Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 21 It's Good to Follow the Rules
Since Liquid Metal could send him messages, Yun Ce stopped calling him Liquid Metal and started calling him Dog.

Unfortunately, the AI ​​in this dog is very basic, and the answers it provides are full of errors and are almost fabricated. This may be because it has too little input.

Fortunately, Eji seemed to have endless things to say to Yun Ce, her local dialect flowing out incessantly. Meanwhile, the dog kept bubbling and gurgling on the wristband, organizing, categorizing, and summarizing…

Seeing so many people didn't bring Yun Ce much excitement. Although his previous experiences had made him realize that this wasn't a technologically advanced world, now that it had been confirmed, he was utterly disappointed.

This proves that he has no way to return home with the help of the high-tech civilization here, and may have to stay here forever.

As for riding a dragon home, he had long since given up on that dream. Although his last encounter with a dragon was brief, he had already felt the indifference of the dragon race.

A cloud drifted out from the mountains, blocking the blood moon, and the temperature in Hekou Village suddenly dropped. Seeing Eji shivering with her arms wrapped around herself, Yun Ce went back to the wooden house and lay down.

That night, Yun Ce slept very soundly, truly asleep. This kind of sleep was completely different from sleeping in the wilderness; it was incredibly relaxing.

He slept soundly and for a long time. At the crack of dawn, Yun Ce was awakened by the sound of drums.

Eji, who lives across from the hearth, has already left; she's probably gone to play the drum.

He opened the door and saw dozens of short men staring intently at him. They must have been quite tall before; they only became short after losing their legs.

When Yun Ce came out, the men dispersed, leaning on their stools.

The short, white-bearded man who had lost both legs didn't leave. He took out a few bamboo slips and handed them to Yun Ce. The message on them instructed Yun Ce to write down his name, place of origin, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. It also specifically noted that if there was a high-ranking official with a salary of 1,000 shi (a unit of grain), one could trace back three generations.

If Yun Linchuan's official position were placed in the Han Dynasty, according to the twenty-rank nobility system inherited from the Qin Dynasty, it would be roughly equivalent to a marquis. His grandfather's official position would also be roughly equivalent to a Grand Master in the Han Dynasty. And his father's official position when he passed away would be equivalent to a Fifth-Rank Official in the Han Dynasty.

Although Yun Ce was not in the army, if you convert military and land rank, his position as a division chief would be equivalent to the title of Bu Geng. Such a family would clearly be considered a prominent family in the Han Dynasty.

After pondering for a long time, Yun Ce gave up writing about the great achievements of Yun Linchuan and his comrades. Instead, he wrote the place of origin after Yun Ce's name: Muyun Prefecture, Dingbian County, the sixth brigade of the seventh scout squad under the jurisdiction of the Chuyun Colonel.

After reading it, the short man with the white beard revealed an expression of "I knew it," and wrote on the bamboo slip: "Those who forget their ancestors and betray their lineage are not human."

Yun Ce ignored him. The short man with the white beard sighed, picked up his pen, and wrote a character after Yun Ce's place of origin—"Liu" (流). After writing it, he looked up at him. Yun Ce naturally had no reaction. He even felt that the "rogue" character after "Liu" was a good match for him.

Having come here unemployed, without land or a house, and being labeled a hooligan, is truly a fitting description of what everyone expects.

Sure enough, seeing that Yun Ce was unmoved by the term "rogue," the short man with the white beard decisively added the word "rogue" after it, and then stared at Yun Ce without blinking.

Yun Ce remained unfazed. Yun Linchuan, that old scoundrel, had called himself a proletarian his whole life, so it wasn't too unfair for him to be called a rogue.

“It can still be changed now, but once it’s reported, it will become a permanent rule.”

Yun Ce wrote: "Being a rogue is good, I won't change."

The dwarf with the white beard wrote again: "Your body and your blood are a gift from your ancestors, and your ancestors must not be dishonored."

Yun Ce smiled and shook his head.

The short man with the white beard sighed, erased the word "hooligan" from the back of Yun Ce's household registration, and wrote the words "commoner" on it. Then, he took out a carving knife and carved the words on the wooden tablet exactly as they appeared.

Yun Ce, who was familiar with the politics of past dynasties, understood that from then on, there would be a new ordinary citizen named Yun Ce on this planet, who was doing all the work.

The so-called "fully obligated commoner" means that if the country goes to war, you have to go to war as a laborer; if the country needs to build large-scale projects, you have to bring your own food to work; if the country needs to collect taxes, as a commoner, you have no room for reduction or exemption. Even if you have a son, it is not good news, as you have to pay the household tax.

Yun Ce didn't see any farmland here. The women went out early in the morning, seemingly to make a living by gathering. There were no able-bodied men to be seen; the vast majority were disabled. He couldn't even see a boy around fourteen or fifteen years old like him. However, there were many girls around fourteen or fifteen years old, and a large number of younger girls were missing.

There aren't many children in Hekou Village, just a handful, which suggests that the women here haven't been having many children for at least ten years.

There is only one reason for this outcome: war. Ten years ago, all the men of Hekou Village were conscripted to fight, and they have not returned in the past ten years. Or rather, only those with broken legs or unable to fight have returned in the past ten years. Those who are still able to fight are still on the battlefield.

Many men have suffered serious leg injuries, which is also a great blow to population production.

Therefore, Yun Ce investigated the age distribution of the population in Hekou Village and already knew that the Han Empire was waging a protracted war there, but he did not know who the enemy was.

A place with a name like Muyun Prefecture must be a border region, and a place with a name like Dingbian County must be the furthest from the political and economic center of the empire. Moreover, such a place must be very poor, just like Gansu where he used to live. The place names are so nice: Dingxi, Jingyuan, Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan, Dunhuang... Each name sounds better than the last, but each one is also poorer than the last.

There was no other way; these places were where the empire displayed its military prowess and glory, and it would be a disservice to the ancestors' hard work and great achievements not to give them a powerful and majestic name.

Now, in Dingbian County, Yun Ce vaguely feels that he is still living in the Hexi Corridor.

Eji wasn't there, and they didn't seem to eat breakfast either. Yun Ce naturally didn't eat breakfast either. Because he had eaten too many dragon eggshells, he wasn't very sensitive to hunger. He didn't believe that the people here were as insensitive to hunger as he was.
To test this problem, Yun Ce asked the white-bearded dwarf for a weapon. When the old man heard that Yun Ce was going hunting, he generously lent him a spear.

The spear shaft was indeed very good, feeling heavy in the hand, but the spearhead was not very good, only two inches long. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the reason the spearhead was only two inches long was due to the grinding process.

Yun Ce saw a broken wooden bow hanging on the wall of the old man's house and asked to borrow it, but the old man refused and chased Yun Ce out, slamming the door shut behind him.

Yun Ce carried the tattered wooden spear and left Hekou Village, heading straight to the place where Eji had played the drum the day before. He believed that after Eji's drumming, there wouldn't be a single wild animal there.

However, he had plenty of Dragon Balls, and they were all plump and tender wild boars, perfect for roasting suckling pig. He had obtained these wild boars when he was hanging out with that wild boar with a flirtatious air.

Each one weighs about 15 or 16 pounds. After removing the internal organs, it weighs only 7 or 8 pounds. These small wild boars, with their shells propped up on wooden sticks, can be grilled in less than two hours and become a delicious dish.

Eji was overjoyed to see Yun Ce come to pick her up after she finished playing the drum. She chattered away to the dog the whole way. Since Yun Ce couldn't understand her, he planned to wait until the dog had standardized the local language before he could learn it.

If I happen to learn a dialect similar to that of Tianshui in later times from Eji, and people in big cities still can't understand it, wouldn't it be a waste of my learning?
Eji still liked to treat Yunce like a donkey. Today's work was still carrying tree bark. This kind of bark is very long and the fibers are also very long. Judging from the large amount of tree bark fiber drying in Hekou Village, the main industry here should be tree bark fiber textile industry.

Being so close, Yun Ce could clearly see E Ji's joyful face. She looked like a young version of Brigitte Lin, especially her eyes. When she smiled, her whole face would come alive, and even the dim forest would instantly become bright. Her only flaw was that she had no breasts or buttocks; her figure was like a bare, hairless ribbonfish.

After finishing the drumming, Eji was exhausted. Yun Ce was willing to help her carry more bark back. Halfway there, seeing Eji's unsteady gait, Yun Ce leaped up, dropped the bark, and disappeared into the woods. When Eji anxiously called for him, Yun Ce emerged from the woods, carrying a small wild boar whose internal organs had already been cleaned.

Eji's gaze at the wild boar was terrifying. Yun Ce thought he should feed Eji outside first, lest she dismember him that night with her broken wood-chopping knife because she was craving meat.

Yun Ce had long been adept at roasting suckling pig. He didn't need to worry about the pig hair on the skin. He would find a few sticks to prop up the little wild boar, dig a trough in the ground, and wait until the branches were burned down to just charcoal before putting the little wild boar on top to roast.

Ever since the little wild boar appeared, Eji's gaze had never left it. She watched as Yun Ce put the little wild boar on the charcoal fire to roast its hair, watched as he took out a very nice, sharp knife to scrape the charred pig skin into a golden brown color, and watched as Yun Ce sprinkled several kinds of powder on the sizzling, oily little wild boar. After that, all she remembered was that Yun Ce gave her a big pig leg.

In the end, she remembered nothing at all.

When she woke up again, she was back in her wooden cabin, her stomach full, her body warm, and her mouth smelling sweet...

Yun Ce was astonished by E Ji's enormous appetite. He managed to get a leg from a nearly ten-pound roasted pig, while the rest went into E Ji's stomach.

If it were just gluttony, that would be one thing, but when Eji was eating roast suckling pig, she would often make a whimpering sound like a dog guarding its food.

Seeing that Eji was still lost in thought, Yun Ce smiled. The gene for good food was still evident in this group of Han people.

"Jili gulu, ga lu"

"What did I just eat? It was delicious, 90%!"

The dog's analysis this time was quite accurate.

(End of this chapter)