Come to the night and dream together, and you can't collect tears in the morning.

Xu is cultivation is because he was sealed, and after falling asleep in the middle of the night, he rarely had a dream.

Jiang Ning didn't remember what he dreamed of at all, but the corners of his eyes were a little moist when he woke up.

The pine wood is dense and fatty, and it is relatively flame-resistant after drying, but the winter night is long, and when you wake up, the fire is still extinguished, and only a few wisps of smoke and dust rise.

I only felt stuffy in my chest, and I wanted to get up and go out to take a breath, only to find that Shen Bing's thin body was curled up in a ball, and his back was tightly pressed against Jiang Ning's chest.

Jiang Ning smiled clearly.

In the cold winter, the girl's clothes were a little thin, and after falling asleep last night, the bonfire was extinguished at some point, and she must have been cold in her sleep, so she unconsciously got to her side.

Supporting the girl's back with one hand, turning sideways, carefully flattening the sleeping Shen Bing, Jiang Ning took off his thick coat, covered the girl, and added some hay to the bonfire that had not been completely extinguished.

The snow is getting heavier.

The snow on the ground last night was knee-high, and now the snow outside was already up to the middle of the thigh, and even the periphery of the first corner of the cave was covered with a layer of cotton-like thick white.

Back in the wolf's den, Jiang Ning picked up a slender pine branch from the firewood pile next to the bonfire, and once again came to the periphery of the cave, dancing his sword as if no one was around.

The swordsmanship of "Three Thousand Feet" has higher requirements for true qi, and in the case of no essence and no true yuan, although it is not impossible to practice, but this kind of chic and unbridled swordsmanship consumes the true yuan very much, and the pitiful internal force in his dantian at the moment, even if he uses the first type of three thousand feet, it is a little stretched.

Not to mention "Light Splitting Sword", there is no true element, at least there must be a supreme internal force to be able to use it.

Therefore, Jiang Ning is dancing at the moment, but there is almost no threshold, as long as you have physical strength, you can use "Inch Swordsmanship".

In the world outside the mirror, "Inch Swordsmanship" can only be regarded as an ordinary mid-stream sword technique, but for mortals, it is nothing less than a top cheat.

The snow blocking the road outside, for Jiang Ning, was tantamount to a reminder from Jinghai to himself.

Jiang Ning knew that the pace of this Jinghai test would not be as fast as the last time.

If it is according to the process speed of the last Jinghai test, in four months, it is enough to complete the ninety-nine assessments twice, so Jiang Ning deduced that this time, the time flow rate in the Jinghai assessment is only afraid that it is not the same as the outside world.

If it is a simple change in the speed of time flow, then this is something that even the legendary True One Realm masters can hardly do, and Youlan, who is at the peak of the Divine Elephant, definitely does not have this ability, so he should use other methods. It's just that Jiang Ning doesn't know what kind of method it is.

Of course, it doesn't matter to Jiang Ning whether he knows it or not, since the flow of time is different, for him, it means

I was given more time to hone my swordsmanship.

There is no true element, only internal force, just to return to the basics and hone skills.

When a person's strength and true essence are extremely strong, the power of swordsmanship will be infinitely magnified, and the flaws of swordsmanship will be covered up in turn.

Now Jiang Ning's only one body is left with a qualified body, and under the constraints of limited physical strength and internal force, if he wants to enhance his combat effectiveness, all he can do is to perfect his moves.

The sun still hadn't appeared, and though it was daylight, the gray sky was extremely dim, and the light in the cave was even more dim, and as for the wolf's den behind the corner, it was still as invisible as night.

When there is no light around, people sleep longer than usual.

After playing the inch swordsmanship from beginning to end, the time was about noon, and the entrance of the cave was cold and cold, but Jiang Ning was sweating profusely.

The strength, strength, and toughness of this body are 100,000 miles worse than the external body, and I can't adapt to it for a while, and the moves I play are seriously deformed, which makes Jiang Ning very uncomfortable, not to mention improving my swordsmanship, the top priority is to completely adapt to this body, and first restore my swordsmanship level to the original level.

Jiang Ning had been doing this all morning, and he was almost completely used to it at this time.

The girl just rubbed her sleepy eyes, walked out of the wolf's den, looked at Jiang Ning, who was sweating and resting against the cave wall, and then looked at the slender pine branch that Jiang Ning put in her hand, she was stunned at first, and immediately asked excitedly: "Are you a swordsman?"

Jiang Ning gasped for breath and said, "Let's go, sort of!"

I thought that the little sparrow would be chattering about herself again, but the girl's eyes fell on the thick snow half a man high outside the cave.

"Ah, I can't leave. ”

The hot body cooled quickly in the cold wind blowing in through the hole, and the cold sweat stuck to the clothes inside, and the taste was really not pleasant.

Jiang Ning echoed the girl's words on his lips, but in his heart he was thinking that the next time he practiced swords, it would be better not to wear clothes.

There are no people in the cedar forest all year round, the heavy snow still doesn't stop, and there is a tendency to fall to a height of people, even if the weather clears, it will be a long process for the snow to melt, Jiang Ning knows that at least for a month, the two of them don't want to leave this forest.

Lunch was still wolf meat, and after eating, Jiang Ning did not rush to find the mountain mulberries left behind by the convoy, but took the intact wolf skin that was peeled off last night, cleaned in the snow, and dried by the campfire.

"Well, before you go, put it on. ”

Shen Bing's clothes are thinner than Jiang Ningyuan's, and she is a weak girl, and it is windy and snowy outside, so it is really not good to go out like this.

As a result, the wolf skin in Jiang Ning's hand was draped on her body with a little joy, and then she couldn't help wrinkling her nose.

Obviously, the freshly baked skin didn't smell good.

Jiang Ning, who knew this, smiled in a low voice and said

"The skin of this beast, whether draped or worn, or used as a blanket, had a peculiar smell, and could not be washed or dried, but it had to be put outward in a ventilated and cool place for seven or eight days before it could be dissipated. ”

"It's just that the snow is getting heavier and heavier, and the longer it drags on, the more difficult it will become, so we don't have time to wait, the sooner we set off, the better, the smell of this wolf skin naturally can't be dissipated, but it's important to keep warm, you still have to endure it." ”

Shen Bing nodded obediently and smiled sweetly: "I know, wearing a smelly wolf skin, other beasts don't dare to approach when they smell this, you are protecting me." ”

Jiang Ning smiled, the girl's thin and shabby clothes looked like a poor family who was used to suffering, not hypocritical, not troublesome, although there were more words, it was also worry-free.

The two men left the cave, digging through the snow with pine branches, and made a slow and difficult way to the north.

The white pine forest is monotonous and quiet, and the silence makes people panic.

If it weren't for Shen Bing along the way, Jiang Ning would have felt a little difficult.

The heavy snow buried everything on the ground except for the tall cedars, and the location where the carriage was unloaded was actually not far from the cave, and it was only more than two miles, Shen Bing led Jiang Ning to the location in his memory It took a lot of time, and then it took more time to find the seven or eight carts of mulberries in the snow.

By the time the two of them joined forces and dragged a cart of mulberries back to the cave, the sky was dark again, and Jiang Ning and Shen Bing were almost exhausted.

Jiang Ning originally wanted to dismantle the wooden car and burn it as firewood, but after thinking about it, he gave up and put the car Lou outside the cave, which could not only prevent the wind but also block the snow, and the temperature in the cave was a little higher.

The two of them spent time in the cave like this, although the days were a little monotonous, but fortunately, they were accompanied by someone and could talk from time to time, and they were not lonely.

Shen Bing took the stones he picked up and carved them into a bright place on the periphery of the cave, and the reporters were here, during which the remaining six or seven wooden carts loaded with bilberry seeds were also pulled back by the two of them one after another.

The snow fell longer than Jiang Ning expected, and in the next month, sometimes it was heavy snow, sometimes light snow, even if it didn't snow, there would be strong winds that blew the snow on the Ziyun Mountain in the north here, but the sun didn't come out for a day.

The rest of the wolf meat was deliberately divided into many pieces by Jiang Ning, and he only ate a small amount every day, and most of the time, the two of them ate only the bilberry that was hoarded at the first corner of the cave.

Even after careful distribution, the wolf meat was still eaten quickly, and it was inevitable that he would get sick every day with bilberry seeds, and in his spare time, Jiang Ning had to take Shen Bing to the pine forest to find something else to eat.

Whether it is the Southern Tang Dynasty or the Great Jin Dynasty in the north, the climate is relatively mild, although you can occasionally see cedars in these places, but most of them are specially transplanted by people, Jiang Ning, who can become a forest, has not seen it, looking for food in the wilderness, this kind of thing, is his strength as a little beggar, but in this not very familiar environment, Jiang Ning is still

Some scratch your head.

Fortunately, this Shen Bing girl is not a useless drag oil bottle, a girl who grew up in Songxue Village since she was a child, and she is familiar with how to find food in this familiar forest.

"Actually," Shen Bing said with a smile, "Although it's winter, there are still a lot of things to eat in the forest, come with me..."

Jiang Ning followed behind the girl, who stopped next to a cedar tree in the shadow of the mountain wall and began to instruct Jiang Ning to clear the snow under the tree.

The cedar spire-like tree shape is further down, the larger the area covered by the pine needles, and after removing the thick layer of snow on the periphery, the snow below is actually not much, and Jiang Ning found a large cluster of white fungi at a glance.

"This is called snow mushrooms, and they like to grow in cold places, especially under these cedar pagodas, and you can definitely find one under three or five trees," the girl smiled, went under the tree and picked a handful, and threw it to Jiang Ning like a treasure, and then came out from under the tree.

"In the pine forest, in addition to this snow mushroom, the things that can be eaten, naturally there are pine nuts and squirrels," Shen Bingqing pointed to a certain position under the pine tree, and said with a smile: "The end of autumn every year is the time for the people in the village to pick pine cones, and now although it has been winter for a long time, if you really want to eat pine nuts, I still have a way to get some." ”

Jiang Ning didn't rush to let the girl take her to find the pine nuts, the big handful of snow mushrooms in her arms right now was enough for the two of them to eat for a day or two, so she just asked casually, "How to get it?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, but said, "If you want to say that there are the most animals in this forest, it is naturally the squirrel." ”

"Every autumn, when the people in the village go to hunt pine nuts, the rats are also stocking up for the winter, and they will divide the collected pine towers into four or five parts and bury them in different places, and when winter comes, those pine nuts will be their food for the winter. ”

"Generally speaking, they themselves will live in the place where the pine nuts are stored the most, and the food stored in that place alone will be enough for them to survive half the winter, and when the food there is finished, they will follow their memories to find the place where they originally buried the pine nuts. The people in the village, when we were young, there would be elders who would teach us how to find the places where the squirrels hid the pine nuts, and if there was a famine in any year, and we couldn't eat enough, we would go to the forest to find those pine nuts to fill our stomachs, but..."

"It's just what?" Jiang Ning said.

The girl frowned and said, "It's just that those pine nuts are the brainchild of squirrels, and in ordinary years, we won't move." ”

Shen Bing continued: "A squirrel has about four or five small warehouses with pine cones hidden, and if you want to survive the winter safely, in addition to the food stored in their old nests, at least two small warehouses need to be intact to not be hungry, and if you accidentally take too much, you will kill them." ”

Jiang Ning smiled, these superfluous sympathies had probably been completely wiped out in the days when he was a beggar when he was a child.

In order to survive, they catch fish, dig birds' eggs, steal things, and fill as long as they can

Stomach, probably done everything.

It's just that I don't need to let others experience these things that I have experienced once.

Shen Bing didn't know what Jiang Ning was thinking, and said to himself: "Don't look down on those little ones, although they are small, they have a stubborn temper, if they find that their food has been stolen too much, not enough to survive the winter, they will find a forked branch, hang their little heads on it, and hang them alive." ”

The girl's face showed a look of unbearability, and she continued: "When there is no harvest, we will go to the pine forest to find all the small warehouses we can find, and take all the pine nuts, and those rats will be hanged one by one when they have nothing to eat, and the people in the village will walk in the forest again the next day, and pick up the corpses of those rats and come back to eat." ”

"Have you eaten?"

Shen Bing blushed a little embarrassed, nodded and said, "I've eaten it, and I've eaten a lot, to be honest, the squirrel meat is quite delicious." ”

"Is life in the village already so difficult?" Jiang Ning said.

When the girl heard this, her mood was a little low, and she nodded: "A few years ago, life in the village was still very good, but in the past few years, in the past few years..."

Shen Bing was a little hesitant, he wanted to speak and stopped, and he was only halfway through his words, so he didn't want to say any more.

If it was usual, Jiang Ning would not take the initiative to ask about what others didn't want to say, but this time, he smelled something different.

He came to this mirror sea world, he came to accept the test and complete the trial, not to play with the beautiful girl in the cave, naturally where there is trouble, strange things, where to go, what happened in Songxue Village is very likely to be related to his own trial.

"In the past few years, has the year in the village not been good?" Jiang Ning asked.

The girl 'en', it's not a secret, I didn't say it before, the starting point is the same as Jiang Ning, but I just don't want to pass on bad emotions to him, since Jiang Ning wants to know, Shen Bing will no longer hide it.

"In the past few years, a strange thing has happened in the village, and many people have died, men, women, all of them. Many people were worried about their lives, so they went to the southern county town of Lujiang to beg for a living, but there, they had no land and no money, so they could only sign a deed of sale and work as maids and servants in large households, and their lives were not comfortable. ”

The girl continued: "The young and strong people in the village are dead, walking, and those who stay are all old and weak, women and children, and most of the fields are also deserted, and life is naturally not good. ”

Shen Bing smiled, looked Jiang Ning up and down, and said, "But now, looking at your skills, your swordsmanship is still so good-looking, presumably before you lose your memory, you should be a disciple of a major sect on the rivers and lakes, but I think it's bad." ”

"Maybe. Jiang Ning said noncommittally, "Then you took the Lei family's hitchhike to Lujiang City before, too."

To live there?"

"No," the girl said, "I went to Lujiang County, but I was just to escape for my life, as for whether I could survive or live there, I didn't have a clue at all." ”

"Run for your life, someone is trying to kill you?"

The girl first shook her head, then nodded again, and said: "To the north of Ziyun Mountain, there is another mountain, because the shape of that mountain is like an iron scale, called Zituo Mountain, Zishantuo Village, is not far from the foot of that mountain, and our Songxue Village is on the north side of Zituo Mountain, which is also very close to that mountain. ”

"There are many animals living on these two mountains, Zituo Mountain is closer, and the hunters in the two villages like to go to the mountains to hunt for game in previous years, but since the beginning of the previous years, the hunters who went to the mountains to hunt have died one after another, and it is common for hunters to be eaten by wild beasts, at first we didn't care, but later, after the wives of those hunters went to the mountains to find their own men, they all never returned. ”

"Oh?" Jiang Ning said, "Even if there are some powerful animals on the mountain, it won't let all the people who go up the mountain die on it, right?"

The girl's face showed a strange and frightened look, and her voice trembled slightly: "These are just the beginning. ”

(End of chapter)