Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 150 The Things the Ancient King Did

If Yun Ce hadn't been taken away by Long, his next job would have been as the deputy director of the municipal development zone management committee.

As we all know, the director is usually a senior leader, and Yun Ce, the deputy director, is actually the one who does the actual work.

Therefore, Yun Ce was no stranger to developing a place, but there was no readily available "three connections and one leveling" here, nor a group of enthusiastic college students who had just passed the civil service exam to command.

"Three connections and one leveling" are not important to Yun Ce. The slaves have plenty of strength to level the ground. The giant livestock are only slightly less useful than agricultural machinery.

Honestly, a cow as big as an elephant, after its brain core is destroyed by a red-hot needle, is just a walking corpse, and an absolutely obedient one at that. They have no temper, no fatigue, and if Yun Ce, the user, doesn't stop driving them, they can work until they die.

Not only the cattle were like this, but the wildebeests that were taken back from the Grass Nest Post Station were also like this. They also had a needle in their heads, which also turned them into walking corpses.

Of course, there's also Zhang Min's Thunder Smoke Beast.

The chestnut horse is actually a Thunder Smoke Beast, but Yun Ce prefers to call it the chestnut horse. Compared to Zhang Min's dull Thunder Smoke Beast, the chestnut horse is undoubtedly a spirited and beautiful spirit of the world.

Many times, Yun Ce would put himself in the shoes of the chestnut horse. He felt that he was very similar to the chestnut horse. The chestnut horse longed to be a human, but was bound by the body of a thunder beast and could not become a human.

Yun Ce also wanted to become a pure person, but after taking his first bite of the dragon eggshell, the desire to be a pure person became just a pure dream.

However, Yun Ce did not regret it. If he hadn't eaten the dragon eggshell that Ao Bing gave him, he would not have been able to survive that harsh space journey.

And that was the end of it.

It is said that living is about carrying a heavy burden, and Yun Ce felt that the responsibility he was carrying was too heavy.

The frost under the Frosty Moon is bone-chillingly cold; the land that was just turned over yesterday is covered with frost, turning it into a white expanse.

The slaves got up very early and lined up on the vast land, using rakes and their hands to pull out the plant roots from the turned soil one by one. Sometimes they would encounter stones, which they also had to pick out.

After the insects in the soil are frozen to death by the severe cold, the soil needs to be leveled, then plowed, leveled again, and finally the seeds can be sown.

Watching a business emerge from nothing is the greatest reward in one's life journey.

When the messenger bird carrying the red maiden landed on Yun Ce's shoulder, it felt heavy. When he opened the letter written by the red maiden herself, he realized that this woman was doing the same thing he was doing.

Like Yun Ce, they are doing these things on land without the protection of Shehuo. After Shehuo was removed from Chuyun Prefecture, the weather became very unstable. Even so, Hong Guniang is organizing those who cannot leave Chuyun Prefecture to farm and save themselves.

With the Shehuo festival gone, the danger of gathering in the wilderness has increased dramatically. Not only are there many more poisonous insects in the wilderness, but even more frightening are the ferocious beasts. Many of them come from the ancient wilderness. In this letter, Hong Guniang tells Yun Ce that her people in Chuyun Prefecture have seen the legendary beast 'Ning'.

The exact size of the planet where the Han Dynasty resides remains uncertain. Despite the vast territory of the Han Dynasty spanning tens of thousands of miles, the people of the Han Dynasty know very little about what happens outside its borders.

What hindered the Han Dynasty's exploration of the outside world were not deserts, oceans, or towering mountains and dense forests. During the reign of King Huo, there were brave envoys from the Han Dynasty who left the Han Dynasty to explore the outside world, hoping to open up the Western Regions like Zhang Qian, find allies on the other side of the Guifang people, and then work together to eliminate the Guifang people.

Unfortunately, none of the envoys sent out returned.

Later, although a few envoys were sent out sporadically, as these envoys disappeared without a trace, no more envoys were sent out in the later years of King Huo's reign.

The disappearance of the Shehuo (a type of folk performance) in Izumo Prefecture and the appearance of the legendary ferocious beast 'Ning' led Yun Ce to believe that this was nature's backlash against the Han Dynasty.

After all, disasters and unpredictability are the main themes of nature, while peace and abundance should be temporary. However, the Han Dynasty enjoyed a period of abundance for far too long.

This is very abnormal.

There's a saying on Earth: "Born in hardship, die in comfort."

This saying can also be reversed: "Born in comfort, die in hardship."

It's the literal interpretation, not a deeper understanding. In short, as long as you're alive, whether it's hardship or happiness, you must experience and savor it all. Only then can your life be considered complete.

Yun Ce didn't have the ability to see through the fog either, or rather, no one in the world has the ability to see through the fog of the future. Only through continuous trial and error can one gradually unveil the veil of the future. It's good that at least Hong Guniang has started to try. She is trying to survive in an environment without the protection of the Shehuo (a type of folk performance), and she is also preparing to fight against nature without the protection of the ancestral fire.

That's courage, and Yun Ce admires it greatly.

I just don't know if the people behind Hong Guniang and Pei Chuan will support them in doing this.

When the sun comes out, the fog will dissipate, and the white frost on the ground will fade away. After the sun has fully risen, the slaves who have worked all morning can enjoy their own breakfast in peace.

Breakfast at the reclamation camp was actually quite substantial: a large bowl of thick soy milk made from ground soybeans, two palm-length, one-inch-wide, and half-inch-thick pieces of salted meat that became crispy after being fried in a pan, and then rolled up with pickled vegetables and straw cakes. One serving was enough to fill an adult up.

The ten-person plate will also have an extra quarter piece of egg pancake. Don't be fooled by the fact that it's only a quarter piece; the egg used to make the pancake is very large.

“┗|｀O′|┛Ouch~~”

A furious roar came from afar, filled with rage. The slaves who were eating were not alarmed. They glanced up at the source of the sound and then continued eating.

There's nothing surprising about this. Without a doubt, the owner has caught another stray. The owner likes to chain up the captured wild animals and tie them to the edge of the farm's territory to deter other wild animals that want to enter the territory and eat people.

Now, eight of these ferocious beasts have been captured by their owner.

Yun Ce smashed the other end of the iron chain into the boulder. Qi, who was chained, struggled a couple of times before resignedly lying down under the boulder, as if he had already submitted.

So easily surrendered?
Yun Ce didn't believe it. He raised the whip made of twisted steel wire and lashed it down at Qi, whom he had just captured. Qi indeed began to resist again, baring its teeth and claws to scare Yun Ce away.

The steel whip lashed across Qi's head, pulling out a patch of fur from its crown. Qi scratched its head, which seemed to have vanished from the pain, with its claws. The second whip came down. Qi only had four claws and couldn't protect its massive body. After Yun Ce had lashed it a hundred times, Qi lay on the ground like a lump of mud, too afraid to move.

"Don't let his non-top-tier fighting skills fool you; his recovery ability after injury is quite strong. I've already extracted a lot of reagents from his bone marrow. If you have the time, give it a try."

Yun Ce shook his head and rejected the dog's suggestion. Ever since he mutated after gnawing on a dragon eggshell, Yun Ce had become wary of any biological agents.

"Let's search around. I want to catch a beast king to guard the gate."

"No, at least not nearby. I have a bold guess. I think the mutation and evolution of wild beasts are related to Shehuo and Ancestral Fire. You also saw it in Izumo Prefecture. In most areas covered by Shehuo, wasteland occupies the vast majority. In addition, Izumo Prefecture has a small population and vast land, so there are more wild beasts entering the range of Shehuo."

If probability theory is still relevant, could we consider that it was the Shehuo (a type of folk performance) or the ancestral fire that catalyzed the transformation of wild beasts into spirits?

Speaking of which, Izumo Prefecture is the place where the most monsters appear. Do you remember those dog-headed people, pig-headed people, and bear-headed people?
Their physical strength isn't particularly great, but their evolutionary process is astonishingly rapid.

Upon hearing this, Yun Ce paused for a moment and then asked, "Can Shehuo promote evolution?"

The dog chuckled and said, "Is standing on two legs more stable than standing on four legs? Running on four legs is not as fast as running on two legs."
Think about it, why do those dog-headed, pig-headed, and bear-headed people insist on standing on their hind legs? You've seen it in the wasteland; two-legged pig-headed and bear-headed people can't outrun wild boars and bears.

"You mean they're learning about human evolution?"

"Yeah, otherwise why would a pig stand up? Their hind legs are so short..."

This time, Yun Ce did not answer. Instead, he raised his steel whip and began to smash it down on the beast in front of him without restraint until it completely lost all power to resist and even exposed its soft belly to show its submission. Only then did Yun Ce put away the steel whip and go to the next hunting ground.

Recently, more than 10,000 prey animals have arrived in the wasteland, attracting countless wild beasts who are preparing for a hunt.

Even the dog skin came from afar, hoping to follow the beasts and get some scraps.

When Yun Ce appeared on the wasteland alone, carrying a steel whip, the dogs sensed the threat emanating from this prey. They retreated, but not far, revealing the ferocious beasts hiding behind them.

This should be a battle between a group of high-level beasts, and has nothing to do with their dog skins.

After Yun Ce shattered the skulls of seven or eight beasts with his steel whip, the dog skins howled at the sky for a while, and the once sizable dog skins scatter and returned to being individuals roaming the wasteland, feeding on carrion.

(End of this chapter)