Tianfeng's expression was gloomy, and he sat there for a long time without saying a word. It wasn't until the soup in the bowl was completely cold that he took a deep breath, tilted his head, and stared at the heavenly madness with an extremely complicated gaze.

"Gillian is dead, why don't you find another good one?"

With that, he got up and strode out of the room.

“…… I"

"The ......"

"Big brother, wait, don't go!"

Tianmad choked suddenly. Thoughts as if the faucet that was flowing was suddenly turned off the valve, and the water did not leak.

He quickly stood up and chased him out while shouting.

Tianhao didn't get involved. He slowly drank his share of soup, swallowed the last bite of steamed buns, patted the crumbs on his hands, and was about to stand up, when he saw the old priest walking from outside with unhurried steps.

Tianshuang hurriedly beckoned, turned around and took the empty bowl to serve soup to the old priest.

"Don't be busy, I'll just come and have a look." The old priest raised his hand to block it, and then smiled at Tianhao and said, "The song you made up last night was quite good. ”

Wizards and priests are no strangers to songs. Mysticism can be regarded as the enlightenment of primitive art to some extent. Worship is sung, sacrifices have special songs, and funerals are sung with special tunes to bid farewell to souls...... These tunes have a specific meaning, and they cannot be easily sung in ordinary times, and are rarely exposed to by ordinary people.

Tianhao didn't know what to do, nodded cautiously, and said with a smile: "I wrote it." ”

"That's good, I learned a little bit from them." The old priest narrowed his eyes and hummed the melody: "I don't quite understand the words in the song. That one...... What is Motherland? What does this word mean? ”

Tianhao was suddenly asked.

It is true that the northern barbarians have no concept of a state. There are only tribes here, only gods to worship, and totems.

"Motherland...... It's your own country. Tianhao searched hard for the right words to make the old priest understand: "To put it simply, the motherland is the place of survival opened up by the ancestors. On a small scale, it's like our rock village. To put it bigger, the entire Lei Niu Department and the entire area where the Niu clan is located can be regarded as our motherland. ”

The old priest listened with some fascination: "This is a new statement. ”

Tianhao stabilized his mood for a moment, and his speech was more fluent than just now: "We worship the gods, and we believe that the gods of this land will bless us. It gives us prey, allows us to farm, and without this land we will have nothing, so we are to worship, cherish and defend. ”

The old priest's gaze deepened. He nodded slowly, agreeing with Tianhao's statement: "It's like us and the Deer Clan. They have always wanted to take away our land. ”

"That's why I said: When a friend comes, there is good wine, and when a jackal comes, there is a knife and a gun." Tianhao accentuated his tone: "Here, this is our motherland. ”

The old priest smacked the meaning and bowed his head leisurely.

He turned his head, glanced in the direction of the open door, and asked suspiciously, "Ah Feng doesn't seem to be very happy?" ”

Since I asked, I can't help but say it. Tianhao smiled bitterly and said the unpleasantness of breakfast, and the old priest listened and fell into deep thought. After a long time, he said thoughtfully: "Ah Feng should find a woman to marry." ”

"I guess it's going to be hard." Tianhao did not hide his opinion: "My eldest brother has always liked the woman in the past, and ...... else He doesn't like it, and he doesn't have an interest. ”

"The woman that Ah Feng liked before seems to be called Ah Li, and she is from Shanyuanzhai." The old priest knew a little bit about it.

Tianhao heard the meaning of his words and lowered his voice: "Then I will find a chance to go to Shanyuan Village?" ”

The old priest's weather-beaten face revealed a sly smile: "Shanyuan Village is not Zhangpu Village, let alone Pinglin Village. It was a large village of 5,000 people, and it was not surprising that Ah Feng couldn't get that woman before. But now...... Hehe......"

……

One after the other, the towering peaks form a winding line on the map, digging deep into the flat earth, creating impassable obstacles, and only the valley floor sandwiched between the two slopes is slightly friendly to humans, releasing a few parts that can barely be considered "roads".

Shanyuan Village is in the northwest direction of Panshi Village. Judging from the map, the straight-line distance is actually about the same as that of Qingyuan Village. However, the road was blocked by cliffs and rivers, and the road had to be climbed from the north to the valley floor in a westerly direction, and the time on the road was extended. Regardless of additional factors such as weather, mudslides, wild animals, etc., under normal circumstances, a round trip takes at least a week.

It is a large village with a population of more than 5,000. According to the definition of the division of the civilization era, it can be a town, or a county. The northern barbarians are relatively simple in this regard, the capital, the big city, the small city, then the big village, the small village, and nothing else.

Only a population of more than 2,000 can be regarded as a large village. And this is not a one-shot deal, it is definitely not a private discussion between a few village leaders, this year everyone will gather all the people in the village, coax the lord or patriarch of the territory, and get the high position of a thousand heads by abnormal means, and then put the brothers' subordinates back after the matter is over, and do it again next year according to the same procedure...... In this way, everyone can become the head of a thousand people and climb to a higher position.

Population verification is usually done every three years, and this work is the responsibility of the local city lords. There are smart people in any era, and similar scams have been played, and his ending is very miserable: he is caught and skinned, disemboweled, and the internal organs are hollowed out, and the corpse is publicized in public until it decays, and the head is cut off and displayed in turn in all the surrounding villages, and the family loses all living resources, and after being killed, it will be divided by everyone in the village.

Since then, nothing like this has happened.

In fact, the reason is very simple: the large number of people under the rule means that the amount of grain and tribute paid to the patriarch must increase. If it was a real sense of population reproduction, no city lord would refuse. If you lie and make false reports below, Lao Tzu will have to pay for the extra part out of his own pocket...... Paralyzed, if I don't arrest you and kill your head for public display, will you still be left as a rat to continue digging my warehouse?

Ali was turning wheat in the square with a wooden rake.

She is a kind woman with a docile personality. Twenty-one years old, very young. It was autumn, but the weather was still hot, and he was dressed in a cropped group of animal skins, on which was a sleeveless numb shoulder, barefoot, working silently in the drying field with more than a dozen other women.

The yellow skin was pale brown from the sun, and his head was tied up, and his long braids dragged down to his waist. This is an unwritten rule in Shanyuan Village: women should not cut their hair casually, they should braid their hair, and the longer it is, the better it looks.

There is some truth to this statement, but it is troublesome to take care of hair that is too long. It takes a lot of time to wash your hair every time, especially when wet hair is scooped up from the water to dry, and can only be coiled up and wrapped around the top of the head...... At first glance, it looks like a black snake.

The strong arms, legs, feet and waist lines are very well-proportioned, a little chubby, and the whole person exudes a healthy beauty.

In Shanyuan Village, Ali belongs to a relatively beautiful woman.

She was married once.

But the husband died.

A widowed woman has a hard time. From the time of marriage, the land was confiscated by the village. In fact, it can't be regarded as forcibly repossessing, but the land that was originally in Ali's name was transferred to the name of her family. After all, the woman who married out spilled the water, and she couldn't come back and continue cultivating the land. Rather than being idle and barren, it is better to arrange it to others.

Ploughing wheat is a job that requires patience, and you have to constantly move around the drying field. If it is turned unevenly, the wheat grains will be wet and dry, and they will become moldy in the warehouse within a few days, and then the whole wheat warehouse will be gray-green mold, and the villagers will have to starve all winter.

The sun was hotter than in the morning, and it was a little breathless. Ali put her hands on the wooden rake, glanced at her father and brother who were sitting in the shade of the tree in the distance, sighed softly, wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, and continued to work in silence.

When he got married a few years ago, Daddy almost didn't give any dowry, and just took a few pieces of dried meat and sent himself over.

Ali didn't say anything, because even if she did, it wouldn't be useful.

There are many brothers in the family, and the difficulties are great, and the food every year is not enough to eat, and the part allocated in the village can only barely make ends meet. Speaking of which, these years have been quite good, and the wind and rain have been smooth for several consecutive years, unlike the drought and flooding the day before yesterday, and there is no harvest at all.

These words were spoken by my father. He always nagged: The girl's family is a loss, and she can't stay at home when she is raised, and sooner or later she will have to be the mother-in-law in someone's bed. Even if you treat your heart well, when you grow up, you still have your elbows turned out, and you won't remember your parents at all.

Other women may be like this!

Ali has seen many examples of people who are unhappy at home because of marriage. She understands the female companions who have grown up together: eating the worst food in the family, sleeping in the winter and being squeezed to the farthest position from the firepit, wearing rotten leather robes in the summer, and going out to chop wood in the winter...... Let's not talk about other villages, take Shanyuan Village as an example, every household is a woman who undertakes all the housework, although the men say that if they are strong laborers, they have to work in the fields, and they have to go up the mountains to hunt, but they don't do anything after they go home, and they lie down by the fire pond one by one to chat and be the uncle.

For as long as I can remember, the family has always been like this, and it is no wonder that when the girls grow up, they want to marry as soon as possible and go as far as possible.

Of course, compared to those villages where there is a shortage of food in winter and women are sold as goods, the situation in Shanyuan Village is much better, and such a thing has not happened for several years.

When Tianhao and the others walked through the drying field under the leadership of the steward of Shanyuan Village, Ali happened to look over here.

She immediately felt her heart beat faster, and her pupils instantly contracted in her sockets.

It was Tianfeng, she remembered that face, remembered the name.

A very handsome, tall man with a sweet smile on his face at all times.

A few years ago, a woman from Shanyuan Village married to Panshi Village. Women, when they go to a strange place, they are always a little unaccustomed. According to the rules set by the old people, on the day of the wedding, they must be accompanied by several women in their own village, which is considered part of the mother's family, and they have a meal there to help the bride support the scene.

In fact, it is equivalent to the bridesmaid of the civilized era.

That's when Ali met Tianfeng.

There is no Confucianism and etiquette, if you like it, you like it, and Tianfeng also has the same mind. Someone else's wedding was no longer important to Ali, and a young couple who had just met made an appointment to sneak away to a place behind the haystack where there was no one to talk...... Talk about the future, talk about life, I don't know who is more active, talk and talk together, and many things are logical.

Tianfeng told Ali: Wait for me, I will definitely marry you.

He did not break his promise, and soon came to Shanyuan Village to propose marriage to Ali's parents.

The father has always been in charge of the affairs of the family, and the mother can't intervene even if she has any ideas. She was frightened by her father, and from marriage to the present, several sticks with thick arms have been broken, and even women with ideas have been beaten silent, like walking corpses.

His father looked down on the death of his parents, and Tianfeng had three younger siblings at home. sneered and drove people away.

Ali thought about eloping with Tianfeng, but was guarded by her vigilant father. He asked someone to tell Ali about her family affairs and married her off early.

The husband is a good man and very honest. Half a year has passed, and Ali feels that it is not bad to live with this person for the rest of her life, and the fire of youth in her heart is gradually extinguished, and she no longer thinks about anything else in her mind. Love...... What a beautiful word, but after all, it can't compare to the cruel reality.

What else can be said?

Accept your fate!

But her husband died.

To make matters worse, the father brought himself back and continued to ask people to find a new husband for him.

……

The conversation between the leaders of the two villages was confined to a very small area. Except for high-ranking figures such as priests, stewards of the hundred-headed rank, and hunting captains, ordinary people are not qualified to participate in it.

As the leader of Shanyuan Village, Guangshou more or less looked down on Tianhao———— was too young, and he had no experience to boast about. The pride of identity comes from the population under the rule, the number of "five thousand" is not simple, looking at the surrounding Niu villages, Guangshou is confident that Shanyuan Village is definitely one of the best.

Indeed, although Panshizhai is developing rapidly, the population does not exceed 5,000. Guangshou had heard of this small village and knew that Tianhao had some unpleasant things with other surrounding villages. But this time, the deer clan invaded on a large scale, but he didn't know it at all.

It's not his fault, the information transmission is so difficult, and it is the busy farming season, and few people will waste time on gossip.

Contempt is contempt, and soon after the conversation began, Guangshou had to give up his original idea and became serious about the arrival of the young leader of Panshi Village.

"I want to exchange something with Guizhai." Tianhao smiled, and the guards who came with him took out samples of goods from their backpacks.

Dried apples, Bighorn cheese, salt, dried fish, eggs...... Of course, wine is also indispensable.

All these things made Guangshou's eyes widen, and the priests and stewards of Shanyuanzhai also let out unexpected exclamations.