Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
Those dozens of tired people on horses naturally could not affect the situation in the Wilderness. They had nothing to do with the negotiation between the barbarians’ palace and the Central Plains liaison army. After they had experienced the Horse Gang looting and lost their forage, they still adhered to coming here. Black Ink Garden disciples themselves knew that they were here for seeking justice. But in others’ eyes, they were forced to come and wait for the Divine Hall judgment result and had a dark prospect. Naturally, no one was willing to come close, even if it was said that Calligraphy Addict was in the horse carriage.
The pasture beside the grandiose mountain was expansive. Although there were tens of thousands of people gathering here in winter and all kinds of tents everywhere, there were still plenty of places to be used to arrange for people. In order to show their sincerity, the palace agreed that the Central Plains coalition troop could choose places to deploy soldiers and horses at will. The person responsible for this was a manager of West-Hill Divine Palace. After he indifferently bowed to Zhuo Zhihua, he directly brought those Black Ink Garden students to a location.
There were two tents that were not far away from the coalition troop’s middle tent, just behind it. But they seemed to be a bit remote on a slightly higher terrain. Those Black Ink Garden disciples walked into the tents and saw the prepared equipment. They found that it was not bad, knowing it was probably because of Hill Master that the coalition troop treated them like this.
Since they had been brought by the palace cavalry to this place, except for the manager of Divine Hall, no top figure of the coalition troop or bigwigs of Divine Hall had appeared to greet them until now at this moment. Besides, Black Ink Garden disciples had seen the apathetic eyes of those people from the Central Plains countries the entire time. So they knew that they had deliberately been excluded and ignored, inevitably feeling somewhat depressed.
Cat Girl was still too young, so she naturally could not think so much. She looked at the thick wool blanket in the tent and thought that she could finally sleep well tonight, no need for squeezing into a narrow horse carriage with Hill Master. Thus, she appeared to be kind of happy.
Ning Que had experienced being deliberately expelled and ignored last year in the Academy. So he was used to it and did not care too much. He just regarded that this camp location seemed to be a bit inappropriate.
He went outside the tent and looked toward the distance.
The Big Black Horse carrying heavy luggage came in front of him and gently touched him with its head. It gave off a harsh breathing bellow like pulling a wind box, and looked extremely tired.
Ning Que touched the mane on its neck and scolded it with a smile. “Don’t complain in front of me all the time. How could such little things make you so tired? We’ll leave later, so don’t hurry to unload the luggage. If you’re hungry, look for some grasses for yourself.”
The Big Black Horse stared at those unclear grasses in the winter wind with its big eyes open and very painfully thought that these grasses were scarcer than barbarians’ hair and there was no way it could get full from that.
The Big Black Horse was violent in nature. But once it was tamed, there was no doubt that it was the world’s rare good horse. If others found its true strength, they would treat it as a treasure. How could they be like Ning Que, who treated it as a freely raised dog and kicked it out of the house to let it go into the streets to pick bones left by the neighbors?
However, it only listened to Ning Que’s orders. When it saw that Ning Que did not plan to ask for some dry grasses for it, it was dejected and randomly kicked its horse hooves walking out of the camp. No one knew where it could go to find some food.
It was still early, but due to the short daytime of the bitterly cold northern lands in the winter, the sun in the sky dome looked faintly like one in the late evening. The sun was slowly dropping to the ground, with its light gradually becoming dusky red.
A burst of cold wind came from behind a gentle slope. Ning Que took a cotton scarf out of nowhere and tucked it into his collar. He said to Zhuo Zhihua beside him, “This is a wind gap here. It’ll be cold at night.”
Among those Black Ink Garden disciples, Zhuo Zhihua was the oldest one, with a gentle and calm temperament. Upon listening to Ning Que’s reminder, she knew that the previous Divine Hall manager kept such a boring mean idea by bringing them here for camping. Even though she felt somewhat irritated, she did not know what to do about it.
Ning Que pulled over a grassland man who walked by their side and gently and honestly gave a long speech.
Mo Shanshan did not get out until she heard those obscure words of Ning Que. She lifted off the curtain and went out. When the grassland man had left, she walked over to Ning Que and said with her knitting eyebrows, “Senior Brother, you even understand the barbarian language?”
Because of the powerful Tang Dynasty and the constant preaching of Divine Hall, the Central Plains language had become extremely popular in the grassland. However, there were still many barbarians who were accustomed to speaking their old language, which was the so-called barbarian language.
Ning Que said, “I’m better at western barbarian language.”
Zhuo Zhihua asked, “What did Brother Zhong say to the man earlier?”
“I asked him if we could make our own tents on the grassland.”
Ning Que laughed and continued to say, “The barbarian said we were the most distinguished guests of Chanyu. So as long as it was Chanyu’s pasture, we could choose to stay in any place.”
Upon hearing these words, those Black Ink Garden disciples outside the tent all understood his meaning and started to laugh. They thought choosing another campsite was not bad. Since Divine Hall had treated them so, why should they get too close to it?
Zhuo Zhihua smilingly looked at Ning Que and thought that there was not a mature man in her sect and, in the face of many problems and choices, they really had less courage. Even Hill Master had no way to change the situation like this.
“Where should we move to?”
Ning Que looked toward the upper grassland.
Under the Divine Hall’s edict, all of the Central Plains countries had sent aid to Yan Kingdom to join the war. On the two frontier fortress lines of the North of Yan Kingdom, there were at least hundreds of thousands of people gathering there. However, now it was impossible for all countries to pull everyone up for the peace talk deep in the Wilderness. So only the cavalries guarding the noble gathered together, which had at least a thousand soldier riders.
At sunset, the tents on the grassland were everywhere and their flags were drifting with the wind. A small number of tents on the western grassland were arranged in a very orderly way. And those flags flying in the cold wind looked extremely vigorous. As for the cavalry queue vaguely seen, it was more well-ordered than the Central Plains alliance cavalry.
It was generally considered that the most elite cavalry in the world was the West-Hill Divine Palace Papal Guardians. But the number of cavalrymen of Divine Hall was too small, strictly restricted to below 1,000 riders according to the Papal disciple. So the truly extremely powerful cavalries that could dare to conquer the world were the other two cavalries.
They were the palace cavalry of Golden Chanyu and the Tang cavalry on the Wilderness on the other side of Tianqi Mountain.
Ning Que pointed to the well-ordered tents on the west side of the pasture and those familiar banners. He said, “We are camping over there.”
Those Black Ink Garden disciples recognized that this was the camp of the Tang army and was slightly startled. After a short moment, they all agreed with his proposal. Great River Kingdom and the Tang Empire had been in a good relationship for generations. Besides, now they camped over there under the Divine Hall’s edict. So they believed that no one could say anything mean, no matter who it was.
Unfortunately, those childish Great River Kingdom girls still did not expect that after they had abandoned the camps designated by Divine Hall and chose to live next to the Tang camps, they would still attract many people’s attention and provoke a lot of criticism.
Those people watched more than 10 people riding tired horses in the dusk walking toward the Tang camps under the sunset. Swordsmen from South Jin Kingdom looked indifferent. Yuelun Kingdom monks showed ridicule in their eyes. The Divine Hall manager said with a gloomy face. “Let them go if they want to seek support from the Tang.”
