Chapter 1: Mountain Village

In the endless Desolate Moon Continent's southwest border, the large rolling green mountains connected into an undulating endless vertical and horizontal dark interlaced lines. At this time it is already sunset in the west, the darkness of the night is getting thicker. The villages at the foot of the mountain have already lit dim oil lamps one after another. A few old acacia trees at the head of the village were blown by the wind and their leaves rattled. From time to time, there are a few dogs barking from the village far away, which will cause more barking, until it slowly stops and no sound... Oil lamps shone on the dry cracked earth walls of the room, swaying a few blurred figures reflected on the walls, slanting either long or short. "Child’s mother, it's a done deal! At least he won't starve if he goes to the army. If he's lucky enough to do well, maybe he'll even have a future!" The old man sitting by the door leaning against the door frame has an old face, his skin is rough from years of labor, his back is a little hunched as he sits, and he is holding a tobacco pouch in his hand, with a yellowed and blackened pouch crashed underneath the tobacco stem. After he finished his sentence, he picked up and sucked it. "Snap, snap ..." The sound of smoking was loud and clear in the silence of the house. "But, Old Five, he... he's only fourteen, so young in age..." The old woman sitting on a simple, short chair, her clothes tattered and her face already crawling with many wrinkles, said with tears in her eyes. The old man said, "These two consecutive years of locust plague, not to mention our family, a large half of the village's families have no food. Those who can go to the city to work have gone to work, those who can travel far away have traveled far away, and those who can become soldiers have become soldiers. Old Three's leg was injured in a labor accident some years ago, leaving him disabled and unable to do anything outside. Old Five's body looks like he is sixteen or seventeen years old, no one can't believe it! Now as a soldier not only can't starve themselves, and also can have an allowance of silver first sent down in advance. In the future, when he settles down, if he wants to, he can also send some back every month." Finished, the old man continued to smoke, the old woman in the room lowered her head and continued to sob. Outside the door, a figure crouched against the wall by the door, but facing away, staring blankly at the outline of the distant rolling mountains in the darkness of the night, not speaking for a long time, not knowing what he was thinking. In a silence inside and outside the room, time passes little by little, and the mountain village under the night seems extremely silent. After a period of time, the figure outside the room stood up, turned around and walked into the house. This was a half-grown boy, looking at his frame about sixteen or seventeen years old, but somewhat thin and weak, with a dark face and a very ordinary appearance, dressed in old rough clothes with several holes in them. He just entered the room and said in a low voice after looking at a few people in the room. "Father, Mother, you don't have to worry. Many people in the village have gone out, and now the family's harvest is only enough to barely eat. Although the village chief occasionally leads some people to hunt beasts in the mountains, but after all, the depths are forbidden to go, and can only occasionally hunt some pheasants and rabbits in the periphery, which are not enough to share. I also want to go out to take a look, and with Third Brother and Fourth Sister at home, they can also take care of you." The real age of the half-grown boy was only fourteen. It's just that he grows up faster because he spends a lot of time hunting in the mountains and plowing the fields outside the mountains, but he's very skinny due to the fact that he can't keep up with his nutrition in recent years. The young boy's name is Li Yan. He is usually a man of few words, since he was young, he followed the village's old scholar, with a group of children of about the same age to study in private schools for six or seven years. Later, after the death of the old scholar, he studied less and less time, and often followed the adults in the village hunting in the outskirts of the Great Green Mountains. At first he just secretly sneaked out to follow, but after a long time after exposure, he returned to get a scolding from his parents. But the children of the mountain village are like this, all grew up in the sound of parents scolding. Li Yan grew with age, and also began to follow the hunting team into the mountains, slowly familiarized with some of the habits of wild animals, and a little participated in the hunting of the adults. Due to years of running and jumping in the mountain and water streams, his body grows taller and stronger. But due to the two years of locust plague, the main grain harvest greatly reduced, the family can only eat a half-full every meal, he is not as strong as before, his body was thin. Li Yan had four siblings. The eldest and second sisters had married far away when he was ten and twelve years old respectively. Fourth sister Li Xiaozhu also found a good in-laws. But because of the locust plague in the past two years, her in-laws are not rich family, so for a while they cannot come up with the bride price to marry her. However, they promised to get enough money for the bride price as soon as possible, so their wedding should be held within this year or two. Some years ago, Li Wei, the third brother, when he plowed the farm, accidentally hurt his ankle by the plowing tool. Due to the lack of silver in the family, he was delayed in searching for a doctor, and became disabled and crippled. Li Wei, who was half-kneeling inside the room to support his mother, raised his head apologetically and looked at Li Yan. "Old Five, I..." "Third brother, you don't need to say anything. It will require you to take care of the family more in the future." Li Yan smiled gently at his Third Brother and interrupted. "Maybe I'll get to be a general or something later on, and then it'll be glorious to pick you all up and have a good time." Li Wei looked at him, then sighed softly before turning his head once again to look at his mother, who was being patted on the back by his fourth sister and was still whimpering, and said comfortingly as well. "Then in the future, the Li Family may rely on Fifth Brother to glorify our ancestors!" In fact, Li Wei and Li Yan didn't know nothing about the outside of the village. The villagers who went to the city to sell the meat or furs of wild beasts, or who went to the city to buy things would say something. This is the border town, and to the south is the country of Meng. The two countries at the border fought from time to time. The chances of soldiers going to the frontier were still high, especially in these past few years when wars broke out from time to time. As a result, there has been a lot of recruitment here over the years. In the past, villages had to write letters of guarantee to prove age, identity, past experience at home and so on. Now you can enlist in the army with fewer restrictions if you are sent there by the village chief. These wars are also due to the fact that the present emperor of the imperial dynasty has made the world under the rule of the Way of Literature and Virtue. The court's literary victory and military decline has led to the neighboring countries becoming restless, and from time to time there have been military conflicts. In recent years, there have been wars not only in one direction, but also on the borders of other directions. Therefore, the imperial dynasty's garrison dispatch is not able to meet the needs of the local garrison, only by the local garrison local conscripts into the army, to supplement the source of soldiers. The stragglers from outside the country may not know the inside story of this place and have a higher tendency to enlist in the war. But some of the local people are aware of the situation, so the local villagers are not very motivated to join the army. And the local defense forces are hindered by the present Emperor's rule of the country by the laws of literature and virtue, and cannot forcibly conscript troops. Therefore, in the past few years, as long as you enlist in the army, you can get a fee to your family first, in fact, is the settlement fee, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of enlisting in the army. This method caused a lot of rural households to send their sons into the army, of course, this is basically poor farmers, rich merchants and tycoons would not. However, these situations are not known to the women in the village. In this world where men are superior to women, the men seldom tell their own wives about these situations. Their mountain village, which is more than two hundred miles from the county town, has a total of twelve or three families in the village, and there won't be a single one enlisted as a soldier for many years. These things, however, could be used as a topic of conversation when they were chatting in the village or in the fields. The two brother Li Wei and Li Yan heard some news when they were working in the fields, or when they were following the group into the mountains on the road. Then, the room fell silent again. After a long time, Old Man Li knocked his tobacco pouch on the threshold a few times and said. "Then I'll go find the village chief, you guys rest." After saying that, he walked toward the village under the dark moonlight, and soon his stooped figure disappeared into this early autumn moonlight, and the night wind was already cool! Moonlight fell on the bed from a few wooden window panes with holes for broken paper, and a few ragged quilts with exposed cotton covered the two of them as Li Wei and Li Yan lay back to back. "Old Five, be calm when things go wrong in the military camp, endure as much as you can, and don't act forcefully." "Ok!" After a moment of silence. "If...if there's a war, don't rush ahead if no one is watching, and be sure to drop a few steps!" "Ok!" Silence again. "You don't have to worry about the family. With your enlistment allowance, I'll take care of our parents at home. With your monthly allowance you buy yourself more meat to eat, so you won't be bullied if you're strong." "Well!... Third Brother, Father and Mother are getting older, so you do more work in the fields." "Okay, as long as I'm alive, Father and Mother won't starve." "..." Sustained silence and occasional words continued one after another in the darkness. The moonlight is like water and the night is cool! In the middle of the night, there was a soft click from the door of the hall, and the brothers stopped talking. Then in the side room resounded the low, inaudible voices of Father and Mother talking, rustling so that no one could hear... Soon after, there was the sound of low sobs from the Fourth Sister and Mother, and it seemed that the Fourth Sister had been accompanying Mother. With his back still against his third brother, Li Yan stared blankly at the wall in the darkness with his eyes wide open. The cracks on the wall, illuminated by the hazy moonlight, looked like the advice and memories of beloved families at home, spreading from the mind to the heart...