When Li Pinghong arrived at his father's residence, there were already more than twenty people standing outside the house. There were servants and elders in the clan, but his mother and third brother were not there.
Seeing Li Pinghong arrive, a white-haired old man walked toward Li Pinghong with trembling steps and a cane. The old man's eyes were filled with tears, but his face was covered with grooves, and the tears could not drip down his cheeks.
"Xiao Pinghong, your father, your father..."
Li Pinghong had already lost his expression at this moment, and his mind was blank. The old man was talking like water in his ears, and he couldn't hear clearly. But seeing that the old man was excited and unstable, he instinctively took two steps forward.
He supported the old man.
Regardless of the old man, the other servants, or the elders of the clan, it doesn't matter what their expressions or words are at this moment. Li Pinghong's feet are as heavy as a thousand pounds, and every step he takes is extremely difficult and heavy. This time
He walked a distance of more than 30 feet before reaching the door of the house. He pressed his hand on the door frame and did not have the courage to look inside.
"elder brother!"
A crisp sound came from behind, but this sound was like piercing through the barrier, and finally he could hear it clearly. At that moment, the noise suddenly poured into his ears, the sounds of crying, lamentation, and regret,
The voice of resentment, the voice of unwillingness, the voice of fear.
These kinds of sounds were once again selectively deafened by Li Pinghong. He turned around and looked at the child who called him brother. The child had changed into a clean schoolboy robe with a white background and blue edges. But his body was too tall.
It was too thin, and the robe felt empty on his body.
Li Pinghong smiled, and his smile was gentle. He stretched out his hand and asked the child to come over and hold his hand.
When the people outside the house saw Li Pinghong's behavior, some were surprised, some were puzzled, some were angry, and some even cursed.
"Shut up!"
Li Pinghong became angry and roared such a sentence. In an instant, everyone was quiet, no matter the servants or the elders of the clan. They all looked at the second young master blankly, and several elders who were a little older couldn't help blowing their beards and staring.
.
An elder who looked over and was confused grunted a few times and said in a strange tone: "My eldest brother just passed away, you kid..."
Before the elder could finish his words, a crisp slap came out. Everyone looked and saw that Li Pinghong's posture had not changed and his hands were still raised high. The elder who had been beaten opened his mouth and stared with a blank look on his face.
"I told you to shut up!"
Another disrespectful word, and in an instant, the crowd outside the house began to boil like a pot exploding. Some were talking in low voices, some were confused, and some were condemning Li Pinghong for the clan members who had been beaten.
Li Pinghong's eyes widened, and the aura he exuded made everyone tremble involuntarily. Everyone didn't know much about Li Pinghong's martial arts skills, but there were also people from the Yuanzu Realm among the crowd, but the look in the eyes of the kid in front of him was
Everyone in the Yuanzu Realm couldn't help but feel as if their feet were stuck in a quagmire, and their bodies seemed to be frozen, unable to move.
"I, Li Pinghong, am the direct son and grandson of the Li family. You people who rely on grass and trees, why do you have the right to be disobedient and why do you have the face to complain?"
An old man was about to take a step forward and speak, but his sleeve was pulled by the old man on crutches. The old man shook his head helplessly, sighed, and stood back to his original position.
The little beggar Li Qingshan was shocked by Li Pinghong's momentum. He stood there and did not dare to move. But then Li Pinghong looked at him again and extended his hand to him, with a warm smile on his face again. Li Qingshan stretched out his small hand.
, I held the big hand that was warm and had much more delicate skin than my own.
Li Pinghong led the little beggar into the house like this. There was no one else in the house, and the head of the Li family was lying quietly on the comfortable big bed, as if he was drunk yesterday and was in love with the bed, unwilling to get up.
Li Pinghong took Li Qingshan and took a few steps forward, and then said in a solemn voice that did not allow for refutation:
"Qingshan, kneel down and kowtow to your adoptive father!"
Li Qingshan also obeyed, and knelt down with a thud. Then he heard three loud "dong dong dong" sounds. If the floor tiles were of poor quality, Li Qingshan might have been knocked down even if he exerted as much force as he did.
crack.
Li Qingshan looked at the middle-aged man who seemed to be sleeping soundly on the bed. This man had a kind face and a smile on his face, lying quietly. But those two beards made Li Qingshan feel a little afraid. Maybe if this man wakes up,
He also has cold eyes, a frosty face, and a harsh manner.
But this man was fast asleep, and Li Qingshan didn't know how he would treat her when he saw her.
Then there was the same plop, and Li Pinghong knelt on the ground. There were also three loud "dong dong dong" sounds. When he raised his head, Li Qingshan saw that the handsome man had a gash on his forehead, and there was blood.
A lot of it leaked out.
That must hurt, right?
"Father, Pinghong brought Qingshan to see you. Qingshan, call me daddy."
Li Qingshan opened his mouth, but could not speak. The word was so unfamiliar that he didn't know how to pronounce it.
The room was quiet and you could hear a pin drop.
Then a loud "Dad" broke the tranquility, and then, the cry was like a wolf howling, and tears once again flowed from the eyes of the little beggar who did not even hum after being beaten, and dripped on the back of his hands, knees, and
On the floor tiles.
The little beggar has a family, a brother, and a father. But this father has not even looked at him, and has not had time to respond to his call, but everything he hopes for cannot happen. This unfamiliar word in the past will remain the same in the future.
strangeness.
After kowtowing, Li Pinghong did not stay any longer and had no time to pay attention to the comments of the crowd outside. He led Li Qingshan directly towards the Buddhist hall where his mother often was.
When I arrived at the door of the Buddhist hall, I saw two attendants kneeling at the door of the house, crying.
My mother was usually kind to others, and her servants and maids had never been scolded by her. Could it be that today she went out of her way and beat and scolded these two girls?
This thought lasted only a moment, and then Li Pinghong opened his eyes wide, and his heart felt like a knife twisting at that moment. He clutched his chest and kept panting. His breathing became difficult at that moment. His face turned pale, as if he was about to suffocate to death.
"Brother, brother, brother, what's wrong with you?"
There was another crisp call, as if the rag covering his mouth and nose had been removed, and Li Pinghong could breathe again. He was gasping for breath greedily, and the sound was slightly terrifying.
Li Pinghong looked at Li Qingshan again. His little hands were still holding him tightly, as if he was afraid that he would throw him onto the street and turn him into a miserable beggar who was worse than a wild dog again.
But Li Pinghong's face showed that warm smile again, but this time, Li Qingshan frowned, and his watery eyes were full of worry.
"Let's go see my mother."
Li Pinghong took Li Qingshan's little hand and walked into the Buddhist hall. Before entering the Buddhist hall, the scene before him made Li Qingshan collapse emotionally and cry again. Li Pinghong raised his head slightly, and tears could not be suppressed from the corners of his eyes.
Drops fell on the stone slabs inside the temple.
The face of the Bodhisattva, which is nearly three feet tall and carved from white marble, shows neither sadness nor joy. In front of the Buddha statue, a white silk ribbon hangs on a beam, and a woman with gorgeous clothes and exquisite makeup hangs on the white silk silk. Her
Her body no longer swayed, her eyes were not closed, and she was looking at the Buddha statue.
At this moment, Li Pinghong was like a walking corpse, and his mind was blank again. He mechanically lifted up the kicked over stool, stepped on the stool, and then put the woman down from the white silk.
There are no straw mats in the Buddhist hall. It is cleaned every day and the stone slabs are clean.
Li Pinghong laid the woman flat on the stone slab and moved a kneeling mat to the back of the woman's head to use as a pillow.
Li Pinghong knelt down on the stone slab. He didn't know that the quality of the stone slab was not as good as the floor tiles in the house of the head of the Li family.
Or because he knelt too hard, the stone slab shattered the moment Li Pinghong knelt down.
There were three more "dong dong dong" sounds, and the wound on Li Pinghong's forehead expanded a bit more. Blood even flowed down the bridge of his nose, and then dripped, dirtying the clean white scribe's robe and giving the Buddhist hall a smell of blood.
"Qingshan, kowtow to mother!"
Li Qingshan's face was already a little distorted due to the injury, but now he was crying so hard that it looked even more ugly, even ugly.
He was very obedient. When Li Pinghong asked him to kneel down, he also fell to his knees, and then a series of "dong dong" sounds accompanied by howling cries filled the Buddhist hall.
"Mother, mother, mother..."
Li Qingshan shouted the same unfamiliar words while kowtowing.
He didn't know if his biological parents were alive, but he was wandering alone, no different from an orphan. Because of Li Pinghong, he had a family. But it was too late to get used to the word "father", and now he has no chance to let the woman hear it.
He called "Mother" and then asked the woman to respond to him.
This response can be disdain, disgust, or hatred.
Unfortunately, there will be no response.
Li Qingshan suddenly got up from the ground and hugged Li Pinghong's not-so-strong arm, and his tears and nose directly rubbed onto the white sleeves.
His words were vague and he kept mumbling: "Brother, brother, brother, I, I, I am an orphan again, I, become, I am an orphan..."
The words were repeated, intermittently, accompanied by the sound of crying.
Li Pinghong hugged him into his arms again and patted his back gently with his hands. He didn't say any words of comfort, he just patted the child's back like this.
Li Qingshan suddenly felt a little cold in his head. He stopped crying and looked up. A tear dripped from above and fell directly into Li Qingshan's eyes, which were only bruised but not swollen. The tears dripped into his eyes, making them dry and uncomfortable.
But Li Qingshan still looked at this man.
The man was crying, without making a cry, and there was no expression on his face. But the tears just fell one, two, three, and kept falling from the corners of his eyes.
"Don't be afraid, Qingshan. If my brother is here, the Li family will always be here. You have a family and two brothers. No one will dare to bully you anymore."
Li Qingshan wiped away the tears on his face, broke away from Li Pinghong's arms, sobbed a few more times, and then said with firm eyes: "Brother, I, I, Qingshan want to learn my skills, Qingshan wants to, Qingshan wants to protect me in the future
elder brother."
Li Pinghong's face once again put on that warm smile, and he stroked Li Qingshan's head with his hand. Because the injury was too severe, the withered grass-like hair had not been washed, and it felt a little greasy.
Li Pinghong didn't mind this at all. His tone was gentle, like the warm sun in the cold wind on New Year's Day, and he said: "What do Qingshan want to learn? Do you like knives or swords?"
"Knife, I want to practice swordsmanship. I want to kill all the people who want to hurt the Li family, one by one. I want to kill the people who want to hurt the Li family, one by one, one by one..."
Li Qingshan gritted his teeth and spat out the words one by one. This was not what a child under ten years old should look like, but Li Pinghong still looked at the child with gentle eyes. He nodded,
He replied: "Okay, let's learn the sword, the sword that can kill people. But Qingshan, you have to learn the sword, and you also need to learn how to read and write. From now on, my brother will teach you how to read and write, and your little brother will teach you how to learn the sword."
."
Li Pinghong did not take Li Qingshan to his third brother's residence. Later, he went to Li Yunhong's residence alone. Sure enough, although the boy's injury had not recovered, he had long since disappeared. On the wall of his room, he carved a sentence with a knife,
Li Pinghong didn't know who read this sentence, but after seeing this sentence, Li Pinghong finally had a real smile on his face, and that smile was as bright as the sun.
"Death and life are once for all, and all the wine must be drained from the cup!"