Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 273 Give me your horse

"Hululu..."

The chestnut horse responded.

Yun Ce asked the dog, "Can you also transform into human form?"

The dog said, "As long as I find the right materials, I can make a body myself."

Yun Ce said, "I mean a real human form."

The dog said, "You know I'm made of silicon, right?"

Yun Ce said, "I know."

"Then tell me the fuck, how the silicon matrix can be transformed into a carbon matrix?"

"forget it."

"Why did Wu Tong lie to you?"

"I think their target is the High Priest. After all, they tricked Eji and the others into going to the Dragon God Temple. The Ancestral Fire is eternal and cannot be dealt with. The only one who can deal with it is the High Priest."

"Logically speaking, you should support Wu Tong and his group."

"Don't joke around. Compared to them, I trust Miss Hong more. This is something we decided on a long time ago."

"Okay, stance is important."

"Actually, it's not the stance that's important, but the ultimate goal that the stance aims to achieve. The Grand Marshal hopes to peacefully replace the Han Dynasty, Wu Tong and the others hope to revitalize the Han Dynasty, and Hong Guniang and the others want to overthrow the Han Dynasty."

The one whose stance is closest to ours is Red Girl. However, after overthrowing the Han Dynasty, Red Girl and her people established a new dynasty that could provide a way for the common people to survive.

In this respect, we are very different from them. What we need to do is end the feudal dynasty and establish a new country where the people are the masters.

Gouzi said, "Grand Marshal has the most supporters, and Wu Tong and other reformers also have a lot of followers. Although Hong Guniang and her group have fewer people, they have many potential allies. Only you have no one to help you."

Yun Ce laughed and said, "Back then, there were only 13 people on the Red Boat, representing 50 people nationwide. Now we have more than 100 people, representing 70,000 people. The situation is much better than in our ancestral homeland."

The dog said, "That's one way of putting it, but you know the reality yourself."

Yun Ce understood, of course, that a strong mass base was a major issue. The other three groups all had a very broad mass base, while he did not.

These things make one feel that the future is bleak. Neither Yun Ce nor Gouzi wanted to talk about them. They just wanted to keep their heads down and do their work. If they looked up too often, they would only become disappointed or desperate.

The chestnut horse had drunk too much tea and was incredibly energetic that night. It wouldn't sleep, which disturbed Yun Ce's sleep as well. Helpless, he had no choice but to pack up the tent and continue his journey on the chestnut horse.

As dawn broke, the Great Wall had disappeared, the mountains gradually became lower, and some towns began to appear between the hills.

The people in the town mostly make a living by gathering and hunting. Like Hekou Village, poverty is the main theme here, and self-sufficiency is a key characteristic.

With the first two characteristics, isolation, ignorance, and indifference have become the behavioral patterns of the people here.

Fortunately, we had already entered the territory of Xinping Prefecture, which was only 300 li away from Liangzhou, less than half a day's journey for a chestnut horse.

On the road to Liangcheng, Yun Ce saw many people dressed as wandering knights, both men and women. Some of them seemed to have very good martial arts skills. Among them, there were fifteen or sixteen people who aroused Gouzi's interest, and three of them were warriors who aroused Gouzi's great interest.

Yun Ce was different from them. He was riding a Thunder Smoke Beast, carrying a long sword and a horse spear, and holding a book in his hand. He was reading and reciting as he went. He looked like a scholar traveling for study.

Scholars of the Han Dynasty were skilled in riding horses, driving chariots, swordsmanship, spear fighting, and archery. Of course, they could also occasionally pretend to be knights-errant or swordsmen when they encountered danger. This was especially true for scholars who dared to travel alone to study, and sometimes they even liked to commit robbery.

Therefore, despite the awkward way the chestnut horse ran, no one bothered the person who liked to read on the back of the bouncing Thunder Smoke Beast.

In the afternoon, Yun Ce arrived at a place called Qianjiaji, which was less than 20 li from Liangcheng. Like the market near Xiangcheng, it was one of the first passes of the city.

Those who wish to enter Liangcheng must first stay overnight in Qianjiaji and wait for the government to complete its inspection before they can enter Liangcheng the next day.

Caravans stopped at Qianjiaji to pass through a checkpoint and pay taxes; wandering knights stopped at Qianjiaji to pass through a checkpoint and have their documents verified; and scholars like Yun Ce only needed to pass through a checkpoint. Therefore, the price of a night's stay at the inns in Qianjiaji was outrageously expensive. In fact, it wasn't just the inns that were expensive; everything sold there was ridiculously overpriced.

Therefore, while the caravan members were camping, so were the poor knights-errant. Yun Ce, a scholar, in order to maintain the prestige of his noble family, threw out a gold bead and received an elegant room.

Yun Ce originally planned to sleep in this room himself and let the chestnut horse sleep in the stable. However, when he entered the room and smelled the odor of horse manure, he changed his mind and pulled the chestnut horse to sleep with him.

I thought I'd have to argue with the innkeeper for a while, but to my surprise, he was used to it and immediately agreed. He even sent a waiter to deliver Yun Ce's food and the chestnut horse's feed to the room.

The chestnut horse was a clean horse. After Yun Ce took out the folk firework and set it on fire in the room, the smell of horse manure and some other strange smells in the room immediately disappeared.

The dog mumbled something in Yun Ce's head, but he couldn't hear what it said. Seeing that the whole room was clean, Yun Ce lay down on the bed fully clothed. As for the food sent by the inn, Yun Ce didn't eat a bite, and of course, the chestnut horse didn't eat the horse feed they sent either.

The chestnut horse really wanted to sleep on the bed with Yun Ce. Seeing that Yun Ce didn't invite it to sleep with him, it took its own blanket out of the bag and spread it on the ground. Before going to sleep, it didn't forget to touch the sole of Yun Ce's shoes with its hoof. This time Yun Ce didn't move. The dog stretched out its tentacles to cover it with the blanket.

Sleeping in such a guesthouse, although one cannot see, one's ears seem to hear the sounds of all kinds of people all night long. In the room to the left, a man and a woman were making love all night long. Whether it was the force of the man's thrusts, the woman's gentle and compliant movements, or the duration of their cooperation, it was all of the highest quality. No wonder they dared to do such a thing, leaving one speechless except for envy.

The neighbor on the right was a bit different. Yun Ce listened to the sound of whips striking a person all night and could tell that the person being beaten was a man. It didn't seem like some kind of trick; it was probably real torture to extract a confession. Yun Ce heard people ask in hushed tones more than once, "Where is He Junnian?"

The man in the opposite room was snoring loudly, and the person in the back room seemed to be fiddling with counting rods, the sound of the bamboo rods scattering and gathering echoing all night.

Fortunately, all the sounds disappeared before dawn, and Yun Ce was finally able to sleep without covering his ears.

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief and was preparing to get some sleep, his door was violently kicked open, and a burly man dressed in an apricot-yellow shirt flew into the room along with the broken wooden door.

Immediately, three more burly men rushed into his room. Before the burly man who had fallen in could get up, the three men rushed up and started kicking him repeatedly. They kicked hard, and almost every kick was aimed at the burly man's vital points.

Yun Ce sat on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, watching helplessly as the burly man went from begging for mercy to falling silent without uttering a word. The chestnut horse also raised its long neck, staring at the brutality before it, and seemed somewhat frightened as it pressed its long face against the edge of Yun Ce's bed.

Of the four people who came in, one was kicked to death. Two others dragged the dead body out of the room. The last one to leave even politely helped him close the door, which was missing its door panel, leaving Yun Ce with only a thick, dark bloodstain.

Unable to sleep any longer, Yun Ce threw off the blanket and got out of bed, intending to ask the innkeeper for his room fee back. He figured anyone could stay in this kind of inn if they wanted; he wasn't planning on staying there anymore.

Upon arriving at the front hall, Yun Ce found the innkeeper sleeping on the counter. After telling the innkeeper about his ordeal, he asked for his lodging fee back, and the outcome was obvious.

"Does the guest know why they didn't kill you after they killed the other man?"

Startled by the innkeeper's meaningful warning, Yun Ce bowed respectfully and, without asking about his room fee, hurriedly left the inn with his chestnut horse.

The shopkeeper was quite pleased with the young scholar's wit and felt that he had once again acted out of kindness and saved a young man. He couldn't help but sigh and feel slightly guilty for his goodness.

The gates of Qianjiaji facing Liangcheng were not yet open, and there were no officials from the verification station, so Yun Ce naturally could not leave Qianjiaji. After looking around for a while, he led his chestnut horse slightly closer to a bearded man who was sitting cross-legged under a tree sleeping. He stopped about three zhang away from the man, took a futon from the leather bag on his horse, threw it on the ground, sat on it, and pretended to doze off with his eyes closed, just like the bearded man.

The dog said urgently, "You can get any closer. That would be like colliding with him. He would attack you, and then you would retaliate. In the end, I would drain all your inner energy. Do you think doing that is beyond your moral bottom line?"

Yun Ce said, "I think this man looks like a hero, so let's not bother him."

Dog said regretfully, "We haven't encountered many guys with cultivation levels of over a thousand men before."

"Go to sleep. We'll set off for Liangcheng after dawn."

Seeing that he couldn't dissuade Yun Ce from acting violently, Gouzi obediently shut up and continued calculating the star map that he could never finish calculating.

As dawn broke, the bearded man next to him opened his eyes. He first glanced at the chestnut horse that was constantly hopping like a rabbit, and after a long while, he finally fixed his gaze on Yun Ce, who had also opened his eyes.

"The young man's Thunder Smoke Beast is quite magnificent."

When asked, Yun Ce laughed and said, "Instead of being reformed by the Beast Supervisor, it damaged my brain. Now I can only make do with riding."

The burly man with a bushy beard stood up, and Yun Ce realized that this guy was over two meters tall and had an extremely imposing presence.

"Give me this beast; perhaps I have a way to make it normal."

(End of this chapter)