Seeing that she was so resolute, Shi Keqi didn't bother to ask, it's not that you are a weak woman who is inconvenient to walk around, and I just want to remind a few more words, so I don't have to reject people too much.

It's good that they have fought side by side before, and they have never carried guns together and suffered together.

After touching half of his nose and cold ash, he shifted his attention to Xiaolan, and said angrily: "Alas, you are the master of trouble, you are not happy to say it, what kind of expression do you have? I just swore I'm going to break your leg and can't do it with your last name...... You're crying, Ancestor. ”

Douda's tears fell from the little blue eyes, and it drooped its head and cried silently.

"Okay, okay, don't talk about you, uncle, I don't have your last name. ”

The tears stopped, Xiaolan turned from crying to laughter, a proper Oscar actor level.

"Xiaolan, whose surname do you have, of course it is my surname, so I still have the surname Shi, which is not contrary to what I just said. ”

One mouth and two pieces of flesh are turning over the clouds and rain, the reason is all on your side, Xiaolan pursed her lips, turned her head to the right to look, and decided to ignore the master for the time being.

Shi Keqi smiled and left, and a storm finally stopped.

When he came to the place where the wheelbarrow was just now, the sturdy man actually stayed where he was, and he really met an honest man.

"Guest, why have you been there for so long, I am Chinese New Year's Eve a year old today, and I will be sixty-one when you come back. The honest man complained. He used to call Shi Keqi a nobleman, and after waiting for a while, he would become a guest, and if he waited a day, he would probably become a slut.

"I'm really sorry, looking for this mischievous guy, it was not easy to get caught. Shi Keqi said helplessly.

"Forget it, hurry up, I want to pull a few more times. The sturdy man picked up the wheelbarrow and creaked towards the inn.

Shi Keqi followed, walked halfway, and couldn't help asking, "I heard that there are demon beasts in the ghost forest outside the city?"

"Cheap...... Don't ask about this, you can't discuss it, but don't go to the forest outside the city, where it's wild and there are no roads. ”

The shopkeeper didn't deceive me, Shi Keqi thought.

"It doesn't hurt to tell you, it's not that there are really demon beasts. The government can control taxes and salt, and can still control other people's mouths every day? If you want to arrest people and beat boards, the whole city is full of them, can you beat them? has the ability to kill all the monsters in the forest, and only knows how to find civilians to be unlucky. "The strong man was a little angry.

The shopkeeper, my silver was spent in vain, it's really the blackest, but the second brother, Shi Keqi thought.

As he spoke, he had reached the door of the inn, and the strong man unloaded the goods.

Shi Keqi counted out twenty wen from the bundle bag, and added a few more words: "Give you the car money, it's hard work." ”

The strong man stacked the money, scratched his fingers and said: "A total of forty wen, you only give twenty-five for the guest, and there is still fifteen wen." ”

"Where did you get forty wen, isn't the fare twenty wen?"

"It's a waste of money to wait for someone, and I can pull the goods one more time when you wait. Therefore, add 20 wen waiting fee, 20 wen for the fare, a total of 40 wen, you can't be wrong. The strong man quoted the price in one breath, without the slightest stumble, and it seems that he has said this more than once.

"I thought it would be enough for someone to give me a few more articles, okay, it's fine. Shi Keqi counted fifteen more to him.

"Well, thank you, goodbye. ”

It's normal to ask for more money, it seems to be a little more, and honest people are not honest, Shi Keqi thought to himself. Of course, this little thing will not affect his mood, and he will not fight, but can understand the other party.

After taking care of all kinds of chores, in the afternoon, I had to stay another night.

In the early morning of the next day, Shi Keqi left the room and left the store, and the shopkeeper took Ma and asked him where he was going.

He replied, "Ghost Forest." ”

The shopkeeper was taken aback and said: "Guest officer, the little one said that there are demon beasts over there, and people are afraid that they won't be able to get out, so you think about it, do you want to go somewhere else?" The scenery of Lujiatai, forty miles to the south, is very good. ”

"It's okay, you can get busy. "Scoch took the horse.

"The guest officer really can't go. The shopkeeper wailed.

"Oh, I've killed a monster before. Shi Keqi said lightly.

The shopkeeper was dumbfounded, but the idea of using people's money to eliminate disasters for others still made him struggle to make a faint sentence: "There may be a group of demon beasts there." ”

"Then I'll kill a bunch. Shi Keqi got on the horse and rode away.

When the west gate was out of the city, the soldiers guarding the gate probably read the paperwork and the materials they were carrying, and happily gave them permission to go. You don't need a pass to enter the Ghost Shadow Forest, the Northern Zhou Dynasty does not control free walking, and ordinary people can go wherever they like, just prepare their identity documents.

Outside the city is a gourd-shaped mouth tens of meters wide, surrounded by steep cliffs thousands of meters high, and the steep mountains are like a natural defense line designed by the creator for human beings.

Only this section of terrain is special, it has a section of open land hundreds of meters long, extending from the ghost forest, and Liangcheng is firmly stuck in this opening.

Anything that needs to enter the human settlements of Wuzhou has to pass through this city, unless it flies through the sky or digs a tunnel from the ground.

After passing through that section of the gourd's mouth, the road began to close and became very narrow, and there were vertical stone walls on both sides, and it was difficult for birds to gain a foothold, and there were not too lush trees growing more than a kilometer.

Fortunately, the road is not wide, but it is enough to walk alone.

Shi Keqi thought about it while walking, and thought about the cowhide words that the shopkeeper said, and really did it to estimate that there were no dead corpses, thinking that the Northern Zhou Dynasty sent a large army and many mages to encircle and suppress the demon beasts, and was defeated and retreated before reaching the center of the forest, and finally barely held it by relying on natural danger.

With this bit of strength, unless you are impatient to find a group of demon beasts, it is a sure win to find a nest of rabbits, and if you can't avoid the monsters, you can avoid them.

The most important thing--- what is the Eternal Frozen Spring? Now that it has finally reached the edge of the Ghost Forest, the corner of the forest where the Dragon Temple is located? it can be inferred that it must be in a hidden place or deep in the forest, not too obvious, give up searching the edge of the forest first.

However, if you enter the depths of the forest, you must first visit the hunters in Orion Village, from whom you may be able to get useful clues.

Along the naturally formed walkway on the mountainside of the lofty mountains, there are two forks in the mountain road ten miles away from Liangcheng. There is a road sign more than two meters high at the intersection, with Liangcheng Outpost written on the right and Orion Village written on the left.

Skokie took the reins to the left.

The so-called Orion Village is a naturally formed village, there was no village here, some people who wandered to Liangcheng from other places, it was difficult to survive in the city, relying on the courage of the masters, to hunt ordinary beasts in the forest or pick valuable medicinal materials for money, and many people found that it was quite good in the forest, so they simply lived down, and slowly formed a village.

The terrain here is relatively flat, the trees grow down the high mountains, and when you look up, there are large areas of emerald green on the left, and there seem to be cliffs below, and at the bottom is an endless basin, and the thick fog hides its appearance.

After the basin, you can really enter the Ghost Forest, which is only a marginal area. The Ghost Forest has a fierce reputation for being infested with monsters, and as long as the locals survive, they will not go to the depths of the forest to forage for food.

The monster is the most ferocious monster in the legend, and the top slaughter of an army of 1,000 people is no problem, and the worst is stronger than the tiger and leopard.

The village is small, with a total of 100 mud thatched houses, built high and low in a valley. With a population of less than two hundred, probably due to the lack of women, the houses and environment here are relatively dirty.

There were only twelve women in the village, all of whom were big-shouldered and round-waisted, half of whom were engaged in that business, and half of whom were allowed to make a living.

When Shi Keqi came to the village, he found that the atmosphere here was rather oppressive, and he saw that the eyes of outsiders were not very friendly. He greeted a relatively good-natured man, who turned a blind eye and walked away.

Bored with himself, he continued to walk towards the village.

A miserable cry sounded.

There was an obese woman from a family in the village who sat in front of the house and wailed, and the other five women in the village accompanied her to wipe her tears.

Shi Keqi listened to the general idea: her man went hunting in the forest a week ago, and now she has no one alive or dead, and she doesn't want to live anymore. Some women said that there were still a few people who did not come back, maybe they fell into the cave and climbed out and went home after a few days.

Another woman with messy hair said, "Your man may have found a gold mine and is sleeping with gold." ”

It seems that what the shopkeeper said is true, Shi Keqi thought. He didn't have the motivation to listen to these women's boring persuasions, and he still slept with gold, and nine times out of ten he became the food of demon beasts.

This kind of pure comfort is still a little useful for people who are grieving, after all, hinting at the hope that their loved ones may still be alive. Even if you are really desperate in your heart, you want to hear similar words.

Shi Keqi continued to walk forward, and the people of Orion Village didn't seem to have a good impression of outsiders, whether they met on the road or came back from the forest, most of them looked cold.

In front of it, there was a flat field the size of a basketball court, and the hunters would set up wooden shelves to put out the dried leather goods they had hunted, and a few wanderers would come to the village to collect the goods. Hunters would also deliver their hides to the city's leather shops, and the game they caught would be delivered to the restaurants.

The price charged by the traveling merchant is lower than that of the store, and the hunter has to pay a tax when he enters the city, and he can avoid this tax by selling to the traveling merchant. Of course, how to pay or evade taxes is not a matter for Orion to worry about.

In short, there are pros and cons to either way of trading, as long as the price is right, it can facilitate a sale.

"Lao Ling, the price of leather goods, whether it is bear skin, leopard skin, or tiger skin, has all risen by 30%, isn't this how business works?" said a traveling merchant in a leather suit to an elderly hunter.

"Master Chen, please forgive us for our difficulties, there are no more fierce beasts in the forest near Liangcheng, only to risk their lives to go to the depths of the forest, there are already several hunters who have gone and never returned, the official army brigade killed the demon beast at the outpost, it is estimated that our people fed the demon beast. ”

"This is a leather goods in exchange for life, the appearance of the demon beast has seriously endangered the safety of the village, it is estimated that there will be no one living here, everyone will move to Liangcheng, and there will be no leather goods at that time. Lao Ling said with a frown.

"Leather goods are everywhere, but yours are a little cheaper, or I wouldn't have come all the way to buy them. I also know this news, it doesn't matter if the price goes up, but 30% is too high, and each has its own difficulties. Chen surnamed You Shang said.