In 1917, the season was cold, and the hinterland of Nancheng Miaojiang was located.

Zhao Zhi'an's legs had been half buried in the snow, and he had no strength to pull them out and continue walking at the moment, but he knew that if he couldn't walk out of the hinterland of this primeval forest today, he would probably freeze to death in the mountains and fields at night.

Chen Yuanjiu, who was not far in front, was gnawing on the ice bars on the branches under an ancient tree at the moment, and the rifle straddled his back, looking like a down-and-out mountain bandit in the green forest from his back.

Zhao Zhian smiled when he saw Hehe, and scolded with a smile, "I said Lao Chen, how the hell did you become like this, you are also the former commander of the New Army, and now you look similar to the bandits in the mountains." ”

Chen Yuanjiu turned around and scolded back in the official dialect with a Sichuan-Chongqing accent, "You think you are much better than Lao Tzu, you don't look like a hama-skinned mountain bandit." ”

Zhao Zhi'an gasped, he finally got close to Chen Yuanjiu, the snow under the tree was much less, at this moment Chen Yuanjiu was still sitting on a dry bark, Chen Yuanjiu handed Zhao Zhian a piece of ice and said, "You said that if you don't get out, our few grandchildren won't have any impression of us, haven't you seen your little grandson?" ”

Zhao Zhi'an drank a sip of ice water, and the various functions of his body seemed to have recovered a lot, he replied, "Children and grandchildren have their own children and grandchildren, and at this juncture, I am still afraid of a hammer, I have been a soldier for so many years, and I have fought so many battles, do you think the two of us can still be frozen to death by the weather of this dog day." ”

Chen Yuan didn't speak for a long time, he covered Zhao Zhi'an's mouth and whispered, "Don't speak, there's movement!" ”

Zhao Zhi'an also heard a voice not far away, and at this moment, he didn't wait for Chen Yuanjiu to remind him that he was already with a short gun, he waved his hand and said in a low voice, "At one o'clock." ”

Chen Yuanjiu replied, "Don't panic, with such a heavy snowfall, he can't run!" ”

At this moment, not far from the two of them, a pair of eyes and a rifle in the tree had already been eyeing the two of them. This person was nested in a tree hole not far away, and the barrel of the gun was tightly tied with a white cloth, but it was difficult for ordinary people to see.

Zhao Zhi'an stood up, slowly put the gun into the holster, and then slowly raised his hands and said loudly, "We are just lost hunters, and we have no intention of offending your stockade, so please be merciful." ”

Chen Yuanjiu also discovered the musketeer hidden in the shadows at this moment, and he didn't dare to move at the moment, so he had to hold the gun in his hand and keep a posture still.

The surroundings were as quiet as ever, except for the squeaks of birds that could not find food not far away, but there was no movement within a mile radius of the two of them.

This silence lasted for an estimated ten minutes, when a middle-aged man's voice sounded behind the two, "You two came from afar, I don't know what you are doing?" ”

As soon as the two of them turned around, they saw an old man dressed in Miao costumes sitting on a bamboo sedan chair carried by two middle-aged men, and a swarthy Miao man holding a short gun next to him was looking at the two people in front of him with a puzzled expression.

Zhao Zhi'an immediately bowed his hand and said, "Meet the old patriarch, the old patriarch save us!" ”

The old man didn't seem to understand Chinese, and at this time, the swarthy Miao family man next to him walked over, he stared at Chen Yuanjiu and asked, "What are you doing here?" ”

Chen Yuanjiu threw the gun to the ground, "We are here specifically for your patriarch. ”

"For me?" The old man could speak official language, and he glanced at Chen Yuanjiu with some surprise.

Zhao Zhian immediately scolded, "Why did you tell the truth?" ”

Chen Yuanjiu replied, "If you don't tell the truth, both of us will freeze to death in this mountain." ”

The old man said a few words of Miao language to the depths of the mountain forest, and after a while, three sturdy men came out of the mountain, they stepped forward to confiscate the guns of Zhao Zhi'an and the others, and returned to the old man's side after doing everything.

The old man said to the two, "Before it gets dark, I will ask someone to take you out of the mountain." ”

Chen Yuanjiu replied at this moment, "We don't go out of the mountain, we want to go to your village." ”

"Outsiders can't enter our village." The old man rejected Chen Yuanjiu's request.

"Then we'll talk about it here. It's okay this way, we still have to run such a long mountain road in the province. Chen Yuanjiu said.

Zhao Zhian wanted to open his mouth to stop him, but he didn't say a word.

The old patriarch looked to be seventy or eighty years old, and he trembled and stepped down from the bamboo sedan chair, and waved his hand at the strong men around him, and they retreated to the side with great interest.

The old man said, "What are you going to say to me?" ”

"We don't want to say anything to you. Just wanted to ask you for an object. Chen Yuanjiu continued, "That object, even if I don't say it, you should know very well what I'm talking about. ”

The old man trembled, he stretched out his trembling right hand and pointed at Chen Yuanjiu and said, "You, you ......" After speaking, he actually planted it backwards and fainted.

Zhao Zhi'an saw that the old patriarch was not right, and immediately signaled Chen Yuanjiu to shut up, and the surrounding Miao family men also saw the old man's discomfort at this moment, and immediately ran forward, and without saying anything, they put their guns against the heads of the two.

The swarthy man shouted, "Save the old patriarch, tie these two people back to the stockade first!" Then he shouted loudly again in Hmong!

Zhao Zhi'an and the others were tied up and thrown on the back of a mule, jolting on the rugged mountain road, Zhao Zhi'an kept scolding in his mouth at the moment, "Okay, you can't hold your breath Chen Yuanjiu, look at how you clean up this situation this time, and when Lao Tzu is untied, Lao Tzu will be the first to kill you, ouch, but vomit me to death...... Wow...... "Whoa," he said and began to vomit again.

Chen Yuanjiu looked relaxed, and he scolded back, "Hamapi, you still blame Lao Tzu!" You say that you lie and don't make a draft first, ah, you hunt, do you hunt with a short gun, people don't kill you with a secret gun, you are considered a great creation. Besides, Lao Tzu is improvised, it's better for you to vomit to death now than to freeze to death in the snowy mountains. ”

Zhao Zhi'an's bitter bile water was about to come out, but his mouth couldn't stop, "You shit, I don't know Lao Tzu...... Yes! "It was dark, and then I couldn't say anything. It turned out that the Miao family man on the side thought he was vomiting disgustingly, and knocked him out directly with the butt of a gun.

Chen Yuanjiu watched it from behind, afraid that the taste of being hit by the butt of the gun would also fall on him, so he quieted down at the moment. His stomach was turning upside down, and he gritted his teeth and persevered. The old patriarch was stimulated by Chen Yuanjiu's words, which also made these young Miao family men lose their backbone, so they could only quickly withdraw to the village.

The two of them bumped on the mule's back for about two hours, and Chen Yuanjiu finally saw a bamboo village not far away, and the people on it saw them and let out bursts of cheers. At this time, the swarthy Miao man in the team shouted a few words loudly in Miao language, and the nest suddenly exploded like ants in the village.

Although Chen Yuanjiu couldn't understand the Miao language, he still guessed that this man should have told the people in the village that the old patriarch had fainted. Sure enough, after a while, a gray-haired old man was pushed by everyone and ran from the other side of the stockade, but Chen Yuan didn't have time to see more things clearly, so he grabbed the two people from the mule's back very rudely and threw them to the ground, and then they were carried by two people and thrown into a cellar where sweet potatoes were stored.

He didn't have time to get up, but Zhao Zhian was left behind. Zhao Zhi'an was lost, but he was completely sober, he looked at Chen Yuanjiu, who was pressed under him, and asked, "Are we here to the Yama Palace?" ”

Chen Yuan was angry for a long time, and scolded, "Hurry up and get off Lao Tzu, you crushed me." ”

Zhao Zhian finally sobered up, he moved his body away from Chen Yuanjiu's body, and asked, "Where are we?" ”

"In the cellar."

"We're in the stockade?"

"Nonsense, we didn't go into the cellar where the stockade came from." Zhao Zhian didn't care about the pain in his head at the moment, he moved to Chen Yuanjiu's side and said, "Yuanjiu, I have a blade in my pocket, quickly, cut the rope." Chen Yuanjiu stretched out his right hand and dug two people in Zhao Zhi'an's lower right pocket, and sure enough, he saw a small blade wrapped in rags.

The two of them didn't talk nonsense at the moment, and hurriedly cut the ropes with their blades.

At this moment, there was silence outside the cellar, and Chen Yuanjiu knew that the whole village should go to the old patriarch's house at this time, so this was a good time for the two of them to act.

Chen Yuanjiu pushed open the wooden door of the cellar and found that they were in a Miao family's fire room at the moment, the surroundings were very quiet, and the fire of the fire was still burning, it seemed that the situation was not different from what he thought. He turned around and pulled Zhao Zhi'an up from the cellar again.

Zhao Zhian asked, "How?" Was it originally planned? ”

"The original plan? Now the whole village is in the old patriarch's house, and your original plan to infiltrate the old patriarch's house will make us be beaten to death. ”

"What then?"

"Let's get out of here, find a safe place and plan." Chen Yuanjiu didn't dare to delay at the moment, and the two slipped out of the door along the bamboo house of the Miao family. At this moment, the time was close to evening, the sky was about to get dark, the snow was still dripping, and the two of them slipped through the livestock pen of the Miao family and arrived at the gate of a huge courtyard.

Chen Yuanjiu continued to walk forward at this moment, but was pulled back by Zhao Zhi'an, Zhao Zhi'an pointed to the building on the left and said, "Fucking no, how can there be a temple here?" ”

Chen Yuanjiu didn't pay much attention to it just now, and at this moment Zhao Zhian exclaimed, and he immediately realized the strange building next to him. I saw that the plaque on the door of this building was painted with gold and wrote "Huilai Temple". Chen Yuanjiu thought that the Miao family has their own independent belief in gods and their own totems, and they don't believe in Buddhism, but how can there be a temple in this Miao family's village?

"Go in and have a look?" Zhao Zhi'an had already reached the gate of the temple with his front foot as he spoke, and Chen Yuanjiu had no time to hold him, so he had to follow him. When the two men came to the door, they found that the gate was not locked, and the two men covered up the footprints in front of the temple and hurriedly pushed the door into the temple.