The old woman's hand was removed from the tapestry, and her eyes returned to their normal appearance, and then she took two steps back respectfully, as if she had become accustomed to the present situation, as if such a presence and possession were common.

"Yes, master. I'll go right away. Dagger, I'll go get the dagger..."

The old woman kept babbling on her lips, and soon out of nowhere, she brought a dagger of a very ordinary style, and handed it to Geralt, who seemed to have an unknown fear of Rasian, who was wrapped in a leather robe and hooded mask, and tried not to talk to him or look at him.

"This is the dagger, to you. The master told you to give you, take it. ”

It was a dagger with the length of an adult's forearm and a conical shape, and it didn't look much different from the mass products sold in the blacksmiths.

Geralt didn't care, took the dagger, and put it in the bag around his waist.

"After receiving the village chief's payment, he put the payment on the stone outside. The old woman finally mentioned this to the two of them, and at once turned away, and kept muttering, "The stone can speak, and prune, and know, and hear..."

Geralt was about to leave, but Luo first touched him on the shoulder, motioning him to look around.

When Geralt first entered, he was only focused on the upcoming witches, not caring about the surroundings, and now he realized that something was wrong.

The big house was three or four hundred square meters in size, except for the huge blanket and the wooden altar hanging in the open space in the middle. On either side of the door, there are piles of tools and neatly cut wood, and on the other side is the kitchen, which is filled with all kinds of food, grains, meats, and even spices, which are rarely seen outside.

Geralt immediately reacted, according to common sense, this place is surrounded by swamps, there is no arable land, how can there be so much grain. Also, the orphans had said before that there were only frogs and snakes nearby, but the wooden beams in the kitchen were full of pheasants, rabbits, venison, and pork legs. At the age of an old woman, she wants to do a lot of ploughing and hunting, but this is unreasonable. And the neatly cut timber is not the work of an old woman, it must be the sharp metal cutting discs of the lumber mill that can only achieve the effect, and then who has cut them, and then who has cut them, and folded them so neatly?

But with the current situation here in Valen, except for the Baron's crow's nest, which is better, how can there be such a shortage of materials after the war. Such neat dried timber had long been requisitioned by Nilfgaard's army to be used as tools of war.

The two left the village in silence, and Geralt asked, "Luo, what did you find, right?"

Luo Xian nodded, "Don't you think that old woman is very likely to be Anna?"

"Anna, you say she's the Baron's wife?!" Geralt was surprised for a moment, and then pondered back to the old woman's face, which seemed to overlap with the portrait of the Baron's missing person notice. It's just that the baron mentioned that Anna was forty years old, and the old woman looked to be almost sixty, so he was always aware of the problem.

"Anna was taken away by the deer head in the forest, and the forest and the swamp are one..."

"But the fisherman had mentioned that there was a mark on Anna's palm, just now—" Geralt said this, and did not continue, for he remembered that the old woman's right hand had been wrapped in a long blue sleeve, and that neither the palm nor the back of the hand could be seen.

"After you reminded her that the old woman is indeed somewhat similar to Anna, what are you going to do?" Geralt thought for a while, and finally admitted Luo Xian's opinion.

If the old woman is Anna, then there is a deer-headed spirit living around it, and all this mystery is understandable, which explains how a group of old and sick people live in the depths of the swamp.

"Ciri's news is the most important, solve her problems first. When this matter was over, he informed the Baron to come and confirm in person, that he and Anna had been husband and wife for so long that the old woman would be recognizable at a glance even if there was any change in her appearance. What do you think?"

"Okay, that's it, and when we come back from our errands, we can also find an opportunity to ask the old woman about the situation. Since Xiao Diling said that she suddenly appeared in the village, then her origin is worth considering. ”

"Alright, let's go to the village of Lower Valen first. ”

"What the hell... Really, it was fine just now, but it was raining again. ”

The two retrieved their horses from outside the village and walked out along the snack path, and as soon as they stepped out of the swamp, a light rain began to fall in the gloomy sky in the early morning, and the road, which was still dry, suddenly became muddy, and the horses slipped a little on it.

Geralt's "Radish" is okay, after all, it is a good horse trained in the Demon Hunter Castle, both in physical strength, endurance, and courage, surpassing ordinary war horses, and its body can also raise its hooves to fight ghouls.

Luo Xian's horse is not good, his "crockpot" is a horse bought from the baron's hand, before he was just a role of pulling goods and driving, after a few days of comparison, Luo Xianyue felt that his horse was not as good as Geralt's "radish", and he couldn't do it at will, but there was nothing good to do.

The rain is getting heavier and heavier, and it is difficult to walk in the rain, so the two of them simply found a higher forest to rest, and they have not drunk a sip of hot water since they were busy at noon yesterday.

Geralt took out a clean and soft linen cloth to wipe the two horses, and took a soft blanket to cover the horses' backs so as not to get sick.

The two of them are already familiar with this kind of thing, they divide their labor, and they do their work without delay, and after a full meal, they each hold a cup of fragrant milk tea and drink it, chatting casually, and waiting for the rain to stop.

It didn't take long for him to hit the road and walk until the evening when he reached the village of Nizhny Valen, which is shown on the map.

It's a little different here than anywhere else.

First of all, the village was built on a hillside, not on the usual flat land. The scale is small, and there are only about a dozen households when they are full.

Because it is on the slopes of the mountains, few ethnic groups can have the perseverance and infinite desire of the Chinese nation, and can reclaim thousands of hectares of fertile land on the hills. Therefore, the village of Nizhny Valen does not have a field to grow food, but has another way.

Each family here has a fence next to their house, which houses a variety of poultry and livestock. At a casual glance, not only chickens, ducks and geese, but also some goats and pigs, and even one family has more than 20 deer.

In the evening, the village is full of the sound of livestock, and it can be regarded as lively. Although the faces of the villagers here are not full of red light, they are definitely not yellow and thin, which is also an outlier in the year of war, proving that there is no famine here.

There are even shops in the village that sell all kinds of homemade meats from the village, as well as all kinds of cereals and wine, which proves that the village of Nizhny Valen is at least

Those who are connected with certain caravans regularly transport what they need here.

"Fresh cheese, freshly laid eggs, delicious cured ham. We have everything you need, don't miss it, come and see, we also collect all kinds of herbs here at affordable prices. "When they passed by the shop, the owner immediately called for a sale, and it was clear that there were often outsiders passing by here, and everyone had no intention of avoiding it.

Both of them are big stomachs and eat a lot of food, Geralt is because he is a demon hunter, his body has been modified by potions, and he naturally needs more food to replenish his physical strength like a beast. And Luo Xian, there is no bottom line at all, he has no internal organs, and what he eats is immediately turned into energy and replenished into his bones, which can be said to be the one who comes.

In the past few days, the things bought in the crow's nest are almost finished, and they need to be replenished, and some of the ingredients have also deteriorated, so after Luo first heard the voice of the shop owner, he paused slightly and immediately walked towards the boss.

"What's there?"

"The good stuff is here, and the guests can look at it casually. The boss pointed to the shelves full of things on the wall, these are samples, and they need to be taken in large quantities, and they need to be picked up from the warehouse next to them.

Luo Xian looked at it, not only rice, eggs, green onions, ginger and garlic, but even some fruits, and suddenly became happy.

"This, this, and this, give me some. Luo Xian's gloves pointed at more than a dozen goods, and the boss's face was full of smiles, "No problem, please wait a while, I will arrange for someone to prepare, and it will be good immediately." ”

"It's okay, there's no hurry. By the way, may I ask where the village chief lives?"

"What's the matter with the guests?"

"It's nothing, it's just that someone brought him a few words when we stopped by here, and the whereabouts of the things he asked others for before, so I want to ask you about it. ”

For ordinary people like Luo Xian, the boss is not so wary, and the two horses outside are loaded with bags and bags, and at first glance they are accustomed to long-distance travelers.

Such people are very common in this era of war, and although Luo Xian wears a mask, who doesn't have a secret. In many cases, some letters, letters and messages are brought by these travelers who like to travel long distances, because the transportation is really inconvenient.

"The house over there is the village chief's house, and he is usually at home at this time, smoking his beloved pipe. Your stuff is complete, a total of 37 crowns. ”

Because most of the things are produced in the village itself, the price is cheap, which is also the meaning of opening a shop in the village, and being able to sell the goods in the village in exchange for some coins is the basic circulation.

"The money is here. Luo first put the money on the counter, picked up seven or eight bags of things and went out.

"Guests, please walk slowly. ”

After getting the location of the village chief's house, he first put the purchased things in the bags on the back of the two horses and fixed them with strings, and then Luo Xian and Geralt led the horses and followed the stone road in the village to the village chief's house, and Geralt knocked on the door.

A man who looked to be in his forties, with thinning hair on his head, opened the door.

He wore a belt around his waist and a knife on it, a small bag around his neck, a pipe in his mouth, and a strong smell of tobacco, and a dress sewn of green cloth with two small eyes.

"Strange traveler, who are you looking for, there are no acquaintances of yours here. ”

Geralt didn't talk nonsense, and casually took out the dagger that the old woman gave him, "Its owner asks us to come and deal with your request." ”