It wasn't until it was dark that Yang Heng dragged his tired legs and feet, and asked all the way back to the new post house behind Qingliang Temple.

He is an official of the Ministry of Industry who came to Yanshan to do business, although his rank is very low, but he is also a Beijing official, so the accommodation conditions arranged for him in the post house are higher than those of ordinary local officials, and he is specially found a side room in a cross-courtyard with no guests, so that he can live alone and comfortable. As soon as he returned, the postman in charge of the cross-courtyard immediately brought a bucket of hot water to wash his face and burn his feet, and a pot of tea and soup, and then asked him if he wanted dinner. His supper was also prepared for him; As usual, one meat, one vegetable, and two flatbreads, all hot in the large drawer of the stove room.

Although his stomach was empty, he couldn't eat anything. casually said a few words to the post man, he fell on the kang without his laundry hat on his face, and looked at the black beams in a daze.

His mind was a mess. One will recall his rough experience in the past ten years, and the other will miss his poor daughter who has not been heard from...... In a trance, I saw Ran Tao and Ouyang Zhi walking side by side, both of them were in green robes and silver belts, holding hands and laughing and walking, but they stood on the side of the road and looked up; In a blink of an eye, he was already dressed in a brown shirt, with bare feet and shoes full of bitterness and sorrow, and he was holding on to an old tree and tearfully hurting himself, but he saw the busy back of his ex-wife in the hall. He was shocked and suspicious, and was about to speak, when the stars had come to the study, the windows in the room were bright and clean, and the spring flowers were brilliant outside, and his daughter was sitting against the window in the prime of her life, and his younger brother with a pigtail was lying on her lap, looking up at her with a look of worship, and listening attentively to the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. He walked over with a smile, ready to ask his son about his homework in the past few days, who knew that as soon as his footsteps moved, everything in the room would change strangely in an instant, and the surrounding green curtains were misty and strange, and there was nothing to distinguish in the white expanse. He looked around in fear, and saw his daughter being dragged all the way away by several vague figures, and in an instant, she disappeared into the blue mist, leaving only a mournful cry: "Daddy, daddy!" Daddy save me...... Help me......"

He was frightened, frightened and distressed for his daughter, so he chased forward and reached out to grab his daughter, and hissed at those ghostly shadows and shouted, "What are you going to do!" …… Give back my daughter! A ghost squinted at him with hanging eyes, his bloody tongue sticking out half a foot long, and said with a smirk: "Since you're here, let's go together...... "The two feet fit and pounce on him. He dodged and shook his body, his head slamming into something, and then he heard the sound of things rolling and crackling, as if something had fallen to the ground and shattered......

He woke up from his nightmare.

The sun had already risen, and the sun had sunburned the window lattices with a dazzling bright gold. Behind the small courtyard is a small spontaneous vegetable market, where the barking of chickens and dogs is mixed with the shouting and bargaining of traders, and the babbling and buzzing noise. The air was filled with the sour smell of rotting leaves.

He calmed down, only to find that his underwear was soaked with surprise from Youmeng, and it was very uncomfortable to stick to his body coldly. He was silent on the kang for a while before slowly getting up, took out a clean underwear from his bag and changed it, washed his hands and face with the bucket of cold water sent by the post last night, bent his waist, and picked up the fragments of the teapot on the ground piece by piece. He put all the pieces on the kang table. Then he sat down, frowning and squinting, his gaze resting for a long time on the pile of broken porcelain. He suddenly stood up again, snatched the dustpan from the corner, and swept all the pieces into the dustpan with great ferocity......

Because Ran Tao said that he was going to come all the way with Ouyang Zhi today, after eating a simple breakfast, he didn't go out, took out a volume of "The Anthology of Mr. Xun Liu" that he had brought with him from the package, and read it slowly; Drop by to pass the time. But how can he calm down and read now, his eyes sweeping the pages, but his mind does not know where it has gone. It was the time of irritability, and the post came.

Yang Heng hurriedly gave him a seat.

Yicheng's surname is You, and the specific name Yang Heng is not very clear, only that the nickname is "Mo Dou". He poured a glass of water, handed it to Yicheng, and sat down across the table. He didn't speak, but his eyes looked at You Modou fixedly without blinking.

You Modou took a sip of water and said, "Lord Yang, I inquired about the matter you asked me about the other day...... he stopped talking and put the bowl on the kang table.

Yang Heng immediately asked anxiously, "Did you hear anything?" After Pan'er's accident, Cheng Qiao never had any contact with him, and several letters were lost. In the middle of the previous year, he had said something in the Ministry of Industry, that is, not long after Pan'er met the bandits, a woman with a Beijing accent went to Yanzhou to find the Cheng family to join her, but for some reason, the Cheng family refused to admit it. He suspected that the woman who went to Beijing was Pan'er after getting out of trouble. But he couldn't be sure if it was his daughter, and he couldn't inquire about what happened after the woman's unsuccessful marriage, because the people from the Ministry of Industry Yan Bosi were only hearsay.

You Modou grinned, spread his hand and said, "I asked the people of the Cheng Mansion, and they all said that there is no such thing as the woman who went to the Cheng family from Shangjing to join the family." ”

"Then are there any women from other places who come to Cheng's house to join their relatives?" Yang Heng asked. Where did he dare to say that Pan'er was his daughter? Pan'er's household registration has been written off in Beijing three years ago, and the officials have also canceled this file from his resume. He could only panic and say that Pan'er was the daughter of a distant relative of his, who came to Yanzhou from Shangjing a few years ago to join her, but she was never missing; He came to Yanshan on business this time, and his relatives asked him to inquire on his behalf.

You Modou still shook his head.

Yang Heng was completely desperate. It seems that what he heard the year before last was just a rumor that he didn't know how many twists and turns, and most of his poor daughter was long gone. He could no longer hide his sorrow and bowed his head in pain. He thought sadly, maybe that would be fine; If the daughter is still alive in the world, she doesn't know how much suffering she has to endure and how many sins she will suffer, so it is better to accompany her mother; That way, at least neither of them will feel alone......

The tragic experience of his daughter, the twists and turns in his career, and the stimulation brought by Ran Tao's seven-grade official uniform yesterday, all these things poured into his heart at once. In an instant, his whole person was overwhelmed by strong emotions, and he didn't even know when You Modou left.

I don't know how much time has passed, but he finally suppressed his sadness. He stood up, moved to the basin shelf, wiped the tears from his eyes and the tears on his face with a wet towel, and carefully straightened his robe, carefully smoothing out every fold with his hands. When he did these things, he remembered the situation when he was a student, when every time he went out to meet friends and visitors, his wife would always patiently do all this for him; After his wife went, Pan'er was helping him do these things, even if he continued the strings later, Pan'er still often helped his stepmother take care of it......

The light in the room suddenly dimmed. The sunlight dragged a man's shadow long and reflected it at his feet.

He tried to make his face appear with a happy smile when his old friend was reunited, turned around and said, "Yanqing, why don't you enter ...... when you come" His words were not finished. It wasn't Ran Tao who stood at the door. This person's body is much thinner than Ran Tao's. It's not Ouyang Zhi. Ouyang Zhi was at least a head taller than him. Because it was against the sun, he hurriedly couldn't see the person's appearance clearly, but when he looked at it, the person wearing a shirt was very young. Moreover, he also had a feeling that he felt that this person was very familiar!

Suddenly, his whole body seemed to be struck by thunder, and a sense of paralysis ran from the top of his head to his forehead to his cheeks to his chest. He could barely breathe. It was as if a fire had ignited in his chest, making him dizzy, and everything in front of him was spinning...... He staggered a step, holding himself with difficulty on the basin stand, swallowing his spit and asking, "Who are you looking for?" But even he couldn't hear what he was saying. All that burst out of the dry throat were a few indistinguishable gasps......

Yang Paner lowered her head, desperately trying not to let tears overflow her eyes. She shouted in a low voice:

"Daddy."

After this scream, her legs went limp, and she slowly sat down on the ground holding on to the door frame.

The basin stand finally failed to support Yang Heng's body......