The wind had subsided, the waves had calmed, and only the red-soaked sawdust floated and sank in the bloody water.

The teenagers on the turtle boat seemed a little silent, the injured teenagers had recovered from the pills, and none of the teenagers were disabled in this battle, but the tragic Cheng Dù was better than any of the battles the teenagers had participated in before.

"Whoa!" there was a sound of water, and a face with gray temples emerged from the sea.

"Lao Chai!" Lu Zhi said with great joy.

"Grandpa!" Geng Yanqiu was also ecstatic.

Chai Lao climbed onto the turtle boat with the help of the sailors, but saw that he was still dragging a person in his hand, and it was Murong Chong who was shot down into the sea by him with a fire talisman!

"Okay!Okay!It's good to come back!" Xu Chen smiled and nodded frequently.

"Dongjia, I've brought this person back!" Chai Lao didn't have time to greet him, and pointed to Murong Chong on the deck and said to Xu Chen.

"This ......" looked at Murong Chong, who was dragged onto the boat by the sailors, Xu Chen's eyes froze.

"This is?" Xu Chen looked at Chai Lao suspiciously.

Chai Lao shook his head and replied: "I don't know! After I fell into the water, I found that this person was not dead immediately, he tried to take out the pill from his arms to save himself, but when he took out the pill and was about to take it, his whole body suddenly convulsed! I thought he would be decomposed immediately, but I didn't expect his body to turn into what it is now in an instant!"

Xu Chen squatted in front of Murong Chong and looked at it carefully. But seeing that Murong Chong was stiff at this moment, the expression on his face was vivid, frozen at the moment of shock. The skin was covered with a thin layer of transparent substance, which looked a little like ice and emitted a crystal light, but when you touched it with your hand, you could feel a faint warmth.

Shi Lei had always been left by Xu Chen's side, but when the turtle boat was launched, he took advantage of Xu Chen's inattention and slipped to the ghost boat, and when Xu Chen found out, the turtle boat was already rushing towards Ren Hengzhi, causing Xu Chen to sigh. Fortunately, when Yuntianhe attacked later, he put most of his strength on Xu Chen's sailboat, and finally let Xiaoshi escape. Xiao Shi is still young, sadness comes and goes quickly, and after seeing Murong Chong's appearance at this moment, he ran over curiously and shouted, "What a big gem!"

Since Shi Lei was safe and sound, Xu Chen did not reprimand him for not obeying orders, but only fiddled with Murong Chong, who had been crystallized in front of him.

"Is it amber?" Lu Hao asked.

Xu Chen knocked on Murong Chong's corpse with his hand, making a "clang" sound, and then replied: "Some are similar, but the specifics are a little different." ”

Murong Chong's current situation is indeed very similar to amber frozen in pine resin, but whether in terms of color or time, the wonderful changes that happened to Murong Chong are far more than amber.

"Then is he dead?" In fact, this is what Lu Hao is most concerned about.

Xu Chen was also very concerned, but the qiē in front of him was far beyond his cognition, and Xu Chen was also unable to give a definite answer, so he had to shake his head and say, "I don't know!"

"That's not simple, smash it down with a hammer and keep it piece by piece!" Shi Lei said quite complacently.

When Lu Hao heard this, his eyes lit up, and he praised: "That's right! If you go down with a hammer, even if he doesn't die, he will be decomposed by that toxin! Okay! It's rare for the stone to come up with a decent solution!"

Shi Lei didn't really think about it that much, he just felt that this thing was like an ice cube, and if it was hammered down, it would not be broken into pieces! The waist is straight, and he tries to make a look of Zhizhu in his hand, but his grinning mouth can't be closed.

"No, I'll leave it at that, and go back to study it. Xu Chen thought about it or decided to leave it, any information about the mysterious person is very precious, but Xu Chen has few ways to obtain information, and he naturally cherishes the specimens sent to the door, but Xu Chen will not ignore the necessary precautions. So, he immediately said to Lu Zhi: "Lu Lao, go back and make a container to put him in, send someone to monitor it at all times, as long as he makes any movement, blow it up immediately!"

"Okay!" Lu Zhi responded.

"Big brother, what should we do next?" Lu Hao saw that everything was over, so he asked.

Now the first wave of the mysterious man's attack is over, but even according to the information sent by the abbot of Huineng at the beginning, Xu Chen still has more than a dozen enemies to deal with, and now is far from the time to relax.

Facing Lu Hao's inquiry, Xu Chen pondered for a while and replied, "Ren Hengzhi said a word when he left just now. ”

"Sixteen hours left for the imprint?" Lu Hao thought back.

Xu Chen nodded and said, "Yes, he said this to remind me that it will take sixteen hours for the marks on that woman and me to disappear." In that case, let's just go slower and go ashore later. ”

Lu Hao understood what the eldest brother meant, since the mysterious people were all attracted by this mark, then they simply stayed at sea for the rest of the time and lured the mysterious people over. In this way, it will be much safer on the side of Shengzhou City.

Although he thought so, Lu Hao also had his own worries: "It's just that the strength we have now in our hands is afraid that we can't cope with the next battle, right?

"But there aren't many people around the fourth, and they have to stay to defend Shengzhou City. Xu Chen groaned.

In these consecutive days of fighting, Xu Chen's side has suffered hundreds of casualties, and Xu Chen originally only had more than 1,000 people, and now a third of them are killed and wounded.

Lack of manpower is a bottleneck in the development of Xu Chen's strength, and it is also quite helpless. The Tang Dynasty did not prohibit the slave trade, and for this reason, Xu Chen could collect orphans and beggars in the city and countryside before, and even pay money to buy some young slaves from Renyazi. In recent years, the business and trade in Shengzhou City have not been prosperous, the floating population in the urban and rural areas is very small, and the slave trade is not prosperous.

But everything has to have a degree, Xu Chen's subordinates already have thousands of people, and they usually practice vigorously, although the people near the farm are not prosperous, but there are always some people who can see it, not to mention that although most of the officialdom in Shengzhou are people who can get by, it is difficult to guarantee that there will not be a few people with other thoughts. More than 1,000 manpower is already the limit that Xu Chen, a "common man", can grasp, after all, any larger village in the countryside will have a large number of township soldiers and people. But that's all there is to it, if there are more people, I'm afraid that the "good guy Taishou" in Shengzhou will be the first to stand up and question Xu Chen's intentions, and then the matter will be big, and the teacher Xu Fan will not be able to explain.

This is the restriction of identity, Xu Chen is just a commoner now, he can naturally be unrestrained, beyond the court, and do many things that officials can't do, and at the same time don't have to be constrained by officialdom. But it is precisely because of his status as a common man that he can't enjoy too many privileges, for example, some high-ranking officials can keep thousands or even tens of thousands of slaves in their families, and even those old families, most of the children of the clan are officials in the court, and there are thousands of direct clansmen in the family alone, and it is normal to add tens of thousands of slaves.

This is the privilege, and it is also something that Xu Chen must have. Now Xu Chen's strength is still in its infancy, and the enemies he will face in the future will be even stronger. Xu Chen understood that what he was fighting against was not just a group of mysterious people, but a civilization! At the beginning, Xu Chen thought of a superficial countermeasure, according to the idea of national war, to complete this strategy, Xu Chen needed to master more resources, and population was only one of them. And if you want to master more social resources, enter the imperial court, and absorb more power is the only way in this era, after all, the Tang Dynasty is not exhausted, and it is too difficult to overthrow it and start over, and Xu Chen does not have the time to change the long-ingrained concept of accepting the rule of the Tang Dynasty in the hearts of the people.

This is also the reason why Xu Chen accepted the position of "Ambassador of the State System of Quanshengzhou" this time, although it is only a temporary position, it is the first step of Xu Chen's implementation plan.

However, far water can't quench the thirst of the near, and now Xu Chen is still facing the dilemma of insufficient manpower.

Xu Chen frowned, and was about to take a step at a time, when a sailor outside the cabin shouted loudly: "Big brother, come and see, there are several big ships coming at a rapid pace in the southwest direction, and they look a little like our sailboats!"

"What?" When Xu Chen heard this, he hurriedly ran out, raised his binoculars and looked southwest.

I saw a round shot, and five huge sailing ships were heading here!

"That's right! it's Zheng Tai and them!" Xu Chen said with a smile.

Lu Hao also looked at it, and the expression on his face suddenly relaxed: "It's okay now, we have enough manpower!"

As soon as the sailboat approached, a face appeared on the deck of the first ship, and a young man smiled and said to Xu Chen and the others on the turtle boat below: "It seems that I missed a good show!"

"Don't be poor!Hurry up and pull us up, tilt your neck and talk, tired and panic!" Lu Hao scolded angrily.

"Okay, okay, this is coming!" Zheng Tai nodded and smiled, and then beckoned people to lift the three turtle boats up.

"Big brother!" As soon as Xu Chen got on the boat, Zheng Tai greeted him.

"Why did you come back so quickly this time?" Xu Chen asked suspiciously, the first two times Zheng Tai went to Nanyang to collect grain, and the time spent back and forth was about twenty days, so when Xu Chen was trying to fill the manpower vacancy just now, he didn't pin his hopes on Zheng Tai and them, after all, in these years, once he went to sea, it was almost equivalent to cutting off contact with the land. However, this time, less than ten days had passed, and Zheng Tai came back, and Xu Chen was naturally a little puzzled.

"Hehe......" Hearing Xu Chen's question, Zheng Tai just scratched his head and smirked.

"What? Didn't you bring the food back this time?" Xu Chen frowned slightly.

"No, no!" Zheng Tai hurriedly shook his head and said, "The grain is all in the cabin! These ships are all full, and not a single grain is missing!"

"Oh, that's ......," Xu Chen looked at Zheng Tai with a smile.