In Huaiyuan Town, the walking horse road on the east side of the Baijian River is the main street of the market. In the early years, it was one of the most important grass markets in Tongbai Mountain.
Over the past 156 years, the population has multiplied, and three branch streets have been expanded to the south of the main street, with eighty-nine lanes running through them, almost outlining the outline of Hedong Market in Huaiyuan Town.
Liutiao Lane is located in the southeast corner of the market and was originally the outer edge of Huaiyuan Town.
Huaiyuan Town did not have a county, so it was not qualified to build a city wall. In the early years, wicker trees were planted as boundaries. However, as the population multiplied and the market expanded, this area also became one of the lanes of the Hedong market; the wicker trees also became jagged ancient willow trees.
In the past 20 to 30 years, more and more business travelers have traveled east and west via the horse road, and poor villagers have come to Huaiyuan Town to seek livelihood. In the unowned and low-lying lands outside Hexi Military Village and Hedong Market, which are prone to flooding, they
There were more jagged shanties, and thousands of people were crowded there.
People who settled in the market in the early years were either wealthy households or landlords around them, or they had small businesses in the market. Most of them lived a fairly stable life and were neatly dressed. But when Xu Huai and Liu Qiong'er walked near Willow Lane,
Looking at the pedestrians passing by in a hurry, most of them are in ragged clothes and have yellow and thin faces. It can be said that they are clearly different from each other.
When his mother died of illness, the few acres of thin farmland at home were used for burial. Looking at the people living under thatched huts south of Willow Lane, Xu Huai secretly felt that if he hadn't been taken in by his Seventeenth Uncle and Su Di in the past two years,
, most of them can only live there, enduring hunger and cold every day.
Xu Huai looked at Liu Qiong'er's charming face and tensed up at this moment. She didn't know what memories it had evoked in her.
Xu Huai was not sure that there were no abducted women and children in Yuehong Mansion, but he was certain that most of the girls were actually sold by their families.
When Tang Lingde handed over the body deed, Liu Qiong'er took it and held it in his hand so that no one else could take a look. However, before Xu Huai came to find Liu Qiong'er, he specifically inquired about her life experience and found out that she was sold when she was twelve or thirteen years old.
To Yuehonglou.
This is definitely not a pleasant memory for anyone.
A spring rain had just fallen, and the Willow Alley was muddy, and the air was mixed with the smell of mules and horses' urine. Xu Huai and Liu Qiong'er walked to the "Ge Ji" blacksmith shop on the dry ground beside the alley - this was
It was passed down after the death of Xu Wuliang's father-in-law.
A doorway was dug out of the courtyard wall, which was used as a shop for external business. A badly peeling wooden paint sign was hung on one side.
A stove in the shop was burning brightly, and a thin girl wearing coarse clothes, her face darkened by the dust, was struggling to pull the bellows.
In mid-spring, Xu Wuliang, shirtless, took a red-hot short blade out of the fire with a pair of tongs, then raised the hammer and forged it rhythmically.
Xu Wuliang is in his early forties, and his hair has some white strands. It seems that he has been having a hard time in recent years, but the tendons between his arms are like little mice, and they follow the hammer on the vise.
It was rolling with the blows, full of an indescribable sense of power, showing that none of its skills were left behind.
"Dad!" The girl saw Xu Huai and Liu Qiong'er walked to the door and timidly called Xu Wuliang, who was hammering a short blade.
The shop was low, and half of Xu Huai's face was blocked by an iron plow hanging from the beam. Xu Wuliang raised his head and saw only Liu Qiong'er's face, and greeted:
"Miss Liu, what I am holding is the makeup knife you want. You are demanding and the money you give is enough. Of course I don't dare to deal with you. Look, I learned this from the Jingsheng Forbidden Army.
His craftsmanship is outstanding. Don’t look at the makeup knife, which is less than half a foot long. However, it is made of the best iron materials. It is coated with medicinal mud and fired using a unique secret method. It also takes three days to forge and remove impurities. If you don’t believe it, come and see.
Look at the texture of this short blade. Is it any different from the commonly used knives and scissors? It has not yet been finalized. Counting the time, it will not be ready until the afternoon at the earliest. The scabbard is ready-made, but it still needs to be made well.
It has a sandalwood handle inlaid with silver, so I can only trouble you to come back in the evening."
There is actually no difference between men and women in makeup knives. Anyone can wear a protective belt that doubles as a waist ornament. At that time, women carried it with them mainly to prevent harm. The handles of the swords were mostly decorated with silver, also known as silver makeup knives. Men hid them in their sleeves and pockets, and
It's called a bag knife.
Liu Qiong'er had overheard the assassin saying that Xu's clan members who had returned from the Jingsheng Army might be secretly involved in protecting Wang Zhen, so she couldn't help her curiosity and used a silver sword to test Xu Wuliang.
Xu Wuliang thought Liu Qiong'er had misremembered the agreed time, so he couldn't wait to come over in advance to take away the unfinished silver knife.
Liu Qiong'er took a step aside.
"Xu Huai, why did you come to see me?" Xu Wuliang shouted in surprise.
He just greeted Liu Qiong'er, still holding the hammer and pliers in his hand. Now he threw the hammer and pliers on the forging platform, wiped his hands twice on the apron that was full of holes caused by sparks, and couldn't help but feel happy.
He walked over and looked Xu Huai up and down:
"I haven't run to your uncle Wu Liang for a few years. You have grown so tall. It seems that Xu Wujiang didn't dare to treat you badly, otherwise I wouldn't be able to forgive him! Why are you here? But Xu Wujiang has something to send you.
Are you here? It’s true, Xu Wujiang, he doesn’t know who to send, but why do you have to run errands for such a stupid thing?"
Although he had deliberately avoided this place in the past few years, Xu Wuliang had always paid attention to him. Xu Huai felt regretful for a moment and didn't know how to say something.
"Shopkeeper Xu, can we take a moment to speak."
Although Willow Lane was dilapidated and muddy, the people coming and going was much more lively than around the courtyard they were interested in. Liu Qiong'er thought it would be more convenient to go to the courtyard to talk.
"Are you here with Miss Liu?" Xu Wuliang pointed at Liu Qiong'er and asked Xu Huaidao.
Huaiyuan Town is neither big nor small. What happened in Yuehong Mansion has long been spread to the military village, but Xu Wuliang has not heard about it in Liutiao Lane.
"The matter is a bit complicated, so we'd better go to the yard behind to talk!" Xu Huai said.
"Okay, let's go and talk in the back," Xu Wuliang shouted to the girl, "Xiaohuan, please watch the fire for me. If you dare to go out to play secretly, I will break your dog legs!"
There was a door on the back side of the shop that allowed them to directly enter the yard inside. But as soon as they entered the yard, they heard the sound of "ping-ping-ping-pong-pong" in the shop in front. Xu Huai looked through the half-opened door and saw three men standing beside them.
He walked into the shop behind him, picked up some knives and shovels as samples, and banged them on the pliers.
"Master Ge!" Xu Wuliang was not angry. He forced a smile on his bitter face and walked back to the shop. He apologized to those people in a low voice, "Miss Liu from Yuehonglou had a knife attack on me a few days ago.
I’ve given you a lot of money, so let me tell you, there are always people who know good craftsmanship, and this shop may be in good shape in the future. Please bear with me, Mr. Ge, and I will definitely be able to repay the money little by little!”
"Xu Wuliang, how long do you think I have been caring for you?"
The leader, a lazy man with some baldness and sparse hair tied into a bun, was biting a blade of grass and wanted to sit down, but he couldn't find a clean place to rest his butt in the blacksmith shop, and he was cursing.
said,
"You said that in this wretched place, besides the poor guy who can't squeeze a few coins out of him, who else comes to look for you? Miss Liu from Yuehong Mansion wants you to play with a knife, and you still want to deceive the ghost? What is she doing with the knife?
Do you want to kill someone? Ask the men in Huaiyuan Town, if Liu Qiong'er from Yuehong Mansion wants to kill someone, she nods and says she is willing to sleep with her for the night, how many people will jump out to help her kill, you need to run away, you loser
Make room for a bird knife?"
"People from Tang's warehouse?" Xu Huai asked Liu Qiong'er in a low voice.
Liu Qiong'er glanced at him sideways. She had heard a lot of things, but apart from the qualified and stylish people who spent a few taels of silver to listen to her play and sing at Yuehong Mansion, she really didn't know many people in Huaiyuan Town.
.
There were hundreds of workers at Tangji Warehouse, from the stewards to the horsemen, and there were also dedicated people responsible for collecting and lending money. She had never been in contact with them, so how could she possibly recognize them all?
Besides, she didn't know if Xu Wuliang had borrowed debt from Tangji Warehouse and his family, but in any case, Xu Wuliang would not have been able to pay off the debt without her and Xu Huai's intervention.
These days, moneylenders are very conscientious, and they often double their money every year. Therefore, if you don't borrow money, and whenever you encounter difficulties or bad years, you can find a moneylender.
Squeezed until no bones are left?
If it weren't for this, in Hedong Market, Huaiyuan Town, how many houses in the alleys would all have the surname Tang?
If it hadn't been for this, how could Tang Xu and other large clans have managed to get thousands or even tens of thousands of acres of fertile land into one family's hands in Tongbai Mountain, which was already in urgent need of farmland?
"Ge Laitou, what are you doing? Are you coming here to cause trouble? Do you think we are afraid of you?" At this time, three young men in shabby clothes walked over from outside, pushed away the lazy debt collector, and protected Xu Wuliang with an aggressive attitude.
asked the lazy man.
The lazy man curled his lips and sat on the table nearby, spreading his hands to show that he had no intention of causing trouble. He said to Xu Wuliang across the three young men: "Xu Wuliang, I am also running errands to make ends meet. I have helped you delay until today. You can say
Your benevolence and righteousness have been exhausted. If you don't pay off the debt, the boss will go to Deng Langjun to judge, and I can't do anything about it. But since I'm here today, you have to give me some interest and ask me to buy it back so that I can do business! This
The short blade is good, so I accepted it first..."
The lazy man was also a man who knew what he was doing. The cosmetic knife on the vise table had not been forged yet, and it had not been fitted with a handle. But looking at the forging pattern, one could tell that it was a high-quality product that Xu Wuliang had painstakingly forged in the past few days. He leaned against the wall again.
I picked a scabbard on the desk and wanted to put the makeup knife in it, ready to take it away as money.
"This is really a makeup knife custom-made by Miss Liu of Yuehonglou. I still have more than a hundred dollars on hand. Ge Laozhuang, you can take it first." Xu Wuliang blocked it.
"Xu Wuliang, what do you mean, you are going to attack me because of the strength of the crowd, right? You have to think clearly about the consequences. If you touch me, I will be lame and broken. Can your shabby shop afford to pay for it?"
shouted the tired man.
"Fuck you, uncle!" Xu Huai walked into the shop, stretched out his hand and scraped his ear, then greeted the lazy man in the face, and cursed, "You dare to take away the silver makeup knife customized by my Miss Liu, I will slap you
Kill your mother!"
There is also knowledge in slapping the ears. With this slap, Xu Huai had no intention of giving the lazy man and his two followers a chance to resist.
In this moment, he used the horizontal slashing force of Fu Mang Dao and the turning fist in Fu Mang Fist. When he stepped forward, he used his body to swing and used his elbows to drive his palms to throw them up, fast and hard.
There was no room for that lazy man to dodge.
I saw the lazy man staggered, fell to the side and spit out a mouthful of blood, with a molar mixed in it - this was because Xu Huai had no murderous intention, otherwise he could have punched him when he was not prepared.
Break his cheekbones.
The tired man sat on the ground, covering his swollen cheeks, feeling that his head was swollen, his mouth was open, and he couldn't utter a word for a long time.
The other two helpers who were waiting to watch the joke at the door of the shop gritted their teeth and stared when their accomplice was knocked to the ground, but they didn't dare to rush in.
They were sure that Xu Wuliang and his three apprentices had a foothold in Huaiyuan Town, and they knew the importance of doing anything, so they dared to come to the door to act violently. But Xu Huai, a fool, who could guarantee what he would do?
It is said that those who are too lazy are afraid of being stunned, and those who are too aggressive are afraid of being stunned to their death - if they rush into the house, and Xu's fool picks up a sharp knife from the clamp table and stabs it, who will they cry to?
"I asked Blacksmith Xu to hit me with a silver knife, and you guys want to take it away for nothing. Should we talk to Deng Langjun to reason with me?" Liu Qiong'er saw Xu Huai take action to stop the three green-skinned scoundrels.
Walking in from the yard, he stared at the tired and dazed man sitting on the ground and asked.
Deng Gui is the inspector and the supervisor of Huaiyuan Town. Cases involving non-clan matters involving human life and nature are usually reported to Deng Gui for adjudication.
This was what the lazy man had just said to bluff Xu Wuliang, and Liu Qiong'er also returned it to him at this time.
In Huaiyuan Town, Liu Qiong'er, who rarely went out to Yuehonglou, didn't recognize many people, but not many people didn't recognize her; Xu Huai did the same.
After a while, he regained his composure, glanced at Xu Huai with resentment and hatred, covered half of his swollen face, stood up, turned around and left with his two men.
