Chapter 81 I Don’t Want to Be a General Anymore
The horse was very tall. Even though Xiaowu was only eight years old, he was just level with the horse's belly when he stood next to it.
He had never ridden a horse, not even a donkey or a cow.
But at this moment, facing the boy's gaze that seemed both provocative and encouraging, he glanced at the sleeping Xingxing in the boy's arms and found that he did not have too much fear in his heart.
"I dare!" Xiaowu answered crisply and decisively.
Wei Jinan chuckled, reached out to support Xiaowu's body, and put him on the horse.
"Hold its reins..."
At the edge of the dark jungle, the young boy's clear voice continued to explain how to control a horse. The young child on the horse's back pursed his lips as the horse was shaken, his eyes firm as he listened to his every word seriously and quickly memorized it in his heart.
When Xingxing was awakened by the vibration of Wei Jinan's chest when he was speaking, what she saw was the dark figure of her brother sitting on a tall horse.
He turned his head to look, but the next second his other brother covered his eyes with his hands and forced him to turn his head back.
"Don't look, it's scary if you fall." Wei Jinan blurted out.
Star:"……?"
Xiao Wu: “…”
Qiuqiu sighed: What a vicious double-standard boy~
The little boy yawned while lying on his brother's strong chest. The summer evening breeze blew through the woods, and the sparse leaves made a rustling sound. When he was also taken to sit on the back of the horse, the sudden rise in sight on both sides made Xingxing more concerned about whether his brother was afraid of heights.
Fortunately, Xiaowu is not afraid of heights.
When the horse under him actually started moving, he couldn't help but panic for a moment, but with Wei Jinan's support beside him, Xiao Wu was determined to learn how to ride a horse as soon as possible, so after running out of the city for a while, Xiao Wu was gradually able to adapt to the height and the bumpy speed of the horse.
He began to learn to control the horse.
On the back of another horse, Wei Jinan was very steady. While taking care of the beginner next to him, he also had the leisure to chat with the little one who had just woken up in his arms.
"I brought you a gift. Do you want to know what it is?" Wei Jinan's clear voice was blown away by the evening breeze.
Xingxing shook her head, hugged his strong waist with her little hands, and said slowly: "Xingxing didn't prepare a gift~"
Wei Jinan: "Forget about calling me brother this time, just remember to make it up to me next time."
Brother?
"Brother?" The child's soft voice came out from his arms. Wei Jinan's body stiffened and the corners of his mouth curled up wildly.
"Okay, call me brother from now on, and don't change it!" He was even satisfied enough to take the time to rub Xingxing's head.
In this way, Xingxing now has two brothers.
Xingxing looked up at the chin of this brother, then tilted her head to look at the figure of that brother, pursed her lips, and nodded obediently.
After Wei Jinan withdrew his hand, he did not hold the reins, but reached into his bosom and took out a small object. As soon as he let go, the small stone tied with a red rope swayed in front of Xingxing's eyes.
Qiuqiu was shocked: "Baby, your brother, your brother not only beat up the protagonist, but also stole the protagonist's initial gold finger??!"
What kind of deadly villain script is this? Oh my god! ! ?
Xingxing was also confused.
He didn't reach for his childhood right away, but instead tried to raise his little face to look at his brother.
Wei Jinan happened to be looking down, and after seeing the kid's eyes wide open in surprise, he smiled even more freely. After putting the stone back on Xingxing with one hand, he smiled and said to him, "They all said I didn't know his identity, but I know who he is. I just didn't want my uncle's things to be held in the hands of a vicious kid. I didn't expect that I could return them to their original owner now."
As he said that, he added: "Be good, don't be disgusted. The red string on this pendant was braided by your brother and replaced with a new string."
Qiuqiu: No wonder it looks so ugly.
Xingxing nodded, stretched out her hand to hold the little stone that had been lost and found again, and lay in her brother's arms with curved eyes, listening to the boy's strong heartbeat, and whispered to Qiuqiu: "Can you give this to that little Xingxing in the future, and accompany him in his reincarnation?"
Qiuqiu didn't expect Xingxing to think so far ahead at once. "It should be possible, but the specific operation in the middle depends on the process of the Reincarnation Department."
After getting the answer he wanted, Xingxing touched the small stone, stuffed it under his collar and hid it, and patted it gently.
Don’t be anxious. Once the star’s life is over, it will send you to meet your real little master.
Seeing this scene, Qiuqiu felt inexplicably soft-hearted.
It seems that in every world, the first people that the stars trust and become close to are not the mission objects, but every star.
From the first world to the present world, the bond that Xingxing first accepted and integrated into the world was the original owner of the body he was about to occupy.
That is why the stars take their missions so seriously, trust the humans whom they trust, and get close to the mission objects to protect and accompany them.
"Thank you, brother~" Xingxing looked up at Wei Jinan again.
"Be good." Wei Jinan took the opportunity to rub Xingxing's hair again.
The horse gallops through thousands of miles of wilderness.
At dawn, they left Kyoto and passed through a deserted village. Further ahead was a winding stream, and in front of the stream were mountains that blocked their way.
There were no pursuers as described in the storybook. Wei Jinan left quietly, just like when he came back, but no one cared. After receiving the report, the emperor just casually told some people to keep an eye on the battlefield and wait for an opportunity to act. He did not think that a fourteen-year-old boy could do anything big on his way to and from Kyoto.
At least, he didn't know that Wei Jinan had taken away the only bloodline of Wei Fengyao of the Wei family when he came back this time.
Wei Jinan stopped here.
Then he put Xingxing on the ground and turned around to pick up Xiaowu from the horse.
By the way, he also reached out and rubbed Xiaowu's head, "Take a break, let the horse drink water and eat grass, you guys stay here, I'll go see if there is any prey nearby."
He took the quiver off his horse, put it on his shoulder and walked into the mountains.
Xiaowu watched his tall and straight figure disappear, and the calmness on his face was broken in an instant.
it hurts! !
His hips were rubbed painfully by the horse's back. Xiaowu gritted his teeth and moved his trembling legs, then stumbled and sat down beside him.
Xingxing held the thin blanket that wrapped herself in and handed it to her brother.
Then he took out a small bottle of spiritual spring water from the space and handed it to him.
"Brother, drink quickly~"
The child urged him softly, with worry evident in his eyes.
Looking at his younger brother, Xiaowu's eyes turned red for a moment, but he held back the tears caused by the pain. He took the spiritual spring water, tilted his head back, took a sip, and left the remaining half in the bottle.
Xingxing tilted her head and looked at him. After hearing his thoughts, she shook her head and said, "Brother, this is yours. I have more here."
So there’s no need to keep it, both of my brothers have it.
The sunlight above was becoming more and more dazzling. Xiaowu sat down for a while to relax, then took Xingxing to the shade of a tree and sat there waiting. He also found a pile of firewood and gathered it on the open space.
"Brother, are you scared?" Xingxing leaned against him, with a thick and soft quilt under her butt and holding the spiritual spring water prepared for Wei Jinan in her hand.
Xiao Wu looked at the stream that was shining brightly in the sunlight and shook his head. "I'm not afraid. I will be as powerful as him in the future, or even more powerful than him!"
It was hard for Xiaowu not to get a glimpse of his own future from Wei Jinan.
He is also Xingxing’s brother.
He is also a young general who is going to the battlefield.
The other party is very powerful and excellent, but to him now, he is as tall and far away as the unreachable mountain top behind him.
Xiaowu felt that one day, he would be able to climb over this mountain step by step, and then climb over one mountain after another that seemed insurmountable.
He wants to make himself a higher mountain.
The day when he protects the stars behind him, no one can cross him and hurt the stars.
The fear that Xingxing asked is the fear of the unknown life that is about to come.
Xiaowu is not afraid of the unknown, he has already found his own path in the fog.
But what Xiaowu had not expected was what he saw and heard along the way from Kyoto to the border.
When they climbed over the mountain, everything became strange and bizarre.
The world seemed to have turned into an extremely cold color. Even in the hot summer, everything Xiaowu saw made him feel like he was falling into an ice cellar.
Xiaowu thought he had already witnessed the extreme evil of human nature, he had even been exposed to death, but when he actually saw with his own eyes that the two families exchanged their children because they couldn't bear it, and argued loudly about whose child had more and tenderer meat, as if they were bargaining with a vendor, he still felt a sense of fear crawling up his back like a cancer, that extremely absurd creeping feeling made him shudder.
From south to north, from the prosperous Kyoto to the uninhabited desert, his young eyes saw too much suffering and despair in the world.
He saw a woman who was forced to marry by a landlord, and her relatives who had their legs chopped off and were struggling and screaming in pain.
He saw a large number of people who had fled with their entire clans. At that time, they were no longer poor people, but refugees and bandits. They were gangs of thieves who had to rob and kill others in order to keep their own clansmen alive.
He saw a human head strung on a mountain of tree branches, the blood-stained black hair swaying in the mountain breeze, and the gray and dead eyes staring straight at every person passing by below.
He saw countless locusts being startled and flying away from the haphazardly pulled apart grass, and saw farmers kneeling down in front of the locusts in despair and fear, building locust temples and shrines for them, offering sacrifices and worshipping them day and night.
There was also a dry riverbed where a woman in a wedding dress was crying and bleeding as she was sacrificed to the dry river god without any resistance. Her winding, warm blood moistened the dry riverbed beneath her, but she did not seek mercy from the river god to bring down any moisture to the area.
Crows are flying across the mass grave, the stench of rotting flesh cannot stop the bodies from falling one after another, they come here on their own, they bid themselves farewell, there are no tombstones, no names, they are born to cry once, and after they die there will be crows willing to cry two or three times for them, and that is enough.
In the once bustling town, the signs of the rice shops were taken down and the wooden doors were tightly closed. The sky-high prices of grain and salt complemented each other. A grain of salt or a grain of rice could easily crush a relatively wealthy family.
The scholar put down the book he had been reading every day, looked at the devastated scene, and could only write down the words "The country is beautiful" with pain in his heart.
The businessman touched his conscience, and when the man in front of him knelt down in front of him, he could only shake his head guiltily, turned around and left a bitter and helpless expression.
It was raining heavily, and the officials personally supervised the construction of the dam, but it was too late. They could only watch the muddy flood water pouring down like a river from the sky, and all their hopes for the coming year were dashed.
Xiao Wu looked at the child kneeling down in front of him on the side of the road. The horse was galloping, but his mind was all on the increasingly smaller figure behind him.
He thought of himself.
From the moment he gained self-awareness, the old beggar taught him how to kneel.
He knelt with bent knees on the cold, hard ground, gravel, grass clippings, sticks, whatever was beneath his knees.
“I seem to be on my knees all the time.”
When making a fire outdoors for the night, Xiaowu held Xingxing in his arms and stared at the fire in a daze.
"It's not just me, everyone seems to be kneeling down."
His voice was soft and was carried far away by the wind in the empty wilderness.
The thin stick in Wei Jinan's hand that he was using to stir the fire stopped in the flames. The flames made a harsh crackling sound, but his heart felt empty and quiet.
The boy raised his eyes and looked at the two children opposite him.
After traveling for so long, they all lost a lot of weight. The soft flesh on their cheeks disappeared, replaced by increasingly silent and cold eyes.
The stars are quiet and Xiaowu is cold.
Unconsciously, both children seemed to have undergone different changes.
So Wei Jinan heard Xiaowu's words tonight.
Kneel down?
Wei Jinan lowered his eyes to look at his knees. After a moment, he asked Xiaowu calmly, "Why do you say that suddenly?"
Xiaowu looked at him.
The eight-year-old child could be called a young boy. The fire reflected in his eyes was not blazing, but silent and cold. When he looked at Wei Jinan, he did not have much emotion.
He just said slowly and calmly, in an extremely straightforward tone: "It just suddenly occurred to me."
"When I was a beggar, I would kneel down before everyone who passed by."
"When the people are common people, scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans, all have to kneel before the officials and before the gods and Buddhas."
"Even if you are an official, whether a village official, a county official, or a high-ranking official in the imperial court, you still need to kneel before your superiors and the emperor..."
"It seems that our knees are not meant to be straightened when we walk. If we must walk upright, then beggars, common people, scholars, farmers, merchants, officials, prime ministers, generals, and princes...all will hold a stick called power and hit our knees hard, breaking them and smashing them! Until they completely lose the ability to stand up."
"So... I don't want to be a general anymore." He softly refuted the path he had once chosen.
His arms unconsciously tightened around the star in his arms, as if trying to draw more unknown emotions from the star.
"Then what do you want to be?" Wei Jinan looked at him inquiringly. His eyes, which had been wild and arrogant at first, gradually turned colder, as if he wanted to peel off this eight-year-old child from the inside out, from the skin to the heart, and see him clearly.
Under his sharp gaze, Xiao Wu looked at him for a moment, then shook his head blankly.
"I don't know..." he replied softly.
Wei Jinan stared at him for more than ten breaths, and then slowly closed his eyes at the sound of the firewood crackling again.
"It doesn't matter."
Wei Jinan heard his own voice and said very softly in the night wind: "It doesn't matter, you are still young, you are only eight years old, you can think about what kind of person you want to be in the future slowly."
Only eight years old.
Those ambitions that cannot be expressed out loud are hidden in the throat first, slowly fermenting over time...
Xiaowu's heart skipped a beat, as if it had been hit by a heavy hammer, causing pain in his bones and blood, and a long buzzing in his ears.
Only the stars can hear the regrets hidden in the sighs and the increasingly firm longings.
The ambition of an eight-year-old is not really ambition; it is just a young seedling that may be broken by a gust of wind.
So Wei Jinan shook his head in self-mockery, and put the wooden stick in his hand, which had been licked by the flames, back into the fire and gently poked it.
The night is peaceful and the evening breeze is gentle.
The end of one topic soon leads to a new one.
Wei Jinan looked at Xingxing, who had also changed, and asked him with a smile if he had ever thought about what kind of person he wanted to be in the future.
Compared with the tone when he asked Xiaowu just now, Wei Jinan was like a cluster of extremely cold ice that was suddenly melted by the flames into a pool of warm sweet water. The difference was so great that Xiaowu looked sideways.
The child who was asked lay on his brother's knees and changed himself into a more comfortable position. Hearing this, he stared at the blazing flames and thought for a while. Then, in the expectation of his two brothers, he slowly gave his answer.
"Xingxing wants to accompany her brother~"
He still looked at the fire, and did not say which brother it was. He just whispered in the bright and expectant eyes of his brothers: "Whether brother wants to be a little beggar or a general, whether brother is 8 or 14 years old, Xingxing wants to grow up with brother."
In Xingxing's future, there is no set template for what kind of human being he wants to become. His current answer is also very casual. His brother is the target of the mission and he is a good person to Xingxing, so no matter what his brother becomes, Xingxing will be by his side.
This is not a promise about the future.
This is an unchangeable fact.
But she didn't expect that after she coaxed her two brothers with just one sentence, Xingxing didn't walk a few steps by herself on the rest of the way.
Wei Jinan was holding the child on horseback, and Xiaowu was holding the child and using him as a pillow when resting. Even the horse they were riding would obediently lie down on the grass and use its body as a small bed for the child after Xingxing reached out to touch its head.
After a long and bumpy journey, we finally arrived at the only city on the frontier in an evening when the sky was filled with the gorgeous setting sun.
"We're here. Let's go. I'll take you into the city." The young man held the reins with one hand and protected the child in front of him with the other. He looked up at the high city wall outside the city gate. There were three powerful words written like iron paintings and silver hooks:
Zhenyang Pass.
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