Chapter fifty-eight
Speaking of the autumn harvest, Wen Weili was indeed interested. She wanted to see how Kuncheng's agriculture was developing. After all, as a city nestled on a mountain, it could only support such a large population if the food production below the mountain was sufficient. Furthermore, the fact that they had achieved this level of success around the Imperial City spoke volumes about the extent of Heaven's Mandate's development.
"Sister Orange Peel, I want to go and see the autumn harvest, is that okay?"
Chengpi immediately agreed happily: "Of course, no problem! It's rice harvest time now, come with me quickly, sister Weili."
Chengpi was very proactive and immediately took Wen Weili to the mountain horse management office, introducing the horses in the stable that looked smaller than ordinary horses.
"Miss Wei Li, do you want me to take you down or ride you down on a mountain horse?"
"Although I am fast, the mountain horses in Kuncheng are also amazing. Not only are they not slow, but they are also more stable on mountain roads." Orange Pi sometimes takes people who are in a hurry down the mountain. Although the speed is very fast, everyone who comes down gives Orange Pi a very bad experience review and sincerely suggests that if you are not in a hurry, you should choose a mountain horse.
This time, Wen Weili was about to go down the mountain, so Chengpi thought it would be better not to let Wen Weili experience the bumpy ride, as mountain horses would be more comfortable after all.
"Then it's a mountain horse." Wen Weili is a person who knows the current situation very well. When she heard Orange Belt guiding her, Qingsong's constant glances at her already made her know what was going on. As for the horse riding technique, as a very lively child since childhood, Wen Weili has already mastered it. Although she hasn't ridden for some years, Wen Weili still has some confidence.
At Qingsong's recommendation, Wen Weili chose an adult brown horse. The horse chewed the malt candy she handed it to obediently, lowered its head and rubbed against Wen Weili, motioning her to come up.
Wen Weili jumped onto the horse, gently touched the horse's side, and adapted to the feeling of riding as the horse paced.
Sure enough, as long as it was something she had learned, although Wen Weili was a little unfamiliar with the horse at first, after trotting around the racecourse a few times, she immediately got the hang of it, increased her speed, and galloped several laps.
"Miri sister is really an excellent rider," Orange Pi sat on a white horse and waited for Wen Weili to slowly stop before driving the horse closer, "Let's go."
The short mountain horse was running on the mountain road, which was worthy of the method recommended by Chengpi. As she became more and more familiar with it, Wen Weili could sit on the horse and pay some attention to observing the surrounding mountains, forests and plants.
In the bushes not far away, the figures of girls picking fruits were looming. A woman in goose yellow clothes flexibly climbed among the branches and used a slender bamboo pole to knock the fruits onto the soft cloth spread on the ground. Suddenly, she looked up and saw Chengpi and Wenweili riding horses down the mountain. She waved to them and smiled happily. Judging from her lip movements, she seemed to be calling out "City Lord".
"Our Kuncheng kids are so cute, aren't they!" Orange Pi noticed the girl's greeting and smiled back, unable to help but show off to Wen Weili, "They're all so smart! If I weren't so much smarter, hehe, I wouldn't be the city lord."
"How are your city lords selected?" Wen Weili felt that the selection of Kuncheng's city lord did not seem to be what she expected.
"Becoming a city lord isn't easy. First, you have to study very hard and get an A in every assessment from the teacher. Then, when you enter the world, you have to lead your team well and be a very responsible captain. For example, I failed a few times during the assessment and didn't become the captain when I just came down the mountain. But after that, I protected my team members several times and finally competed for the captaincy~"
Orange Pi was particularly proud of this part, very proud of his own wit at the time: "Sister Wei Li, you don't know, at that time, the children we trained in Kuncheng were extremely outstanding, and many despicable men outside tried to drag them down! Humph, not only did I protect them and the women down the mountain, I also cut off all those bastards~"
So that's how it is. As Chengpi told the story, Wen Weili remembered a secret she had heard when she was playing as a child: there was a "big thief" who went to many people's homes to steal things, and would cut off the genitals of the men in those families. The women in those families often used this as an excuse to apply for divorce, which made the men at that time feel insecure. Logically, the government should have arrested this "big thief" long ago, but the government did not make a big fuss, just a simple search and arrest. The "big thief" only appeared in the mouths of those men, so the person who took action was a person of "heaven's destiny", and the government at that time was already controlled by "heaven's destiny", so it just let it go.
At that time, Wen Weili suspected that the thief was stealing things to cover up his crime in order to help the women leave those men. She never expected the truth to be so - there was no so-called stealing at all, it was just "destiny" helping those women, and stealing was just a crime put on them by those men.
Wen Weili couldn't help laughing. Unexpectedly, she had actually felt the "destiny"'s style of doing things inadvertently, but she couldn't understand the inside story at that time. But now, she can rely on her own will to know the truth of the things she wants to know. It seems that she has grown up a lot, far more powerful than the weak and helpless child when she was young.
Chengpi looked at Wen Weili's smile. Although he didn't know what happy things she was thinking about, seeing that she was cheerful and smiling brightly, he knew that this child might have untied a knot in her heart. He couldn't help but be happy for her. He smiled and accompanied Wen Weili to slow down and ride the horse slowly.
As she was laughing, Wen Weili suddenly turned to look at Chengpi: "Lord City Lord, I have something I want to discuss with you later today. Is that possible?"
Orange Pi sensed something, a mixture of disbelief and pride. As expected of her, she was so charming. Not only did she make Wen Weili want to stay, but she even wondered, what if Wen Weili was willing to join 'Satya'? She'd be praised by the leader then. Who knows, maybe at the end of the year, the leader might even ask her to be their representative for a report. Hehehe~
Thinking of this, Orange Pi quickly calmed her expression, trying her best to appear very reliable and steady. However, her cheerful ending still showed Orange Pi's good mood: "Of course, I will make a bed for you~"
Wen Weili couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"Ahem...let me tell you how I became the city lord," Orange Peel quickly changed the subject. "I've made up for all the imperfections I had in school, and now I have a starting point to compete with others. Those who want to be the city lord will sign up together, and they'll just give us tons of books and exams to study and take. You don't know, back then I was memorizing the lessons even in my dreams, and the first thing I did when I woke up was check if I made any mistakes."
Seeing Wen Weili's incredulous look, Chengpi patted his head. "Don't disbelieve me, back then everyone who wanted to be a city lord studied like that. We had a small test every night, a big test every three days, and a study summary test every seven days. We had to know the questions, and our skills couldn't be underperforming. If we didn't pass the exam to become a city lord, we could still become a city lord's guard. There would be another chance in five years! I studied and took the exams as hard as I could, and a whole year passed like that. At the end of the year, it felt more like ten years than a year."
"However, I am the best. I won't say that I got full marks, but at least I got the first place in the literary test and the second place in the martial arts test. Guess who is the first in the martial arts test?" Chengpi asked Wen Weili, wanting to see if she could guess it. It was definitely not just a small revenge for Wen Weili's laughter just now.
"It's Qingsong." Wen Weili answered very straightforwardly.
"......You guessed right, it is indeed her", Orange Pi felt disappointed. She was not disappointed because of Wen Weili's answer. "I beat her in the extra test questions~" Orange Pi blinked and stopped talking.
"So, what are the additional questions? Please tell me, my smart and capable Lord Mayor." Wen Weili understood very well and immediately praised.
"Hehe, the extra test is about the border incident two years ago. When the Hu tribe invaded, it was me who commanded and resolved it~", Orange Pi winked at Wen Weili, "You can't believe it, right? Qingsong and I were deputy generals at that time, leading our respective troops to encircle and suppress the Hu tribe. It's just that I captured more prisoners, so we won. But all the credit goes to the general, and the emperor still..." Orange Pi suddenly shut up as if he had said a taboo word.
Wen Weili knew it well enough and didn't ask any further questions. The two of them rode down the mountain in silence. The atmosphere was a little heavy. Wen Weili knew that they would tell her the truth eventually, so she was not too worried. She watched the busy autumn harvest with Chengpi at ease.
After a busy whole day, Wen Weili finally followed Chengpi back to Kuncheng exhausted until dusk. She didn't expect that the city lord was very approachable. He not only came to watch the autumn harvest, but also helped to harvest dozens of fields. He also sincerely invited Wen Weili to experience the hard work of "every grain of rice".
Wen Weili experienced it and was exhausted. In the past, she only knew that food was not easy to come by, but she didn't know that even harvesting food was such a hard task. However, the people around her had happy smiles on their faces, as if this little effort made them very happy.
"Of course they are happy. They plant in the spring and suffer from wind and insect bites, and are busy in the summer with sun drying and grass cutting. The little bit of tiredness during the autumn harvest represents their abundant and stable winter. Naturally they can only be very happy." Chengpi spoke in a lower voice. The city lord had to help with the autumn harvest every year. She had gotten used to it in the past two years. She was not as tired as Wen Weili, who was so exhausted that she lay on the horse's back and didn't want to say a word.
Chengpi was worried that Wen Weili would fall off the horse. Seeing that Wen Weili was staggering, it seemed that she was very likely to fall, so he took the initiative to reach out and hold Wen Weili: "My dear sister, why don't you ride with me? I can hold you up so that you can be more stable."
"Okay," Wen Weili's weak voice was carried over by Chengpi's inner force, and she leaned weakly in Chengpi's arms, "Thank you."
"You are already so tired, you should have a good rest tonight. How about I wait for you at Zhenhongzhai tomorrow morning?" Chengpi suggested.
"Okay..." Before she could finish her words, Wen Weili could no longer hold on and fell asleep.
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