The sky was blue, there was not a trace of clouds in the sky, the sun was like a fireball, and the gray ground was baked hot. In addition www.biquge.info to the free dust still floating, the air seems to be frozen, and even if there is an occasional gust of wind, it only brings a suffocating scorching heat.

The expressions on the faces of the people who entered and exited Su County seemed to be also frozen, expressionless, coming and going in a hurry, ignoring the homeless beggars who asked for help near the city gate. The prolonged drought has completely numbed the consciousness of the people, who have long been indifferent to everything around them except for the hope of rain.

The guards guarding the city gate scattered in twos and threes, some listlessly squatting on the ground smoking hookah, some lazily sitting on the fence and looking around, and some bored leaning against the city wall to brag and fart. A pair of vulture-like eyes indifferently glanced at the people coming in and out, and when they saw these ragged people's guards, they couldn't help frowning, and scolded in their hearts: Poor ghosts, Lao Tzu has nowhere to start if he wants to get some oil and water. As for the wailing and weeping in their ears, they were accustomed to it, as long as those homeless beggars did not enter the city and did not make trouble at the city gates, no matter how many deaths they had, it was none of their business.

Now in this world, the emperors have been replaced by tartars, and the Han people have been reduced to pigs and dogs, who can take care of whom!

There is a Fengyang Mountain standing on the east side of the gate of Suxian County, this mountain is not too high, more like a hill, the former lush mountain has become bare, barren like a yellow mud block discarded by giants.

There is a Sanqing Taoist temple on the mountain, which used to be a pilgrimage place for the people. However, with the influx of homeless beggars from all directions to grab food and live here, the Taoist temple slowly declined, leaving behind a ruin and ruin. The homeless beggars who couldn't enter the city did not give up, and swept over and over again any animals and plants on the mountain that could satisfy their hunger, and even the Guanyin soil was picked up layer after layer by layer as a treasure. The devastated Fengyang Mountain has gradually become rare and has become a barren mountain.

Halfway up the barren mountain, an old cow was laboriously digging out a few weeds from the dry loess and chewing them. Sleepy old and young sat under the jagged dead trees next to them, snoring intermittently accompanied by the heart-rending chirping of cicadas.

The old man's waxy face was wrinkled, pitted like peeled bark, his closed eyes looked deeper and deeper like two holes, and a pair of thick, dry hands rested weakly on the robe on his chest. The robe was no longer visible in its original style and color, and the long hem dragged casually at the feet, even if it was covered with dust, it could not hide the dirt on the clothes. If it weren't for the white bun on the top of the old man's head with a purple yang scarf tied to it, it is estimated that no one would have guessed that he was a Taoist priest.

The child was dressed more simply, covered in a dirty riding coat, shirtless, bare-legged, with big feet curled up one long and one short, and his dark skin glowing in the sun. His tousled hair was buttoned around his head like a teapot, and his ears were surprisingly large, like the handles on either side of a teapot. The thin, pointy little face was covered with snot and dry saliva, and a few huge eye droppings hung from the corners of his eyes, falling little by little with gravity.

"Moo!" The old cow suddenly raised its head and neighed, and its hooves were scraping in the dirt with dissatisfaction.

The child suddenly woke up, rubbed his eyes, stood up and looked around, and pushed the Taoist priest beside him, "Daoist Zhou, there is no grass here, we have to move somewhere." ”

"There is no grass when I move to other places, and everything that can be eaten on this mountain has long been eaten up by those poor flowers." Zhou Daochang was unmoved, his eyelids were still drooping, and he only muttered a sentence in his mouth, his tone was full of disgust and disdain for the homeless beggars, and he didn't feel that his poor and sad appearance was not much different from those homeless beggars.

Since the first year of the Tianli calendar, when there was a great drought in the sky, hundreds of people were forced to leave their hometowns and wander around, Zhou Daochang has never found any food offered by believers in the Sanqing Taoist Temple. The days were worse than day by day, and in the end, the Taoist priests in the Taoist temple ran out, and the Taoist temple was completely defeated. Every time he thought of this, his hatred for the homeless beggars deepened.

"That's right," the child scratched his head a few times, sat back on the ground, pursed his chapped lips, raised his little yellow face and looked at Zhou Daochang steadily, "Then you can continue to tell the previous story......

"People are dying of hunger, how can they have the strength to speak." Daoist Zhou struggled to open his drooping eyelids, looked at the childish child in front of him who was eager for knowledge, sighed, opened his mouth half-deadly, and muttered a prayer, "Pray that the Immeasurable Heavenly Venerable will bless the disciple with a full stomach today......

Zhou Daochang's surname is Zhou, according to his own boasting, he is the descendant of Chen Daochang and Qiu Daochang, proficient in Zhou Yi gossip, and knows astronomy and geography, so he calls himself Zhou Banxian.

It's a pity that Zhou Banxian was born at the wrong time, encountered the turbulent years at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court was heavily enslaved, coupled with the continuous famine, ordinary people can't even afford to eat, who still has the energy to believe in those gods and gods chatter, worship those invisible immortals, of course, this Zhou Banxian is not popular, and the days are getting poorer and poorer. With the complete defeat of the Sanqing Taoist Temple, he had to leave the Taoist Temple, pulled a stove and sat under the base of the city wall to tell fortunes and divination.

The villagers who gave him face and looked for him to divinate could still respect him "Zhou Daochang" in person, but in fact, most people in Suxian County called him "Zhou Nose" in private.

Zhou Nose knew that he could only touch his nose and look up to the sky and sigh, there was no way to do it.

Since the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty regime by the Tatars, due to the extremely uneven ratio of the number of Yuan people and Han people, the culture and rules of the Han people are superior to those of the Yuan people, in order to protect the status of the Yuan people, the imperial court advocated the supremacy of the Yuan and Mongolians, and divided the people under its rule into four classes: the first-class Yuan people, the second-class Semu people (that is, the Western Regions people, Europeans), the third-class Han people (the ethnic minorities and some Han people under their original rule in the north), and the fourth-class southerners (all the Han people in the territory of the original Song Dynasty). The imperial court also specifically stipulated that among the fourth-class southerners, those who did not go to school and became officials could not have official names, and could only be named after the sum of the ages of their parents or the date of birth or their lineage...... Fengyang, Anhui Province is located in the territory of the former Song Dynasty, which is the so-called fourth-class southerner jurisdiction, so the common people here live a very hard life, no status, no economic income, and no even a decent name......

Thinking of this, Zhou Nose arrogantly raised the old bark face, and swept Zhu Chongba with a slightly smug gaze. Others call him Zhou Nose to save face, at least he didn't call him a cat or a dog, at least it was much better than the top eight in front of him who had no name and could only read the rankings.

Suddenly, Zhou's nose's gaze fixed on Zhu Chongba's little hand, and then he looked at it, and suddenly his eyes lit up, and he pretended to cough, "Xiaoba, you see that the sky is cloudless today, the sky is dry and irritable, and my voice is dumb, how good it would be if there was a date to moisten my throat, so that I can continue to tell stories......

Zhu Chongba's small hand holding the green jujube tightened and tightened, it was a half-baked jujube that he accidentally found when he was grazing cattle in the mountains. After picking this date, he was ecstatic and reluctant to eat it immediately, so he kept holding it in the palm of his hand, and occasionally licked it quietly when he was greedy. But now his joy turned into chagrin: how could this bull's nose's eyes be more powerful than the eyes of a corpse vulture flying in the sky, and even the dates he hid in the palm of his hand could be seen? I can't give it to it, and I don't give it to others and say it so obviously, what if I offend this bull's nose and don't tell stories in the future?

After hesitating for a long time, Zhu Chongba finally handed the dates out reluctantly, and the dates could only be eaten for a while, and there was no story to listen to after offending Zhou Nose. Looking at Zhou's intoxicated face swallowing dates, Zhu Chongba swallowed involuntarily in his throat, and said in his stomach: Niu Nose, the master's saliva is delicious.

Zhu Chongba's hometown is in Zhongli, Haozhou, which is only a mountain away from the Su County where he currently lives. His father, Zhu Wusi, was originally an ordinary farmer, but the grain planted in the first year has not been handed over, and it is better to start a business than to work, so Zhu Wusi was angry and abandoned his farmland, and took his family over the mountains and mountains to Su County to work as a tenant for a local landlord surnamed Liu.

Throughout the ages, landlords have been representatives of the exploiting class, and this landlord Liu is no exception.

Zhu Chongba's father and brothers chopped firewood, carried water, and planted crops at Landlord Liu's house; Zhu Chongba's mother and sisters cooked, washed laundry, and took care of the children at Landlord Liu's house.

Zhu Chongba was only three years old when he first arrived at Landlord Liu's house, and he couldn't pick up his shoulders or hands. Landlord Liu was immediately unhappy when he saw this, the landlord's family had no surplus food, and the family was not a charity hall, how could they stand it if they all came to eat and live for nothing? In the end, when Zhu Wusi's family pleaded and promised to give up all kinds of welfare benefits and only take care of food, Landlord Liu reluctantly agreed to let the three-year-old milk doll go to herd cattle.

Now Zhu Chongba is five years old, and five years old is the stage of childishness. However, the children of Landlord Liu's family looked down on them as tenant children, and their parents and elder sisters were as tired as dogs, how could they have time to tease the children. Finally met an old god who likes to brag, and listened to the other party tell some mysterious and mysterious, miraculous stories, which seemed to open a wonderful window to Zhu Chongba's young heart, and since then he drove the cow to Fengyang Mountain early every day to graze, and moved a stone to sit in front of Zhou Bi to listen to the scriptures.

Zhou Bi was very excited, and when he went to the Taoist temple, he didn't find food, but met an admirer. Although his belly was still deflated, his spirit was greatly satisfied. The only drawback is that this worshipper is too young and has no possessions to honor the Three Qing Daoists. But the attitude of this worshipper is very pious - only the Tao respects it, even if he is old, some morality is wrong, some cowhide is blown up, this child never refutes - well, respect the teacher, is a manufacturable material!

After savoring the taste of green jujubes for a long time, the bark wrinkles on Zhou's face deepened more and more, and he continued to tell the story of misleading people's children......

Time is slowly evaporated by the heat, the sun quietly slides down the West Mountain, and the end of the sky burns a large area of strange fiery red sunset, like brocade silk, colorful, mountains, earth, city walls, and houses are bathed in ten thousand clusters of golden light.

However, Zhu Chongba and Zhou Nose did not appreciate the romantic cells of the sunset, Zhu Chongba had to take the cow back to Landlord Liu's house, and Zhou Nose also planned to go into the city to wander around the back door of the rich and noble's house to see if any servants came out to pour swill.

Both of them are familiar faces in Su County, but they were not embarrassed by the soldiers, and they entered the county seat smoothly, and they were just about to part ways, when suddenly there was a rush of running behind them, and the two looked back curiously.