The magical wheels grind over the gravel and sand, making the dry valley paths dusty for a while. The caravan was well damped and, lying on the soft carpet, you could only hear the slightest sound of gearing as the thirteen huge magical machines followed smoothly behind the Thundering Rhinos, looking from afar like a train on a high plateau.
Every night, during the days and nights in the caravan, I was crammed into the same bed with Katrina. The bed wasn't really big, but I was curled up in Katrina's arms like a baby, so it didn't seem cramped. The fact that I was being looked after by Katrina, Kiger's maid of honour, gave me a real taste of what it was like to be waited on, especially when I was surrounded by a delightful redhead who was told what to do without a word of complaint, and gradually brought me out of the shadow of my first murder.
Each silent night was like a mysterious veil over my eyes, like boundless water soaking my body, and I thought of the hideous horror of the dwarven warrior who had fallen under the dagger of the wolf's teeth, and I felt the sea of my spirit rise up in huge waves, cascading against the precarious lighthouse on the scorched rocks of the sea, pounding my not-so-sturdy mental beacon. I was even awake at this time knowing that I was caught in a spiritual sea, which Sister Koko told me was my demon, that the raging sea was a repressed negative emotion in my mind, and that every now and then Katrina would hold me tightly, drenched in sweat and struggling in my sleep, and whisper in my ear a song that would calm my mind in the imperial tongue, a calm, mellow song like Sister's The soft and gentle song was like my sister's whisper.
Each time the frenzy of the mental sea subsided, I felt a marked increase in my magical perception, and I found that I could gather two balls of magical Force between my fingers at the same time and make them move in different trajectories around my five fingers, feeling the faint tidal wave of magic inside the ball of magical Force, and I thought I should ask old Kulu for advice sometime. But at least I knew that every time my nightmares ended, I would feel as if my spiritual power would grow slightly, only this feeling was getting fainter and fainter.
Whenever I fell asleep in silence, she was always careful to avoid my injuries for fear of hurting me with the slightest movement. She doesn't sleep well every night these days, because whenever I make the slightest movement at night, she wakes up, sleepily presses her ear to ask me if I've had another nightmare, if I want to drink water or go to the toilet, and even if the glass of water is just on the bedside table within reach, she refuses to let me reach it myself, but sits up with one arm around me, stretching out her other white arm, halfway up her body to reach the fine ceramic mug, her long, light, thick hair always touching my face and feeling it tickle and tingle.
I always tried to insist on doing these things myself because I felt I had recovered well enough to take care of myself without any problems.
The most unbearable part of the day was when I was carried to the bath by Katarina, my heart was tormented whenever I was confronted with her ripe, curvy body, it was an absurd feeling, the desire inside my body was like a soap bubble, created and then quickly burst, only then did I feel the strange feeling of extreme disharmony between mind and body. She didn't care about being naked in front of me, and she loved to pull me into the bath with her, with her towering breasts rubbing me like a cooked prawn with a sarong. It was only gradually that I got used to it, no longer looking like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand, but also being able to face her openly and even chatting easily and naturally. I think getting in the right frame of mind is the most important thing, after all, I am only five years old now.
Water is undoubtedly the most valuable resource on the most journey. Because the water carried in each caravan was limited, bathing in the caravan was a luxury. Originally, a lot of the fresh water stored in the caravan had been consumed on the road of death ahead, and for the ordinary dancers the baths were banned. Only a few dancers of a slightly higher status were allowed to use the baths in the whole caravan, but they also had to rinse themselves clean with fresh water before they could enter the baths The ordinary dancers had to queue up every morning to receive half a tub of water, which was not even enough to wash their faces, and they had to soak their handkerchiefs in water to wash their bodies.
The early morning and late evening were the noisiest times of the day in the caravan, as the young girls were required to clean up after themselves before the morning classes. There were four bedrooms on the ground floor of the caravan, and only Singh's room was a four-room one, while the other three were more crowded six-room ones, all of which were filled to capacity. Every morning the twenty or so girls would scramble for water and food amidst the chattering.
At this time, I would be snuggled up in Katrina's arms, lying comfortably in bed, sleeping. A smug smile would appear on her face and she would turn to me with a sleepy smile, "If it weren't for looking after you, my little master, I would have had to attend morning classes every day, just like Leah and the girls. You have no idea how determined I have to be to crawl out from under the covers this early every day."
Leah and Khung Jin were the other two dancers who lived in this dormitory, they had to be considered middle managers at the class leader level and were considered the best in this group of dancers in terms of body shape and appearance, to stand out from the rest of the girls, these two were naturally very discerning and would silently call back breakfast for Singh and Katrina every morning, by which time Singh would have already got up and finished tidying up, carrying the special fine breakfast that belonged to the seven maidens and climbing up to the first floor to serve Kiger.
Leah was a little more outgoing and had a good relationship with Katrina, with whom she usually enjoyed joking around. She even teased Katrina once by saying, "When will your little husband not have to stand on his tiptoes to touch the big rabbit on your breast?"
I didn't mind these women's bored banter; most of them had good intentions. Sometimes, in the evenings, Leah would fetch me a foot wash or something, and one thing I wasn't used to was that they always used to kneel on the carpet when they washed someone's feet. It wasn't just for me, but Singh and Katrina used to do it too. I asked Singh why they did it for other people, and Singh said, naturally, that it was required in etiquette class, and that they would be whipped if they didn't do it properly.
The youngest of the four girls in the house, the empty really, introverted and soft personality, looks also very sweet, will always quietly clean the entire room, and never look abrupt, as if for the invisible person general, sometimes I even feel a little inattentive, the whole room is not moving to clean and tidy.
Sometimes, in her spare time, Kiger would come down to see me in her casual clothes, her eyes always bright in the presence of the dancers, her face smiling, her natural aristocratic air making her stand out even in the crowd. We would sometimes have a brief chat and she would quietly ask me if I was happy with her lady-in-waiting, with a quirky smile in those big bright eyes, asking me with a flirtatious taste if I would stop having nightmares if I buried my head in Katrina's soft cleavage.
I glared at him in disgust to hide my super-embarrassment, and despite my red ears betraying me, I had to go back to living on the back of the thunder rhinoceros with a stiff neck and a loud voice, which was particularly amusing to Kiggy, who told me with interest that none of her brothers had ever dared to be so unreasonable in front of her. I shouted at her in exasperation: Do you still want to go out and have fun with me?
She laughed so hard she couldn't stand up.
Sometimes Kiger would find time to play a game of chess with me, a game similar to animal chess, which was our favourite. She was much more reserved in Kiger's presence, while Singh was more natural, perhaps because she knew Kiger better, and would occasionally help me with my moves against Kiger, who was much better than me. I think it's all about luck, but it just keeps proving that Kiger's luck is much better than mine.
... beautiful divider ...
When Kurtz came to visit me in the caravan some days earlier, he told me secretly that the caravan had run out of water, that the whole caravan had to find ways to collect some water every night, and that the men in the caravan had been restricted in drinking. I asked him worriedly how long it had been since he had had any water, and Kuzi said with a heated smile, pointing out into the mossy valley, proudly, "The whole Pai plateau is my home, how could I be short of water?
He seldom came to the caravan, the old kuru's admonition was in Kuz's mind like the Maginot line of defence, his last line of defence, and the words Kuz always recited to me were that the tent of red powder could annihilate all ambition and even make a hero unable to hold a sword, no longer able to harden his heart to cut off the head of his enemy.
I was furious at this and scolded him, "So you're still leaving me here, are we still brothers?"
Kuzi blushed and squeaked, "My grandfather says you have a demon in your heart that can only be dissolved with a mother-like love. Everyone needs to get through that in their heart. He also said that each person treats others differently and has some kind of different moral ground to stand on, and the kinder the person, the more others respect life the less likely they are to cross that wall in their heart."
He was recounting these words in orcish in the original words of the old kuru, stuttering in some places as he couldn't remember them well.
"He said that the wall in your heart is as high as it can go, and that the average child's heart is as pure as parchment, while yours is a sea of gold." Kuzi looked at me somewhat unable to understand, expecting me to explain these old Kuru words. Seeing that I didn't have the slightest thought of saying anything, he added, "The first time I killed a dwarf thief in the Horde, I didn't fight much more than you. The first time I killed a dwarf bandit in the tribe, I didn't beat you by much. My dad said later that my eyes were red then, and I just remember being so excited that day that I stayed up all night and never had a nightmare."
Kurtz always tried to speak to me in his less-than-skilled Imperial language when there were outsiders around, his pronunciation awkward, but his words incredibly sincere, asking me with concern, "Do you still have nightmares every night?"
I shook my head and pointed to Katrina, who was looking boredly out of the window at the distant mountains beside me, "Only occasionally, she shakes me awake every time I have a nightmare."
Kurtz blushed every time he looked at Katrina for no apparent reason, I couldn't imagine that a human beauty could be so attractive to an orc, and looking at Kurtz's youthful appearance, I felt like it was torture for him to stay in this dorm room for one more second.
I asked Kurtz to lift his shirt and saw the huge scar on his chest, over a foot long, like a horrible centipede. Only then did Kuz proudly tell me that he would have the right to get a tattoo when he returned to the tribe, that only warriors who had gone to war had that right. Kurtz was envious of my bloodline's ability to heal itself, and as he was leaving, he urged me to change my mind and learn the art of war together.
I looked at him in silence, he read what I was going to say in my eyes and said goodbye with disappointment in his eyes.
Gogo wanted me to have more contact with the others, and eventually I would have to return to the human world, so she wanted me to stay in the caravan for a bit longer.
Kiger, on the other hand, felt that the conditions in the caravan were better for me to recuperate and, as a friend, I could also spend some extra time with her occasionally, so naturally she didn't want me to leave, and it was always inconvenient for her to find me when I was in the Thundering Rhinos. She told me she had a wish that we would travel the whole continent together when we were older, and said something about considering choosing me to be her guardian as soon as I became a full-fledged warrior, and when I asked her what a guardian was, she smiled and didn't say.
Old Kulu, on the other hand, wanted me to conquer my demons once and for all. He always thought that I had gradually become more extreme in character after all these days in the merchant caravan, and that by hanging out with Kuz, I had been subconsciously taught the wild nature of the beast, and that as soon as the blood in my heart was hot, I would rush up to fight people regardless, which Old Kulu criticised me and Kuz for not being brave, but reckless. He also wanted me to recuperate here for a while.
Katrina took my hand and stood with me in the doorway quietly watching Kuz's figure slowly walk away.
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