How can I bow my head and serve the powerful officials?

After coming out of the county government office, the brothers of Qianjinzhai all changed into their military armor and wore the badges of the regular army around their waists.

This undoubtedly sends a signal to the outside world:

The emperor is far away and the county magistrate is also a king. The so-called national laws will not be strictly enforced. As long as you are willing to use some tricks, you can become a standing army in advance even without paying a hundred stones of coal.

Another loophole to exploit!

The bandit leaders in Coal Hill immediately became restless.

If they got the badge of the standing army at this time, they could legitimately follow the local army to suppress bandits. Then they could bring these suppressed bandits to their own territory to dig coal, not only without paying them wages, but after they had mined for a long time, they could also be stuffed into their own standing army to strengthen their own power!

It's really a good thing to kill two birds with one stone!

As a result, those bandit villages that had not dug up any coal mines suddenly became popular targets in the eyes of the coal bandits.

And the popular people have obviously realized this life and death issue.

A group of mountain bandits were wailing and cursing:

"Boss, if you don't surrender, the Qingdao Village, which has a grudge against us, will bring the local army to suppress us! When that happens, they will not show any mercy to us!"

"Yeah, boss! He who strikes first is stronger, and he who strikes later will suffer! Besides, it's hard to rob in the winter, so why not join the standing army first? At least you can get a monthly salary! At worst, you can escape later!"

"Even if we pretend to be ordinary people and take the initiative to dig coal, we can still get paid! But we can't work for free after our base is wiped out. That would be stupid!"

Another wave of bandits is gearing up for action:

"Hey, this is a great opportunity, brothers! Follow me to recruit the amnesty and destroy the Axe Village that tried to seize our territory!"

"There are twenty people in Tiexue Village, right? Get them all to dig coal for us. It will save us money and give us a chance to vent our anger!"

"Let's go! What are you waiting for? Once we have a standing army, I will be both an official and rich. By then, I will arrange for all the wives of my brothers to be with me!"

The mountains and fields were shaken by the shouts.

The bandits in Liaozhou are in increasing danger.

"It's going to change."

On the top of Qiantai Mountain, a noble young man in a red fur coat watched the increasingly dark clouds of the black mountains in the distant sky. He gently patted a red fan with golden threads on his palm, and the bandits were wiped out in the midst of his laughter and chat.

The snow is falling harder and harder.

The sky and the earth turned into a chessboard, and countless falling snowflakes turned into white chess pieces, all falling on the dense chessboard grids, like a raging wave approaching the black chess pieces in the thick fog, trying to swallow them up and push them away, leaving the chessboard clean and clear.

-

These days, coal bandits are so busy that they are going bald, vomiting blood, and suffering from stress-induced constipation.

During the day, he was busy going up the mountain with the local army to suppress bandits. At night, he had to rush back to the village to check on the situation in the coal mine. When he lay down on the kang, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep. He had no time to think about anything else. When he woke up the next day, it was another "wonderful" day of hard work.

But the sense of accomplishment is unparalleled.

Before they became bandits, they were also ordinary people. Due to various reasons such as heavy taxes, they were forced to go to the mountains to become bandits and live a life on the edge of a knife.

Now that he had a profitable coal mine and a standing army badge around his waist, he had no worries about food and clothing, and he felt that this kind of life was pretty good.

On a certain hilltop, after tying up the last fleeing bandit, a leader raised his hand to catch the falling snowflakes and asked his fellow local soldiers, "Brother, do you feel that the snow is getting heavier?"

"Yes, there was already snow on the ground when we came here, and now it's almost as thick as a foot." The local army brother wiped the blood off his face. After fighting side by side for many days, they have developed a deep comradeship. "I don't know when it will stop snowing. Let's stop here today, otherwise the snow will get thicker and we won't be able to go back."

"Right on my mind."

The standing troops cleaned up the mess and went down the mountain with the items they had used for the cleanup.

The snow on the ground was getting thicker and thicker, and the snowflakes falling from the sky were as big as goose down. The bone-chilling winter wind blew up and penetrated into the leather armor of the standing army, making people yearn for the warmth after lighting coal at home.

want to go back home.

Thinking of this, everyone couldn't help but speed up their pace.

Not only did the bandits notice that the snow was getting heavier, but Xie Chengze also discovered that time was becoming increasingly tight, and he had to arrange his men before the first snowstorm hit.

In Qianjin Village, he squatted in front of a bucket and reached out to gently touch the frozen cylindrical ice cube inside.

The ice cubes condensed in the bucket were crystal clear. It was because Xie Chengze boiled the water, stirred it from time to time, and kept watching it until such transparent and bright ice was finally condensed.

However, he couldn't take out the ice.

"Shen--Daqiang!!!" Xie Chengze raised his neck and yelled.

Not long after, Shen Yuan came walking on the snow from a distance, holding an unfinished wooden scroll in his hand. His elegant and graceful temperament made him look like a plum blossom in the snow, in stark contrast to the beautiful young man who was squatting on the ground with a huge red fur coat in his arms, looking very unpresentable.

Looking down at the young man pretending to be innocent, he curled his lips slightly and said jokingly, "It seems that Your Highness really wants me to call you Xiao Yuanyuan, but the hint is too subtle and I almost didn't get it."

Xie Chengze: (?ˉ3ˉ?) Don’t talk nonsense, I didn’t!

"Help me dig out a part of the middle of this ice block, and then take it out." Xie Chengze directed, rubbing his hands and looking very excited and expectant, "I will make you an ugly thing later~"

Shen Yuan: ... "Your Highness is really honest."

Putting the scroll in his hand into Xie Chengze's hand, Shen Yuan squatted down, pulled out a delicate dagger from his boots, and began to chisel a square hole in the center of the ice. When it was almost done, he slowly input a thin layer of internal force into the bucket, causing it to melt slightly and leave a layer of water stains, and then it separated from the bucket and became slippery.

Then he gently poured the crystal ice out at an angle.

Xie Chengze quickly turned around, dug out a red candle and a tinderbox from the pots and pans next to him, and lit the candle.

The candle flame was flickering in the wind and was about to go out. Shen Yuan stood up and changed his position to block the wind blowing towards the candle flame. Xie Chengze inserted the candle into the hole in the ice and stuffed some snow into it to press it down.

The orange candlelight flickered slightly, emitting a faint and soft light through the crystal clear ice, as if the dazzling summer sunlight was plucked from the silk thread and solidified and stored in the winter ice, weaving an illusion of ice, snow, light and shadow intertwined in this world covered in silver.

"This is called an ice lantern. Isn't it good?"

Xie Chengze's fingertips gently slid across the crystal ice lantern, his eyes shining brightly, as if he had seen the scene in his imagination, "If it can be carved into the shape of a rabbit, it will be very beautiful."

Shen Yuan lowered his brows and his eyes fell on the crystal ice lantern.

Rabbit ice lantern?