The weather is clear, and the view of the salt marshes on the outskirts of the salt lake is the most beautiful. Known as the "mirror of the sky", the Tuka Salt Marsh is like a huge mirror, gathering the blue sky and white clouds in its embrace.

Along the clay pipes that draw water from the lake at the city's salt factory, a boat and cart with a cabin-like body, with four symmetrical wheels mounted on the bulwark, and a mirror-like salt marsh with four symmetrical wheels on the sides.

Unlike peat bogs, the bottom of the salt marshes is a solid mass of salt that can be crushed by boats and carts without the risk of falling. The salt marshes are shallow, and the water is only about a tenth of the way past the wheels.

It doesn't matter if you accidentally stray into a deep salt lake, you can float on the water and use your paddle to move forward. Of course, this is just a pre-plan, and this is rarely the case for experienced seekers.

Even without relying on the water-drawing pipes of the salt plant, the experienced seeker can find his way home in the salt marshes, where it is difficult to distinguish the direction: the rut marks left by the heavy boats and cars of the predecessors, the direction of the breeze, the salinity of the salt solidified in different positions......

All of this will show them the way. Thanks to their unique skills, the seekers are able to navigate the salt marshes in search of floating vines that can be used to make high-grade pink salt.

Thanks to the high price of powdered salt, the income of the foraging workers in the whole city is at a moderate level. Therefore, this skill is very popular and is often passed down only between father and son.

Looking at the dozens of vines piled up on the boat, and then at his son who was sweating profusely as he pulled the boat forward, the old seeker sitting cross-legged on the boat and car secretly added a few pieces of cured meat to the soup pot stewed on the charcoal stove at his feet.

"Gede," the father called out his son's name, "it's all right to walk here today, get something to eat and go back." There is a colosse competition in the Colosseum tonight, so take my little grandson to see it. ”

Hearing the old father greet him, Gede hurriedly said, "I'm not tired, you can eat first." Let's collect more today, it's almost time for the little guy to come up with a name, and I want to pay for the mage who is guarding the city to give him a good name. ”

After saying that, the young and industrious seeker pulled the rope and dragged the cart forward two steps, picked up a piece of floating vine floating, shook it off twice, squeezed out some salt water, and loaded it into the cart.

"It's a good piece of material," said Ged, wiping the salt water off his gloves with a rag, "and there are some rushes on the Dianzi, which must have floated from the depths of the salt lake." The color of the vines is also good, and it is estimated that it can be worth half a copper Deben. ”

His father served him a bowl of broth, but his eyes turned slightly in the direction of the depths of the salt lake, "The wind is blowing," the old seeker narrowed his eyes, staring at the low-hanging clouds floating in the sky like a large mourning veil, "After drinking this bowl of soup, let's turn around and go home." ”

Gede tried to tell the difference, but when he saw the serious expression on his father's face, he immediately nodded in compliance.

The old seeker felt in the cabin of the boat, and in a short time he made a simple boom out of two wooden rods and a piece of canvas. Gerd had finished drinking the broth by this time, and after putting away the bowl, he wanted to extinguish the fire in the small charcoal stove.

"Don't turn off the fire," said his father, who was setting up the boom on the boat, without looking back, "maybe when it will be useful for a while, it will be troublesome to think about lighting a fire temporarily." ”

Soon after the father and son turned around, the breeze blowing from the salt lake to the city of Tuka turned into a strong wind, and the clouds on the horizon turned lead. The booms erected on the carriage rattled roughly, and waves of wind-swept water crashed against the belly of the carriage.

"Get on the boat," said the old seeker to Gede when he saw that the water level in the salt marshes was beginning to rise, "use the pole first, and replace the oars if the water level rises again." Pay attention to the direction of my sails, work harder, and get back to the breakwater as soon as possible. ”

The so-called "breakwater" refers to a large half-moon-shaped embankment built on the edge of the salt marshes in the southern part of the city of Tuka and strengthened by the sorcerers with spells every year.

In the earliest days, the "breakwater" was built to prevent the salt lake from flooding into the city when it rose. Later, however, the building also doubled in to defend against the invasion of some monsters.

With the joint efforts of Tempest and Gerd, the boat moved forward like a meteor. In order to make better use of the wind, the old seeker beckoned his son while controlling the sails, so that the boats and cars that were already floating could "zigzag".

The original reference for drawing water has been submerged in the water, but fortunately, the father and son of the seeker are highly skilled - the small salt mundes that have been dug up by their predecessors and then piled up can also be used to calibrate the course

"At this rate," the old seeker licked his right index finger and raised it straight above his forehead, and the salty wind that smelled of the depths of the salt lake blew through his wet fingers, giving him a chilling sensation - a technique he used to feel the wind, "at most half an hourglass ......"

Gerd's sudden roar interrupted his father's words, "There's a monster following us!" The son of the seeker stood at the stern of the boat and struggled to hold on to a long pole, as if trying to throw those fears far behind him.

"Keep it up! Give me some time to prepare. ”

With that, the old seeker decisively cut several rags from the corners of the sails with his dagger, and then pulled out a number of slightly drier vines from the cargo of the wagon.

He used strips of broken canvas to tie vines into palm-sized balls, and finally found a water bladder and a number of red willow skewers for barbecue from the emergency kit of the boat.

With both hands reaching out of the boat, he carefully applied the black oil from the water bladder to the surface of the rattan balls skewered on the red willow skewers, which dripped, dripping with a little black oil, and the old seeker held them in his hand as if he were holding a grilled meat skewer.

He found a thick vine and inserted the "meat skewers" one by one, properly put them aside and put them away, and the old seeker tied the dagger in his hand to another long pole with a beast tendon rope to make it into a spear.

"I'll hold the boat for a while," he said, taking the pole from Gerd's hand and handing his son the newly made spear, "rest your arm for a while, and remember how I taught you how to use a spear." ”

Gerd looked a hundred paces away, the monster that persistently followed their father and son—some seekers who had been captured by the more terrible monsters that had appeared in the depths of the salt lake in recent years and transformed into aquatic corpses—and he didn't want to die like that.

"Good father, I'm going to take your little grandson to the Colosseum to look at his watch today," said Gede with a forced composure, "We have weapons in our hands, and those monsters are afraid of fire." ”

Gerd soothes his arms alternately with a cycle of soothing his arms with one hand and curling his arm in an arc to loosen his tense muscles with the other.

Perhaps encouraged by his son's words, or perhaps because he missed his grandson, the old seeker grimly soothed, but the arms of the boat bulged with green tendons.

Facing the salty lake breeze from the shop, he began to sing the old song of the salt worker.

()

Sogou