Chapter 58 The Water Swamp
After all, Fox Xiaxia and Shan Xiaohu are some cultivation and magic powers of the attainment of the Taoist people. Naturally, they can only eat or drink for a short time. However, this reliance on their home refuses to go to Tuoba Xian, a flesh-eyed mortal, or a small child growing their body, so to feed him, the two people these days think of all kinds of ways to change all sorts of tricks to cook for him.
Fox Xiaxia impatiently complained: ''I am running back from the trouble of Zongcheng City more quietly; this is good. Instead, things are more. This little guy is a drag bottle troublemaker. I say, senior brother, it's all because you had to save him, so you must also cook this meal. I only know those few things. I'm at my wits' end.'
"I also didn't expect. He has recovered physically but still has to rely on this and refuse to go... I am also almost out of tricks. After all, we hadn't eaten much before, and if we ate, it was raw meat and wild fruits... the best cook was the senior sister, Fox Xiaoxian; I was focusing on eating at that time, and I didn't even care about how it was made." Shan Xiaohu had been missing Fox Xiaoxian, missing her when she was still a little fox and when she took human form.
Fox Xiaoxia's eyes twinkled, and she was overjoyed: "Right! We can let this child directly eat raw, ah! Why do we still work so hard to cook for him? It's so exhausting." Then, without saying a word, he went to his room and pulled the little Boy out, heading straight for the pool of water. Shan Xiaohu was a little worried that Fox Xiaxia would drown Tuoba Xian (Fox Xiaxia said it was not impossible), so he hurriedly followed behind.
A line of three people who do not need to burn incense time came to the edge of the water swamp. Fox Xia Xia revealed a nasty smile to Tuoba Xian and said: "Boy, you destroyed Populus euphratica forest. We adults did not bother with you; you single master, also personally to your treatment, this favor we do not care you can remember to repay. But now you still rely on us here; do not go; in the end, I am not interested in knowing. I'm not interested in knowing why, but if you want to stay here and continue to be the Ten Princes of Dinglinga, that's out of the question. No one must serve you; in the future, if you are hungry and thirsty, come here to find food and drink by yourself. Otherwise ... humph ..."
"What? You you you want to do?" Tuoba Xian is still quite afraid of this Fox Xiaxia inside, constantly feeling more cunning than the wild fox on the grassland. How fresh is it? Fox Xiaxia and the grassland fox are also considered the same root, and it is a living, hundreds of years old fox spirit that has changed. Can it not be better?
"Don't do it. You also know that we are not allowed to eat human flesh. Still, we can disassemble you and throw you to the grassland to feed the wolves or, in the middle of the night, strip you naked and throw you into the Populus euphratica forest to freeze to death, or be my medicine man to taste a hundred herbs and try a hundred needles. Then, I will take you, the experimental mouse, to the Zongcheng City and hand it over to General Ouyang. Don't forget, you, Dingling, and Zhongming are still at war! Your brother and Ouyang Zhong have an undying grudge. If General Ouyang catches you, I can't say what he'll do to you~"
"All this talk is just to let me die. What's the big deal? We Dingling's men are all wolves on the grassland and eagles in the sky, fearless! We are not like the Zhongming cowards who are afraid of death!" Ten-year-old Tuoba Xian turned his head away with a terse neck and spat.
"That's enough! That's enough!" Shan Xiaohu rushed over to be a peacemaker; he pulled Fox Xiaxia's hand away from Tuoba Xian's neck, then squatted down to look at this child flatly, "I didn't realize that you weren't too old, and you still have a backbone. Don't listen to my senior brother scaring you. We aren't very good at cooking, and we're afraid we won't be able to feed you. So we can only let you fend for yourself. Look at this water and swamp; there are a lot of birds and fish and quite a few aquatic fruits and seeds. It's your freedom whether you go back to your tribe or find another way out, but you really can't stay here with us anymore. If the people of nearby Zhongming Kingdom discover you, we cannot protect your safety either. After some more days, we will leave here to go south, and there will be even fewer people to care for you ..."
Tuoba Xian, who just now looked like a small man who was not afraid of the sky and the earth, unexpectedly whispered resignedly after listening to Shan Xiaohu's words, "But I want to be with you."
"Silly child, you have your own home. You should still go back." Shan Xiaohu gently rubbed Tuoba Xian's hair.
"I say, aren't you the 10th Prince of Dingling? At least you're a Dingling noble; why are you with us? Could it be that you're a spy?"
"I am not! I don't want to go back, either! With my brother gone, my father refuses to care about me even more, and the other brothers all want to get rid of me. What prince, I'm not as dignified as a horse or an enslaved person. I don't need you to take care of me. I can make my fire and cook. I can even catch fish. If you don't believe me, I'll catch it for you to see!" Tuoba Xian hurriedly took off his coat; his petite and skinny back already had a lot of scars from knife wounds, whip marks, and even burns; it was shocking to see Shan Xiaohu and Fox Xiaxia. I do not know what kind of suffering this child has experienced.
Tuoba Xian jumped into the water and swam with his bare arms, and he caught a big fish in a short while. He happily shouted, "Look! Look! I caught it!" It was rare to see the uninhibited smile belonging to a teenager on this villain's face. He threw the fish in his hand to the shore, then plunged into the water with a jerk.
Fox Xiaxia and Shan Xiaohu looked at each other and smiled. Letting this child unleash his nature could also cure his heart disease.
However, half a tea time passed; this underwater time was already too long for a mortal. Fox Xiaxia felt something needed to be fixed and called out Tuoba Xian's name a few times from the shore with no reply.
"Bad!" Fox Xiaxia hurriedly jumped into the water in search of Tuoba Xian. Fox Xiaxia, who had practiced in the water for a hundred years, was no longer afraid of the water, and he quickly found Tuoba Xian, who was entangled in his feet by the water plants with his extraordinary eyesight in the water. The Little Boy had gradually lost consciousness, but he still held something tightly in his hand and refused to let go. Fox Xiaxia pulled Tuoba Xian back to the shore and patted his back vigorously. Tuoba Xian spat out a mouthful of water and finally regained his senses.
"I said, what the hell is wrong with you? Didn't you say you can take care of yourself? How come you still almost drowned yourself?" Fox Xiaxia roared in exasperation.
"I saw something glowing underwater, so I thought I would pick it up and look, but then I didn't know what grabbed my feet and refused to let me go. I can't remember much after that." Tuoba Xian opened his palm, and surprisingly, it contained a few seeds.
These seeds were glowing with golden light; some were shaped like lotus seeds, some were shaped like tablets, and some were shaped like gorgonians, and the texture was like onyx as if it were crystal, warm, and translucent, and at a glance, it was not a mortal object. Shan Xiaohu and Fox Xiaxia, although born in the demon world and the immortal mountain cultivation, also have not seen such objects. Still, they intuitively think this is a treasure and will play a role. Fox Xiaxia casually stuffed these seeds into a small pocket inside her clothes. Then, I touched Tuoba Cheng's pulse; fortunately, there was no major obstacle, but the previous disease was not entirely well, and they choked the water and suffered a shock; this child can live until now and live a great life.
Shan Xiaohu picked up just from drowning in the danger of Tuoba Cheng and went to the quiet Lodge courtyard. Fox Xiaxia also remembered to bring the fish, ready to give this brat stew fish soup to drive away the cold. Fox Xiaxia's heart slander this oil bottle smashed hands.
A wave is not yet calm. A wave rises again. Suddenly, from the distance, a black cloud quickly moved towards the direction of the abandoned Beiwang City. Shan Xiaohu and Fox Xiaxia's eyesight is still beastly, so they see farther and more where the black cloud, but tens of millions of crows are densely packed, flying in pairs, to the north of Beiwang City and quickly occupy there. Immediately after, the earth began to vibrate regularly; Fox Xiaxia bent down on the ground to listen with her ears; it was the sound of thousands of horses marching. The million iron cavalry of the Dingling Clan's southward march had been delayed for a few months, but it was time for it to come.
Quiet Lodge is still a few miles away from Beiwang City, and the location is remote and hidden, away from the battlefield. Shan Xiaohu hurriedly hugged Tuoba Xian and flew towards the small courtyard. Before leaving, he and Fox Xiaxia had a look and understood. The matter is essential; Fox Xiaxia must immediately return to Zongcheng to report, or else the sacrifice of Fox Xiaoxian will be in vain.
Fox Xiaxia qi transportation dantian, adjusting the breath, and then focus on the spirit of fast running up. He did not bypass the north lookout from the forest road through the mountains, that is, to go around a lot; he wanted to buy their kung fu and run fast enough directly through the north lookout to the city to the vertical city, the fastest shortcut. However, he didn't expect that just after entering Beiwang City, he was startled by the scene in front of him.
When Beiwang City abandoned the city, almost everyone up and down the town was quickly evacuated, but not all were gone. Some of the old, weak, sick, and disabled can not go. Stay here; there is a way to return and run home again. So, Beiwang City is still full, and hundreds of people live here. In the past few months, because of the wall of fire and the fact that the Dzungar people did not make anymore big moves, these people living in the city let their guard down, thinking that they had escaped, and continued to live peacefully with each other. However, the lucky survival was only for a short time.
Just now, the crows of the great black covered the tops of the crows-occupied border town, and the people in the street room did not realize the danger of the approaching. The crow army is like the original night attack of the spider swarm as if it is a manipulation of the person. Quickly, in the street, courtyard, and even the room under the bed, they look for people's traces.
First, all the people were pecked unthinkingly by the crows, followed by the people quickly packed into a set of white bones by the crows that swooped in turn in a wail of terror. The speed was so fast that even Fox Xiaxia, who ran over, was stunned. Fox Xiaxia had been a beast and had a stage of obscurity and wildness; hunting for food was the nature of every animal; there was nothing to say, but what was in front of her was a massacre manipulated by sorcery and demonic magic.
Although Fox Xiaxia was on a mission to report to Zongcheng, he couldn't just sit back and watch. He drew out his saber and stabbed straight towards the crow flock. He had already decimated nearly a hundred crows in just a dozen rounds. The corpses of these crows quickly turned into a puff of black smoke as they fell to the ground. Sure enough, these weren't real crows but rather an evil spell set up by someone.
Fox Xiaxia remembered that Ouyang Zhong had mentioned to him that on the night of the full moon, countless crows had flown in at the birthday banquet of the ruler of Zhongming, pecking, blinding, and biting many of the princes and nobles who had been poisoned and court officials. At that time, Yu Sun only used spell manipulation, but Yu Sun roared dog Xuan Mo into the stomach with spell refining, and she was no longer in the world. Then where did these evil crows come from now?
He couldn't overthink. He could only keep waving the long sword in his hand while keeping his eyes and ears open to see if there were any survivors in this Beiwang City he could take with him out of the city. However, wherever Fox Xiaxia's eyes looked, either it was dilapidated or the blood flowed like pouring corpses everywhere, he found his brain for the first time. "Boom," and then there was a violent ringing in the ears to erode his mind, and then there was the heart of the chest like a giant stone. To get rid of this strange feeling, he continued to fight to kill crows while running through every corner of Beiwang City, looking for survivors until he was in a relatively remote corner and heard the faint cry of a baby.
He madly rushed to that place, hiding an abandoned earthen stove under a piece of broken rocks and tiles. On the stove, a young mother had died; behind her were countless peck marks, and she used her bosom to pounce on the stove's exit tightly. Inside was hidden a tiny baby that had just turned one month old.
Fox Xiaxia picked the child up correctly and checked that it was healthy except for some malnutrition. Approximately, this was the only survivor. His eyes suddenly reddened, and tears could not be suppressed. He hurriedly wrapped the child tightly in his clothes and protected him in front of his chest, using his 10% mana to make a protective shield for the child, and then he just ran towards Zongcheng recklessly and desperately.
When he left Beiwang City, Fox Xiaxia set a fire in it to give the dead superannuation, purify the demonic spirits with the blazing fire, and tell the Dingling Clan's army that was about to attack that they wouldn't want to get a single brick or tile of Beiwang City.
He kept running and running; he didn't dare to stop at all; the child was noisy and crying, he knew the child was hungry, but it was impossible to find food, so he bit his finger and let the baby suck on his blood to fulfill his hunger. It took Fox Xiaxia a day and a night to finally run to Zongcheng City; at this point, he was almost exhausted. By the time he found Ouyang Zhong, he couldn't even speak.
Fox Xiaxia's animalistic side was unabashedly displayed, learning the wolf's cry and howling loudly toward Beiwang City. After howling a few times, a mouthful of blood was spat out, and he fell to the ground and fainted. He was still holding the child tightly in his arms, and the baby cried loudly for himself, for his mother, and for the whole of Beiwang City.
Ouyang Zhong was thoughtful and intelligent. Besides him stood the tremendous general Wei Kongji, even though he didn't hear a single word. This scene resembles the one where Ouyang Zhong returns to report the news. Both of them immediately understood and knew that Beiwang City had been lost, and the enemy's iron cavalry would soon be arriving at Zongcheng, leaving them with little time left.
Several attendants obeyed the order to carry Fox Xiaxia to the room to rest. One of them wanted to carry the baby in his arms away, but no matter how, he could not break Fox Xiaxia's hand. The child did not have any struggle or discomfort in his arms; instead, he slept very sweetly. Ouyang Zhong looked at it; he gently patted Fox Xiaxia's hand and comforted, "It's okay; the child is already safe. Let go." At this moment, the Fox Xiaxia only finally, as a relief, is paralyzed down, and if it still does not have mana protection, it wants to change back to the original form of the fox.
Ouyang Zhong himself has been a young man since childhood. He has not been in charge of younger siblings, food, clothing, housing, and transportation, which Fox Xiaoxian and other attendants enslaved people to take care of. He will not hold the child, like lifting a stake, as if the children just fell asleep and were almost pinched to wake up. General Wei Kongji did not look like a sick war for many years, but at least the father could not stand to see hurriedly take over the child, coaxed a few times, all right before handing it over to other people to take care of. He also instructed his subordinates to find a few breastfeeding women to take the poor child with them.
People from Beiwang City fled to Zongcheng with the child, saw the child and the child's clothing embroidery, and immediately recognized the child's origin. It was the child of Zhang Xiucai's family in the city's west end, fleeing when his wife was about to go into labor and could not follow the army to march together, so he quietly hid. I did not expect that the young couple still could not escape from fate, but fortunately, the child was finally preserved.
The people who fled to Zongcheng City from the cities and counties in the northern states and counties gathered and looked at the child, and as the sky gradually darkened, the people lit up torches in silence for fear of frightening the baby. Some people began to sob uncontrollably, usually bleeding and sweating without tears. Masculine men at this time are not moved to tears. People lost their homes, relatives, townships, and friends. They hate the threat of foreign invasion, but they also resent the superiority of their own country; how can they so quickly abandon millions of people to save their own lives and interests?
How can they? Why?
Ouyang Zhong walked before everyone and said solemnly, "Everyone, as you can see, Beiwang City is gone. Fortunately, most of us are still here. As long as we are still alive, we can rebuild the second and third Beiwang City in the future. Right now, the top priority is how to keep the people who stayed in Zongcheng alive, and there is also the fact that the Dingling Iron Horsemen are about to move south, so we should renegotiate our defense strategy. This time, I don't want to be a coward. We can't run away anymore. If it's a death either way, I'm willing to protect my family and my country, willing to sacrifice my life for you all!" After the words, Ouyang Zhong knelt on one knee, clasped his hands, and saluted the military and people up and down Zongcheng City. The generals around him also knelt to promise the city's people that they would instead shed their last drop of blood to defend Zongcheng City and protect the people.