The hair and clothes of both of them were stained with white, but in a flash, the snowflakes turned into water stains under the burning body temperature, leaving cold dark marks on the clothes.
Yin Chengyu pressed his hands on Xue Shu's shoulders. Because of the cold, his hands lost their warmth and were whiter than the snow on the ground.
He tilted his head back slightly, resting the back of his head against the tree trunk, breathing softly. His warm breath turned into white mist when it met the cold, blurring his vision.
Xue Shu buried his head in his neck, rubbing his nose lightly or heavily against the side of his neck, patiently and meticulously tracing the slender and beautiful neck lines.
The tip of my nose was cold, and when it touched me vaguely, it caused an itch that spread all the way to the bottom of my heart.
Yin Chengyu half-closed his eyes and saw the deep desire in Xue Shu's eyes. He slowly inhaled a breath of cool air and regained some rationality.
The cold fingers reached into the back of the collar, and Yin Chengyu said hoarsely: "That's enough, it's time to go back."
The chill from the back of his neck made Xue Shu shudder, but it did not stop him. Instead, it stimulated the suppressed desire in his heart. He licked the snow-white skin unsatisfiedly, and rubbed the most delicate part with his teeth, but he did not dare to bite it.
"Your Highness..." A hoarse and unclear syllable came out of his throat. He pressed against Yin Chengyu impatiently and rubbed him hard.
Yin Chengyu placed his hand on the back of his neck, pinching it like a disobedient wolfhound, forcing him to distance himself from him: "If you delay any longer and neglect your mission, I will hand you over as prey."
There was a cool nonchalant tone in his voice.
Xue Shu looked at him for a moment, and knowing that he would not continue to tolerate it, he reluctantly stepped back.
"Tidy up my clothes." Yin Chengyu frowned and patted the fallen snow and dead leaves on his body, looking at him with a bit of dissatisfaction in his eyes.
Xue Shu got the upper hand, so naturally he didn't dare to do it again. He obediently lowered his brows and helped him tidy up his messed up clothes.
After a while, the two left the col one after the other and returned to the team.
Yin Chengyu mounted his horse and said to the others who were waiting, "We found no trace of deer in the valley. Let's release the hunting dogs and continue searching."
The hunter brought out the hounds, let them sniff the wind-dried deer dung, and then reconfirmed the location.
As they were waiting, they heard the sound of galloping horses from behind. They turned around and saw that it was a young player from He Shan's team.
Before Yin Chengyu could ask, the other party said with a look of joy: "Your Highness, we finally found you. General He has found the traces of the deer herd!"
Upon hearing this, Yin Chengyu immediately ordered the others to change direction and follow the young general, rushing to join He Shan and his party.
But there was still a doubt: "Why not use the arrows, but you come?" This was inconsistent with their previous agreement.
"We are not the only ones targeting the herd of deer. The Oirat people have also spotted them. They are numerous, so our chances of success are slim if we just go for it head-on. We are also afraid of alerting the enemy if we fire arrows, so General He ordered me to come quietly to report the news."
He Shan and Ying Hongxue had not walked far with their men when they discovered a herd of deer.
Just as they were about to order their men to surround the herd and fire arrows to warn others, they received a message that the Oirat people had also secretly ambushed the herd.
The Wala people were led by Mubar, and their men were not dispersed, totaling more than fifty people.
Ying Hongxue weighed the pros and cons and decided that if they just robbed the deer, they would surely lose as the enemy had more people and more arrows. Although the winter hunting rules allowed fighting between teams, the prey was always owned by whoever shot the prey with an arrow. So he could only send someone to notify Yin Chengyu and Zhao Lin while the Wala were still setting up defenses to encircle the deer herd.
When Yin Chengyu and his party were still a mile away from the deer herd, they dismounted and walked on foot, leading their horses to avoid being noticed by the Oirat people.
By the time they arrived, the Oirat people had just set up a circle, blocking the possible escape directions of the deer.
The ignorant deer were strolling leisurely on the snow in the middle.
The person who came to meet them was Ying Hongxue. While she led Yin Chengyu to meet up with He Shan, she whispered the situation: "After we discovered the Oirat, we retreated to the outer perimeter. The Oirat didn't notice us and are tightening the encirclement and preparing to attack. We have to act before they do."
"Zhao Lin hasn't arrived yet?" Yin Chengyu glanced over and found that everyone was not there yet.
"Not yet." Ying Hongxue said, "But we are running out of time. We have more than 30 people against more than 50 Wala people. If we seize the initiative, we can at least capture half of them."
"Half is too easy for Wala. Find a way to hold Wala back while we drive the deer herd to another place."
Yin Chengyu was not satisfied with dividing the deer herd in half with the Wala. Red deer are tall, good at running and jumping, and have alert personalities. It is not easy to find such a large number of deer.
If we split it in half with Wala, it would be too easy for them.
Ying Hongxue frowned in embarrassment, thinking about how to delay the Wala and buy some time.
"You can use red deer dung." As everyone was thinking, Xue Shu pointed to the half-dried red deer dung in the snow and said, "This kind of half-dried dung will produce a lot of thick smoke after being burned. It can be used to block the Wala's line of sight and create chaos."
Perhaps deer often move around in this area, and there is a lot of semi-dried feces in the snow.
Yin Chengyu thought about it for a while and thought it was feasible. He immediately ordered people to collect red deer dung and quietly ambush behind the Wala people.
"We will flank them from both sides and drive the deer back to the narrow road they came from."
When they came here, they passed through a narrow mountain path and drove the deer into the narrow road, which was convenient for hunting.
Under Yin Chengyu's command, the remaining personnel were divided into three teams again. One team carried deer dung to ambush the Oirat people, and the other two teams lay in ambush on both sides, ready to drive away the deer herd.
At this time, Mubal was hiding in the woods, looking at the deer not far away with a smile on his face.
"Sending so many red deer would be enough to shock the people of Dayan."
The subordinates around him echoed: "When the little prince wins the championship, he will have another beauty."
Mubal thought of the frail Princess of Dayan, stroked the bow and arrow in his hand, and laughed wildly: "For the princess."
He raised his hand and made a motion ready to release the arrow.
But before he could put his hand down, a pungent smell suddenly filled the forest. Mubal frowned and looked around: "What's that smell--" he said.
Before he could finish his words, countless burning deer dung hit him.
A pungent stench quickly spread along with the thick smoke, and the Wala people who were ambushing in the woods suddenly became chaotic.
The herd of deer that were leisurely strolling smelled danger, and the leading male deer neighed and ran away.
Yin Chengyu had already ambushed the deer on one side, and immediately rode out on horseback when he saw the situation. Behind him, a soldier struck a bronze bell, making a "dong dong" sound, which frightened the deer and they immediately fled to the other side.
But the other side was also intercepted by He Shan and Ying Hongxue.
With no escape route to the left, right, or rear, the deer could only run forward desperately.
Yin Chengyu followed closely beside the herd, clamped his legs around the horse's belly, leaned forward, drew his bow and shot arrows continuously at the tall and strong sika deer.
His arrows were extremely accurate, and every arrow hit the deer's neck. Before he even reached the narrow road, several deer had already fallen to the ground.
Surrounded by two teams, the herd of elk was successfully driven into a narrow road.
At this time, Zhao Lin, who had received the news, rushed over with his men from the other end of the narrow road and completely surrounded the deer herd.
——The harvest this time was extremely rich.
It was roughly estimated that there were forty to fifty elk in the herd. Excluding those that escaped along the way and the mother deer and fawns that were deliberately released, a total of 26 elk were killed.
As there were too many sika deer, the errand soldier's two horses could not carry them all, so he had to send three more people to transport them.
Just as Yin Chengyu and his party finished counting the spoils and were about to leave, Mubal, smelling of deer dung, finally caught up with them with his men.
The sudden appearance of deer dung threw them into disarray.
The burning deer dung had a pungent smell and heavy smoke. They were caught off guard and were blinded by the smoke. They could not even tell the direction, let alone continue hunting for elk.
Mubal followed Yin Chengyu and his party out following the sound of bronze bells as they drove away the herd of deer.
However, the commotion in the woods caused many people to lose their bows and weapons, and some people even failed to catch up. Mubar finally caught up, but there were only about twenty people following him.
The wolf is in a miserable state again.
Seeing the pile of red deer carcasses, Mubal understood everything immediately. He glared at Yin Chengyu angrily and gnashed his teeth: "Mubal will remember what the Crown Prince did today!"
Yin Chengyu raised his sleeves to cover his nose, with a look of disdain on his face, but he still maintained his composure and bowed to him: "My little prince, I will remember your help today. Thank you very much."
The two men's eyes met, Mubal's chest heaved and his face turned blue.
But he finally endured it and rode back without saying a word.
There were still more than twenty people left in the woods, and he had to go back to find them all.
"Goodbye, little prince." Yin Chengyu looked at his back and added slowly.
Mubar walked away without looking back, and shot an arrow at the tree in anger.
The paddock had been open for two hours.
The spectators had already had lunch and were now chatting idly.
After going deeper into the enclosure, they could no longer see what was going on inside. They were still waiting there just to see which family would send out the prey first.
While he was drinking, he heard the young general holding the telescope excitedly say, "Someone is coming out!"
"Which team is it?" Emperor Long Feng, who was originally leaning on the soft chair, also became alert and stood up to see for himself.
The young general put the telescope in his hand and said, "It's too far away. I can only see five horses. I can't tell which team they belong to."
Emperor Longfeng raised the telescope and squinted one eye to take a closer look.
But he was old and his eyes were already cloudy, so he couldn't see clearly. He just said, "There are five people, and they seem to be together..."
He held up the telescope and looked at it for a long time, but couldn't make out anything.
Although everyone was anxious to know which team the horses were from, they did not dare to rush him. They just whispered to each other about which team was so generous as to send out five horses to transport the prey at once.
You have to know that each team has a fixed number of people. The more people there are to deliver prey, the fewer people to hunt.
The fact that he was able to do this means that he had just entered the game and hunted a large group of beasts.
In this enclosure, there are either wolves or deer.
Either way, it's a great gain.
The people of Dayan were whispering to each other excitedly. The Wala and Tatar delegations were also getting impatient and looking towards the exit of the enclosure.
"The prey being transported is deer." At this moment, Emperor Longfeng finally saw some clues. He squinted his eyes and guessed, "Judging from the size and antlers, it looks like a red deer."
When the Wala envoy heard this, he was immediately excited and said with a smile, "It seems that our little prince sent it out."
The messenger said proudly: "The King of Wala likes to eat young deer meat. To show his filial piety, the little prince has specially learned how to find deer and personally hunted many young deer for the King of Wala."
If what was sent back was a red deer, it must have been hunted by their little prince.
The author has something to say:
Mubar: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Your Highness (covering his nose): It stinks.