Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 98 When Crisis Arrives, People's Hearts Are No Longer What They Used to Be

Upon seeing the Xintianyou folk song for the first time, Yun Ce couldn't help but recall the famous line from Zhuangzi's "Free and Easy Wandering"—"Angry, it flies, its wings like clouds hanging from the sky."

A bird this big definitely can't fit in one pot.

When Eji was a child, she was almost snatched away by a large bird, so she has always been afraid of large birds. Now that such a large bird has come to the royal hunting grounds, it is no longer safe to hide in the house. So, she hides behind Yun Ce, holding her little dog in one hand and Yun Ce's clothes in the other.

Feng An and Liang Kun were so engrossed in watching the large bird that their feet were itching to sit on it and fly around.

Zhang Min, however, stood at the very front, her head held high and chest puffed out, facing the air pressure generated when the large bird landed. But she held onto Peng Zeng's arm tightly with her other hand, as if Peng Zeng would run away if she let go.

After the large bird landed, Yun Ce was somewhat disappointed. When this thing flew in the air, its wings were spread out and its feathers were also spread out, making it look very large.

After landing, its wings folded up, and it looked about the same size as an old-fashioned fighter jet. Moreover, its feathers were a dull gray and ugly.

Although the big bird with golden eyes and a long beak looked very fierce, Yun Ce was judging whether this guy could withstand the power of Master Ba's machine gun.

It was probably not going to work, because when the person who got off the bird's back landed, a feather fell off. The feather was blown by the wind to Yun Ce, who reached out and grabbed it, then squeezed it hard, turning the seemingly sturdy feather into a ball.

Among the people who came down, most were not tall, and one of them was even dwarf-like. He stood under the bird's head and used a pole to hold up a piece of meat to feed the bird.

This explains why, in order to measure the carrying capacity of the large bird, the less useful bird handler was replaced with a lighter and smaller one, so that more space and weight could be freed up to carry people or goods.

The leader was a woman with a veil over her head, obscuring her face. However, she had a magnificent chest, with layered and impressive curves. She held a sword in her hand, and the antique-looking scabbard was probably not just for decoration.

Zhang Min went up to them, and the two began to whisper to each other. Feng An said with longing that it was Chang'an Mandarin, but Liang Kun said it was more like Luoyang Mandarin.

Yun Ce knew that Chang'an was three thousand miles away from Luoyang, yet the accents of the two places were remarkably similar. This alone showed that the exchanges between Chang'an and Luoyang must have been very close.

The woman spent the rest of her time on Peng Zeng, occasionally glancing back at the puppy in E Ji's arms, but said nothing.

Zhang Min walked to Yun Ce's side and gave him a small metal plate, which was engraved with the words "Exchange this for one thousand taels of gold".

After giving the metal plate to Yun Ce, Zhang Min probably thought she would never see him again. She didn't say anything more, nor did she mention anything about wanting to do *that* with Yun Ce. She turned around and left, acting very heartlessly.

"If I catch someone like that again, I'll sell them to you again."

Yun Ce shouted from behind. Zhang Min stopped, tossed another token to Yun Ce, and jumped onto the giant bird's back.

Logically speaking, it would be difficult for such a large bird to fly under its load. Unexpectedly, it ran about a hundred meters against the wind like a duck, then flapped its wings a few times and flew away.

I thought Zhang Min would leave the smaller bird she rode with her, but it flew away too. Perhaps because it wasn't carrying any weight, it just hopped once and then whooshed into the sky.

With the giant bird gone, the royal hunting grounds returned to their original deathly silence. Only Eji was happy; she had another thousand taels of gold. She was just worried that Zhang Min would cheat her and she wouldn't be able to exchange the tokens for gold.

Izumo Prefecture was completely out of control. Rebel armies frequently appeared near the Royal Hunting Grounds, using the pretext of killing corrupt officials and eliminating scourges on the people to besiege the Royal Hunting Grounds and try to seize the women and valuables inside.

Yun Ce didn't make a move. These people were clearly summoned by Miss Hong, and they were rising up everywhere, making a fortune everywhere. If they were strong enough, Yun Ce even thought about going to Miss Hong's place to hang out. However, seeing more than two hundred people rushing over in a mess and being slaughtered by Lao Cheng riding the Thunder Smoke Beast, Yun Ce gave up the idea of ​​going to find Miss Hong.

The token Zhang Min gave him before leaving was probably a communication token. Feng An said that with this token, he could go to the official post station to send the letter out, and eventually, the letter would end up in Zhang Min's hands.

Throughout his twilight years, Yun Ce practiced martial arts. He knew his martial arts skills were lacking, so he practiced day and night in a haphazard manner in order to fully unleash the excess potential within him.

Compared to Peng Zeng, his body was a true treasure trove. Although Ao Bing didn't say what the benefits of eating dragon eggshells would be, Yun Ce firmly believed that the advantages must be great.

His strength is his defining characteristic. Currently, he only wants to further solidify his strength. In his view, isn't the purpose of martial arts training to achieve higher, faster, and stronger?
Since Yun Ce betrayed Peng Zeng, Gouzi hasn't spoken to him for three days. He's probably shocked by Yun Ce's overly flexible moral bottom line. Determining where Yun Ce's moral bottom line is from the chaotic and unpredictable data would require a huge amount of calculation.

Yun Ce was very satisfied with the dog's reaction, which showed that the dog was still a machine brain and could not be flexible on its own without data support.

On the last day of the year, Eji prepared a great deal of delicious food. Although everyone knew that Anji and her four older girls had made it, Eji only symbolically brought out a bowl of soup. Feng An, Liang Kun, and Lao Chou, who had been specially invited to stay up all night, all stood up to thank Eji. Meanwhile, outside, everyone enjoyed delicious food such as mutton soup, braised pork, steamed fish, stuffed baby beans, and roasted vegetables.

Yun Ce was given a bowl of wheat porridge and several blank nameplates by E Ji. The nameplates were made of an unknown wood, and they were not only finely polished but also emitted a fresh fragrance. E Ji had been working on these wooden nameplates for a long time. He didn't know what she wanted to do before, but now he did. E Ji wanted him to write down the names of the Yun clan's ancestors and then eat wheat porridge with them.

Of course, the title is very important; communicating with ghosts, gods, and ancestors is the head of the family's business.

Yun Ce hesitated for a long time before finally respectfully writing the names of his parents and grandparents on the memorial tablet. After much deliberation, he ultimately decided not to write Yun Linchuan's full name.

Even though he felt this guy wouldn't live much longer when he left, what could possibly defeat someone as hard as a rock?

Yun Ce sat in his room talking to his family all night. Although he didn't know if his ancestors could receive the blessings from their descendants on another planet, Yun Ce still assumed they could.

Eji came in in the morning. She had been waiting outside the door the night before. When she saw that there were four more ancestral tablets on the table, she knelt respectfully on the left, facing Yun Ce instead of the tablets.

Seeing that Yun Ce was looking blank, E Ji said, "When a bride meets her ancestors, she needs her husband to introduce her before they can become a family."

Yun Ce then introduced E Ji to his parents and grandparents. Although E Ji was shedding tears, expressing her longing for Yun Ce's ancestors, if her lips hadn't curled up, Yun Ce would have believed that those two lines of tears were tears of longing.

Before sunrise, Eji wrapped each memorial tablet in beautiful silk and placed them in a pretty wooden box. Yun Ce remembered that the box was the one Eji used to store treasures.

“The ancestral tablets are all kept by the head wife of the household, and they are brought out after two ancestral worship ceremonies and four bows.”

Thus, Eji finally became Yun Ce's wife, and the kind of wife officially recognized by the ancestors. Even if Yun Ce no longer wanted her, as long as she still held the Yun family's title, she would be the undisputed first wife of the Yun family.

Now, all that's left is to have a child. If the child is born and Yun Ce doesn't acknowledge her, E Ji can take the case to the emperor, or even to the Yellow Emperor, since she's in the right.

Eji remained steadfast in her belief that Yun Ce was her husband, no matter how formidable his abilities were.

To be honest, Yun Ce had never been chosen so resolutely in his life. Back on Earth, Yun Linchuan always sifted through his descendants, ultimately choosing not to focus on nurturing him, but instead sacrificing him and sending him here.

Since Eji had made such a firm choice, Yun Ce had no intention of letting her down.

However, when sleeping at night, Eji, apart from sticking her butt out, gave all her tenderness to the puppy-like dog king, Naosheng.

“A large army was marching from the vicinity of the Royal Hunting Grounds.”

Cheng, the former centurion of the Black Armor Army, was so frightened that he could not even speak clearly. Seeing how terrified he was of the army, Yun Ce felt that Zhang Min was right. Zhou Chengming's Black Armor Army was far from being fully trained.

"You're not planning to go inside the hunting lodge and ask the women there to commit suicide, are you?"

Old Cheng gritted his teeth and said, "Suicide is better than suffering endless humiliation."

Yun Ce glanced at Hua Ji to the side and said, "You think so too?"

Hua Ji said, "I don't want to die, I want to live. They are the same; not many of them really want to die."

Yun Ce looked at Lao Cheng and said, "Look, don't decide other people's life and death so casually in the future. You haven't come to regard all the women here as your women these days, have you?"

Old Cheng said, trembling, "I'll go kill them."

Yun Ce raised his leg and kicked Lao Cheng, sending him flying more than ten meters away. Lao Cheng was firmly embedded in the earthen wall and could not be pried off.

Hua Ji quickly replied, "There are three first-class women here, sixteen second-class women, and fifty-eight third-class women, who are older. When the Grand Steward presents the women, please mention that I am present, and I guarantee they will all behave themselves."

Helpless, Yun Ce kicked the woman into the earthen wall again, just like Lao Cheng, and couldn't be pried out.

(End of this chapter)