The first year of Jian'an, June 15th.

Valliard led a camel into Weikaola. The aquaculture industry in Weikaola is quite prosperous. Every year, they can harvest enough fish to feed a city for one and a half years. Those that cannot be eaten are left in the sun.

It was turned into dried fish, a small part of it was sent to other cities through the Kohar Lijiang River, and most of it was used as food storage in times of famine.

"Somewhat similar to City of the Sun."

Balliard entered the city without being blocked, and he was not even charged a toll. The guards at the city gate took one look at Balliard and let him in. He was definitely not an enemy on his own.

If you dress gorgeously, you can't afford tolls. Forget it, people with status don't need tolls.

He walked on the street and carefully observed the situation of the city. Although the city was also crossed by the Kohari River, there were remaining dilapidated city walls on the other side of the river. The former Weikaola was probably built on the Kohari River.

On the north bank, the river is now included within the city limits.

You can understand this if you think about the situation in Wikoula for a moment. Wikoula is a city famous for aquaculture. Although there is some land for growing crops, fish is the livelihood of Wikoula people.

This is a big city with hundreds of thousands of people. How can it support so many people just by relying on the "shameful" range of fertile land on both sides of the river?

In addition, hundreds of years ago, the Jin State was unable to control the princes. With a little reason, the princes could attack each other. The geographical location of Weikaola is relatively important. The princes who had any idea of ​​Weikaola would definitely not

Well, it's hard to say whether the current Marquis of Vicoula is still a descendant of the noble family from 1,800 years ago.

Fish farming must not be the same as crops, where everything is "harvested" when the time comes. Otherwise, drying the dried fish will take up a large space, and storing the dried fish will require piles of warehouses. The city is quite large, but it cannot be wasted casually.

There is limited space, and besides, you can obviously eat fresh fish, so why do you require all people to eat dried fish?

Weikaola originally had to import many types of agricultural products to meet the people's dietary requirements. But they suddenly banned fresh fish. Will the people be happy?

Probably for this reason, it was difficult to store fish, and these fishing grounds could not be left to the enemies besieging the city. The marquis and nobles of Vicoula had no choice but to expand the city and incorporate part of the Kohar Li River into the city, so that even if the enemy

During the siege of the city, Vikoula did not have to worry about food shortages.

"Hey - what are the people over there doing?"

Balliard saw the strange behavior of the people on the other side of the river, and his curiosity suddenly came over. He saw that some people there had frightened faces, but some people were calm, whether they were frightened or calm.

People were all surrounding that lump, so it was obvious that there must be something there to attract them.

"Master, are you talking about the other side? Forget it, I don't know whose family a person died in. The body was sent back and no one picked it up. It won't be long before it will be thrown into the river to feed the fish."

A middle-aged man wearing a vest, a mandarin jacket, a straw hat on his head, his trousers rolled up above his knees, and wearing straw sandals, heard Balliard's doubts and started talking to Balliard familiarly. This man

It was no wonder that he knew at a glance that Valliard was a young man from out of town. These young men like to join in the fun. If they are not allowed to join in the fun, they will make trouble on their own.

The man didn't want his young buddies to cause trouble again, so he explained it to Balliard in advance to avoid big trouble. He saw that Balliard's clothes were studded with gold, so he went over to join in the fun and squeeze in with others.

If it's crowded, I don't know how many people will want to take some gold off. The man is also greedy, but he knows himself, and he can't afford this gold.

"Feed the fish? Don't you want to bury it? Just feed the fish directly?"

Baliard remembered the pharaohs of Shurima. The kings liked large tombs very much, and even the common people would want to find a good cemetery for themselves. In this context, they would feed other people's corpses to fish.

A bit unauthentic, right?

At any rate, the dead man was a citizen of Weikaola. It was miserable enough to die outside. Finally, someone showed mercy and sent his body back so that his family could see him. But who would have thought that no one would claim the body?

, the burial fee is very expensive? But no matter how expensive it is, it is nothing to a marquis in this city. It is not good for this marquis to treat his own people like this.

"We don't do burials here. Water burials are popular. In fact, they are just feeding the fish. Don't let this young man conflict with others because of this. This is our local custom. We don't bother outsiders."

This is not the first time that a man has seen young men from out of town. These outsiders are likely to cause trouble when they come, and if they cause trouble, someone will die. Well, keeping these outsiders out can indeed alleviate this problem, but the key is these

Can outsiders, especially those young men, influence the prices of fruits and vegetables delivered to Vicoula and drive them away? Then there will no longer be the conditions for eating one fruit a week now.

"You eat fish, let the fish eat you when you die, and then you eat those fish that have eaten human flesh. It's interesting."

Balliard knew many burial methods. The most common ones were burial and cremation. There were also water burials in Bilgewater. After death, the body was placed on a bamboo raft and drifted with the current. Wherever the raft capsized, the corpse

Just feed it to the fish somewhere. But after all, the Sea of ​​Watcher is big enough, and you may not be able to eat the fish that have eaten human flesh. Maybe the fish that have eaten human flesh will be eaten by other big fish in a few days.

It's eaten.

But here, aquaculture is booming, and the fish in the river are all the food for the people in this city. If a relative dies, you might eat fish with the flesh and blood of your relative in your belly that night.

"Tit for retaliation, the priests of Gilda's family said that the fish we eat are gifts from the Crocodile God, but these fish are the people of the Crocodile God. If we eat them, we will be killed after we die.

They eat them, otherwise the Crocodile God will be dissatisfied with our actions and fish production will decrease."

The man does not find their customs strange, but he is also used to the fact that these outsiders find their customs strange. This custom has been in existence for thousands of years before Emperor Sima Yi abolished slavery. The locals do not think so.

I think there is something wrong with this custom,

"Having said that, you don't still want to go, do you? There's nothing to see, just a corpse. Apart from those idle boys and girls and homeless people, who has the heart to see that thing? Master, you have to go there

If so, be careful not to let thieves scratch the gold off your clothes."

"Crocodile God...Thank you for the reminder, but I still want to go over and have a look."

In Balliard's impression, the only guy who is qualified to be believed by humans and has the appearance of a crocodile is Nasus' crazy brother Renekton. However, although that guy can be called the Crocodile God,

His authority is related to killing. He should be the human embodiment of the choice of "killing", just like his brother is the human embodiment of "death". The two brothers can't be too far apart, right?

Aquaculture and the like don't look like authority that Renekton would control, even though Babbitt told him that the Crocodile God here is actually a false god created by the Changelings to deceive the people in order to settle in this city.

, but how could Shurima be missing Nasus’ brothers? The will still cares about this land, and those two people who were favored by the will are still not human beings now?

There is no extraordinary power in this world line, so wouldn't the so-called ascended ones, these human incarnations of great will choices, just go up directly? This may not be possible.

"Hey - these young masters know how to cause trouble all day long. I'd better go away quickly to avoid unreasonable disasters."

The man watched Balliard walk away, shook his head, and left with his fish basket filled with fish.

…

"This man died so tragically."

"Even so, I don't know what bad things I did to deserve this kind of retribution."

"Hey, people in these remote places are prone to retribution."

Balliard gradually walked in and listened to the conversations of the men and women more and more clearly. It was really similar to what the fisherman said. The people around him were all young girls and homeless people, but well, young men

Most of the girls are from other places, homeless people, and they look like mercenaries hired by these people.

If Balliard guessed correctly, these people should be traveling, isn't it surprising? The Hari River is directly connected to the western coast of Shurima. People in that area look at those mountains and seas all day long.

, Green Field Plain, the word desert is very far away for them. With such a convenient waterway as the Kohar Lijiang River, people with a little money can come and see the desert scenery. What's so surprising about it.

"ah--"

Suddenly, a girl screamed in a fuss. Regardless of whether she was frightened or not, everyone else was frightened anyway and stared at the girl with confusion and dissatisfaction.

"What are you screaming about? Don't think I don't know that you have been here for about ten minutes. You didn't scream before, so why are you screaming now?"

He has a bad temper and directly curses at this girl. Are you pretending to be weird? Or just pretending? These mercenaries can't care about the troublesome love affairs between these young men and young ladies, but if you want to act, please go far away so that they don't watch.

I got goosebumps all over my body.

"Why are you talking! My lady paid money to invite you here, isn't it..."

"Stop talking! It's my fault,"

The girl grabbed her maid, still looking frightened. Her eyes glanced at the corpse on the ground from time to time, and then she said again,

"ah--"

"You're still excited, right? You really think I can't let go of that little money?"

What mercenaries hate most are those pretentious nobles and businessmen. If it weren't for the fact that those nobles and businessmen have money, they would never deal with them. However, even if they did, they would still prefer

Yu and the younger generation of kids are not as dirty as the old guys. But I didn't expect that this little girl is also so "pretending".

"It's not...that-that-body moved!"

The girl was so anxious that she almost burst into tears. She kept stepping back. Others thought she was afraid of the mercenary walking towards her, but what she was afraid of was the corpse on the ground.

"What?"

The mercenary who originally planned to come over and give this girl a slap in the face, then stop doing this job and go live in other cities, with doubts, pushed away the crowd and came close to the body to look at it.

"Has the body moved? I told you, girl, stop being suspicious. How could the body be there? Let me go!"

The mercenary who was originally squatting in front of the corpse suddenly fell back and kept kicking his legs forward, which unexpectedly hit him.

He just stopped when his back rested on someone else's calf.

"Really moving?"

"No way?"

"How can a dead person still move?"

"I guess my eyesight is dazzled."

The people around them originally wanted to laugh at the girl. They didn't believe a word of the "body moved" statement, but the mercenary's actions really scared them. Everyone said

Mercenaries are bold, explorers are not afraid of death, and even mercenaries are frightened. The crowd of onlookers actually somewhat accepts this statement.

They said they didn't believe it and were doubting the eyes of the mercenaries. However, these people stepped back while raising questions. If they hadn't seen the corpse move with their own eyes, they would have run away.

"Mouth! That corpse's mouth was moving just now!"

The mercenary ignored other people's questions and stood up, pushing away the crowd and leaving. He had never seen a fake corpse before in such a big life. If the corpse was not strong, he could wait and see from behind. The corpse was very strong.
To be continued...