East China Sea dust

The strong sour smell of sweat was swept by the cold wind, making people sick.

Ao Zhan was dazed and his eyes were tightly closed. After several struggles, he pulled his thoughts back from the endless chaos, tried his best to lift his sour and heavy eyelids, and subconsciously looked towards the source of the sour smell.

The fine sky light gradually drove away the large darkness in front of him, and as his mind gradually became clear, Ao Zhan rubbed the bridge of his aching nose, frowned and raised his eyes——

What I saw was the howling cold wind, and the sky was full of frost and snow.

The goose feather snow fell from the sky and piled up on the ground, forming a thick layer of white.What passes through the nose is the cool air of ice and snow, and the smell is almost as light as white water.

This place seems to be a large wilderness, and the vast plains are everywhere. Perhaps because of the heavy snow, the ice on the plains is pale and dazzling, and the sky and the earth are the same color in the distance, making it difficult to distinguish the boundaries.

"..." Ao Zhan frowned, a moment of stupefaction flashed in his pupils.

"Snapped!"

At this moment, a piercing sound suddenly exploded in the man's ear, the sound was crisp and piercing, and accompanied by a gust of cool wind, the ice and snow spread on the ground were smashed and splashed in all directions.

Looking in the direction of the sound source, I found a thin middle-aged man standing on an earthen platform not far away, holding a long whip in his hand, with one hand on his hip, and shouted loudly at a group of people at the bottom of the glacier channel: " Why did you stop? Do you want to be lazy!"

After finishing speaking, another whip came down: "If you can't finish moving these stones back to the city, you don't even want to have food today."

This time the whip fell on a human body, and the strong man was wearing only a thin coat in the ice and snow. His right shoulder was hit by the whip, leaving a bruise and bloodstain immediately.

There was a sound of gasping in my ears, and the sour smell of sweat in the air became stronger.

Ao Zhan withdrew his gaze calmly, lowered his head to look at the clothes on his body a few times, only to realize that he was actually wearing the same standard of light civilian clothes as the flogged human race.

Crowds of people all around... Looking around, there are more than a hundred men gathered in the low glacier channel, all wearing thin dark brown cloth clothes and walking on straw sandals.

Many people were bending over to lift the boulders on the ice onto their shoulders, and then walked forward slowly.

Suddenly someone slapped his shoulder lightly, Ao Zhan was on guard, turned back decisively, grabbed the arm that was still on his shoulder, tightened his five fingers, and almost started to fight back——

At the critical moment, the man behind him was unsuspecting. After seeing the man turning around, he went a step further, stood in front of Ao Zhan, and shouted in a low voice: "General."

Ao Zhan raised his brows slightly, loosened his five fingers clasped on the opponent's wrist without leaving any trace, took a half step back, but didn't say anything.

I saw that the man was only in his early twenties, his temple hair was disheveled and tied into a bun randomly, his face was rough, his thick eyebrows were straight, and his expression was serious and serious.

The young man was tall and strong, his clothes were as tattered as everyone else's, and the straw sandals under his feet were so worn that half of his toes were exposed, which were red from the wind and snow.

What attracted the most attention was that on the other party's cheeks that had become red due to exposure to the sun, there was a word "capture" stabbed in black ink, which almost occupied most of the face.

Ao Zhan didn't hide his gaze at all. After looking around, he realized that almost everyone present had such tattoos on their faces... including himself.

The man didn't stop for any longer, but took a step back, bent down, picked up the heavy stone placed on the ice and whispered: "General, let's talk as we walk."

Avoiding the middle-aged man who has been watching on the high platform, the other party is very careful.

Although Ao Zhan couldn't figure out why he appeared here for a while, he suppressed his impatience for the time being, frowned, in order not to startle the snake, and imitated the person next to him, he carried it from the ice. Lifted a stone up to his shoulder.

Just as he took a step forward, he felt a sudden tightening of his ankles. Ao Zhan reacted quickly and stopped immediately to stabilize his figure.

Looking down, I realized that everyone's feet are bound by the same shackles. The shackles will disappear when people stop moving forward, and when they start to walk, they will suddenly appear and turn into shackles to prevent escape.

Ao Zhan's face turned livid: "..."

As a real dragon, the Dragon King of the East China Sea has always been distinguished and cultivated. Back then, even the Dao of Heaven feared him a little bit. How could he have suffered such bad treatment?

Just when the violence in Ao Zhan's eyes was almost uncontrollable, the person who had been following him took the lead. Seeing the scars left by the shackles on everyone's ankles, he cursed loudly : "The traitor/person of Jinyang Kingdom is really not a fucking thing."

After scolding, he still didn't forget to spit secretly at the supervisor on the high platform, staring at the long whip in the opponent's hand with resentment on his face.

Catching the strange name spoken by the other party, Ao Zhan's eyes quickly flashed a dark light.

After adapting to the burden of the shackles, he took a step forward, and said in an ambiguous and deep voice: "Since you have already been reduced to someone else's prison, how can you say that a traitor is not a traitor, and things are not things."

"..." Hearing Ao Zhan's indifferent tone, the burly man actually became dejected: "The general taught you well."

"If Jinyang is defeated, the monarch will punish the enemy's prisoners of war more severely than now." After the young man finished speaking, he let out a long sigh.

A group of people walked forward a few miles along the channel of the glacier.

More or less got some clues from the other party, Ao Zhan glanced at the stone on his shoulder, pieced together the scattered details, and only then did he know that there had been a tribal and tribal conflict here more than a month ago. war between.

The tribe I belonged to was defeated, so the soldiers who survived the battlefield became the prisoners of Jinyang Kingdom, and even everyone was cursed with blood by the national teacher of Jinyang Kingdom, and they were not allowed to resist at all unless the person who cast the curse died. Never be freed.

For a tribe, the captives of the defeated country were even lower and humbler than domestic animals. They were in shackles and had tattoos on their faces, and they had to do some heavy manual labor all day long.

Hearing that the other party kept calling himself "General", Ao Zhan became more certain about his speculation...the general of the defeated army is really not a glorious thing.

-----

The group trekked for a long time in the wind and snow, and finally returned to the capital of Jinyang Kingdom after more than half an hour.

Commanding the captives to carry the stones to the place where they should be placed, the accompanying supervisor breathed a sigh of relief and stuffed the whip he had been holding tightly back to his waist.

But soon, the overseer yelled again and drove away more than a hundred captives who had just laid down the stones from the edge of the city.

A group of stinky captives were not allowed to rest for a moment. Under the threat of the blood curse and the supervisor, they had to leave Jinyang City in disgrace, and came to the outskirts of the jungle. Take it as a rest.

The vegetation in the dense forest was originally lush, but now after winter, there are only bare branches left.The crowd gathered in twos and threes, picked up some dry dead branches and leaves, piled them together and started a fire.

It was already evening, and the sky became darker under the influence of the wind and snow.

Dinner was a few pieces of "steamed buns" from the supervisor the day before. I don't know what they were made of. They were as cold and hard as stones.

For a while, only the slight sound of withered branches and leaves burning in the fire could be heard.Everyone's eyebrows and eyes are dull and gloomy, and they don't know how to eat.

Ao Zhan looked around, his eyes were deep, and he had a panoramic view of the situation here.

...An illusion again?

In front of his eyes was the warm flame that was constantly dancing, and the young man who had been closely following him was holding a steamed bun at this moment, gnawing on it seriously.

At this moment, the sense of familiarity that came from nowhere was overwhelming like a tide.

Ao Zhan's pupils constricted, and he instinctively told himself that maybe this time it was indeed not an illusion.

It was impossible for him to allow himself to stay in this strange land any longer.So he found an excuse to leave, stood up quickly, and disappeared into the jungle before the others had time to react.

……

The outside of Jinyang is surrounded by cascading tall forests, and it is easy to get lost in it if you are not careful.

Ao Zhan got rid of the crowd and gradually went deeper into the woods.

It's just that the more I walked forward, the inexplicable familiar feeling in my heart became more and more obvious.

I don't know how much time has passed, the sky has completely dimmed, but there is still a large dense forest with dry and dead branches, cutting the already weak light even more fragments.

Just when Ao Zhan wanted to go further—a clear voice suddenly came from above his head: "Stop."

The voice was neither high nor low, and did not contain the slightest hint of warning or threat... It was even almost soft, falling from the sky in an ethereal manner, and gently diffused around the ears of people.

Ao Zhan paused, and took back the steps that he wanted to take forward.

The man was born tall and tall, walking like the wind along the way, with a lot of snow on his shoulders, he was motionless at this moment, but he looked like a snowman made out of kneading.

After a while, the man seemed to know how to move, and looked up in the direction of the sound.

Behind him was a towering giant tree with a thick branch that could accommodate a person sitting sideways on the trunk, and a young man was sitting halfway on the side.

The young man's robes were delicate, his eyes were cold, and he was leaning on the tree trunk with his arms crossed. There was a ring of fluffy soft fur around his neckline, covering most of his jade-like face.

The cold wind slapped, blowing the hem of his clothes hanging by his side.

The other party hooked a tung oil lamp with one hand, and the weak candlelight flickered, reflecting a narrow piece of light in the dark night.

The man's face was cold, his eyebrows were lowered, he looked down at the ragged man below, and said softly:

"Ahead is a trap for catching wild animals, you can't go through it."