Chapter 1 Anjing
The clouds and mountains are the same color, the wind and frost are cold, the vast northern plains, the sky and the earth are white.
Thousands of miles of snow is falling like the sky is falling, century-old pines are also crumbling, and layers of white frost are piled up, seeming to bend the backs of all living beings.
The river meanders and stretches endlessly, but when ice and frost freeze, it is like a silver dragon trapped in a cage, unable to stretch, and has to crawl under the rolling white mountains.
call--
The shrill wind comes from the far north, stirring up wind and clouds and beating at people.
A long wind swept across.
It swept over the distant mountains, abandoned towns, red snow battlefields and corpses... Finally, it enveloped a queue rushing on the ice field.
Accompanied by the thunderous sound of horse hooves, a group of riders escorted several carts at high speed.
The ice and snow are like knives, always cold and bright, but freezing to the bone. The trees on both sides of the river bank have been covered with ice crystals and stand tall.
The riders broke through the vast white snow, causing the ice crystals to tremble and fall, and broke into the quiet evening.
Their target is the big city on the mountain in front of them - Mingshan City in Northern Xinjiang.
Outside Mingshan City, there is a refugee camp.
Several skinny refugees gathered around a bonfire, looking longingly at the cauldron baking on the fire.
The water in the pot was close to boiling, releasing bursts of meaty aroma, causing people passing by to sniffle and reveal greedy eyes.
The refugees squatting by the campfire kept chatting about boring topics. They scolded someone when they saw someone approaching, and stood up if they dared to talk back.
Several people were holding sharp wooden spears, and their eyes were like evil wolves, glowing green. Most people avoided this place.
The soup is boiling and the meat is fragrant. They swallowed, their mouths drooled, their gazes and movements of fiddling with the bonfire became more and more eager.
But as the earth trembled, the dark shadows galloping in the distance got closer and closer.
When these extremely hungry people raised their heads, the iron-clad horses' hooves had trampled the crude wooden fence, jumped over the crude shack, and came to them.
The refugees screamed and moved away, but not the pot. The horse's hooves stamped down, extinguishing the fire, overturning the pot and causing a splash of water.
A pot of delicious broth was rolled aside and spread all over the floor.
A piece of meat fell out of the pot. It was already soft and rotten. It could only be seen from the size of the bones that it was a strip of rice meat.
Then he was trampled into pulp by the subsequent horseshoes.
Rumble, rumble...
In the shack not far away, a young man with a thin body but a very strong frame, like a skinny tiger, had his ears pricked up.
He was originally concentrating on an earthen pot on a simple stove. Some simple herbs were scattered beside it. The concoction boiled in the earthen pot exuded a bitter taste.
After hearing the sound of horse hooves, he stood up slowly and looked in the direction of the sound.
The young man's hair was disheveled, and he had a knife hanging on his waist. His thin flesh and bones were close to his tall bones. Even though he looked like a skeleton, he still had a rugged spirit.
His eyes were extremely bright, his breathing was long, and his fists were clenched and covered with tiny scars.
An Jing watched the convoy of riders breaking into the refugee camp intently.
Those horses are all tall and handsome northwest war horses, with long necks, well-developed legs, and powerful chest muscles and iron hooves that are enough to crush any obstacle that dares to stand in front of them.
They stepped into the center of the refugee camp. The riders dismounted and began to carry the materials from the vehicles to form a simple camp.
"Jinger, cough, what are you looking at?"
A woman's voice came from behind An Jing.
"mother."
An Jing turned around and looked at his mother.
She was a tall, elegant woman. It is difficult to find a person who is not thin and decadent in this frost-ravaged northern Xinjiang. Although she is thin, her eyes are full of energy. However, this spirited woman could only lie on the blanket, panting and coughing even if she could say a word.
She wasn't always this weak. Five days ago, while escaping from the wasteland to Mingshan City, the refugee team encountered raging horse bandits. An Shen killed seven gangsters, but in the final fight with the bandit leader, he lost a move and was injured in the lungs by a palm. pulse.
Fortunately, An Jing defeated his opponent and then stepped forward with all his strength, threw him down, choked the leader of the thief, and then snatched his knife and killed him with a knife, scaring away the group of horse bandits.
But An's mother was still seriously injured after all. Now her internal energy is disturbed and her breathing is not smooth. She doesn't know how many days she can survive in this homeless camp with no medicine or food.
"I'm going to see if I can get some food."
An Jing turned his head and looked at the motorcade. He licked his lips subconsciously. His cold and dry lips were not moistened by the saliva. Instead, they cracked and bleeded because of the words.
He licked off the blood and said in a very slow but determined tone: "There is food in the convoy. It's rice."
"And maybe some medicine."
"Mom can't survive..." Mrs. An Shen's eyes were filled with sadness. She knew that this was because her son was trying to find a way to save himself.
But her family knew about her family affairs, and she knew very well that if there was no medicine to heal the lungs and straighten the Qi pulse, she would be able to survive for three days at most.
In this frost-ridden, cold-stricken, and endless war-torn northern Xinjiang, even if there are kind-hearted people providing disaster relief, there will be no such good medicine.
She didn't want her child to work in vain and waste time, and hoped that the other person could stay with her for a while longer in the last days.
But An Jing had his own ideas since he was a child. He saw what his mother meant, so he interrupted first and picked up a bowl: "Mom, drink this bowl of medicine first."
"The concoction made from chopped white grass and boiled old gas roots is simple, but it can replenish the blood and smooth out the breath."
An Shen took the bowl from An Jing's hand and drank it all in one gulp. Although it was bitter, the hot concoction made people feel a little energetic.
But when she put down the bowl, An Jing had already taken steps towards the direction of the motorcade.
An Jing is not an ordinary northern Xinjiang boy.
Since childhood, he has often had strange dreams.
He dreamed of many high-rise buildings, spread like trees, made of steel and concrete, each of which was taller than all the houses in the county combined.
I also dreamed of some iron birds called airplanes, flying straight to the top of the clouds and spanning the sky in all directions, faster than all the birds in the mountains put together.
Or some extremely terrifying bomb that explodes like the sun.
Thousands of such suns shine across the earth, almost burning the entire world.
Dachen pays attention to destiny, and there is a saying that stars descend to the earth from time to time. Awakening a part of Su Hui, Anjing has performed extremely well since he was a child, and is naturally regarded by his family as a star descending to earth. They gave Anjing the best education, both civil and military.
No matter how strong a mortal's wisdom and strength are, he can't stop the majestic frost disaster that swept across the entire northern border, and the Northern Barbarian army that gathered to move south.
As a child and teenager, Anjing still couldn't do many things, and his mother's injury was the result of his inability to do so.
But it all depends on man.
Even if there is only a slight possibility, An Jing will fight for it and cure his mother.
At this moment, as he approached the rider's camp, he heard a breathy announcement.
"Listen!"
Among a group of riders riding tall horses, there was a brightly dressed one-eyed rider who was leading the group and was shouting.
Beside him, the other riders were all wearing swords and armor, with solemn expressions, and looked around with indifferent eyes at all the refugees who did not dare to approach.
The one-eyed rider said loudly: "My master is so compassionate that he can't bear to see you and other victims waiting to die outside the city. Now he is paying for his life as my servant!"
"As long as children and teenagers are under the age of fourteen, it's best. If they meet the qualifications, they can be under the age of sixteen!"
"If you meet the requirements, each person is worth a dou of rice!"
(End of chapter)