【Shine】One Thousand and One Nights

—Second Night—

Around the walls of Uruk was a moat--it might have been called a moat, though the black and deep waves formed the broad surface of the river.No matter how light and ethereal an object is, once it falls into the river, it will be swallowed instantly.The river was named Embilulu, and when seen from above, it formed a pocket-shaped circle around the city wall, with only a very thin path through the mouth of the pocket, leading to Uruk from outside the city.

Xilai, who lived in the Apusi District, used to be naughty, throwing goose feathers around, the goose feathers fluttered down on the river and swirled, and was swallowed into the river by the protruding eddy in the blink of an eye.After that, she wrapped the bulging air with thin cowhide and carefully put it on. Of course, it disappeared soon.

Xilai suddenly thought: "If I throw a lot of cowhide wrapped in air into the river, will Embilulu be squeezed and float in the air in the end?"

As soon as the words fell, the pitch-black river was like hiccupping, and with a "hiccup", bubbles spit out and exploded on the surface of the river.

"...Oh, so you don't eat air." Xi Lai said disappointedly.

There are many wonderful compositions in Uruk. In Xilai’s long memory, there used to be no Enbilulu. Then, for some reason, one day she opened her eyes, En became En, and the long and clear Tigris became The dark Embilulu, the Inanna district where it lived disappeared, and was replaced by the Apus district, which together with the Annu district constituted the two main urban areas of Uruk.The fruit was picked and eaten, and it bore again the next day.The livestock was slaughtered for cooking, and when the sun came out, it also appeared with its tail wagging at the place where it was killed yesterday. This is a peaceful and rich country without hunger. Xilai likes it very much and does not want anyone to destroy it.

She hugged her knees and tilted her head, muttering to herself.

"What is the poet doing now? Telling stories? Will Eun be happy?... It would be great if Eun is happy." She didn't know what to think of, and she smiled silly.

Regardless of whether the bard who entrusted Xilai with great entrustment heard her little wish, but fortunately, the palace that was shrouded in darkness along with the night sky was brightly lit tonight.

Yimu led the maids to wait in the hall. In order to watch the long-lost visitors, the citizens rushed to the front row to watch the ceremony. Finally, they got mixed up with the butcher lady in the east, the melon seller in the west, and the flower planter in the south. Brother, sister Orion in the north.They pretended to be the platoon of maids on duty and stood behind Yim——Im was helpless, and En's tolerance and generosity developed the lawless, free and lazy personality of the citizens. To be honest, the people who eat melons are curious about things other than Uruk. She can fully understand, which is why she squeezed out another female officer on duty to appear in the hall today.

Enkidu was not interested in people, and had a slight face recognition obstacle, so he didn't notice that his maid had changed at all.Now he was sitting on the cold floor tiles in the temple—the hot night always craves for coolness—and his guests followed his example, sitting casually, with their elbows on their knees, facing each other laugh.

This scene made Enkidu feel familiar for a moment, and Yimu took a step forward, just covering his sight.She put the earthen mug filled with beer in front of the two of them, arranged around it with fresh fruits for use, and stepped back.

Gilgamesh glanced at the beer with distaste—malt wine, definitely malt wine, impure and thick, with a terrible taste—how on earth did he drink it before?

However, this is already the highest-grade beer in this era. Gilgamesh, who has always adhered to the principle of first looking at the packaging of good wine, second at the appearance, and finally the taste, had to succumb to the constraints of the times.

"Okay, a bedtime story." He swallowed the undrinkable beer and muttered in a low voice, "This thing can barely be regarded as a part of enlightening human intelligence, anyway, it has nothing to do with me after the age of three...so I can't understand it now." Could it be that she is working as a prostitute?!"

The tyrant who never knew how to write the word "considerate" suddenly felt sympathy for the prostitute, "It's really not easy".

——Shen prostitute Quanxia Youzhi is afraid that her jaw will drop in shock.

Gilgamesh took another sip of the wine, just to moisten his throat, and put the glass away.

He cleared his cough, and everyone in the hall immediately put their ears up and held their breath, even Enkidu was no exception. Although his appearance didn't change, his back quietly sat upright—if he had ears, he would probably be "right now" Rub" stood up.

Gilgamesh held back his smile, and slowly started his first nonsense story——

This is an unknown fragment that happened in the vast universe and long history, and I don’t know if it is fabricated. Let’s take it as an unrealistic and interesting talk.

The beginning of the story is on an unknown planet, there is an empire that grew powerful due to foreign wars, its king is a famous tyrant - he killed the only prince of the previous dynasty, this prince was his childhood friend, because of trust He handed over all military power to the tyrant, and the tyrant plotted rebellion through the power given to him by the prince.

As a matter of course, the tyrant suffered a great deal of infamy, and his friends died in the last battle of the rebellion.

The tyrant regretted so much that he took back the fragment of the prince's soul and re-infused it into a created body.

This act against the gods naturally failed, the body has an empty appearance, no emotion - it doesn't look like it has memory.He stared at the tyrant with a cold and empty face, like a tall god, mocking the wishful thinking of mortals.

The tyrant paid more and more attention to the prince day by day, his regime gradually became unstable, and the remnants of the old dynasty that had not been cleared up were about to move, especially when they saw the resurrected prince—no matter how monopolized the tyrant was, the news of the prince would always be leaked— —The undercurrent began to roll over.

In the old dynasty, there was a minister who escaped by chance during the purge. He was a loyal and patriotic man, trying to find the prince and restore the country.

The minister didn't know that the prince was a failed artificial body, and after all the hardships, he finally saw the imprisoned prince.

At this point, Gilgamesh paused for a moment, twisted a grape into his lips, and Im focused on his next sentence.

He said, "'I finally met you!'"

"I finally see you!" The minister knelt at the prince's feet and begged him sadly, "Please kill the tyrant. He sees you every day and will never be suspicious of you. The people under his rule, The wailing is endless, for the sake of the country and the people, you must kill him!"

The prince shook his head.

"Please!"

The prince did not speak.

The minister was in despair, the old court had no one but him, and even his last hope refused to answer his request.

"That shameless guy stole the country that should belong to you, don't you resent it?"

The prince quietly looked at the roaring minister.

Their movement was too loud, attracting vigilant guards not far away.

The minister shook his head in disbelief.

"How can you betray your people? How can you betray the country because of that guy?!"

He knelt on the ground, weeping freely.

"Yeah, of course you are not angry." He took a breath, gradually calmed down, and cursed bitterly, "It turned out that you and that guy cooperated internally and externally, and you single-handedly removed his obstacles and swept a smooth road."

He twisted his face, "No matter how powerful a country is, it can't beat its successor's deliberate efforts to destroy it from within."

The prince blinked, as if brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve, and indifferently let the guards arrest the minister and execute him.

"And of course the prince has all the memories." Gilgamesh spat out the grape skin, spoiling it mercilessly.

The prince knew that he had known the tyrant since he was a child and was very close. He was willing to hand over the decadent country to the tyrant to rule, and he was willing to betray his motherland and parents, hoping that the people would live a better life.

He knew that they used to embrace each other in the shade of trees and imagine the future with great enthusiasm, they fought in fountains, they traveled all over the capital, just to find the national flower of Xinguo.

But princes don't have emotions.He knows all the stories, but has no emotions to match them.After his death, the tyrant made Lorimas, a white double-petal rose, the national flower.

The language of flowers is the memory of death.

"Behold, this is man," remarked Gilgamesh, "to seize all things, and to take even the dead—and after that the tyrant who came hastily swore an oath."

The tyrant embraced the prince and kissed his forehead.

He swore to him: "I'll wait for you until the end of my life, I'll wait for you."

The prince looked at the side face of the tyrant, as if he was saying an absolutely unshakable truth in the world.

He was held in his arms, and the hot temperature was transmitted to the skin, as if he had come alive.

"..."

He held his breath involuntarily, and heard his heart beating violently.

Silence hung in the air.

"--and then?"

Yimu almost thought that she had expressed the urgency in her heart, but when she took a closer look, Yen raised a question.

Gilgamesh raised his eyebrows, as if asking "what".

Enkidu repeated: "Then?"

Gilgamesh showed a smile, and he looked smug with this question that was right in his heart.

"There is no more, as I said, this is just a fragment as small as a fragment."

Enkidu's eyes widened in disbelief: "Since the prince has memories, will his feelings recover, and the tyrant regain his friends - these are all unanswered?"

"No." Gilgamesh said resolutely, his raised eyebrows showed that he was smiling with high spirits and complacency.

"..."

This arrogant expression actually moved Enkidu, and he realized with a little frustration that he could not press the question any further.

"Well then, poet," he said, "your story is an interesting one--even if the finger-length candle is not burned out--but it is an interesting one nonetheless, and I shall look forward to it tomorrow night. Of course , I hope the next story will have a good ending."

He accentuated the final words.

Gilgamesh laughed.

"As you wish, the next story must have an ending."

The story of the troubadour quickly spread throughout the kingdom, and while the fresh anecdote made people fascinated, it also aroused some doubts.

Why is such a troubadour still alive?Won't he be beaten?Are other countries so magnanimous that they are not dissatisfied with a story that is finished in 3 minutes and unfinished—no, this is simply a halfway pit? !

The people of Uruk, who are extremely active, write follow-ups if they can't get follow-ups. They rolled up their sleeves and derived various endings in the story, which greatly enriched the spiritual world of the people.

After learning that the prince and the minister, the prince and the tyrant, the tyrant and the minister had a final 3P; After provoking the prince to be jealous and so on, the new troubadour Gilgamesh had to marvel at the creativity of the crowd.

"Back then, there was no need to dispatch soldiers to fight Ajia," he thought regretfully and proudly, "My people are so eloquent, they can drown him with a single spit."

Note:

1. Cattle were the main livestock of the Sumerians.

2. The Mesopotamian Plain lacks stone mines and trees, so Sumerian buildings are all made of mud bricks, and there is no mortar or cement connection between bricks.

3. Enbilulu: God of the Styx.

4. Apus: God of the underworld.

5. Aga: The ruler of another territory contemporaneous with Gilgamesh, had a war with Uruk.

6. Uruk has two temple complexes dedicated to Inanna and Anu respectively - Inanna District and Anu District. That's how I feel.

7. The short story in this chapter comes from the second story Lorimas in the Kaleidoscope that was cheated in a certain year. That article was cheated, so let’s fill in the ending here =O=