Several rows of bamboo fences separated the main room from the chicken pen. In addition, there were several piglets the size of yellow dogs rubbing around under the fence, biting the green and yellow weeds with their mouths.
This is a cross between a male wild boar and a female domestic pig. Their bristles are black and hard, their legs are longer, and their teeth are sharper.
The piglets were caged with a bamboo fence to separate them from the chickens, apparently for fear that they would eat the chickens.
There will inevitably be a smell.
No matter how hard the owner sweeps, the stench of the livestock, the fishy and pungent smell, still comes in one after another.
The noble man in white old clothes stood silently in front of the window, his eyes looking out blankly. The room was dim and dark, and thick clouds covered all the light in the sky. It was obviously daytime, but it looked more like night.
Thunder snakes were scurrying in the sky, and the lightning flashed away, and soon there was the overwhelming thunder!
The dull smell of the coming rainstorm was thickly covered by the clouds, making it stuffy and hot.
puff--
A line of rain fell.
puff!!!
Dense, heavy rain fell in patches!
Chu Xun raised his eyes slightly. He moved hard, picked up an old oil-paper umbrella from the corner of the room, turned around and walked out.
As he moved, his already sickly complexion became a bit darker. The scar broke away when he exerted force, and a few drops of blood burst out, making the white old clothes on his body faintly show a bright red color.
brush!
After walking through the mud for a few steps, the small wooden door outside the courtyard was knocked open.
Before the stunned Chu Xun could react, he bumped into the hurried little woman.
He took a few steps back, stretched out his hand, and smiled to himself.
"Madam, let me help you."
Passing the oil-paper umbrella over, Chu Xun struggled to grab the huge sieve, hugged it with trembling arms, and walked into the house step by step.
The arms that could have shattered mountains and cut off the flow of rivers were finding it extremely difficult to even hold Tuan Si, and every step he took seemed to be shaky.
Chu Xun gritted his teeth and blood rushed to his face. He almost forced himself to hold on and walked a few feet away. When he put down the sieve, his back was completely soaked in cold sweat.
"Excuse me, sir."
The sound of an umbrella being closed came from behind, and the timid voice of the little woman sounded as low as a mosquito.
Chu Xun gasped and waved his hand to the little woman.
The clothes were also white and yellow, without any color at all. The cuffs were somewhat damaged, with some sparse stitches missing, but the coarse cloth could not hide the natural beauty.
The delicate and almost beautiful little woman lowered her head and was wiping the rainwater from her hair with a handkerchief. When she noticed Chu Xun's gaze, she hurriedly turned sideways and unconsciously covered the scar on her cheek with the handkerchief.
It was a ferocious brown mark, like a centipede, from the eyebrow bone to the chin, firmly occupying half of the little woman's cheek.
Chu Xun silently turned his face and looked away.
"My husband gave me the injection. It has been three or four years. I thought the pain would be gone in a few days, but I didn't expect it to leave scars."
She smiled softly: "Young master, are you scared?"
Chu Xun shook his head and said nothing.
On the way back to Guangling from Chang'an, he was ambushed by a group of armored men on the middle road. They were Jiuyan Hubao and the most elite armored cavalry in Western Chu.
All his followers died, and even he himself struggled and fled to Jiannan Road. Later, he was accidentally rescued from the river in this deserted mountain village.
The owner of the household who took him in was a young widow.
I have a child in my early twenties who is currently studying in a private school.
The owner of this family was an alcoholic hunter. I heard that he died early in the mountains and became food for tigers and wolves. His temper did not seem to be very good. The widow had many scars on her body, all left by the hunter.
During the past few days, Chu Xun also learned that the widow was bought by a hunter from outside the mountain.
This is not a rare thing. Half of the women in this village were bought from outside the mountains.
The men in the mountains trade with tiger and bear skins, and they buy women from Yahang. For the Ya people, this small mountain village is also their regular customer.
Chu Xun remembered that he had cracked down on this matter in Guangling City, even when he was the crown prince of Da Chu, issued an edict and killed many people.
But there are some things in the world that are always forbidden...
"Son."
When Chu Xun was lost in thought, a woman's voice suddenly sounded:
"Your back!"
Back?
Chu Xun stretched out his hand and touched it. It was sticky and his hands were covered with blood.
Amidst the sound of the woman frantically looking for medicine, Chu Xun slowly turned his face and said nothing.
"How old is Madam?"
While applying the medicine, he suddenly asked softly.
"Twenty-four."
The woman tucked her messy hair behind her ears and replied blankly.
"Twenty-four? Still a child."
Chu Xun couldn't help but smile: "What's your name, madam?"
The action of applying the medicine paused for a while, and then resumed after a few breaths.
"Li Qing." After a long time, a woman's voice whispered: "When the Yaman sold me, I had a small embroidered bag with this name engraved on it."
"Understood." Chu Xun nodded noncommittally and answered inexplicably.
The pungent, even bitter smell of herbal medicine spread in the small room. Chu Xun raised his head silently and said no more.
"Son..."
The young widow named Li Qing suddenly said: "Why is the young master injured? Is it a murder?"
There are occasionally people from outside in the mountains, but most of them are bandits and prisoners who are on the run. Naturally, Li Qing also associated Chu Xun with this group.
"No." Chu Xun paused and said calmly: "Someone wants to kill me..."
"Why?"
Under the dim skylight, the woman's appearance was blurry. At this time, she looked more like a curious girl.
"My name is...my name is Wang Hu."
Chu Xun touched his throat, the fatal knife wound, and his eyes fell silent:
"My family is very rich. We have money that we can never use up in a lifetime. My ancestors passed it on to my grandfather, who then passed it on to my father. Originally, that money should be mine..."
A boring story begins, unremarkable and even a bit cliché.
But Zhang Qing was sitting on a small bench not far away, holding his face in his hands and listening intently.
She hadn't heard a story for a long time, and there seemed to be such a voice in her memory. However, as time passed by her husband's beatings, the girl gradually became a widow, and the voice in her memory gradually became blurred.
It was very dark, and the main room was even too dark.
No oil lamp was lit.
They were only four or five steps apart, but their faces were blurry.
In the darkness, a young man was sitting on his knees, leaning on a tall cabinet with a faint voice.
"My mother died very early, not long after I was born. I was brought up by my father and servants. My father was doing business. To be precise, I was brought up by those servants.
.”
"I have learned business, arithmetic, accounting, and weighing since I was a child. I have learned how to deal with people, how to calculate tariffs, and how to resell goods from the west to the east...I learned very quickly, very quickly.
It's good that everyone is very satisfied with me, whether it's my father or the servants, they all think that I can make the family business bigger than the Zheng family in the south and the Wei family in the north."
"In fact, even if I don't do well, they will still praise me like this... My father has many women and many children, but I am the only one, the only one who is the eldest son, and the only one whose background is more noble than all of them.
"
Chu Xun's voice was filled with an inexplicable smile. In the darkness, the man laughed at himself and lowered his head, shaking his head:
"When I grew up and it was time to get married, I married the daughter of the Wei family in the north. I didn't know her and had never met her, but the Wei family was very big, even bigger than mine. If we were married to the Wei family,
If we get married, my business will go smoother and grow bigger and bigger."
"And then—"
In this strange and remote mountain village, he talked about everything in a joking tone to a strange young widow who had survived the disaster.
Chu Xun almost wanted to laugh loudly. He covered his face and his voice came out from between his fingers:
"My father married her! My father, he married the woman who was supposed to be his daughter-in-law!"
Boom boom boom——
Thunder suddenly fell from the sky, and the incandescent light illuminated the man's face clearly.
"After they had a child, I was kicked out of the house and went to a small town to do unimportant chores. Although I didn't say it explicitly, everyone knew that this family business no longer belonged to me alone."
In front of Zhang Qing, the handsome man with frosty temples sat on his knees on the ground, with his eyes closed and a self-deprecating smile on his lips:
"When the child grew up, I was officially kicked out of the house. His father had the woman who was originally mine, and the child had everything that originally belonged to me."
"I was despised, ridiculed, and finally turned into a pitiful laughing stock. The servants who originally served me turned into my enemies overnight. They stared at me and were ready to bite me back at any time.
The whole garden could be filled with friends, but in the end, only a few are left."
"That……"
Zhang Qing looked at Chu Xun's face and asked cautiously:
"Who wants to kill you?"
"That woman, her child, maybe..." Chu Xun said calmly: "And my father."
"Why?"
"I have grown up, and my father is getting older day by day." Chu Xun looked at the wind and rain outside the window and was silent for a long time: "Actually, I should have understood this long ago."
The two were silent for a long time. Li Qing didn't know whether this story, which was too bizarre for her, was a story or something that really happened. The wind and rain outside the window were dark, and the piglets' chirping screams could be heard through the rain curtain.
, came into the house from a distance.
"Then what are you going to do, Master?" Li Qing thought carefully for a while: "Master, you can stay here. It's far away and they won't find you."
"I'm going south."
"South?"
"There is a big temple in the south. I used to know a friend named Bai Shu, and he said I could join him."
Speaking of this, Chu Xun frowned helplessly: "Actually, he doesn't have any good intentions, but I have nowhere to go."
In this rumbling thunderstorm, Chu Xun couldn't understand why he confided his feelings to a strange young widow.
He seemed to have exhausted all his strength, leaning tiredly on the tall cabinet, listening to the sound of rain outside the window, not even bothering to move his fingers.
The rain in early summer comes and goes quickly.
Not long after, about half a stick of incense, after the thunderstorm stopped, there was a rapid sound of footsteps, and soon, a small figure ran through the door.
"Mom, brother Xun."
Pei Qiu, who was holding a small umbrella, raised his head, placed the letter in his hand on the oilwood table, and saluted solemnly: "I'm back."
"Oh, it's still raining!" The woman became anxious, grabbed the towel on the shelf, and wrapped it around Pei Qiu like a cat: "You're not wet, are you?"
"No, I...well, I brought an umbrella!"
Chu Xun smiled silently. He turned his face away, his eyes accidentally passing by the envelope on the oil-wood table, and was stunned for a moment.
He stretched out his hand in disbelief, but when he reached it, he retracted it violently, as if he had been burned by live coals.
"This...this..."
Chu Xun stared blankly at the things close at hand, with an absurd but unbelievable look on his face. In the astonished eyes of the mother and son, the young man with gray temples stood up suddenly, opened the door, and ran in.
In the rain curtain.
"Brother Xun! Brother Xun!"
Pei Qiu yelled at the figure running in embarrassment, but received no response. He stumbled while running, falling to the ground from time to time, and was covered in mud.
"Mom, what's wrong with him?"
Pei Qiu was startled by his beast-like expression, and the man's dark eyes suddenly lit up, as if a fire was burning in his body, igniting the last embers.
In the end, Chu Xun's figure stumbled away a little bit. Pei Qiu's eyes turned to the letter, and he frowned, thoughtfully.
…
…
…
"Huh...huh..."
Chu Xun felt that his breathing sound was like the roar of a cow, like an old ox that was about to die of illness. He no longer knew how long he had been running, and the scenery in front of him was a little blurry, as if covered with a layer of roving.
Bang!
After finally seeing the school, Chu Xun couldn't stand upright before he could bow down and salute, and he slammed in from the door.
He got up from the ground in an extremely embarrassed manner and turned around anxiously.
No one.
There was no sound at all, it was so quiet that even Chu Xun's own breathing was extremely clear.
He hesitated for a moment, then turned around and walked into the side room.
The room was simple, with few other furnishings except the couch. There was a stack of white paper on a gray-black shelf, and a few silver coins hanging on the pen stand, which were slightly stained by ink.
Chu Xun raised his head silently. Directly opposite the bed, there was an ink painting, which was the only bright color in this small room.
There are two people in the painting, an old man in Confucian shirt and a man in white.
The man in white clothes is sitting on the big stone, with his back against the strong green pine trees. He slightly stretches out two fingers, as if he is telling something. Under the big stone, the old man in Confucian shirt is holding the book respectfully and is burying his head in writing down the story of the man in white clothes.
speech.
Lecture chart...
This is a very common lecture picture. The teacher is sitting on a stone and the students are kneeling under the stone.
Chu Xun's heart moved, and he took a step forward, hoping to see clearly the face of the man in white.
But he couldn't do it.
Empty white space.
The face of the man in white was deliberately hidden by the painter, leaving it empty.
"Did I guess wrong?"
Chu Xun gave a bitter smile, shook his head and took off the portrait on the wall, his eyes confused:
"I guessed wrong?"
…
…
…
It was ethereal and indistinct, nothing existed. At the end of the earth, the old master suddenly raised his head, and the ruler in his hand was slightly straightened.
"Li Kuang."
After a brief silence——
A vast voice came from the distance between the sky and the sea, and a great light filled everything. In the great light, dozens of sacred and majestic voices spoke in unison:
