Chapter 9: The Cliff
Zhou Yu was very curious about what this vast cliff was, and he also called Fan Er, Lu Bu, Toyotomi, and Zhang Jiao to go with him. There is an oasis with a small area on the edge of the walled city, and the cultivable area is about twenty or thirty acres, and it is here that the Cheche people cultivate a kind of crop, called Muli. The roots of this kind of thing can be eaten and made into dumplings. It's kind of like a potato, but not as tasty as a potato.
When he arrived, Zhou Yu put his hand on the pergola and took a look. Huo-Good guy, this battle is like a sandstorm. In the weather without sandstorms, a group of things that don't know what ran up and down the ground and gnawed wildly, rolling up sand waves more than a foot high, and the sand that collapsed over was hit by the sand that hurt his cheeks when he was far away. Many strong men stomped around in the fields, but with little success. Zhou Yu called out to a man and said, "Hey, show me that thing in your hand." The man hurriedly handed it over.
Zhou Yu mentioned it with his hand, it was a relatively large rodent, a bit like a squirrel, larger than the squirrel, and the face was more hideous, with blue fur, and two incisors were more exaggerated than the squirrel's, occupying half of the area on the face. The one in Zhou Yu's hand was chiseled by the big man with a hoe and was already dying.
Zhou Yu brought it to the front and looked at it carefully, and Tuda leaned over and said, "Oh, this is the vast cliff." The robbers in the desert eat and gnaw everything, and the grass huts, wooden houses, and mud houses are gnawed up in minutes, and they can only be locked up with stone cages. But no one raises this kind of pests and scum, and it's miserable. There are 1,800 cliffs here, and there is not a single crop left this year. Tuda said, looking melancholy at the men who were hunting rats in the fields.
At this moment, Samanda and Bellman also rushed over, and the Cheche people gradually gathered together, looking at the crops that had been ruined by the cliffs in frustration, and one by one they hung their heads in despair. Some of the women were still weeping silently.
Zhou Yu looked at it, and his eyes lit up.
He dragged Samanda along, completely forgetting the difference between men and women, holding the cliff in one hand, and holding Samanda's hand tightly in the other, and said: "I, I have an idea, first gather everyone, gather everyone to help me catch the cliff, one for each person, to live." Fast! “
"It's late, even if they are all caught, the crops are already finished, and there is no help!" Samanda was frustrated.
"Crops can be replanted, I need this thing!" Zhou Yu clutched her hand and felt pain.
Samanda summoned a few people to give the order, and the charioteers began to move, it was obvious that they were still comfortable with this kind of local production activity to eliminate the four evils, but because the crops were wasted, they were not very interested.
Zhou Yu put a megaphone in both hands and shouted at the people in the field: "Come on, comrades." Scratch the cliff more, you have to live. In the evening, I will eat dried meat. One cliff for five dried meats! Zhou Yu calculated that the rhinoceros jerky carried with the army should be exchanged for hundreds of Wild Cliffs.
This kind of thing is the same everywhere if there is no profit, and if it is profitable, it must get up early. Hearing him shout to exchange dried meat for the cliff, everyone in the car came to be interested, dried meat is a good thing, and many people in this desert can't eat a mouthful of meat for a month. It's a kind of farm work, plus there is an incentive mechanism. Soon, Mangya was arrested. Zhou Yu asked Dong Zhuo to find a table and change the dried meat for the chariot people one by one at the entrance of the main hall.
Zhou Yu, who had changed the cliff, asked Wan Yanliang, Zhu Cang and others to tie five leather ropes and tie them around their necks and throw them into the secret room. The outer part of the chamber was made of hard stone, and according to Tuda, they could gnaw and they had to gnaw for a year to come out. Besides, these five are bundled with a vast cliff, and the direction of strength is not uniform, you are a bundle of five people, and they may not be able to take it all by moving a single step, not to mention five rats. Not afraid that they will gnaw on the rope, and the exaggerated front teeth will bite themselves or their companions if they are not careful, Zhou Yu observed for a few minutes and found that they are not so stupid.
After more than an hour, Dong Zhuo took the report to report to Zhou Yu.
"Dudu, a total of seven hundred and thirty-two of them were exchanged for life, and another sixty-nine died. According to the governor's orders, he did not receive it! Dong Zhuo took a scoop, and there was a bunch of hay roots in it, and he used this to count them.
"Hmm!" Zhou Yu nodded, turned his head and found that there was still a group of chariots and people standing at the exchange office and refusing to leave, carrying the corpses of the cliffs in their hands. Oh, Zhou Yu understood, maybe he died too hard when he grabbed it, or maybe he died when he brought it over and waited, in short, these people didn't change to dried meat, and their faces were full of unlucky looks, sighing and sighing, looking at themselves.
"Swap theirs, one for three!" Zhou Yu pointed.
"Roar, roar, roar!" The crowd erupted in joyful cheers.
Zhou Yu pursed his lips and smiled. Sure enough, the working people are the most simple, you give them one, and they can't wait to give you everything. As long as you can eat enough. Having enough to eat, one of the easiest and most difficult tasks. Thinking of this, he shook his head helplessly. And this scene was seen by Samanda who was next to the waterwheel...
"Governor, the people are here." Fan Er whispered in his ear.
"Good!" Zhou Yu strode forward and stood among Tuda, Ran Min, Zhang Jiao, Huang Chao, Gao Yang, Lu Bu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Heiya Changyuki, Bai Qi, Zhang Xianzhong, and Liu Yu.
"Guys, don't be verbose, get to the point. Today, after asking Lord Ran, the contemptible people convened the meeting again, which was actually a military meeting. First of all, I would like to ask Tuba a few questions. Zhou Yu turned his head to Tuda.
"Who do you say is better than this cliff or Dai Taimeng?"
"Needless to say, Dai Taimeng!" Tuda shrugged as if bored.
"Oh, have you seen Dai Taimeng hunting the Vast Cliff?"
"That's not true, the cliffs are not tasty, the meat is sour, and the people of Kuz know it. Besides, this thing runs so fast that Dai Taimeng, even if he is a dragon in the sand, can't catch up with it. Tuda scratched his scalp.
"What does Taimeng eat?" Zhou Yu asked him.
"I eat most of the things that are alive. Men, animals, and wild beasts eat as long as they are alive, but they do not eat the dead. “
"Adjutant Fan!"
"Yes!" Fan Er stood straight.
"What about the blue rhinoceros, desert foxes, and desert monitor lizards that our army captured earlier? Still alive? “
"Qiyu Metropolitan Governor, raise it well. Mrs. Dong feeds every day, feeds every day, and grows fatter than me! Fan Erlang replied.
"Good, good!" Zhou Yu shared his thoughts with everyone attending the meeting. If Daitamu eats everything, then it will definitely eat rhinoceros, foxes, and monitor lizards; If the cliff gnaws everything except stones, then it must gnaw the flesh and skin, and he has checked with Tuda before, and he has seen dozens of cliffs gnaw an old man into dry bones in minutes. So what would happen if you put the cliff in the belly of the monitor lizard and let Daitaimu swallow the monitor lizard? The cliff will gnaw away the monitor lizard, and then gnaw away Daitaimon.
Then the problem arises, connecting these pieces requires two key chains. One is how to let the cliff stay honestly in the belly of the monitor lizard, and wait until Dai Taimeng swallows it before attacking. The other is how to feed Daitaimu to eat monitor lizards.
Zhou Yu made a bold hypothesis: if there is an anesthetic that can temporarily anesthetize the cliff, is it feasible to wrap it in rhinoceros skin and sew it into the belly of a monitor lizard? He looked at Liu Yu.
Liu Yu said: "Well, with my skills, it is possible, as long as the monitor lizard does not struggle violently, and it can't die if it is kept, Xiao Wang will be sewn seamlessly." “
"It's seamless, you don't need it, just don't show it." Zhou Yu patted him on the shoulder.
So where to find this hallucinogen? There was silence.
"Call me Junchen to come over!" Zhou Yu said to Fan Er.
After a while, Lai Junchen hurriedly came to report.
"Envoy, is there any way to anesthetize or hallucinate animals in a short period of time?" Zhou Yu asked with concern.
"There are so many ways to do it with us. But over here... By the way, I once heard the elder talk about boiling water when I was in class. The resulting liquid has hallucinogenic properties, and I don't know if it's feasible for animals. “
"In this way, it can only be a dead horse as a live horse doctor. Try it! Zhou Yu quickly rushed to the main hall with a group of people. He briefly briefed Samanda about the plan. After that, he took out a blue worm and let the elder and Lai Junchen test it. The first two experiments all failed, the first measurement was too small, and the experiment was alive and kicking with a cliff; The second measurement was too big, and the cliff kicked his legs directly. It wasn't until the third time that the measurement was done, and the cliff was in a coma at first, and then woke up after about ten minutes, and his aggression increased greatly, like being beaten with chicken blood, and he was very irritable.
"OK, the doping of the new era, it's you!" Zhou Yu couldn't keep his mouth shut.
The task that follows is much clearer. Zhou Yu and Samanda borrowed ten blue worms, formed a death squad, pushed the tightly tied two carts of the cliff, and drove the monitor lizard to Dai Taimeng's lair.
The person who formed the death squad was Zhou Yu, needless to say that this was the way he thought of him, he had to go, and he had to correct and make decisions at critical moments. Liu Yu, not to mention, this is the chief surgeon, who will he do if he doesn't go to the knife? Lu Bu, if this plan is wrong, he will be the last person after the break. Tuda, this is the guide. Jianguo, Lucy, these two are carts. After Yan Liang and ventilated the news, everyone unanimously recommended him to be the fastest under his feet. Come to Junchen, go down*, he is the fastest to do this job. Such a huge lineup made Zhou Yu burst with confidence, and he even asked Fan Er to help him carve the tombstone...
At the time of farewell, all the people were sent outside the walled city, and they refused to leave for a long time, in their eyes, such a scene was a farewell. Ran Min and others are holding on to hope. At this time, there was a small episode, Bellman rushed out of the crowd quickly, and Sarila didn't even hold back. Standing between the death squad and the farewell procession, he turned to Samanda and shouted, "Mother, please allow the child to go with them!" “
"Bellman, you're crazy! That's not a game, it's a life-or-death game! Samanda shouted and chased.
Bellman said as he moved closer to Zhou Yu: "Mother, my people, do you need a weak chief or a warrior with a hundred battles?" As he spoke, tears welled up in his cheeks.
Some of the big men raised their weapons and shouted behind them: "Warriors, glory; Warriors, glory! Obviously, under this kind of law of survival in the dark, there is no market for a Taiping marquis.
"Mother, please allow me to pay tribute to my father with my own blood donation or Daitaimu's blood! I'll come back with Daitaimon's head, glory! He turned and held on to the wheels of the car resolutely, following the death squad.
At this time, Zhou Yu didn't say a word, he felt that this was the time when it should be quiet, and this silence should be reserved for all those who love life. He patted Bellman on the head. Until the death squad had gone far away, and the people who were sending off heard a voice in the distance, saying, "Understanding that others need to shed their own blood--"
The death squad walked for more than half a day, after all, they were still pushing two carts of rats. By the time we reached our destination, the four suns were already setting. At this time, Tuda, who was walking in front, waved his hand and ordered the team to stop. Zhou Yu leaned over and lowered his voice and said, "Can you follow me in first to investigate?" “
Tuda nodded.
Zhou Yu made a gesture for the others to stand by, and followed Tuda one after the other and ran towards the huge crack in front of him. In the depths of this long stretch of yellow sand, there is a bulge, lying diagonally there, leading into the distance with no end in sight. Looking at it from a distance, it was like putting a very long ruler in the sand, and what puzzled Zhou Yu was that the ruler was like artificial, straight and straight, not like it was made of nature. The side of the severed head of the ruler formed a huge crack with the sand peak, looming in the wind.
He followed Tuda, and he didn't dare to breathe. Tuda ran to the crack, looked down, and jumped straight in. Zhou Yu also did the same, jumping down, this turned out to be a 45-degree slope, jumping on it can quickly slide inward on the sand, as the sliding distance is getting longer and longer, the visibility is getting lower and lower, and in the end it is endless darkness, he can only hear the rustle of the sand and his own heartbeat.
With a bang, Tuda in front should have landed on the ground, and Zhou Yu was also ready to hit and protected his head with his hands, but sliding out of the end of the sand ladder and falling on the hard stone ground still made him almost vomit a mouthful of old blood. It was pitch black in front of him, and he could only grope his way forward with the sound of footsteps, because Tuda had told him not to speak.
As he walked, there was a sudden blue light, and Tuda's figure gradually became clearer, about ten meters away from him. He saw clearly that the glowing thing was a blue worm, and it turned out that it was still luminous. He really couldn't help but want to ask Tuda, how can we go up after this torrent has been going down for a while? Look at the distance is about seven or eight hundred meters, and climbing up it will exhaust people. The Metropolitan Governor was a little confused.
Suddenly, the footsteps stopped. Tuda stood there, and the Governor followed, he only looked ahead and didn't look at his feet, and his foot collapsed and almost fell, but fortunately Tuda grabbed him by the arm. Tuda smiled and pointed downward, oh my god, so frightened that Du Du gasped. Underneath the void is a circular pit about six stories high, the size of a standard football field.
In the distance, three huge blue figures could be seen wriggling, and the pit was scattered everywhere with these blue blue worms, most of which could not be counted, and I am afraid that they could be counted in thousands. The bottom of the pit is covered with bones and decaying objects, and standing at the mouth of the pit can smell a disgusting smell of corpses, which can cause people to faint after a long time.
Zhou Yu looked around and confirmed that there were indeed three Dai Taimeng in the pit, all of them were alive, and they should be resting now. He looked back at the road and asked Tuda in sign language, how are we going to get out? Tuda gestured to his right, then flashed inside. After the Metropolitan Governor followed in, he felt more and more incredible, isn't this a door? Of course, the ordinary door will not shock the Grand Duke, this is a... A thick cast-iron door, similar to that of a bank vault, was rusted but indestructible. Follow Tuda further along, and watch him climb up with the handles of the cast-iron pull-rings, this is a ladder, a cast-iron ladder!
Tuda climbed up quickly, using his hands and feet together as if he were climbing a mine. The Metropolitan Governor couldn't help it and asked him, "Will you be able to make iron and steel?" “
Tuda paused and asked, "What is ironmaking, steelmaking?" “
"Where did you get the material for this ladder and the door just now?" Zhou Yu was a little anxious.
"That's what you say? I don't know, I guess it was here thousands of years ago. No one knows what it is. “
"And how do you make your knives?"
"Swords and these things are all from Slaughter Dream City. There are no four continents, you have to go there to change it, whoever has more knives will be powerful! Tuda replied to him.
Zhou Yu followed Tuda to climb up for a long time, and finally crawled out of a chimney-like place, and the Governor of the Metropolitan turned over and lay on the sea of sand, panting heavily. "I said, I said, Tuda, you allow me, the disabled to take a breath, ha!" Zhou Yu has just recovered from a bone injury, and it is obviously difficult to support short-term, high-intensity physical expenditure.
"Look, Governor, where they are!" Zhou Yu stood up half of his body, followed Tuda's hand and looked, sure enough, there was a flagpole a few hundred meters away, and the red rags danced violently, which was the signal they buried before going down the pit. The two did not dare to shout loudly, and Tuda took the Governor in his arms and walked towards the meeting place, one foot deep and one foot shallow.
"Tuda, this place looks a little strange, don't you think?" Zhou Yu tightened the linen face towel that blocked the sand with his hand, and asked as he walked.
"What's weird? Don't think so? It's always been like this. The tribe sent people to ski down the sand from the opening, pick up a few blue worms in the tunnel, and then climb out of the ladder to escape. It was like that since I was a kid, oh no, maybe since my grandfather was a kid. Tuda muttered.
"Making that iron door and ladder is not something that your smelting process can achieve, you know? Tuda! “
"We don't care about that, is there anything more incredible than Daitaimon? It's not surprising to me that its nest is unbelievable. Tuda muttered.
Yes, this Kuzsia, which is slightly more evolved than Ru Mao's blood drinking, is still an extremely backward tribal city-state system, people can be traded as commodities, captives are slaves, and power is domination.
Such an era has also been experienced by human society, and it has lasted for quite a long time. Ran Min and the others accepted it easily, precisely because this kind of survival law was the same as the law they were familiar with, but most of the governors were rare and strange.
"How's it going?" Before arriving at the meeting point, Bellman rushed over, blinking wide-eyed and eagerly asking about the situation. The little guy came to the snake den for the first time, and faced such a dangerous and unaware situation, but he was in danger, which really surprised several big friends in the same company.
"Well, let's get together." Zhou Yu pulled out a short knife from his back and drew it on the sand.
"Well, this is the meeting point, where we're standing now. This is the entrance, from here to go down the sand, the diagonal distance is about seven or eight hundred meters, and after going down, it is a stone floor. Visibility is low, and the place where there is a blue worm can be illuminated, and the place where there is no can only be dark. Walking along the ground passage for about fifty zhang, there is a sinkhole, right here, about the size of a car walled city. It is very deep, to say less than a dozen zhang. Just now we saw three blue Michelins wriggling, which should be three adult dreams. When I came out, Tuda took me up a vertical ladder at the end of the passage, just on this side of the sinkhole, probably in this position, and it took a meal to climb quickly. Well, it's in this location. The Governor made a dot on the sand and drew a circle.
"Is the situation clear?" Zhou Yu looked up, and what he received was a circle of solemn eyes.
"Okay, then I'll assign the task. Liu Yu, prepare for surgery immediately. Oh, that's what it means to go under the knife. Junchen, make a fire and boil medicine. Jianguo, wait for the medicine to be a little cooler, you pour medicine into the cliff, if it really doesn't work, soak it in a bundle of five, and it will come out of the pot after seven or eight times, have you eaten it? Alas, that's it. Lucy, you feed the monitor lizard water, and mix the water with the blue worm liquid, so that the monitor lizard will not be honest when the knife is opened, and the doctor will die again. Feng Xian, you come to give Dr. Liu a hand, he has the strength to hold a scalpel, but he may not be able to hold it when it comes to anesthetic tolerance. Wan Yanliang, you take advantage of this time to follow Tuda and repeat the route I took just now. Remember, don't hurry, measure the time. Brother Tuda, thank you for another trip. After all, it's a big job, and there is no room for half a point difference. Okay, is it all clear? Zhou Yu asked categorically.
"Clear!" A short, powerful salvo.
"Let's go!" Zhou Yu made a knife shape with his right hand and waved it downward.
"But... Governor, what am I doing? The others dispersed, leaving Bellman standing across from him, anxiously awaiting the task.
"You? Don't worry, there is a very important task waiting for you to do in a while, and now you will follow me, and you will not leave a single step, lest I let you go to the battlefield for a while, and I will not be able to call you when I let you go to the battlefield! Zhou Yu winked mischievously at Bellman's left eye.
When Bellman heard him say this, he almost jumped up in excitement, and hurried to follow the Governor with his luggage. Along the way, this teenage child never shouted tired, like everyone else, carrying his own rations, weapons, clothes, and quilts, never falling behind when he was in a hurry, and even often helped Jianguo and Lucy push the cart that couldn't go fast.
Zhou Yu couldn't remember the last time he saw him laughing, most of the time the kid was either frowning and thinking, or struggling to do something, and the beads of sweat that didn't match his age slid down his immature cheeks one by one, drawing winding and wonderful ravines, dripping on the desert, and being evaporated in an instant with a bang, taking away hope and everything that looked good.
In less than a meal, several links were basically in place, and Zhou Yu checked them one by one, and he was very satisfied. The seven hundred Cliffs were all anesthetized, and a group of 100 was sewn into the stomachs of the seven monitor lizards, but fortunately, the monitor lizard's stomach and bladder had a large expansion coefficient, so they could barely fit it. Because the monitor lizard was anesthetized in advance, the seven medicine primers have not woken up yet.
Wan Yan Liang over there has also returned, according to the rhythm that Zhou Yu taught him, he said that when he counted to nine hundred and ninety, it was a round trip, that is, close to a thousand seconds, Zhou Yu pinched his fingers and calculated, it was about seventeen minutes from entering to coming out, if you add the time spent moving these medicines, twenty to twenty-five minutes should be a reasonable range.
"Then the show begins. There are not many people who go down, me, Bellman, Tuda, Lu Bu, come to Junchen, Wan Yanliang, Liu Yu, Jianguo and Lucy, you are on it. Lai Junchen was responsible for receiving and covering our retreat, Wan Yanliang, Liu Yu, Jianguo, and Lucy were stationed in the thirty li, twenty li, and ten li of Huicheng and the base camp respectively, and if there was any information in the form of a relay, it was quickly conveyed to the headquarters and informed the four rotating leaders. Remember, no matter what happens, stick to your post and mission, obey the command and dispatch and don't make decisions without authorization, and the lives of the brothers will be handed over to you. Walk! “