[Infrastructure] After being mistaken for a god

To Inan's surprise, the highest building in Uruk was still a temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna.

It has been more than 2000 years since she came here last time. Inanna's temple has been rebuilt and rebuilt. Except for the high staircase from before, the architectural form has been quite different. The original tall and solemn temple is now only A small room; but the garden behind the original temple has been opened up into a large stretch of houses.

It turned out that it was really the place where the "Sheng Chan" lived.

Gilgamesh led Inan into this graceful courtyard, and the gentle breath of women came to his face.

"Wang, why are you here today? Are you going to the elders' home?"

Several girls in robes came quickly, and when they saw Gilgamesh greeted him cheerfully.

They are of different ages, some are older, some are younger, and they all have good-looking women in common. The elders are elegant and self-sufficient, while the young are youthful and lively. Walking together really makes people feel bright.

Just seeing them, Yi Nan could deduce that these so-called "Holy Advocates", the actual living conditions of the priestesses are actually very good, without any troubles, otherwise they would never be able to be so radiant, exuding such a vibrant look. Spirit.

Immediately someone spotted Inan following Gilgamesh.

"Wang, this little guy is..." A young priestess pointed to Yi Nan and asked.

"This is the king's friend." Gilgamesh said seemingly casually.

But the few women on the opposite side exchanged surprised glances. Obviously, they have never received Gilgamesh's "friends" in this temple, not to mention that Inan is such a thin, old-fashioned , The "little guy" whose hands and feet still look dirty.

His eyes all fell on Yi Nan, which made Yi Nan a little apprehensive: the people in front of him were all of the same sex.She is a real "tomboy". In the eyes of these women, there are probably some clues that are hard to hide.

"I'll take him to meet the elders in a while, but I don't want him to be underestimated. So please do me a favor, help him choose the right clothes, tidy up, and make him look like a handsome boy."

Gilgamesh turned around and left after explaining, "I'll go to the Elder's House first, whoever tells him to come to me after you clean up."

Yi Nan suddenly had no place to hide, facing this group of women with excellent temperament and manners.

"handsome boy?"

One of the youngest priestesses pointed to Yinan, her eyes curled up with a smile, and she said, "This is clearly..."

Others quickly reached out to cover their mouths. At most, the priestess covered her mouth with seven or eight hands at the same time, making a "woo hoo" sound of begging for mercy. Fortunately, Gilgamesh had already gone away.

"Why don't you let me tell?" The youngest priestess finally breathed out.

"Don't fool around!"

"Wang has become an adult but has never been willing to get married, and he has never seen any girl he is interested in. It was not easy for him to bring a girl back..."

"You are stupid, if you really let Wang know that this is actually a beautiful little girl in front of you, Wang will probably be scared away immediately—"

"After all, Wang has rejected so many marriage proposals over the years."

"In my opinion, this is fine now, let Wang tell him when it is hard to let go!"

"Yes!" The sound of clapping followed, "When the time comes, the king will not marry Feiqing—"

Chattering, huge amount of information——Yinan was dizzy from the group in front of her, and no matter how sure she was, a group of priestesses had already gathered in front of her, tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tut-tut-tut-tut-twittered.

"What a beautiful little girl."

"The king has a good eye."

"Little girl, what's your name, don't be afraid, tell sister..."

Yinan: Where is the group in front of you the "Holy Advocate" of the Temple of Inanna?Now she seems to have entered the residence of Gilgamesh's seven aunts and eight aunts by mistake.

"I……"

Before she could introduce herself, the "seven aunts and eight aunts" had already called out more "relatives" to come out, "Come and see, come and see, Wang finally has a sweetheart..."

Yinan's head was full of black lines: what and what?

But soon the "relatives" reached a consensus: "We have to help her clean up quickly." So, seven or eight hands stretched out to Yi Nan at the same time, holding her, and walked into the depths of the courtyard together.

Earlier, Inan heard that Gilgamesh said that he would bring her to see the "Holy Advocate", but he didn't realize that Gilgamesh actually wanted these beautiful and elegant women to help her "dress", so he didn't have the slightest mental preparation—until he used All the warm water for washing was brought, and the priestesses put on a posture of "scrubbing mud" for her, and Yi Nan panicked:

"No trouble, everyone! No trouble, everyone—"

"Don't be afraid!"

These "sisters" put on a gentle expression, smiled softly, and said, "We all know that you are a little girl, you really don't need to worry about anything..."

In fact, Inan was still worried.

Especially after she took off the robe that Sister Shahat gave her, all the priestesses in the temple looked dumbfounded, saying that they had never seen such intimate clothing.Everyone was staring at her, and everyone seemed eager to touch it and try the material.

Yi Nan: ...I knew this would happen.

Fortunately, although the priestesses found it extremely novel, they really respected Yi Nan. No one really "stretched out their magic palm" to Yi Nan. soap, and Inan washed his body by himself.

At most, everyone just silently memorized the shapes of Yi Nan's underwear, maybe they will imitate them by themselves in the future.

But when Yi Nan changed into the clothes sent by the priestesses, Yi Nan had already learned the details of these women - Yi Nan was not only a "little girl", but also had top-notch skills in clichés and "mingling" with others.

Strictly speaking, these priestesses are indeed the "holy advocates" in the temple of Inanna, many of whom came from the temple of Inanna in the surrounding area of ​​​​Uruk, and they are indeed the "kings" of Gilgamesh. "The name summoned them here.

But Gilgamesh did it out of respect and compassion for the "Holy Advocates".

As he himself said, he was raised by the priestesses in the temple since he was a child, so Gilgamesh respected and loved these women.After learning that the priestesses in the surrounding city-states of Uruk have been in "difficult circumstances", they used the power belonging to the "king" to "sign" some priestesses to Uruk and let them live in Uruk. A new life begins in the temple of Inanna in Khaki.

Here, the priestesses were able to continue their faith in the goddess Inanna;

At the same time, they can also show their strengths: These women are all familiar with Sumerian characters and powerful characters who can write cuneiform characters-after all, they used to spend all day with each other in the Inanna temples everywhere. It is necessary to deal with the legendary stories recorded on clay tablets, or to use clay tablets to record various materials coming and going in the temple and various sacrifices offered by the people.

In short, these priestesses, the most prominent group of scribes and accountants in Sumer, were the heirs of Cousin.

And Gilgamesh summoned them here precisely to build the first large Sumerian library in Uruk.

"Your king is actually a very soft-hearted person." A priestess promoted Gilgamesh to Inan kindly, "Although he sometimes has a bad temper and sometimes likes to put on a bad face. But He's not bad in nature."

Yinan thought: Does any of you know Sister Shahat, can you send her a letter?

"The king never wanted to get married, but now he has finally met you," another priestess interjected.

Yi Nan was curious about the first half of the sentence: "Why doesn't Wang want to get married?"

The priestesses looked at each other, and one of them immediately smiled and said, "Didn't the king want you to go to the elders' house? You go, don't rush in, just listen first, or stay a little longer after the end, they will surely talk about this matter again." thing."

"Oh!" Yi Nan nodded to show he understood.

At this time, the group of priestesses had already changed Inan into a bright robe of a masculine style, which was as rich in color as Gilgamesh's "peacock robe".

A priestess took out a necklace and put it on Inan.Inan took a look, and found that the amulet on the necklace was exactly a pair with the red and black bloodstone on the necklace of Gilgamesh.

The priestesses of the whole temple were probably gathered here at this time, and everyone expressed their opinions in one gossip.In the end, everyone thought that although Yinan's image could be hidden from Gilgamesh, it might not be able to hide from the "gold-eyed" elders of the Elder House.

In the end, a priestess took out the charcoal powder they usually used to draw eyebrows, dyed Yinan's two eyebrows straight, and put some shadows on her cheeks, chin and neck to make her face look The lines are tougher.

Yi Nan thanked them solemnly, asked about the way to the elders' home, and waved goodbye to these "sisters".

As soon as she turned around, she heard a priestess behind her say, "What a lovely little girl...but her chest is flatter."

Yinan: ...Thank you for the compliment.

Coincidentally, the "House of Elders" that Gilgamesh asked her to follow happened to be on the site of the temple warehouse more than 2000 years ago.Yi Nan searched in the direction, and found that all the old warehouses had been moved away, and the nearby sheep pens and cattle pens had long disappeared, and they had all become places for officials to work. In the middle was a bright and transparent building, which was Gilgamesh. Even the "elder's house" in his mouth.

In front of the elders' house, more than 100 people who looked like officials gathered.

Yi Nan approached quietly——

Just listen to Gilgamesh's loud voice: "Have all the safety measures been discussed?"

"If there is another accident, the king will never tolerate it, and will definitely investigate it to the end." Gilgamesh's voice was cold, "At worst, all the officials in charge will be rushed to the construction site to work. The project site that you are responsible for , go to work by yourself, and you will suffer the accident yourself."

Yi Nan thought to himself: This move is ruthless enough.

"Understood! I will never fail the king's orders." A group of people who looked like officials saluted Gilgamesh, and then walked away backwards.

There were more than a dozen middle-aged and elderly men left in the hall, ranging in age from thirty to forty to seventy or eighty-it seemed that these people should be the "elders" in Gilgamesh's mouth.

Gilgamesh's "House of Elders", Inan felt like a "think tank" left by Lugabanda to his son. Before making decisions about Uruk, Gilgamesh would take Come to the House of Elders to discuss.

"The next thing is about building a water gate for the walls of Uruk."

When Gilgamesh said this, he turned around and looked around, and found Inan standing beside the pillar.The young Wang smiled at her.

The elders were very puzzled: "Water City Gate... what is this?"

"My wise king, Uruk has used a lot of manpower and food to build the city wall surrounding the entire city. Why do we bother to build a city gate... on the water?"

Gilgamesh hasn't said anything yet, and questions have been thrown out one after another.

Inan stood behind the pillar and listened silently to the elders asking Gilgamesh various questions, some of which were not polite.

After all, in this era, using so many civilians to build a city wall that can protect the entire city is considered a "creation". Who would have thought that Gilgamesh would propose to build another city gate on the water?

The elders asked a lot of questions and their tone was aggressive.

Gilgamesh was very calm, and even encouraged loudly: "Very well, Patsy, your opinion sounds very reasonable."

"Heb, it's interesting, you go on."

After waiting for a long time, these elders finished expressing their respective opinions.

At this point Gilgamesh finally said, "Guys, do you have any more questions?"

After confirming this, Gilgamesh opened his mouth and said, "Today, a friend of the king also came to the House of Elders. Everyone, come and meet Enkidu."

Yi Nan was already very familiar with this "alias", so he turned out from behind the pillar and came in front of the elders.

"Enkidu?" The elders have already heard this name, one is because of an accident on the construction site yesterday, because of Enkidu himself, it disappeared; the other is because the king "revealed" last night It is said that the reason for exercising the "Right of the First Night" is that no woman is more beautiful than this "Enkidu".

Seeing them today, the elders all have to admit: this "Enkidu" is indeed a beautiful young man with picturesque features, but this young man's eyes and attitude reveal a vigorous heroic spirit, he is not such a pretentious "beauty", It's really not necessary to think about it.

"The idea of ​​the Water City Gate was proposed by Enkidu to the king, and even the king himself thought about it for a while before he understood the whole logic—"

Gilgamesh turned his head and looked at Inan, their eyes were full of confidence.

"In this case, let the king and Enkidu work together to answer all the questions you just had."

Next is basically the performance time of Gilgamesh and Inan.Both of them have super-memory, and every question raised by the elders is memorized by these two people, and they answer one after another. Gilgamesh is the main one, but when it comes to some technical issues, Inan will come. answer.

The two cooperated for the first time, and it turned out to be seamless.

"Everyone, the king and Enki have already explained to you all the questions about the water city gate."

"This matter is related to the safety of the people of Uruk and the significance of the success or failure of the city wall construction. Please consider carefully before investing—"

Gilgamesh said loudly.

Yinan: ... what?What is betting?

Speaking of "investment", Yi Nan immediately thought of "voting", and she thought: Could it be?The House of Elders in front of me is not a think tank left by Lugabanda to Gilgamesh, but a decision-making body similar to a "parliament"?

Indeed, the next moment Gilgamesh solemnly held out a box, and took out a special, long pottery stake from it.

There are two colors of pottery chip, one is black chip and the other is white chip.The seventeen "elders" in front of them each received one black chip and one white chip, while Gilgamesh's box still had two black chips and two white chips left.

Yi Nan watched coldly from the sidelines. She thought that the "House of Elders" in front of her might indeed be a collective decision-making body similar to the modern "parliament" system——

From the perspective of the distribution of voting rights: the people who have voting rights in front of us, middle-aged and elderly, male, each have their own characteristics, so Yinan guessed that this kind of power may be hereditary, and the 17 people present represented Ulu Seventeen powerful families in Kecheng.

Each of the seventeen people had one vote, and Gilgamesh unexpectedly had only two votes.

In other words, when it comes to making decisions, Gilgamesh's power is not much greater than these "elders" in front of him.

Originally, Inan was still guessing whether Lugabanda had left the "Presbyterian Council" and used these nobles to restrain the young Gilgamesh, so as to prevent him from causing any trouble because of his youthful vigor.

But now it seems that it is possible that the late king Lugabanda himself was troubled by the power restriction of the "Catheria of Elders", so he endowed his son with "natural divinity". Gain some more control.

After Gilgamesh said the word "investment chips", all the elders stretched out their hands and put the pottery chips they chose on the table.Some people took out black chips, some people took out white chips——Inan was a little nervous. Her problem was that she didn’t know which one represented the “support” for Gilgamesh’s construction. Proposal for the Water City Gate.

With a glance, she saw seven white chips and ten black chips.If the white chip means "support", then even with the addition of Gilgamesh's two white chips, this proposal cannot pass.

But at this time Gilgamesh smiled, his smile was very sunny, and it was a satisfied smile, which made Yi Nan feel confident.

Sure enough, Gilgamesh handed out two black chips and said, "Twelve to seven, thank you for your participation in this decision. The matter of the water city gate is thus decided."

He immediately turned around and looked at Yi Nan: "Duo, your proposal will come true..."

Before the words were finished, one of the elders called "Hebo" suddenly said: "King, although I handed over the black chip, I still hope that you can consider one thing—"

As Hebo said, he turned to look at Yinan: "This...friend of the king, the following is the king's private matter. Do you want to avoid it..."

Inan let out an "oh" and was about to leave, but Gilgamesh seemed to know what Herb wanted to say, he just stretched out his hand, grabbed Inan's arm, pulled her to stand beside him, but said nothing. He didn't say much, but looked at Herb intently, and nodded slightly to him.

"The Amorites want to marry you." Herb looked at Gilgamesh, then at Inan, and finally his eyes fell on Gilgamesh's face.

Yi Nan raised his ears curiously: Amorites?marriage? ... No wonder Gilgamesh never got married. As expected, the monarch's marriages are all linked to politics.

"What's the excuse this time?" Gilgamesh asked.

Herb probably felt a little hopeful, bowed to Gilgamesh, and said: "The Amorites hope that you will marry the goddess they believe in, the representative priestess of the moon god Sin. In this way, your two children will have A more powerful divinity."

When Gilgamesh heard the word "divinity", he said decisively: "No!"

When he resolutely refused, Inan stood by his side, and suddenly felt that she understood Gilgamesh—a person who grew up as "two-thirds gods and one-third human" Children, perhaps only such people will insist that if they have offspring, they should not follow this old path.

Herb was still persuading: "But you also know that the Amorites have a lot of resources you need. Many of the huge logs and stones needed to build the city of Uruk were provided by the Amorites."

Gilgamesh asked back: "Then what can you do? On the premise that I refuse to marry the Amorites."

He directly blocked Herb's persuasion with one sentence, causing the other party to be stunned for a while in embarrassment, before saying: "You, at least need to give a reasonable reason?"

Gilgamesh said "Oh" and replied: "That's easy. You reply to the Amorites like this, and you say that it was the king who said: 'The moon god is my mother'. It is impossible for the king of Uruk to have a relationship with The woman married."

Herb was blocked by this unceremonious refusal, and he couldn't calm down for a long time. After a long time, he said: "But you said the same thing when you replied to the Larsa people last time, but when you said What you said was 'Ning Song is my mother'①...ah no, you said 'Ning Song is your mother', ah no, I was just paraphrasing..."

Herb spoke incoherently when he became anxious.Gilgamesh kept his face cold.

"No matter who is asking the king to marry, the king will only say this, all the gods are my mother, Gilgamesh has no intention of marrying the representatives of these goddesses."

Yinan couldn't help but want to applaud in his heart: this king is really unwilling to be manipulated by others, and he really has his own ideas.

Unexpectedly, just as she thought of this, another elder asked again: "Then why... you don't want to choose a wise priestess as your wife in the temple of Goddess Inanna...they are the same It is divine!"

Gilgamesh shook his head resolutely: "That's even worse. The former king Lugabanda was the husband of the goddess Inanna. Although I am not the goddess's own, she is also my mother in name—a woman who cannot marry a mother."

Yi Nan was really speechless at the side: Inanna... probably doesn't want to recognize your son either.