The snow fell heavier at night, and the faint sound of chanting in the temple pierced through the sky full of white flowers.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"fine."
Sheng Yuantang stroked the edge of the wine jar with his fingertips and asked, "Would you like to have a drink with me?"
Shi Yu calmed down and stared at the jar of wine.
Sheng Yuantang rolled up his sleeves and took out a wine glass from somewhere's pocket. He filled the jar with wine and handed it to him.
Shi Yu took it and drank it in one gulp.
Sheng Yuantang probably didn't expect him to drink so quickly, and looked at him curiously: "How much alcohol can you drink, sir?"
Shi Yu thought for a moment and said, "I've never been drunk."
No matter how much he drinks, he never gets drunk, and he doesn't even know his upper limit.
Sheng Yuantang picked up the wine jar and refilled his glass: "Why are you going out so late?"
"Then why did you go out?"
"Moon-watching."
“…”
Where does the moon come from in this heavy snow?
Shi Yu finished the wine in the cup and said, "I heard that you will return to the border after the worship ceremony."
Sheng Yuantang had a pair of narrow phoenix eyes, the tail of which seemed to be a hook that could poke people's hearts: "What's wrong with me going back to my own barracks?"
"It's December now. Since you just returned from the frontier a few days ago, if the emperor really wants to reward you, he should at least keep you for the rest of the year instead of letting you leave now. It takes at least half a month to go back and forth between the border and Chang'an. It's not worth it for you to leave the frontier army for two months and come back for a few days just to get a title."
Shi Yu said, "Is it the emperor's suggestion or order that you return to the border?"
Sheng Yuantang poured the wine without refutation and listened with great interest.
"In the seventy-third year of the Chengli reign, you took the opportunity to save Young Master Xiang and asked Emperor Cheng for permission to go to the battlefield to kill the enemy. In the first battle, you sacrificed yourself to save the general and were promoted to the position of personal guard. Later, relying on your ability to kill the enemy and command troops, you climbed from a small soldier in the army to the position of General Dingyuan in five years. When you returned home in glory, Emperor Cheng rewarded you with an official position and even thousands of dollars. But at this time, the Prime Minister did the opposite."
"You were a general promoted by the previous emperor, and you carry the label of Emperor Cheng. You also hold the power to command hundreds of thousands of troops at the border. It is impossible for the new emperor not to be afraid of you. In the first year of the Xuanli period, you still came out safely after talking with him, and you can even still serve as the Dingyuan General in Yuezhou."
Shi Yu drank the wine in the cup, half-knelt down and sat on the bluestone slab with him, and then a cloak was thrown on the steps.
He was stunned for a moment, but did not refuse, and continued: "I was thinking at the time what you said to the new emperor to make him feel at ease."
Sheng Yuantang filled the third glass of wine.
Shi Yu said, "Now I can roughly guess that during the period from the first year of Xuanli to the third year of Xuanli, every time you were called back, you could not stay for more than seven days. Was this the condition he proposed to you at the beginning?"
Sheng Yuantang answered the question irrelevantly: "Why do you all think this is the condition he put forward to me?"
Shi Yu: “You guys?”
Sheng Yuantang raised his hand and did not answer.
Shi Yu thought of Xiang Yanchao and didn't dwell on this issue any further. He took the wine glass and said, "Because theoretically, the possibility he proposed is greater than yours."
"He has never been confident about you, but he also takes into account the power you hold and the public support you have built up in the Great Cheng Kingdom in the past five years, so he can only find another way." The sweet wine went down his throat, and his voice was tinged with the snow that fell into the cup. "He asked you to stay at the border all the time, hoping that you would die at the hands of the barbarians one day."
[It’s too vicious. ]
【From this we can see that the emperor's heart is really hard to predict. 】
Sheng Yuantang laughed softly: "Sir, you are drunk."
Shi Yu returned the wine glass to him: "Of course, these are all my personal speculations, there is no evidence. So apart from this, there is another explanation for these things."
"Um?"
"Why did you let me go three years ago?"
Sheng Yuantang smiled and said, "Sir, I think you remembered it wrong."
Shi Yu looked at him for a moment, then lowered his eyes: "Maybe I remembered it wrong."
As he stood up and prepared to leave, someone behind him called out, "Sir."
He stopped and looked back.
Sheng Yuantang picked up the cloak that had been spread on the bluestone steps and folded it. His voice was carried into the pine forest by the wind: "Is the wine good?"
Shi Yu thought for a moment and said, "It's too cold. I can't taste it."
Entering the back door and heading towards the front yard, there are faint flickering lights in the ancient temple, embellishing the night scene.
Someone was kneeling in front of the shrine below the Buddha, writing something with a pen.
Shi Yu did not go to see it and went straight out of Yuanchan Temple.
The snow pressed on the pine branches fell down, covering the sound of footsteps. Suddenly, a cold arrow shot out from the darkness, and the cold arrow head pointed directly at his heart.
When Shi Yu turned around, he brushed past Leng Feng and barely dodged him. He looked up in the direction where the arrow came from and chased after it without hesitation.
The two of them shuttled through the woods.
Although the opponent dared to shoot a sneak attack, his escape speed was not very fast, and he even staggered under the weight.
Shi Yu grabbed his collar from behind and pulled it hard.
The man in front stumbled and fell to the ground, his hat falling off, and the horrible face on the ground was clearly reflected by the light of the lantern.
It's that shameless guy.
It was also at the moment when its face was illuminated by the light that the skin that was squeezed together evaporated rapidly like steam, and the white gas exploded and filled the entire forest. It then rushed to various places in Chonglian Mountain as if it had consciousness, gathering all the remaining players in.
The vision of several people disappeared at the same time. No one knew how much time had passed before the white fog dissipated and the Chonglian Mountain where they were originally located had disappeared.
Shi Yu sat in the cabin with his hands tied behind his back, and four other players sat in front of him.
The cabin was shaking, and humid water vapor from the river blew into the cabin and into people's breath.
"Did everyone come from Chonglian Mountain? Did you see a white fog before you came here?"
Qu Liannian nodded: "I have seen that white mist before. It is very similar to what I saw when that shameless ghost evaporated."
Xu Xian frowned: "Who saw that ghost just now?"
The others shook their heads one after another, only Shi Yu remained silent from beginning to end. With everyone's attention focused on him, he finally replied, "I have seen it. The white mist just now was also caused by the evaporation of the ghost I encountered."
The male player who sat closest to the hatch was impatient. As soon as he found the culprit who caused him to come to this place, he couldn't help but open his mouth and say: "So it's you who caused us to come here for no reason? Fuck your mother..."
Shi Yu didn't listen to what he said and interrupted him directly: "Haven't you seen it yourself?"
"Isn't it your fault that you're here now?!"
"Then why did only the ghost I encountered disappear and lead to this consequence?"
Yan He was stuck for a moment, and then he became angry when he realized he was stuck. But the other party said directly: "If you swap me with anyone else, the result will be the same."
"You've seen the ghost evaporate. Xu Xian has seen it, Wu Er has seen it, and I guess Qu Liannian has seen it at the first two time points - I'm more inclined to the second time point. I'm the only one who hasn't seen the ghost disappear in all its features."
"Since it is a ghost, and the only ghost that appeared after the game started, its ability should not be limited to causing damage to the player by external objects or direct contact. That would be too weak, unless it has other abilities. So let's think about the damage it caused before in a different way. Throwing darts, stabbing, drugging, and pushing are essentially not to kill the player, but just to guide the player to catch up with it. After all, it will only disappear when it is caught up and its disguise is lifted to expose itself to the player's eyes."
Shi Yu said: "Now that everyone has been successfully guided, of course we can start closing the net."
Now that everyone is surrounded by the white fog and appears in such a ghost place, no one can escape responsibility.
Yan He was so embarrassed that he felt guilty and angry: "Then the reason why you are like this now is because you got caught in the trap? Why are you pretending to be so hindsighted now?!"
Shi Yu was silent for several seconds, with a hint of genuine confusion in his tone: "Are you trying to say that I shouldn't be the last to be infected, but should be infected earlier?"
"I……"
"Or is it only your ability that makes it natural for you to be attacked?"
Yan He was so angry that his face turned red: "Fuck you!"
The next moment, the canvas of the hatch was lifted, and a fat man kicked over: "What are you yelling about? Be quiet!"
Yan He was almost vomited by the kick.
The big man didn't care what the slaves on the boat felt like, and said directly, "Get ready, it's time to get off the boat!"
※
Not far from where the boat stopped was a stretch of mountains.
It was not known whether the mountain range was forcibly carved apart by a prop or something else. From a distance, it looked like it was split in half by a thunderbolt from the center, and one half was shattered into pieces and scattered on the ground, waiting for someone to visit.
Going further in, you can see all kinds of people wearing coarse clothes carrying tools and digging gravel. The dark passage on the mountain face is bottomless at a glance.
The big man led everyone to a complex of caves, threw the people to the manager and left.
The steward had a whip wrapped around his waist and was sitting with his legs crossed, playing with the abacus. The beads clattered as they were played: "Do you see that pile of rocks to the west? You are in charge of that piece for the time being. Now get to work."
Qu Liannian: "What kind of work?"
The manager said without even raising his eyelids: "Didn't you see that you followed Da Biao in? How come you didn't see that there were so many people working outside? Take the hoe and dig, dig out all the mineral resources."
Xu Xian hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward: "Sir, we are not here to work."
The steward finally glanced at her and said, "Why, are you still dreaming about your parents coming to pick you up?"
He moved all the beads on the abacus to one end and said, "Don't even think about it. Your parents sold you to me, so there's no reason for you to go back."
Yan He couldn't stand this tone, which was so condescending as if the people he was facing were a group of beasts without independent thinking. However, without understanding the situation clearly, he couldn't just scold the NPCs as he would the players.
The steward seemed to have an extra eye than the others, and his eyes swept over like a knife: "Why, the bones are still hard?"
Yan He quickly lowered his head.
The steward sneered.
The long whip was pulled out suddenly, making a crackling sound in the air, and was thrown hard towards his body.
Yan He screamed miserably and was thrown back several meters by the force. He stopped just now, covering the bleeding whip marks with his head covered in cold sweat.
The steward put down his abacus and lay back on his chair: "When you are under my command, I don't care whether you are male or female, young or old. Now, get to work!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
