Niao Ni
Chapter 598 Two Years
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In the black night sky, the stars were breathtakingly beautiful. Pale silver light shone upon the crescent-shaped sea below the mountain, reflecting countless twinkling eyes. The lakeside was covered with soft grass, and the wind whispered gently, seemingly conversing with those asleep. Countless tents spread out from around Crescent Sea into the depths of the grasslands, with faint lights mirroring the stars in the sky. But most of the herdsmen's tents were dark and silent, bathed in starlight.
Fan Xian's hand holding the cylindrical tube stiffened slightly, as he watched the movements near the Khan's main tent on the shore of Crescent Sea. Only after a long while did he lower the tube, lower his head, hug his knees, and fall into deep thought.
The Xihu Khan had entered that small tent and hadn't emerged for a long time. There should be Hu experts guarding the area in the surrounding darkness, but the entire defense system seemed much looser than usual. Perhaps the Khan didn't want the experts of the royal court to be too close to that tent.
Who was staying in that small tent? Fan Xian pursed his dry lips, feeling a slight dip in his mood. This discovery might be a bit strange, even stranger than his encounter with Wei Wucheng, but Fan Xian didn't doubt it – the Hu people could never imagine that someone could watch everything on the shore of Crescent Sea from the high mountains.
This wasn't something human power could achieve. Science and technology were the primary productive force. Fan Xian gently stroked the cylindrical telescope with his fingers, licked his lips, and didn't leave. Instead, he waited quietly, until the Khan emerged from the tent.
The Xihu Khan, over thirty years old, wore a light cloak, but his saber was not at his side. He bowed slightly as he exited the tent, and from his expression, he seemed reluctant to leave.
A mocking smile appeared on the corner of Fan Xian's lips.
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In the days that followed, the major merchant houses of the Central Plains began to bargain with the dignitaries of the Xihu royal court about the goods they had brought. And in order to wait for the people coming from the two great Sage Kings' tents, the time was slightly extended by two days.
The royal court showed goodwill to these merchants, naturally for the possible import of supplies in the future. But this autumn sale itself was also a luxury goods trade fair with a huge amount. The Xihu princes and nobles possessed the richest resource production on the entire grassland and had countless gold and jewels in their hands, and they did not blink an eye when buying luxury goods from the Central Plains.
Even so, it took the merchants from the Central Plains four or five days to sell all their inventory. During these four or five days, Mu Feng'er, representing the Shazhou First Merchant House, also tried to get close to the Hu people, making small money. And Fan Xian simply fulfilled his responsibilities and then began to stroll around Crescent Sea, or rather, to scout, or to be scouted.
It must be said that, given his true identity, it was a very arrogant and even foolish act to do this in the center of the Xihu royal court.
His eyebrows were pulled closer together, the ends of his eyebrows were glued up a bit, and his complexion was slightly changed, but what remained unchanged was that still handsome face. So when he walked on the meadows and dunes near Crescent Sea, he was always greeted by countless ardent and passionate gazes.
Although the Hu women were not as open as the people of the Central Plains slandered them to be, their attitude towards love and handsome men was definitely much warmer. If Fan Xian could show off the muscles hidden under his clothes, he believed that this enthusiasm would be like a fire in the autumn, directly engulfing him.
However, he didn't want to develop a relationship in the Hu tribe that couldn't have an ending. He strolled around Crescent Sea, just chatting with Wei Wucheng. Of course, no one knew whether his subconsciousness had the idea of attracting someone else's attention.
His conversation with Wei Wucheng went very well. This young man from Northern Qi had probably been on the grasslands for a long time and rarely met a good conversationalist like Fan Xian. He came to him from time to time to confide. From the conversations of the past few days, Fan Xian gradually figured out some things. But in the last two days, perhaps Wei Wucheng had received some kind of warning, and his words were more careful. At the same time, Fan Xian also noticed that there were a few more pairs of eyes watching him.
Fortunately, it didn't cause too many problems. The main thoughts of the princes and nobles in the royal tent were still on the merchants and the forces they represented. Fan Xian, the pretty boy in the eyes of the Hu people, was not very noticeable. He still climbed that steep isolated mountain on time every late night, holding a telescope, peeping at everything on the shore of Crescent Sea.
The Khan at night didn't leave his main tent to go to that small tent every day, but the frequency was also extraordinarily high. Fan Xian had already found out clearly that the small tents to the side and rear of the Khan's main tent were where the general Hu maids lived, and there was nothing particularly strange about them.
The strange thing was why the Khan went there, and the strange thing was that Fan Xian and Mu Feng'er discovered that it was now very difficult to get close to those small tents. Many people were secretly protecting that small tent, isolating it from the world on the shore of Crescent Sea.
After guarding for four consecutive nights, Fan Xian became more and more convinced of his own deduction, but he couldn't help but think with slight sarcasm that the master on the grasslands seemed to be acting a bit too respectfully.
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Chilochuan,
Below Yin Mountain,
The sky is like a yurt,
Covering the four fields.
The sky is vast,
The wilderness boundless,
The wind blows the grass low, and cattle and sheep are seen.
"Does anyone know where Chilochuan is? Does Yin Mountain refer to the mountain behind the Haizi?"
Many of the tents near the royal court had been removed, and the area around Crescent Sea had become empty and quiet. The herdsmen who lived by water and grass each had their own destinations. Without the goods brought by the merchants from the Central Plains, the heads of the various tribes led their people home. The attraction of the royal court to them, to this day, was still far less than the goods from the Central Plains.
In a quiet tent, Wei Wucheng, who had been a member of the Xihu royal court's internal treasury auditing staff for a year, held a piece of paper in his hand and asked his companion beside him. These people had been on the grasslands for a year, helping the Khan deal with political affairs, collect intelligence, and play an important role in the rise of the royal court. Now that the Qing army's autumn hunt had ended, the grasslands were preparing to welcome the arrival of winter, and there were no major wars to prepare for, so Wei Wucheng began to have his old habits again.
"Do you think you're still in Shangjing? Do you think you can still take the imperial examination?" A companion, who was obviously in a bad mood, said sarcastically, "All day long, when you have nothing to do, you hold poems and lyrics and read them. Don't you look at where this is?"
Wei Wucheng wasn't annoyed and chuckled, "This short poem was given by a friend, and it describes the scenery of the grasslands very well, so I wrote it down, but I don't understand two of the lines very well."
These people carefully tasted it and found that this was indeed the case. The words of this short poem were simple, but they had a grand aura, which was really not something that ordinary people could write.
In this way, this "The sky is vast, the wilderness boundless" began to be remembered, and then spread to the Hu people around the royal court, and was translated into the Hu language, and began to be sung lightly by the Hu girls waving their whips.
It didn't spread widely, but rumors were more useful than telescopes. They were born with wings, even more wonderful than Ye Liuyun's light body skills.
A maid carrying a jar of goat's milk heard it as she passed by the tent. She stood outside the tent, gently put down the pottery jar, and was in a daze for a while, then wiped her hand stained with milk on her clothes.
The Khan also learned of this short poem that night, but he didn't care much about it. A heroic king had too many things to consider and didn't think this short poem could bring any problems, but he asked two questions casually because he was entrusted by someone. When he learned that Wei Wucheng had heard it from those merchants, he stopped caring.
Those merchants from the Central Plains had left the royal court for three days. Could he chase them back just for a short poem?
The Khan didn't pay much attention to this matter, so when he found out the next day that the maid carrying the jar of goat's milk had suddenly disappeared, he was furious, as if a very important treasure had been dug out of his heart.
Fortunately, the maid left a letter, advising him to be patient, and that she would be back soon. Only then did the Khan stop the idea of sending cavalry to pursue those merchants from the Central Plains.
The autumn grass on the grasslands was long and desolate, covering the roads from the royal court to all directions. Of course, there were originally no roads on the grasslands. If the horses stepped on them too much, there would naturally be roads.
Just over a day's journey from the royal court towards Qingzhou, there was a large, flat and empty plain, extremely quiet, with the autumn sun hanging low, full of bleakness.
The woman dressed in the maid's clothes walked out of the tall grass, and then she saw the young man opposite her.
A young man with a smile on his face and deep disappointment in his eyes.
The young man looked at the woman he hadn't seen for three years, looking at her face, looking at her eyes that were still like lake water, no, clearer than Crescent Sea, looking at her hands inserted beside her, and said, "You've gotten tanned."
Haitang Duoduo, who had been missing for more than two years, had now become an ordinary maid in the Xihu royal court. She looked at Fan Xian, without speaking, and the clear eyes didn't know what kind of words they were silently telling.
Fan Xian stared into her eyes and said, "I've been waiting for you here for two days... or are you saying that you've been waiting for me on the grasslands for two years?"