Hua Zixuan asked Li Wei, "Doctor, do you know which way to go?"

Li Wei pointed ahead, "This should be the 'Hellas Plain' in the southern hemisphere of Mars, and on the hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the Great Plain, there is only one human settlement, which should be in the south of ours." ”

"Oh!" Hua Zihui looked at Li Wei with adoration, "Doctor, you are amazing!"

Gasol said: "The doctor's nickname is a scientific maniac, he came here on purpose, he must have done his homework on Mars, and he is waiting to do a big job." ”

Li Wei glared at Gasol and said sharply: "Don't talk nonsense, the fire in the laboratory was purely accidental. ”

"Accident, accident!" Gasol said smirkedly. Then he turned his head and whispered to Hua Zixuan's brothers and sisters: "Look at his weak heart, I didn't mention the fire in the laboratory, don't confess!"

"Look!" a prisoner pointed into the distance, "someone's coming!"

I saw in the distance, red dust flying, rushing to dozens of horses.

They rode tall horses, dressed in coarse linen clothes, and carried all kinds of cold weapons and ropes in their hands.

Behind the horse team, there are also several carriages, like wooden cage prisoner carts in costume films.

When he rode first, the man on the horse was an old man, with gray hair, who came near, and spoke sonorously:

"You newcomers, the situation on Mars, your instructors have told you. The new prisoners had to start as slaves before they were eligible to be freemen. You are now my prey, and I will take you to sell to my slave master. ”

Li Wei remembered the instructor's words, so he said to the old man on horseback: "Ah...... Hello, don't worry, our instructor didn't say anything to you, but said to me, let me talk to you, okay?"

The old man said impatiently: "Then you hurry up." ”

I listened to the servant behind the old man and said: "This time I was really lucky, I caught so many slaves at one time and exchanged it for money, which is enough for our clan to spend for a while." ”

Li Wei turned to the prisoners and said, "Everyone, first of all, I want to tell you that we met a fucking instructor, and when he got off the spaceship, he remembered some precautions that should have been instructed to us. I'm here to tell you.

In order to protect the fragile ecology of Mars, the coalition government has suppressed the development of Mars' productive forces, so the Martian civilization is only in a slave society.

We are prisoners on Earth, and when we come to Mars, we have to start as slaves, and slaves are the name given to slaves by Martians.

Mars is short of resources, and if we don't attach ourselves to our slave masters, we will starve to death.

Listen to the old headhunter, we must be slaves first, and then we will have the opportunity to be free people. ”

Gasol said, "Doctor, I see what you mean, in order to be a slave who doesn't starve to death, we have to be captured, right?"

Li Wei nodded and forced himself to laugh: "Gasol, with your big man, you must be able to find a good master, because you are much more capable than a cow." ”

"Shut up. Gasol airway. Then he said to the bounty hunter: "Old man, as long as you don't embarrass us, we will listen to you." ”

Headhunter: "Okay, tie it up." ”

Bounty hunters dismount and tie people with ropes.

"Hey, there's a baby!" said one of the bounty hunters to the other, "There's a beautiful girl here!"

The little beauty refers to Hua Zihui.

Headhunter A: "Brother, how about being your wife?"

Headhunter B came over with a smile and reached out to touch Hua Zihui's face, "This delicate skin is as bright as Venus at night." ”

Hua Zixuan had already been tied up, and he slammed into headhunter B as soon as he approached him.

"Hey! It's the other way around!" The headhunter A round of punches came, Hua Zixuan was short, dodged the fist, and arched his shoulders violently, arching him to the ground.

The rest of the hunters saw it in their eyes and drew their blades to rush up.

The old headhunter shouted, "Stop it!"

All the headhunters were very obedient and stopped their steps.

The old headhunter: "Don't do it, the dead are worthless, this young man is so strong, he can sell it for a big price!"

Headhunter B: "Second uncle, I like that woman!"

Headhunter: "The price of a beautiful woman is also high, and it is not your turn to like it." ”

The headhunter said to Hua Zixuan again: "It's my person who is wrong just now, I hope you don't take it to heart." We are nominally trying to catch you, but in fact we are sending you to a place where you can eat, and of course, we can also get a reward for it.

We are a cooperative relationship, so let's have a good time working together, okay?"

Hua Zixuan said: "Old man, you are a happy person, we will cooperate, but don't insult us again." ”

Headhunter: "I promise!"

Thirty prisoners were loaded onto several wooden cage wagons.

Headhunter A sneered: "There are many benefits to following us, at least, there is a free car to sit in." ”

The caravan marched slowly until the sun was setting in the west, when two groups of headhunters came to them, and it was evident that they were not in a group, and when they learned that the new prisoner had already mastered, they did not bother with it, and then departed.

Hua Zihui was tied, she twisted her arms left and right, and complained: "How long has this been gone, and it's still endless!"

Gasol, who was in the same car, smiled: "Miss, you are a death row prisoner, a lifeless person, you have saved your life now, what is it to suffer a little!"

Hua Zihui frowned: "It's better to die happily, I'm going to fall apart." ”

Hua Zixuan shouted at the headhunter in the distance: "Old man, can you untie my sister?"

Headhunter B rode over, threw a whip at the wooden cage, and said angrily: "Relieve your sister! You are a prisoner, and you will be a slave in the future!"

Gasol: "Yes, he just wants you to untie his sister." ”

The headhunter in front of him said, "Untie the little girl, there is a brother, and I can't run away from my sister." I warn you, it's best not to run, you have also seen that there are no people in this radius of thousands of kilometers, it is difficult to find a grass to eat, and running away is tantamount to suicide! You have also seen that there are many headhunters like us, and if you fall into the hands of others, they are not as patient as I am. ”

Someone came to untie Hua Zihui's rope.

After her body was free, Hua Zihui became lively again and asked Li Wei: "Doctor, you see, the sun is about to set, will the night of Mars be long?"

Li Wei: "Similar to the Earth, the autobiography of Mars is 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22.6 seconds, and the revolution is 687 days, that is to say, one year of Mars is almost two years above the Earth. ”

In the distance, a row of small trees was seen, and it was some low ferns.

One of the bounty hunters said, "It's home."

Adjacent to the oxygen-producing bacteria on the desert are drought-tolerant shrubs and ferns, and a few kilometers further on, there are large areas of farmland with vigorous crops, mainly potatoes.

From afar, you can see the smoke of cooking, and it is a very large village, with one or two thousand households.

Li Wei asked the old headhunter, "Hey, brother, do you hunt slaves for a living?"

Old Man Headhunter: "No, the prisoner ships from the earth are not there every day, and the slave hunting team is not only in our village, if we only rely on this, we will starve to death." We usually focus on farming, slave hunting, and it is just a side business. ”

Hua Zihui said: "Grandpa, don't sell us, okay, let us farm with you?"

The old man smiled, "It's not that simple, our privilege of hunting slaves is specially granted by the city lord of 'Hellas' city, every year, we have to pay the 'authorization tax' to the city lord, if we don't sell you, we will pay what we have." ”

"City Lord?" Li Wei wondered.

Old Man Headhunter: "The city lord is the most powerful man in the entire Hellas Plain. The lord of the city stipulates that if the headhunter hunts a slave without a master, he must send it to the 'Hellas City' for trading, and cannot hide it privately, and after the transaction is completed, the slave can get a 'slave certificate', and the slave without the slave certificate is not protected, and anyone can rob it.

If the owner of the slave is found to be hiding a slave without a slave certificate, he will be severely fined. Little girl, if I want you to farm for me, I have to sell you to the auction house and then I can auction you back. ”

Hua Zihui: "It's not simple, you sell it cheaply to the auction house, and then let the auction house sell it to you cheaper." ”

"Haha......" the old man laughed, "naïve." The price of the slave's transaction, there is a special evaluation agency, it is not for me to have the final say,. ”

Li Wei: "The trading system is really mature enough!"

Li Wei asked the headhunter again, "Your identity should be a free man, right?"

"Yes. ”

Li Wei: "How can we become free people?"

Headhunter: "Before we came, we were law-abiding citizens on Earth, so we are free people." Prisoners like you, unless your slave master is willing to spend ten Martian gold coins to buy a freedman card for you from the lord of the city.

However, unless a slave has extraordinary abilities, no slave master is willing to spend these ten gold coins. ”

Because of the backwardness of the productive forces of Mars, metal money was used, one gold coin was equal to one hundred silver coins, and one silver coin was equal to one hundred copper coins.

While chatting, the group entered the village, where the houses resembled Eskimos made of ice.

Hua Zihui asked, "Doctor, why is the house shiny?"

Li Wei: "This is a house made of salt, billions of years ago, there was an ocean on Mars, and then the sea water evaporated, and a lot of salt remained, and the house made of salt was much stronger than a stone house." ”

The sun is receding into the horizon, it is getting dark, and there is a large house in the village dedicated to prisoners.

There was a dim oil lamp in the center of the room, and at nightfall one of the prisoners brought a wooden bucket of baked potatoes for everyone to eat.