The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 582 I just want to feed my people and let my children have something sweet without fighting. How can I do that? !
A blue square flag fluttered in the Gobi Desert. In the center of the flag, there was a circle of white characters on a red background, surrounding the bright red national emblem, overlooking the busy people below.

On the day the Special Affairs Bureau sent the message, the county's forensic doctor rushed over and quickly found that there was indeed a corpse underneath.

On the third day, a team of experts rushed in from the plains, planted flags, laid out tools, and devoted themselves to the work.

Shen Le, on the other hand, had nothing to do. Apart from pacing around the area and pointing out, "I think there should be remains here," he then sat beside the wooden box, meditating with his eyes closed.

The working scene ahead was similar to the archaeological scene set up by Professor Yu and his team that he had seen next to the Hotan Beacon Tower.

The exploration area is marked out, a rope is used to pull out the exploration area, and then a small shovel and a small brush are used to open it little by little:
In fact, the team of experts who rushed over this time was indeed led by a professor of archaeology.

The only difference is that Professor Yu and his team focus on the archaeology of northwestern border relics, while this team focuses on anthropological archaeology.

After rushing from the plains to the plateau, they had to start working immediately without any time to rest. Everyone's face was pale, but no one lay down, indicating that they had to adapt first before starting to work.

Shen Le saw it all and respected it in his heart, but he also knew that he had no say. Even if he tried to persuade them, these teachers would not listen.
He simply took out a box of spiritual fruits that looked like blueberries and asked each teacher to eat one to at least nourish their bodies.
Then there were several small boxes, each containing a piece of fine jade, spread out far apart, forming a spirit gathering array that occupied a large area but had little effect.

I meditated at the center of the formation, breathing silently, and absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy. Immersed in the thin spiritual energy, I felt more comfortable and would not be knocked down by the altitude sickness all of a sudden.

Some of the teachers in the expert group saw all this busyness, while others were busy working and didn't pay any attention at all.

They squatted on the ground, shovel in one hand and brush in the other, concentrating on their work for almost a day, when one of the students called out softly:

"Dig it!"

A soft cry was like thunder.

All of a sudden, everyone put down what they were holding and moved in. They saw a piece of bone lying in the middle of the sand, with a dull black and brown color.

Before Shen Le could figure out what was going on, the archaeologist leading the team just glanced at it and nodded:

"It's a human bone. Judging from the shape, it should be a humerus. We have found the spot - use this place as the center and dig outwards!"

All the experts in the team started moving around the student. Soon, more discoveries were unearthed:
Long bones, bone fragments, a pair of military shoes, a toothbrush, half a comb, an epaulette...

When cleaning near the head, half of a red five-pointed star was found lying upright among the skull fragments, shining brightly.

"Found it." Shen Le sighed softly beside him. He knelt down beside the pit with the wooden box in his arms, opened the box, and took out the other half of the red five-star:
There is no need to stand together, just get a little closer and someone next to you will exclaim softly.

Shen Le turned around and saw the young man from the Special Affairs Bureau who had been receiving him since he arrived at the plateau and driving him all the way here. He looked shocked and murmured in a low voice:

“I actually found it here…”

The half piece in the wooden box and the half piece in the soil seem to be one and the same, fitting together perfectly.

"Yes, I found it here - and thank you for trusting me." Shen Le stood up with a smile and shook his hand.

Although his information was reported by the Special Affairs Bureau, how it was reported, the tone, and whether it was confirmed or not still depended on the attitudes of these two guys.

The expert group arrived so quickly, probably because the two guys said a few good words for him, assuring him that his perception was correct, or at least that his previous record had always been good.

Even if you feel a little guilty, you have to find a way to call the expert group: What if it is true?

What if Shen Le’s investigation is true?
Now, it has been proven that Shen Le was thousands of miles away and the target he sensed was correct, and a burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

This time when I go back, my superiors won't say I'm "alarmed" or "reporting something that hasn't been confirmed yet", but I will definitely be given more credit.

The young man's face changed from astonishment to joy, his eyes shifted and fell on the pit, then turned dim again.

He took two steps back, lowered his head and stood solemnly for a moment, then returned to his original position and quietly watched the archaeologists busy themselves.

Those experts and the students they brought with them, however, seemed to have seen nothing. They buried their heads in the soil and brushed it with small brushes.

After finally brushing out a piece of bone, a student knelt beside it and held it up with both hands. Perhaps because of his shaking hands, the piece of bone made a small "crackling" sound, and he quickly put his palm flat in fear.

Next to him, another student turned his head halfway and whispered:

"Be gentle, don't hurt them..."

Shen Le's heart trembled, and he quickly lowered his head, tightly clenched the half red star in his hand, stepped back to his original position step by step, and got into the tent.

The slight tingling in his palms calmed his mind for a moment and sank him into a state of concentration.

The spiritual energy around him was slightly fluctuating, and it was absorbing towards the center from all directions, surrounding him, and lingering gently, soothing everyone around him.

He felt the experts' and students' breathing gradually become slower and longer, and the shortness of breath brought by the altitude sickness slowly faded away. He felt relieved and his mind became calmer.

The mental force spread out like a gossamer or flying catkins, seemingly there and not there, covering the entire area, connecting the wooden box in his hand, the things in the box, and the cemetery in front of him.

I only felt the Qi energy slightly turbulent and the wooden box vibrated quietly. It seemed that thousands of lines stretched out from the box and connected to the cemetery in front.

The connection became tighter and more harmonious, and finally, after circling three times, it flew towards the bones in the cemetery and disappeared.

With a slight crisp sound, the wooden box vibrated, and two turquoise stones rolled out from the white elephant's eyes and fell on Shen Le's lapel.

"Huh...finally done..."

Shen Le let out a long sigh. For these two pieces of turquoise, he had gone through a lot of trouble, walking half of the Silk Road, going up the plateau again, and traveling thousands of kilometers back and forth.

The obsession with the rare box finally disappeared. If Ken gave the two turquoises to him and set them on the shoulder, everything should be fine, right?
He carefully weighed, recorded and photographed the two turquoises so that he could pay Langga Zhaxi later. Then he took out the two turquoises, held the turquoises in his hands, and stuffed them into the empty eye sockets of the lion.

Holes are chiseled out of the eye sockets and silver sheets are coiled around them. The gemstones can be fixed on them by slightly bending the silver claws.

Shen Le didn't even need to find a hammer or tweezers. With just a slight fluctuation of his mental power, he could push the silver claws and bend them inwards. He firmly fixed the turquoise from all directions, and it could no longer be moved.

Seeing the lion's eyes sparkling in the dim light, and its whole aura becoming lively, he nodded with satisfaction and turned around to inlay the second gem.

When this side was halfway set, there was a crackling sound from behind, and the lion's entire body began to shake.

Shen Le turned around suddenly and saw the lion shaking its head and wagging its tail, using all four legs to push off something tangled on its body, but to no avail.

After a lot of trouble, only the turquoise that had just been inserted into the eye socket rolled down onto the moisture-proof mat...

"Ah... is this happening again..."

Shen Le sighed helplessly. Another test?
Do I have to go through another level before I can leave?

This time, I hope the difficulty will be a little lower, at least don’t ask me to climb a snowy mountain——

I don’t think I can walk the Kunlun Mountains from Hotan to northern Tibet like the advance team did. Even if I had magic, I would still be skinned if I walked the same way...

That team of people back then had poor equipment, lacked food, and had no idea about altitude sickness. They managed to get through this road simply by relying on their firm willpower. They are true heroes!

He quickened his pace, pressed the two turquoise stones into the lion's eye sockets, and then pressed the shoulder blade onto his own shoulders.

It's useless, it's of no use. As soon as I loosen my hands, the Shoulder Swallow will slip off my shoulders. If I don't loosen my hands, I won't be able to enter into a state of meditation, and I won't be able to enter the memory of the armor.

So, if I hold the sword, I can't hug you, and if I put down the sword, I can't protect you...

Shen Le tried twice and failed twice. He had no choice but to try a stupid method:
I put tape on the surface of the shoulder straps, fixed the flat ropes, and "hung" the two shoulder straps on my body. After thinking for a while, I took out the helmet again, buckled it on my forehead, and adjusted the position:
The moment he sat cross-legged again, his vision quickly darkened, and when he opened his eyes again, the world had completely changed.

Phew... This method of forcibly hanging it on the body has proven to be feasible. Shen Le breathed a sigh of relief and had time to look around:

Ah this?

Where am I?

Could the owner of this memory be a Tibetan?
Ask me to kill Tang Jun, I really can't do it! I'd rather not pass the level!

But it was impossible to retreat now. Shen Le made up his mind and followed the team, moving forward slowly. In front, behind, left and right, there was a desert with no end in sight. Only clumps of half-human-high, solid and thorny shrubs grew, becoming the only green on the desert:
Shen Le recognized that this was camel thorn. People on the plateau called it "Zama". The place where they excavated the remains of the martyrs was called "Zama Mangbao", which means "a place where many Zamas grow."

So, the place where I enter the memory, regardless of the time or location, is based on where I am now?
The sample size was too small to be certain. In fact, the address was vague in his memory and there was no satellite positioning, so Shen Le had no idea where he was.

The only thing that is certain is the camel thorn that is everywhere around us. It is named after the only grass that camels can eat in the Gobi Desert.

Only this kind of plant can grow in the Gobi Desert, and only camels can eat this plant, which has short hard thorns on the tips of its leaves and even its flowers growing on the thorns.

In the Gobi Desert before us, even the extremely drought-resistant camel thorn trees are more than ten meters apart. It seems that only with such a long distance can they absorb enough water.

This small group of people walked northward with expressionless faces on this Gobi desert with no vegetation except camel thorn.

The wind on the plateau is chilly even in June and July. Everyone applies thick grease on their face, wraps their head and face tightly, and keeps silent to prevent moisture from escaping from their mouths.

Among the group, there was only one young man who seemed to be traveling with the group for the first time, and he kept looking around. As dusk deepened, the group had already started to prepare to set up camp. He found a gap and asked in a low voice:
"Brother, do we have to fight the Tang people?"

He moved back and forth on his horse, looking around without stopping for a moment. After a while, he urged his horse to the side of the team leader and asked in a low voice:
"The Tang people are so strong——"

"Are you scared?" The leader of the team did not answer at first, but just whipped the whip to drive him away. After being asked several times, he finally became annoyed and lowered his voice to scold:

"Ge Sang, are you scared? If you're a coward, don't come out with me. Go herd yaks, or help your mother make milk tofu!"

Gesang choked and shrunk down on the horse's back, almost to the side of the saddle. After a long silence, he spoke again:
"I'm not afraid. It's just that, brother, I heard from the sutra master in the temple that we are the noblest people, the people closest to the sky, and the people with the broadest minds. If we receive a favor from someone, we must repay it.

You see, a few years ago, my mother was almost dying of coughing, and it was the Tang doctor who cured her. I learned martial arts from a Tang master, and even the steel knife in your hand was given to you by the Tang master..."

Shen Le quietly urged his horse forward, keeping a distance from the two brothers and listening to their conversation.

Endless memories flooded into his mind. This body of his seemed to be named Wangdui. He was a slave in the family of the leader of the team. Because of his great strength, he was promoted to a follower warrior.

So the leader looked at him and said nothing, neither driving him away nor scolding him. He turned his head and said to his brother again:

“Ge Sang, small favors and great favors are different.

You only know that grandma’s cough was cured by a Tang doctor, but you don’t know that the safflower and snow lotus they take away from us every year are enough to cure thousands of people;

You only know that I learned martial arts from Master Tangren, but you don’t know how many people I have to kill to master such martial arts…”

Then, the favor we receive is no longer a favor?

Can we just kill the Tang people who have never hurt or killed us?

Gesang rolled his eyes, but under his brother's authority, he did not dare to ask again and again. Instead, the leader of the team sighed and tapped his head with the tip of his whip:
"Ge Sang, our herdsmen can only get a few hundred kilograms of beef and a cowhide after grazing for a year. If we take it down the mountain to exchange with the Tang people, they will only give us 100 kilograms of grain.

If we don't rob, we can have enough food, but what about the warriors in our territory, our women and children?"

Both of them fell silent for a moment. Shen Le mixed in with the team, set up a low cowhide tent, picked up stones to press down the tent, and cut camel thorns to make a fire like others.

When he turned around, he saw a slave boy in the team quietly picking up leaves from camel thorns and putting them into his mouth without telling anyone:
"Look, Gesang." The leader of the team saw it and did not stop him. He just pointed to his brother:
“Our children can only eat camel honey on the zama, but the Tang people at the foot of the mountain can eat honey, rock honey, drink milk mixed with honey, and eat mutton pickled and fried with rock honey.

We just want all our people to have enough food to eat, and we want our children to taste honey and rock honey. Is this wrong? But we can’t do it without swords—”

Is this wrong?

Is it wrong to want to feed your people?
Isn’t having enough food to eat a natural right for everyone and an obligation for any ethnic leader?
Shen Le was confused for a moment. He moved closer to the fire and started to gnaw on the blackened barley cakes with the others. The feeling of his throat pulling at each bite soon sobered him up:
fake!

--fake!
This body, this warrior named Wangdui, when he was still a slave, he never had enough to eat;
When he followed the troops to the battlefield and made military achievements, he could only eat barley and yak milk, and occasionally a little meat;

However, the leader of the tribe lived in a tall cowhide tent, drank from a golden cup, and used the gold he had looted from the mountain to buy honey from the merchants!

If warriors fight desperately and risk their lives on the battlefield just to add another golden cup and another golden belt to the leader's tent, then what is the point of fighting?
He buried these thoughts in his heart and followed the team, moving slowly forward, from the Gobi Desert over the snow-capped mountains, over the long snow slopes, and then along the col to the pass.

The wind blowing towards me has become gentler, and the green grass on the mountain path under my feet is growing more and more...

"That's great..." He was in the team, listening to people whispering to each other:
"The place where the Tang people live is so good... Those Tang people, the cowards who can't even get on a horse and can't even use a knife, why do they live in such a good place?"

"Such a rich place, with water and grass everywhere, should be occupied by warriors like us!"

"I heard that... their emperor... was driven out of the capital by the warriors on the grassland and driven deep into the mountains..."

"At that time, our warriors made a lot of money in Chang'an! My father took back two gold belts at that time and exchanged them for fifty sheep..."

Shen Le became more and more silent and less willing to talk. Fortunately, Wangdui was originally a warrior promoted from a slave, and had no right to speak, so his silence did not attract anyone's attention.

It was not until the group walked lower and lower, until they were close to the pass, that the leader of the group made a gesture and asked everyone to gather together. They straightened their clothes and moved forward quietly:

"There's a fortress of theirs ahead. We have to take it out before we can move on. Doji, Wangdui, and Gesang, will you lead?"

What?
Children too?
The clan leader's younger brother! It's his first time on the battlefield! Are you sure you want him to make achievements instead of die?

Shen Le was still watching, while the other two young warriors had already quietly started to adjust their weapons. Shen Le hesitated for a moment, then took off his bow and arrow and adjusted the position of his short sword.

The three men separated slightly, bent over, and quietly moved towards the beacon tower using the cover of rocks and grass.

As Shen Le advanced, he pricked up his ears to listen to the movements around him, to hear if the warriors made any sounds, and if the people on the beacon tower responded:

No, no, still no. The warriors were all very experienced, and they huddled in the blind spots of the beacon towers, keeping silent.

Even he himself, relying on muscle memory, made almost no noise when crawling in the grass.

Only Gesang, who was on the battlefield for the first time and lacked experience, tried his best to be gentle, but he had not received such training, and he stepped on a stone.
"who?!"

A shout came from above his head. Shen Le curled up reflexively and did not move. The next moment, the familiar bowstring sounded, and a rain of arrows fell on his head:

"what--"

Gesang screamed out of reflex. Shen Le was startled and rushed forward to cover his mouth:
Don't shout!

Don’t shout!!!

If you hide and don't move, you may not be discovered. But if you shout out, people will aim and shoot you and you will die instantly!
It was too late. He had just pounced on the boy's back when the bowstrings rang and more arrows fell. Shen Le felt a burning pain on his shoulder and felt like a balloon that had been punctured, with almost all his strength drained out.

Fortunately, he still had his sanity and could think quickly:
It's okay, the arrow hit the shoulder, not the back... It didn't pierce the lungs... The weakness is due to the pain, cheer up, and you'll be fine once the adrenaline kicks in...

He held the arrow shaft with his backhand and pulled it upwards with all his strength. A hot stream of heat gushed out, and Shen Le quickly threw away the hot stream, hugged the boy, and rolled to the side.

After rolling several times and hiding under the cliff, he finally avoided the rain of arrows. He could hear roars in his ears. The team leader and warriors had already rushed up.

Shen Le did not move. He slowly knelt up, lifted the boy up, and checked his wound. His heart sank when he saw it:
There were no wounds on the boy's upper body. However, half of a long arrow was deeply stuck in his thigh, in a place that was not covered by the skirt armor but not protected by the boots.

After several consecutive tumbles, the long arrow had broken, and the arrowhead had already cut a large gash in the flesh. Blood gushed out, staining at least half a square meter of the ground red...

This is, has it scratched the aorta?
The bleeding was so violent that even if he tied it up close to the heart immediately, he didn't know if it could be stopped. Shen Le was still groping for the leather rope, and the boy's head had already turned around, grabbing his collar, and his lips moved slightly:
"Brother Wangdui, I want to eat rock honey..."

The voice became weaker and weaker with each word. At the last word, her fingers loosened and her head fell into his arms.

Shen Le slowly put his hand down. After a while, screams and exclamations were heard, and finally, the leader of the team rushed down with a few defeated soldiers:
"Go! Go!"

Shen Le followed in confusion. Half of the warriors who followed the leader had been killed, and the remaining half were also injured.

Shen Le followed them and rushed out of the mountain road in a hurry. He made a few turns to get rid of the Tang people. Just as he took a breath, the leader of the team fell down:
"Wangdui..."

He placed his shaking hands on his waist, on the scimitar inlaid with a pair of turquoise stones, and the sound was already extremely weak:

"Take everyone back... take... back..."

(End of this chapter)