In the past, the entire Jiaozhi region, including Wangnan, was actually under the jurisdiction of the Central Plains Central Plains imperial court set up counties or other institutions here. However, all this became a thing of the past after we lost the war and signed a treaty with the foreigners. Jiaozhi is now a foreign land to the people of Kyushu. Therefore, Yin Xiu and Ma Xiaoyu had never thought that Wangnan was an important military town rather than an ordinary township. From afar, what appeared before them was not rows of high and low houses, pedestrians and carriages coming in and out, but tall city walls with mottled marks and tightly closed city gates. When he got closer, Yin Xiucai discovered that the spots on the city wall were actually patches. It is probably because when the French attacked here, the shells they fired made many holes on it, thus leaving these traces. The city walls are certainly indestructible, but the hard-hearted human heart appears very fragile in the face of artillery shells. Sometimes, even if you hide behind the city wall and listen to the sound of artillery fire, the original firm will to resist often dissipates before the city wall collapses. Yin Xiu only found out later that the Fa people set up cannons and fired two rounds at the city wall of Wangnan, which only knocked off some of the wall. Then this important military town, which was highly expected, opened its gates and surrendered.

Before Yin Xiu and Ma Xiaoyu reached the city gate, they had already noticed someone hiding behind the battlements watching them, but who had no intention of showing up. Just when Yin Xiu was about to knock on the door himself, a soldier dressed in very old clothes and with a gray beard poked his head out. He looked at them mysteriously for a long time, as if he wanted to see something from them. After finding nothing unusual, he shouted to Yin Xiu and the others, "Hey, no one is allowed in today, let's go!" "Where do you want us to go?" Yoon Soo shouted. "where to?" The old soldier touched his nose and said, "It doesn't matter where you go, just don't come in. We don't welcome outsiders here." "Well?" Yin Xiu frowned, "I heard that the people of Jiaozhi are the most hospitable, aren't they?" "You heard it wrong. Even if it was, it was in the past." The old soldier whispered, "Or maybe it happened last week." Seeing that Yin Xiu and Ma Xiaoyu were still motionless and had no intention of leaving, he urged them, "Let's go quickly. Go around this town and there is another town 20 miles south." "But……" Yin Xiu had a bitter look on his face and looked very helpless and anxious. "But what?" The old soldier was very curious. "But……" Yin Xiu stretched out her hand and gently placed it on Ma Xiaoyu's belly, "My dear, you are already more than three months pregnant." Ma Xiaoyu was stunned at first, her eyes widened, then her eyes narrowed slightly, the corners of her mouth trembled, and finally, with shyness, she lowered her head to look at the old soldier, and put her hand on Yin Xiu's lower back. "Oh, my husband..." Yin Xiu immediately straightened his back and his eyes turned slightly red.

"Accidents are all accidents." "Even so..." The veteran pondered. In the end, I didn't see any unstable factors in Yin Xiu and Ma Xiaoyu. What danger could there be for a young couple, one of whom was a delicate woman who was pregnant? And seeing that Yin Xiu's eyes were red, the old soldier knew that men don't shed tears easily, so he finally sighed. "Wait a minute, I'll come down and open the door for you." The old soldier muttered to himself and walked slowly down the city wall. Originally, this city gate should be able to be opened from the top. Two soldiers, each holding one side of the iron chain, hung it on the capstan, and pushed it at the same time to open the city gate. But at this time, the people in the town were in panic, and those who could run ran away, so much so that even the soldiers deserted and disappeared. Only the old soldier still went to work as usual, because this was his job to support his two grandchildren. Although the salary is not much, it is paid in full throughout the year, and a basket of pork is given during the holidays. This is the best treatment. Precisely because he is lonely, he cannot bear to see others suffer. There aren't many people in the town anyway, so what's the harm if one or two more people come out? He slowly moved away the debris that was blocking the door, and then finally opened it. "Come in." The old soldier waved his hand, obviously not taking Yin Xiu and the others seriously. Yin Xiu certainly liked this ordinary feeling. He nodded and said, "Thank you." He held Ma Xiaoyu's reins and walked slowly in with the two camels and horses. "There's nothing we can do about it." Yin Xiu still felt some pain in his lower back. "If I didn't say that, he wouldn't let us in." "Use Qinggong!" Ma Xiaoyu rolled her eyes at him and said, "He's alone. Are you afraid that he will beat you down?" "So if we run into someone after we get in, do we have to use Qinggong? And these two animals don't know Qinggong." Yin Xiu grinned and said, "If we go in now, we will be just tourists in the eyes of others. If we really use force, I'm afraid it will cause another big riot." Although Ma Xiaoyu knew that Yin Xiu's consideration made sense, there was still a frosty look on her face. Yin Xiu suddenly leaned close to her ear and said, "If, I mean if, something really happens to someone, then..." "There won't be any." Ma Xiaoyu knew what he wanted to say. "Let's not talk about whether I will ask you to give me a chance to get into an accident, but there is a chance."

Ma Xiaoyu glanced at him and said, "I will also use my internal energy to force out what you gave me." Yin Xiu helplessly spread his hands, "Then I definitely don't want you to encounter an accident." "You better be." The old soldier heard what the two were talking about. He thought they had just encountered something scary on the road, so he comforted them, "Don't worry, there won't be so many accidents. You'll be safe once you get here..." After a pause, he swallowed the second half of his sentence—this town is not safe at the moment. I don’t know if letting this couple into the city would harm them. But everyone has his own destiny, right? The old soldier shook his head and was about to go back to the city wall when Ma Xiaoyu stopped him. "Old man, I wonder if you have seen this person?" "No." The old soldier didn't even turn his head. "He was with someone who looked like a fortune teller." "It's my first day on duty, I've just started my shift, and I've never seen him before." The old soldier had already stepped onto the steps. Stupid! Yin Xiu blew a silver coin. The loud and clear sound immediately attracted the old soldier. He still didn't turn around. "Whether I know you or not, if I turn around, you have to give me this silver dollar." "Two, if you can recognize them." Yin Xiu smiled and handed over the piece of paper with only Ren Qi's portrait on it. The old soldier took the paper, squinted his eyes to look at it, and then widened his eyes randomly. "Does this man carry several swords?" "Do you know him?" Yin Xiu searched in his pocket and stuffed all the coins into the old soldier's hand without even looking at how many coins he had. "Of course I do." The old soldier was not polite and hid several silver dollars on his body, smacking his lips as he thought about it. "That is a truly terrifying fellow. To be honest, I have been guarding this city gate for twenty years and have never seen such a terrifying person. He didn't mean to scare you or kill you, he just walked like that. However, there was a murderous aura about him that could not be concealed; even when he was just walking and doing nothing, you could feel that he was an extremely dangerous person. It was as if he had just robbed a house, killed a whole family, and then drank a cup of tea among the corpses, as if nothing had happened, and then walked out slowly. That guy made my back shiver." Yin Xiu nodded. From this point he knew that the old soldier was not making up stories. Only someone who had met Ren Qi could describe his first impression of him so accurately. Moreover, this old man seemed to have some kind of inspiration, so that compared to ordinary people, he could sense more emotions and temperament from Ren Qi.

But this is nothing to be proud of, because there are always many smart people in the world, but how many of them can really stand out? Most extraordinary people are just buried and live a mediocre life. "In addition to this scary swordsman, there are two other people following him. One is the fortune teller you mentioned. He is wearing sunglasses, a jacket, and a white cloth bag on his back, right?" Seeing Yin Xiu nod, the old soldier continued speaking. "There is another one, a monk." Everything matched up. Just as Qiu Xiaosi said, the monks sent by the Great Monk from Southern Xinjiang were the ones who took Ren Qi and Liu Banxian away from the teahouse and went to the Thousand Buddha Temple with them. "The three of them stayed in this town for one night, and the next day they changed horses and left the city, seemingly in a hurry." "Did you discover anything else besides their whereabouts?" "Anything else?" The old soldier frowned. "Yeah, anything is fine." Yin Xiu gave him an encouraging look, "I know that you always remember everything clearly and observe everything very carefully. Whether it's a hole in a piece of clothing or dirt on a shoe, nothing escapes your eyes, right? From childhood to adulthood, from adolescence to now, since the time you realized that you are different from others, in the past few decades you have often been proud of this ability, but many times you have forgotten it. It's just that skill is something that you don't need to remember. You can do it when you remember it. It's just an instinct. When you see a person or something, your instinct is aroused, as natural as breathing. So, right now, just take a deep breath, that’s all you need to do.” Yin Xiu's words not only did not put pressure on the veteran, but made him feel that a certain exhausted enthusiasm was bursting out again. Those things that seemed to have died in a corner of my heart have revived. The old soldier frowned and his mind raced, until it was almost turned into a paste, when he finally remembered something. "After the three of them left, about an incense stick of time passed, and a group of monks came to the door for some unknown reason." monk? The old soldier rubbed his chin as if he wanted to rub his skin raw. "It was a group of monks, eight of them on horseback, each covered from head to toe in a dark blue robe, so their faces couldn't be seen clearly. However, I could sense that there was also evil in those monks.” "Evil spirit, monk?" When Yin Xiu asked this question subconsciously, he also felt that his question was a bit outrageous. The old soldier just shook his head and said, "They are probably not monks, because judging from their bodies, they are really emaciated. Which temple's warrior monks are not trained by eating meat and drinking soup? Such monks can only be those who chant sutras. To be honest, they may be the monks who practice asceticism. Only someone who doesn't eat for two or three days and whose dishes don't have a drop of oil in them can have such a body shape. They came in a hurry, and I saw smoke and dust from a distance. I thought they were a group of official messengers. Enemy attack? The war was over long ago, where did the enemy come from? If the Fa people come, we will open the city gates, squat on the ground, and let them rob the town. That will be the end of it. We will leave before dark. If the imperial court from the north comes, I will have to close the city gates, otherwise there may not be a single living person in the whole town.

Having said that, at that time I thought it was a messenger, or an official, so I didn't take it seriously. Only when we got closer did we realize that they were wearing monks' robes. They came and left in a hurry, as if they came just for the swordsman and the fortune teller. Before they entered the door, the leader moved his hands a few times under his cloak, as if he knew that the swordsman and his companions had left. Then a group of people continued to chase in the direction the swordsman had gone. It was such a rush to come and go, the journey was so intense." "So that's it." Yin Xiu knew that the old soldier had told him everything he knew. Moreover, the information he provided was very crucial. At least it let Yin Xiu know the situation that Ren Qi and the others might encounter. It turns out that besides them, there are other people tracking them. "By the way, when they came, was there no drought yet?" Yin Xiu suddenly remembered to ask him this. "How did you know?" The old soldier sighed, "Nothing. At that time, the peach trees in the city were in bloom, gorgeous and joyful. Now, they are all dead." "The grass and trees wither and flourish, one year after another, spring after spring." Yin Xiu patted his shoulder and said, "The peach blossoms will bloom again next year." "Maybe." The old soldier's brows were still furrowed, "I just hope I can see the peach blossoms next year." After a pause, he felt that he had behaved a little too weakly. Talking about such depressing things to others all day long, what else could he do except make people hate him and look down on him? Moreover, he suddenly remembered something. The old soldier couldn't help but ask in alarm: "You two, are you really just coming into the city to rest? If you're just coming to rest, why are you asking me about people?" Yin Xiu didn't answer him, but turned over and got on the horse again, and continued walking towards the town with Ma Xiaoyu. Behind him, there was the sound of a sharp knife being unsheathed. The old soldier held the sharp knife in his hand and said, "Young man, if you want to do anything wrong in this town, you can give up the idea now, because I will not let you go." Yin Xiu didn't look back, but rode forward, "Don't worry, old man, I'm just visiting relatives." They gradually walked away, leaving behind the old soldier whose sweat soaked through the handle of his sword. (End of this chapter)