As an outsider who had just arrived here, the short Bilbo could only stand in the muddy and with a down-and-out dwarf on his body, watching anxiously as the human townsmen standing in a group of people making waves of talk like a buzzing swarm.

To be honest, Bilbo was almost frightened by the crowd's various performances.

Can you imagine this situation? When you are a small, short Hobbit like Bilbo, there are only a dozen unarmed dwarves around you.

As for the surroundings, there were a large area of ​​tall humans who could not squeeze into the square in the middle of the lake. These people rushed over and held dazzling torches in their hands. Their eyes were filled with suspicion of the dwarfs of outsiders, and some were filled with the desire to believe in the foreseeable legend of wealth...

What made Bilbo, whose vision in the past few decades was only focused on the one-acre three-point land in Charles, was the number of people who flocked to the skyrocketing crowds.

The huge square is now filled with people holding torches! Even though the square could not be filled with more people coming to watch, countless townspeople still came to join in the fun from the lake with boats.

Being watched by such a large number of people at once, Bilbo, who was one of the onlookers, was really frightened. He could swear to the dwarf ancestors of Thorin, who were often spoken by dwarves such as Thorin, that he had never talked about so many big humans at once in his life!

It was in such an uneasy environment that Bill Beau was worried that no one in the crowd would lead the lead, and the song was sung by a distant legend about Thorin, his grandfather, father and other ancestors who would return to Gushan and drive away the evil dragon to rebuild Gushan Kingdom. The townspeople could also use this to share countless wealth.

If the dwarfs were not carefully listened to the content of the legendary ballads that seemed a fantasy, the dwarfs might be moved by the bellow and kindness of the human townspeople. But if they were in such a strange situation where they were to confront and argue with the elves boatmen, even the protagonist of the legendary ballads was very uninterested.

Why should the hellish songs, the wealth of the dwarf kingdom be shared with these stingy townspeople for no reason? Is it just their wishful desire? Although Thorin thought so, he did not dare to express it at all.

As the leader of the expedition, he still maintained enough rationality. The situation of their group is very bad at this moment. At least for now, their fate will be determined by the attitude of the human townspeople!

In addition to the singing of the townspeople, the noise echoed over the entire square was mixed with some sounds of musical instruments.

In fact, not only Bilbo has never seen such a lively scene, but also many elderly people in the crowd have seen such a lively crowd rush to attend a rally for the first time in their lives.

Seeing people's increasingly fanatical eyes, the elf boatmen who thought this was not a big deal were also shocked. They realized that something was wrong in the town even secretly gave up in their hearts.

As for the mayor who was concerned about stabilizing his power and status, he quickly convinced himself to adapt to the expectations of the fanatical townspeople and announced their acceptance of the dwarves.

Facing the sudden reversal of the townsmen who met, the townsmen who were led by the mayor, smiled at themselves and others and expressed their welcome. At this moment, the dwarves, who were so tired that they could not think about the reason, could only accept it happily.

Soon, all the members of the expedition, including Bilbo, were welcomed into the lobby of the town by the enthusiastic townsmen and joined the carnival.

Under the arrangement of the smart mayor, the group of outsiders who accidentally entered the place received the best treatment and rest conditions - in the spacious and large room, several townsmen who had a little knowledge of medicine helped the dwarves clean up the trauma caused by the hard escape journey in the past few days.

Although some doubts about why the townspeople are so enthusiastic about them, Bilbo is still surprised by people's strange performance every day: people may really like the arrival of dwarves. They treat dwarves appearing in the town as if they have seen some great savior. As long as Solin and others take to the streets, passers-by will immediately cheer them warmly.

Within a week, the entire expedition team returned to their former majestic posture under the careful care of the people. The dwarves wore bright clothes provided by the townsmen, revealing pride in their progress.

After being greeted by the enthusiastic people of the townspeople, Thorin was obviously full of confidence, and it looked like the great cause of reviving the dwarf Lone Mountain Kingdom was easily accomplished.

.....

When the last wounded among the team members recovered completely, Solin, the leader of the team, began to consider leaving the town.

The great enthusiasm of the townspeople for the dwarves due to legends did not affect the calm leader's judgment. Soon, Solin took the initiative to inform the mayor and other famous managers staying in the town that their group were about to set off for the expedition to Gushan again.

There is no doubt that the mayor who had long been dissatisfied with the dwarves and the group of dwarves in the town agreed to Thorin's resignation as soon as possible. He was greedy for money and did not like this group of outsiders who seemed to not bring any benefits to him from the beginning...

The dwarves left on their own initiative, which was a troublesome thing for him!

Even though he was reluctant to leave quickly, the mayor still pretended to be a false appearance of keeping him to his heart's content. "Of course, Thorin, the descendant of the great dwarf queen! I believe you will make the legend true, and I believe that you will treat us happily after you regain your kingdom."

One day in late autumn, accompanied by cold wind and fallen leaves, three large ships left Changhu Town, with dwarves, Mr. Baggins and the boatmen, and the rest of the space was filled with supplies.

The mayor, with his enthusiastic townsmen, said goodbye to everyone from the long bridge leading to the lake, and people sang and bid farewell to everyone on the streets and windows.

The white oars were rowing, and everyone headed north along the lake and embarked on the last stage of the adventure. In this jubilant moment, the only one who was depressed from beginning to end was Bilbo.

.....

Within two days, everyone drew out the Changhu Lake and came to the Benliu River. At this time, they could already see the lonely mountain standing in front of them, with the water flowing very strongly and the speed of everyone was quite slow.

When the third day was about to end, everyone was docking on the west side of the river and prepared to continue their trip. The horses also brought the necessary supplies to meet everyone here.

Solin could only do his best to pack the supplies and hand them over to Xiaoma to transport them. The other excess supplies were set up in a tent to store them carefully. In such a place close to Gushan, the humans in the town were unwilling to stay for a long time.

"We dare not stay here until you defeat the evil dragon and realize the legend! Everyone, we can only send you here." With fear of the evil dragon, the boatmen immediately announced the news that they were about to return and leave.

No matter how the dwarves persuaded and explained, or Bilbo personally begged, these boatmen who were determined to return were unwavering in their ideas.

Seeing that the persuasion of his group was useless, the dwarves could only wave helplessly to say goodbye to the boatmen. As for the supplies given by the townsmen, they were all handed over to a special pack horse on their backs.

That night, the dwarves spent the most depressing night since leaving Changhu Town. The townsmen left resolutely, which woke everyone up with a wake-up call with the facts.

The dwarves who woke up from the cheers and celebrations of the townspeople for several days then faced the cruel reality before them again - in the next journey, only a dozen dwarves and a hobbit walked on.

Their opponent was Smago, the evil dragon who defeated the kingdom of Gushan, a single dragon. If Gushan, which has a complex terrain and a harsh climate, would be even more worrying when the road ahead in front of everyone...

The next day, everyone set out again. Soon the tiring itinerary put the team in a deeper atmosphere.

No one was willing to waste his energy talking rashly or do any extra moves along the way.

The laughter and joy floating among the people more than ten days ago seemed so dreamy and unreal in this harsh environment.

Everyone began to search for the legendary secret gate in the west of Gushan. Solin sent people to reconnaissance the south of the main gate. He chose Bahrain, Chili and Feli, and of course the agile Hobbit thieves. Everyone walked all the way under the gray and silent bird hills, and the running river circled there, crossed the river town, and continued to flow towards Changhu.

"This is the ruins of the valley town in the valley," Bahrain said. "When the alarm bell rang, it was a piece of green all over the mountains and the town was very prosperous." When he described all this, he looked very sad and looked solemn. He and Thorin witnessed the tragedy of the arrival of the evil dragon.

Everyone did not dare to continue walking along the river towards the gate, but soon they reached the edge of the southern mountains. Finally, the group hid behind the rocks and could clearly see many ugly-looking black birds soaring and whispering at the entrance of the cave between the two branches.

"Maybe we should look back and look for something else!" Only the elderly old dwarf Bahrain heard the topic provoking the topic: "Those black birds give me a strange feeling of ignorance."

"Did you see that black smoke? Perhaps that is the proof that the evil dragon Smaug lives in the lonely mountain." said the Hobbit.

"I can't tell you this," Bahrain continued, "Maybe you are right. My intuition tells me that the hateful beast might have left for the time being, or hiding by the mountain to peek. Anyway, no matter what you say, the black smoke and steam behind the door cannot be faked. Maybe something is happening behind the door that we don't know is unknown."

....

Since inquiring about Thorin and Bahrain’s discussion on black smoke behind the door, the already taciturn dwarves have become increasingly silent.

The Dwarves still had to face a serious key problem: how could these dozen people defeat the evil dragon that occupied the dwarves' kingdom of the dwarves?

No matter how proud and ambitious Thorin inspired everyone before setting off, the fierce record of the evil dragon Smago more than a hundred years ago stood naked in front of everyone's eyes, and his heart and mind could not be dissipated for a long time.

You should know that Smaugo is a legendary dragon that broke through the entire dwarf kingdom and occupied the capital with one dragon. The number of the Gushan Expedition Team was only more than ten, but it was far from the dwarf army that lost to Smaugo back then, both in terms of numbers and quality.

Before responding to Thorin's call, these dwarves were just ordinary blacksmiths, cooks, toys, department stores, farmers, etc. in various non-combat livelihood industries. They were the only professional soldiers who had been through the battlefield for a long time, and they were also the elderly old officer Bahrain!

Look, it is such a team that is not even a miscellaneous army in the eyes of many nobles. It is the only army that Solin can rely on this time.

Perhaps it was because of the low morale that affected everyone's judgment ability, and the exploration mission for several days did not make any progress.

After exploring several directions in all directions, Solin could only get nothing from everyone's mouth.

Just as everyone was gradually despairing, the Secret Gate took off its mysterious veil from everyone due to an accident.

Filey, Chili and Bilbo came back from the valley one day and tried to cross a pile of gravel in the south; at noon, Bilbo was discovering a simple ladder up while walking around a giant rock that looked like a lone pillar.

He and the dwarves walked up excitedly and found traces of a narrow path again; due to disrepair, everyone searched for stops and stopped along the way, and finally came to the edge of the southern branch and turned to another narrower ridge. Everyone looked down and found themselves at the top of the cliff at the entrance of the valley, just looking down at their camp.

Everyone carefully leaned against the mountain wall on the right, doing their best to prevent it from falling down. Finally, they walked to the end of the mountain wall, and then they found a silent valley full of grass.

Since the entrance to this valley is high above, it is completely invisible from the bottom - and this also makes everyone understand why they did not see this mysterious place when they were at the bottom of the mountain.

This is not a cave, it is an open-air space, but on the other side of it is a mountain wall, which looks very flat and smooth near the ground. At first glance, it is made by skilled craftsmen who specially designed and transformed according to natural geographical conditions.

Bilbo was amazed that there were no door posts, keyholes, or traces of handles around the mountain wall, but everyone was sure that they finally found the entrance this time.

Solin led everyone to knock on the mountain wall, push and pull, trying to make it move, chanting the fragments of the door opening mantra; nothing changed.

Finally, everyone who was exhausted could only sit on the grass in dejected manner.
Chapter completed!