CH 217

Li Huowang slowly leaned on his crutch and led Bai Lingmiao, who had her eyes covered, walking. He wasn't walking fast, after all, his broken leg hadn't grown back yet.

Fortunately, the cart wasn't fast either. Sacrificing speed, the cart added more weight, just about the same speed as Li Huowang's.

"Is this Nvren Mountain?" Li Huowang squinted and covered his forehead with his hand, looking at the distant hills.

After seeing those hills, Li Huowang realized why this place was called Qingqiu. It was because there wasn't a single tree on those hills, only covered by green grass.

But perhaps it was also related to the fact that the mountains here were relatively short. There were no towering mountains that reached the clouds, and these grass-covered mountains were just a group of disjointed mountain ranges.

"Senior Li, do those mountains look like half of a woman's face lying down?" Sun Baolu excitedly pointed over there.

After looking carefully for a long time, Li Huowang shook his head. He couldn't see how those abstract hills looked like women. These short mountains were very strange, not many and not few, just a sudden group, and the mountains were not connected to each other.

"This year is the Year of the Moon. According to the ancestral training, our family should be camping and grazing in front of us for a hundred miles. I will be able to meet them soon!"

Li Huowang didn't care about Sun Baolu's excited words. He cared more about supplies. After spending such a long time in Qingqiu with so many people, if there was no food, they would have to eat the oxen pulling the cart.

"Is there really a market where we can buy food in Nvren Mountain? If we can't buy food, we will have nothing to eat except the northwest wind."

"Yes, there is no mistake. People who graze within a few hundred miles nearby and want to buy or sell things will go there to exchange. I even went there once when I was seven years old."

After Sun Baolu's explanation, Li Huowang knew that in Qingqiu, where the land was vast and the population was sparse, these nomadic Qingqiu people would choose certain places for trade.

Over time, these places would form a fixed gathering place. The officials in Qingqiu would also come to collect taxes from these places.

When Li Huowang saw the black dots moving like ants at the foot of the mountain through his excellent eyesight, he knew that the other party was right, there were really people there.

"Let's go, we should all wear veiled hats to avoid attracting attention from others."

Li Huowang finished speaking and put on his own hat. His current appearance, with a red and white face, was not much better than the others.

The cart gradually approached Nvren Mountain and came inside the area surrounded by short mountains along a small road. Suddenly, a noisy gathering of tents appeared in front of Li Huowang and the others.

The sound of horse hooves, people shouting, and donkeys braying filled their ears. Li Huowang even had the illusion that he was at a fair.In this bustling market, many Qingqiu people dressed differently from the people of Houshu were busy with their own affairs, shouting and screaming.

With more livestock comes more feces, and the unique smell of livestock entered the noses of others, causing everyone to wrinkle their brows.

Perhaps due to prolonged exposure to the sun, the biggest difference between the Qingqiu people and the previous Four Qi people and Houshu people was that their faces were very red, and people of all ages had heavy freckles on their faces.

The Qingqiu people were generally shorter than Li Huowang and his group, and they looked different no matter how you looked at them.

Each of them was draped in various rough-looking leather clothes, and women's braids and men's waistbands were tied with some crushed bones that had been ground into a round shape.

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Except for bones and skins, everything that could be woven with grass was sold here, from grass shoes and hats to even grass baskets.

Li Huowang's group obviously attracted the attention of the Qingqiu people. Faced with outsiders, each person looked at the caravan with a vigilant and indifferent gaze.

"Bang!" On the chopping board of the grass stall next to them, a machete was raised high and then chopped down with force, cutting a hairless fierce dog head in half.

"Um..." Mantou hung his tail and drooped his ears, quickly cowering under the ox cart.

"Are you really a Qingqiu person? Why do I feel like you don't look like them?" Li Huowang looked through the black gauze and glanced at Sun Baolu beside him.

"Because... my mother is from another place." Sun Baolu's expression was a bit dim when he said this, but his eyes lit up instantly and he quickly ran through the crowd towards the front.

Running and colliding in the crowd, he finally hugged an old-looking Qingqiu person excitedly and said something.

As they got closer, Li Huowang realized that he couldn't understand what they were saying.

"In other places, people can communicate with each other, but this broken place actually has its own language." Li Huowang was a bit speechless, which undoubtedly caused a lot of trouble for the journey ahead in Qingqiu.

After chatting with that person, Sun Baolu returned to Li Huowang with a hint of excitement and said, "Senior Li, I'm not wrong. That person is my fellow clansman, and my family is not far ahead."

"Okay, we still have to walk step by step even if it's not far. You go buy some food for us first. The food on the road is not enough." Li Huowang looked around the bustling market and said.

Now that the Qingqiu people's language was not the same as theirs, they had to rely on Sun Baolu, who knew Qingqiu language, to negotiate.

Sun Baolu nodded and promised, about to turn and dive into the lively crowd.

But Li Huowang stopped him. "Wait a minute, is there anywhere to eat here? Everyone else is hungry, let's rest for a while."Soon everyone arrived at a noodle shop where green noodles were hanging in the grass shed, like walking into a forest.

According to Sun Baolu, a group of people shared a pot and cooked their own noodles, paying for what they ordered from the shop owner. This unique way of eating, although unfamiliar to the others, did not prevent them from enjoying the delicious noodles with the fragrant smell of grass and spicy lamb soup.

The noodle shop was very lively with many people eating. Fortunately, the noodles blocked the view of nearby people from seeing Li Huowang and the others taking off their straw hats.

"Where's Mantou?" Li Huowang suddenly realized that his dog was missing after eating and drinking his fill.

As he turned his head to look for Mantou, he saw the dog coming from under the noodle forest with something in its mouth.

It spit out what was in its mouth at Li Huowang's feet and squatted down, wagging its tail and sticking out its tongue, asking for a reward.

"What is this?" Li Huowang looked at the white bone at his feet in surprise.

Although the others did not recognize it, Sun Baolu, a local, clearly knew what it was and explained hastily, "Senior Li, this is a horse bone. People in Qingqiu who raise horses must also eat horse meat. It tastes great."