The cow cart, which had been still for a long time, started rolling again, taking them towards the border between Liangguo and Qingqiu.
On the way, Gouwa, who covered his forehead with his hand, kept fanning himself with his hand towards his sweaty face. "It's so hot today, Li Shixiong, why don't we just wait until tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow will be hot too. Should we wait until the day after tomorrow? If it's still hot then, should we wait until autumn? Since it's so good over there, why did you come with us? It's much better to herd sheep with Baolu," Li Huowang retorted sarcastically.
Hearing Li Huowang's sarcasm, Gouwa looked at the remaining women, smirked, and said nothing.
He wasn't that stupid. His wife was already trying to seduce him. How could he stay here? Even if the meat was delicious, it couldn't compare to having a wife. Besides, following Li Shixiong, he wouldn't be afraid of not having meat to eat.
Noticing Gouwa's gaze, the woman with a pear-shaped face first looked at Li Huowang, then pretended to be shy and gave him a white eye.
"Hoo~" Li Huowang slowly opened the sheepskin paper in his hand and looked at the seal of the Xian Douzi on it. This was one of the few unexpected gains from this trip to the underground of Qingqiu, besides the Black Tai Sui.
It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from "pawread dot com".
"Li Shixiong, what is this?" Zhao Wu, who was driving the cart, asked.
"A cultivation technique for divine powers."
Li Huowang's words immediately drew the hot gazes of the others. "Have you practiced it?"
"No, I dare not practice it. After all, it was forcibly obtained from its mouth. I'm afraid there might be a problem," Li Huowang replied.
Li Huowang was too familiar with tampering with cultivation techniques. He had used this trick to escape from Qingfeng Temple. He didn't want to end up like Danyang Zi.
After playing with the copper coin sword behind his back, Li Huowang put it back in and said, "Hmm... I need to find someone to test it out."
"Li Shixiong! I'll do it! I'll do it!" Li Huowang looked up and saw that the only surviving Daoist, Yang Xiaohai, was the one speaking. His eyes were full of enthusiasm.
"Do your own job well. This is an adult's matter. Don't interfere," Li Huowang said.
This was something that could easily go wrong, and it was not suitable for their own people to test it out. They needed to find someone whose identity was just right and who wouldn't get into trouble.
"Li Shixiong, look at this!" Chun Xiaoman reached into the tent and took out a golden box encrusted with agate and gems. The golden ingots inside were extremely familiar.
Li Huowang was stunned. He remembered this thing. It was Sun Baolu's mother's dowry. She must have secretly put it in last night.
He understood the other party's intention. It was undoubtedly to repay him for restoring Sun Baolu's body and to give this gold as a reward.He turned around and looked back, the tents were already gone, leaving only a large area of green.
"Forget it, since it's someone else's goodwill, don't refuse it. Keep it as a reserve and use it to settle down when we reach Liang Country."
For the next period of time, perhaps because the Qingqiu region was sparsely populated, or perhaps because they had been unlucky for so long that their luck had finally turned around. The journey was peaceful, and nothing unexpected happened.
They had been on the road for over a month, and although the dog days had passed, the weather was getting hotter.
A harsh bird cry suddenly exploded in the air. Li Huowang, who was looking at the sheepskin map in his hand, raised his head and glanced at the blurry dot in the sky before looking back at what was in his hand.
He handed the map to Bai Lingmiao beside him and asked, "Do you understand it? Do you remember where your Niu Xin Mountain is?"
Although the map of Liang Country that they had collected from Qingqiu was not very detailed, the general outline was still marked.
They were about to enter Liang Country, so they needed to determine the specific location of their destination.
"This... doesn't seem right... and neither does this..." Faced with the various lines on the map, Bai Lingmiao's expression was hesitant.
It was obviously very difficult to find her hometown from these simple lines, but it wasn't her fault. Even Li Huowang sometimes found the map confusing. It was drawn too simply.
Li Huowang took the map back and thought to himself, "It looks like we'll have to buy another map of Niu Xin Mountain and ask the locals for directions once we enter Liang Country."
"By the way, I remember, you're from Liang Country, right? Where exactly are you from?" Li Huowang turned to look at Gouwa.
"It's okay, I don't have to go back. I grew up eating food from all over the place. If I don't go back, I can save some food for my fellow villagers." Gouwa said with a smile, without any expectation of going home. His eyes were fixed on the pear-faced woman next to the carriage.
Li Huowang saw through his intentions but didn't expose him. He looked up at the sun in the sky and said, "It's about time for lunch. Let's kill a sheep. We're almost out of Qingqiu, and there won't be as much grass to feed the sheep in Liang Country. If we don't eat them now, we'll starve."
Hearing this, everyone's faces lit up with joy. Although there was no shortage of meat in Qingqiu, they had been poor all their lives and hadn't had their fill of meat yet.
"Baa~ baa~" An old sheep was pulled out of the flock by Gouwa by the horns and driven towards the river in the distance.
They had eaten sheep so many times on this journey that everyone was familiar with the process. They would bleed the sheep first, then skin it, cut open the stomach, and clean it out. The steps were simple and clear.The white sheep body was evenly coated with salt and spices, then pierced with a long spear of one zhang two chi, and roasted between two horse-drawn carriages.
If Peng Longteng saw her weapon being so ruined, she would probably be so angry that she would come back to life.
Looking at the dry sheep dung burning below and the roasted whole sheep sizzling with oil on top, Gouwa licked his tongue and said with a smile, "Hehehe, this can be considered as returning to the original and eating it, very comfortable."
After being hit on the back of the head by Chun Xiaoman, Gouwa shrank his neck and turned to the group of women who were picking wild vegetables.
When the whole roasted sheep was ready, the wild vegetable and sheep soup on that side was also ready. The greasy roasted meat, paired with light vegetable soup, was just right.
Everyone gathered in groups of three to five on the grass, enjoying this feast.
Gouwa smiled and opened his own sheep head, took out the long sheep tongue inside, and put it in the wild vegetable bowl held by the pear-faced woman. "Hong'er~ come, I saved you something good, sheep tongue."
The woman named Hong'er shyly held the bowl in her arms and ate the long tongue in small bites with her hand.
Facing Gouwa's thin body coming over, she did not object.
On the other side, Yang Xiaohai was very angry when the round-faced woman asked for his sheep tail and refused.
At this time, Zhao Wu, sitting on the ox cart, saw this scene and showed a hint of envy in his eyes.
But after taking a glance at his powerless limbs, Zhao Wu sighed lightly and focused all his attention on the wild vegetable and sheep soup in his hand.