Unknown Knight

A series of jolts with "creaking" sounds woke Wang Baoping from his drowsiness. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was lying on a wooden cart piled with goods. He wanted to sit up from the cart, but his sore body refused to follow the orders of his brain and protested with a burst of pain, which made him groan in a sickly manner.

A sweet and pretty face came over from the front, tilted her head and looked at him, and said softly and gently:

"Picture?"

Picture? What does it mean? Looking at the other person's face, which has a few light freckles but is still fair and delicate, and his light golden hair, and thinking about the cause and effect of his current situation, Wang Baoping's brain, which has been baptized by various movies and TV dramas, only took a little time to buffer and almost understood the general meaning of this word. It should be equivalent to the Chinese word "wake up", and then hurriedly repeated:

"Picture, ah."

Seeing that the other party seemed to understand what he said, the girl was like a morning lark, chirping and gesticulating non-stop, which made Wang Baoping so embarrassed that he could not help but smile bitterly. Except for the first sentence "图啊", he roughly understood the meaning, but he could not understand a word of the rest.

He simply straightened his head and tried to sit up. The girl seemed to see his confusion, so she stopped talking and reached out to help him.

Her soft hair hung down and brushed across his face, followed by a burst of girlish scent with the scent of lavender. He felt the soft and warm little hands on his back, pressing against him and pushing upward, and the weak Wang Baoping felt a warmth in his heart, as if all his strength had been drained away. He leaned back involuntarily, forcing the frail girl to lean her whole body forward to support him, and then she thoughtfully pulled over a softer linen bag and placed it behind him.

After developing the 'take advantage if you can't get one' mentality that is unique to all time travelers, Wang Baoping slumped down on the linen bag on the side of the carriage, and for a long time he recalled the strange soft feeling he had just had when he was pressed against the girl. It took him a while to come to his senses, and he looked around at the current situation around him.

He was now in a small team consisting of three wooden carriages. In addition to himself, the whole team had a total of nine people. Three of them were driving, including the girl in his car. They looked a little cleaner and more decent. The other six people were dressed sloppily and followed behind the three carriages. When they encountered bumpy roads, they pushed the carts from behind. They should be the guys or coolies. Among them, there was a relatively sturdy man with a dagger. He looked unruly and rude, and seemed to be responsible for guarding the convoy.

Wang Baoping's awakening soon caused quite a stir in the convoy. Some people even ran over from the front to see his surprise. The driver at the front also noticed that he had woken up, so he turned around to check on his condition, then shouted in a long voice:

"Ston..."

This sound made the entire convoy stop, and then he jumped out of the car in front and walked over, smiling and saying the same thing to Wang Baoping:

"Picture?"

"Picture~ah~"

Wang Baoping also forced a smile and responded tremblingly.

This is a middle-aged man who looks to be about 40 or 50 years old. His smiling face carries the confidence and affinity that is unique to the caravan, as well as a barely perceptible philistinism. Judging from his slightly decent fine linen clothes and neatly combed hair and beard, he should be the leader of this caravan.

As if noticing that he was in a bad condition, the leader of the caravan looked up at the sun, shouted a few instructions to everyone, and the caravan stopped moving. The blonde girl took out a few wooden sticks and a clay pot from the car and set up a simple stove on the spot, while several men took axes and went to collect firewood not far away.

After about half an hour, the food in the clay pot was ready. The blonde girl came over holding a steaming wooden bowl containing a bowl of porridge with a little minced meat.

The rim of the wooden bowl had several cracks and was mottled. It seemed as if it had been beaten by countless people. There was clear filth hidden in the cracks, which was unbearable to look at.

But Wang Baoping turned a blind eye to all these at the moment. All he could see was the steaming porridge. He could not see the wooden bowl that served as the porridge, nor the blonde girl who was holding the wooden bowl and smiling at him charmingly. He did not know where he got the strength from, but he snatched the wooden bowl from the girl's hand and began to eat it like a wolf, making a whining sound from his mouth like a vicious dog guarding its food.

He ate three bowls of porridge in succession, choking and choking several times, and got several blisters in his mouth. His belly was bloated and he could not eat anymore. Wang Baoping felt weak all over and lay down lazily. A warm current flowed from his stomach to his whole body, making him feel tired unconsciously. Under the warm sunlight at noon, he fell into a deep sleep again.

When he woke up again, it was already dark. He was awakened by the bumpy ride. The entire convoy seemed to be in a state of tension. Even the sturdy man with the dagger joined the ranks of pushing the cart. Wang Baoping, who was lying on the cart, saw that the guy pushing the cart at the back was looking at him, and he felt embarrassed to stay in the car.

Besides, although he didn't know who put a dirty and old linen coat on him, the night wind was getting colder, and he would definitely catch a cold if he continued to lie in the car pretending to be dead. In this era where driving is achieved through bioenergy conversion, he didn't dare to hope for something impossible like a quick-acting cold medicine.

Thinking of this, he leaned over and slid out of the car, joined the ranks of those pushing the carts, and actively contributed the biological energy he had converted at noon to the convoy.

But this guy had bad intentions, and he pushed the cart behind the blonde girl. The girl turned around and looked at him, showing her white teeth and smiling at him. He was about to lick his face and move closer to see if he could interact with the girl, but a cold snort with a commanding message stopped him, startled him and gave up his thoughts. He looked over and saw another young man driving a car.

The brown-haired young man was looking at him viciously, obviously jealous. It seemed that this man was either the girl's admirer, her lover, or someone closer to her. He thought to himself that it was not good. It seemed that he had touched someone else's cake accidentally with his dirty thoughts.

He has always been very self-aware and knows that at the moment, apart from the dirty and smelly torn shorts he is wearing and the pair of sneakers with exposed toes on his feet, he doesn't even know if he owns the old linen clothes he wears outside. It can be said that he has nothing. He is so poor that he only has his shorts left.

The road ahead was bleak, and he had to rely on the people in the caravan for food and drink. He had to be aware of his place under someone else's roof and keep a low profile. So he gave the young man driving the carriage an awkward smile, consciously stepped back to the back of the carriage, lowered his head and pushed the cart hard.

With everyone's hard work, the convoy finally arrived at today's Sutou, a small village filled with the stench of cow dung, when it was completely dark.

This was a filthy village consisting of a dozen low thatched houses. The road in the village was bumpy and the villagers all had pale faces and wore simple, tattered and shabby clothes. The air was filled with the smell of cow dung mixed with urine, mold and other bad smells, which choked him so much that he subconsciously covered his mouth and nose.

In the eyes of Wang Baoping, who grew up in a modern environment, this place is extremely dirty, full of backwardness and ignorance, just like a primitive village in Africa or South America in the future. This made him, who had just gotten rid of hunger and fatigue, unconsciously raise the corners of his mouth in contempt, and his face also revealed the kind of superiority that was difficult to conceal, with the pride and contempt of a civilized person looking down on the backward.

However, what he didn't know was that his posture caught the attention of one person, and the leader of the convoy had been secretly observing him.

Everyone came to the most presentable house in the village, a two-story building made of logs. The most well-dressed man in the village came over. He looked like a village elder or the village chief. He stretched out his hand and shook hands with the leader of the caravan. After a few words of greeting, he led everyone to push the three wooden carts into the backyard, and then everyone followed him into the wooden house.

There was a fire pit in the middle of the wooden house. On the wooden rack above the fire pit hung a clay pot similar to the one in the caravan. The thick porridge inside was bubbling. Wang Baoping followed the example of others and found a wooden stool made of logs nearby. He sat down around the fire pit with everyone else.

As soon as everyone sat down, a fat woman holding a wooden spoon and a little girl holding a pile of wooden bowls came in. Starting from the leader of the team, the fat woman served porridge to everyone one by one. Everyone seemed to have no energy to talk after a day of hard work. The only sound in the room was the slurping of porridge.

Although Wang Baoping was no longer as hungry as he was at noon and began to dislike the dirty wooden bowl in his hand, he hesitated for a moment and succumbed to the hunger from the source of life, ignoring the dirty wooden bowl in his hand and the porridge made of unknown ingredients. "It's purely for calorie intake," he said to himself in his heart with self-mockery.

He quickly finished a bowl of porridge. Although he was not full, he did not dare to open his mouth again when he saw that the fat woman holding the wooden spoon had no intention of serving another bowl to everyone. Only the leader and the village chief were chatting in low voices in the house. The rest of the people either sat in silence or warmed themselves by the fire.

They chatted for a while, and then the leader stood up and said goodbye, walking towards the room on the left with ease. A group of people followed him in. It seemed that this room was where they would stay overnight.

As soon as he entered the house, Wang Baoping covered his mouth and nose reflexively. This room must have been used to tie up cows before. No, it should have been used to tie up cows just now. The whole room was filled with a pungent smell of cow dung, which made him feel sick. The sleeping area was a large bunk bed made of a row of wooden boards. There was no bedding on it, only a layer of wheat straw that was probably used to feed cows.

"Is this a room for people to sleep in?" Wang Baoping cursed in his heart.

Seeing Wang Baoping holding his nose and hesitating at the door, everyone burst into laughter, and the atmosphere seemed to be lively all of a sudden. Some people even laughed and joked. The leader came over with a smile, patted him on the shoulder, and then took him into the house by the arm, pointing to the place where the blonde girl had just laid out the blanket, indicating that this was where he would sleep tonight.

In contrast, Wang Baoping felt a little better. He was secretly glad that at least he was treated preferentially. He did not have to sleep directly on the prickly wheat straw like the others, but had a felt to sleep on. The only ones who could enjoy this honor here were the chief, the blonde girl and him, so he did not hesitate and lay down directly.

He knew that he might have taken the place of the young coachman, but he asked himself that he was after all a civilized man from the 21st century. How could he just sleep on the straw? He didn't care about him anymore and simply ignored the cold snort from the brown-haired young man behind him.

Soon, everyone who was tired fell into a deep sleep. The snoring in the room was so loud that Wang Baoping couldn't fall asleep. It was not only because of the snoring, but mainly because the room smelled so bad. The gas mixed with ammonia and mold rushed straight to his brain through his nasal cavity, making him toss and turn so uncomfortable that he couldn't fall asleep.

A small hand gently pushed him from behind, and then stuffed a handkerchief that was still warm from body temperature into his hand. Turning around, he saw the blonde girl looking at him with another handkerchief covering her nose. It seemed that he was not the only one who couldn't stand the smell.

He put the handkerchief to his nose and sniffed it. It had a very fragrant scent of lavender and the unique fragrance of a young girl. A throbbing warmth surged into his heart.

Looking at the beautiful face in front of him and smelling the rich fragrance on the handkerchief, Wang Baoping actually forgot for a moment that he was in a wooden house full of the smell of cow dung. He forgot the stinging pain caused by the blisters on his feet, the weakness all over his body, and how he came to this strange world inexplicably, and the fear and desolation that this world brought to his heart.

It seemed as if everything had become beautiful at that moment. In his trance, he thought about a lot of things, such as having a beautiful woman by his side and a successful career, and reaching the peak of life with his child. Even more outrageous was that this guy had even thought of how many children he would have and their names. This made him doubt that everything, including the time travel itself, was unreal. How could he be favored by such a good girl? Was it the so-called welfare of time travelers? He couldn't help but ask himself with a guilty conscience.

The dopamine brought by daydreaming did not offset the physical fatigue. With the help of the calming effect of lavender, our brother Baoping actually fell asleep in this wooden house filled with the pungent smell of cow dung. Even though a beautiful girl with exotic looks was lying just opposite him, and even though his young heart, stimulated by hormones, kept gushing out waves of restless energy, telling his body what to do, he still fell asleep with a little regret. He was really too tired.

Beauty is precious but short-lived. Even after many years, whenever he feels lonely, helpless and empty, he will always think of this unforgettable beautiful time.