Flourishing of the Ming Dynasty Novel - Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Non-humans (1)
A slightly murderous autumn wind suddenly swept past, blowing away many withered yellow grass in the air.

The sun in the sky was a bit softer than before, hitting Lu Zhen who was half-crouching and concentrating on staring at an unknown bug flying in front of him.

At this moment, he was narrowing his eyes, clenching his fist tightly with his right hand, his eyebrows slightly knitted, as if he was doing something very important. Such a situation was not uncommon in Rahab Clan these days, but no one could guess what the Divine Envoy was doing. Perhaps he was trying to cultivate his own magic power.

Lu Zhen’s position in Rahab Clan was completely stabilized as the method of bringing out salt from the cliff stones worked. Even though they couldn’t give orders like a few important people, everyone had a deep reverence for him.

After teaching Rahab Clan a series of methods to extract salt, Lu Zhen was no longer interested in interfering. After all, this kind of thing was just strenuous work. As long as people were willing to work hard, salt could be produced by them endlessly to meet everyone’s needs.

Now, apart from those men who needed to go hunting, and some women and old men who milked and grazed, the rest of the people in the department were all involved in this work, including the Han prisoners who were captured with Lu Zhen, and they were doing the most tiring and heavy work.

Lu Zhen couldn’t plead for them, after all, their identities were placed here. It was precisely this group of free and useful laborers who were doing their best. Rahab Clan’s salt production was really not low. In just over a month, it had already produced enough salt for everyone to eat every year, and this number was still increasing.

Seeing this, Lu Zhen kindly reminded He Hu’er, why not sell the excess salt to the nearby tribes in exchange for something that everyone needed more?

He Huer, who had been woken up by him, was overjoyed at that moment, and then sent people to peddle it everywhere. In these two days the Rahab had exchanged the salt in their hands for hundreds of cattle, sheep, horses, and sheep-the value of salt was far more precious to the grassland tribes, which had always lacked salt, than to the livestock that could be found everywhere.

Because his words had given Rahab Clan many benefits, Lu Zhen’s status in the eyes of the crowd was even higher. However, he didn’t think much of this, because he had recently put his mind to something even more important.

After being captured by Hezha and the others that day, Lu Zhen had always had a question in his heart-was the strange phenomenon that happened when he dodged the attacks of the Meng people and took the opportunity to kill one of them an illusion of his own, or was it true?

On that day, he could clearly feel that the opponent’s movements had slowed down, and he even took advantage of the opponent’s slow movements to injure the enemy. However, after that, this strange feeling never appeared again, causing him to feel that all of this was just an illusion.

In order to prove this point, Lu Zhen kept recalling the past in his spare time, thinking about every detail in order to find a satisfactory answer.

At this moment, Lu Zhen, who was staring at the little bug, was trying to repeat what he had done that day. However, that nervous state of mind could not be reproduced no matter what.

However, after a few attempts, when he clenched his right fist and stared at the insect, that strange feeling once again surfaced in his heart. Everything around him suddenly became extremely quiet at a certain moment, The blowing autumn wind suddenly came to a halt. The bugs that were still dancing in front of them suddenly stopped. It was as if they were being pulled by an invisible thread. Their movements became extremely slow, as if every flap of their wings would take a moment. However, their bodies did not land on the ground because of this. Instead, they continued to fly in the air in the same trajectory as before.

This scene was like watching a slow-motion movie. Every frame of the scene appeared in front of Lu Zhen slowly and clearly. This surprised him-he had indeed obtained this miraculous ability that could slow down the flow of time around him!

However, with this joy, everything returned to normal. The wind continued to blow, and the worms quickly flew again … as if nothing had happened just now.

But this time, Lu Zhen clearly knew that everything was not his own illusion. As long as he concentrated and clenched his right fist, the surrounding time would suddenly slow down. What was amazing was that he was not restricted by this restriction and could do things at a normal speed. That day, he was able to kill a much stronger Meng Ren in an instant. Obviously, he relied on this miraculous ability.

Lu Zhen was actually somewhat familiar with this ability, because in some of the stand-alone masterpieces he had played, some of the protagonists possessed such abilities. For example, in “Shame” and “Max Payne,” there was such a performance that as long as one used their abilities, they could temporarily control time and quickly kill their enemies.

Lu Zhen really didn’t expect that he would be able to obtain what he had originally thought was just an imaginary ability. Perhaps this was the benefit of time travel. After all, traveling was the greatest damage and disruption to space and time, and an ability like this was nothing compared to it.

However, this was too useful for him. Once he truly mastered this ability, even if he didn’t mention killing everyone like the characters in the game, it would still be good as a means to save his life. The only thing that made him somewhat dissatisfied was that this ability required him to concentrate all his attention in order to trigger it. Furthermore, it was not too controlled. Once he was slightly distracted, he would return to his normal state. It was only when one’s life was in grave danger that one could truly display its might.

However, this unhappiness was nothing compared to another worry. After staying in Rahab Clan for more than a month, Lu Zhen was tired of living here. He really wanted to leave this backward place.

As a young man accustomed to life in the future, the days of idleness, sunrise, sunset, and practically no recreational activities were too boring. And this was not the most serious. The most serious thing was that he always felt that it was somewhat out of place with these Meng people.

Although every Mongolian he met was respectful to him, the two sides were still somewhat estranged and isolated, unable to become true friends. Being with these people, Lu Zhen was surrounded by a deep sense of loneliness all the time, which made him want to leave this place and go to the Great Ming Dynasty.

Another motivating factor was the situation of the prisoners. Apart from Lu Zhen, everyone else had become slaves of the Meng people. Not only did they have to do the heaviest work and eat the least and worst food every day, they would also be abused and beaten by the Meng people at every turn, with almost no dignity.

There were even a few times when, due to a small mistake, a few people were almost beaten to death. If Lu Zhen hadn’t pleaded for mercy in time, five or six people would have died at the hands of Meng Ren in the past month or so.

After seeing a few of these things, Lu Zhen’s original idea of harmonious coexistence between the two races disappeared. It turned out that what the textbook said about ethnic integration was just a beautiful lie. Perhaps in the later generations, with the progress of civilization, and the Han people themselves strong enough, and have enough tolerance, to achieve siblings like a family, but now all of this is simply a joke.

On the other hand, the saying that the hearts of non-humans must be different in order to truly reflect the current relationship between the two sides.

Lu Zhen didn’t want to see his fellow clansmen get hurt like this, but he really couldn’t do anything about it. He was even worried that he would be treated the same way in the future, so leaving this place was his only choice.

But how do we get out of here? Although Rahab Clan respected him, he was still on guard. When he left the tribe and arrived at the side, there were still two or three herdsmen following him intentionally or unintentionally. It was obvious that they were all sent by He Huer and the others to monitor him.

Looking back at the three herdsmen who would occasionally sweep their eyes at him, Lu Zhen revealed a bitter smile. He didn’t know what to do to get out of here.

After a while, he could only sigh and decide to stay here for the time being to see what would happen in the future.

With a clap of his hand, Lu Zhen climbed back onto his horse and urged it towards the tribal settlement-there were some gains in living here. After at least a month, his riding technique had made great progress and he could easily ride his horse on the grassland.

However, right after he arrived and jumped off the horse, he felt that the atmosphere around him was somewhat strange. Many herdsmen were secretly observing him from the side, but when they turned their gazes to them, these people moved their eyes away and did not dare to make direct contact with him.

“What’s going on?” Lu Zhen muttered in his heart, but he didn’t have a clue. He could tell that these people did not have any hostility towards him. Obviously, this was not for him.

Just as he didn’t know if he should pull someone to inquire about the situation, a figure quickly jumped over from the side and grabbed one of Lu Zhen’s unprepared hands, “Brother Lu, you must save Old Seventh Xie this time!”

‘”Ah” Lu Zhen was shocked at first, then he saw clearly that the person who suddenly pulled him was Cao Bing, who he had saved previously. At this moment, he had a panicked expression and had some fresh wounds on his body.

Just as Lu Zhen came back to his senses and was about to ask him more questions, another three or four people rushed over and pressed Cao Bing to the ground, “How dare you offend the Divine Envoy!” As he spoke, he dragged him up and brought him to the side.

“What are you doing? Release him!” Seeing this, Lu Zhen was even more shocked and immediately shouted.

At the same time, a miserable scream came from afar, causing Lu Zhen’s heart to suddenly tighten …