Wen Mu didn't go to Shang Cheng in the end.

The next day, he borrowed some money from a hussar sentry commander who had a good relationship, and gathered five taels to send to Xue Sanniang. Although he could also give the money to Sanniang's relatives to take back, he felt that this was obviously not sincere enough, and after all, the family saved his life, and some words of gratitude needed to be said in person. Besides, Sanniang is now living in her relative's house, and her relative's home is on the Yanji next to the grain depot, and you can see the market town when you leave the barracks, if he doesn't even want to take this little road, how can he let others believe in his sincerity?

After lunch, he took half a day's leave in the camp, and then left the barracks with a blanket of copper coins, and went to the market town along the potholed dirt road by the river. Along the way, he was thinking about what to say when he saw Xue Sanniang. The money was too little, and these tacky things could not express his gratitude at all; Sanniang is also an open-minded and straightforward temperament, and she is reluctant to accept the money......

Before he could think everything through, he had already entered the town.

Yanjiao is also a big market town, there are more than 100 households, although it is far less prosperous than the seat card set in the east, but next to it is a large grain depot, and a brigade of the guard army is stationed in the north, even if no one in the family does miscellaneous work in the barracks to earn a salary, relying on the daily comprador expenses of these three or four thousand soldiers to do a little business, but also make the town's family road much more solid than the village households that rely on the sky to eat in other places. As he walked all the way, it was difficult to see the dark, low, filthy mud and dilapidated huts; The narrow alleys are usually lined with half-tiled and half-grass joints on both sides, and the thick gray tiles and the clothes that are rarely patched in the yard are all highlighted by the wealth of the owner's family. If it weren't for the fact that the alleys were widened and narrowed by the wanton expansion of the yards, and the dusty cinder and grass ash could be seen everywhere at the bottom of the walls and alleys, people who had just arrived here might have thought that they had arrived in a big place.

He was soon confused by the seemingly cluttered yards and the alleys that crutched around. He only knew that Xue Sanniang's relatives lived in the south of the market town, but he didn't know the specific place, so he had to ask someone. Fortunately, the cook of the granary seemed to be a very famous person, and he only asked one person to ask, and he got very clear instructions: the cook lived on the edge of the wheat field in the south, and there was a big willow tree in the yard, which was his home.

He immediately followed the direction the man was pointing, and soon found a wheat field near the riverbank. The wheat field surrounded by a circle of green willow trees is about six or seven acres in size, a large area of flat land is not even a weed, and there are all kinds of stone stones, stone grinders, stone mortars, and a wooden pestle under an open thatched canopy on the edge of the field, and a group of snot babies whose clothes are about the same as mud monkeys are whining and wahing, drilling in and out of the thatched tent. There are only a few households around the wheat field, and the mud curtains are half-hidden from the courtyard gate, and it is impossible to see whether they are rich or poor. Only a large manor house that monopolizes the north looks extraordinary, the courtyard wall on the front side is half tall and short, the rammed earth mud wall is all pressed with brick caps, the gatehouse is carrying a double cornice, a gray tile cover roof, and the plaque is "Guanfu" two gilded characters, the style is "incompatible" with the surrounding people, obviously an official eunuch family.

Chef Mao's home is right next to the Guanfu. He thought about how to phrase it as he staggered over.

Before he could raise his hand to knock on the door, the door opened first, and a woman in her twenties stood in the door, looking at him vigilantly, as if she was examining his intentions, and asked him with a little confusion in her eyes, "Who are you looking for?" ”

Wen Mu hesitated for a moment, and asked rhetorically: "Excuse me, is this the home of the Mao cook in the grain depot?" ”

"Yes." The woman replied in the affirmative. Then she asked, "What are you looking for him?" At this time, another woman came out of the main house, and while carrying a dustpan to pick the soil in the wheat grains, she asked, "Second child, who is coming?" A little girl of half size and a little guy with pigtails also leaned at the door frame and peeked out.

The young woman in the door didn't answer: "Sister, it's okay, it's a veteran who asks for directions......" The woman who came out of the house glanced at Wen Mu, oh and didn't enter the house, she stood under the eaves and sifted the dustpan, with the dustpan shaking up and down and swaying from side to side, the thin yellow smoke trembled and rose in the mouth.

Wen Mu saw that the young woman's face was cold, one hand caressed her slightly bulging belly, and the other hand held the door leaf without letting go, not as if she wanted to delay the guest, so she simply said her intention: "Sanniang is kind to me." …… I heard that she was here, so I brought something over to talk about it. A small gift is not a tribute. ”

The young woman frowned and listened to him finish speaking, and then paid attention to the blanket on his shoulders, and then her face softened a little, and said, "You are here to find Sanniang." One by one, she didn't live here...... "It seems that she neither knows nor cares about Xue Sanniang's rescue of Wen Mu." She turned her face to the little girl in the room and shouted, "Second girl, you take him to your third aunt!" When the girl heard her shout, she immediately retracted her head again, and only after a long time did she make a voice: "I still have to cook." The woman under the eaves also said, "Second child, the girl has a job in her hands, so you can lead him there." She paused, and seemed to feel that it was not good for her to protect the girl like this, so she changed her words and said, "You can bring some sorghum to Sanniang by the way." As he spoke, he opened his mouth and shouted. The girl quickly came out with a small bag of things. She came over and stuffed things into the young woman's hands, and went back to the house without even looking at Wen Mu.

Only then did Wen Mu know that Xue Sanniang didn't live here. He wondered in his heart which kind of relative Sanniang had voted for, but there was no superfluous expression on his face, he smiled and thanked him, and followed the young woman who was obviously the concubine of Cook Mao and walked south along the river beach.

It wasn't until I left the market town and turned another bay, and the wheat field and the houses in the town were hidden behind a willow forest, and I couldn't look out anymore, that I saw a dozen shacks scattered on a high hill by the river. At present, it is around noon when the villagers eat, many shacks are making fires, strands of white smoke are rising and sinking with the wind, and the curls are drifting along the river, both of them are walking without saying a word, and they did not pay attention for a while, but they broke into the smoke, and they felt that their chests were tight and short of breath and they couldn't help coughing a few times. The concubine of the Mao family scolded dryly, and led Wen Mu uphill. Hearing the voices, some adults in ragged clothes and yellow faces came out of the various shacks, squinted at them a few times and then went back, leaving only a few bare-ass dolls staring at them like a rarity.

The woman didn't stop at this place, but continued to walk forward, and soon led Wen Mu to a low thatched hut that didn't even have a door. The lonely hut was a little sloping, crumbling, with cracks of different widths and lengths, and cobwebs crawling on the adobe walls made of grain and grass; The hut had no door, just like a monster with a black rumbling mouth, sneering at the uncultivated patch of land in front of him. I don't know how many years it has been barren, but the lush weeds have almost hidden the ridges, and a few crooked dividing trees stand listlessly in the warm sunshine behind them. A doll in a torn jacket and trousers sat on the threshold of a hut, clutching a wet black mud in her hand, and was having a good time.

There were still a dozen or twenty steps away from the hut, and the woman shouted in a loud voice: "Third sister, are you there?" ”

She shouted several times in a row, but no one came out to respond. The doll playing with mud looked at her timidly, not speaking or moving.

Wen Mu had already recognized the doll. This is Sanniang's son. When she came out of the mountains, this doll was always carried on her back by Sanniang.

His lips squirmed, and he couldn't help but take two quick steps forward. But he soon stopped under the suspicious gaze of the cook's concubine, bent down and smiled at the baby, and affectionately called him by his nickname: "Tuwa, remember me?" ”

Tuwa held the mud in her hand, looked at him in horror, shook her head vigorously, and cowered as she ducked her little body into the room. Wen Mu reminded him with some disappointment: "I'm your Uncle Wen......" The doll still shook her head. Wen Mu had no choice but to straighten up and search for Sanniang's shadow around.

The woman had been watching him do all this coldly. She came over and asked, "Where is your mother?" ”

Compared with the fear of Wen Mu, Tuwa seemed to be more afraid of her, and the thin and dry half of her small body had already flashed into the house, so she said uneasily: "Mother, mother......" He suddenly opened his throat and shouted, "Mother! The crisp children's voice was sharp and powerful, and the ears of the two adults were buzzing, and they couldn't help but take a step back. The woman's face turned black at once, and she rushed over and raised her arms to hit the doll, but Wen Mu quietly grabbed a step and stopped her behind.

Xue Sanniang came back soon. The screams like her son asking for help made her heart tremble, and she didn't have time to pay attention to who was standing at the door, so she went to take care of Tuwa first, and when she was sure that her son was okay, she took care of it and greeted the two adults.

"Second sister," she called out to the cook's woman affectionately, and then said to Wen Mu, who was full of astonishment, "Brother Wen, how did you find here?" ”

Wen Mu never thought that the cook's concubine turned out to be the sister of his life-saving benefactor, and he thought that Sanniang was related to Cook Mao, who knows...... Surprised, he didn't know what to say in a hurry, but nodded his head indiscriminately, so panicked that he didn't even know what he was saying.

Xue Erniang first handed the pocket in her hand to her sister, and said with a cold face: "This is a little food that the mother-in-law asked me to bring you." Sanniang wiped her wet hands on the placket, took the pocket and glanced at it, her eyes narrowed with joy, and said, "Let you worry about it again, my ...... as a girl" Her sister pouted and said, "That's what the mother-in-law meant, you don't have to be grateful to me." Sanniang carried her pocket into the house, and when she came out in a blink of an eye, she was already holding a few pairs of Xinna's thick-soled cloth shoes in her hand, and said to her sister, "I live on your door, and I have to take care of my eldest brother and aunt and you on weekdays, and there is nothing to repay, so I took the time to make a few pairs of shoes, and just said that I would send them to you, and it happened that you came one by one, so as not to let me run again." You bring them back. Whether it's good or not, it's all a piece of the girl's heart. As he spoke, he wrapped several pairs of shoes in a piece of linen. The one with the word Fu embroidered on the upper is for you. You are pregnant, and the road is uneven and your feet are flashing, I have two more layers of foundation, you go back and try, if it is not good, tell me, I will make you another pair. …… I sewed in the skewer I begged in the Changsheng Niangniang Temple when I gave birth to a baby, and this time you will give birth to a big fat boy. ”

Xue Erniang heard her sister say this, bit her lip and didn't speak for a long time, lowered her head to take the package, was silent for a long time, and suddenly raised her head as if she had made a lot of determination, and said, "What do you think about what I said last time?" ”

The smile froze on Xue Sanniang's face, and her black and red round face suddenly became as pale as the snowflakes falling in the wax moon, but she said with a smile in her mouth: "Last time? What did you say last time? ”

"It's the matter of the king's blacksmith continuation!" Xue Erniang glared at her sister angrily and said, "People have come to Mao's door to mention this matter again." That dead ghost is not a homemaker, and there is a dead woman behind my back, I can't stop it. The king blacksmith said, as long as you are willing to give away the mountain baby......"

Xue Sanniang picked her fingers and said after a while: "You let me think about it again......"

Her sister interrupted her and said, "What else do you have to think of?" Although the blacksmith Wang is a little older, but the family is neither old nor young, you can be the master of the house in the past, what's wrong? Doesn't a woman's family want to have a stable life in this life? When you enter the royal family, you don't have to worry about food and clothing, which is not a hundred times better than your current situation? Let's just say that you are reluctant to have a baby, you are not old, your body is strong, and you can still have children in the future, right? After a year or two, if you give birth to a son to the blacksmith, he will not be able to offer you like a bodhisattva? ...... then"

Wen Mu coughed uneasily beside him.

Xue Erniang found that there was an irrelevant outsider standing next to her, so she quickly stopped her words and changed her words, "I'll reason with you when I go back to this matter." This veteran,...... He said he was coming for you. ”

Sanniang asked Wen Mu embarrassedly: "What are you looking for me?" ”

Wen Mu was even more embarrassed than her. He came to thank Sanniang for saving his life, who knew that he would encounter such a thing? Although what he heard was just a few words between the two sisters, if he didn't understand what happened to Xue Sanniang after he joined his family, then didn't he live for more than 30 years in vain? Alas, it seems that Sanniang's tragic experience is far more than a man dying on the grassland, and now her ruthless relatives are separating her from the doll...... But this is someone else's family matter, and he can't intervene, so he took off his coat and said to Sanniang: "It's nothing, I just want to send some goods over...... It's a little little, don't dislike it, it's a little bit of my heart no matter what you say. Please take it......" I don't know why, the manuscript that had been typed all the way was completely forgotten by him at this time, and he said incoherently words of gratitude. "There's not a lot of money, you do it first, it's not enough to tell me, I'll find a way......" He didn't know what he was talking about......

Sanniang accepted the money very quickly. Although in her opinion, saving Wen Mu's life on the way to the disaster was not a big deal, but the money sent by Wen Mu was exactly what she needed most at the moment. While she said grateful words to Wen Mu, she divided half of the copper money he sent to her sister. Xue Erniang refused to ask for it, and was robbed by her: "The doll and I have been disturbing your door for so long, and even the usual oil, salt, sauce, rations and clothes are all supported by you, and it is also appropriate to send two pieces of money." In addition, it has always been me who was a sister to my sister. I know the affairs of your family, and you have some money in your hand, so you can also use it, so you don't have to discuss everything with your aunt...... Put this money here first, and then I will bring it to you when I go back, so as not to let the eldest lady see it and make irresponsible remarks. ”

The sister's carefulness and thoughtfulness made Xue Erniang both moved and ashamed, lowered her head and wiped her tears, and also made Wen Mu feel that her heart was blocked in a panic......

He didn't stay long in Yanyu before saying goodbye to Sanniang. On the way back to the barracks, Sanniang's haggard appearance and the deep attachment when she stared at the doll always kept flashing in front of his eyes. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that he should help this poor woman, not only to repay her kindness to him, but because he felt that he had this obligation and responsibility......

The next day, he took a whole day off and went to Yanzhou City to find Shang Cheng.

But he rushed to the Admiral's Mansion in a hurry, but heard bad news from the guards guarding the door: Shang Cheng was not in Yanzhou!

He really wanted to know why Shang Cheng was not good to stay in the Admiral's Mansion, but he wanted to run outside? He wanted to know where Shang Cheng had gone, and how long he would go? But no matter how anxious he was, he didn't dare to ask the sergeant who guarded the door. He knew that if he dared to inquire about where Yan Shanwei's admiral went, even if he was hacked to death by this group of soldiers on the spot, he deserved it......

After he returned to the barracks, he heard a news that made him even more restless: the day for his return to the Central Plains had been set, and the first team would set out the morning after tomorrow; His name was lucky to be on the roster of this team.

He didn't feel lucky at all......