Time has stopped.

At first, the violent turbulence and the stuffy environment made my father extremely uncomfortable, but later, when all the physiological functions were reduced to a certain level, the surrounding environment no longer made people feel uncomfortable, and time stopped. At this time, my father realized that the people around him who didn't move at the beginning were actually a portrayal of himself not long after.

Eventually, everyone in the bilge was stuck to the bottom of the ship like a soft mud, and it was only when food and fresh water were brought down that people crawled over to feed themselves.

Although he was constantly weakening, my father still brought a little food and water to the immobile man every time. It takes a long time for the Salanders to send a little something, and those can only sustain the basic survival of the people. On one occasion, after the Salander soldiers had hung a basin of fresh water, they untied their trouser belts and urinated into the basin. The soldier summoned his companions to see how the captives reacted, and the Salanders above winked at the captives loudly. The father licked his chapped lips, closed his eyes, and decided to hold on until the next water delivery.

At this time, the black shadow over there groaned, and when my father heard it, he hesitated for a moment and struggled to open his eyes.

Just as the Salander soldiers gloated as they watched the captives ponder, they saw a young Rhodok officer crawl over. Led by this man, the surrounding captives crawled over. Since someone is the first to disregard his face, it is not a shame for the rest to follow him.

The Salanders shook their heads contemptuously, they didn't expect the captives to be so soft in the bones and give in at the beginning, which made them rather unfulfilled in torturing the captives.

"Is this guy really Rhodok's officer?" A Salander soldier muttered as he closed the skylight.

Father silently moistened his sleeve with water, and then brought it to Cesar and the dark shadow that had long since been motionless. Cesar was stunned for a long time, and then opened his mouth. When my father moved to the dark shadow, he suddenly noticed that the man was staring in the darkness. Father's eyes have adjusted to the darkness these days, and he can see the bilge with a ray of sunlight. By the light of the occasional open skylight, he noticed that the man had dark hair and bright dark eyes, but unlike the Kujits, the cheekbones were not so high, and the skin was fairer than the Kujits. The father thought that the man might be a member of a tribe of the Kujits.

The father raised his sleeve to the man's mouth, not wanting the man to struggle to block his father's hand, and said hoarsely: "'''But'''

This man is saying this phrase in Karad, and this is the first sentence that this man says these days. This made my father quite curious, because the guy could actually speak Callad, and although the grammatical structure of the sentence was reversed, my father still heard the meaning of the captive's refusal to drink water.

My father thought that the style of the man's words was very unique, much like the things in some of the poems he had read in college, simple and clean. After thinking about it carefully for a long time, my father didn't think of hearing this kind of sentence anywhere.

This person's refusal made the father seem quite embarrassed, but since this was the case, the father could only retreat silently.

Life in the bilge makes people lose all their minds and just think about when the next food and water will come.

As his father wandered through the hallucinatory fragments of consciousness, he vaguely heard the noise and trombone sounds, which were filled with cheerful shouts. After a violent shaking, the ship stopped. My father finally woke up completely, and if nothing else, he should have landed.

The sounds around them woke up the captives in the bilge, the most beautiful sound they had heard these days, not the monotonous lapping of the waves, nor the vicious insults of the soldiers--- just the busy sound of life.

A voice came, speaking Salander that his father couldn't understand, his voice was high-pitched, but under the interference of the surrounding noise, it was already faint to the bilge, and his father listened carefully, and finally heard a word, "'Sharitz''"

Got to Sharitz?

The legendary port of the richest mainland and the dream city full of oriental atmosphere, where the stories of the legendary princes under the crescent moon and the princesses like water lilies take place.

The father smiled wryly, he didn't know why he suddenly remembered such a story when he came to a hostile port as a prisoner.

No one came to open the warehouse for a long time, and my father couldn't help but worry if he would be taken away by the Salanders at all if he had no chance to land at all, and finally die at sea. However, the father immediately ruled out this possibility, for there was no reason for the Salanders to go around with a group of food-consuming captives, and not to let them work. My father later learned that the Salanders were worried that the captives were secretly observing the new weapons or inciting the ship's slaves to mutiny, so the Rhodoc soldiers were not used as coolies, but simply left them in the bilge and brought them back to the port.

After an unknown amount of time, someone finally untied the chain on the skylight, and then, a violent white light shone down. The light flickered a few times, and several big men jumped down, tied the surrounding captives with ropes, and threw them onto the deck.

My father was put on the shoulder by a blackened desert slave and sent to the deck with a little top.

The black shadow behind him, who had been taking care of his father, reminded hoarsely when his father was taken away: "Eyes", "Close, eyes", "Don't open them"

My father closed his eyes tightly, and after being thrown on the deck, he couldn't adapt to the exposure of the sun for a while, his whole face was hot and painful, and the red sunlight through his eyelids made his eyes cry uncontrollably, and after he was thrown on the deck, he turned over hard and put his face against the deck.

More and more captives were thrown onto the deck. Then a group of men began to throw these men into the water, and there were already some small boats waiting there on the side of the big boat, and whenever a prisoner was thrown into the water, the people in these small boats hooked the bodies of these people with hooks and pulled them closer, and then pulled them by the hair and pulled them to the boat.

In the rocking dinghy, my father noticed that the sounds around him were getting louder and louder. The eyes could no longer stand the light through the eyelids, and my father even tried several times to open his eyes, but the eyes hurt, and the eyes were as uncomfortably tight as mixed with sand after a little effort. Feeling the solidity of the earth, the father was picked up again and thrown into the cargo box of a wagon, and more captives were thrown in. A prosecutor came over and took a cursory look, and then put a straw mat on the carriage.

The carriage shook with great effort and began to move.

The father felt that the light had diminished considerably because of the straw mat, and he opened his eyes as best he could, and saw the arc-shaped blue dome; Towering and sturdy walls, a few seabirds are flying over the top; Groups of soldiers and peasants carried spears against the wagons and headed towards the sea.

The whole world was magnificently displayed in the father's glimpse, and then the carriage roared into the city gate, and the father closed his eyes, feeling that his eyes hurt to death because of the opening of his eyes just now. Now he could only hear the sounds around him, and my father smelled the strong smell of dead grass in the carriage, and felt a weak and confused sound, and fainted.

As if he had just woken up from sleep, his father was awakened by a sudden chill, and he took a sharp breath and unconsciously opened his eyes wide. Only then did he realize that his head was covered in water. Surrounded by confused figures walking back and forth, whispering conversations.

Just when my father was wondering, my father felt something hot being handed to him, and my father smelled the smell of wheat porridge. With a cramping pain in his abdomen, his father unconsciously stretched out his mouth to suck on the food from an unknown source. While eating, he looked around hard, and at this time his father realized that there was no one sitting on the chair opposite him, and the hand holding the bowl of porridge came from behind his father's back, and his father continued to drink it regardless of it, and the bowl of porridge was dumped down.

"No hurry, no hurry", a voice came. The father smacked his lips and savored the wonderful taste left by the wheat grains in his mouth. Suddenly, his father turned his head in surprise and looked at the man behind him with wide eyes.

Zaitsev looked at his father with a playful expression, "Hello, Arcadio II, we meet again." ”

It's been a few years, and the last time I saw this person was when I was in Suno. His father knew that he had ruined a business with Zaitsev in Ilindakha, and there was no more news of Zaitsev after that, except for the speculation about Zaitsev's identity provided to his father in Sugeer's letter.

"Are you really?" Father asked.

"Well," Zaitsev touched his cervical spine, which was aching more and more frequently, and sat down on the chair opposite his father to himself, "I think you must have heard of it, this is really a great failure for me, isn't it, what a terrible thing it is to have my identity revealed by an enemy officer." Fortunately, not many people know about this, and there are only a few in my impression. ”

Zaitsev's expression changed slightly, "Do you know why I came to see you?" ”

“```”。

"Well, young people do too much to remember, do they?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything."

"Hehe, what do you not know? Suffice it to say that everything you know is useless to me. Do you know? I knew you before you knew me," Zaitsev smiled, "you know the girl named Little Marion." ”

"What's wrong with her?"

"Don't worry, she's fine, she calls herself your sister, and thanks to you, she's doing well now."

"Is she here?"

"If 'here' refers to Salander, yes. If 'here' refers to Sharitz, then no. She was a few hundred miles to the north and was well received by her people. ”

"She's just a girl, what are you doing with her? What else is it to take her so far away? ”

"Because you, oh no, mostly because of what your father did in the past."

The father was a little puzzled, "I'''my father''? ”

"This is a matter of the previous generation, and I can't say it clearly for a while. Okay, I guess you've met some old friend when you were in Garmic, right? ”

"'''''' Edward?"

"Is he alive?"

"Alive."

"Well, I believe you, that's all I personally want to know. I have come mainly to tell you that you will come with me to Doukuba tomorrow. ”

"Are you going to see Marion?"

"No, someone more important wants to meet you. I've been waiting for a long time in Shariz to get this day. But you're really cooperative, and even if we know which boat you're on in Rhodoc, it's amazing to have such an initiative delivered to your door. Do you know? I've been waiting here for days, dealing with this inexplicable document, meeting with inexplicable people, racking my brains to get you over, but suddenly I got the news that your ship had sunk, and you didn't abandon it and run away. It seems that the person who wants to meet you will be interested in your story. ”

"I don't understand"

"You don't need to understand. Speaking of which, your Uncle Garcia is such a powerful character, who brought the army to Salander on the orders of the Grand Duke of Rhodok. ”

When my father was about to say something, Zaitsev twisted his neck and called a servant and asked him to prepare clean clothes for my father. In the end, Zaitsev explained a few words and walked out. The father dried his hair with a towel and looked at the small room, which was much more comfortable than the bilge as a place of imprisonment.

At last he walked to the window, and in the evening sun, the dome of the Thousand Wheels of the city of Shariz shone like an old shiny brass handle.