Tianfeng's expression was gloomy, and he sat there for a long time without saying a word. It was not until the soup in the bowl turned completely cold that he took a deep breath, turned his head, and looked at Tiankuang with extremely complicated eyes.

"Gillian is dead, why don't you find another good one?"

After saying this, he stood up and strode out of the house.

"……I"

"that……"

"Brother, wait, don't leave!"

Tian Kuang suddenly choked up. His thoughts seemed to be flowing with a flowing faucet suddenly closed the valve, without any leakage.

He quickly stood up and chased after him while shouting.

Tianhao didn't get involved. He slowly drank his soup, swallowed his last bite of steamed bun, patted the debris on his hands, and was about to stand up, but he saw the old priest walking slowly from outside.

Tianshuang hurriedly greeted him, turned around and took an empty bowl to serve soup for the old priest.

"Stop busy, I just come over and take a look." The old priest raised his hand and blocked it, then smiled at Tianhao and said, "The song you wrote last night was pretty good."

Wizards and priests are not unfamiliar with songs. Mysticism can be regarded as the enlightenment of primitive art to some extent. Respect for Gods, sings, sacrifices have special songs, and funerals have special songs to chant the soul... These tunes have specific meanings and cannot be chanted easily in normal times, and ordinary people rarely come into contact with them.

Tianhao was not sure, nodded with caution and said with a smile: "I wrote it."

"It sounds very nice, I learned a little with them." The old priest narrowed his eyes and hummed the melody: "It's the lyrics in the song, I don't quite understand. That... what is the motherland? What does this word mean?"

Tianhao was suddenly stopped.

The northern barbarians do not have the concept of a country. There are only tribes, only worshipped gods, and totems.

"The motherland... is its own country." Tianhao tried hard to search for appropriate words, which made the old priest understand: "Simply put, the motherland is the place of survival opened by his ancestors. From a small perspective, it is like our Panshi Village. To put it in a big way, the entire Lei Niu Tribe and the entire area where the bull tribe are located can be regarded as our motherland."

The old priest was a little impressed: "This statement is fresh."

Tianhao stabilized his emotions and his speech speed was smoother than before: "We worship gods, and we believe that the gods on this land will bless us. It gives us prey and allows us to farm. If we lose this land, we will have nothing, so we must worship, cherish and defend."

The old priest's eyes became deeper. He nodded slowly and agreed to Tianhao's statement: "Just like us and the deer tribe. They have always wanted to take away our land."

"That's why I said: My friend has good wine, and my jackal has swords and guns when he comes." Tianhao emphasized his tone: "This is our motherland."

The old priest savored the meaning of it and nodded slowly.

He turned his head, looked at the open door, and asked in confusion: "Afeng seems not very happy?"

Since he asked, he had to say it. Tianhao smiled bitterly and said the unpleasantness of breakfast. The old priest fell into deep thought after hearing this. After a long time, he thought to himself: "It's time for Afeng to find a woman to get married."

"I guess it's difficult." Tianhao did not hide his opinion: "My elder brother has always liked the woman he used to be. He doesn't like, and he doesn't have any interest in anything else."

"The woman Afeng liked before seemed to be named Ali, who was from Shanyuan Village." The old priest knew a little about this.

Tianhao heard what he meant and lowered his voice: "Then I'll find an opportunity to take a walk in Shanyuan Village?"

The old priest's weathered face showed a strange smile: "Shanyuan Village is not Zhangpu Village, nor Pinglin Village. It was a large village with a size of 5,000 people. It was not surprising that Afeng could not get that woman in the past. But now...hehe..."

...

The towering peaks are one after another, forming a winding line on the map, penetrated deeply into the flat land, creating inaccessible obstacles. Only the valley floor sandwiched between two hillsides is slightly friendly to humans, releasing a little part that can barely be considered a "road".

Shanyuan Village is in the northwest of Panshi Village. From the map, the straight line distance is actually similar to Qingyuan Village. However, the road is blocked by cliffs and rivers. You must first climb up the ridge from the north and go down the valley to the bottom of the valley along the west direction. The time on the road is forced to extend. Regardless of additional factors such as weather, mudslides, wild animals, etc., under normal circumstances, it takes at least one week to go back and forth.

This is a large village with a population of more than 5,000. According to the definition of the civilized era, towns or counties can be set up here. The northern barbarians are relatively simple in this regard, including capitals, big cities, small cities, and then big villages, small villages, and nothing else.

Only if the population exceeds 2,000 is considered a big village. Moreover, this is not a one-stop deal, and it is definitely not a private discussion among several village leaders. This year, we will gather all the people in the village together, deceive the lord or clan leader of the territory, and get a high position of the head of a thousand people by abnormal means. After the matter is over, the brothers will be sent back and will do it again next year according to the same procedure... In this way, everyone can become the head of a thousand people and climb to a higher position.

The population verification is usually once every three years, and this work is the responsibility of the city lords in various places. There are smart people in any era. Some people have played similar scams. His ending is very tragic: he is caught and peeled, his internal organs are cut off, his body is publicly announced until it is rotten, and his head is cut off and all surrounding villages are turned on. The family loses all living resources and will be divided by everyone in the village after being killed.

Since then, there has never been such a thing again.

In fact, the reason is very simple: if the population is under the rule, it means that the amount of tributes handed over to the patriarch must increase. If the population is reproduced in the true sense, no city lord will refuse. If you lie and report it below, I have to pay for the extra part... I am paralyzed and not arrested you and beheaded for public display. Do you still keep you as a rat and continue to dig my warehouse?

Ali flipped the wheat with a wooden rake in the square.

She is a docile and kind woman. She is twenty-one years old and very young. Although it is autumn now, the weather is still very hot. She is wearing a short animal skin with a sleeveless numb vest on it. She is barefoot and works silently in the drying field with more than a dozen other women.

The yellow skin was light brown by the sun, with her head tied, and her long braids were dragged to her waist. This is an unwritten rule in Shanyuan Village: women should not cut their hair casually, they should braid them into braids, the longer they look better.

This statement makes sense, but it is just that it is very troublesome to take care of too long hair. It takes a lot of time to wash your hair, especially the wet hair is picked up from the water and waited for drying, and can only be coiled up and wrapped around the head in circles... At first glance, it looks like a black lacquered snake.

The lines of strong arms, legs, feet and waist are very symmetrical, a little fat, and the whole person exudes a healthy beauty.

In Shanyuan Village, Ali is a relatively beautiful woman.

She got married once.

But my husband died.

A widowed woman has a hard time. When she got married, the land was confiscated by the village. In fact, it cannot be considered forcibly taken back. She just transferred the land that was originally under Ali's name to her family's name. After all, the water that the married woman poured out by the water, she could not come back to continue to cultivate the land. Instead of being idle and desolate, it is better to arrange it for others.

Flipping wheat is a task that requires patience, and you have to keep walking on the drying ground. If it is not evenly turned, the wheat grains will be wet and dry, and it will become moldy in the warehouse in a few days. At that time, the entire cornflower is full of gray-green mold, and the villagers will be hungry all winter.

The sun was hotter than in the morning, and it was so hot that it made people breathless. Ali stood on the wooden rake with both hands, looked at her father and brother who were sitting in the shade of the tree in the distance to enjoy the cool air, sighed softly, wiped off the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hands, and continued to work in silence.

When I got married a few years ago, my father gave me almost no dowry and just took a few pieces of dried meat and sent me over.

Ali didn't say anything, because even if she said it, it would be useless.

There are many brothers in the family, and the difficulties are too great. There is not enough food for every year. The part distributed in the village can only barely make a living. Speaking of which, it has been quite good these years, and the weather has been good for several consecutive years. Unlike the drought and floods before, there is no harvest at all.

When my father said these words, he always nagged: Girls' homes are just a compensation item, and they can't stay at home when they are raised. Sooner or later, they will be the wife in the bed. Even if they treat them well, they will still turn their elbows out when they grow up, and they won't remember any good things about their parents.

Maybe other women are like this!

Ali has seen many examples of the family chaotic and uneasy due to marriage. She understands the female companions who grew up together: they eat the worst food in the family, and are squeezed to the farthest distance from the fire pit when they sleep in winter. They wear rotten leather robes in summer, and have to go out to chop firewood in winter... Let's not talk about other villages, just take Shanyuan Village as an example. Every household is a woman who takes care of all the housework. Although men are strong laborers, they have to go to the fields to work and go up the mountain to hunt, they do nothing after they go home, and they lie by the fire pit and chat as the old man.

Since I can remember, the family has been like this. No wonder when girls grow up, they think about getting married as soon as possible, and the further they go, the better.

Of course, compared with those villages that sell women as goods in winter, the situation in Shanyuan Village is much better, and this has not happened in several years.

When Tianhao and others walked through the drying yard under the leadership of the Shanyuanzhai Manager, Ali happened to look here.

She immediately felt her heart beating faster, and her pupils suddenly shrank in her eyes.

It was Tianfeng, she remembered that face and this name.

A very handsome, tall man with a sweet smile on his face at any time.

A few years ago, a woman from Shanyuan Village married to Panshi Village. As for women, they would always be a little uncomfortable when they went to strange places. According to the rules set by the elderly, they had to be accompanied by several women from their own village on the day of marriage, which was part of their mother's family. They had a meal there and helped the bride support the scene.

In fact, it is equivalent to the bridesmaids of the civilized era.

It was at that time that Ali met Tianfeng.

Without Confucianism, law and ethics, if you like it, Tianfeng also has the same thoughts. Other people's weddings are no longer important to Ali. A pair of young men who just met made an appointment to sneak into a place behind the haystack where no one talked about heart... Talk about the future and life, and I don't know who is more proactive. As I talked about the conversation, I hugged each other and many things were natural.

Tianfeng told Ali: Wait for me and I will definitely come to marry you.

He did not break his promise and soon came to Shanyuan Village to propose marriage to Ali's parents.

My father always makes the decision about the family affairs, and my mother can't even get into the conversation. She was afraid of being beaten by her father. From marriage to now, several sticks were broken by her thick arm. Even the woman with even the idea was beaten to the point of being taciturn, like a walking corpse.

Tianfeng, who looked down on his parents' death, had three younger siblings in his family. He sneered and drove the person away directly.

Ali thought of elopement with Tianfeng, but was taken care of by her extremely vigilant father. He asked someone to tell Ali about the marriage and married her early.

Her husband is a good person and is very honest. Half a year has passed, and Ali feels that living a life with this person is not bad. The leaping fire of youth in her heart gradually fades away, and she no longer thinks about anything else in her mind. Love... What a beautiful and beautiful word, but it is ultimately not as good as the cruel reality.

What else can you say?

Accept your fate!

But my husband died.

What's worse is that my father brought him back and continued to ask someone to find a new husband for him.

...

The conversation between the leaders of the two villages was limited to a very small range. Apart from priests, senior figures such as managers at the head level of a hundred people, hunting captains, ordinary people are not qualified to participate.

As the leader of Shanyuan Village, Guangshou looked down on Tianhao more or less, and had no experience worth boasting about. His pride in his identity comes from the population under his rule. The number of "five thousand" is not simple. Looking at the surrounding Niu Village, Guangshou is confident that Shanyuan Village is definitely the leader.

The fact is indeed this. Although Panshi Village is developing rapidly, its population does not exceed 5,000. Guangshou has heard of this small village and knows that Tianhao has had some unpleasant things with other surrounding villages. However, he has no idea about the deer tribe's large-scale attack on him.

This is not his fault. Information transmission is so difficult. In addition, it is the busy farming season, so few people waste their time on gossip.

No matter how contempt he looked down on him, shortly after the conversation began, Guangshou had to give up his original idea and became serious about the arrival of the young leader of Panshi Village.

"I want to exchange something with your village." Tianhao smiled and the guards who came with him took out samples of goods from their backpacks.

Dried apples, giant horned deer cheese, salt, dried fish, eggs... Of course, wine is indispensable.
Chapter completed!