Nine 2
Chaos, still chaos.
After an unknown amount of time, the heavy rain stopped for a while. Liu Qingye felt hot all over, but he could vaguely feel something rough against his back. In the dimness, he didn't know what it was, and he seemed to be no longer on the horse. He tried to struggle back on the horse, but in the darkness, he didn't even know where General Hei was. He was so exhausted that he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Liu Qingye didn't know when he woke up, let alone where he was - he saw lush bushes and jagged rocks all around him, as if he was in a valley. He tried hard to recall his wild run the night before, but he had no memory of it at all.
"You bastard..." He heard Moller grinning beside him, "You almost killed me!"
Only then did he see Moller, leaning on the rock beside him. Perhaps he had dozed off, as his eyes were bloodshot.
"Where are we now?" Liu Qingye asked.
"How dare you ask me?" Moler said, "You ran like crazy all the way, and I was only focused on catching up with you. How could I know where we were? We ran all night, and judging by the distance we walked, this should be the Chele Valley to the north of Alebu."
"Chelegou?" Liu Qingye knew this place, it was the most creepy place on the grassland. When he and his master came to the desert, they passed by the vicinity of Chelegou. He remembered that the golden poplar forest on the roadside extended all the way to the desert in the distance, but the dead trees were lying beside his feet, the red willows grew wildly, like a sea of fire, and the horse tongue suddenly jumped out, which scared people... There were also some broken walls and ruins from who knows what era, lying in a mess, like a pile of graves.
"Yes, we must have reached Chelegou," said Moller, "but we were in the gully. You were riding a horse and didn't rein in when you saw the cliff. Fortunately, you rolled all the way down and didn't die. I was miserable. I had to slowly climb down to find you."
As soon as Moller said that, Liu Qingye felt the burning pain all over his body. It turned out that he had rolled down from above and was scratched by stones and bushes. He looked at Moller again. His clothes were tattered and there was no intact skin on his hands. He suddenly felt guilty.
Moller saw his expression, grinned and said, "We are good brothers, don't say anything - you were injured while trying to save everyone, you are so sick that you are confused, I won't bother with you no matter what you do - hey, you were still shouting yesterday that you were going to kill Fu Cha Tao."
After Moler mentioned this, Liu Qingye's troubled mind came back to haunt him - he was the one who made a big mistake, and his master must be extremely disappointed in him. However, at night, he had a high fever and was confused, thinking about killing Fu Chatao and Li Yunsheng to atone for his crime. At this time, his mind was clear and he knew very well in his heart: these two people must not be killed. Even Moler knew that they saved the whole family and were everyone's benefactors. How could I not distinguish right from wrong, and gratitude from grudges? The one who had a grudge against me, the Han people, was the Tartar court, and the one who killed my parents was Fu Chakang, and it had nothing to do with others.
Moller was unaware of his complicated feelings. He just glanced at the sky and said, "It's already this late, let's quickly climb up and go back to the village." As he spoke, he came up to support Liu Qingye, and the two of them held onto the bushes, climbed up the rocks, and slowly climbed out of the ditch.
The Chele Valley is in the shape of a Chinese character "人". At night, the two climbed down from the left side of the character "人". The mountain on that side was steep. They were both covered in wounds and had been tormented by heavy rain all night. They were too weak to climb, so they chose to climb the ridge in the middle of the left and right sides of the character "人". This ridge was lower than the ground on both sides, with a gentle terrain, but it was a long way around. The two climbed up the mountain with their hands and feet, and at noon, they were slightly close to the top of the mountain.
Moller saw that Liu Qingye's face was pale and his clothes were soaked with blood. He knew that his wound had split again, so he said, "Liu Qingye, let me carry you!"
Liu Qingye was adamant about not wanting to go, but Moller didn't argue with him. He came up and carried him on his back without giving him any more time to talk. He said as they walked, "It's only a few steps to the top of the mountain anyway."
Although Liu Qingye felt guilty, he knew that arguing was useless, so he let him carry him on his back and quietly adjusted his internal breath. After walking up a distance, he saw that the surroundings suddenly became flat, as if he had reached the top of a mountain.
Moler refused to let him go, saying, "Since we are here, let's go a little further and find our horses first." He continued walking forward. However, as they walked, the terrain suddenly became undulating and had a tendency to descend. The two of them were unaware at first, and after walking half a mile, they realized that they were already on the "na" side of the human-shaped Chelegou - it turned out that the top of the mountain was just a pass.
It was noon and the sun was blazing. Moller was sweating all over and had no strength to turn back. He had to sit down with Liu Qingye to rest and picked some sea buckthorn to satisfy his hunger.
Liu Qingye gazed into the distance and saw a hillside of red willows and small flowers dotted between them, shining brightly in the sun - the people on the grassland and the Gobi Desert, and the red eagles, were just like these red willows, with beautiful branches and bright flowers, but they had to endure the scorching sun and sandstorms, as well as the trampling of the Dzungar people - if they could take these beautiful red willows to the sunny and windy Jiangnan, how luxuriant would they be?
When he went to Jiangnan, he thought of that dream again.
"On the vast grassland, on the horse, the rouge on the horse's back is more beautiful than flowers..." Moller sang at the top of his voice facing the sun.
The song of Rouge Horse! Liu Qingye turned his head to look at his brother - he was still singing. He was singing when they first met. At that time, he was still in love with Dan Ying and had no worries. But today, Dan Ying was robbed of his love by me, and his tribe was massacred by the Junggars, but he was still singing. Isn't he just like this red willow, with a tenacious sprouting nature, growing in the desert without giving up an inch of land? Is Dan Ying the same? Jiangnan, maybe they were never suitable for Jiangnan?
"…Flowers reflect the moon, the moon shines on the sand, and the singing in the sand reminds me of my home…"
Liu Qingye was still enjoying Moller's singing, but Moller suddenly stopped - on the hillside not far from them, the bushes were pushed aside with a rustling sound, and someone was climbing out of the ditch.
Both of them were startled and quickly fell down behind the bushes without moving.
The red willows at the foot of the hillside rustled for a while, and the people coming up from the ravine gradually appeared from afar. They were actually four Junggar soldiers. They had obviously heard Moler's singing and came here. At this time, Moler and Liu Qingye were nowhere to be seen. The four of them were waving their long swords and hacking in the bushes.
Liu Qingye and Moller looked at each other, and Moller pulled out a dagger from his boot. Liu Qingye held him down with his hand, shook his head, grabbed a handful of stones from his side, and threw them at the Junggar soldiers.
As he was seriously injured, his strength was not as strong as before, but his accuracy when throwing stones was not bad at all. "Chichichichi", the Lianquan acupoints on the neck of the four Junggars were hit by the stones.
Although this did not take the lives of the four people, it gave them a great shock. They screamed and did not dare to move forward easily.
Moller whispered to Liu Qingye, "Your idea is really good, but I don't know how many Junggars there are here. If they come to help us, we will be in trouble."
Liu Qingye nodded and replied, "We must kill them." As he spoke, he threw a handful of stones to his right, which hit the red willow bushes with a "chi chi chi" sound.
The four Junggar soldiers chattered a few words and rushed towards the place where the stone fell.
They had only taken a few steps when Liu Qingye threw another handful of stones to his left, and then threw another handful forward and backward. The Junggar soldiers saw that there were ambushes everywhere, looked at each other, discussed for a few words, and then searched separately.
Moler and Liu Qingye held their breath and lay still. When a Junggar soldier came to them, Moler suddenly attacked, jumped up and dragged the man into the bushes. The man didn't even make a sound before Moler killed him with a knife.
Moller handed the man's long sword to Liu Qingye, took off the bow and arrow and took it himself, aiming at the enemy in front.
Liu Qingye held the sword and crawled towards the enemy on his right. The man was slashing at the red willow bushes while cursing, not knowing that Liu Qingye was behind him. Liu Qingye lay on the ground and slashed him from bottom to top, finishing him off. At the same time, Moler fired two arrows in succession, and the whizzing sound stopped, and the other two Junggars also died.
The two did not dare to neglect it. Liu Qingye said, "Let's go and take a look." He and Moler stripped the Junggar soldiers of their clothes and walked towards the valley.
Before they had walked a few steps, several more Junggar soldiers came towards them, shouting in Mongolian. Liu Qingye and Moler didn't understand, and thought that these people had heard the noise and came to see what was going on, so they pointed randomly at the ridge. One of them, who looked like a leader, danced for a while, probably meaning "Let's split up and take a look." The others agreed in a gibberish, and Liu Qingye and Moler nodded, and walked in the opposite direction of them.
Moler said that there was a village of Kyakhta nearby, and perhaps the Dzungars were going there to massacre. The two did not dare to stop for a moment, and ran towards the valley, preparing to think of a way to deal with these bandits after going down. Soon, the two ran to a small cliff near the valley.
They leaned over the rocks and looked, and were shocked to see that in the valley, there were Junggar camps one after another, and sentinels were standing every ten feet on the hillside. It was clearly a large military camp, not a group of guerrillas setting fire and looting as they had suspected.
