Shang Cheng returned to Liu's house, and Yue'er told him everything about the arrival of the junior high school yesterday.

There is no doubt that this is a good thing. The wheat has been harvested, and the work in the fields will be brisk and long, and the farmers will no longer pay for day labor; Because of rumors that the imperial court was going to raise troops, the restaurants and restaurants in Huojiabao were no longer under construction, and the shrewd businessmen quietly and nervously followed the progress of the local affairs while quietly transporting their delicate goods to the safer capital city and even further south. The combination of these two things makes it difficult for laborers like Shang Cheng to find a job to earn money by doing odd jobs. Shang Cheng is better, the two evil wolves have brought him almost three times of money, which is considered to be some savings, even if he has nothing to do, he can support it for a while, but people like Tian Xiaowu, who purely rely on labor, feel that their livelihood and life are difficult at this time. In fact, this is also the most direct reason why Tian Xiaowu talks about being a soldier and eating food anytime and anywhere. It's just that Tian Xiaowu can still find something to do now, and he also has a few odds and pieces of money in his waist, so he doesn't have to eat the last meal without the next meal, so he also has room to pick and choose between being a guard and being a border army; If the days really come when there is no food, there is no doubt that he will never hesitate to join the border army......

"Gao Xiaosan only said that he would go to the county store's warehouse early tomorrow morning to find him?" Shang Cheng asked thoughtfully.

Yue'er nodded and said, "I didn't say that I would go early tomorrow morning, I only said that I would go to him early tomorrow morning at the latest." He also said that if he could not make it to this caravan, it would be many days before there would be another one. She said she was about to go out. She entrusted the guy in the cloth shop to find someone to talk to Shang Cheng early in the morning, and asked him to come back from Lijiazhuang quickly, now that the person has returned, she has to go and explain to others, don't let people run the wrong way.

"Did he mention that they still have to hire people in their warehouse?" Shang Cheng planned to call Tian Xiaowu as well.

Yue'er recalled for a moment and said, "He didn't directly say that he still wanted to find someone...... However, he said that the warehouse has a lot of backlog recently, and he has to rush to Quzhou, and he also mentioned that the warehouse is understaffed, and he is still looking for people everywhere......

That's it. Shang Cheng thought about it and felt that it was not impossible to piggyback Tian Xiaowu with him. Even if the warehouse has already recruited all the manpower, Tian Xiaowu has only walked dozens of miles more, and there will be no loss. Maybe he didn't get something to do in the store, but found a more suitable job in the county? said to Yue'er: "You go and get busy, I'll go out and find someone." ”

Since Shang Cheng wants to go out to find someone, Yue'er has no need to go out. She asked him to stop by and say hello to the people on the bunk, and she stayed at home to make lunch.

Shang Cheng agreed and went out.

He first walked to the cloth shop on the front street to find the person entrusted by Yue'er, did what she had instructed, and said a few words of thanks to the people, and then left the store, turned a corner, and turned from a dirty and narrow alley to the street where Tian Xiaowu lived. The street was almost entirely of low, decaying mud thatched houses, with the occasional half-room mud house, worse than the alley where the Liu family was located. Because the wheat harvest had just begun, every household used new wheat straw to repair the roof of the house, so that large pieces of ochre appeared on the thatched roof that had been blackened by the wind, rain and sun. Everywhere on both sides of the street, you can see unspeakable garbage, and flies swirl and buzz on the garbage heaps of human and livestock droppings. There is a thatched hut that has probably been abandoned for a long time has collapsed, and a few swarthy rotten rafters in the middle of the house are carrying scattered thatch, looking at a pile of purple sauce-colored things lying on the ground that looks like a door, and seeing people approaching, a large group of green-headed flies buzzed open and exploded one by one, and then I saw clearly that the thing was a dead cat. The internal organs of the cat's body have been eaten by wild dogs and voles or something, and only the cat's head is still intact, but where it should have been its eyes, there are now only two irregular black holes, and the decaying fur is tangled and glued together by the black liquid, and it is terrifyingly supported......

Shang Cheng frowned and forcibly held back his nausea, and took a few steps. Until now, he has not adapted to the environment around him, and he feels sick to his stomach when he sees the littering garbage and swarms of flies flying around. But he didn't have the power to change this situation, and he couldn't get others to follow him to keep the environment clean and tidy, the only thing he could do was to do his best to improve the situation around Liu Laozhu's house......

He turned a corner at the end of the street and into another side street that looked similar. He probably remembered that Tian Xiaowu lived here. But these streets all look the same, and the thatched houses can't see any difference, so in desperation, he grabbed a doll playing on the side of the street and asked Tian Xiaowu's home. The doll was covered in mud, and its face and hands were so black that it didn't know what it had caught, and after being pulled by him, it was so frightened that it didn't dare to move, but stared at him in horror with two black eyes. His playmates were also frightened away by Shang Cheng's actions, and then stared nervously at Shang Cheng through the wooden fence courtyard wall.

Shang Cheng had no choice but to let go of the doll. It seems that it is useless to look for these little ones, and they probably don't understand what he is saying. He straightened up and looked up, trying to find an adult to ask for directions. But the surrounding families didn't see a figure one by one, where did the people go? After walking two more steps, I suddenly heard the sound of cheers and cheers not far ahead, mixed with the sharp voice of a woman crying and scolding.

He followed the sound, and when he turned the corner, he saw a large crowd of people, almost blocking the narrow street. There were men and women in the crowd, gray-haired old people and teenagers and girls of fifteen, sixteen or seventeen, all of whom had irrepressible excitement on their faces, and surrounded the courtyard with three layers inside and three layers outside. There was a guy at the outermost end of the crowd on a mule, craned his neck to look at the excitement, and kept asking people around him what was going on here.

Shang Cheng also stopped, standing in the crowd and looking into the courtyard.

In the courtyard, two pairs of men and women were scuffling together, scratching their ears with their fists and feet, twisting their ears and pulling their hair, and with a few gasps and a few screams, all four of them were blue-eyed and swollen and disheveled. In the summer, people wore less clothes, and the two men were better, but they showed their backs and opened their chests, but the two mothers-in-law showed their flesh, but they didn't care about losing their faces and covering their ugliness, so they just grabbed with their opponents. In the yard, pots and pans fell to the ground, and a few black wheat cakes were rolling in a stall of vegetable soup, and a doll of a few years old was holding half a cake in her hand, sitting in the muddy field soaked in vegetable soup, grinning and howling desperately.

"What's going on? What's going on? The guy on the mule's back looked at it with a fluttering eyebrow, and his mouth was full of admiration, and he was still looking for someone to ask about the origin of the matter. Suddenly there was a cheer: "Well played!" Rip her underwear! Pull! Shang Cheng, who was standing next to him and watching the excitement, was taken aback.

Shang Cheng glared at the guy dissatisfied, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Tian Xiaowu holding a stoneware bowl and crowding in the crowd, holding two pieces of golden new wheat cakes in his hands, eating and drinking loudly, tiptoeing and smiling, and shouting hello with his cheeks.

Shang Cheng squeezed over, patted Tian Xiaowu on the shoulder, and walked out of the crowd with a look.

"Wait, wait! Wait until I'm done! ”

Shang Cheng took two steps only to find that Tian Xiaowu hadn't moved at all, so he had to turn back and pull his gown: "You come out first, I have something to say to you!" ”

Only then did Tian Xiaowu see that it was Shang Cheng who was looking for him. He smacked his lips, stared at the two open-chested mothers-in-law twice, sighed, and followed Shang Cheng impatiently to a place where there were few people, while stuffing a piece of cake to Shang Cheng, while rolling his eyes and looking at him,

Shang Cheng took the cake and said: "The county seat Liu Ji Warehouse is recruiting, ten days of short-term work, the salary is five hundred, and there are bonuses, do you want to go?" After a pause, he added, "It's a delivery to Quzhou, and after this trip, there may be two or three ......more trips."

After he finished speaking, Tian Xiaowu, who was still standing on tiptoe and looking into the courtyard, turned his head and asked, "Who told you that Liu Ji Warehouse is recruiting?" ”

"Gao Xiaosan specially brought it back."

"Did he just call you out, or did he tell you to bring a few more people over?"

"He originally wanted to call me and Uncle Zhuzi. Uncle Zhu is running errands for the official, you can take his shortage. You've driven pack horses anyway, and you know how to serve the animals......"

"Then I'm not going. No matter how short of manpower there is, Gao Xiaosan will not recruit me. Tian Xiaowu cut off his words and said. Seeing that Shang Cheng didn't understand what he meant, he explained, "My family and the ancestors of the Gao family have a grudge, and they haven't spoken for many years...... I can't go to Gao's house to eat! ”

Shang Cheng didn't expect that the Tian family and the Gao family still had such a relationship, and he couldn't find anything to say for a while. He knew that the grievances and resentments between these farmers sometimes involved decades and generations, and even if the two families were neighbors who looked down and didn't look up, they would never get along with each other for the rest of their lives. Since Tian Xiaowu said it categorically, he couldn't persuade anything, so he had to say: "That...... I'll go back. After taking two steps, he felt that it was not very good to do this thing without a beginning or an end, so he stood up and said, "I am going to go to the county seat after lunch, and if I can meet Uncle Seventeen, I will ask him to go to the guards to find out the wind and see if you can have an eyebrow." ”

Tian Xiaowu stopped him, and pouted stiffly: "Don't bother Uncle Seventeen." ”

"Oh." Shang Cheng pursed his lips and glanced at Tian Xiaowu. It seems that he did something wrong with good intentions this time, not only did he fail to help Tian Xiaowu, but also because of the relationship between Gao Xiaosan and Tian Xiaowu, Tian Xiaowu was estranged from himself......

Seeing that his face was not happy, Tian Xiaowu also knew that he had said something wrong, so he hurriedly said with a smiling face: "Brother Shang wants to be left, I don't mean that!" When I came back, I heard that a recruitment flag had been erected in Yanzhou City. I have told people that I will go to Yanzhou together in the next two days......"

"Yanzhou is recruiting? Really? Don't let the rumors make you run empty. Shang Cheng asked suspiciously. Yanzhou is Yanshan Weiweizhi, separated from Yixian County by more than 300 miles, if the news is unreliable, it doesn't matter if you run empty, the key is the cost of more than ten days on the way back and forth......

"Someone has already gone first, and it was they who brought back a letter to say that the news was reliable, and we were going to leave." Tian Xiaowu said and looked at Shang Cheng's face was not as cold as just now, so he smiled and asked again, "Why don't you go with me?" Seeing Shang Cheng groaning and shaking his head slowly, he persuaded, "Brother Shang, I didn't say you, with your strength and strength, you can become a vanguard when you enter the barracks, and maybe you can become a military commander after a year or two, why bother staying in Huojiabao all day and night?" What can it be? It's not enough to endure hardships and earn a few bucks, how good it is to be a soldier one by one! I don't have to worry about anything, I have food, drink and money every day, and when luck comes, maybe I can come back to glorify my ancestors if I am promoted to an official and a half-position......"

He said it wildly, but Shang Cheng just shook his head. Eating food and becoming a soldier is a way out, but he has not yet reached the point of running this road; Even if he is desperate to become a soldier, he has to discuss with Huo Shiqi first, and he must come up with a charter for all important matters before he can go, otherwise once the matter of his "lost monk of Dumu" is exposed, there are not one or two people who are involved in the lawsuit......

It seems that if he wants to invite Tian Xiaowu to help in the warehouse, he can only end here.

There was no result, he was also a little disheartened, and he didn't have the heart to look at the excitement of the two families fighting, so he found his way back to Liu's house. After eating at noon, he packed up two changes of clothes, stuffed the clothes into the blanket together with two pairs of banine shoes made for him by the eldest girl, and carried more than a dozen copper coins in his arms, and rushed to the county seat under the hot sun.