Vol 10 Chapter 44 (1/2)

Chapter 44

VOLUME 10 CHAPTER 44: DON’T TELL ME THIS IS THE FIRST VISIT TO THE THATCHED COTTAGE (3)

Liu Bei POV

“Ah, alright.” I said as I hurriedly nodded and pulled on the reins to make my horse come to a halt. Yi De did so as well and breathed raggedly as she stopped beside me, giving me some rea.s.surance that this horrific journey was not a delusion of mine.

“Yi De, please help me get some water. It’s in my bag over there.”

My body was still too battered to turn around easily and all I could do was to look ahead stiffly. The journey was long and our pace was quick, making it difficult for me to ask for a break or turn around to look for my water pouch. The only thing I had been able to do on the way here was to make sure my feather fan remained with me.

“Ah, you can just drink from mine.” Yi De said as she reached down and took her gourd by her waist and pa.s.sed it to me.

I received it carefully and opened it before gratefully drinking several gulps of water from it. Despite the sand which flowed into my mouth from my face, I still continued to drink big gulps.

“Haa~ Many thanks.” I felt alive again and wiped my mouth as I pa.s.sed the gourd back to Yi De who stared at the gourd and touched the cap, “What’s the matter?”

“Ah! It’s nothing.” She hurriedly said and looked away as she kept her gourd. Could she be unhappy that I drank too much? No, I should have only drank about a quarter of the gourd’s contents.

“Big brother.” Yun Chang called out as she rode over.

“How is it? Are we at Longzhong?”

Yun Chang nodded, “This is indeed Longzhong.”

“Good, good.” I nodded. It was not an easy task to get here but now we have.

“We should look for Zhuge Liang’s residence now.”

“Yes.” I said as I nodded at Yun Chang and dismounted. The surrounding scenery was really befitting that of a place to seclude oneself from the world.

“From what Teacher Sima said, everyone in the area should know about Kong Ming. I’ll just go ahead and ask someone.” I said as I headed towards the old farmers up ahead with my reins in hand, “Excuse me, old man–”

“The heavens is like a round dome while the earth is like a chess game~~~”

For some reason, the old man broke into a song along with the other old men in a sonorous voice that covered my voice when I began to speak to him. I turned to look at my sisters but they too seemed befuddled.

“Should we be trying someone else?”

“Un…”

I was inclined to go with what Yun Chang suggested but it was really too awkward to walk away after coming up to him. And so, I decided to wait for them to finish singing and sat down alongside Yi De and Yun Chang. As I suspected, the song that they sang was similar to the musicians from before, the sort of poetic song that Yuan Zhi too had sang. I am not sure what the lyrics mean but their singing is most definitely better than Yuan Zhi’s.

“Big brother, this poem is really good.” Yun Chang whispered in amazement to me.

“Honourable people are content in peace while shameful people engage in work~~~”

“Yun Chang, you understand what the poem means?”

“More or less. Just from listening to it, I can tell that the composer is an extraordinary individual.”

Un~ I did not think that the average peasant could be capable of such feats. Perhaps Longzhong is filled with talented people.

After about 1-2 minutes, they were finally done. Alright, time to continue asking them. Let’s start off by praising them a bit first.

“h.e.l.lo, I was listening in on your singing just now and I have to say that it was really good.”

“Oh, so you understand it huh~”

“Ah… Un.”

Of course not, I tsukommi-ed in my mind but there was no way I could say this out loud. Not when an uneducated peasant could.

“That’s really impressive~” The farmer said as he gave me a thumbs-up, “I don’t even know what I’m singing to be honest.”

Eh?! Why are you singing something you do not even know!

(TL: *Cough* Anime song weebs *Cough*)

“Well, we’re doing farming work after all so if we don’t say something while doing manual labour, it will be very boring.” The farmer explained as he smiled, “It just so happens that we heard this song being sung every day and we learnt it. It’s pretty good for farming work rhythm.”