On the second day after returning to Chang'an, a batch of urgent mail sent to the counties of the East China Sea came from the Los Angeles Post Station, which was about to be delivered in the near future.

The blizzard that came early a few days ago blocked all the guys from the main station who ran long distances, and they couldn't come back for a while.

Therefore, Shangguan Yanxi, who had just returned to Chang'an to rest for less than half a month, had to put on a battle and personally took over the errand of delivering the mail.

The mountains are far away, and it takes more than a month to travel back and forth.

When Miss Yanxi came to say goodbye to us with regret on her face, I was surprised, but I was helpless.

The Los Angeles Post Office is doing this business, and since it is open to welcome customers, all kinds of mail have to be picked up.

And it was originally a very ordinary business, if it weren't for this blizzard, it would not have been her turn to be the heroine of the Loulan Terminus in the Western Regions to do the work of long-distance mail delivery.

What a wish!

When I returned from Longshang Plateau the day before yesterday, I lamented Mr. Xin's feat of adopting an abandoned child, Shangguan Yanxi warned me in business.

She said that business is also a kind of practice and kindness that does not need to be born, just like the business of her home Los Angeles Post Office, and she will be deeply moved every time she runs an order.

The white-haired old man receives a letter from his children and brothers from thousands of miles away to report his safety, or a young woman receives a letter and money from her husband on the border, and the ecstasy of snatching the sky and the earth is difficult to buy even with ten thousand gold.

Therefore, whenever there is an urgent item to the station, we must deliver it in time, even if it is thousands of miles away.

"Brother Yi, before the Chinese New Year's Eve, I will definitely be able to rush back and accompany you to enjoy the lights and wine!" In the prosperous land of Chang'an, Brother Yi can't see the strange thoughts, and he forgot Yan Xi! ”

Shangguan Yanxi passed by the inn on the way out of the post and came to say goodbye to us temporarily, dressed as a traveler, and the wind flag of the Los Angeles Post Post on horseback fluttered in the cold wind.

"Miss Yanxi, I'll go with you! Anyway, my caravan won't leave Chang'an for the time being, so it's good to take care of you on the road. ”

I sincerely cared that it was no joke for a little woman to meet a bad guy on the way.

"Thank you Brother Yi, our postal merchant has the rules of a postal merchant, and you cannot accompany outsiders on the way to send the mail! Farewell! ”

Shangguan Yan finished speaking, stepped on the back of the horse heroically, and held a replacement Liangzhou Wuqing in his left hand, and the euphemistic and moving little girl of the Han family that he saw on weekdays was like two people.

After waving goodbye, Miss Yanxi's mount "Da Da Da" trotted all the way towards the east gate, and soon disappeared from everyone's sight.

"Dude checkout!"

I returned to the store in great disappointment and shouted to the shopkeeper, Chang'an City without Shangguan Yanxi is no longer of much meaning to me.

"Young master, didn't Gui and Gui Zhifang's Lan and Lan girls make an appointment to come over tonight? Young master, I, let's stay here for another night! ”

Seeing that I was going to check out, Liu said in a hurry.

"All the money I brought is gone, I want you to pay for it out of your own pocket, I don't want grandpa to use the money to ransom us!"

I stepped forward a little resentfully, this pot helmet Liu, when did you still think about his Lan girl!

Qin Chong and the old man were much brighter than the pot helmet, and when I checked out with the store, I had already prepared all the clothes and horses we had brought with us.

The four of them walked out of the inn and passed the kitchen door, along the ramp on the south bank of Weishui, and galloped in the direction of Zhongnan Mountain Yizhai.

The time has passed noon, the sky is clear, and the winter sun is shining warmly on the four fields.

From the west wall of Chang'an City to the north foot of Zhongnan Mountain, this hill woodland, called "Shanglin Garden", is the royal leisure hunting place in the past.

After a hundred years of chaos in the world at the end of the Han Dynasty, it has long been abandoned and has become a place for ordinary people to go on outings.

It was the warm winter weather after the snow, and from time to time I met groups of horses from Chang'an City along the way, camping and hunting on the banks of the river in the forest, and the whining sound of bow feathers resounded in my ears.

"Young master, we are also ready to prepare when we go back, go hunting in the mountains! There are a lot of wild boars and black bears in this area of Zhongnan Mountain in the Qinling Mountains, and this season is also the fattest, and hunting one is enough for our whole team to eat for many days! ”

Pot Helmet Liu finally stopped mentioning his Lan girl, and immediately came to please the suggestion.

"That's right, young master, the guys who stayed in the village may have already gone up the mountain! In previous years, every time we stayed in Chang'an, our biggest pastime was hunting! Old man, didn't you shoot an elk the year before last! More than 400 pounds of good guys, a few of us carried it back! Qin Chong shouted happily after hearing this.

"Not really! The elk soup during that time was a great tonic, and it made people nosebleeds! Ha ha! Speaking of the feat of the year, Shamihan in the back laughed.

"Good! Tomorrow we will go up the mountain, bring salt, tents, dry food, fresh game and barbecue in the wild to eat! ”

The advice of the crowd about hunting aroused my interest at once.

Every autumn, the scene of hunting yellow sheep on horseback on the Kunlun hunting ground in Khotan suddenly jumped into view, as well as Uncle Charlie's barbecue dance party on the edge of the desert under the moonlight

Youthfulness is good! Just now, I was still depressed about Shangguan Yanxi's departure, but now that there is a new way to play hunting in the mountains, the depression in my heart is suddenly gone.

As Qin Chong said, when we returned to Yizhai, Grandpa had not yet returned from their entertainment in Chang'an City, except for the left-behind guys who prepared meals and took care of livestock at night, everyone almost went out to hunt.

On the wall of the sun outside the dining hall, there were already more than a dozen prey of various sizes, which had been skinned and cleaned, and then dried there.

Hares, fat badgers, elk, and so on.

This is just the trophy of the three days after the snow, and at this rate, the meat of the whole village can not only take care of itself, but also prepare the jerky that will be on the road next year.

Seeing such a scene, I was a little impatient, and hurriedly went back to the house and took out the mulberry bow and feather arrows for tomorrow's use.

After a long time, the voices of people outside the village were boiling, and the hunting guys stepped on the afterglow of the sunset and returned triumphantly.

The biggest result of the day was a wild boar and a few little things like hares.

After hugging and greeting each other, I took out the pastries I brought back from Chang'an West City for everyone to taste.

Qin Chong, Guo Helmet Liu, and Sha Mihan had already recommended themselves to be butchers on the third day, and hung the wild boar on the boom by the river outside the site, ready to disembowel, skin and remove the bones.

The chef listened to my suggestion and set up a pile of firewood on the site in front of the village.

Today's dinner was a campfire-grilled wild boar meat, plus pork bone broth and corn as a staple.

The fly in the ointment is that Shangguan Yanxi was not at the scene, otherwise she would have presented everyone with an ancient Hanfu song of "Phoenix Seeking Phoenix", what a happy thing it would be.

I even have a reverie of inviting a few singers and sisters from Guizhifang back to Yizhai to entertain everyone.

But knowing this can only be imagined, and must not be done.

After getting up on the second day, the four of us prepared bows and arrows, saddle horses, dry food for entering the mountains, tent carpets and other things, and as everyone left Yizhai, we marched to the mountain, forest and river valley where Zhongnan Mountain and Shanglin Yuan intersected.

I finally felt that hunting in Shanglin Yuan was far less enjoyable than galloping on horses and hunting birds and beasts in the thousands of miles of desert under the Kunlun Mountains in Khotan.

The mountains are high and densely forested, and the mounts cannot run, and the vision is not wide enough. And after discovering the prey, the prey will burrow into the dense forest and disappear without a trace.

Therefore, there are few hunters in the Qinling Mountains who ride into the mountains like us.

They all led a few yellow dogs, brought a few pairs of wooden clips and bamboo nails to dig pits and covers, sniffed the feces of wild beasts, and found the hiding place of bears, tigers and wild boars.

Then use the method of waiting for the rabbit, hide behind a boulder or ancient tree, wait for the appearance of the prey, and suddenly attack with an arrow to kill.

In this way, the hunters in the mountains used to chat to make a living in exchange for rice and salt clothes.

But for a foreigner like me, who spends his days for pleasure, such a hunt is too humiliating.

In order to taste the wild meat in the mountains, it is better to go to the West Market of Chang'an, there are all kinds of mountain delicacies, and you can buy a whole wild boar for one or two silver coins.

Therefore, every time I went into the mountains, the men struck from all directions, as they had done in the royal hunts, and drove the wild animals into the low-grass and sparse forests of the mountains and fields for me to shoot.

But this kind of play is too boring, and I am not very skilled in archery, and I have lost my prey to my mouth several times.

I feel very embarrassed to live up to everyone's expectations.

Therefore, three days later, the matter of going out to hunt was still arranged according to the original rules, and the old man on duty led the team.

I and Qin Chong, Sha Mihan, and Guo Helmet Liu were in Shanglin Yuan, the former imperial garden, and traveled all day long.

We followed the ancient road in the forest and spent more than ten days playing all over the 12 palaces, 35 temples and 36 gardens of the entire Shanglin Garden.

Although these palaces and towers in the Qin and Han dynasties have long been a pile of ruins, it is also a unique taste to climb high and nostalgic among the fragments of these bricks and stones.

I can't help but think of the "sigh of the yellow dog" in Taishi Gong's "Historical Records" told by the old gentleman.

When Li Si, the prime minister of the Qin State, and his son were beheaded on the streets of Xianyang, the hopeless pair sighed: "I want to lead the yellow dog with Ruofu, and go out to Cai Dongmen to chase the cunning rabbit, how can I get it?" ”

The loneliness after the prosperity and the sadness after the prosperity are nothing more than this.