Shuiyou City, Southern Border
After ten days of hazy, zombie-like trekking, Qiye arrived at a mountain village called "Longyang" on the southern edge of Shuiyou City.
Ten days ago, due to the backlash of the black demonic flames, his soul fell into a coma, his memory was disordered, he had a splitting headache, and it seemed as if the whole world had turned gray.
Entering the entrance of the valley, Qiye saw several thick black smoke rising from the depths of the mountain col. There was so much thick black smoke filling the air that it felt ominous.
Due to the obstruction of the dense woods on the hillside and the fact that it was almost night, Qiye was not sure what was burning the black smoke, but it was definitely not the smoke from the farmhouse in the evening. Where the black smoke rises, something must be happening.
Thinking that I am currently weak in physical strength, exhausted in spiritual power, and in a very bad state, I am afraid that if I encounter some horse thieves again, I am afraid that I will not be able to deal with it.
Qiye frowned and looked around carefully. The winding mountain road continued to extend deep into the ravine. Apart from this path, there was no other mountain road that could be detoured.
"It seems that this is the only way to go..." After checking to no avail, Qiye sighed helplessly. I had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue walking along this path, carefully heading deeper into the ravine.
After ten days of living in the open air, he was now disgraced and miserable. The originally clean and simple cloth had become tattered, dirty and muddy. Coupled with the unkempt face, Qiye looked like a little street beggar at this moment.
After passing through ravines and ravines, Qiye saw many low and uneven wooden signs erected on the open hillsides on both sides. Behind each wooden sign is a narrow earthen mound.
If you look carefully, you will see that there are a few crooked black characters written on each wooden sign inserted in front of the grave. Such as Miaosi, Weishan, Mancang...the names of these farmers.
Seeing so many densely packed wooden signs standing vertically, Qiye was suddenly shocked: What happened in this ravine? Why did so many people die? ...
One unanswerable question after another lingered in his mind, making the already ominous atmosphere even more bizarre. It is not that I have never seen life and death, but when I see so many wooden signs passing before my eyes, as if each living life disappears from my eyes, my heart feels heavy, sad and desolate.
Just when Qiye wanted to speed up and leave this depressing slope, he inadvertently glanced at the hillside and saw a vague figure with a short stature and a curved back standing quietly on the slope, facing a wooden sign.
"Hey, there seems to be someone on the hillside." Qiye said softly, and suddenly slowed down. After observing for a while, he found that the figure had been standing there motionless.
"How about we go over and have a look?" He hesitated for a while, then made up his mind, and then walked cautiously towards the slope where the figure stood.
Climbing up the hillside and almost approaching, Qiye saw clearly that the short figure who had been motionless all this time was an old woman with a thin figure and a gaunt figure.
The old woman was wrapped in black clothes full of tattered patches. Her dark and earthy face had been carved out by the years, and her hands covered with calluses and mud were placed on a dead wooden crutch in front of her, pointing towards the two pieces of wood. The card stood motionless. It looked like he was mourning, but when Qiye approached, he found that the old woman had fallen asleep...
Snoring, snoring, snoring, snoring, a weak and uneven snoring sound came from the old woman's nasal cavity...
"Grandma, wake up...Grandma, wake up..." Qiye stepped forward, gently put his hand on the old woman's back, and called sideways to her side. After a long time, the old woman seemed to feel something and slightly raised her heavy and sunken eyelids, and struggled to open her cloudy eyes.
"Hello, grandma!" Qiye greeted the old woman with a smile when she saw her wake up.
"Who are you?..." The old woman woke up, her dim and colorless eyes looked at the young man who suddenly appeared in front of her, and asked in a hoarse voice.
"Hello, grandma. I'm a passerby passing through here. I want to ask you something, is it okay?" Qiye politely stated his intention.
"What did you say? Young man, the old woman is a little hard of hearing and can't hear clearly..." The old woman waved her hand, tilted her ears slightly and raised the decibel level in her hoarse voice.
"Let me tell you! I want to ask you something, okay? Grandma!" Qiye leaned slightly closer to the old woman's ear and raised her voice appropriately.
"Ahem... Are you asking about something? The old woman doesn't know much..." The old woman coughed hard for a while and then hammered her old body.
"I want to ask, what happened in this village? Why are there so many graves here?" Seeing that the old woman was struggling to speak, Qiye stepped forward to comfort the old woman's back, and then asked slowly while soothing her.
"Ahem... these graves are all from the village... young men who were captured to serve as soldiers. As long as they were captured... few came back alive... ahem..." The old man The woman spoke breathlessly, pausing several times in a row, which seemed very laborious.
Seeing this, Qiye quickly took out the water bag from his waist, slowly fed the old woman some water, and then helped her sit down on the bluestone to rest.
"Which of your relatives is buried here? Grandma." After sitting down, Qiye noticed that the old woman was stroking a wooden sign next to her with her hand attentively. The word '大谷' was engraved on the wooden sign.
"This is my son, and the one next to him is my old man..." The old woman raised her hand tremblingly and pointed to the wooden sign with the word 'Iron Pillar' written on it.
"Who captured them?" Qiye also sat next to the old woman, looked up at the wooden sign she was pointing to, and couldn't help but tremble in his heart: This old woman is a lonely old man.
"Lord City Lord..."
After hearing the old woman's answer, Qiye suddenly thought of the time when Shui Lianggong, the lord of Shuiyou City, and Han Qi led 200,000 troops to the Far East Territory to search for a thousand-year treasure. It can be said that only one out of ten people came back from the Far East Territory, and many young and strong soldiers were buried in that frozen snowy land.
Thinking of this, Qiye felt sad in his heart. The sadness is more about the resentment towards these people in power. Just for his own selfish desires, he went so far as to arrest soldiers on a large scale and use them as cannon fodder. Such things that are harmful to nature and cannot be tolerated by nature are the source of countless tragedies. Those with power who care so little about human life should really be killed!
"Cough cough cough... cough cough..." Just as Qiye was filled with anger and uncontrollable murderous intent filled his eyes, the old woman's violent coughing and wheezing interrupted his murderous intent.
"Um...Grandma, where is your home? Let me take you home. It's getting late." Qiye restrained his cold eyes, put aside the hatred that had just been burning for the time being, and slowly helped the old woman up. .
"It's not far ahead. It's time to work, young man... ahem..." The old woman stood up slowly and pointed to the back of the ravine.
"Is there anyone else in your family?" Qiye asked seemingly casually.
"Both of them died early, but my wife was the only one..." the old woman said truthfully.
Sure enough, as expected. Qiye supported the old woman in silence and walked down the hillside step by step, arriving at a small, run-down mountain village in the ravine.
At this time, night has come to an end. Looking at the hundreds of scattered stone houses and wooden houses from a distance, only a few houses are illuminated by sporadic firelight, and the rest are in quiet darkness.
After entering the village, many farmhouses have empty rooms and low stone-walled courtyards. The doors are broken, farm tools are scattered, and weeds are everywhere, making it a mess. After careful inspection one by one for seven nights, all the unoccupied houses were in basically the same condition: scattered, desolate, and dilapidated.
"It seems that these households have been abandoned for a long time..." Qiye said to himself.
"Well...in recent years, many men in the village have been kidnapped, and the women have escaped with their children. Now we are the only ones left who are dying. Ahem..." The old woman coughed. He said, with a heavy tone in his voice.
After listening, Qiye continued to help the old woman walk deeper into the village in silence.
After a while, the old woman stopped in front of a low and dilapidated stone house. Qiye took a closer look and saw that the two wooden doors of the stone house were creaking and shaking due to the mountain wind, as if they were about to collapse at any time. A paper grid window was full of holes and the wind blew the paper, and it could no longer keep out the wind and rain. There were a lot of weeds in the yard, and there were a few rusty farm tools lying upside down at the door. It looked like they hadn't been used for a long time.
"Go in..." The old woman led Qiye into the house and lit the oil lamp that was about to burn out on the wooden table. Then he took out two pieces of sweet potatoes wrapped in thick wood ash from the dark earthen stove.
"You haven't eaten yet, young man, take it and eat..." The old woman handed it to Qiye without any explanation.
"No, no, no...Grandma, I'm not hungry, so you should eat." Qiye declined quickly. After seeing the desolation in the old woman's home, the heavy sweet potatoes in his hand made it difficult for him to swallow.
"Ahem...you can eat it, young man, there is still something in the earthen stove. I don't have much at home, so I will wrong you tonight and spend the night here..." The old woman stuffed two pieces of sweet potatoes into the food again. Qiye held him in his arms, and then arranged for accommodation.
"It's okay, it's fine. I'm used to sleeping on a straw mat, so I'm not aggrieved at all. Grandma, if you're not feeling well, you should go to bed early..." Seeing the old woman's determination, Qiye couldn't refuse anymore. He first put two pieces of sweet potatoes on the table and helped the old woman into the inner room to rest.
After coming out, looking at the two pieces of sweet potatoes on the table, Qiye felt silently uncomfortable. After blowing out the candle and lying on the straw mat, a familiar feeling suddenly came to my mind:
Thinking of the dark days in the slave mining camp, I slept alone on damp and moldy straw mats every day, endured the cold wind and mosquito bites every night, and I couldn't sleep at night. Thinking of those unforgettable years, Qiye couldn't help but sigh: It's good to have such thick dry grass and solid quilts now...
After closing his eyes and resting for a while, after the old woman fell asleep peacefully, Qiye quietly stood up, took out a few spiritual stones from the spiritual ring, placed them in front of him, and began to meditate and absorb.
In the past ten days, I have been traveling during the day and hiding in a cave to absorb spiritual stones at night. If you want to quickly restore your own strength, in such troubled times, if you don't have the strength to protect yourself, your own safety will be worrying. Now, the spirit world has long been unfrozen. Although the soul is still in a coma, it can at least activate the Huntian Wheel to absorb the spiritual energy.
In this way, Qiye began to tirelessly absorb the spirit energy of the spirit stones. After one night, more than a hundred low-grade spiritual stones have been absorbed, which is already a terrifying amount for a spiritual cultivator who is at the 'first level of war level'.
For ordinary 'early war level first level' spiritual cultivation, even if you go all out to absorb it, you can only absorb up to ten low-grade spiritual stones in one night. And Qiye absorbed more than a thousand low-grade spiritual stones for more than ten days in a row, and more than a hundred spiritual stars in the spiritual world were re-lit. Thinking of the number of thirty thousand spiritual stars, how long will it take to light them all!
...
"Alas..." With a weak sigh, Qiye restrained himself and stood up. There are no days or nights in cultivation, and one night has passed before I know it. Although I had a sleepless night, for spiritual practitioners, there is nothing more refreshing than practicing.
I feel full of strength and my condition is much better than yesterday. Just as he was about to stretch his muscles, Qiye's eyes suddenly froze and his expression became stagnant. He slowly turned his head and looked into the inner room with sad eyes.
Just now, he tried to disperse his spiritual awareness. His spiritual awareness, which had recovered 10/20%, had just spread out two meters when he sensed that the old woman in the inner room had no vitality at all.
"Grandma..." Qiyeqing couldn't help but murmured, and quickly entered the house to check. The old woman's face was calm, she lay down and slept there, and then passed away quietly...
Looking at the two sweet potatoes wrapped in thick wood ash on the table, Qiye suddenly went to check the stove. There was nothing but wood ash...
Thinking of the old woman giving him the last ration last night, in the darkness, he actually believed it, thinking that grandma still had some for him, but he didn't expect that grandma gave it to him. Thinking of this, Qiye felt an unbearable sorrow in his heart, violently stirring his internal organs, and tears rolled down his eyes unknowingly.
It took a long time to bury the old woman's body next to the graves of her son and wife: in front of a short earthen mound, there was an empty wooden sign.
"Grandma, rest in peace. I didn't have time to tell you yesterday that my name is Qiye. I'm sorry that I don't know your name and I couldn't write you a wooden sign. I'm really sorry."
"Ah Qi is leaving to learn his skills in a distant place. I don't know if I will have a chance to see you again in the future. Thank you for taking me in last night. Thank you for the sweet potatoes. You gave me your last rations, so that Ah Qi can really Yes, I really don’t know what to say...Really, thank you!" Qiye knelt on his knees and said, speechless and choked with emotion.
After some solemn prostrations, the worship was completed. With tears in her eyes, Qiye carefully put two pieces of sweet potatoes into her arms and left with a sad expression...
