After Zheng Quchi found out the location, she followed the trail to "Shell Forest". She recalled that on her way there, she passed through a red pine forest. When the pine cones ripened in season, she could collect a lot of pine nuts.
There were many people digging in the ground in the shell forest. Food was scarce in winter, and people would not survive without storing some food.
Zheng Quchi roughly estimated the size of the forest to be several dozen acres, all covered with trees over ten meters tall, suggesting that the annual chestnut yield must be quite high.
Gan Xin didn't understand what she was thinking, so he asked, "Master, aren't we going to go look for someone?"
"I was looking, but I just remembered a business deal that might be worthwhile, so I came to take a look," she said.
"Business? Master knows about business?"
Gan Xin thought Zheng Quchi only knew civil engineering and didn't seem to know business.
Zheng Quchi shook his head: "I don't really understand, so this matter needs to be investigated by someone who really knows it. I can only offer a suggestion at most."
She kept this matter in mind as a pilot project, and planned to talk to the local government later to see if it could be expanded to help alleviate poverty and solve the current predicament of Wubao, where a large number of people are leaving, farmland is being abandoned, and the people are living in poverty.
There was a large reed bed in front of the ferry crossing. Zheng Quchi looked at the lake surface, which was frozen by snow and frost. The biting north wind blew, and the reeds swayed in the wind as if they were dancing. The unique scenery made her stop and watch for a while.
The hectic pace of life and heavy workload had prevented her from slowing down and taking a moment to appreciate the sky, the earth, and the scenery before her for a long time.
Beneath the vast sky, the earth stretches out, and the reeds in the wind are like plucked strings of a harp, their movement highlighting stillness, making everything quiet and mysterious.
But all good things are often accompanied by sudden danger. Suddenly, a gust of wind shot through the reeds in the river at the ferry crossing. The strong wind pushed down the reeds and split them apart, shooting swiftly towards Zheng Quchi.
Before she could react, Gan Xin's cold gaze instantly caught a direction behind her, and he leaped away like a nimble flying leopard.
He snatched the bone arrow and moved like a powerful whirlwind. Although he no longer had the Mad Blade, his movement and internal strength were still domineering. In the blink of an eye, Zheng Quchi saw that he had already captured the person who had attacked him with the hidden arrow.
"Let go of the tiles! Let go of the tiles!"
He was a young barbarian boy, only as tall as Gan Xin's waist. It was easy to recognize that the barbarian's clothing and appearance were significantly different from those of the people of the Central Plains.
He struggled desperately in the hands of the towering Gan Xin, but was held firmly in place. The bow and arrow fell from his hand, and he immediately cursed, "Damn Ye people, let me go, let me go now!"
Zheng Quchi frowned, then looked behind the barbarian boy. There was no one else following him, which she found both absurd and surprising.
This child looks no more than eleven or twelve years old, how could he dare to do that?
When Zheng Quchi inadvertently met his angry gaze, he was momentarily stunned.
"Gan Xin, lift his head up." Her voice was gentle and soft, like a stream, soft to the touch yet cool to the touch.
Gan Xin immediately complied, binding the little barbarian's arm with one hand and clamping his chin with the other, forcing his face up.
Zheng Quchi approached, and she met his eyes; he looked at her too.
After a long while, Zheng Quchi asked, "Look, aren't my eyes and his eyes very similar?"
Gan Xin paused for a moment, carefully observed the difference between their eyes, and then shook his head: "They don't look alike."
Her eyes were bright and sparkling, like clean and clear stars in a stream, while this barbarian's eyes were like those of a wolf cub. Just from the fact that he dared to shoot an arrow and kill someone, one could tell that he was a ruthless person.
Zheng Quchi didn't believe it and asked the others behind him. Some of the soldiers said they looked somewhat like them, while others said they didn't.
No one could figure out what Zheng Quchi was thinking at this moment. Why was she asking if her eyes looked like those of a barbarian?
In fact, they are both right. Zheng Quchi's eyes are not very similar in shape to those of the Xiaomanyi, but the color of their pupils is very similar.
Zheng Quchi's pupils were much lighter than those of the people of Ye, and they were a brownish-red color, which was somewhat different from their black eyes.
She didn't think there was anything wrong with it at first, since there are many people with the same eye color as her in modern times. But later she slowly realized that the locals in Ye Kingdom all had this normal black eye color.
It is only barbarians or people of barbarian descent who have this kind of eye color; they have blue eyes and green eyes, but more often they have brown eyes.
Zheng Quchi suspected that Sang Xuanqing's ancestors might have had bloodlines from other races.
However, her features were gentle and her eyelashes were thick, making her a pure Central Plains person at first glance. Otherwise, having eyes like her would easily cause her trouble.
Zheng Quchi wasn't in a hurry to ask the little barbarian why he killed her; instead, he became curious about who the little barbarian was.
"Which tribe are you from? What's your name?"
"Pah—" The little barbarian was extremely arrogant and turned his head away without saying a word.
But when Gan Xin looked at him with the cold eyes of a child looking at Ye Ti, he immediately became a little scared.
"...Ke Zhu".
She wasn't really sure which tribes were barbarians, but wasn't Kezhu the tribe that was Wubao's biggest worry?
Wubao is located in the northwest, where the terrain is complex and diverse. What you can see are mountains, plateaus, and plains, and further away are river valleys, deserts, and Gobi. Originally, Wubao, Luochuan, and Lianteng were all within the territory of Ye Kingdom, but Luochuan and Lianteng were occupied by the Kezhu tribe in earlier years, and Ye Kingdom has not yet recovered the lost territory.
The Kezhu tribe is a long, narrow tribe that is located on the border of Ye, Hongsheng and Beiyuan. Despite being adjacent to these three countries, they deliberately pick on the weakest. The other two countries dare not provoke them, so they frequently come to Wubao to cause trouble, making the people of Wubao suffer greatly and full of complaints.
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