Daze was a rainy city. When Gu Mang finished counting the grain and grass stock, the sky was already dim. There were thick clouds in the distant mountains, turning ink black and approaching towards the outskirts of the city. Gu Mang arranged for the practitioners attending the grain and grass to go back to the barracks for a rest, and then ordered people to cover the tarpaulin on the haystack of the granary. There was a strong wind outside the frontier fortress. The little practitioners rushed to press the four corners of the tarpaulin together when the rainstorm fell. Gu Mang heard someone shouting, "Hurry up, it's raining! Eat fast and drink porridge slowly. We are fighting for food with God!"
He used to shout these words in the Eighth Army, so Gu Mang immediately looked up and saw an old part of himself, with his trouser legs rolled up, standing on the grain and grass crib, shouting the commands.
The old department leader saw Gu Mang looking at him kicking and stepping over from the grain pile. "Are you General Mo's guard?"
"... Yes. "
"Newcomer, don't be silly. Our northern border guards also need to do something. Hurry up and help!"
"Oh, of course." Gu Mang rolled up his sleeve and supported it with one hand, leaped up onto the grain pile in three or two times, and pressed the bricks and stones together with him on the corner of the oilcloth.
The old department leader looked at him with satisfaction. "Very flexible. No wonder you can handle things around General Mo."
Gu Mang stepped on the soft grain, chatting with him while pressing the cloth. The old man was a chatterbox, and Gu Mang kept on saying, "Hey, there's another piece to be pressed next to this one."
"This brick is not heavy enough in your hand, you don't know. The rainstorm and strong winds in the frontier fortress are so fierce that the small brick will go up to the sky like leaves."
"What? You think I'm exaggerating? It's no exaggeration. You're a young man. I'm an old man in the North Border Army. I was in the barracks when the north border army called Wangba Jun. I fought with Gen— well, I fought with Gu Mang. My rules of pressing bricks were taught by Gu Mang to the next brothers at that time."
Gu Mang thought it was funny and laughed at him. "Gu Mang taught you how to press bricks?"
"Isn't that right? As soon as I learned, he boasted that I was clever. What's the smile about? Do not believe it?" The little cultivator opened his eyes wide. "I really didn't lie to you. Don't look after Gu Mang. He was not a thing. When he was in the army, he was very personable."
"Yes."
"Yes, the elegant indifferent General Mo and Gu Mang were friendly. The style of the two men's military management was too poor. At the beginning, when they reintegrated us into the northern border army, we were not adapted to it."
Gu Mang said with a smile, "That's not elegant indifference. He's just not good at words. In fact, he treats you very well."
The little cultivator moved a piece of crooked brick and stone and said, "Well, in any case, that's just the way General Mo is. He's so serious about talking and doing things, and he's cold and indifferent. But it's better to get used to it. It's better than to giving it to Wangshu Jun."
Gu Mang paused for a while. "Delimit to Wangshu Jun?"
"Yes. There is a rumor that when the emperor reorganized the Eighth Army, he wanted to assign it to Wangshu Jun, or just broke us up and go to the barracks. But later I don't know how it happened. I heard that General Mo went to talk to him about something, so he transferred the army to General Mo."
"..."
The smile on Gu Mang's face faded, and he fell into thinking about what the original intention of the emperor was to dispose of the thirty thousand men left by him in this way.
But he knew what kind of person the emperor was. If there was no interest exchange, the emperor could not change his original idea at will. What did Mo Xi do to change his mind?
"Oh, it's raining." The little cultivator poked at him. "And finally, go back to the camp for shelter after pressing the bricks. There are oil paper umbrellas in the granary. I'll take you there later."
Gu Mang returned to his mind and nodded. "OK."
The rain soon began to pour heavily, and the color between the sky and the ground seemed to be diluted in a flash. Daze, this was the name of the city.6
Gu Mang stood under the shed of the granary. He helped the practitioners who kept the grain and wheat to carry out the umbrellas. They laughed and ran away one after another. It was the same as when he was in the norther border army in the past. Most of them were young people with great vitality and fun. Even if there was war tomorrow, they would be chasing and playing in the rain pool.
"Come on, it's raining a little bit, but you can walk back," The little cultivator invited him. "This is how we are here. The old habit left by Gu Mang can't be changed. It's noisy and disorderly. He ran fastest in the rain at that time."
Gu Mang stood under the dry eaves and said with a smile, "Because he was young at that time. Now, he must be unable to move. You go back first. I'll wait until it rains a little less."
The little practitioner did not force him to walk in the water and disappeared in the deep, turbulent rain.
There was no one in the granary. Gu Mang stood quietly beside the wooden fence and looked up at the vast land. A heavy smell of earth splashed from the rain. The eaves converged into a stream and the ground was full of water.
He stood aside and watched the monks of the northern border army get together and make noise. He watched their young backs go away one by one. At last, he saw Gu Mang, twenty, and Mo Xi, seventeen, chuckling and holding a piece of oilcloth, plunge into the rainstorm.
He blinked his blue eyes, and the shadows were blurred.
When the rain began to fade, Gu Mang opened the oil paper umbrella and prepared to go back. Passing by the main camp of the Chonghua army, he saw the candlelight in the tent. The dim yellow and warm luster reflected in the water pool. The rain became a rustling light and shadow.
Gu Mang stopped and thought, it's so late, Mo Xi hasn't gone yet?
He knew that Mo Xi had the habit of rehearsing the strategic layout again and again, but the time was too long. In that time he could have rehearsed five or six times. He felt strange, so he collected the paper umbrella, leaned against the tent, flicked open the curtain and walked in.
There was indeed a man in front of the sand table holding his arms in meditation. Unexpectedly, the man was not Mo Xi, but—
Gu Mang was slightly surprised.
Murong Lian?
Murong Lian was sitting on the edge of the sand table, half shrouded by the smoke of the pipe he was holding in his hand. He squinted his peach blossom eyes, smoked the pipe lazily, and looked at the map of the sand table at the same time. Maybe the rain was too loud, or maybe he was too focused. He didn't hear Gu Mang coming in. He just raised his hand and twisted a few flags to fall at different dangerous passes on the sand table.
Gu Mang looked carefully for a while, and suddenly felt a cold sweat - Murong Lian's position under those flags was treacherous and cold. Although the line of march was different from that of Murong Lian's from before, it was the same fierce and powerful way. If according to his layout, the winner was not as big as Mo Xi's, but as long as he could win, the speed was even faster than Mo Xi's.
Murong Lian was not playing. He was really practicing.
Moreover, he was constantly revising his ideas, changing the flags representing different magic powers over and over again. Every time he adjusted, Gu Mang could see his extremely clear intention and thinking
So what was Murong Lian's march strategy that could be deciphered by Murong Mengze in the daytime?
"Cough!"
All of a sudden, Gu Mang woke up from his thoughts by the sharp cough.
Murong Lian put down his pipe, frowned, and coughed. His face was very dark. He pressed his chest with one hand, as if he wanted to suppress something - but he finally choked up a little bit of blood foam.
"..." Murong Lian wiped the bloodstain away with a white scarf with a golden border. His eyes were gloomy.
He straightened up, stared at the sand table for a while, then raised the hand with the sapphire ring, pulled out the flags carefully laid on the sand table, and slowly destroyed the whole designed battle situation.
After that, he threw his white fingers and scattered flags aside, then sat down on the chair, raised his head, and closed his eyes wearily.
Deep in the dim lights, Murong Lian's silhouette looked so thin and lonely. With his hands folded, he had been unconsciously rubbing the face of the sapphire ring.
After a long time, Gu Mang heard him sigh and murmur, " It's ridiculous, I... It is really not as good as you... "
Am I really not as good as you?
This sentence lingered in Gu Mang's ear, almost ringing all the way.
How could he also not understand that Murong Lian had both an idea and refused to lose? Why did he muddle through the military meeting?
Why would he stay at night when there was no one left? He just smoked his life like a dream. In the misty and desolate smoke, he played alone with the soldiers before the battle and deduced a magnificent lightning battle…
When he came back to the commander's tent, Mo Xi was sending a letter to the emperor. He let the birds fly. He saw Gu Mang enter the tent and his face was slightly loose.
"Where have you been? You came back so late." Then he touched his hair. "Is it raining?"
"... I went to check on the grain in the warehouse. It's not drenched. There's an umbrella." Gu Mang rubbed his nose and didn't tell him what happened when he saw Murong Lian in the main tent.
Mo Xi held him in his arms, warmed him for a while, and said, "The dining room has come to deliver the meal. Eat first, then rest?"
Gu Mang then turned his head to look. As expected, he saw several dishes of cooked food on the table, and there was a bamboo tube with rice in it.
"You didn't eat either?"
"I waited for you."
Gu Mang opened his mouth and wanted to say your stomach was is bad. You don't know what to do. Just leave me a little. But seeing the gentle appearance of Mo Xi's black eyes, he swallowed down the words in his mouth. He sighed and kneaded the face of General Mo, the only one in the world.
Gu Mang said helplessly, "You, ah."
When he sat at the table, he found that the dishes were all those that the cultivators of the Eighth Army liked but could not eat. A plate of braised pork with bright sauce, steamed bread with white flour, a plate of crispy bamboo shoots and lotus root sprouts, and a bowl of egg flower soup. Although they were not delicate dishes, it was not a small expense for everyone in the army to have.
Gu Mang said, "You can improve the food for them. If I wanted to give them a meal of meat, I had to ask my grandfather to sue my grandmother many times, or I had to sell my face to coax the pretty widow in the village tavern."
Mo Xi took a bowl of soup, pushed it to him, and said, "You have done enough for them. You don't need to sell yourself to a pretty widow anymore. If you really want to sell yourself, sell it to me."
Gu Mang bit his chopsticks and smiled.
The egg soup in the barracks was made in a big pot and sprinkled with green onion. But Mo Xi knew that Gu Mang didn't like eating it, so he had already left the green onion aside. He watched Gu Mang gulp down the hot soup, dispelling the humidity brought by the rain, and his eyes gradually became very soft.
In other words, any other person in the world would feel that he had run into evil when seeing Mo Xi's eyes like this, but Gu Mang wouldn't. After drinking the soup, he looked up to Mo Xi, and naturally grinned again.
Mo Xi sighed, took out the white bandanna, swabbed it on the corner of Gu Mang's lips, and then said, "How can you still be the same as before, after drinking the soup, you never remember to wipe it clean."
"Oh, young master, how can I be so particular like you? I grew up on earth."
"..."
They chatted for a while again. After eating half of the meal, Gu Mang thought for a moment, and finally decided to say, "By the way, Mo Xi, there's something I want to tell you."
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The author has something to say: I'm rich again! Mellow drops kiss their friends and roll to tun paper bird ~