A flock of white, black, and gray doves fluttered up from a dilapidated rooftop, arcing over Valley Floor.

The town of Valley Bottom sits on a veritable valley floor, flanked by towering mountains, the sun never seems to shine in, raindrops and snowflakes often fall halfway down and are invisible, the narrow stone road is cold and damp even in the short summer, the road is lined with thick pine houses, the exterior of the houses is covered with thick yellow mud, the skirts of the walls are covered with large patches of dazzling alkali flowers, a tree seed that drifts in the wind takes root on the side of the wall, it may have lived for more than ten years, and the trunk is as thick as an adult's wrist. Under the tree stood a boy of the same age as the little tree, with black unkempt hair, and a pair of large melancholy eyes blinking on his thin face, who looked up at the flying pigeons, and his eyes were full of envy and reverie.

At the end of the stone road, a man's rough roar came: "Mi Bao, don't go to school yet!" Do you want Mr. to wait for you! ”

The boy named Mipo turned, his sky, reverie, and free doves seemed to be broken by the "click" of the guillotine, and he lowered his head and walked step by step to the wood-mottled door next to it.

This is a remote and remote town in the northeast in the thirties, no trace of it can be found on any official map, but it is located in the fortress of the mountains and mountains, in the era of the fall of the country, rampant banditry, and starvation, the people in the mountains fled to the mountains, and the people outside the mountains drilled into the mountains and ran here, somehow, the people who entered the mountains hesitated, and those who went out of the mountains hesitated, so they gathered here, exchanged what could be eaten, what could be used, what could be worn, and the price discussion was fruitless, so I lived here and continued to talk the next day, slowly, Gradually, a place where you can live in a snail, every ten, a five, and the set catches up, some people steamed buns out to sell, some people made animal skins into jackets and hung them at the door, and some people put the handicraft stalls of palm shoes and horse shoes to a spacious place, and later derived the hammers, the shrouds, and the fortune tellers...... A small town grew on the earth like this.

The people who live here are a little numb to the cold, frost and bearded (bandits) that are commonplace, and like the plants, trees, and animals, some are dead and some are still alive. However, their children have grown up greenly, and the living and those who are preparing to die began to plan for them, but there was no result in the call, so they became anxious, and at this time, a person appeared in time, his name is Zheng Liu, he is a famous beard in this area, and there are already 100 people under him, although he is in the rivers and lakes, but his reputation is not bad, he does not touch the things of robbing and bullying men and women, and the news of killing the rich and helping the poor has come frequently, plus in recent years, his wife and daughter-in-law have come to live in the town, The town of Valley Bottom became peaceful, and people noticed children who looked like mushrooms popping up after the rain. Zheng Liu decided to open a school in the town, so that the children who ran crazy all over the world could read and write, and they were in the hands of the anxious people in the town, and for a while, gifts such as animal skins and dried meat were piled up in the courtyard of Zheng Liu's house.

The school is built in the broken temple at the east end of the town, this temple has broken the incense in some years, the clay fetal Buddha statue enshrined has long been driven by the crane and wandered away, only the broken base is like a truncated stump like a gray face on the platform, the yard is more than one person high Artemisia grass, here was once a paradise for wild wolves, adults scared the children from the beginning, but now it has turned into a school, after people are full of hope to sort out, but there is also the appearance of the school in mind. The only thing that worries is the gentleman who teaches, the gentleman who was coaxed and deceived by Zheng Liulian ran eight of the nine gentlemen, and the rest of the people who did not run were the people in Zheng Liu's beard gang, this person said that he had some fate with the temple, he was born tall and strong, and when he walked, he clutched two small bucket-sized fists, and his arms were thrown very open, which made people feel that he had been practicing boxing. He is proficient in all eighteen martial arts, and he is also good at guns. There is no one in the eight towns who doesn't know him, but no one knows his name, and they all call him "monk". In his words, if you enter the beard industry, you are not worthy of the name given by your parents. Usually his eyes are always slit, but once he opens them, the big black and white eyes can be frightening, so the children are afraid of him. The people in the town are very relieved, because these monkey cubs are free-range, and they are used to being wild, and it is really not good to live without a town.

On the day of school, Zheng Liu stood in the courtyard and said: "Study hard, first of all, you must learn to be a person of loyalty and filial piety and etiquette. And you have to practice martial arts with monks, and if you practice well, you will be bullied! ”

The adults standing outside the courtyard looked at each other, and the fortune-telling Tao Banxian muttered in a low voice: "Sixth Master, this is to give them beards to help cultivate a reserve army!" ”

Someone immediately picked up and said, "Don't be foolish, isn't the sixth master's daughter Peaches also in it?" ”

"Yes, literacy and hyphenation, practicing martial arts is better than running all over the world!" Someone should be along.

At this time, Mi Bao was also sitting in the house of the school, and read to the monk with squinting eyes: At the beginning of people, the nature is good, the sex is similar, and the habit is far away......

Gradually, Mi Bao didn't want to read it very much, because he had already memorized the "Three Character Classic", which was three years ago when his father and mother were alive, in the private school outside the mountain with an old gentleman with a goatee to learn, the warm sunlight slanted in from the wooden lattice window, the old gentleman's reading glasses were just right in the middle of the curved nose bridge, he dragged a long recitation, Mi Bao They learned a sentence: The earth is born, there are plants and trees. This plant is all over the land and water......

Suddenly there was a gunshot sound, and the words "horn ditch" and "horn ditch" echoed crisply in the air. Someone shouted in panic: Run, the Japanese devils have entered the tunzi!

Billowing smoke rose from the roof of Mi Bao's house, the red tongue of fire greedily burned the wooden lattice window where the sun had just shone, the old gentleman refused to leave, the devil's bayonet stabbed his gray satin jacket, the old gentleman fell to the ground with spasms, blood gurgling out, seeping into the black dirt.

A meadow on the east side of Tunzi blooms with yellow and purple flowers, this is Mi Bao they have learned to catch grasshoppers, fly kites, play eagles and catch chickens, the crazy running amusement park full of fields, now gather all the old and young of Tunzi, they stand in horror. The devil's machine guns rang out, and the people screamed in horror, and one by one they fell.

Mi Bao shouted: Run, run, mother, are we not as good as that little chicken, they all know to run when the eagle comes!

The mother hugged him tightly, protected him with her body, and pressed him under her. Warm blood spurted from his mother's body, running down his face and neck, all the way into his young heart.

He was rescued by the three masters who came in the middle of the night, when the surrounding silence had fallen, and he was walking on the slippery plasma step by step. From that time on, he became a child of Valley Town, a wasted child in the words of the third mother. The third master also agrees with this point of view, he is very afraid of his wife's answer, he can't even look at a bun stall, but it's a waste.

Mi Bao doesn't feel that he is "wasted", doesn't he just can't look at the stall, his cousin is two years older than him and can't settle accounts, nothing else, he just wants to fly, he wants to fly freely in the sky like a pigeon, and fly to his father's mother.

Mi Bao moved slowly, walking through the smooth and clean yard. The door to the classroom was hidden, and several boys walked inside, some glancing at the door from time to time, and some snickering. As soon as Mi Bao stretched out his hand and pushed the door, a dustpan of dirt fell from the sky, and he was hit again. The children in the house laughed and some even threw their brooms into the air.

Mi Bao glanced at them with a calm gaze, and did not understand why everyone always liked to play tricks on him, and he couldn't think that others were because Mr. casually asked which passage of the "Three Character Classic" he recited without stumbling, showing the stupidity of others; He couldn't imagine that when he was practicing, his immobile horse step squatting was praised by Mr., while others sweated and sparred; He only thought that he had no father or mother, and that there were children in the town.

Suddenly, a snow-white handkerchief was handed over, embroidered with pink peaches and green leaves, refreshing and refreshing. Mibo knew it was Peaches again. He didn't dare to reach out to take it, but Peaches generously shook off his handkerchief and dusted the dust off his head and shoulders. The boys screamed, but Momoko boldly reprimanded them, "Aren't you ashamed! Bully those who are younger than you, and have the ability to go up the mountain to fight wolves, and go down the mountain to kill devils! What can you do here! ”

The blacksmith's son, Xiao Guozi, shouted: "Can you, why don't you go down the mountain and kill the devil?" ”

"You fart!" Peach's white face turned red, and she picked up the broom on the ground and threw it over.

Peach is Zheng Liu's daughter, she has beautiful eyebrows, combs two long black and thick braids, and was still a student of the foreign school in the city, which was also when his father did "**". Later, the Japanese devils invaded, the city fell, seeing the Japanese plundering wealth and looting, his father was overwhelmed by the order of "no resistance", and took a rod of people into the mountains to make a beard, they attacked the grain depot of the Japanese devils, killed the rich man who bullied men and women, and also fought with the beard who dominated one side in the mountains, never lost, the reputation of killing the rich and helping the poor spread everywhere, and the team gradually grew, he couldn't listen to the words of "no resistance" and "no resistance against Japan", and naturally the girl was the same as her father, and her own bright future, The spacious and bright big house with a courtyard all went to her dreams overnight, and she followed her mother and grandmother to settle down in this small town full of musty smell of old boxes, how could she not be anxious, annoyed, and hateful?