In the royal city of Elis, Fam now has a small settlement, a storage room for a small merchant's house. The room was small and leaky, and there were rats at night, but it was much better than sleeping outside in the open air.

After dinner, Fam returned to his little room, which was temporarily his own.

It was already night, and the room was pitch black. Fam found a candle head, carefully lit it, and in the dim candlelight, he took off his clothes, and carefully shook off the day's booty little by little from the inner pocket.

One, two, three...... Counting with his fingers, and when his fingers were not enough, Fam used his toes again, and finally his toes were not enough, and he had an idea, and carefully scratched a mark on the wall with a wooden strip, and then began to count his fingers a second time......

The painstaking counting was finally done before the candles burned out, and Fam had thirty-four peppers in his hand. Together, the peppers were the size of a pinch in the palm of his hand.

Fam stared at the handful, smirking silly, until the candle head was finally burning out and the flame was about to be extinguished, and Fam put it back in the pouch.

There was a slight noise outside the house, and Famm opened the door to see that it was John, the owner of the house, his current landlord. He carried an oil lamp in his hand, and the small light illuminated his face, and Fam grinned when he saw that his face was covered in blood.

"What's wrong?" Fam stepped forward and looked at the wounds on the landlord's face by the light, only to see that the half of the wrinkles on his face were mixed with several obvious bruises, and from the shape of these bruises, it was obvious that they were the shape of shoes. Fortunately, there was no obvious wound, and as for the blood, it probably came out of the nose, so it should be fine.

John didn't seem to care about the injury on his face, instead, he endured the injury and forcibly maintained a smile on his face. After Fam walked in, he took his hand out of his pocket and unfolded it in front of Fam—two golden coins, shining seductively in the candlelight.

Fam smiled and took out the pepper he had just counted from his pocket.

The two men looked at each other and both smiled. They've all had a lot of success today.

"I'm old," John said with a sigh as he looked at the amount of pepper in Fam's hand, "it's dark, I can't see clearly, and the pepper is small, and if I were as young as you, I'd definitely be out there all night." ”

"Then you'll miss tomorrow's cookies, and there will be a lot of people lining up to grab them tomorrow," Fam counted the account, "I can't make it." ”

"Cookies are eaten every day, but pepper ...... I don't see each other very often in my life," John asked Fam as he took out a gold coin in his hand, "why don't I buy a few?" ”

Fam shook his head: "No, I'm going to keep it for the road." ”

John looked at him in surprise: "You want to participate in the holy war?" ”

"Yes," Fam nodded, "the clerk of the bread shed has said that after the team leaves, there will be no more cakes in the royal city, but there will still be in the Holy War Army." ”

"That's going to war," John had lived in the royal city of Elis all his life, and he had no way of imagining what the world would be like hundreds of kilometers away, "you may never come back for the rest of your life." ”

According to the king, when they went to the south, they might have stayed there forever.

As for the claim of the king and the oracles that there were countless spices in the south, John was skeptical. Because when he was young, he was a caravan runner, and he traveled from north to south on the entire continent, and basically went to every corner. He had been to the place the king had described, and he had not seen a patch of spices in the mountains, but the bare stones and bottomless caves that were most impressive.

But he didn't dare to say that the king and the oracle were lying, after all, that was also when he was young, and the oracle did bring back a large amount of spices. Even if he really lied, he didn't have the courage to expose it.

"That's nothing," Fam didn't care, "follow the army, at least you won't go hungry again." ”

"Yes...... John licked his lips unconsciously as he said the cookies, "It's a pity...... Maybe I will never be able to eat such delicious cakes again in my life...... If I were twenty years younger, I would probably have left with you. Fam, when are you leaving? ”

"I'll report tomorrow," Famm said, "there's a recruiting office in the cake shed." ”

"It's good, it's good...... But your rent ......"

"It's all right, John," said Fahm, "I'm not here to ask for rent. I'm going to be very rich in the future, and these few silver coins are nothing to me. ”

John didn't speak, just carried the lamp and walked up the wooden staircase step by step.

Just as Famm was about to go back to bed, John came down the stairs again, carrying two pieces of leather that had just been nitrated, and threw one of them to Fam, saying, "Make a leather armor out of this, and put it in it, at least to protect yourself from bows and arrows." ”

……

The next day, Famm got up early in the morning. When he went out, it was almost dark in the sky, but Fam couldn't sleep anyway because of his excitement.

The streets of the city, as before, were still sleeping with a large number of young and strong men. As he walked along, Fam could hear the snoring sound one after another. Some, like Fam, had woken up and were around their sleep, packing their last belongings. Like Fam, all these people had was a piece or two of cloth, a small stack of bonds, a few peppers, and gold coins.

If it was the former cake shed, it must have been lit by now, and the aroma of sweet cakes could be heard. But today the smell did not appear, and everyone knew that yesterday after the king had given the order of holy war, all the bread booths were moved out of the city, and if they wanted to eat bread, they had to go out of the city to eat it. Today is only at the south gate of the royal city, and from tomorrow onwards, it will move ten miles south every day, and in a week, the personnel of the entire bread shed will go south with the army.

Although the aroma of the cake was gone, everyone began to line up under the habit they had cultivated before. Fam noticed that in addition to the middle-aged men like himself, there were many people in the team who were very old or very young. Some were even older than John looked, with shriveled mouths and as if they had lost all their teeth. And some are so small that they have not yet developed, and they have a childish face.

But young and old, men and women, as long as they enter the conscription office, they will be accepted. Then everyone will be given a simple coarse cloth garment with a small shiny strip attached to it. When Fam's group received the clothes and were lined up in a phalanx like bread, one of the soldiers told them that the clothes and the strip were the proof that they would eat bread in the army in the future, and that the strip should not be lost, and that if it was lost, it should be reported, otherwise there would be no bread to eat.

Then they lined up neatly and set off towards the south gate. Along the way, Fam saw that in front of him, behind him, countless people were dressed in the same clothes as himself, with the same small flashing notes on their chests, like a flood that had just gathered, flowing straight and orderly along the road, towards the south.

After walking out of the city gate, Fam, like the others, almost subconsciously took a deep breath. The aroma of food, the aroma of bread - no, the smell is a little stronger today than before, this taste, etc......

Just as Fam was trying to distinguish the different ingredients of today's food by his nose, someone in the several phalanxes eating bread in front of him had already shouted out the answer in surprise: "Meatloaf!" Oh, my God! Today it turned out to be a meatloaf! ”

"Meatloaf ......" Even though he was used to eating cookies during this time, Fam couldn't help but swallow hard.

Just as Famm was eagerly awaiting when it would be his turn to eat the patty, worried that the patty might be eaten early, the crowd was a little noisy again. Famu stood on tiptoe, and soon heard someone in front of him shouting, "It's the messenger of the gods, the messengers of the gods of the land!" ”

Fam was at the back of the line, and he could only hear the voices of those in front of him, but he couldn't see the other party's appearance at all.

The Divine Envoy Lord Fam had seen it, and all four of them had seen it, and they all remembered it. Fam believed that anyone in the city who went to the bread shed to eat bread paid attention to the appearance of the oracles, because they were known to be the source of the cookies. Fam had seen the Divine Envoy observing the bread eaters on several occasions in the bread shed, and Fam now remembered the look on the face of one of the youngest Divine Envoys when he saw him—like a real god looking down on mortals.

"All the women come out," the voice came from the soldiers beside the Divine Messenger, "and the Divine Messenger has commanded that the men and women shall be separated during the march." ”

"Daddy......" Fam saw that there was a little boy on the side, hugging a man's thigh tightly.

The man is also reluctant to block his daughter with his body, as if this can prevent separation from his relatives.

"Anyone who reports that there is a woman in the team will be rewarded with a piece of meatloaf! Surrender counts! "The soldiers held up the bread in front of everyone.

Just when Fam was still debating whether to report the father and daughter in front of him, the father immediately raised his hand: "Lord God, I will report it!" This is my daughter! Give her the meatloaf...... Just give it to her......"

Except for this little girl, a third of the women in the team basically came out, and Fam could barely see it before this, and many of the women looked no different from men, and even looked uglier than men.

By the time the women had been selected, the team had become much thinner than before, and through the extra gaps in the ranks, Fam could see the appearance of the divine envoy clearly. He was the Wu Divine Envoy that Fam had seen before, and at this moment he was sitting on a tall war horse, holding a whip in one hand and a sword in the other, the golden morning sun was spreading on the silver armor of this divine envoy, and the reflected light made Fam almost unable to look directly.