The night is full of mountains and forests, and heavy rain pours on the muddy slopes,
Stones all over the ground, creek-like mudflows, half-buried tree debris, and 'flat' hillsides washed away by mudflows like plows,
The young man knelt on the ground, looking at the mountain with wide eyes.
Rain and tears mixed together all over his face...
...
The boy was born in the second year of the Republic of China, when the Beiyang government came to power. The huge dynasty that had existed for more than two hundred years and had been rotten to the core collapsed not long ago.
He was born in a county in northern China to a relatively wealthy family.
He didn't have many memories of that period. He only heard about the end of the dynasty when the Qing Dynasty's banknotes were reduced to waste paper, banks were run, provinces became independent, and people were panicked through a few words from the old man in the alley.
But he soon felt it in his childhood, feeling the turmoil and chaos left by the collapse of that dynasty.
Two warlords fought and his father died.
Without his backbone, his mother had no choice but to take him out of the county and join relatives in his hometown in the countryside.
Life in the countryside is very hard. It's so hard that you have to pay 60-70% tax on an acre of land. It's so hard that you have to borrow money to survive when there's a drought. It's so hard that you have to do your best just to live.
What's even more painful is that his mother has pneumonia, a terminal illness that cannot be cured.
Relying on having studied in the county town, different from other children’s ignorant intellectual thinking, relying on this only advantage, and the charity of kind-hearted villagers,
As an orphan, he relied on himself and tried his best to survive in this era.
But even so, such days did not last long,
More and more people in the village have their land taken away at low prices. If they want to farm on the land, they can only work as tenants for the landlords, but this will require more grain to be handed over, and what is left cannot be sold at a high price.
Because of some treaty, a large amount of foreign grain dumping, and the warlords nearby started fighting again and raised taxes,
Many people finally have no choice but to flee their hometown.
And left with the villagers, sleeping rough all day, homeless, trekking through deserted mountain roads, and sleeping in the woods one night,
Recalling the experiences since childhood, facing the unknown fate ahead,
For the first time, the boy had some kind of desire that he couldn't explain clearly.
The next second, a white light came in front of his eyes.
The wide and smooth roads, the four- and five-story high-rise buildings on the roadside, the telephone poles and cars on the street, the buildings even hundreds of meters away, and the dance halls with neon lights and foreign writing,
And those dark monsters like ghosts and gods in this deserted city,
Compared with the dilapidated mud and brick houses in the countryside and the low wooden buildings in alleys in the county, everything in front of me is beyond recognition and seems to be another world.
While escaping, he unleashed all his survival instincts and finally stabbed a dark monster to death with his sword.
Listening to the unclear voice in my head,
The young man found himself back at the place where he had slept rough before.
Then, he saw the scene in front of him,
Stones all over the ground, creek-like mudflows, half-buried tree debris, 'flat' hillsides washed away by mudflows like plows,
A scene after a natural disaster during heavy rain.
Hey, where are the people? Where are the fires? Where have all the folks gone?
The moment this thought came out, a huge panic gripped his heart. The young man was in a state of embarrassment and desperately began to search nearby.
He found that he could move for a long time in the heavy rain, and he found that he could see very far in the dark.
His clothes were soaked, his voice was hoarse from shouting, and his hands were covered with scars.
But even so, he found nothing.
There were only mountains and forests buried by mudflows nearby, and he was the only one left on this hillside.
After realizing a certain possibility, the search suddenly stopped. I had almost exhausted my strength, and my consciousness began to blur in the heavy rain.
Memories of past childhood, the scene of the world just now, and images of the disaster before our eyes intertwinedly emerged.
Is this all a dream?
The young man knelt on the ground, looking at the mountain with wide eyes.
Rain and tears mixed together all over his face.
Then at this moment! He heard a low sound coming from the top of the mountain!
In his field of vision, a dark outline covering the top of the mountain, fueled by the heavy rain, rushed toward him from above like a wave!
At the moment when a natural disaster strikes, the instinct to survive overwhelms everything else.
But after realizing that he had no strength at all and could not run away from the torrent, he could only rely on the voice in his mind just now and hold a long sword out of thin air.
The young man tried his best to insert it in front of his body to stimulate the power in his body again.
The kind of power that helped him escape in the city and finally kill a dark monster.
The next moment when the dark torrent rushed in, the faint patterns on the sword's edge lit up, and the slender and straight blade in front of him held up a barrier.
In the rumbling waves of mud and rocks, the boy's figure struggling to survive was like a rock against the torrent!
Then when he faced it personally, he realized how terrifying the power of this torrent was, and then he accepted that the villagers would never be spared their deaths.
The rain was pouring down, and I couldn't see anything clearly. I gritted my teeth in the torrent of mud and rocks, but I was unable to cope with the natural disaster.
The young man felt that the 'strength' supporting this power was about to disappear...
Am I going to die too...
Exhausted, the rain was pouring, he recalled his parents, his childhood, and the appearance of his fellow villagers. When he was in the mud flow and his eyes were about to close, this thought came to his mind,
But at this moment when he could hardly hold the hilt of the sword,
A sword light suddenly lit up from a distance, and dozens of meters of sword marks penetrated the torrential rain, causing a roar like cutting off a river and striking the torrent above the boy!
In an instant, the life and death crisis subsided. The young man stumbled forward and knelt down again.
The torrent of confusion suddenly subsided. On the muddy hillside after the natural disaster, he looked at the ravine that appeared out of thin air in front of him, and at the figure of a man who appeared beside him from unknown time.
The other party was wearing a long robe of unknown dynasty and was holding only an oil umbrella, but the heavy rain was completely blocked.
After realizing that the other party had saved him, his face was sluggish due to the heavy rain, and his consciousness had long been blurred.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The boy subconsciously looked at the other person and asked hoarsely:
"Are you a fairy...?"
I happened to be traveling around here, and while drinking alone on a rainy night, I sensed a faint demonic aura, so I came over to take a look out of curiosity.
Qingzhi looked at the young man in front of him who was covered with traces of suffering with a complicated expression:
"I'm not."
But he didn't seem to hear his answer. The young man kneeling on the muddy hillside just reluctantly got up and stumbled in front of him,
"If you were an immortal...could you tell me..."
As if still trapped in the revolving door of memories, the young man's unconscious voice was weak and pleading,
"Why are so many warlords at war with each other...Why do ordinary people have to wait to die if they get pneumonia?"
The heavy rain was still falling. He held on to the man's arm and suppressed his low, hoarse voice from crying. The tears on his face gradually rose to the level of an emotional shout:
"Why can't the villagers survive in the countryside...Why can we only escape from the countryside! Why do they still die after they try so hard!?"
I listened to his questions wordlessly, and it seemed that the person he was questioning was not me.
Rather, he is questioning this cannibalistic world and this era.
Qingzhi listened to the boy's final words that broke into tears.
"Why...human life...is so fragile!"
On a night when it rained continuously, the night watchman finally looked at the fainted young man in front of him, sighed and covered his figure with an oil umbrella...
....
After that...
Qingzhi took the boy with him, and a small figure appeared next to the bold and free-spirited night watchman.
The two started traveling together. They walked through the busy city of the county and the farmland in the countryside together.
Together we walked through the streets and alleys amidst shouts, and through famous mountains and rivers amidst the chirping of birds.
Riding a carriage together across the streets, riding a fishing boat down the river together,
Then I don’t know whether it was a month or a few months like this, but Qingzhi finally led the boy into a stretch of mountains and rivers.
Finally we came to a mountain.
Is there this mountain here...?
At this moment, he didn't remember seeing this huge mountain and river when he was looking at it before. The young man looked up at the bluestone mountain road extending into the bamboo forest in front of him.
Follow Qingzhi step by step, and finally come to a place,
A large mansion is located in the green bamboo forest, like a temple dedicated to something. The scattered bamboo houses and brick houses nearby are hidden in the bamboo forest and stream.
Ancient wells and waterwheels, pavilions in the distance, and gravel paths extend in all directions, extending into the deeper bamboo forest.
Quiet and picturesque, like a paradise.
"Eh!? Uncle Qingzhi! You're back!"
When I arrived here, a clear voice sounded, and a girl with a spirited charm and dazzling eyes appeared from the bamboo forest.
She smiled and said hello to Qingzhi, and then when she spotted the boy, she immediately looked at him curiously.
"Qingzhi, you are back."
At this time, another figure appeared, a beautiful woman in an ancient dress, as gentle and graceful as water, appearing behind the girl,
After seeing the figure next to Qingzhi, she also said in surprise:
"This child is...?"
"I met him by chance on the road and had just woken up. I was worried about him, so I brought him back."
Upon hearing such a question, Qingzhi scratched his head and answered with a laugh,
And for his vague explanation, the real reason can be seen clearly at a glance.
The elegant and graceful woman knelt down and touched the boy's head, smiling with an extremely gentle expression:
"Son, it's been a hard journey."
For a moment, it was as if I could see everything in the past, and I felt an indescribable warmth from the words of the person in front of me.
Then at this moment,
"Oh? Qingzhi is back and brought back a little guy?"
"Looks like he's just over ten years old. Who is this little guy?"
"Huh, this guy knows he's back."
"Haha, how was your journey this time?"
...
A taciturn and steady man, a shirtless tall and strong man, a handsome young man waving a feather gauze, a gentle and elegant mature man, a teasing young man with a smile,
Each of them is wearing the same clothes that cannot be traced back to the dynasty, and their temperaments are different and extraordinary.
The young man watched figures appearing from various places in the bamboo forest.
After some pleasantries, he explained everything about the boy to everyone, and looked at the boy who was staring at him silently.
Finally, it was the gentle and elegant figure, the man called Ming Mang by others, who spoke gently:
"Child, what is your name?"
Hearing this question, the young man just remained silent.
At this time, everyone looked at Qingzhi, but Qingzhi just shrugged helplessly.
There was a slight silence, but then he smiled and Mingmang spoke gently as if he understood something:
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter whether you want to forget the past or don't want to mention it again, but it is still inconvenient to not have a name here,"
"How about I give you a new name?"
After hearing this, the young man raised his head and looked at him,
At this moment, I also looked at the young man in front of me. As the most knowledgeable person among the people and the most suitable person to name people,
Ming Mang looked at him with a slightly sighing expression.
The night watchmen present could see at a glance what this young man had gone through, and the fire in his eyes that was unmatched by the suffering of this era.
They have seen a lot of suffering in their travels, and they have also seen this kind of fire in many people.
War, oppression, exploitation, regime change, warlord separatism, overseas powers and decadent interior,
The ancient dynasty has fallen, and this era is in the turmoil of historical change.
No one knows what will happen next.
But the night watchers have seen it, they have seen the hidden fires in this chaotic era, those people from all walks of life who will shine on the stage of history next,
They are about to burn fiercely, overthrow all decay, and rebuild a new and powerful era on the ashes...
Looking at the young man in front of me at this moment, looking at the fire in his eyes,
In the unknown mountains and rivers, in the ancient bamboo forest nightclub, at this moment, we still don’t know what the fate of this young man will be in the future.
I don’t know if I’m talking about this young man or this era.
The night watchman finally chuckled with emotion and said: