Tiangong Qi Tan Zhi Shu Lake

In Qingzhou after winter, the weather is not cold, and the eyes are full of greenery.

However, people in Qingzhou are afraid of the cold, so they start to make soothing soup as soon as winter comes. Ordinary people use radish to make soup, and rich people use lily, lotus seeds, radix japonicus, longan, heterophylla, sand ginseng, polygonatum, and American ginseng, and then add fish maw. Simmered for a day, it is not oily or greasy, and it is very nourishing.

In the evening, when the sea breeze blows, the streets are filled with the smell of soothing soup.

According to the admission regulations of Shangfang Academy, students who pass the exam can apply for 50 taels of silver from the government.

After Jiang Chuan applied for the silver, he went to sit down in a small restaurant by the side of the road, and drank a bowl of calming soup with a plate of sea oyster cakes.

Things in Qingzhou are over, so I won't stay in Qingzhou, just pack my luggage and set off.

Therefore, when Fu Yu arrived at Yuelai Inn, he had already left the city gate and walked on the official road.

Although he has some money, he doesn't rent a car and stay in a shop. He cuts a few wild bamboos and weaves them into a raft. He uses the raft to walk along the waterway, around the deep mountains and through old forests. Instead of traveling in the mountains and rivers, he meets woodcutters and fishermen. So I took the initiative to talk to people about the diversion of nearby rivers and floods. After walking a waterway, I took out a piece of paper and drew a picture of the mountains and rivers from memory. After I finished the drawing, I put it in a bamboo tube and put it in my pocket.

After passing Qingzhou, there are Ganzhou, Cangzhou, Yuzhou...

The further north we travel, the colder the weather becomes.

After crossing the Sheng River, the weather became a bit colder.

After more than half a month, his hair was also dirty, and he was also destitute.The coarse cloth robe was stained with dust, and when it was tied into the crowd, he looked like a mountain villager.

On this day, I went to Dongyang County in Huaizhou, where the water network is dense and there are more than [-] large and small rivers.

When the punting boat passed the crossing, the people crossing the river thought he was the ferryman, and greeted him, "Little boatman, come here with the raft."

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he went ashore, planning to find a hotel to clean up the travel dust.

After going ashore, I found that there were many refugees on the outskirts of the city. After inquiring, I found out that there was a refugee camp nearby.

"In August, the Linghe River flooded, and it rained continuously for several days. The Linghe River swelled sharply, causing embankments to burst in many places in Jiangzhou and Wuzhou, and hundreds of thousands of people were affected..."

The person who was talking to him was a salt seller carrying salt into the city, sighing as he walked: "...the Ling River floods every year, and there has been a major disaster every four years. Most of the refugees here are from Suiyuan... What a pity!"

Jiang Chuan's heart skipped a beat, and he was not far away from his hometown, so he involuntarily slowed down his pace.It seemed as if the river embankment collapsed, the flood was raging, the trees were destroyed, and the village was destroyed...

"Get out of the way." Suddenly there was a reprimand in my ear.

Jiang Chuan came to his senses, only to see a bullock cart driving in front of him, with several corpses of refugees piled up on the bullock cart. people.

An eight or nine-year-old girl threw herself on top of a dead body, crying, "Please, don't take grandma away, please."

The little girl knelt on the ground and hugged the corpse bearer's leg "bang bang—" and kowtowed.

The corpse bearer was pulled so tightly that she couldn't move, sighed, and said helplessly, "Look at your grandma is dead, it's the rule to drag her away when she dies."

The little girl let go of the corpse-bearer and threw herself on the corpse and cried loudly. People passing by looked indifferently, and occasionally someone sighed.

Seeing her pitiful, the corpse bearer said, "All the dead people in this refugee camp were buried in the big pit of the mass grave. If you have filial piety, you can burn some paper money and kowtow a few times over there during Qingming." .”

Ren Yazi, who was waiting next to her, was a woman in her forties, who had been eyeing this pretty girl for a long time, and now she walked up with bright eyes: "Poor thing, this guy is going to be thrown away right after he dies." Entering the mass grave, tsk tsk tsk, those who have no money to buy a coffin are miserable, let alone die without a place to bury them, when they arrive at the mass grave, there are wild dogs and rats, just waiting for this bite to eat."

Hearing this, the girl cried even more sadly, out of breath.

Ren Yazi pointed to the thin coffin on the side: "See, there is a thin coffin over there, you don't want your loved one to be eaten by wild dogs and mice after death, so buy a thin coffin, don't let the old man become a lonely ghost. "

"In the middle of the year, there was a flood, and my parents died in the flood. I had no money with me."

"It doesn't matter if you don't have money." Ren Yazi lifted up the little girl's face and looked, "If you are filial, you will sell yourself for that thin coffin. If you are so cruel and only care about living in the world, then Let the old man not die in the dog's stomach."

"No! No!" The girl suddenly looked terrified: "They said that the people you bought were all sent to brothels."

"What's wrong with the brothel? What if you become an oiran, you will be popular and drink hot food in the future, and you will meet a man you like again, turn around and marry him. Hmph, a refugee has today and no tomorrow, so he can't look down on him." A girl in a brothel? I asked you if you would sell it? If not, quickly ask someone to take the corpse away, it stinks." Ren Yazi twisted his fat body, shook the silk in his hand, with a look of disgust.

The officer next to him came over and urged: "What are you waiting for? Get the corpse away!"

The body bearer lifted the old man to leave.

The girl was anxious, and hugged the old man's body: "Sell, sell! I sold myself voluntarily."

Jiang Chuan happened to come here, and when he heard the girl's accent was Suiyuan, her dark eyes were clean and pure, full of fear, and suddenly, a person deep in his memory came to mind.

Dang even walked over to help the girl up.

The man Yazi looked smug, and was taking out his purse to take out the money, when he saw a poor young man who was not much better than a beggar, he didn't even want to say a word, so he winked at the official.

The official messenger and Ren Yazi had colluded long ago, and they came over in a hurry: "What are you doing?"

Without saying a word, Jiang Chuan took out the admission order of Shangfang Academy from his arms and handed it over.

The official was illiterate, seeing that what he took out was an official document from the government, he didn't dare to take it lightly, and handed it to the boss next to him, who couldn't read a few big characters, and seeing the six big seals on the bottom, he thought it was someone with an extraordinary background , quickly drove Ren Yazi away, and respectfully handed over the old man's body to him for disposal.

Jiang Chuan bought a thin coffin with a little money, and asked someone to put the old man's body into the coffin, and then found a place to hide the old man.

The little girl was still young, she just cried, and after asking her name, she found out that her name was Baixiang.

Jiang Chuan asked, "Do you have any relatives in your family?"

Baixiang sobbed and said: "There is another aunt in Lin County, and her family was also hit by a disaster. I don't know how it is now?" She shed two lines of tears silently as she spoke.

Jiang Chuan was very pitiful to see her, especially when talking about the flood, saying that she was hugging a big tree and was almost washed away, which reminded him of the person in his heart.

Seeing that she was still young, he was worried about asking her to go to Lin County alone to find relatives, so he sent her there.

At first, Baixiang was a little jealous of him, but later she found out that although this big brother was dull and not talkative, he was a very kind person. He would rather eat cold pancakes by himself than buy her steamed stuffed buns and candied haws.

Dongyang and Lin County are more than a hundred miles away, and it takes three days to travel by water.

Baixiang's aunt's family suffered a disaster, and the whole family went to other places. Now they have just returned, and they are not rich. They have newly built three houses, but they are spacious. I asked someone to find out that my sister died in the flood. These days, I am suffering. Seeing Baixiang coming to seek refuge, she ran out in a hurry, crying with her head in her arms.

Baixiang had a foothold, and Jiang Chuan's heart was relieved, and worried that Baixiang would be wronged by others, so he quietly put some silver in her pocket, and when Baixiang's aunt went to the kitchen to make tea, she left without saying goodbye, waiting When Baixiang chased her out, she had already disappeared.

Jiang Chuan supported the raft and continued heading north, but his heart was much heavier than before.

Originally, I wanted to go back to my hometown, but I took a detour to Daolin County, which delayed my trip for a few days. I was afraid that I would not have enough time, so I went straight north.

The water network in Yu State is dense, but after arriving in Pingzhou, the river became thinner, so he abandoned the bamboo raft and went ashore, borrowed a horse from the post station, and rode it westward.

Wind meal dew drink, starry night and travel.

A month later, finally arrived in Yuzhou.

When I got here, I found that the Gobi Desert was facing the endless Gobi Desert.

During the day, the sun is shining brightly, with white clouds and gray dogs.The night was cold and windy, and the blizzard was raging.

This evening, it was extremely cold.The gatekeeper of the post house at the foot of Yumen Mountain poked his head out of the room to look around, shook his head and sighed, saying that the time had come and he was about to close the door.

Suddenly, out of the snowstorm, a horse jumped out.Immediately sat a person, dressed in gray cloth, with a hood over his head, and carrying a bag. When he reached the door, he reined in, and with a long neigh of the horse, jumped off the horse and took out the "Shangfang Academy" admission order from his arms.

It was Jiang Chuan who came.

The gatekeeper's eyes lit up, and he let out a long sigh of relief. He took the admission order and looked at it, and said, "It's so dangerous! The higher-ups have explained it. I won't wait when it's too late. I'll close the door if it's too late."

After he finished speaking, he led Jiang Chuan into the station, and shook his head, as if he was talking to himself, "It's a pity, how can you give up the opportunity that came so hard, how can you just give up?"

Jiang Chuan was stunned for a moment, and couldn't help but ask, "Is there anyone else who hasn't arrived yet?"

The gatekeeper nodded, turned around and closed the door, and said: "There is one more, it seems that I can't catch up."

Before the words were finished, a silver bell sounded outside the door.

A luxury carriage was approaching the post station unhurriedly, and the silver bells on the four corners of the carriage were trembling in the wind.It was only in front of the door that the driver slowly stopped the carriage, jumped down and knocked on the window.

"Understood." A lazy voice came out.

The servant opened the car door, and a young man wrapped in a fox fur cloak stepped out of the carriage. He looked up at the gatekeeper who had already closed the door halfway, and said slowly: "It's not dark yet, hurry to close the door." Pit?"

Then he saw Jiang Chuan behind the gatekeeper, clasped his fists with a smile and said, "Hey, isn't this a koi? Don't come here without any problems!"