Finished......

When I poked my head out of the pile of clothes, I saw the guards of the palace, Gong Shixi, standing in front of me like a mountain. If you count today, this is the third time he's bumped into me wrestling.

"Ah Shi, I told you, you have to look at the ground when you walk, you obviously can't hold it, why don't you divide it twice?" He picked up the clothes on the ground with one hand and me with the other, and walked steadily in the direction of the well.

"Ah Shi wrestled again, right?" As soon as she saw us, she immediately stood up with a red face, and crampedly arranged her sideburns scattered on her right side with her wet hands.

I was afraid that she would throw me into the well in a moment of anger, so I hugged Gong Shixi's neck with all my might.

The cypress woman seemed a little strange today, she didn't reprimand me as usual, but smiled and took me from Gongshixi's hand: "This girl walks without looking at the ground, and troubles Gongshi to carry her over." ”

"I didn't ...... It's okay, I just saw it. The big man stammered a little in front of the woman.

I couldn't stand the strange atmosphere between the two of them, and I struggled to jump off the cypress woman's hand, and as I ran, I turned back and shouted, "I'll bring breakfast to the housekeeper." ”

"You run slower—" The voice of the cypress woman sounded in my ear, and I had already turned into the kitchen.

At night, I was held in the arms of a cypress woman. Although Ah Niang used to sleep with me like this, Ah Niang was so thin because of her illness that I would often wake up in the middle of the night by her protruding bones. But nestled in the arms of the cypress woman was different, soft and warm, even if she sometimes snored a little harder, I could sleep until dawn.

Maybe it was something that A-Niang said to the gods after leaving, and my life is getting better and better day by day. Compared with what happened outside before, the people in the house are much kinder, although the cypress woman often beats and scolds me, but most of the clothes I wear now, shoes and socks, are made for me at night from other people's rags.

"Ah Shi, if you see Gong Shixi tomorrow, help me ask him if he has a wife at home?" As soon as I fell asleep, I was woken up by the cypress woman.

"What is this for?" I replied in a daze.

"Kid, don't ask so much, just ask if you want to." After speaking, the cypress patted me on the back, "Okay, let's sleep." ”

"Hmm." I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep. In the dream, Ah Niang took me to live in a yard full of hibiscus flowers, the wind blew her long black hair, one big and one small swifts, shuttling back and forth in mid-air, and my ears were full of their murmuring sounds.

Most of the common people have no surname or name, and the reason why the cypress woman is called the cypress woman is because her husband who died before is called the cypress. On the second day, when I told the woman that Gong Shixi had no wife, she took matters into her own hands and ran to the house of the eldest man at night.

After the cypress woman successfully remarried, the small mezzanine where she used to live was vacant. The head of the house, Qin Gu, then took his little granddaughter and four sons to live with me.

Si'er is the same age as me, and on his red face, a pair of apricot eyes always seem to be smiling. Every night, we would hide under the covers and babble nonsense, talk bad things about cats and dogs, discuss how to steal plums from the plum tree in the front yard, talk about my sick aunt about her dead brother, and pull from my strange eyes to a black mole growing on her belly. In spring, summer, autumn and winter, we eat millet in a bowl and cover it with the same thin quilt. She became my closest friend and cherished relative in my childhood.

I worked hard, actively caused trouble, learned to peel and twist hemp with the servants in the house, and fought with the boys on the street outside in the mud, and three years passed before my eyes.

For three years, the general did not set foot here. The closest I came to him was when he returned to the capital this year to report on his work. He rode past the house, and I knelt at the door with my servants. As his horse's hooves passed in front of my eyes, I wanted to look up and ask, did he remember the child he had picked up three years ago?

But I don't have that courage after all, and a noble man like him must not have remembered me for a long time......

By the end of the year, I would be eight years old. According to Si'er's words, I am the best at pretending to be a good person, apologizing faster than anyone else after a trouble, and there is always a way to make others bear the blame after a fight. However, given that most of the things I have done in the past few years have been for her, she naturally will not expose my true colors.

As a result of Si'er's help, the housekeeper assigned me the light work of cleaning the general's study, while she went to the kitchen to help.

Si'er was greedy, and when he entered the kitchen, he was like a mouse falling into the rice warehouse, and he was so happy that he couldn't do it. I'm not so lucky compared to her. The general was a great fond of reading, and the study was full of old and new bamboo slips on three high walls. All I have to do every day is to wipe down the desk and dust off the books. But this enviable work made me very unaccustomed, and I was afraid that I had climbed more trees than I had eaten since I was a child, and it was really torture to suddenly have to be alone in the study.

After a few months, I smelled more bamboo and ink, my temperament was much quieter, and the days of running around outside gradually decreased.

"Ah Shi, the big head master asked me to go to the West Market to see if I can buy some dry skull, can you go with me?" Si'er, who was wearing a red jacket and combing the horns, stood at the door of the study, bowing his head and patting the snow slag off his body while puffing white air.

"Stop shooting, come in!" I walked a few steps to the door, and a gust of cold wind blew and I couldn't help but shiver, "Master Datou is really, it's snowing so hard, where can I buy dry barns?" You go to the stove and roast it. ”

"It's still the warmest you're here." Si'er looked at the study while drying his hands.

"How could it be so warm a few days ago, I heard that the general would be back in a few days, so I started to burn the charcoal fire." I took the copper skewer on the side and dialed the charcoal fire in the three-legged amphora beast pattern furnace.

"The general is suddenly coming back this year to celebrate the New Year's sacrifice, but he is busy with us. There is no yellow sorghum, rice, and millet, and there are two urns of tulip wine, and I don't know if it is sour. The big head master asked me to buy a dry saga, and then go to Baili Mansion to see if I can ask my uncle Zaifu to give us some meat sauce. The meat sauce in our house is too late, and the wine stains are not enough, and it will take half a month to open the can at the earliest. Si'er rubbed her calves and stomach while muttering, "However, I see that you have been very busy these days." Ah Shi, what does the general you have in mind look like? Is it more handsome than the little brother in Tsing Yi we saw in the market that day? ”

Last month, I accompanied my four sons to the West Market to buy salaries, and I happened to meet a noble young man who was slightly older than us standing in a carriage and passing by. His car almost hit Si'er, if the nobleman's carriage hit the common people, the whip was always the one who was hit, but the young man in Tsing Yi got out of the car, bent down to help Si'er, and asked in a breezy voice: "Can you be injured?" ”

Si'er blushed and just shook his head, unable to say a word for a long time.

The story behind is, of course, that the boy got in the car and left, and Si'er was laughed at by me. Then, she kept talking about this young man in Tsing Yi.

"How can there be a better person in this world than your little brother in Tsing Yi!" I deliberately teased Si'er, but she nodded quite seriously and said, "I think so!" ”

Hey, hopelessly.

"Ah Shi, you can go out with me, how boring it is for me to walk alone on this snowy day!" Si'er rested his chin on my shoulder and looked at me with watery almond eyes.

I put my forehead on her head and said with a smile: "According to me, you can't get any of your gourds and meat sauce." You might as well roast the fire here with me, and when I went back to the big head master later, I said that the heavy snow in the West Market closed the streets, and the butcher of Baili Mansion did not dare to give you the meat sauce privately. ”

"How is this possible? Let's go—you're wearing less, it's cold outside, I'll help you bring your jacket and cloth towel, that's it! You're waiting for me here! After Si'er finished speaking, he didn't wait for me to agree, turned around and ran away.

After so many years, I still haven't learned how to refuse this fiery girl.