allonlinenovel Chapter 1169 Horse Brushing
Chapter 1169 Horse Brushing
"I'll take you to the stables!"
"Yes!"
Wu Shan led Xu Changshou directly to the stables.
This stable is very large, capable of holding hundreds of horses, but there are only a little over a hundred horses in it now.
The stables were clean, unlike those that were messy and smelly.
At this moment, there were five or six people working in the stable. Some were washing the horses, some were feeding them hay, and others were cleaning the stable.
"Yang An, come here for a second!"
Wu Shan waved to the man brushing the horse, and the man walked over respectfully.
Xu Changshou glanced at Yang An. He was not tall, had a fair complexion, and had a scholarly air about him.
"Boss Wu, what are your orders?" Yang An approached and asked in a humble tone.
Wu Shan pointed at Xu Changshou and said, "A newcomer has arrived. From now on, let him follow you and brush horses. You should teach him well."
"Yes!"
Yang An nodded, looked at Xu Changshou, and smiled kindly at him.
Wu Shan glanced at Xu Changshou and said, "From today onwards, you will follow Yang An to brush horses. You will receive two merit points every hundred years. Remember, do not slack off, or don't blame me for being impolite."
"Yes." Xu Changshou nodded calmly.
"Take care of yourself!"
Wu Shan waved and then left.
"What is your name, new junior brother?" Yang An asked.
Xu Changshou cupped his hands and said, "I am Xu Changshou, and I greet Senior Brother Yang."
"Since your surname is Xu, I'll call you Junior Brother Xu from now on."
"Easy to say."
Xu Changshou glanced at Yang An and asked, "Senior Brother Yang, how long have you been here?"
Yang An smiled and said, "It's been over three hundred years."
Xu Changshou frowned and said, "Have you been writing this for the past three hundred years?"
"Yes, I've been brushing the horse!" Yang An replied honestly.
"Forehead……"
Xu Changshou's face darkened. If he had to spend his whole life brushing horses here, what would be the point of cultivating immortality?
If Xu Changshou had known that the Donghua Immortal Sect, which he had longed for, was just a place to "show off" his skills, he would rather not have come at all.
"Senior Brother Yang, you've been grinding horses ever since you came in. When will this ever end?" Xu Changshou said with a worried look on his face.
Yang An laughed and said, "There are two people who clean the horses. One of them was transferred to another place before you came. When our horse breeding bureau sends someone else, I won't have to clean the horses anymore."
Xu Changshou asked, "What will you do when more people arrive?"
Yang An laughed and said, "If more people come, I can go feed the horses."
"Forehead……"
Xu Changshou said speechlessly, "What's the difference between brushing a horse and feeding it?"
Yang An said, "Our horse breeding company only has three kinds of work: brushing the horses, feeding the horses, and walking the horses."
"Of these tasks, brushing the horses is the most tiring, feeding them is a bit easier, and walking them is the easiest."
At this point, Yang An pointed to the distant racetrack stretching for miles and said, "Walking the horse only requires taking the Crimson Scale Dragon Horse to the racetrack for a walk. Moreover, you don't need to walk it every day; once every three to five days is enough. Walking the horse is not only easy, but the salary is also more than grooming the horse, and you get three merit points every hundred years."
“It’s different for us horse groomers,” Yang An complained. “The Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses need to be bathed every two weeks. We have over a hundred Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses here, and seven or eight of them are waiting to be groomed every day. We simply don’t have any free time.”
Xu Changshou nodded: "Walking horses is still the best. Now that you've said that, I'm tempted to go for a ride myself."
Yang An smiled wryly and said, "Forget about riding horses. Those who can ride horses are all people with connections; they all have connections at higher levels."
"You'd better just stick with me and learn how to brush horses properly. Come on, I'll teach you how!"
Yang An led Xu Changshou into the stable, picked up a large brush, and began to bathe a red-scaled dragon horse.
Seeing this, Xu Changshou frowned and said, "Senior Brother Yang, wouldn't it be easier to do this with divine sense? Why do it yourself?"
Yang An stopped what he was doing and said helplessly, "The Crimson Scaled Dragon Horse is very sensitive. It is afraid of anyone using their divine sense to spy on it. Therefore, you must never use your divine sense when brushing the horse, otherwise it may go berserk."
Xu Changshou asked curiously, "Senior Brother Yang, I heard that the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses here are all untamed. Why do they look so docile, as if they have no wildness?"
Yang An explained, "Junior Brother Xu, you don't understand. After the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses are captured, they are all fitted with Soul-Locking Reins. The Soul-Locking Reins are tied to the soul of the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horse. Once the Soul-Locking Reins are on, the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horse can only behave obediently. The bigger the movement, the more pain it will be. Therefore, the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses here all look very obedient."
"That's it..."
Xu Changshou looked closely and sure enough, each of the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses wore a fiery red rein around its neck. The rein was made of metal and had barbs on it, making it look extraordinary. It seemed that this was the Soul-Locking Rein that Yang An had mentioned.
“Junior Brother Xu, you’ve just arrived, let me tell you about Sima Jian.”
"Thank you, Senior Brother Yang. I am all ears."
"The Sima Jian is a minor, dispensable institution within the Donghua Immortal Sect. This institution is divided into three parts: the Horse Breeding Office, the Horse Raising Office, and the Horse Training Office."
"The people from the Horse Herding Office are responsible for capturing horses. The captured Crimson Scaled Dragon Horses will be sent to our Horse Breeding Office. After being raised in the Horse Breeding Office for a period of time, the people from the Horse Training Office will take them to be trained. Only after they are fully trained can they be sold to customers."
"Both the Horse Herding Bureau and the Horse Taming Bureau have better treatment than us. I heard that you can get one merit point for taming a Crimson Scaled Dragon Horse and five merit points for capturing one."
"Yeah."
Xu Changshou was very interested in hearing this. Whether it was catching horses or training them, it seemed to have a better future than feeding and grooming them.
"However, taming horses is very risky. Injuries are common, and catching horses is even more risky, with the risk to one's life. Our strength is weak, so it's better to just focus on training the horses honestly, which is better than anything else."
"Junior Brother Xu, now I'll teach you how to farm horses! Don't try it yourself these next few days, watch me farm first!"
After discussing some matters concerning the Sima Supervisor, Yang An began instructing Xu Changshou on how to groom horses.
"When brushing the horse, you must brush from front to back, following the direction of the scales, not against them, otherwise the Crimson Scaled Dragon Horse will go berserk..."
"Also, the Crimson-Scaled Dragon Horse is very sensitive, so don't touch it with your hands, especially its rear end, you absolutely can't feel it..."
Throughout the day, Xu Changshou did nothing but watch Yang An groom the horse. As Yang An groomed the horse, he explained the grooming method to Xu Changshou in detail.
Yang An spent most of the day grinding before finally completing the task.
Just then, two men with unfriendly expressions came to the stable.
One of them was as fat as a winter melon, and the other was as thin as a hemp stalk.
Upon seeing the two men, Yang An's expression immediately turned wary: "Li Feng, Zhao Pu, what are you doing at the stables?"
These two men were in charge of walking the horses; the fat one was called Li Feng, and the thin one was called Zhao Pu.
Li Feng glanced at Xu Changshu and squinted, saying, "Kid, you're the new guy, Xu Changshou."