Leisure days in the cold palace

Chapter 22
Feng Zhang is a very interesting and well-connected person.

His father is Han, and his mother is the patriarch of the Baiyue Zhong clan.

The Baiyue people are a matrilineal clan society, so the local people don't regard Feng Zhang as an outsider, and even respect him very much as the son of the patriarch.

Of course, in addition to the reason of birth, it is also because of Feng Zhang's actions that have brought a lot of improvement to the lives of Baiyue people.

"What he is doing is smuggling. He buys some daily necessities from Xiangguo and sells them here bypassing the checkpoint. Then he buys some specialties from Baiyue and sells them to Xiangguo." Fang Ziqi looked at I said, "When I knew him, he didn't have such a big influence... At that time, I was extremely bored, so I kind of helped him."

"It didn't help me, but took a piece of the pie from me." Feng Zhang laughed lightly, with a pair of phoenix eyes that were slightly slender at this time, looking very much like a fox who has always been cunning.She glanced at me, then said with a smile: "And what do you mean by being 'extremely idle'? At that time, you seemed to lose your soul every day, and ran wherever there was danger, wishing to die. That kind of state can be described clearly by the words 'leisure and boring'?"

When Feng Zhang said this, he was still teasing the snake beside him with his hand, but the look he gave me seemed to have some deep meaning that I didn't know.

Fang Ziqi heard the words but stopped talking, just picked up the teacup on the table and took a full sip, as if staring at the snake absent-mindedly.

It was a piebald snake as thick as two fingers. The body of the snake had a very bright color, and the letters it swallowed from time to time gave people a very dangerous feeling.

I knew that this snake was supposed to be highly poisonous, so when I saw Fengzhang teasing him with his hands, I felt somewhat scared and curious.

As if seeing what I was thinking, Feng Zhang stopped teasing Hua Snake, and only pointed down with one finger.

Hua Snake seemed to understand the order, hissed the letter twice, and retracted the bamboo basket obediently.

"Everyone in our Zixu tribe loves snakes. We have lived with them since our ancestors, so we are used to teasing them. Don't worry about it." Feng Zhang comforted us and said, "My little snake is called Hua Ban, and I am with you. For six years, he has always been obedient and gentle, so you don’t have to be afraid. When you get to know him well, I’ll teach you how to tease him.”

Fengzhang seems to be a very lazy person, because this snake has piebald spots on its body, so he named it piebald...

"Teasing it? No, no need?"

Li Yishao didn't seem to be afraid of snakes as usual, he had been hiding behind Chunxi as if there was nothing, but now his face turned pale when he heard the words, and he stammered out the question.

"The Zixu people's playing with snakes is not because they are bored, but because there are many poisonous snakes living in their territory all the time. They have been with poisonous snakes all year round, so there must be some way to deal with them." Fang Ziqi interjected at this time: "People from the Central Plains To avoid venomous snakes, realgar is generally used, but the Zixu people follow the path of attacking poison with poison. They will drink snake venom diluted a thousand times since childhood, and then gradually thicken it until the body can resist the poison. .And those who drink the venom are their own snakes."

Li Yishao, who was listening on the sidelines, felt chills, and his complexion became even paler: "In their place, are there poisonous snakes everywhere?"

"Yes, but because we are familiar with the habits of poisonous snakes, we are not afraid of them. Especially the snake we raise ourselves, when it is hot in summer, we hug it to sleep together, it is very cool." Feng Zhang smiled from the side Stuff the branches and add fire.

"Aren't we going to that place?" Li Yishao asked tremblingly, with his upper and lower teeth.

Fang Ziqi glanced at him, and said calmly: "Brother Li, if you feel something is wrong, you can go back on your own. There is a long way to go. Since everyone is destined to end here, then let's say goodbye here."

"Don't!" Li Yishao's voice was almost screaming. He looked at Fengzhang tremblingly, and asked casually: "Then there is always medicine for snake poison in your clan. What if you are bitten by a poisonous snake?" What's the chance of dying?"

"Ah, that's hard to say. I haven't brought outsiders to our clan yet. If it wasn't because of Ziqi's relationship this time, I wouldn't have been able to bring you people there." Feng Zhang smiled like a vixen, " Most of the poisonous snakes on our side know the smell of the people in the tribe, so as far as I know, there has never been a precedent for people in the tribe to be bitten by snakes. However, outsiders, even in the nearby villages, generally dare not go to us. Because those poisonous snakes don't know them, and as long as they are accidentally bitten by a poisonous snake, they will die on the spot in all likelihood. So..."

Li Yishao's body shook obviously, his face was as pale as rice paper for writing.

"There are wolves in the front, and tigers and leopards in the back. I will die in the sky, and I will die in the sky..."

……

……

After an extremely in-depth ideological struggle, Li Yishao still decided to go with us.

The specific reason is very simple. In his words: "If you go forward, you will die a few times, and if you go back, you will die. But if he stays in Tongnan, he doesn't understand anything, and he has no money in his pocket. If you find it and catch it, you’re starving yourself to death. So it’s better to work hard.”

But he was really afraid of snakes to the point of creeping down his spine. After five days in Baiyue, Li Yishao almost passed out on the spot just because of Feng Zhang's words "there will be poisonous snakes from here on".

It was only afterwards that Feng Zhang's remarks were purely used to frighten Li Yishao.

There is no way to not get wet shoes when standing by the river, and the Zixu people are the same.But all the year round with snakes, they have already figured out a way to avoid snakes and detoxify them. It is really difficult to use the poison of poisonous snakes to stump the elders in the clan.

The reason why he used words to scare Li Yishao was purely because Feng Zhang saw Fang Ziqi's disagreement with him, and wanted to vent his anger on his friend.

But at that time, Li Yishao didn't know these things. When he was walking in the forest, his whole body was shaking non-stop.

Especially when I heard the voice of Snake Xinzi, or saw the shadow of a snake, my whole body was entangled with me like an octopus, and I couldn't pull it off.

"Li Yishao, if you do this again, believe it or not, I will draw my sword and kill you?"

Fang Ziqi finally couldn't hold back his breath, and stared at him with a somewhat unkind expression.

"I don't want to either..." Li Yishao said pitifully, while timidly moving off of me, his whole body was still shaking.

In the end, Li Yishao thought of a way...

He tore off a piece of cloth from his clothes, tightly wrapped it around his eyes, and tried to cover his ears.

"Changqing, please help me, otherwise I will fall and be very pitiful. Changqing will definitely not let me be so pitiful, right?" Li Yishao held my hand hard, muttering incessantly.

I don't want to have any ambiguous relationship with Fang Ziqi or Li Yishao, so after arriving at the safe zone, I gave up those pretended identities.

And when Chunxi received a wink from Fang Ziqi, she rushed over and said that she would support Li Yishao instead of me.This formerly pampered guy shouted: "I don't want a man to help me! You are all thick-handed and thick-footed, and you will just go on your own and won't take care of me at all! How about Evergreen helping me? Besides, a man's Hands are not as good as evergreen hands...ah!"

The last scream was because Fang Ziqi grabbed him and threw him sideways to Chunxi...

"Changqing, how did you meet Ziqi?"

On the way, the fox-like Feng Zhang asked this question in a chatty manner.

"We are from the same hometown." Fang Ziqi answered in my place.

"Oh—" Feng Zhang smiled deeply.

I know, he should know Li Shuangwu's identity.

The members of the Zixu tribe hid themselves very well. Under the leadership of Fengzhang, we walked through the rainforest continuously. The forest that looks similar from front to back makes it easy to get lost.

"Our clansmen have lived here for nearly a hundred years, and the communication with the outside world is not frequent, so they still retain many of their own habits. Some things are taboos in the clan. For example, the most important point is that in front of our clansmen, It is absolutely not allowed to kill snakes, you must remember this point clearly."

As we walked, Fengzhang talked about this and that, introducing us to the mysterious Zixu tribe: "Our tribe worships Nuwa, so they worship snakes very much, and our patriarch has always been a woman. Oh, yes Yes, the patriarch is called 'Nida' in our language..."

"Many taboos here will be different from those in the Central Plains. I will tell you slowly. But in fact, you don't have to be too careful. Although our clansmen are more repulsive to foreigners, they are very hospitable... Maybe this sounds a bit contradictory , but that is what it is.”

Under the leadership of Feng Zhang, we walked in the rain forest so deep that we could not see the sun, and we kept going deep into the hinterland of the rain forest.

The deeper you go, the thicker the surrounding tree trunks, and the denser and denser the vines around you, like a net intertwined in a dense forest.

After we waded through a knee-deep stream, the number of snakes around us began to increase significantly. Chunxi was tightly grabbed by Li Yishao's arm, and because the grasp hurt so much, she looked a little bit bared.

I was also somewhat scared, because there were indeed many snakes here, and they would crawl across a vine from time to time, or they would suddenly jump out of the road in front of them.

Fang Ziqi walked beside me very naturally. Although there was no physical contact, it gave me some comfort.

Only Fengzhang, holding a branch in his hand, stalked the grass in front of the snake leisurely, talking to us indifferently.

With snakes as companions, the Zixu people are really different.

Just when I felt that there were more and more snakes in front of me, and my scalp became numb to a certain extent, a small village suddenly appeared behind an old tree, which seemed a bit bright in the dark.

"Welcome to Zixu."

Feng Zhang casually threw away the branch in his hand, stood under an ancient tree that was blooming with unknown flowers, opened his hands, and smiled at us.

(End of this chapter)