The next morning, Tie Slag and the others had breakfast in the bar, and came to the office building of Chunqiu Heavy Industry again to meet Qi Yun and his secretary. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

"It's too expensive." As soon as he entered the door, Cang Haiya threw the quotation form on the coffee table and said angrily.

"This ......" Qi Yun said with a sad face, "Canglao, this is already the fairest price, no matter how low it is, we will lose money." ”

"Don't do it at a loss!" Cang Haiya frowned and said in a stiff tone.

"Oh, Cang Lao, you are ......" Qi Yun hurriedly stepped forward to hold his hand and said, "Otherwise, Cang Lao, you can say as much as you want......

And as he spoke, two old men appeared at the door of the reception room. They looked to be about sixty or seventy years old, and they were all dressed in old, whitened overalls, with badly worn cuffs and collars. If you look closely, you can see that the yellow number is embroidered on the pocket of the jacket.

"Cang Lao." "I'm back." Qi Yun just wanted to say hello, but the other party took the first step to speak.

Cang Haiya suddenly showed surprise on his face, and quickly greeted him and said, "Elder Xue, Elder Huang, why are you all back." ”

"yes." "Come back and see." The two old men smiled and said.

"Come in and sit down." Cang Haiya held the hands of the two elders and invited.

"You have something to do, you get busy first." "We're just passing by and getting back together." The two old men postponed in unison, squeezing their eyes at him. Cang Haiya immediately understood, turned his head to Qi Yun and said, "Let's talk about business later, I'll catch up with two old friends first." After speaking, he left with the two elders under Qi Yun's speechless gaze.

Seeing this, Tie Slag also got up and said, "You talk first, I'll go down and walk." "Anyway, you can't talk about business if you don't go to Canghaiya, so it's better to go down and shake it, so as not to stay here and stare at it with big eyes and be embarrassed. In fact, Quinn also wants to leave, but now that he is playing the boss, he can't get out......

After leaving the office building, the iron slag wandered around the factory area. It's overgrown with weeds and rusty machinery everywhere. Following the faintly visible concrete road, through a small forest, past a small basketball court, a small wooden house appeared on the low slope ahead. Looking up, there was a small flag on the roof, on which were written the words "Kai Ji Store".

It is not difficult to see that this is a small shop that can be found everywhere in the town, usually selling some daily necessities and snacks, and occasionally doing a small business of prohibited items. When I approached the shop, I saw a few half-grown children squatting in the open space in front of the door, gathering to play with glass marbles, and from time to time let out one or two excited exclamations.

Looking at the children playing games, Iron Slag couldn't help but think of the time in Iron Mountain Town. It's a very primitive game with a slight gambling twist. It is that both sides take turns throwing glass marbles and then hitting each other's beads with the beads, and whoever hits it first wins, while the glass marbles go to the winning side. Since the closer the balls of the two sides, the easier it is to hit, it is a game of great skill and strategy.

He used to play this game with Lao Niu and won a big bag of glass marbles, and if the dwarf stronghold hadn't burned, he would probably have lost it in some corner now. Back then, the old cow tried to win him once, but his index finger was swollen from practice.

Lao Niu is a very hard worker, and his accuracy is much higher than him at the same distance, but he will make full use of the terrain and obstacles, and patiently go around with Lao Niu to avoid head-to-head confrontation. When the old cow can't hold his breath, he will turn around and break it. It's just that many times Lao Niu's patience is no worse than his. Once, he and the old cow bounced around a big rock for several hours, and finally he was really impatient, and he relied on brute force to move the stone away, and won the competition directly. Lao Niu was very unconvinced, saying that he was a skin, and he didn't play after that.

"Guest, what do you want to buy?" There was an old woman sitting in the shop, who was slowly shaking a banana fan, and when she saw the iron slag, she got up and asked.

The dilapidated glass cabinet was covered with dust, and several cracked places were pasted with transparent tape, and there were all kinds of snacks inside, including roasted peanuts, fried melon seeds, fried broad beans, dried fruits and dried meat, etc., in addition to these common ones, there was even kraft candy! It's a maltose product mixed with sesame seeds and peanuts in a long strip shape that is tough and chewy.

Iron Mountain Town hasn't been sold for many years, but I didn't expect it to be here.

"Here's a piece of kraft candy." Iron Slag pointed to the candy cube wrapped in reddish oiled paper in the cupboard.

"Two pieces of copper plate." The old woman said.

"Anything else to drink?" Iron Slag took out a silver coin and placed it on the glass case.

In the world of Silver City, one gold coin is equal to ten silver coins, and one silver coin is equal to ten copper coins, assuming that the purchasing power of a gold coin is one thousand, the purchasing power of a silver coin is one hundred, and the purchasing power of a copper coin is ten. I have to say that kraft candy is a very cheap thing, and this price is not enough to buy half a kilogram of greens.

"There are soy milk, fruit juice, carbonated water, beer, ......," said the old woman, opening the rusty refrigerator next to her, pointing to the colorful glass bottles inside.

"Let's have soy milk." Iron Slag said. This is also a favorite drink he drank when he was a child, made from ground soy flour and tasted a little similar to milk.

"It's also half a copper plate." The old woman said. Then he took out a bottle of soy milk, opened it with a capper, and handed it to the iron slag along with the kraft candy.

I took it, tore open the pale red wrapper, and took a bite, and the familiar smell suddenly filled my heart. He couldn't help but think of when he was a child, when Xiaoyu ate kraft candy. The serious, satisfied look on his face is like eating the best food in the world.

I don't know if we still eat this now, our prayer for rain and sacrifice to adults?

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but laugh dumbly, and then waved his hand and said to the old woman: "The rest of the money will be exchanged for kraft candy, and I will take it away." ”

"Good ......," replied the old woman with a smile, putting away the change she had just found, taking a translucent plastic bag, blowing open the mouth of the bag, and stuffing pieces of kraft candy into it.

Then, under the cloth shed in front of the store, the iron slag sat down at the small shabby wooden table, drinking soy milk and eating tough kraft candy while watching the children play with marbles.

"Look, Brother Lu is here!" Playing and playing, the children suddenly all stood up and looked in one direction.

Following their gaze, they saw a strong man in a light-colored basketball tank jacket walking this way. His shoulders were broad, his arms were thick, his exposed muscles were solid, and his dark skin was shiny in the sun, making him look unusually strong.

"Brother Strong!" "Brother Lu!" Seeing the strong man, the children cried out excitedly.

"I don't study hard at home, and I run out to play." After approaching, the strong man raised his face at the children gathered around and said solemnly.

"Brother Dali, tell me a story." "We're going to listen to the story, and we haven't finished talking about it last time." "Uh-huh!" "Brother Dali, please drink soda!" The children screamed.

"How can there be so many stories to tell, don't embarrass me." The strong man said as he walked to the front of the store, took out a few copper coins and threw them on the glass cabinet, and said, "Aunt Li, give each of them a carbonated water." ”

"Dali, you don't make much money, don't toss around, keep your daughter-in-law to go." Despite this, the old woman put away the copper plate and opened a few bottles of carbonated drinks. The children immediately rushed up and drank with a bang.

"Brother Dali, we want to listen to the story." "What you said last time, the story of the poem of the bright moon is so good." "Yes, and the story of the rain in the city." "This time, you tell me something else, we're going to listen to the story of the starless light." "No, no, I'm going to listen to the story of the deep-sea harpoon." The children pisted and shouted as they drank their drinks.

"It's gone, it's gone, it's all gone." The strong man stared at his brass bell-like eyes and feigned anger.

"I am the Poetry of the Bright Moon, Lorenfeld! Let the horses come! A child puffed out his chest and said with a full momentum.

"I'm Iceplain Horn, Saxton!" A child kicks a strong man in the thigh.

"I'm ...... I am ......" one of the children scratched his head and thought for a moment before he said, "I am the rain of the fallen city, Zangwill. Then he kicked the brady man in the ass.

"Okay, okay, you are all big heroes, don't fight, I admit defeat." The strong man raised his hands and begged for mercy.

"Surrender is a story!" "Uh-huh!" "Quick, shoot and don't kill, tell a story."

"Okay, okay......" The strong man said helplessly, spreading his hands.

"Hooray!" "Wow!" "Victory!" The children screamed for joy.

"But ......," said the strong man, his face turned pale, and he said, "It's still the old rule, the story I tell can't be told to people outside, otherwise you will be in danger." ”

"Yes!" "Don't say it!" "I swear!" The children stood up straight and responded in unison, like little soldiers.

"Then ......," the strong man thought for a moment and said, "today I will tell you the story of the starless light, the Salados family." ”

Then, the strong man sat down next to the big tree in front of the shop, touched the head of one of the children, and asked, "Do you still remember what I told you last time, the conditions for the Brilliant Family to obtain the title?" ”

"Remember!" The children echoed in unison.

"What's that?" The strong man asked.

"Three hundred years of perseverance, three hundred years of glory." The children replied in unison.

"Yes!" The strong man gave a thumbs up and said, "If you want to obtain the title bestowed by the Brilliant Great Prophet, you must prove yourself with three hundred years of time, the persistence and glory of several generations." ”

"The starless light, as the title implies, the Salados accomplished a feat unimaginable to the world. With the efforts of several generations, they spent two hundred and thirty years exploring the vast and boundless sea of mirrors......"

In this way, in the expectant eyes of the children, the strong man told the story of the past.

Around BDR 2700, 300 years before the first year of the recovery calendar, a fishing boat discovered a spatial rift in the Mirror Sea plane in the Central Sea.

The Salados family was ordered to explore the Mirror Sea, and they built twelve deep-sea exploration ships to form an expedition team and enter the Mirror Sea plane to explore. However, more than ten years have passed, and the expedition has never returned, and there has been no news. Due to the endless sea of mirrors and the lack of satellite communication, once you lose your way, you will never be able to find your way back.

In order to complete their mission, the Salados family once again organized an expedition into the Sea of Mirrors. However, the second expedition still lost contact. So, expedition after expedition set out. Over the next two hundred and thirty years, the Salados organized nine expeditions, but all of them were lost in the vast sea, known as "the most desperate expedition". In order to prevent the family of Salados from perishing as a result, the glorious Great Prophet of that generation imprisoned them.

A hundred years later, an expedition from the western continent found a drifting bottle left by the Salados near the entrance to the Mirror Sea plane, thus mastering the law of the change of the magnetic field of the Mirror Sea plane, and finally conquering the boundless sea.

And those sacrificial Salados, like the stars in the dark night, guide the future generations.