Rhine was especially afraid of the man sitting across the car. The man was fair-skinned, dressed in a traveling coat, with an indescribable indifference all over his body. At this time, my father pulled down the sleeve of Rhine's left arm and asked Rhine to sit on the other side of him and roll up the sleeve of his right arm.

Father straightened Rhine's right arm and checked how well the sore was healing. Then he glued the ointment to Rhine with a ball of velvet thread. The ointment that the merchant had left for his father was discarded by his father, and those things were fat-oiled ointments of unknown animals, so they could only paste the wounds and have no other effect. It is said that the Nord fishermen often cut their hands with thin fishing lines while fishing nets, and rubbed the ointment made of this herb, and the wound would scar the next morning, and after a few days there would be no wound at all.

Father had already left Lurens with Rhine this morning.

On previous trips, the carriage was on the road non-stop, except for stopping once every four hours for passengers to come down to the toilet. Her father smeared ointment on Rhine in the car, but Rhine wouldn't let him put ointment on the rest of her body except for her limbs and head. At this time, my father slapped Rhine twice on the head and said, "If you don't apply the medicine, your skin will become the same as that of an old lady before you are 12 years old." Rhine thought for a moment, turned his back to his father and exposed some of the yellowed back, and his father carefully smeared medicine on her. But in other places, Rhine said that she didn't want to show it when she became an old lady.

At the Lurens inn, my father stayed in a room prepared in advance by the merchant. He exchanged one dinar for five silver coins and more than 50 copper plates. He used the price of a copper plate and a bucket of hot water to let Tang Han, who ran the hall, bring hot water to fill a large wooden barrel. He threw Rhine in and placed a set of clean clothes, a medical tampon, and a small half jar of Nord ointment beside him. Then let Rhine clean up after taking a shower, and wipe all the places where the medicine should be applied, and the next time he has such an opportunity will be a few days later, when he is close to Uxhall, there will be some market towns with bathing places.

Rhine has some yellow skin and slender features, unlike a Swadian child. Rhine, who had changed into new clothes, returned the used tampons, removed the wet clothes, and returned the unused ointment to his father. His father told Rhine to remember to throw away the tampons when he ran out.

My father called the soup man and told him to wash the wet clothes and dry them on the stove for the next morning.

Tang Han got a large handful of copper plates from his father this evening, and immediately agreed to his father's request. He hurried down the stairs and woke up his sleeping wife to get up and wash her clothes, and Tang Han told his wife. If the next day he did not starch the washed clothes as white as a dove and dried them as dry as wood, he would beat her.

The next day, my father got clothes as white as a dove and dry as wood.

He turned and handed the dress to Rhine and asked her to put herself in her linen pocket. This pocket was sold to his father by Tom Han the night before for five copper plates.

Before getting into the car, his father gave Tang Han five more copper plates to express his satisfaction with his service, and when his father took out the copper plates from his wallet, Tang Han saw a thick stack of glittering gold dinar coins at a glance. His father's generosity impressed the Tom Han, and the sheen of those dinars shone brightly in Tom Han's mind.

After much deliberation, Tang Han called his brother, gave him 11 copper plates, told him to keep one for himself, and use the remaining 10 to borrow a horse from the rich man's house in the east of the town, and then rode to the woods of North Uxhall to find a door. Kazak (Come out!) Men-kazak!) told him that if he was willing to make a business, there was an ideal customer in carriage C-411 of Sunochar Carriage. In return for providing information, Tonghan hoped that Kazak would bring back 50 dinars to his brother.

Tang Han's younger brother was usually idle and his hands and feet were not clean, Tang Han paid him to be an apprentice carpenter and blacksmith, but usually within three months, he would be beaten with a stick by the master and driven back to Tang Han's house by the neck. Later, Tang Han had no choice but to find his younger brother and introduce him to another way to make money: to provide the green forest robbers with information about passing travelers, and after the robbers succeeded, they took a small part of them.

Countless green forest bandits have risen and fallen. It's like a meteor passing by in the night sky. These heroes crisscrossed the woods, earning a living with the swords in their hands. Of these people, only a small number survived, because only a small number of them understood the survival of the Green Forest Bandits.

This way of survival can be summed up in two points: first, lay a good foundation for the masses; Second, only robbing money does not kill people.

Door. Kazak is one of the few leaders of the Green Forest who understands this.

The fact that Kazak is a Kugit makes him different from others.

As a young man, he herded sheep for an Elmo chariot man, and he spent most of his time on horseback from the age of four. The old man of Elmo gave him a small Kugit horse, which didn't look as good as the Swadia horse, and not even as good as the snowy horse of Vekia. However, it has excellent stamina, excellent adaptability, and can survive tenaciously in very barren land, just like the steppe people.

At that time, the Kujit people rode through the vast snow-capped mountains to drive the Swadias back from the eastern frontier, and the entire continent was dominated by the Swadia Kingdom at that time. But even in those heyday, the Swadias could do nothing about the Kujits. The Swadia Civil War that broke out more than 20 years ago gave the Khans of Kugit an opportunity to take advantage of the southern transfer of the Swadia Army to quell the rebellion, and the Kugit people captured the fortress line that Swadia had operated for many years, broke through the Zegasi Pass in one fell swoop, and occupied the southern part of the steppe. For more than 20 years, the Kugit people have recruited countless tribesmen from outside the mountains, bringing countless horses, cattle and sheep, and the tribes outside the mountains have learned of the success of this tribe and sold a large number of slaves to the new colony. In less than twenty years, the southern part of the steppe has magically risen to the thousands of villages of Kugit. Under the power of King Qugit, two new cities sprung up, making Qugit the most serious threat to Swadia in the east. If it weren't for the later Salander immigrants crossing the desert and attacking the Kujit horse-breeding area, the Kugit would have launched one westward expedition after another.

Kazak was unpretentious in his youth, a taciturn young man.

In those days inside the Zegazi Pass, Kazak was just a simple shepherd. Life is hard but down-to-earth. His ideal is very simple, herd sheep, marry a woman, raise a baby, and send the doll to the local master's house to herd the sheep.

One day twenty years ago, the tranquility of Kazak's life was shattered by himself.

That day, Kazak drove a large flock of sheep to the river dozens of miles away to drink water. In the morning, he saw in the distance a few newly planted white tents. He walked over slowly, listening to the monotonous and boring chirping of insects on the grassland. He walked on the prairie, and the prairie stretched from all directions to the sky, and the sky was like a dome, covering the four wildernesses. He walked slowly with the clouds in the sky, and time seemed slow and peaceful on such days. He was so strong that an old man's daughter liked him very much, and every week he brought goat's milk, pancakes, and strong mare's milk wine from the old man as he passed by. Kazak left him some beautiful stones that he had picked up on the river beach.

The old man turned a blind eye to such things, and he patiently waited for his daughter's sixteenth birthday and Kazak's proposal.

The girl liked Kazak very much, playing the dombra and singing melodious pastoral songs, and slowly followed the sheep to the horizon, and was wrapped in the sunset on the horizon. When the light in the sky suddenly shrank to the horizon, and the grassland was pitch black, the girl would walk into the tent in disappointment. During those nights, Kazak gathered his sheep in the steppe and drove them to the fence that had been prepared in advance. At those times, the night sky is crystal clear, and on warm evenings, the stars set in the night glow a gentle blue light, and the stars in the sky are some bright big dots. Kazak's heart was unwavering, grazing on the vast grasslands, and when he rode a small Kugit horse and followed the sheep up the gentle slopes, the infinite expanse of the land always made Kazak feel small and heroic. He had heard of a tool called a boat by the Nords, and he imagined the sheep to be his white boat, moving freely on the green waves. Here Kazak has gentle dreams, like the galaxy in the night sky that glows with a warm blue light.

That morning, Kazak saw the newly pitched tents, far away by the river, looking like white sheep sleeping by the river.

Kazak always remembered that at noon that day, he drove his flock past the tent to the river beach, and the noisy and peaceful sound of the sheep alarmed the owner of the tent.

As Kazak walked by, the curtain of the tent was opened, and Kazak saw a pair of clear eyes on a red face, which shone with a watery sheen, dimming the brightest stars in the night sky; The red face melted Kazak like the sunset on the horizon. Under the sharp gaze of those eyes, Kazak never felt that his own clothes were so ugly; His own future was so precarious; His own life was so imperfect.

Over the next two years, the drive of love turned Kazak into the hardest working lad on the steppe. He frantically accumulates skins, one, two, one, two; He secretly took one or two sheep to the market and sold them in exchange for silver bowls, cloth, knives, and hides.

The old man on the steppe, who was proficient in making mare's milk wine, smiled and told his daughter about the changes in Kazak. His daughter was very happy, waiting for Kazak's proposal in the haunting house.

A few months later, a strange news came from the grassland, a young man piled countless leather, cloth, leather goods, knives, all kinds of delicate silverware, enamel cups and jars in front of a girl's tent, and sang *** song. That night, the people in the tent did not come out; The next day the young man brought the best spices and majolica from the city, two young horses, a male and a female, and sixty sheep gathered around the tent; The people in the tent still did not come out; On the third day the young man brought all his belongings, took off his coat, unsaddled his mount, and presented his boots: and heaped almost all his possessions in front of the girl's tent. He played the dongbula in the already cold weather of autumn, singing the old love songs that had been sung for countless centuries. In the evening, the man had already sung in his throat and his fingers had been snapped by the strings. Now he could only hiss, singing uncomposed tunes, and playing the strings with his bloody hands. The sun had set, and the young man, exhausted, sat on the ground.

The curtain of the tent swayed gently, and the young man looked up, and his goddess stepped out of the tent facing the setting sun, wearing the wedding dress she had sewn in the tent for the past three days.

The young man, named Kazak.

That girl was not the daughter of an old winemaker.

People say it's a beautiful woman who has only moved in the last few years.

The young man, named Kazak.

At the end of the wedding, Kazak saw the old man who loved wine, his eyes were bloodshot and his face was haggard. He gave Kazak a bloody dagger: "This afternoon, my daughter stuck this dagger into her chest, she will not live to live tomorrow morning, I want you to watch her last night." ”

Kazak was stunned by the news, but he was reluctant to leave his wife on their wedding night. At this time his friends gathered around him and pushed him around, toasting him, and he was glad in the crowd that his friends had taken him out of the whirlpool of trouble, but in the gap of the crowd he saw the old man, with a pale and withered beard, like a goat frozen by the snow, standing there stunned and looking at him.

That night, Kazak and his wife saw off friends and relatives and tossed in tents until they were exhausted. Kazak told his wife that he was going to take her out of here and go to the North Sea, where there was a tool called a boat, on which people sat as smoothly as if they were sitting on stones, much more comfortable than on horseback. He was going to take her on a boat and sail freely on the sea, all the way to the back of the horizon.

As if as soon as he had fallen asleep, Kazak was awakened, and a group of men burst into his tent, tied him up, and ordered his beautiful wife, who was not yet dressed, to get dressed and taken away.

"Kazak, accused of stealing his master's cattle and selling the stolen goods in various places in the city (witnesses have verified and confirmed). The man used the ill-gotten gains to engage in speculative business and made a large fortune (which was found in his home). He was ungrateful and abandoned his lover, causing his death. After the decision of the elders, after obtaining the consent of the lord of Kazak, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor in the Tulga salt fields as an example. ”

It was a crime that Kazak was convicted of after three days in prison, and Kazak knew who had told him. He begged the jailer to let him see his new wife. The request was denied.

In fact, Kazak's crime did not lead to a five-year sentence of hard labor, but the old man who sold mare's milk wine, after burying his daughter, used all his wealth to bribe the elders and ask them to punish Kazak severely.

Kazak spent five years in Turga. Five years later, he returned to the Elmoche Plains with a face full of vicissitudes. He had two plans: first, to find his wife; Second, kill the old man.

He found his friends from the past, and people told him that within a month of his visit to Tulga, the old man visited all his relatives and then committed suicide by the grave of his daughter; As for his wife, Kazak's friends are divided, so Kazak should forget about him.

Kazak had no choice but to find the elder himself. When the elders saw him, they said, "I knew you were coming. The elder told him that his wife was a faithful woman, and that during the first year of his sentence to Tulga, she tended her flock and went to the elders every week to plead her husband's case. One day the following year, an inspector came to Elmo, and he looked through Kazak's case and felt that the sentence would not be so severe, so he summoned the appellant, and when the inspector met Kazak's wife, he promised within half an hour that he was willing to go to activities for this Kazak's wife.

Six months later, Kazak's wife learned of her family's arrest after rejecting the inspector's seventh marriage proposal. The only way to get them released is to marry the inspector.

After another three months, the new Inspector Lady landed in the Elmo car. Kazak's case file was no longer followed until he was released from prison.

Without hesitation, Kazak went to the Elmo car. After secretly observing for a few days, he saw that the inspector was no longer the shepherd girl she used to be. He found an opportunity to talk to the inspector's wife, who had been surprised to see Kazak for several years, and then silently wept. "Let's go, come with me to the North Sea," said Kazak, and we'll see what's on the other side of the horizon." ”

"I have a son, who is four years old this year; I have a daughter and it's my birthday today. ”

The inspector noticed his wife's tears on the dinner table. He behaved quietly as usual. The next day, Kazak, who was hiding in the slum, was arrested. The inspector told Kazak that if he didn't promise not to see the inspector again, he would be ready to rot in prison.

The inspector's wife cried again and again to persuade Kazak.

Finally, one day, Kazak said, "All right, ma'am. ”

He asked the inspector to give him a horse, a sword, a pair of leather boots, and a dongbula. The inspector immediately signed a requisition and told Kazak to go to any market in the Elmo car and take whatever he liked.

Disheartened by his previous life, Kazak had heard that Svadia had just gone through a civil war and was weakened. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Kugit's cavalry had already crossed the Zegasi Pass, which had besieged them for hundreds of years, where they routed the demoralized Swadians and entered the vast southern steppes.

He decided to try his luck over there, and he had heard that even a shepherd, with courage, could become a lord in a new land. The lords on the other side of the mountain gained large tracts of land and everything on the land by virtue of their own skills, not by blood.

When Kazak was gone, the inspector breathed a sigh of relief, and the inspector's wife, who had been sullen for a while, finally seemed calm one morning. This surprised the inspector: "Are you completely well?" My dear? ”

"Well, that man is gone forever."

"How do you know?"

"Last night, the dongbula outside my window rang all night. I can understand every note. I once listened to the dongbula for two whole years, and it made me see a boy become a man; I once listened to Nadombra play the violin for three whole days, and it made me see a man's golden heart; Yesterday I heard the dombule playing all night, you know? The person who played the piano said that he would never come back. ”

"He's gone forever." Kazak played on the front lines and followed King Kugit like a gust of wind to drive the Svadias out of the steppe. But military exploits did not bring Kazak a fief, and when he reached the other side of the mountain, he found that in fact, all places were the same. There is no place where there is absolutely a reward for paying; There is no place where you can change your fate if you struggle.

During a battle, Kazak was captured by the Svadians, and he was captured by the Svadias in a daze. The steppe people's strong desire to survive made Kazak find an opportunity to escape. After a month of hiding in the plains, he encountered a group of bandits who cared not about his past, but only appreciated his agility and experience in the army. Before long, he was indistinguishable from all the Swadian Woods bandits, except for the fact that he always carried a dombra on his back. During an escape from a patrol, the leader of the bandit group to which Kazak was located was beheaded by a Swadiya cavalryman. The robbers deliberated and decided that whoever could take back the boss's head would inherit the boss's position.

That night, Kazak rode close to the camp of the Swadia patrol with two pots of arrows.

The Svadians were suddenly attacked by arrows fired from the darkness, and they faintly heard the sound of horses' hooves, but the horse seemed to appear in all directions, and occasionally an arrow shot at the tents, pockets, and boxes in the camp, and made a mess of the camp.

The Swadias cursed loudly in the camp and had nothing to do. After some time, the attack ended. The Svadians, annoyed by their enemies in the dark, continue to humiliate the unknown. One of the men lifted the head of the robber boss and laughed loudly at the coward in the dark.

Suddenly the sound of horses' hooves sounded, and Svadia was surprised that the horse had approached the camp so closely, and before the Svadia patrol with his head could react, he was whipped in the face, which left him with a scar on his face for the rest of his life: from the left eyebrow to the right corner of his mouth. The Swadian exclaimed, and his bloody head fell out of his hands. The black shadow rode through the camp, and with a quick turn he grabbed the gurgling head on the ground and ran into the darkness.

The next day, Kazak held his head and became the leader of 34 bandits in the green forest.

Kazak knew Xiangma when he was in the steppe, and he knew that only those bandits who usually helped the poor would be protected by the civilians at critical moments; And those who have too much blood debt will one day be burned to ashes by the vengeful anger that gathers.

So Qazak never plundered the villages, and even brought them food when they were in trouble; He plundered only those who were weak and wealthy, and he adhered to the principle of robbing only money, not life. This gave Kazak an excellent reputation on the plains of Uxhall, and even some peasants would come to him to settle some disputes.

In the villages and towns located on the main transportation routes, Kazak had many regular intelligence providers, and Tang Han of Lurens Town was one of them. When these low-level townspeople find out that some wealthy guests are traveling alone, they will notify the green forest robbers on the road. Then those guests will be cut in some dangerous places.

Today, Kazak received another notice: a wealthy nobleman from Lurens had come out in carriage C411 of the Sunochar carriage, and that they would pass through a certain wooded area in the afternoon????

The father was drowsy in the carriage, and Rhine fell asleep on his shoulder. The cold young man on the other side kept a serious expression, as if he was never sleeping.

At this time, the voice of the coachman came: "Gentlemen, wake up, the robbers are coming!" ”