A cramped canyon more than 80 miles away from the newly established Lucaoyi in the Tang Dynasty, called the Shrimp Gully.
The cold wind on the northern plateau blew here as the terrain suddenly narrowed, and the sound of the wind ran like a tiger roar. During the blizzard, snowflakes did not seem to be dancing down in this canyon, but they seemed to be falling down, and they would make a sound when they fell on their clothes.
The mountains on both sides of the middle section of the canyon are undulating. In the dark night, there are fires flashing on several gentle slopes. If you enter from the southern end of the thorny groove and walk north, these fires can be seen sometimes and sometimes not.
If you enter from the north, you can clearly see that the fire is surrounded by countless ghostly trees. Those trees are huge cypresses, which may have grown for thousands of years before, but the several gentle slopes were formed by landslides, and the cypresses have died. The trees are everywhere, the branches are falling, and the thick branches are black and gray by the years, and are covered with many tiny moss and thorns, which are still dead even during the day.
In summer when there is a lot of rain, some mushrooms will grow on these cypress trees, but most of them are extremely poisonous and there are many people who die by accident.
People who went here gradually called these cypress trees dead cypresses, and felt that they were ominous and wanted to avoid them far away.
However, many special conditions ultimately made many caravans unable to refuse.
There is no shortage of firewood needed to keep heating and bury pots and make rice here. Within a radius of 200 miles, only suitable wood can be used to repair horse and camel carriages.
There are also some herbs for treating poisonous insect bites, which can only be found here.
There are many natural caves on the edge of the broken mountain caused by the landslide. If people are sent to garrison, you can transfer the goods here and pile up the hay needed by the horse team.
In the midst of ominousness and practicality, those who are foraging on this path choose to be practical.
Hu nobles who came from exile from the northwest, survivors of the northern tribes, believers from Persia, fugitives from the Tang Empire... all kinds of people came and went, turning this place into a supply land on the trade route between the Tang Dynasty and the northern countries.
On the map of the Tang Dynasty, this place is called Mingbaipo.
It was just at night that the road was completely unaware of the road in the thorny ditch. A group of seven or eight people stepped on the snow, and with the guidance of the fire, they arrived at Mingbaipo at this time.
These people were very cold. Although the terrain of Mingbaipo was unique, the strong wind seemed to be swallowed by the mountains on both sides and the cypress trees, they still couldn't stop swaying when they stopped.
"Oil tea!Oil tea!" Two people shouted hysterically at the inside of a large tent with a dome.
Neither of these two people looked good. When they were slamming, the flesh and blood in their bodies twisted like living creatures, and there was a sound of surging energy inside.
"Shut up! Do you understand the rules!"
"Brother Fifteen will be in Chunfeng Tower tonight. Don't implicate us if you want to die!"
However, hearing the low and angry shouts around, the two people who were so cold that they lost their minds instantly reacted, shrank up and entered the camp ahead, squatting down by the fire pit without saying a word.
There are only more than 40 places where people can be lived in Mingbaipo or used as warehouses, and now there are only half of them that can make fires and keep warm. As for these places or warehouses with permanent caravans, they are adapted to local conditions and used local materials, and the building shapes are not the same.
There are two places to provide food for outsiders in Mingbaipo. In addition to the large dome tents closest to the intersection, another better place is the Chunfeng Tower in their mouths.
Chunfeng Tower looks particularly wild in the snowstorm.
Its main body is the thickest cypress tree in Mingbaipo, but this cypress tree has been struck in half by lightning and has been burned in the middle.
The first person who used it as a residence found more than a dozen logs of different lengths to support it like a stilt house, then piled up the empty space with rocks and covered the top with fur. This kind of casual style made the building a crumbling monster from the beginning.
It was originally such a foundation, so the person who took over the company naturally repaired it more casually. Whenever the rain leaked, cut a piece of bark or covered it with cowhide. Whenever there was airflow, piled up some stones, and carried a bucket of mud and firewood into it. It swayed a little in the strong wind, so a few more wooden sticks were built.
Over the past decades, this building that is connected to the east and west has become more and more unruly, but at the same time it has become the strongest and most warmest place for Mingbaipo.
It was lifted up to a height. When the blizzard came, the remaining windows were blocked with wooden boards, leaving only two windows with light that was revealed outward.
Even though the two people who had shouted before finally waited for the hot oil tea, their bodies still couldn't help but tremble whenever they looked at Chunfeng Tower through the gap in the tent.
They always felt that the building in the night was like a huge demon, and the two windows were like the eyes of the demons who were always staring at them.
The place where Gu Liubai sat was next to a window.
There is a fire pit in front of him.
The strange building has a large space, and there are three fire pits in total. It is very warm, but there are fewer ventilation holes. Except for the location where he is, the smoke in the rest of the places is relatively pungent.
There were five or six people around the other two fire pits in the building. There were only two people beside the fire pit where Gu Liubai was located.
In addition to the woman in white, there is also a short and fat middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man's face is very round and very white, and he doesn't look like a traveler who has traveled a long distance.
Most of the time he looked smiling, even when the woman in white whispered about the Turkic things to him, his smiling expression did not change much.
But his eyes that fell on Gu Liubai and the rest of the people seemed to have a bit of malicious intention.
Especially when he calmed down and thought, his eyes would become particularly gloomy again.
When Gu Liubai turned around, he was always afraid that he would take the opportunity to stab him.
In Gu Liubai's eyes, this person was a lively smiling tiger.
The smiley tiger was wearing a black cotton robe. On the straw mat beside him was a neatly folded black cloak, and a black felt hat was placed in the middle of the cloak.
The black cloak and cotton robe had no dirt at all, it was very clean, and it looked like it had just been replaced. This neatness seemed incompatible with the surrounding environment, which was incredible.
In fact, after waiting for the smiley tiger in Mingbaipo, Gu Liubai took him and the woman in white to walk around Mingbaipo. Before sitting down to cook the fire, the man used the cotton cloth he carried with him to clean the dirt on his clothes, and even wiped his long boots and the straw mats he was sitting.
Still a smiling tiger with a clean obsession.
He didn't even introduce himself, but Xiaomenghu chatted with Gu Liubai without saying a word: "Brother 15, is your Chunfeng Tower worth a lot of lives in this ghost place?"
"It's so much, not so much." Gu Liubai also imitated him and kept laughing, "It's only about ten lives, and no one wants this building in recent years."
"It has become a villain in your hands. Brother Fifteen is very capable. If you don't enter your building, you don't know that there is such a good place for Mingbaipo." The smiley tiger was a little furious when Gu Liubai smiled, "But Brother Fifteen, then again, what kind of noble man is there in Lucaoyi? You haven't found out?"
Gu Liubai smiled hard, "I really didn't find out, I'm just sure I don't deal with the border army here, and the people I use are not from the border army there."
"The group of people who were shouting just now were dressed in tatters, but their martial arts skills were not low. I think those guerrillas and singles from the border army here are not their opponents." Xiaomenghu took a sip of the oil tea that Gu Liubai poured into his cup, and the strong fishy smell and bitter salty taste at his mouth still made him smile a little, "What are the ways for these people?"
Gu Liubai admired this smiling tiger a little.
This was because he deliberately added coarse salt to oil tea. He even bared his teeth and could still laugh.
Gu Liubai rubbed his cheeks sorely with a smile and explained: "They are all Qiang people. They help the big cannibals transport some fur on this route all year round. When there is no big cannibals' work, they also serve as guides and escorts."
"Does the fifteenth brother know so clearly?" The smiley tiger held the tea bowl, hesitated for a while but put it down.
"These people often rest in Mingbaipo, and it's not uncommon to know." Gu Liubai smiled modestly.
"I heard that the Qiang people here are all cruel people, and they have many lives under their command." The smiley tiger looked at Gu Liubai, "No wonder these people are so arrogant."
"Yes, they are so arrogant." Gu Liubai smiled sincerely this time.
At this moment, someone pushed the door in, and the fresh cold wind made him shrink his neck.
The one who came in was a tall man, in his twenties and thirties, wearing a sheepskin coat with narrow sleeves and large lapels, a belt around his waist, pants and leather boots on his feet.
The man has no characteristics in his appearance, but there are scars on his cheeks and neck, like they were left by a beast, and there was no right arm, and the right sleeve tube was tied directly into the belt around his waist.
"Fifteenth brother."
The man ignored the other two people by the fire pit, and went straight to Gu Liubai's side. He bent down and said a few words in Gu Liubai's ear, put two bulging wallets and a handful of copper coins next to Gu Liubai's tea bowl. Then he took an empty bowl, poured a bowl of oil tea himself, and drank it in two sips, turned around and went out.
The smiley tiger took another sip of oil tea without believing in evil, but found that it was indeed so bad. He grinned his teeth again, but his eyes stared at the wallet and a handful of copper coins, "What does this mean? Why don't you put it together if you take the money?"
"The two-money bag is the money that someone owed me last time." Gu Liubai tried hard to laugh, "That copper coin was filial to me by the Qiang people."
The smiley tiger was stunned: "Why should I respect you?"
Chapter completed!