In the wilderness, it is difficult for people to live. The mountains here are remote and the land is barren, making it unsuitable for ordinary people to farm and live.
Here you can see thorns everywhere and thorn vines crawling on the ground. Because the land here is very barren, the branches and tips of the old trees and vines are all burnt yellow.
In such remote countryside, when the scorching sun hangs in the sky, both the trees and vines are sick and wilted. Even if birds and animals occasionally appear, they are hiding in the shade with their heads hanging down and panting.
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In such a wilderness, everything is boring and lifeless. Although there are green branches and wild vines, there is a lack of real life. It seems that all life here will just lie down and wait for death.
This place gives people a feeling of being sick and wilting. When all life grows here, it will feel lifeless. Everything in the world is just that. Nothing in the world is worthy of your survival, and nothing is worthy of your pursuit.
of.
When the sun is shining brightly, when you look at the green trees and wild vines wilting with disease, when you see a large area of scorched treetops, when the heat is rising at noon, you will have a feeling that you are here.
If you are alive here, you might as well bury yourself here and forget about dying here. Stop living!
In such a boring wilderness suburb, there is a flat land halfway up the mountain. This flat land is surrounded by thorny wild vines and thatch with sharp leaves.
There is a house built in such a flat land. The house is made of old wood as a frame and then covered with mud. This is a very primitive house. Even the house is made of old tree bark.
It can be seen from this house how poor the owner of this family is, and one can tell at a glance that the owner of this family is living in a barren life.
The wooden door of the house was ajar, and when a feeble breeze sometimes blew by, the wooden door would make a feeble "squeak" sound.
There is a road in front of the house, let’s call it a road for now, because such a road is full of thorns, and there are no traces of the road. Only people have walked here, so we can barely call it a road.
.
It can be seen from such a road that no one has ever been here. Except for the owner of cccc, m.$.★ who occasionally walks down the mountain, no one has ever walked this road again.
Already.
On this road where it was almost impossible to find the road, a young man climbed up today. This young man pushed through the weeds and thorns, climbed all the way from the foot of the mountain to halfway up the mountain, and climbed to the front of the house.
The young man who climbed up from the mountain was Li Qiye. When he saw this house, he couldn't help but smile.
There is an open space next to the house. In this open space, there are some vegetables planted. In addition to the vegetables, there are also ridges of sweet potatoes planted.
At this time, there was an old man working on the vegetable field in this ridge. In fact, this old man was not very old. Judging from the age of a mortal, he was about fifty years old.
Although he looks about fifty years old, he looks a bit shabby, looks old and has gone through many changes.
This old man was wearing gray clothes, which were whitish in the gray. It could be seen that the old man had washed these clothes again and again. Although the clothes were washed frequently, they looked shabby and stained with dirt over the years.
Even though the clothes were washed frequently, they were not very clean, and the old man was working in the fields, so there were dirt stains on them.
This old man doesn't have many wrinkles on his face, but his complexion is sallow and the skin on his hands is dark. It can be seen that the old man not only has poor food and housing, but also has been working for many years and is obviously malnourished.
The old man's hair is gray and sparse. Although he combs it neatly every day, he inadvertently makes it a little messy during work.
When the old man opens his mouth sometimes, he will find that there are not many teeth left in his mouth. A few sparse teeth are still growing there. Even if there are only a few teeth left, they are still black and yellow.
The old teeth have already developed cavities.
It is such an old man who lives in such a wilderness suburb. He works at sunrise and rests at sunset. On weekdays, he can only rely on crops grown in the land to satisfy his hunger. He barely lets himself starve to death and spends a day here.
Another day.
Just imagine, this is such an old man, living alone in the wilderness, with no children, no relatives or friends to visit on weekdays, and no neighbors. During the day, he faces the loess and works with his back to the scorching sun, and at night, he works in the darkness of the wooden couch.
Falling asleep at night, what a barren life it is, what a lonely life it is.
At this time, the old man was waving an old hoe with both hands, hoeing the sweet potatoes growing in the soil. He was also old, and it was very difficult for him to hoe the soil every time. The young man could remove the potatoes from the soil with one or two hoe.
To hoe out the sweet potatoes, he had to swing the hoe at least ten or eight times to get them out.
After hoeing out the muddy sweet potatoes, he squatted down to knock out the mud one by one and put it into the bamboo basket that had a hole in it.
Every time he picked up a sweet potato with his hoe, the old man gasped from exhaustion.
While watching the old man hoeing the ground, Li Qiye couldn't help but smile. He walked over and without saying anything, bent down, picked up the hoeed potatoes, knocked off the soil, and put them into the bamboo shoots.
In this way, the old man was hoeing the soil with difficulty, while Li Qiye was picking up the sweet potatoes. Every time the old man swung the hoe three or five times, he would put it down to take a breath and rest for a while, while Li Qiye was leisurely and leisurely, picking up the sweet potatoes.
Knock the soil off the sweet potatoes very rhythmically.
The two people worked together seamlessly, but never said a word to each other from beginning to end, as if this was a matter of course and everything was normal.
After spending most of the day, the old man finally hoeed out six or seven sweet potatoes from the soil. At this time, the old man picked up the bamboo shoots, picked up the hoe, and returned to his house.
Without the invitation of the old man, Li Qiye also walked into the house. He saw that the house was a little dark. Even in broad daylight, when he walked in, his eyesight was dark, and it took a lot of effort to get used to it.
There are not many things in the house, and there may not even be anything superfluous. There is a wooden bed on the left side of the house. Although the quilt on the bed has been washed, it is also blackened. On the right is an earthen stove and an old iron pot.
It's almost rusty.
There is a wooden table near the window. The wooden table can only seat two or three people. All meals and tea are served on this wooden table.
At this time, Li Qiye was sitting in front of this extremely simple wooden table, looking at the wild fields outside, looking at the diseased trees and wild vines, he couldn't help but support his chin with his palms, and fell asleep, as if he was about to fall asleep.
.
The old man had already lit a fire to cook sweet potatoes, and saw the flames beating on the stove. This may be the only thing that can still be active in this world. When you see the flames beating, at least it makes people know that you are still alive.
alive.
The old man sat in front of the stove, adding some thatch to the stove from time to time. He was like a dead tree and lifeless, as if his only purpose in living in this world was to wait for death.
In the midst of this idle chatter, finally after a long time, a burst of sweet potato fragrance floated in, which finally brought some vitality to the world. At least when your stomach is growling with hunger, you smell like this.
When you smell the fragrance, you will suddenly feel powerful all over your body.
At this time, Li Qiye, who had fallen asleep, also opened his eyes and sat up straight.
At this time, the old man had already put the cooked sweet potatoes into a dustpan and brought them to the table. When the sweet potatoes were served, before the old man could sit down, Li Qiye took them for a day without any courtesy.
Peel it off and eat it slowly.
The old man also took one, peeled off the skin, and chewed it slowly. It seemed that he had bad teeth and ate slowly.
"There is someone who wants to stay away from the hustle and bustle, but no matter how lonely he is, at least there is him in this world, and there is an old man selling buns, or an old woman selling salt." After Li Qiye ate a sweet potato, he said:
"Actually, this is not loneliness, this is just wanting to be far away from the world."
"When your world doesn't even have the old man selling buns, or the old woman selling salt, then you will be the only one left in this world." Li Qiye said.
The old man was just eating sweet potatoes, as if he was not good at expressing himself and was taciturn.
"What is loneliness? This is loneliness." Li Qiye couldn't help but smile bitterly and said: "Whether it is an immortal emperor or a great emperor, escaping to the place of exploration, he is still famous in the ten worlds, he is still above the nine heavens, and he is still the emperor.
Infinite. This is escape, just to avoid being punished by heaven. But today, we are here eating sweet potatoes, this is called escaping from the world."
The old man still didn't speak, just eating sweet potatoes, because he hadn't spoken for a long time, and he couldn't even remember the last time he spoke.
The old man didn't say anything, and Li Qiye didn't mind either. He peeled another sweet potato and ate it slowly. After a while, he raised his head, glanced at the old man, and said, "When will you die?"
The old man remained silent and chewed slowly. He valued this hard-won food very much and ate it very cleanly and with great care.
"I don't know either." After a long time, the old man finally spoke. He gently sucked his fingers and said, "I am also waiting for the day I die."
"That's right." Li Qiye smiled and shook his head and said: "The only purpose of your life is to wait for death! When I was in the Nine Realms, I was jealous of the Yu family's son. You still have a wine shop, and you have a wine shop from time to time.
Come and drink his bad wine, which is worse than horse urine. His waiting for death is really nothing. At least there are many things in this mortal world for him to see."
"It's too long for you to wait for death. You can't open your six senses, so you just wait for death." Li Qiye said with a smile: "It's not that easy even if you want to die!" (To be continued.)