The sun replaced the moon, the darkness finally cleared, and the roosters in the town began to crow, as if in an instant, the town of melon came to life.

The carpenter next door scolded the pillar to get up, and Aunt Hua was busy in the kitchen, clanging. Cooking smoke rises from the scattered rooftops.

Cheng yawned and fetched cold water from the well on the edge of the hut, which made him sober up instantly.

After he crossed his knees and breathed for a moment, he slowly got up. After a set of shallow punches, luck slapped at the big rock in the yard.

"Bang!", and the crack in the stone was thicker again.

Cheng picked up the scoop and scooped half a scoop of grain, paused, it was too quiet, he pursed his lips, and shook half of the half-scoop of millet into the grain jar, how did he finish eating.

After he boiled half a pot of millet porridge, he heated a mixed noodle steamed bun. I also picked a green pepper and two green onion seedlings from the corner on the south side of the courtyard, chopped them with salt, and made them vegetables.

The yellow dog wagged his tail and watched Cheng pour a bowl of millet porridge mixed with bran into the dog bowl.

Wagging his tail and humming and eating.

You're not a pig, Cheng thought, hesitated for a moment and broke a piece of mixed noodles and steamed buns and threw them into the dog basin.

I just finished brushing the pot here.

There was a knock at the wood door.

"At home, let's go in"

"Your mother is gone, and the town wants to take back her share of the subsidy, and you press a handprint. A short-haired middle-aged man dressed as a village official walked in with a cloth bag on his shoulder.

Cheng honestly pressed his handprint and thanked the village officials.

The village official took out another handprint: "Your melon field and wheat field have been taken care of by the village, and you have pressed this contract."

When you come of age, the land is returned to you, and now you pay taxes on four parts of your income, four parts go to the town, and the rest goes to you.

In addition, the town helped you apply for a place in a college, so you don't have to listen to it secretly.

You're only fourteen, study hard for a few years, and if you have any difficulties looking for us, it's all from the neighborhood, you're welcome. ”

Saying that, he took out a lotus leaf bag from his bag, "This is a bundle, I have been eavesdropping for three years, and the apprenticeship ceremony should also be made up."

Cheng took the lotus leaf bag and smiled a little awkwardly. "Thank you, Uncle Shi. ”

"It's all as it should be," he packed his cloth bag, turned around and left without sitting or drinking a bowl of water.

Cheng looked at the bundle on the table, a little stunned.

He didn't know what the way forward would be.

His father was the captain of the town's hunting team, and left behind a book of lithotripsy.

In this world, it is important to pass on men not women, and children not to wives. I guess that if a woman wants to marry, the wife can also remarry.

But when his father died, he was afraid that the orphans and widows would be bullied, so he passed on the introductory method of tuna without leaving words to a few friends in the village, and insisted until the formula was finished, and told the villagers that they could practice and take care of their orphans and widows. After speaking, he swallowed his breath without blinking.

Cheng started from literacy, and he pondered for three years, and lithotripsy was quite beginner, far worse than others. It seems that no matter how he cultivates, he is not lawful, and others can achieve it in half a year, but he used it for three years.

So if the law failed, he practiced and practiced swordsmanship, stabbing three thousand with an iron sword every day, cutting three thousand the next day, and holding a sword for half a day on the third day without moving.

At the age of fourteen, he was thin and small, and the hunting team did not allow him to enter, after all, the hunting team was too dangerous, and the only son in the family would not accept him!

The two dogs of the same age are already tall and big, the pillars and stones are also strong and abnormal, and the peach is weak but healthy. Five good friends who played, he dragged his feet and lowered the average height......

The people of Gua Town eat desperately in the harvest season of grain and melons, replenish their physical strength, and practice stone crushing. What's more, there is not much food in stock, and those rogues come to loot, so they will not be too distressed.

In this world of cultivation, don't think that the people can hide their food and belongings somewhere, there are many strange methods of the talisman masters.

If you can't find it, find a few leading soul searchers!

After a long time, Shangyang has also developed the tradition of keeping less grain, killing all the small rogues when they encounter them, and running away when they encounter powerful robbers, and even holding the mentality that we are dead and you can't get anything. It wasn't until the watermelon gang was established in Gua Town to jointly resist the rogues that life was better.

As a result, strange phenomena have gradually developed here.

The robbers had a fixed territory, formed gangs, and began the road of whitewashing, and every year they came to collect the goods, leaving most of them for the people.

Robbers are also human beings, and if the townspeople really resist to death, the casualties will be large, and they will be easily swallowed up by their peers.

Anyway, life is just like that.

It's not easy for everyone to be alive.

After eating, Cheng sat on a stool with his arms propped up his head.

When Qin Niang was alive, although the family was miserable, she did not starve to death.

The butcher and several of their helpers will be rejected by Qin Niang.

meat, only willing to ask for some water. Wood, only willing to ask for some broken wood.

Sometimes when others take the food and hand it to Xiao Cheng, Qin Niang will refuse with a smile.

Even if the son has straight eyes and drooling from his mouth. At most, she gritted her teeth and went to help the hunting team deal with more prey and exchange for some food.

In her private words, she didn't have the ability to distinguish between good and bad, so she refused them all.

After all, orphans and widows, how ugly it is for others to gossip.

She died like a hero, but she couldn't die without life.

Later, after a long time, she would only accept the help of blacksmiths, carpenters, butchers and Ergou's family.

After all, her husband had a lot of contacts during his lifetime, and the trick was also handed over to them to help pass on to the villagers, not to mention that the juniors also played well.

That's why Cheng generally doesn't take other people's things.

Then he also developed the problem that he didn't like to talk very much, and Cheng also learned from his mother, be cautious in his words and deeds, and when he couldn't tell the difference, he just refused.

Thinking is diverging, what should we do in the future?

The industry in the village is basically inherited by the son and the father, do you want to go to the wolf to talk about it?

He has also killed first-order demonic beasts, bullfrogs that spit water arrows, and even injured lone wolves on the periphery of the dense forest, and he also knows herbs, which is somewhat useful.

Alas, let's go to the academy first.

As soon as Cheng stepped out of the door, he saw Jiu Niang, dressed in plain clothes, standing outside the door.

She was a little cramped, "Qin Niang went, and in the future, I will often come to see you." Here's some jerky that you hold. ”

Jiu Niang was a good friend of Cheng Niangqin, and her man also died in battle. The two women have a common story, but Jiuniang has no children and has not remarried.

"I heard that you are going to the academy to apprentice, but you can't be rude. ”

"Hmm"

After the withdrawal of the three kingdoms of Qin, Qi and Chu, the newly arrived Qi government did not care about things, and the rogues looted from time to time, so Gua Town established the Watermelon Gang.

Saying that it is a gang is actually that the townspeople unite to defend against the bandits.

In fact, you can only block part of it, and when you meet someone who has a master, you can only obediently pay for it.

In addition, I usually have to deal with the group of people who don't care about things and collect taxes, so I live very hard.

However, the Watermelon Gang still got a academy and hired an old master to teach. In the mouths of the people of Gua Town, that is the place where the gang is stationed.

The old master is said to have been invited by the mayor of the town, and he likes to hang a scoop around his waist as a drinking utensil.

The townspeople built a academy and built a strong town wall around the academy to enclose the academy.

In peacetime, it is used as a place to teach and store, and in wartime it is a fortress for the whole town.

The academy is just a crepe of words, and the real place to teach is a few brick houses.

The carpenter made a few wooden piers, made a few seats, and spent a lot of effort to make the table.

At this time, taking advantage of the morning breeze and the May mist, the old master was teaching the children to read Mengshu, which was a stone slab that had been erected, and the faintly black words written by the gentleman with a special pen could disappear with a touch of his hand. It is said that this is an essential skill for a teacher.

Cheng walked in through the gate, and the gate of the inner courtyard where he taught was actually two tall wooden pillars with a thatched roof.

Cheng waved at Mr.'s back, "Mr. ......"

The old master turned to look at the lotus leaf bag in the prime minister's hand, and his beard trembled, "It's here"

Apprenticeship is not complicated, because it is not a master in the traditional sense, but just a master.

I handed over the apprenticeship, gave a cup of tea, put the back of my hand against my forehead, and bowed about 90 degrees, which was a solemn salute.

Mengxue is only for half a day, teaching new words and pronunciation, and half-grown children are also important laborers, pulling weeds, feeding pigs, and watering melon fields.

Although the village people helped take care of the Cheng's field, Cheng couldn't sit back and wait for the harvest, because she would be scolded by her mother, and she had to go down to the ground with her sick body and her children.

Cheng remembers very well that when he cried and didn't go, his mother said, "This is someone else's love, but it is our duty." ”

Then it was a beating, looking at the young Cheng, the child didn't dare to continue to make trouble, so he could only cry his nose to pull weeds, in fact, he couldn't pull out a few, and even broke the melon seedlings, but Qin just let his son work. It was useless to persuade the villagers, this woman without a surname was very stubborn, and Cheng remembered that others said to his mother, "Qin Niang, find another man" His mother would always blast people out, saying that she wanted to leave an incense for his dead father.

Now his incense is not burning vigorously, and his father did not leave any gold and silver treasures before he died, only a crude one-vein lithotripsy.

Cheng himself pondered for several years, and it was like that, it was not as good as the iron sword, as if he was the garbage of legendary cultivation.

Cheng can still remember that his father can be lucky to break stones and carry a large tank full of water, and it is estimated that he can carry it if he changes to the tripod that Mr. said.

If you also have a talent for cultivation, hey! Cheng wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, threw down a handful of grass, and watched the villagers draw water from commercial water to irrigate their own melon fields.

Is it just like this for the rest of my life? Cheng looked up at the sky, and above the sky was an impenetrable blue nothingness, what was the sky? What was above the sky?

Mr. said that the vastness of heaven and earth is boundless, and the holy sea is boundless and vast, but how big is boundless? How wide is vast? Mr. said that he himself is the same as seeing it with his own eyes.

Cheng was skeptical, but he longed for it. But the outside world is not very peaceful, and when you leave a town, you have to be in droves.

In the butcher's words, the chicken feathers are not opened, so they want to fly? There are so many robbers outside, and there is no power to fart!

Be careful of being caught as slaves, do you know slaves? are the people who have fled desperately from the outside world. Tsk, miserable.

And he should be the butcher's mouth, the helpless chicken? But the group of children who have already beaten him are crying and calling their mothers.

Mr. also said that we are a people without a country, alas, what is a country, I don't understand, can we eat it as a meal? Besides, it is not under the rule of Qi now?

When the village woman chewed her tongue, she said that it was good to have no country, as long as she could live, and now she was better alive than before. What is good and bad, anyway, I don't understand.

He didn't know what it was like before, but the villagers said it was very good to be able to eat now.

But isn't it better to be able to eat meat? Why don't they want to eat meat? Are they content with the status quo?

I don't know, since he has been eavesdropping on the class for three years, he knows even less, and he can't be as heartless as Zhuzi, Ergou, Mu Tao, and Stone.

In the past, you could run for a day chasing yellow dogs, and you could be happy for a day feeding sheep, herding cattle and selling melons.

Now, his parents are gone, and he is idle after practicing swords.

You don't have to go to the doctor every day to boil and change medicines, you don't have to go to the jungle to guard your prey, you don't have to struggle to identify medicinal materials, and no one urges you to go to the fields, but the little people are not the same as their peers.

He was confused.

Mengxue has truly achieved enlightenment, opened the hazy, and opened the ignorance.

It also opened a corner of the world, it was pure white, sweet, foggy smoke, and the unknown world ahead, and if you took a puff, you would take a step forward, and from then on until the heart died.

So they and their hearts are dead.