The father lay behind the mountain, covered in ashes. After losing the first duel, he could not have imagined that in the months that followed, his life would be simple: sleeping, taking philosophy classes, and fighting any of the Kujits. Wright occasionally hits a dozen, and most of the time, Wright just stands to the side. Because as an agreed fight, there needs to be a notary on both sides, and when his father is knocked to the ground or punched into the mud, Wright is often discussing with another notary the location of the next duel.

Salander's poet described how a general would become an admirer of his enemies on a cold battlefield, just as a woman would become fond of her husband in the quarrel of marriage.

Father and Wright met almost every Kugit in one fight after another, and both the young Swadia and the young Kugit expected each other to apologize and then end the senseless fight.

The snow in the south even had a warm feeling, and many years later, in the gloomy era, when my father recalled this time, he would always think of a picture: the slowly falling snowflakes falling on the dim lamp outside the door, the laughter of people coming from the wooden house in the distance, the aroma of food coming from unknown places, and the exhaled air blurring the vision.

At that time, the distant low sky did not show oppression, but gave people more of a sense of belonging to being covered by a quilt when sleeping peacefully in winter. Father always remembered the winters spent in Rhodok, as if he remembered the sun-drenched summers in the Valley of the White Pigeon, when the wheat sprouts were green and swaying in the wind in the ridges, and if he thought about it, he could even think of the insects flying in the wheat fields, and he could think of them buzzing up and flying into the woods and disappearing.

Once, my father made an appointment with a Kugit man for a horse race, and the bet was on a dinner with roast pork and marinated garlic. My father readily agreed. But in the afternoon, the inspector handed his father a key: "The library has bought a new batch of books, you go and classify them." Alphabetically, if you don't, I think you should go read the book." The father did not want to miss the appointment, so he found the leader of the Kujitts, the man who had fought his father first, this man was a first-class engineer, and unlike the other students, he only studied engineering: he often audited other classes, and both his father and Wright had seen him in their own classes.

The principal has no prejudice against his father, but he doesn't like his father to make trouble for him repeatedly. So he often arranged for his father to do some light chores to collect his heart, but this did not work very well. My father didn't know many people in school, and he was usually with international students, and the Nords and Vecchians among the international students didn't like Swadians, which made my father seem very isolated. On the contrary, the Kujits, who had been against their father in the first place, slowly stopped hating their father reflexively, and they didn't even know why they occasionally got into such a fight.

When his father knocked on the door of the man's room, Brill, he was translating a poem written in ancient Calade, "Song," which is said to have come from the East in ancient times, about a woman's feelings for the man she had met in a hurry. The poems are obscure, and they are written in the awkward rhyme of the ancient Kadian language, and my father likes such poems very much, but he does not have the perseverance to recite them, he only remembers a poem in it: "The mountains have trees and trees have branches, and the heart is happy and the king does not know." ”

Brill looked up at the Swadian, his face full of the look of an old friend. He had left 12 footprints behind his father's buttocks, and his father had broken his nose at least three times.

"Well, Mr. Brill of Cutgit, I made an appointment with one of your classmates for a horse race today, but the headmaster gave me some chores, which made me probably miss the appointment, but I don't want to. Wright is going to be a notary for me, and I can't get out of the way, can you find someone to do my job? Father asked.

Brill dropped the quill in his hand and rubbed his tired eye sockets. "What chores?"

"Sorting out new books, I don't know, anyway, the inspector told me."

"Well, I'll help you myself. But", Brill thought for a moment, adding, "You'll have to do the same work for me afterwards." I've also heard that you have a dombra, and I bet it's your most discerning collection. I went back to China at the beginning of the spring, and there was a dance party before that, can you lend me a play? ”

"Deal. But you can't wear it out, it means a lot to me. ”

"Haha, let me tell you, hanging it carefully like you is the biggest wear and tear on it, every steppe person knows, 'the heart of a soldier will not be dull only in war, and the musician's piano will not be worn out only in playing', I will cherish it, you can rest assured."

My father participated in the horse race as agreed, and the result of that horse race was a defeat that could not be considered a failure. My father's horse almost lost its balance when it stepped on gravel after the start, but the equestrian skills my father had learned since childhood worked, and after a few quick reins, my father's horse began to chase the Kugit in front of him again. I have to say that my grandfather and the elder Pianwen's equestrian skills were taught very well, and my father cut into the inner lane again and again on the racecourse, squeezing the Kugit people out of the way, and every lap was able to bring the relative position a little closer and quickly overtook the Kujiits. At the beginning of the final lap, the Kujiit, who was already behind his father, suddenly overtook him, and his father was surprised by this acceleration. To his father's shock, he discovered that it was not a whip that the Kugit used to speed up the horse, but a dagger.

The Kugit pierced the horse's hip with a dagger, and the aching horse galloped forward frantically. The poor horse, driven to the limit by the dagger, leveled the disadvantage in a short time, and in the final half of the lap run, the Kugit crossed the finish line first. When the father rushed over, he looked at the Kujitt's excited smile and was silent. He looked at the horse with concern, the horse was shiny after galloping, its body temperature evaporating with sweat, and a faint white mist rising in the cold air. The horse was almost out of strength, and with every breath my father could hear the rumbling of its chest, its hind legs trembling unconsciously, and the blood gushing out of the deep and shallow wounds cut by the dagger, and the fur dripping to the ground and spreading in the snow. And the combination of red and white was soon trampled by the horse's hooves and rolled into the dirt.

At dinner, my father personally served food for the Kugit, who boasted to his surroundings about his last whim. The father suddenly spoke: "The horse can no longer run, I went to see it at night." Its legs were almost at the limit of its running and now it has been spasming. It can't run anymore. ”

"It's just a horse, and I'll pay for it."

"I've heard that Kugit is a nation that loves horses," my father asked coldly.

"Yes, but we never spoil our horses. We love them because we need them to carry us to victory, and if they don't bring victory, why do we love them? Do you know? When our ancestors ran out of food when they crossed the snowy mountains, they made a small incision in the horse's neck, then sucked the warm liquid, and used the horse's blood to support them through the most difficult moments, and when the horse died, they would not hesitate to eat it. It's also a love: the horse is one with us. Of course, you won't understand. Honestly, this pickled garlic is delicious! The Kugit grinned and munched on his food.

"That horse can't run," the father thought for a moment, but said only that.

"...··", the Kugit thought he had said it all, but it didn't seem to be listened to by the Swadiya at all.

"It will survive this winter in weakness...

"Okay, let's forget about it, shall we? You've made it impossible for me to eat. The Kujiit complained about their father's entanglement.

"If it dies, it will be eaten."

"Are you still done?"

"If it hadn't died, it would have been sold to farmers as ploughing horses at the beginning of spring, and if it hadn't recovered by then, no farmer would have taken even one dinar for it, and it would still have been slaughtered. It used to be able to run happily in the pastures and woods, but now its life, no matter how good it is, can only help the farmer plough the field day after day, until the hooves are paralyzed, until the bones are deformed", the father pointed to the Kugit, "this is your favorite horse?" ”

The Kugit pouted in dissatisfaction, and their joy at food and victory was washed away. Wright remained neutral again this time, and he even admired and admired the Kujits for using all means to strengthen their control over the horses. On the contrary, Brill seemed a little unhappy, he comforted his father, and then said a few words to the victorious fellow in Kujitan, and the man showed a disgruntled expression, argued with Brill, got up and walked away, cursing in Kugit all the way.

Brill said to my father, "I can't make any irresponsible comments about your behavior this time because I'm in an awkward position, you know. I respect you, but I am also his compatriot, and I cannot blame or take sides with any of them. In this way, my share of work will be considered as compensation for you, and you will not have to pay it back. ”

The father came back to his senses from the silence: "No. I'll help you clean up the library on the day you're on duty. Let's go, Wright. ”

For a moment, my father felt Wright's hesitation, which made him angry.

Although they always feel uncomfortable when they enter university, there is a difference. His father was not particularly resistant to what he had learned, especially some of what Professor Rhodok had taught him what Wright called "dangerous thoughts," and he even gradually accepted them. Wright, on the other hand, abhorred this kind of thinking, and his own childhood experience taught him what tragedy would happen if the power of the plebeian class surpassed the power of the aristocracy. Whenever he thought of the weakness of his mother when she sent him away, he would unconsciously imagine her as an aristocratic right to be protected.

In short, the disagreement on this point formed the biggest mustard between Wright and his father.

And things like this competition, my father and Wright also have different ideas. His father felt that if he had reached this point by unscrupulous means, then there was no point in winning, but Wright recalled every detail with blazing eyes, and he was fascinated by the thrilling power of using absolute means, and he once again believed that as long as there were strong means and power, the ideal could be achieved.

Wright stood up reluctantly, as if trying to accommodate a child's unreasonable demands. Father snorted and walked away. That action was exactly the same as the Kugit just now.

Brill squinted at the Swadian on the other side, and Wright glanced at him lightly. They strongly feel each other's hidden ambitions, and both secretly see each other as the biggest threat. And, subconsciously, they both felt that the two protagonists of the event who left the scene because they were angry were irrelevant.

At this point, Brill was right, the Kugit who was too revealing of his ambitions was quickly drowned in the sea of history, and no one could ever think of him again. The father, who inadvertently revealed kindness, gradually entered the center of history in the next few decades. From this point of view, Brill is more savvy than Wright.

After that race, my father no longer wanted to get involved in such a meaningless race, and he found a time to invite Brill out for a meal, so that everyone could turn the tide into a fight. In the letter, he said: "I hope that all my Kugit friends who have 'dealt with' will come and participate, and I am grateful. ”

On the day of the meal, all 43 Kugits came.

My father was embarrassed that he had a holiday with so many people inadvertently, or a simple fight, or an archery competition, or a fencing competition, in short, unconsciously, my father's days after school were colorful in the struggle with the Kujits.

His father ordered steppe mare's milk wine and cheese, invited a special barbecue chef from outside the school to process 3 roast suckling pig and 5 roast lamb shanks with cream, and at the same time he also selected the most lustrous and fragrant cans from the candied fruit that Garcia mailed him to give to the Kugit people. The meal, which cost my father more than 100 dinars, also included a dozen eggs, 2 baskets of grilled sausages, 1 large barrel of malt wine and 2 small barrels of tequila, plus a bunch of delicious variegated snacks.

This extravagance was recorded by the headmaster and relayed to General Garcia.

General Garcia wrote a harsh rebuke to his father for his generosity in not knowing how to manage money. At the end of the letter, Garcia asks in a serious manner, "How many Kugits have you poured down?" ”

My father replied, expressing his greatest apologies, promising that there would be no more banquets of this scale, and at the end my father proudly invited credit: "Three of them"

Garcia was very angry after knowing the amount, and reduced his father's living expenses for 3 months in a row, and when his embarrassed father finally wrote to Garcia to tell him that he had increased his alcohol consumption through continuous practice, Garcia restored his living expenses.

At the end of the day, Brill borrowed the tombra from his father, and he stroked it carefully, as if he couldn't touch it enough.

He told his drunken father a little strangely: "I don't know what's wrong, I always feel like this piano is very familiar, like... It's like it's calling me to play..." He flipped the piano, saw the engraving behind it, and cried out.

"How... Uh·· Finish? Oh, this texture, I started with a... Friend's Hand·· I had it when I got it in my hand, and it was you Kujitvin..." The father stood aside with a wooden cup and a smirk on his face, and soon he was pulled back by several Kugit with the same smiles.

Brill looked at the words and knew they were filled in phonetically. He himself is a good player, and he tried the tone of the instrument string by string and found it to be extremely good.

He silently recalled the tunes, and began to sing along with the engraving. Brill may not remember that when he was four years old, a man played this tune outside their window, and when he woke up to see his mother crying, the memory was blurred, but when he began to sing along to the tune, he still felt an indescribable closeness.

Father heard the singing, though he couldn't understand it.

Brill sings a song written by Kazak,

"I met you on the riverbank, and your flock went up the hill;

I await you outside the yurt, your flock going into the sunset;

I think of you from afar, where have your flocks gone?

The moon keeps rising from the sea, and you are always on my heart. ”

The drinkers quieted down, and these people knew what the song meant.

My father didn't understand, but he could feel it, and he drank the cool wine from the glass in one gulp, threw it on the table, and applauded. Muttered a word.

Years later, on the battlefield, when Brill asked his father what he meant by that sentence, he laughed, "That's good." ”