On the way, passing by a house with earthen walls and black tiles, Brother Niu suddenly stopped.

I thought something was wrong and stopped.

I saw Brother Niu hesitate in place for a moment, and then ran towards the house, I wanted to follow him to have a look, but I found that when he ran to the door of the house, he took out a key from his pocket.

It seems that this should be Brother Niu's home, and he should have gone in in a hurry to get something.

I didn't know the local customs, and I didn't know whether I should enter someone's house without being invited by my host, so I stood on the road and watched silently.

After Brother Niu entered the house, there was a jingling sound in the house, feeling that he should be looking for something, and after a short while, the noise stopped abruptly, and Brother Niu rushed over with a narrow cloth bag more than a foot long.

He locked the door with great speed, rushed to me like another gust of wind, shoved the cloth bag in his hand towards me, and said with a smile, "I gave it to you." ”

"Why are you giving me something all of a sudden?" I laughed and tore open the bag curiously.

Inside is a very thick cigarette stick, I don't need to smell the smell I know this thing has been around for a long time, in the center of the cigarette stick, as well as the position of the cigarette holder and the cigarette pot have traces of perennial polishing, the light is relatively dark, I can only see that the whole cigarette stick is engraved with slender lines, as if forming a special totem.

Lao Chen approached me, carefully looked at the cigarette stick in my hand, and then stretched out the index finger of his right hand and tapped on the cigarette stick.

At first, I thought that this cigarette stick was made of steel or brass fingers, but when Lao Chen struck the cigarette stick, there was a very muffled "bang" sound on it, no rhyme, no spring, and no aftersound.

Then Lao Chen took out the small flashlight he carried with him and lit it on the cigarette stick, and the place where the flashlight was illuminated reflected a soft and dazzling luster.

Lao Chen took the flashlight and said to me, "Pure gold." ”

I checked the cigarette stick in my hand, the weight was at least half a catty, I didn't dare to accept such a valuable thing casually, so I stuffed the cigarette stick into the cloth bag, stretched out my hand again, and handed the cloth bag to Brother Niu: "It's too valuable, I can't accept it." ”

Brother Niu hurriedly waved his hand: "It's not a valuable thing, this is what my grandfather left behind, there are a lot of people in the house, the teacher doesn't let me smoke, and it's useless for me to keep it, but I don't have anything to take out my hand, so I can only give this to the benefactor's son." ”

I took the cigarette stick and said to him, "This cigarette stick is made of pure gold, and it can be exchanged for a lot of money when you go outside, but since it is useless for you to keep it, you can exchange it for money and repair the house for the people in the stockade." ”

Saying that, I was about to force the cloth bag into Brother Niu's hand, but this kind of action made Brother Niu unhappy, he pushed my wrist hard, and frowned fiercely: "If you don't accept it, you just don't want to make me a friend." ”

I smiled helplessly: "Friends are still made, but I can't accept things." ”

Brother Niu took two steps back quickly, looked at me from a distance with a gloomy face, and then I realized that what he just said was serious, and from his eyes, I could feel deep displeasure.

Walking around the village next, I still need Brother Niu's assistance, and now I don't dare to completely go against his will, so in desperation, I can only say "Okay" and pin the cloth bag to the belt.

Brother Niu regained the smile on his face and continued to walk towards the depths of the village with us.

The scene just now was all seen by Li Huaishan in the back, he seemed to like the clean and enthusiastic young man in front of him, took the initiative to roll down the car window, and chatted with Brother Niu: "Hey, Brother Niu, what are you doing in the village, why every time I hear someone call out your name, the reaction of the villagers is ...... What is it? ”

Brother Niu didn't quite understand Li Huaishan's words, so he turned his head and asked me, "What do you mean?" ”

As he explained, "The first time I heard someone call your name, the villagers changed their formation and tried to form an encirclement of about two meters around me. The second time someone called your name, I was running towards the village, and the villagers behind me probably hadn't seen that kind of fluttering figure, and they were all stunned, but as soon as they heard your name, they immediately stopped in a daze and ran towards me. ”

Brother Niu scratched his scalp, pouted and said, "I probably understand what you mean." Before I became the leader, I was now a guard in the stockade, and recently I used to take everyone to practice in order to catch the colorful tigers, so everyone looked up to me. ”

The "affordable" in his mouth should have a lot of meanings, respect and admiration are on the one hand, and judging from the previous actions of the villagers, Brother Niu seems to have given them a spiritual strength buried deep in their hearts.

I think the reason why this situation occurs is not only because Brother Niu is indeed a capable person, but also because of his identity - the head of the next generation.

Even Brother Niu himself said that the residual poison of slavery has long been ingrained in the hearts of the villagers.

I asked Brother Niu: "Are the iron rods of the villagers all coated with black medicine?" Also, I remember what you said when you chased me, that outsiders are cursed when they enter the stockade......"

Before I finished speaking, Brother Niu smiled embarrassedly: "That's what I said nonsense to scare you." Black medicine is a poison that Awu can only concoct, and there is no one on other people's sticks, Awu is a woman who is very good at mixing poisons, and even the teacher said that her poison is powerful. ”

Hearing this, I couldn't help frowning.

The stick was smeared with poison, and I could be poisoned through my clothes, I don't know what the girl named Awu was thinking when she waved the iron bar, whether she was vicious by nature, or if she did it unintentionally.

Brother Niu seemed to see the doubts in my heart, and took the initiative to say to me: "Ah Wu must not have done it on purpose. ”

I gave Brother Niu a smile: "Of course she's not." ”

It was a long road from the entrance of the stockade to the deepest part of the stockade, and we walked for a long time before Brother Niu pointed to a three-storey building on the mountainside and told me that it was the big house, which used to be where the head man lived.

Brother Niu said that he should have lived there, but he didn't let him, and Dawu said that now everyone in the village should be equal, nobles should not live in big houses, and people who used to be slaves should not live with livestock, so he took his people to rebuild the village, and everyone lived in the same high and big house.

Although Brother Niu said so, on the way here, I found out that there are still differences in the houses where the villagers live.

Although they are all hard earth rammed walls, the roofs of some houses are only compacted and paved with multi-layer thatch, while houses like Niu Ge live have very neat black tiles on the roof, and most houses with black tiles have a small window in the wall, and houses with thatched roofs only have four solid walls.

In fact, needless to say, the place where Noja Dawu himself lives is different from others, and the building called the mud tile tower is probably the only wooden building in the entire village except for the big house.

In a three-storey building, the walls of the first floor are made of very thick hard earth, and from the second floor onwards, the walls are made of large wooden boards, and the bottom floor has no windows, but in the middle of the room, there is a large fire pit, and there is a very large stove in the corner of the room.

As soon as Brother Niu entered the big house, he immediately added firewood to the fire pit, lit a bonfire, and then lit the stove and helped us boil hot water.

Lao Chen asked Brother Niu why there is no window on the first floor, Brother Niu said, the local people are not used to living in a house with windows, only a few will open a window on the wall, used to steal gas, by the way, that word is called the black house bright stove, Brother Niu said, the local people do not pursue the lighting and transparency in the room, like to live in a darker house, but there must be a very bright fire in the house, this is the so-called black house bright stove.

After the bonfire was lit, Brother Niu set up a wooden stand on the fire pit, took the cups and sheets from the second floor, and roasted them on the shelf.

Speaking of which, the local climate is a little dry, although it is not as good as the loess slope of Xihaigu, but there is no moisture after all, Brother Niu took so much effort to toss a few bedding, not to dispel the tide, just to let us sleep warmer at night.

During this period, Li Huaishan has been repairing the car outside, and I, Brother Niu and Lao Chen are cleaning on the second floor, there is no electricity here, only oil lamps can be used for lighting, it is not easy to clean such a huge house in the middle of the night, fortunately, there should be people in this place often come to take care of it, except for a little dust on the ground, there is nothing to clean.

Until the entire second floor was cleaned out, Brother Niu asked me if I still wanted to clean the top floor, I asked him what was on the top floor, and he said that it was the same as the second floor, which was also a guest room.

I said that there was no need to clean, Brother Niu only yawned, saying that he was also tired, let us have a good rest, tomorrow when we wake up, we can go to the village to find him, he also said, if the livestock is still enough for spring ploughing, tomorrow at noon, Nuoja Dawu should hold a banquet to entertain me, when the time comes, the village will kill sheep and chickens, he can also feast.

When Brother Niu left, Li Huaishan happened to come in with a bag of food, we came this time, with a total of five luggage bags, when the rear compartment was torn open, only a bag containing daily necessities and a bag containing books fell out. Luckily, the other three bags weren't damaged, especially the one containing the food, otherwise the three of us would have gone hungry tonight.

After eating something hastily, I estimated that Brother Niu should have gone far away, so I left the big house, and quietly touched the mud tile tower while it was dark at night.

(End of chapter)