The spring is cold and frost hangs on the branches. The mountain shade in early spring has not yet been moistened by the first ray of sunshine in the morning, and is still dark and cold. The boy in wolf skin breathed into the palm of his hand and rubbed his fingers that were numb from the cold.
.
He is a hunter in this mountain. Yesterday he chased a spotted deer for a long time, but still lost track of it.
The hungry boy sighed silently, seeming to blame himself for his poor hunting skills, but still carefully took out a dark maroon horn bow from his back. His dark eyes were covered with circles of white water.
, always staring straight ahead without blinking.
There was a small piece of forest grass in front of him. The young man tried his best to move his hands and feet lightly, for fear of scaring away the hare that had just poked its head out of the meadow.
The bow arms made of bamboo wood have been carefully polished to be round and smooth. Two pieces of pitch black horn are glued to the surface of the bow back with fish bladder glue. A layer of strong beef tendon is also carefully wrapped at the joint between the handle and the bow tip.
It exudes a faint fishy smell. The entire bow has no paint on its surface. Although it is a bit crude, it is evenly coated with a layer of animal fat for maintenance, and glows faintly in the dim light of the morning.
The young man slowly pulled out an arrow from the quiver on his back, put it on the string and pulled hard.
His hair was obviously trimmed by himself with a knife. It was uneven and unkempt, and looked a bit sloppy. His body wrapped in wolf skin showed obvious fatigue, as if he hadn't eaten enough for a long time, and his two bows were bowed.
But his hand was as steady as a rock - except for the ups and downs with his breathing, the tip of the arrow did not shake at all. The boy's physical strength was not small, and even the bow string that could be pulled by an adult made a small creaking noise.
The hare in the meadow seemed to hear this strange noise, and suddenly raised itself up on its two hind legs. The small nose above its three-petal mouth twitched nervously. It stared at its two round eyes like black beans and looked at it.
The long ears turn in two different directions to catch any signs of danger.
The bow string was full, and the creaking sound became more and more obvious. The hare finally determined the location of the hunter, leaned down and immediately ran away close to the ground.
However, it was still a step too late. The young man held his breath and concentrated, and had reduced the shaking of the left hand holding the bow to an almost imperceptible level. The moment the arrow tip floated towards the hare, he accurately released the thumb that was holding the string.
"Teng!"
The arrow flew towards the hare with a whistling sound, passing through its right hind leg accurately and hard, and then nailed into the solid soil under the meadow. The hare was so painful that it struggled to flutter on the ground, but the arrow was not strong enough.
It was sunk several inches into the ground, and it was impossible to break free.
The boy hiding in the bushes happily put away his bow and arrows, jumped out, and walked towards his first hunt since entering the mountains.
But he never expected that there was another person hiding nearby. Before he could get close to the prey in the distance, the young man saw a figure suddenly running out of a diagonal stab. The opponent was very fast, and before he could see it,
Qing then picked up the hare from the ground and flew towards the other end of the forest.
"Shameless thief, how dare you seize someone's prey? Stop right now!" Without much thought, the young hunter pulled out another feather arrow with his backhand, put it on the bowstring and chased after him.
For him, this mountain forest is like his own backyard. Where are the streams you can drink from and where are the cliffs? Where are the lush vegetation and where are the unknown shortcuts? They are all clear to him.
.And in this primitive dense forest that stretches for more than a hundred miles, there is only one inconspicuous village.
Including the young man himself, only three hunters in the village would enter the mountain at this time. But it was obvious that the figure who snatched the rabbit just now was not the other two he was familiar with.
If the other party is just a stranger who has just arrived, the boy will not worry that he can run away easily. Even in the soil in front of him, which is covered with thick fallen leaves, he can only gradually see some incomplete footprints that appear and disappear, and even fragile vegetation.
The sound of branches being broken by that person was almost no longer audible.
However, not far away, a distant song suddenly came from the dense vegetation ahead. The voice sounded clearly that of a girl, clear and sweet, like the wind chime playing softly, and like the cry of a nightingale. However, the voice that came out from between the lips and teeth was
Those indistinguishable lyrics and music were unlike any songs the young Orion had ever heard.
The young man couldn't help but wonder why the other party was so confident, so he squeezed the horn bow in his hand tighter, hesitated for a moment, and decided to follow the song and go have a look.
As he continued to move forward, the singing in the wind became clearer and clearer. Finally, the boy saw the owner of the singing on the edge of a cliff. He saw him wearing a strange dark blue cloak, kneeling with his back to him.
On the ground. But the girl did not kill the hare and roast it as he thought. Instead, she had already taken out the arrow that had shot through the hind leg, and used a piece of gorgeous fabric to carefully cut the wound.
Bandaged up.
The other party seemed completely unaware that the danger was quietly approaching from behind him. He just stroked the soft fur on the hare's neck and continued humming the song unhurriedly, which seemed to have no beginning or end.
The boy suddenly realized that this melodious song was actually sung to the injured hare!
There seemed to be a power in the girl's singing that moved the grass, trees and mountains. As she sang, even the air became warmer. And the injured hare lay obediently at her feet, letting it go.
No matter how you play with it, you no longer think about escaping.
This situation made the young hunter freeze on the spot. It took him a long time to regain his senses. He quickly picked up the horned bow in his hand and shot an arrow at the opponent's feet. Then he took another arrow and threatened loudly:
"Return the rabbit to me quickly! If not, don't blame the bow and arrow in my hand for being blind!"
The girl seemed to have never thought that someone would be chasing her, but she did not try to escape. Instead, she bent down and hugged the hare back into her arms, turned around and asked:
"Who are you? Why do you order me?"
As the girl spoke, she raised her hand to flip down the cloak covering her head, looked at the arrow at her feet, and then looked at the indignant boy who was pointing the bow at her. There was a trace of confusion on her face, which then turned into all kinds of things.
With an indignant look, "Oh - you were the one who hurt the rabbit with this small branch before?!"
A fiery red color suddenly appeared in front of the young man's eyes - it was the curly waist-length hair on the other person's head. The girl opposite looked like she was only twelve or thirteen years old, but her skin was much whiter than his own, which made her look full of beauty.
The red hair on her head becomes more and more beautiful.
The boy originally thought he was in the right, but he was confused by the other party's questioning. He couldn't help but murmur in his heart, thinking that the rabbit was a plaything kept by the girl's family, and instinctively looked away, his face
Suddenly a burning heat surged up in my head, but I held my neck and argued:
"What are you doing! No one's name is written on this rabbit!"
But the girl took a few steps forward with the rabbit in her arms, and approached the young man without fear and said:
"Barbaric! Even if it is an ownerless rabbit, can you kill it at will? Besides, if you think you are really right, why don't you even dare to look at this person?"
The boy did not expect that the other party would be so sharp-tongued and aggressive. Although he was indignant in his heart, he did not dare to pester him any more. He had to put down his horn bow and take a step back. Unexpectedly, he was tripped by weeds up to his ankles and staggered.
He fell solidly to the ground.
"What’s wrong with you?"
The girl was immediately frightened. She bent down and stretched out a hand towards the boy, trying to pull him up.
The young man didn't know what the other party wanted. He lowered his head and stammered that he was fine, and struggled to get up quickly. However, the withered grass on the mountain wrapped around his legs like a fishing net. When he looked up again, he saw only a
Zhang's charming and charming face has completely occupied his sight.
He didn't take a closer look before, but what he saw now was shocking - the girl in front of him had feathery eyebrows, a heavy head and a raised tail, and her whole body was as clean as the white clouds in the sky, and as bright as a cloud in the night.
A pair of red flames. A pair of gleaming eyes is an extremely rare blue, just like the sea of Chanying under the sunny summer sun, gentle and calm.
The young man had never seen such a charming girl before. He stared at her face with fascination and was stunned for a moment.
"Bah! Why are you always staring at people? Could it be that there is something on my face? Oops - you are also injured and you bleed a lot!"
The girl's series of yells made the young Orion come back to his senses. When he lowered his head, he saw that he had been pierced by an arrow on his right thigh when he fell to the ground. The hole in his trousers exposed the flesh.
There was a wound that was two to three inches long. Although the wound was not deep, the blood quickly soaked into the surrounding clothes.
"It's just a little flesh wound, don't worry about it!"
The boy secretly thought that he was unlucky. He replied angrily and then tried hard to get up. Unexpectedly, the girl in front of him raised her hand to hold him down without saying anything, and then pulled it off her skirt with a "swish" sound.
A piece of cloth was used to bandage his wound on the spot:
"Don't move around, otherwise people won't be happy to help you. Speaking of which, you are the first person I met in this mountain. If there is no compelling reason, I'm afraid I won't come here alone -
—”
The girl's words made the young man suddenly startled, and he actually stopped struggling. The moment the cloth touched his skin, the pain on the wound immediately eased a lot - the material was exactly the same as the one he used before to bandage the hare.
It was embroidered with beautiful and complicated patterns, and it also carried a little warmth from the girl's body. It seemed to have a miraculous effect on stopping bleeding. As soon as it was tied, the blood stopped flowing.
"My name is Ning Yue, and everyone calls me Yue'er on weekdays. What's your name?"
When the young man heard the girl ask, his nose was filled with the light body fragrance emanating from the other person's body, and he accidentally caught a glimpse of the beautiful collarbone and fair skin looming under her collar. His body trembled slightly, and he didn't even care about the response. It just subsided.
The blush quickly spread from the roots of her ears back to her face, and she lowered her head again in embarrassment.
"Does the injury hurt?"
"I can bear the pain!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, since it hurts, why bother to endure it!"
The girl said, willfully holding the boy's cheeks with her hands, and struggled to lift his face.
This move made the boy feel even more embarrassed. He shook his head hard and avoided the girl's hand: "I haven't washed my face for several days, so I'm not afraid of getting your hands dirty?"
"It doesn't matter, I probably haven't washed my face for many days! What's more, your face is not dirty. Look, my hands are still clean." The girl said, raising a pair of white and slender hands in front of the other party.
, paused, "Hey, I just asked you your name. Could it be that - all the people here have no names?"
The young Orion hurriedly shook his head, but still did not dare to look into the other person's eyes. He just responded hesitantly: "My name is - my name is Jiang Yan, the general of the general, the Yan of Guangyan."
The girl repeated his name, deliberately prolonging it: "Jiang - Yan - is indeed a strange name, and it is quite difficult to remember. But you are quite interesting when you talk, and you stutter, so why don't you call me "Jiang Yan" from now on?
Forget about your little stammer."
"Who stuttered? I am—I am—"
"Oh, now that we know each other's names, you and I can be friends from now on, right?" The girl just smiled and patted the boy's head.
"Hey, there is no reason in the world to take away food from your friends..."
Jiang Yan drew back his neck and murmured in a low voice, but did not object to the word "friend" - he had lived in this mountain for many days, and now it was the first time he met people of his own age, and it was inevitable that he wanted to be the same person in his heart.
Say a few more words to the other person.
"So you wanted to eat this rabbit! Is there no other food in the mountains?"
"Why do you ask so many questions?"
"After all, he is still a lively little creature. I will make the decision for you today and let him go!"
Ning Yue did not allow the young hunter to make any more excuses, so she put the hare in her hand on the ground and muttered something to herself, "Little rabbit, go home quickly. Make sure to hide it well this time."
Now, be careful if someone catches you again!"
The hare that was curled up in his arms just a moment ago seemed to understand the human words. As soon as its legs landed on the ground, it slithered back into the meadow and disappeared immediately.
After a lot of troubles, he watched helplessly as his prey was let go in front of him. Jiang Yan couldn't help but feel angry and funny at the same time. His stomach also made a growl and he protested:
"There is no one like you. I am a hunter. If I don't hunt, do I have to live by eating wild fruits?"
"Isn't it okay to eat wild fruits?" Ning Yue suddenly asked with her big blue eyes flashing.
"Spring has just begun, and there are not many flowers. Where can we eat the wild fruits?"
Jiang Yan didn't know whether the other party was pretending not to understand or he really didn't understand, so he explained patiently. After hearing what he said, the red-haired girl in front of him seemed to have heard something extraordinary, and actually clapped his hands and exclaimed:
"You really have to wait for spring before there will be flowers. What is written in the book is absolutely correct!"
The young man secretly guessed in his heart that the girl in front of him was the daughter of a wealthy family. She happened to pass by this place while outing for an outing, so he asked the other party:
"It takes a few days and nights to walk through this mountain. If you don't even know this, what will you eat to survive along the way?"
"Seaweed, honey, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, there are much more things you can eat on land than in the sea. If that doesn't work, I can climb a tree to touch a few bird eggs and bake them."
As the girl spoke, she rolled her eyes and laughed, the skin on the bridge of her nose wrinkled slightly, looking cute and cute.
In this way, the lonely boy who is not good at words and the naive girl who is innocent meet in such an unforgettable way.
For many years after that, Jiang Yan would always think of the scene when the two first met. A girl with red hair and a hare in her arms would appear in front of him as lively as he saw yesterday. Incomparably vivid.