Early in the morning, the entrance of the barracks was bustling, and the door was like a city. This is the day when the Binh Duong County Government recruits new soldiers. Most of the faces of young people at the door are high-spirited, full of energy, and full of yearning for a bright future of joining the army and becoming a soldier.

However, some people are happy and some are worried, and the veteran Xu Ke looked at the crowd waiting in line in front of the door, like a stout dragon, and the dragon saw the head but not the tail.

With so many people sweeping their eyes, you can see the approximate number of people, and it is clear that this time the number of people joining the army has reached a record high. Xu Ke broke out in a cold sweat, when will this be done?

This year's target for recruiting new recruits is 500 people, and according to the past practice, those who will sign up first will be registered first, and then they will be selected with a sign representing their identity.

The selection is divided into two levels, the first of which requires everyone to set off from the city gate at noon and arrive at the top of Qinghan Mountain, which is more than ten miles away.

The magistrates at the top of the hill put a clearance mark on the name tag and then returned the same way, and the next day before the sun set, it was counted as a clearance with the name tag back to the city.

The second level will be tested in three school halls in the barracks to test three abilities, namely weightlifting, archery, and martial arts, each with a 100-point system. Those who pass the first level are required to choose one of the three items, and the top 500 people will be selected for admission.

Tianchen and Hua Xiaolou were standing next to the team at this time, and these people who were related to them stayed in the barracks in advance, so they were the first to do their own famous brands.

The two of them were holding two flatbreads and munching wildly, those examiners were really ruthless, they were not allowed to bring anything with them during the assessment, so they had to run for a day and a night without eating or drinking.

Tianchen: They had no choice but to desperately stuff things into their stomachs in the morning. It's not just them, but many people who know the rules are now eating hays.

When Lin Zi came over yesterday, he revealed a lot of news, although he didn't help directly, but he helped a lot indirectly.

For example, tell you to eat more to accumulate more physical strength, where to go up the mountain and walk easily, hide a few pieces of insect repellent herbs in the seams of your clothes, and so on. Tianchen was a little moved, and expressed his gratitude to Lin Zi.

A young man stuffed a bun into his mouth while walking slowly from the back of the line, and greeted Hua Xiaolou warmly when he saw it.

Hua Xiaolou turned around when he heard the sound, and when he saw that it was the young man, he said:

"Why did you come here so late, where did you come back? There is still Liu Ji's big meat bun to eat. ”

The young man laughed and said, "You guessed, you guessed that this meat bun belongs to you." As he spoke, he raised another meat bun that he hadn't eaten yet.

Hua Xiaolou couldn't guess, but he couldn't get used to his smug look, so he brought Tianchen to help, and introduced the two of them at the same time: "This is Brother Chen, who is in a tent with me." This is Guan Zhen, and I also came to the barracks a few days in advance. ”

"Brother Chen, fortunately, I haven't seen you for a few days. Guan Zhen said politely.

"Fortunately, it may not be a coincidence, but it's not too late to meet today. Tianchen also replied politely.

He thought in his heart that this Guan Zhen was also a related person, and ordinary people would not let these recruits live in the barracks in advance. Hua Xiaolou is because his Hua family has a high status in the rivers and lakes, and the relationship with the Pingyang County Government has always been good. And he himself went to the barracks in advance because of Zhang Lu's internal connections.

Tianchen guessed correctly, Guan Zhen's father was the city gate official of Pingyang City, and he could be regarded as touching his father's light, enjoying a lot of good treatment, and he could also go out of the military camp at will.

Tianchen smiled and said to Hua Xiaolou: "I'm not familiar with this place, but I can find some clues from Brother Guan, and you can judge where he came from." ”

"Oh, is it?" Guan Zhen found it interesting when he heard it, so he said happily: "Then I'll listen and see what clues Brother Chen can find." ”

Tianchen sniffed the air lightly and said with a smile:

"Brother Wu has a fragrance on his body, it smells like rouge, let me tell the difference...... Well, there are twelve kinds, there are jasmine, lilies, begonias...... Among them, the jasmine aroma is the strongest, and it should be a long time of contact......"

Tianchen was carefully analyzing the smell brought by Guan Zhen's body, but when he saw Guan Zhen's face flushed, he hurriedly interrupted:

"Okay, okay, I'm throwing in the towel, don't say it, don't say it. The people around him burst into laughter, and Guan Zhen was even more ashamed.

Guan Zhen was also cheeky, and his face turned red, and then he became calm.

Originally, he also wanted others to guess, but if he couldn't guess correctly, he would say it himself and show it off. How did he know that he was analyzed in such detail by Tianchen, it seems that people have a tendency to analyze more deeply, which scared him.

In this way, does he still have privacy at all? He felt like a little white sheep who had been stripped naked by Tianchen one by one, where could he continue to talk.

Hua Xiaolou shouted: "Okay, you, you actually went to the Qinglou to fool around again, and your father knew about it to see if he didn't beat you to death." ”

"He's a frequent visitor to the Qinglou himself, so he's embarrassed to talk about me!" Guan Zhen muttered quietly, then looked at Tianchen in disbelief and said:

"Brother Chen, your nose is too exaggerated, isn't it? You can smell it, it's even smarter than a dog's nose. Ahh Guan Zhen sneered.

Tianchen didn't care, but what made him wonder was why the people around him were laughing? He thought he was wrong, but looking at Guan Zhen's appearance, he knew that what he said was right.

"What kind of place is this green building?" asked Tianchen suspiciously.

Everyone was dumbfounded. "Really, you don't know Qinglou? God, there are men who don't know what Qinglou do?" Guan Zhen couldn't help but exclaim.

Hua Xiaolou has a thin skin, and he can't explain it, and everyone else is smiling ambiguously, and Tianchen is confused. At this time, a little Taoist priest not far away saw Tianchen's embarrassment, so he opened his mouth to explain:

"The Qinglou is a place of smoke and dust, a place for some young women to sell their arts. I'm afraid this brother is a person who has lived outside the world for a long time, right?"

"What the Taoist priest said is that I have not been in the world for a long time, and I don't know much about the mortal land, but I didn't expect that there would be such a place. Tianchen frowned, listening to the sentence where the woman sold herself, which made him feel that this Qinglou was quite filthy.

"In Xia Tianchen, I haven't consulted the Taoist priest yet. "Tianchen saw that the Taoist priest was handsome, with sword eyebrows and starry eyes, and he knew the extraordinary people at a glance.

"has entered the mortal dust, where is still a Taoist priest, in the next Xu Qingsheng. ”

Guan Zhen still wanted to find his father, so he said goodbye to everyone first. Tianchen introduced Hua Xiaolou and Xu Qingsheng to each other, but he didn't expect Xu Qingsheng to know the Hua family very well.

"The name of the Pingyang Hua family, few people in the rivers and lakes don't know, when I was young, I also saw Hua Chongtian's old-timers, I don't know if the old-timers are healthy now. ”

Hua Xiaolou was pleasantly surprised: "That's my grandfather, his old man is in good health now, but he can't be idle, and he often wanders the rivers and lakes, and I haven't seen him for a while." I don't know where Brother Xu cultivated before?"

"It's just a small temple in the mountains, not enough to worry about. What's more, I'm no longer a Taoist. Xu Qingsheng didn't want to talk more about his past, so he diverted the topic.

"Brother Chen's sense of smell is really keen and powerful, and it really opened my eyes to being able to distinguish different types from the faint smell. ”

Tianchen asked in wonder, "Really? Can't you smell it?"

"I didn't even smell the aroma, let alone tell how many of them. Hua Xiaolou spread his hands.

"Then your sense of smell is too weak!" Tianchen muttered quietly.

The two were speechless for a while.

Dangdang - an officer rang the brass bell and announced in a loud voice:

"Everyone, listen, it's noon, everyone set off immediately, no one is allowed to carry anything on them, there must be no fighting, robbery, or fraud on the way, and the teachers of Binh Duong Academy will use their magic powers to inspect you all the way, and once anyone is found to have violated the requirements, they will be expelled immediately and lose their qualifications to join the army.

Now the first level of selection begins!"

Everyone was in a daze, pushing and shoving towards the direction of Qinghan Mountain, some people were physically weak, they were all squeezed to the ground, fortunately there were soldiers by the side to maintain order, otherwise before the selection, half of them could be eliminated first.

Hua Xiaolou was also in a hurry to run, urging Tianchen and the others to move quickly, otherwise they would all be overtaken by others.

Tianchen grabbed him and said: "What's the hurry, if someone else wants to run, let him run, this is a fight for endurance, not explosiveness." The faster you run now, the more strength you will consume, so don't wait until you climb the mountain to estimate that you will run out of strength. You see, those who are really experienced are just brisk walking and not running. ”

Hua Xiaolou looked around, and there were indeed a large number of people who did not run forward with the flow of people, but walked normally. He thought that Brother Chen must be smarter than him, and he was right to listen to him, so he was no longer in a hurry.

Tianchen continued to explain: "The rule of the first level is that those who return to the starting point before sunset tomorrow night will be counted as passing, and they don't care about the ranking we reach. That is, within the allotted time, the first arrival and the last arrival, there is no difference between the two.

The distance to be taken this time is a round trip from Pingyang City to Qinghan Mountain, plus a trip up and down the mountain.

Qinghan Mountain is actually not far from here, and it is only thirty miles back and forth, and it is estimated that it will take two hours. This is not difficult, but the real difficulty is actually going up and down the mountain.

Lin Zi said that Qinghan Mountain is not only high, but the mountain road is also rugged and difficult to walk, so you have to reserve most of your physical strength and put it there.

According to Lin Zi, it takes a day and a half to walk up and down the mountain, so theoretically we can walk the whole way in only 11 hours. And they gave us a day and a half plus a night, that is, fifteen hours.

In other words, if you keep going at this speed, you will have about four more hours.

But the thing is, there's one night tonight. Either we're going to go overnight, or we're going to stop and rest. If you're in a hurry to travel at night, getting dark will be a problem.

The mountain road is rugged, and there is a cliff next to it, and there is a danger of falling into the cliff if you miss a step. At this time of year, the night is exactly four or five hours.

If we had stopped for a night's rest and left after dawn, we would theoretically have returned to the city gates at the last minute. ”

Both of them understood what Tianchen meant, the theory is just an ideal situation, and there will not be such an ideal in practice.

They will be tired, they will need to rest, and they will definitely walk more slowly, especially if there is no food to replenish. If you don't travel at night, the time will be a little tight.