treacherous world

In the early morning of the next day, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang woke up to the sound of Zhao Jiajun's drill slogans, to be precise, they were awakened by the earth-shattering shouts.

When the first slogan sounded, the two "bombed" with a whoosh.

They looked at each other, then lay down together and looked up at the sky—so tired!

Zhan Zhao was woken up suddenly, he was still in a state of confusion due to drowsiness, leaning on the bed in a daze.

At this time, Bai Yutang's noble son's tone was rarely revealed, rubbing his temples, he felt a headache.

At this time, in addition to the sound of slogans, there is also the sound of footsteps practicing together. Just imagine, tens of 10 people stepping on the ground together, of course the whole ground is trembling.

"ah……"

After a long time, Zhan Zhao inexplicably said, "Then the people of Black Wind City don't sleep late all year round?"

Bai Yutang turned his face slowly and looked at Zhan Zhao's tangled face——this cat's thinking was indeed closer to that of a cat.

At this moment, a "bang" was heard, and the door was knocked open. When Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang turned their faces, they saw Gongsun standing at the door, his momentum was like a rainbow...

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's first reaction was—is it a felony to sleep late in the barracks?

Gongsun pushed the door open, but instead of rushing in, he stuffed the fourth son in, and then hurried away, seeming to say, "I'm so busy today, help me watch him, don't let him mess up." run."

Then... everything quieted down.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang blinked and looked at the door.

On the threshold, the fourth son sat there rubbing his eyes and yawning, it could be seen that he had just been arrested, and his blank expression seemed to be still wandering in his sleep.

Zhan Zhao hesitated for a moment, and asked Bai Yutang, "Everyone is busy."

Bai Yutang nodded, of course the barracks is busy.

"It would be embarrassing to lie back and sleep again?" Zhan Zhao sat up.

Bai Yutang couldn't fall asleep anymore, got up and put on his coat, and at the door, the fourth son was leaning against the door frame, squinting his eyes and still dozing off.

When Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang came out refreshed, they looked up - today is a sunny day with no clouds in the sky.

Early in the morning, there was a commotion at the gate of the barracks.

Zhan Zhao heard Ouyang Shaozheng yelling from a long distance, "Oh, there are so many fish!"

The fourth son was curious, "What kind of fish?"

Zhan Zhao hugged him, jumped up to the tower and squatted down to look at it. He saw a long convoy at the gate of Heifeng City for several miles. There was water in the car, and there were fresh and lively fish and seafood inside.

"Wow..." Xiao Si covered his mouth and looked at the long motorcade, and said after a long time, "Jiujiu said there were fish today, but I thought it was raining today, so there really are fish!"

Zhan Zhao turned his head silently, looking at Bai Yutang who was drinking tea calmly in the yard, what is that - a mouse, it's too high-profile.

Bai Yutang took a sip of tea, and considered whether to bring a few more trucks over to Yuqian Longjing, as he was not used to drinking tea from the north.

So, after a busy meal in the kitchen, the officers and soldiers of Black Wind City actually ate fish meat siu mai and crab roe buns.One or two have been nervous lately, but the river fresh seafood is so fresh that everyone smiles and sighs with emotion—Master Zhan, it’s better to come in and sit down!

Everyone knew that Bai Yutang sent the fish, and there was only one reason for sending the fish—Master Bai wanted to feed the cat.

After eating and drinking, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang wanted to go to Zhao Pu's side to see the situation, so they took the fourth son out from the back door of Black Wind City, and rode to the sea of ​​bones.

The excavation work of Li Hai is still going on, and the entire city has basically been exposed to the outside. Unlike last night when it was dark and blind, today the whole city is shining with silver light under the sunshine.

Zhao Pu held a steamer in one hand, and squatted on the seaside to watch while eating siu mai.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at him with a frown - the image! The image of the marshal is gone!

Gongsun didn't know what he was doing down there. He was holding a booklet and a pen in his hand, as if he was measuring and making some records, or drawing a picture.

Bai Yutang was more interested in Gongsun Qian's paintings, so he ran down to look at his paintings.

Zhan Zhao squatted next to Zhao Pu, while the fourth son squatted on the other side.

Zhao Pu stuffed a siu mai into the mouth of the fourth son, turned his head and raised his eyebrows at Zhan Zhao, "Oh, I, Zhao Jiajun, haven't eaten fish for a long time, Mr. Zhan wants to come here often!"

Zhan Zhao laughed, looking at his complacent look, "What did you find?"

"Hmm..." Zhao Pu pointed to the city that was almost exposed outside, and stretched out two fingers, "There are two points that I don't quite understand... Well." Before he finished speaking, the fourth son stuffed him with a siu mai In his mouth, he seemed to feel sorry for him while eating and working.

"Which two points?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"First." Zhao Pu frowned and looked at the city, "Don't you think it's a little smaller?"

Zhan Zhao looked around, "But it's true, if the rumor is true, how big can it be built on a tree?"

"It's not big enough, how can there be so many people?" Zhao Pu seemed puzzled, "The second point... I haven't dug out the boat so far."

"Boats..." Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin, "Yes, there are many big ships in the mirage. If the size of the city-state is considered, it shouldn't be able to accommodate so many ships."

"Jiujiu." The fourth son lay on Zhao Pu's lap, put his chin in his hands and asked him, "Why is there a mirage?"

Zhao Pu raised his eyebrows, "Wow... such a profound question is only suitable for nerds to answer, you'd better ask your father."

"I asked last night. Daddy said that this mirage appeared very strange." The fourth son wrinkled his nose, "I remembered something."

Zhan Zhao asked him, "What's the matter?"

"Didn't I go to the palace to accompany Aunt Fat before? Aunt Fat and several other aunts were listening to Chen Banban telling ghost stories. Chen Banban said that he saw dead empresses walking around in Lenggong. .”

Zhan Zhao frowned, "Is it just a harem rumor?"

"Really?" The fourth son held his cheeks, as if this matter had troubled him for a long time.

"Not really." Zhao Pu ate a basket of siu mai and crab roe buns, "Actually, I saw it when I was young."

"You what?" Zhan Zhao was surprised.

At this moment, Bai Yutang also came back. He seemed to be confused about something. When he got close, he happened to hear Zhao Pu talking about bumping into ghosts when he was a child. Which kid was so unlucky to run into him.

"One year, it was in the harem." Zhao Pu thought for a while, "On Zhao Zhen's birthday, I went into the palace to celebrate his birthday. I drank too much that night and couldn't sleep, so I took a lantern and went to the palace. The little eunuch followed. I wandered around to a relatively secluded and deserted place, and the little eunuch told me that this place is a cold palace, where several concubines hanged themselves before, and it is often haunted by ghosts, so don’t go there.”

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other, and even the fourth son knew that with Zhao Pu's character, it was definitely you who wouldn't let me go?I just want to go there!

Zhao Pu rubbed his nose, "The sky was actually pretty good that night, there was no thunder or lightning, I walked around the cold palace, except for a few court ladies who came in and out with tea trays, I ran away Come out and get ready to go back."

The little eunuch also asked me, "Have you seen a ghost?"

The fourth son also asked, "Did you see it?"

"Of course I said I didn't see it. I just said I saw a few court ladies coming in and out." Zhao Pu thought about it for a while, "Those court ladies were quite strange. They walked by the wall and didn't say hello when they saw me."

Zhan Zhao frowned, "Lady..."

Zhao Pu laughed dryly, "The little eunuch stuttered at that time, remind me, where did the maid come from in the cold palace?"

Everyone looked at each other.

"Wow!" Little Four held his face, "Then Jiujiu, what you saw was a ghost?"

"Shouldn't the ghosts in the cold palace be the kind of ghosts with disheveled hair? For example, empresses who resent death, concubines who died tragically, etc. Why are they walking around holding tea trays?" Zhan Zhao was puzzled.

"I investigated this matter later." Zhao Pu said, "I went back and talked about it with Zhao Zhen, and Zhao Zhen said that he had seen it too, not only court ladies, but also eunuchs walking by in groups or wearing former court clothes. Soldiers in uniform. Later we checked and found that the Lenggong was the residence of Concubine Cen Guifei who was demoted in the previous dynasty. The Lengfu Palace was very beautiful before it became the Leng Palace, and the late emperor liked to hold banquets in it. At that time, there were many palace ladies coming in and out. We checked some pictures drawn by the historian at that time. The maids are all drawn, and their names are recorded. What's more interesting is that two of the maids didn't die at all, they were still working in the palace, but they were very old... Zhao Zhen and I met two of them later .”

After hearing this, everyone couldn't find the context.

The fourth son didn't understand, "Why did he become a ghost if he didn't die?"

"That is to say, what you see is not a ghost at all." Bai Yutang pondered for a while, "But people are already old, why do they appear when they were young? The principle is indeed similar to the mirage just now."

Zhao Pu went on to say, "One more time in the desert."

Everyone was curious to hear.

"When I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, there was a thunderstorm that day. The old man who was grazing in the family went to the plateau and never came back." Zhao Pu said, "You also know that thunder is very dangerous on the prairie. My brothers and I ran Go out and look for him. There was a lot of thunder and lightning, and there were fireballs."

"Fireball!" The fourth son was startled.

"You haven't seen the kind of lightning that hits like a fireball, right?" Zhao Pu squeezed the cheeks of the fourth son, "That thing, no matter how good your skill is, you will die if you touch it."

"Oh..." The fourth son really hadn't seen much of the world, so he opened his mouth wide in shock.

"We found the old man and his cows and horses who were sheltering from the rain on the side of the mountain, and we hid together under the hillside, ready to go back when the rain stopped." Zhao Pu continued, "At this moment, we saw people on the barren hills in the distance. , walked past a long procession of horses, probably as many as several hundred people, led by a white camel with a tuft of red hair on its head, very special, and an old-fashioned camel bell hanging on it."

"Such a large team of merchants?" Zhan Zhao was surprised, "Walking on the mountain in a thunderstorm, are you dying?"

"No, we were worried about their safety at the time. We called them and wanted them to come down and avoid being struck by lightning... But those people kept walking as if they couldn't hear them at all. At this moment, a Thunder down and a few fireballs go across that caravan."

The fourth son covered his mouth, thinking that wouldn't many people die?

"But the evil one is that the moment he was struck by lightning, the caravan just disappeared." Zhao Pu shrugged.

"Disappeared?" Zhan Zhao was surprised.

"That's right." Seeing everyone's doubts, Zhao Pu smiled faintly, "The more evil ones will come later."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other, thinking that it's not evil enough?

"Just a few days later, a caravan passed by our tribe and stopped to rest." Zhao Pu said, "There are about 20 people in this caravan, and the leader is a white camel with a tuft of red hair on its head and a camel bell. Somewhat familiar, I recognized at a glance that it was the team of people I saw on the top of the mountain that day. However, both the merchants and the livestock in the caravan seemed to be much younger than now, especially the old camel.

When sitting together drinking and chatting at night, an old man who led the team drank a few more glasses and started bragging about how beautiful he was ten years ago. He drove a team of hundreds of people across the desert to sell silk and porcelain. "

"I'm sure it's the same caravan." Zhan Zhao asked.

Zhao Pu shrugged, "I'm not sure, but the day the thunder struck, the caravan did disappear out of thin air."

"After we saw the mirage, a black storm blew up, and when the caravan disappeared, it was a thunderstorm. Then when we saw the maid in the palace, did the weather change?"

Gongsun didn't know when he came over, stood beside Zhao Pu and asked.

"Uh, what about this..." Zhao Pu stroked his chin and thought for a while, "It seems that it rained heavily later that night, and it rained for three days and three nights at once, flooding many farms."

"That means that every time there is a vision, the weather will change drastically, right?" Bai Yutang asked.

Zhao Pu nodded, but he was also noncommittal.

"Natural vision..." Gongsun said to himself.

At this time, Zhe Ying ran up and reported to Zhao Pu, "My lord, the digging is almost done, but there is no tree."

"It's not surprising." Zhao Pu curled his lips, "There are so many bugs in the ground, let's eat them all."

"Then, what should we do?" Zhe Ying asked Zhao Pu, "Should we continue to block it?"

Zhao Pu was thinking about what to do with the ancient city. Although it was not as big as imagined, it was still a giant, and it couldn't be dragged away. It would be a hot potato if so many people stayed here to guard it.

"I still want to go in." Bai Yutang said.

Both Gongsun and Zhao Pu frowned, which meant that it was a little risky.

We are discussing here.

The sound of horseshoes was heard in the distance.

Zhao Pu seemed anxious when he heard the sound of horseshoes, so he looked back.I saw He Yihang galloping over on his horse, and after a long distance, he got off his saddle and flew forward. At that speed... Zhao Pu frowned.Although He Yihang is a mother-in-law, but after all, he is a general and deputy commander in the army. He is usually more stable than himself. What happened to make his face pale with anxiety?

"My lord, it's amazing!" He Yihang rushed over and reported to Zhao Pu.

The first thought in Zhao Pu's head was—something happened to Kaifeng Mansion, it was terrible.

He Yihang looked around, leaned over, and said in a low voice, "Plague has broken out in the three nearby villages."

Zhao Pu's face sank.

Gongsun was also surprised, "How could this happen? What plague?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other. For a brave warrior like Zhao Pu, the commander in chief of the three armies, nothing is as scary as the word "plague".Once this spreads, let alone hundreds of thousands of troops, several million are not enough to die.

"It seems to be the plague." He Yihang lowered his voice in order not to shake the morale of the army, "I sent someone to seal off the village secretly, sir, do you want to go and have a look?"

"If it's really plague, it's useless to block it." Gongsun hurriedly stuffed the blueprint into Bai Yutang's hand, took the medicine box, and followed He Yihang away.

Zhao Pu wanted to follow, but was grabbed by the fourth son.

Zhao Pu looked at him.

The fourth son seriously said, "Jiujiu is not allowed to go, the disease can be big or small."

"Then your father is alone..." Zhao Pu was anxious.

The fourth son patted his chest, "I'll go!"

Before he had time to rush over, he was grabbed by Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, lifted them up and threw them to Zhao Pu, they should go.

Zhao Pu scratched his head anxiously, this Lao Shizi commander in chief is really troublesome, he can't do this or that.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao walked together to the first town where the plague occurred, and they chatted secretly while walking.

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "It can't be such a coincidence, yesterday Li Yuanhao just said something about ancient legends and natural phenomena, and today there is a plague?"

Zhan Zhao also crossed his arms, "It's really strange!"