That night, I slept next to Quinoa, pinching his two remaining crooked fingers and staring straight at a bunch of hay hanging from the grass roof.

From dark to dawn, all I thought about was Zhiyao, I wanted to cut out his heart, I wanted to crush every bone in his body, I wanted to make him regret everything he had done, I wanted to make his cruel and dirty family disappear from the Jin Kingdom, I wanted to let his short-lived ancestors cry bitterly and powerlessly under the Yellow Springs!

Zhi Yao - Zhi Yao -

The flames of vengeance burned in me, and when I was so angry that I couldn't help myself, there was a faint touch in my palm.

I turned my head in a hurry, and the person next to me was still asleep.

My brother has a ghost-like face, but he has the gentlest sleeping face in the world. Maybe, I shouldn't just think about Zhiyao now, think about revenge, what I really want to think about is how to make Ah Quinoa better, how to take him out of here, leave Zhao Ji, and leave all the dangers.

I was thinking about it, but when I saw the chai door open lightly, Zhao Ji stood outside the door with a bamboo basket: "He hasn't woken up yet?" ”

"He's too tired, let him sleep a little longer!" I let go of Quinoa's hand and got out of bed.

Zhao Ji put the bamboo basket on the pyre by the window, reached out and pressed the tinkling white jade group pei on his body, gently walked to the couch and sat down, he looked down at the sleeping quinoa, and asked softly: "Did he sleep well last night?" ”

"Although I cried a few times in the night, I was quite stable."

"What about you?"

"I'm fine, too."

"Your temperament follows me, I'm afraid that I hated it all night, I was angry all night, and I never closed my eyes, right?" Zhao Ji glanced at me. I pursed my lips and said nothing, and he turned his head to look at Quinoa again, and said, "It's not a shame to hate, it's shameful to fail." When you, I've failed once and don't want to fail a second time. I've lost you once, and I don't want to lose a second time. I'm going to make Quinoa better, and no one who hurts him will be able to escape. ”

"Revenge is to be avenged, but what Brother needs most now is ......"

"What he needs most now is you, it's me-" Zhao Ji blocked my mouth with a word, I was silent, he reached out and stroked a few yellowed and thin hairs around Ah Quinoa's ears, and said in a soft voice, "You know what? You and your brother's hair are all with your mother, Ah Quinoa was born with a full head of black hair, and other people's little babies only had a thin layer of yellow hair when they were three years old, and he was already able to comb a very beautiful horn at that time. Your grandmother loves to dress him up, and always has to embroider a scarf for him by himself, your grandfather was afraid that he would not be able to wear an ordinary hair crown when he fell off the crown, and specially asked someone to go to the Yushan Mountain of Chu State to buy a piece of jasper half a foot wide, just waiting for him to grow up to the age of twenty, and make a crown for him to wear. But look at him now......" Zhao Ji brushed away a fly that stopped at the ulcer of Quinoa's scalp with one hand, the fly buzzed and swirled away, and he turned back to me and said, "I know what you want to say, but now each of us is a person in the bureau, I can't stop, you can't either, let's set off for Zheng Guo today." ”

"Are you really going to Zheng Guo? Brother is weak, walking such a long way will kill him! ”

"Let's go to the ferry to take a boat, and the river will freeze later, and you and he won't be able to walk." Zhao Ji glanced at my stomach and stood up.

"It's good for my brother and I to leave the Jin Kingdom, why do we have to rush to the Zheng Kingdom? From Xinjiang to Xinzheng, the dry road is difficult to walk, and the waterway is also windy and wavery. If there is a storm on the way, who dares to sail in the river (1)? We- why don't we go south to the royal city? There are famous doctors in Wangcheng, and the journey is easier. ”

"Needless to say, before the spring of next year, we must rush to Xinzheng."

"Why?" Zhao Ji must have a plan to go to Zheng at this moment, and what he planned must be related to the Jin Kingdom.

"You really don't know why we're going to Jeongkook?" Zhao Ji walked up to me and looked at my face, as if judging how much I had guessed the purpose of his trip to Zheng Guo.

"I don't know anything. You want me to go with you, and you should tell me the reason. ”

"You, you, you...... When will you call me Daddy? Zhao Ji smiled bitterly.

I turned my face away, and I only heard him sigh softly: "The Marquis of Jin is dead, and Zhao Ying will die in less than a month." When the time comes, Zhi Yao and Zhao Wuxian will fight again, and the sky of the Jin Kingdom will fall. As soon as the Jin Kingdom was in chaos, the Zheng people had accumulated hatred for many years, and it was time to report it. ”

"In the early years, the Jin State punished Zheng Guo for the Song State, but that was many years ago. Besides, Zheng is a small country, even if the sky of the Jin Kingdom falls, Uncle Zheng will not dare to send troops to attack Jin. This time, it is Qi State, Chen Heng, and you Handan Jun yourself who want to take advantage of the internal turmoil in Jin to send troops! ”

"Oh, that's me. Uncle Zheng didn't dare to attack Jin, so I had to rush to Xinzheng to borrow a few guts from him. If nothing else, next spring, the Marquis of Qi will be able to summon the princes of the five kingdoms to meet in Liqiu, and raise troops together to fight against the Jin State for Zheng State. ”

"You want to gather the troops of the five countries to attack Jin?!" I was shocked.

"yes, that's a good thing, isn't it?" Zhao Ji laughed.

"You're crazy, you're a Jin person, my aunt is a Jin person, and we are all Jin people. Jin is our homeland, there is our homeland, how can you lead foreign enemies to attack Jin? ”

"Am I crazy, am I? But what am I doing all this for, isn't it just to take my son, my daughter, back to my homeland, to my homeland? Where am I wrong, and where am I crazy? There was uncontrollable anger and sadness in Zhao Ji's eyes, and I looked at him and felt that my nose was sour.

Zhao Ji turned his head to look at Ah Quinoa on the bed and said: "Your aunt is dead, your brother has become what he is now, think about it, who is the real crazy person?" One day, if I could get that wicked man from Zhiyao to kneel in front of you, what would you do? Will you forgive him for his sins because he is a fellow Jin with you? Just let him go, and then dig up other people's flesh, drink other people's blood, and eat other people's children in their wombs to seek eternal life? ”

"No—" I won't forgive Zhiyao, never!

"So what will you do?"

"I want to see other people's heads fall to the ground with my own eyes, and I want to make the Zhi clan disappear from the Jin Kingdom."

"Okay, this is my good daughter!" Zhao Ji's face turned red, he pressed my shoulder with one hand, and his heaving chest was difficult to calm down for a long time, "You believe Daddy, one day, Daddy will take you and Ah Quinoa back to the Jin Kingdom, Handan, and our home in a dignified manner." This day will not be far away. ”

When the sunlight climbed the mud walls of the grass hut, Quinoa woke up. Zhao Ji rushed to the side of the bed and whispered his name, and I carefully held his hand.

Quinoa's confused gaze circled around us before resting on the half-foot sunlight beside his wooden sleeper. In the early morning of late autumn, the sun was not dazzling, warm and with two charming shades, Ah Quinoa turned sideways and stretched out her hand, spreading her palm stiffly in the sun. He has been separated from the sun for twenty years, and he silently stares at the sunlight falling in his palm like a newborn baby.

But I couldn't see the sunlight in my eyes, I could only see a huge hole in his twisted palm, and the purple-red flesh on the hole tightened his former wound, but also made his palm no longer flat.

"Brother, are you hungry?" I choked up and looked away.

"You didn't eat yesterday, you must be hungry." Zhao Ji hurriedly got up and moved in a small pine case from outside the door, and took out four black pottery bowls with two buckles from the bamboo basket on the firewood, "Quinoa, there are chestnut rice steamed with yellow sorghum rice and freshly fried multi-seed fish, all of which you love to eat." Mulberry wine, you are still young, Daddy will drink it for you. No...... When you are well, Daddy will drink with you. Zhao Ji hurriedly set up a table of food, then hung his hands and looked nervously at Ah Quinoa on the bed. This is the first time I have seen a look of fear on his face, he is afraid that Ah Quinoa has forgotten their "son", he has forgotten him, he is afraid that he is really late.

Ah Quinoa looked at the golden and crispy fried multi-seed fish in the black pottery bowl in a daze, his face was like a woodcut, but his eyes flashed with a glimmer. His scarred face made him lose the subtle expressions that ordinary people should have, but the look in his eyes told me that he remembered us, remembered everything.

Zhao Ji hugged Quinoa off the bed. Ah Quinoa didn't speak, but signaled Zhao Ji to sit alone and not have to be held and sat like a child. Zhao Ji agreed, pulled the wooden pillow from the bed, made a thin quilt for him, and sat down beside him.

"Brother, eat more while it's hot." I sat down on the other side of the table, divided the meal, and put it in the quinoa's bowl.

Ah Quinoa looked at me, looked at Zhao Ji, suddenly lowered his head and untied his shirt with his broken right hand, and untied a long braid from his neck. He placed the braid respectfully in the sunlight on the last empty seat on the table, and then smiled and picked up a golden seed fish from the two remaining fingers of his right hand and put it in his mouth.

Quinoa smiled, and I looked at the braided hair on the empty seat and tears rained down.

I burned her, and I burned her body to ashes with a bundle of bundles. I never thought I'd ever see anything in her again in my life; I never imagined that one day I would be able to touch my aunt's hair again...... Tears were blinding, and A-Niang's braids lay quietly in the sun, looking at me gently.

The son returns, the son returns, and the three sons return together. A-Niang, did you see it? You see us, don't you?

I was not the only one who shed tears during this meal.

Zhao Ji cried, he cried more than me, but he cried more sadly than me. It was the hair of the woman he loved, the hair that had once snaked on his knees, and which he had stroked countless times. That year, that day, he wanted to take her to a safer place, but he never saw her again. Back then, they didn't say goodbye calmly, and today's different reunion under the sun broke this man's barren heart for many years.

"A-Niang, let's have dinner together!" Quinoa swallowed the fried fish in her mouth and smiled softly at the sun-drenched braids.

Remarks: (1) Great River: The ancient name of the Yellow River.