- In the outer city of Kyoto, Ah San Liquor Store, standing at the counter, Xiao San'er, the owner of the liquor store, was in a somewhat complicated mood, he was wiping the countertop repeatedly with a dry rag, which had been soaked in wine and oil stains for many years, and the wooden countertop that reflected the gray and black color made the unclean rag in his hand shine.

Opposite him, a young man sat upright at the table, and there were several empty jars under the table, but he still picked up the wine bowl in front of him from time to time, and tilted his neck to make a bowl dry.

The reason for Boss Xiao's complicated mood is not that this young man who drinks heavily does not pay for wine. In fact, he is very familiar with this young man, the wine shop wants to make wine, a lot of firewood is cut by this young man from the deep mountains, this Xiaochao cut to sell firewood does not contain water, the fire is good to burn, a few years of intersection, Boss Xiao not only values Xiaochao's work, but also has some admiration for this young man in his heart.

This young man is really practical.

Therefore, it is rare to drink in the wine shop, and Xiao Chao, who has zero drunken records, came to the wine shop bizarrely, and then he drank indiscriminately, Boss Xiao thought that he was troubled, if he wanted to pay on credit, maybe Boss Xiao would allow it today.

But today, Boss Xiao, who saw Xiaochao drinking so heavily for the first time, discovered another advantage in him - this young man didn't seem to be drunk.

This advantage may not be considered an advantage for Xiao Chao, because not being drunk means that he can't limit the amount of alcohol he can drink, but for Boss Xiao, his specialty is very likely to bring profits to the wine shop.

Xiaochao seems to have come to buy drunk today, but something that makes Boss Xiao feel strange. He didn't seem to have much to dow his sorrows with wine, and he paid for it very simply. This also made Boss Xiao choose for a long time on the issue of persuading alcohol or not.

Seeing that the sky outside was all dark, Boss Xiao finally couldn't stand it anymore and walked out from the inside of the wine cabinet.

The person who can drink again. Drinking so much alcohol in one go, even if you don't get drunk, the damage to your body is great. Although Boss Xiao is a businessman, Xiaochao and him have always been only business dealings, but in any case, this shallow friendship has accumulated for several years, and it will also leave something in people's hearts.

Boss Xiao, who walked to the table, said in a harmonious voice: Xiaochao, let's drink here today, you have already drunk a lot today. It's getting late, and you should go back.

Xiao Chao was squinting to the side. Pay attention to the drinker at the other table who is already drunk, but still insists on pouring himself wine with trembling hands. Hearing Boss Xiao's voice, he turned his head and said after calming down: Boss Xiao. How can I drink as merrily as this guest officer?

He's drunk, he's drunk, where is he happy? Boss Xiao smiled and said: When he gets up tomorrow morning, he will know that the wine is strong!

Drunken? Oh...... Xiao Chao's face was dazed for a moment, he looked around at the pile of empty wine jars on the table, and then showed a sudden look, Boss Xiao, I said it wrong just now, I should ask you, do you think I drank so much wine. Why aren't you drunk yet?

Boss Xiao was stunned for a moment, and then said with a smile: Usually when the drinkers who come to me say this, they are drunk and they are drunk, I haven't seen a drunk person take the initiative to admit that he is drunk, the more drunk he is, the more he wants to drink!

Xiao Chao didn't take the conversation immediately, he first raised his hand, stretched out his five fingers and slowly shook it in front of his eyes, and then he looked at Boss Xiao and said seriously: "That kind of drinker, I have also seen a lot of people in your store when I sent firewood...... But I'm not really drunk. Speaking of the second half of the sentence, he also added an emphatic tone.

Alas. Boss Xiao sighed. Persuading drunk people to keep their mouths shut is basically predictable for the owner of the liquor store. A drunkard who was in the middle of a drink sat in a room surrounded by alcohol, and all other methods seemed so powerless except to send him home directly. But Boss Xiao didn't know where Xiaochao lived, and out of pity for his words and persuasion, all he could do was a few words.

Boss Xiao persuaded a few more words, but the result was still the same, but looking at Xiao Chao who picked up the wine bowl again, he had a strange feeling, Xiao Chao may not be really drunk.

According to Boss Xiao's observation of the drinkers in the store over the years, whether passively or actively, if a person wants to get drunk, the first person to get drunk should be his eyes. However, the eyes of Xiao Chao, who was sitting opposite, except for the somewhat strange behavior and the fact that he liked to watch other drunks drink, were still so bright and agile when he looked back at him, without a little astigmatism and sluggishness.

This discovery has to make people feel a little shocked, Xiao Chao's drinking amount for most of the day is not adulterated at all, he comes to drink alone, there is no need to drink and vomit quietly like people at the banquet, right?

Looking at the wine jar that surrounded Xiaochao and had a total of five or six wines, Boss Xiao was also confused, and some doubted whether he was drunk by the smell of alcohol.

Just then, a new customer arrived.

The curtain of the door flickered, and a scribe with a slender figure and a plain shirt and a bookish look on his face in silence walked in. His gaze circled around the restaurant, and finally landed on the table where Boss Xiao was sitting, and at the same time, his gaze almost met Boss Xiao's.

Boss Xiao immediately got up from the bench next to the table and greeted him. As the operator of the liquor store, although he had some doubts in his heart that the real purpose of this person's arrival might not be to drink, he still quickly smiled and said: "Please sit down first, what kind of wine do you order?"

As a businessman, you must always be aware of one thing, and that is to make money.

It doesn't matter if he drinks or not, he has to pay for the wine, and there are often customers in other people's restaurants who can't eat the food that is poured out, but still pay the bill according to the price!

Boss Xiao quickly made a small calculation in his heart, but the truth was as he initially expected, the plain-shirted scribe just said with a clear meaning: Thank you for the hospitality, but it is too late to drink. Next, I will come to your store to pick up a friend and go back, if there is a chance. Next time, I will definitely come with my friends to buy drunk.

The words are gentle, and the politeness of this scribe is very different from the usual drinkers here. Boss Xiao, who is bound to encounter grievances from guests every day, feels a little flattered, and at the same time has no reason to object.

Looking at the scribe's eyes when he came in, it seemed that the scribe was coming to pick up Xiaochao, Boss Xiao subconsciously walked away a few steps, but he was still a little suspicious, so he called out: Xiaochao, your friend is here.

If it weren't for the fact that this Sushan scribe seemed to have a mysterious identity, but in general he should be a Sven, Boss Xiao would probably wonder if Xiao Chao was in trouble.

Hearing the innocence of the innkeeper to the young man holding the bowl, the scribe's eyes moved slightly.

When Xiao Chao heard the sound, he put down the wine bowl. After staring intently at the man standing across from him for a moment. Suddenly said: Lin ...... Forest......

Maybe he's really drunk. It's just that he looks quite sober on the outside, but the operation of his thinking has begun to slow down, and the word 'Lin' has been stuck for a long time. The following was not said either.

Went back. The scribe did not hesitate to persuade him, but only said three words, and then walked to the table.

Oh...... Xiao Chao replied more briefly, and then stood up immediately with great obedience, but when he left the table, his steps finally slipped a little.

When the scribe saw this, he stretched out an arm, did he need help?

Xiao Chao didn't even answer this time, he just shook his head, but his shaking looked more like he was sobering himself up.

Taking a big step, Xiaochao walked out of the wine shop first. The scribe was a few steps behind and said to the owner of the liquor store: "My friend owes money for the wine?"

Boss Xiao hurriedly shook his head and said: It has been settled in advance, and your friend seems to be not drunk, and his mind has been very clear.

He'll get drunk, it's just a matter of time before the momentum rises. The scribe smiled. Walking to the wine cabinet, he glanced at the display shelf on the inside of the counter, and then pointed to a pitch-black jar on the shelf, but the bottom and lid were gray and white, and said warmly: That jar of wine, but a burning knife?

Boss Xiao nodded in surprise: The guest officer has good eyesight.

I don't have the eye to see through the things in the altar directly. The scribe said calmly: "I remember the first batch of spirits that were brought to Kyoto by caravans from the north ten years ago, and among them was a batch of burning knives that was such an altar. The sand wax is still there, no matter how clean you wipe this jar, there is still a lot of fine dust on the sand wax, and it seems that the wine in the jar is still intact.

Boss Xiao was stunned for a moment, but this time his surprise was in his heart. I was amazed by the sight of this scribe, and even more shocked by his unknown identity.

The guest officer was right, when the shop started operating ten years ago, because the funds were a little unable to operate, so when the price of this yakitsu was reduced, a large number of goods were purchased, but I didn't expect that this wine did not sell very well in Kyoto. Boss Xiao didn't mean to be tactful anymore, and explained bluntly that the roasted knife wine did not have the stamina of grain wine, but it was too spicy, and people who had drunk this wine had suspected that it was mixed with medicine. Later, I was afraid that I would smash the signboard and not sell it again, so I drank a little occasionally, and the last remaining jar was put down, and the right was regarded as a memorial to accompany the small shop to build a business.

The scribe smiled faintly and said, "So, I'm embarrassed to buy it."

Boss Xiao was a little forgetful when he talked about the old past just now, and it was not until this moment that he suddenly understood the true intention of this scribe to talk about this wine. For this reason, he couldn't help but regret a little: how could he unconsciously forget what he should value most as a businessman?

If the guest officer likes it, he may wish to take it directly. Boss Xiao is anxious for money, this jar of wine has been alone for many years, and today it was taken by the guest officer, so that there is no need to bear ashes in the store, and you can get the taste of the people who know it, it is not the best destination for wine.

Shopkeeper, you're very good at business, but this wine has been kept and not sold, maybe you're really waiting for me! The scribe had a smile in his eyes, but he didn't know if it was because of the shopkeeper's tactful words to worship money, or if he really praised it. He glanced out the door, turned around and said, "I want this wine, please trouble the store to tie it with hemp rope for me."

After that, the scribe did not ask any more questions, but took a silver ingot from his sleeve and placed it gently on the counter.

Only Boss Xiao knew the value of this jar of wine when it was shipped ten years ago, but looking at his positive appearance when he took off the wine jar and tied it at this time according to the scribe's instructions, it was obvious that selling this stagnant goods today was not only a matter of his heart. I also made an easy profit.

The scribe walked out of the liquor shop with a jar of wine tied with a rope, and before he left, the atmosphere between the counters was a little delicate. The scribe did not explicitly say that he did not need to look for money, and Boss Xiao did not say whether he gave more or less. I don't know who was negligent and who did it on purpose.

After the scribe went out, a few more whispers came from outside the liquor shop, the content of which was vague, but it was not difficult to guess who was speaking.

After Xiao Chao was picked up by the scribe, there were still two drinkers left in the wine shop, and when the sound outside the house faded away, the drinkers sitting at a table by the door also got up and called Boss Xiao to settle the bill.

Boss Xiao recognized the guest who came to the store in the evening, and hurriedly greeted him with a warm face.

This well-dressed but always neat man was not only a regular customer of the wine shop, he never took credit. He also rarely gets drunk. And every time I come to the restaurant, it is estimated that it is almost evening. His behavior and habits, which seem to be limited to a certain category, naturally make Boss Xiao have an impression of him.

But since the first visit to the liquor store, the strong man has always been a loner. People are also more withdrawn. The customers who come and go to the wine shop every day are not all residents of Kyoto, and Boss Xiao will not deliberately check the identity of the drinkers, but for more than a year, Boss Xiao, who has been in contact with this strong man in the business, has not even obtained any information about the identity of this person, which is very strange, and at the same time makes Boss Xiao more and more wary of him.

The strong man paid for the wine and pushed the curtain out and left.

Kyoto is near the sea, and the wind is fast, and most food and beverage businesses will hang leather curtains on the doors to block the wind after winter. Although spring is strong in the current season, people can still feel a trace of the chill of the spring tail in the morning and evening. There are few people in the wine shop, and the door will open until late at night, so the leather curtain hanging on the door of the wine shop has not been removed.

The leather curtain was thick and stiff, and after being lifted by the strong man who went out, one of the corners of the skin never calmed down, curling to reveal a hollow, slightly pouring wind into the wine shop. The night breeze in spring is no longer as cold as a knife in the cold wind of the winter night, but Boss Xiao is still diligent and immediately walks to the door, ready to smooth out the folds of the leather curtain.

Maybe it was because on today's night when business was not very good, he met three people who made him feel strange at once, so subconsciously, Boss Xiao couldn't help but be curious, lowered his body slightly, and looked out of the wine shop through the hole in the leather curtain.

The streets were empty, and Boss Xiao's peaceful gaze couldn't help but stare for a moment.

The strong man should be a practitioner, Boss Xiao has usually seen a lot of drinkers with martial arts, he has reason to be sure of this, but the strong man disappeared without a trace after going out, which seems a little weird.

Generally speaking, people who are slightly drunk should walk unhurriedly, because they come to the wine shop but do not drink heavily, and most of them are people who come for wine tasting and are in a good mood.

The strong man came after the evening, and the wine was drunk slowly, and no one else came to tell him what to do in the middle, and there was no money for the wine at the end, so why did he run as anxious as a rabbit after settling the wine money?

Boss Xiao was puzzled for a moment, and then he suddenly thought of a possibility in his heart, so he couldn't help but half-open the leather curtain and take a big step outside. But he quickly stepped back again, lowered the curtain, moved his lips silently, and finally sighed lowly.

In fact, the possibility that Boss Xiao thought of was extremely probable.

However, the actual situation needs to be slightly modified.

The strong man seemed to leave like a frightened rabbit, but in fact he walked out of the wine shop with the same mood as a cheetah, and the plain-clothed scribe who left one step ahead of him and the drunken Xiaochao were the frightened rabbits in his eyes. It's just a pity that based on his true identity, he is at most a fierce dog of the master's family, and although the two people in front of him are the prey that the master's family needs, they may not be frightened at this time.

According to Lin Shan's instructions, he left the old house in the morning, and Jiang Chao said goodbye to him halfway, and then he went to the old acquaintance's wine shop to learn to drink.

The wars that lasted for several years in the last years of the Zhou Dynasty and the chaos in the supply of materials that would inevitably have brought about the death of the dynasty led to the separation of relatives and the destruction of families on the land of the whole country, and at the same time there were a huge number of orphans. Most of these children are left with mental defects due to the sudden disaster of their originally peaceful families, and it is difficult for them to be educated by others except for their own parents. The helpless children have limited ability to work, and most of them wander with other people who have fled from the army. In the evacuation teams, which lack supplies and care, children die of hunger and disease every day.

Children who have been honed by real life and can survive to the end are growing rapidly, and some of them are even deformed beyond their age limit. They knew that Kyoto had always been a place where dignitaries and nobles lived, and that the emperor at that time would not care about the stability of the people's livelihood, and the place where he lived must be the last place to catch fire, so most of the surviving children of the displaced people chose to blend into Kyoto.

Even if they live a begging life in this place, picking up the leftover food residues from the swill dumped in the garbage heaps of those large families will have a better chance of survival than wandering in other places, which is that those children have lost their dreams and happiness in the cold reality, and finally there is only one hope left to live, and they have only found this way out.

Jiang Chao was one of many orphans who fled to Kyoto and blended into the city to beg.

Except for the part of this group of children who have died for various reasons in the past ten years, some of them have become little beggars forever. This is mostly because the spiritual pillars in their hearts have collapsed, and they have nothing to do but passively rely on the charity of others to survive. Such people are pitiful and hateful, and it is difficult to integrate into the life of normal people.

There are also some people like Jiang Chao, who rely on the labor of selling coolies to make a living. They either braved the danger of fierce beasts to cut wood deep in the mountains in exchange for living expenses, or went to the port near the sea in Kyoto to fight goods and earn some hard-earned money.

Due to the complexity of Kyoto's population, the imperial court issued a restrictive regulation for homeless orphans, and although it maintained the security of the capital on a large scale, it inevitably required the sacrifice of some people's interests. A person like Jiang Chao, who has no ancestral home to follow, even if he has a sound body and hope for the future, no matter how hard he tries, he can only live at the level of low-class coolies.

However, there is a semi-open secret among the high-ranking people in Kyoto, that is, among the high-ranking officials and nobles in Kyoto, there are many people who take in such homeless orphans and train them to become their own dead soldiers. What is even more surprising is that the original source of this statement is actually the garrison of the inner courtyard of the palace.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, if the original statement is true, maybe the purpose of a certain emperor's family to take in these children is good on a macro level.

Many of these children are extremely high in congenital elements, or they are in Zhimin or physique. If they are allowed to wander outside, they will continue to be one of those who die of sickness and starvation; Either it is to waste the talent in the strong labor of daily survival; Perhaps there is also a result, which is to become a very difficult villain to deal with, and endanger the lives of ordinary people.

The family is broken and difficult to repair, and what they need most physically is only three full meals a day, and the lack of spirit is the most complex and critical. This group of children's way of thinking was still in the growth stage of the war and life was severely bruised, it is not easy to learn well, but if taught well, this group of people will become a group of behemoth new forces, because they have not yet lost the power of creation, they have tasted the taste of survival, more skilled than ordinary children to master the perseverance of the disposition, more able to keep the faith of survival again.

It was only rumored that among the children who were included in the royal compound, this idea was the original version, and the benevolent intentions were relatively intact; However, when some of the other nobles in Kyoto began to follow suit, the purpose of this practice became more and more local; In addition, when the nobles began to engage in similar activities, the street children in Kyoto had already been selected by the royal family, and the remaining street children had some problems with their qualifications. In this way, between the dead soldiers and the masters of the house, who were trained by the homeless children, the slave master rule gradually emerged.

If his identity is exposed face-to-face, Jiang Chao will find that he and the strong man who has been following him not far behind him since he left the wine store are actually the same passerby, but the one who took him in a few years ago was the commander of the Kyoto garrison who represented the royal family, and the strong man was one of the last batch of homeless children who were selected and taken away by a certain high-ranking official.

However, even if this identity is not exposed, Jiang Chao still has an impression of this person, because he feels that this person seems to have always wanted to find out his identity, and this feeling has lasted for more than a year.