrowhead, the master blacksmith would still risk being beheaded.
But under the control here, another kind of rules gradually emerged.
The officers and soldiers had long swords on their waists and continued to wander with floating steps.
So when Baitao dragged the chubby Zheng Guo ashore with his teeth, they were blind and could not see, and continued to swim in black shadows.
"I thought you were just hairy, but I didn't expect you were really fat."
Baitao walked into the official ship and stared at the officers and soldiers for a while. Seeing that the sentry was nothing more than that, she couldn't help complaining to the panting Zheng Guo, "My teeth haven't broken yet, why are you gasping for air first?"
Zheng Guo said weakly, "I can't help it. I'm only suitable for walking on water, not walking. What's more, I have to climb up, which makes my claws slip."
Baitao spat out a hair from her mouth and looked at the officers and soldiers walking in front of her, "Are they really invisible?"
"It's so late, most people are already asleep, so we demons are the only ones who are energetic." Zheng Guo flicked his big tail, "I seem to hear a lot of noise inside."
"It's a bit noisy. There must be a lot of people fighting over drinks."
The fox's ears were pointier, and Baitao walked forward tiptoeing, "Follow me."
Zheng Guo: "Okay!"
Zheng Guo jumped onto the wooden box and then onto the basket. Zheng Guo followed and bumped into Baitao unexpectedly.
He hurriedly covered his nose, trying to express his innocence.
Baitao turned around and glared at him, Zheng Guo curled his tail and felt aggrieved.
"..."
There is nothing he can do, he is his younger brother after all.
Baitao sighed, stretched out her paws, pulled Zheng Guo and herself close, and looked inside under the cover of the basket.
It was exactly as Bai Tao said inside, as lively as oil cooking in a raging fire.
There are many officers and soldiers drunkenly stepping on the table to give drink orders, "It will definitely end. Two good fortunes, three fortunes, and four leaders!"
"Four"
"Come on, come on, you lose, drink up!" The generals' faces turned red as the wine bowls collided. "Hiccup, I can't even control this place. I'm so happy and like a god!"
"Hahahahaha!"
The generals banged their tables and kicked their stools, laughing loudly.
One person said, "Hey, although we are living a good life and no one cares about it, if we don't handle the matter of Chang Xinhou well, it will be a loss of our heads. Let's just say that in the past two years, Chang Xinhou has to The boys and girls must be born on a lunar month and a lunar day, so ten of them must be found in a month."
"Well, if you want to say that everything else is good, I want something with a yin moon and a yin sun."
"How many gifts have you given in these two years?"
"Whether it's kidnapping or buying and selling, it's almost empty now. If you go further, you'll reach Rong Di's territory. I can barely find ten this time. I don't know if I can successfully deliver the goods next time."
"Why are you panicking?"
Another person showed his yellow teeth and burped loudly, "With wine, meat, and generous rewards, I will be happy even if I die now, hahaha!"
"Hahahaha! You're right, come on, come on, do it, do it!"
Baitao listened secretly and swung her tail, "They were also ordered by Lao Ai to look for boys and girls. They catch ten boys and girls a month, and they have been catching them for two years? How many children do they need?"
"I feel so pitiful about those boys and girls."
Zheng Guo wrinkled his nose, "I'm afraid it's going to be more serious than bad."
Although they are not the same kind, Baitao also has some empathy and sentimentality for those children.
She pursed her lips and said: "Don't jump to conclusions so early. It may not be certain. Seeing is believing, hearing is false. What you haven't seen is possible. It's just a guess."
"Pray for those kids."
Zheng Guo clasped his two paws together. Seeing that Baitao was indifferent, he tugged on her paw again and closed his eyes. "We pray that they will have a good pregnancy in their next life and stop being human."
Baitao: "."
Baitao: "?"
The officers and soldiers in front came over, and Baitao dragged Zheng Guo, who was praying under the moon, into the basket, and whispered: "Why do you think you are not a human being? Are they treating you like pigs, dogs, cattle and sheep on the table for you to eat?"
Zheng Guo's eyes were watery: "Hey, I don't eat meat. I think it would be great if everyone stopped eating meat, became vegetarians, and lived in harmony. Maybe the Seven Kingdoms wouldn't start fighting."
Looking at the compassionate Zheng Guo, Baitao slapped his forehead with his paw: "The Seven Kingdoms started fighting not because of eating meat. Let's go and see the ten newly kidnapped children first. I seem to hear them. There's breathing, below deck."
Zheng Guo's attention was diverted: "Okay!"
The footsteps left.
Zheng Guo twisted his tail and pushed the blocked basket back to its original position. He threw it in an arc and followed the fox jumping on the deck. She pushed open a piece of armor with her paws and rushed in with a swish.
Zheng Guo stood on his hind legs and looked around for a while, then he jumped in with all his might.
The white peach falls to the ground as light as a feather.
"." It was silent.
Zheng Guo landed with his limbs flat and spread out.
"Dong-dong-" beating gongs and drums.
Baitao: "???"
This sound was particularly harsh in the dark basement. Several children who had been sleeping lightly were woken up and started to cry in fright, "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..Mom. Uuuuu. Daddy."
"I want to go home. Woohoo."
".I'm afraid, wuwuwu, where are you, my dear?"
Baitao planned to cover the first child's mouth when he cried, but she didn't expect that all the children would be woken up.
She slapped Zheng Guo on the forehead with her paw, and the meaning was self-evident: It's all your fault!
Zheng Guo curled his tail and felt aggrieved silently.
The dim oil lamp was lit, and the charming orange light made the dirty and damp basement look a bit spooky.
There was a lot of filth on the ground. Several children of eight or nine years old were crowded together, with chains tied to their ankles.
Their cheeks were sunken and covered with skin and bones, and their eyes looked surprisingly big, but now their faces were stained with tears, and fear and hesitation filled the place.
"Who came in?"
There was a tall boy at the head. His figure was illuminated by the oil lamp in his hand, as if he was a ghost. His face, which was green and yellow from hunger, had a different kind of calmness.
The two raccoons, Baitao and Zheng Guo, had already slipped behind the pillar.
Hearing this, Baitao pulled the pillar to look at the boy who was talking. Unexpectedly, her ears were caught off guard by a small hand behind her.
There was a dirty girl who scratched her ears and laughed out her baby teeth, "Brother, brother, fox, fox."
Baitao's hair became ruffled, and she hurriedly pulled her ears away from her hands, patted Zheng Guo with her paw, and ran away again.
"Where did the fox come from?"
The sound of footsteps came closer along with the jingling iron chains. The boy holding the oil lamp came closer and looked around.
He only saw the girl who was sucking the salt from her fingers and blinking her eyes. He sighed, "You are too hungry."
"Fox. Fox."
The girl patted her flat belly and smiled, "Little fox..."
The boy took out a palm-sized dry biscuit from the bag on his waist and said, "The officials here are so unscrupulous that they even withhold food. You can eat it."
The smell of food attracted these children.
The eyes of the children who were tortured by hunger were glowing green, and their survival instinct inspired their plundering ferocity.
They stood up involuntarily and rushed over like crazy at the same moment the boy handed the cake to the girl.
He firmly suppressed the helpless girl, snatched the dry biscuit that she was guarding in her hand, and wolfed it down.
"Gulu——"
After swallowing, they licked their fingers crazily, and some people knelt down to lick the cake crumbs that fell on the floor.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
The girl was robbed of her cake and was so frightened that she shook like chaff and cried at the top of her voice.
The boy who finished giving the cake folded his arms and looked away, as if he didn't care whose belly the cake was put into, it was his pity that gave it to him.
Here he is tall and seems to be the boss here.
After the children finished plundering, some of them still looked at the bag on his waist reluctantly, and angrily went over to hug their knees and press their stomachs. Perhaps in this way, they could alleviate the devastation and torture of hunger.
There are also a few vulnerable girls here who don't dare to bark at all. They just bite their clothes and cry like quails, like Yi Yao's kittens.
"Squeak——"
The deck above was opened again, and two officers and soldiers came down holding oil lamps, "Noisy, noisy, crying, crying, we are about to enter Yongcheng, what are you doing here?"
"Your parents will exchange you for a few baskets of rice and a few gold cakes. It's a matter of your own free will. Don't yell at me about your father and mother, and don't even think about it. When you get to Yongcheng, you'll have enough to eat and drink. Alas. , Yongcheng is your Huangquan Road."
After landing on the ground, the two officers and soldiers slapped their noses with their hands.
One of them, a tall man, waved an oil lamp in front of the group of children, hoping to see if they were dead.
When he took the photo of Baitao and Zheng Guo who had turned into children, he looked a little weird and walked around again, "No, why does it seem like there are more?"
Another short man said: "How come there are so many? Could it be that they were born out of thin air for you on the boat? I'm afraid you have been floating on the water for a long time and your eyesight has become difficult to use."
The tall man said: "No, no, you count, one, two, three."
Looking at the children here, looking at him, he counted with his dark fingers, "One, two, three, one, two, three, one."
He then said: "Originally I could count them all on my fingers, but you see there are two more toes."
The tall man was still moving his toes, but the short man was dumbfounded by what he said, "Whatever, if there's more, it's more, if there's no less, it's fine. You might have counted wrong at the beginning. Okay, stop counting. Look." Come up when you’re done.”
He walked up rather impatiently, and the tall man climbed up closely behind him.
A word came from the deck, "No way, I've been counting for two years. Could it be that the water surface is Yin, and it must have attracted two more ghosts."
"Bang!" The deck pressed tightly.
It was quiet for a moment, except for the sound of water rushing.
The leading boy's eyelids closed. He took out the dry food from his waist, took a bite, chewed it carefully for thirty times, and then swallowed: "Eleven, twelve."
The two raccoons who got into the crowd of children blinked and continued to pretend to be confused.
Zheng Guo poked the white peach with his finger and said in a low voice, "What should we do next?"
Baitao said softly: "Follow us first and enter Yongcheng."
