At about seven o'clock in the morning, the sky finally began to fall with fine snow.

It's early October. In previous years, at this time of year, southerners still shouted heat with the air conditioner on, and even in the north, they only needed to wear a thick coat when they went out. But this year's snow came earlier, more than a month earlier than usual.

But for most people this is a small thing, and even for those farmers, it has little impact because the fields are mostly barren, and they have nothing to do with whether they are covered with weeds or snow.

Now is not the past. The distress is not that there is too little land, but that there are too few people.

As for the city, it is even more empty. Binh Duong is a large city that used to be the economic center of the entire Northeast region. But even though it's still the center, the only areas that can barely be called "bustling" are the two districts in the city. There are 1.2 million people living here, less than one-tenth of what it was six years ago.

What used to be near the outskirts of the city is now even more sparsely populated.

The fine snow fell to the ground and did not melt. As a result, the ruins of the nearby wall were all plated white, and the hairy snow actually fell with a white momentum.

Potholed streets were also filled. A snow-white road leads straight into the distance, and in the distance is also a white expanse.

But the boots stepped on the unmarked snow, leaving a series of footprints.

Li Zhen stepped on this thin layer of snow and walked along the road. By this time he could already see the warehouse in the distance—half collapsed, rusted steel bars poking out of the rubble like bare bones.

He walked a little further, and he could see the two large iron doors pressed under the stones.

And he stopped walking. Just look at the warehouse from afar.

In fact, before long ago, it was not a warehouse, but a home for two people. The sun was fine that afternoon and the sky was blue. There is a busy woman in it, and there is a "ridiculous" man.

Only, he killed him.

Does Wang Yuanwei know about this? Li Zhen wasn't sure. However, when he saw the ruins at this moment, and thought of that afternoon, his heart was not as uncomfortable as he imagined. Perhaps a certain emotion has faded due to the effect of time, and has been replaced by a certain empathetic feeling.

"I can understand your madness to this day." Li Zhen whispered. It's like saying it to yourself, and it's like saying it to someone else or a ghost wandering somewhere.

After he said this, he fell silent, and only fine snow fell in the sky. The snow fell silently. But there was a sound in his ears. It is as if spring silkworms gnaw on mulberry leaves.

After standing in silence for ten minutes, he bowed silently to the storehouse and turned to leave.

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The fritters are in the pot. There was a loud noise, and a cloud of green smoke came out of the pot. Two noodles are wrapped in boiling oil. It swelled up quickly. and turns from white to golden yellow. Gives off an enticing aroma.

Qi Yuanshan picked up the fried fritters and threw them into the bamboo basket next to him one by one. wiped his hands on the yellowed apron in front of him again, and kicked Yu Yongqiang beside him. He muttered, "Stay away, and don't put the ashes in the pot." ”

Yu Yongqiang stepped back with one leg and a cigarette in his hand, sat on a stool in the corner of the kitchen of less than five square meters, scratched his head and stared at those fritters for a while, and asked, "Hey, I have something I have always wanted to ask you, why do you have to fry fried fritters together?" ”

"I can't get up a single one." Qi Yuanshan said without looking back, "One will become a dead face." ”

"Why is one dead?" Yu Yongqiang asked again.

Qi Yuanshan turned his head to look at him and frowned. Yu Yongqiang was a little uncomfortable with him, and he tilted his head and frowned: "What? ”

Qi Yuanshan turned around and got busy again, and said angrily: "Don't hide from me as soon as you quarrel with your daughter-in-law, I have a small place here, and two people can't turn around." ”

Yu Yongqiang stepped forward and narrowed his eyes. It's a pity that Qi Yuanshan turned his back to him, leaving him only with the back of his head, even if his eyes stared at the top of his head and became a crab, people couldn't look at it. He realized this, and then his body softened again, collapsed on the stool, and scolded fiercely: "That old lady is such a fuck." ”

Qi Yuanshan was happy, and said in the smoke: "Didn't you call her the little fairy daughter before?" ”

"Bullshit fairy daughter." Yu Yongqiang spit out a mouthful of astringent saliva, threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stepped on it, "She's a ghost, guess what she asked me to do yesterday?" ”

"I don't know what to do." Qi Yuanshan said.

"Oh, she wants me to go to Yanjing again." Yu Yongqiang took out a box of cigarettes from his coat pocket, pinched the crumpled cigarette case, and found that there was only one in it, thought about it and put it back, "Didn't the news say that Li Zhen was having a meeting in Yanjing?" The stupid old lady told me to go to him again, and said, 'You have a good relationship with him, and if only he says a word, we won't be like this.'"

Qi Yuanshan laughed and said, "That's not to blame you - when you two first met, you boasted to others that you and Li Zhen were 'enemies for life', and then 'laughed at the grudge', right?" ”

Yu Yongqiang waved his hand: "Don't nag those old people, when is it all about it." Besides—"

He looked at Qi Yuanshan's back, and there was a rare hint of cautious hesitation in his eyes: "Do people remember that we still said two things." How long has he been back - I heard that there was a man named Yu Ziqing from our side, you know what that kid is, right? ”

Qi Yuanshan shook his head: "I don't know what to do." ”

"Hey, I used to be a jerk." Yu Yongqiang patted his knee and turned his head to look around. Finally, he found a half-half bottle of Erguotou on the side of the board, and he reached for the lame leg and took a sip with his teeth grinned.

In fact, his alcohol consumption is not very good, and he has not practiced a level in the first few years of eating and drinking all day long. Therefore, this sip of wine is very open-minded to see the prodigal son become a hero. He took another sip and slapped his knee hard, feeling that he had found the state of the rivers and lakes back then.

"That Yu Ziqing, let me tell you, when Lao Tzu was crisscrossing Taoxi Road, he begged me to come, and wanted to follow me. Then how can I look down on him? A thief-" Yu Yongqiang waved his hand. He pulled a fritter from the basket beside Qi Yuanshan and chewed it while saying, "As a result, people followed, and now in Luzon, I heard that I have become a big official, and I seem to have become a prince——"

"There's no title on the Luzon side, that's the Republic." Qi Yuanshan picked up the last fritter and threw it in the basket, and shouted: "The fritter is ready!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, the small curtain at the kitchen door was opened. A beautiful woman walked in, nodded to Yongqiang first, and then took the small basket full of fritters in Qi Yuanshan's hand and walked out. Soon. From outside, her singing voice came - "Who wants fritters?" ”

Yu Yongqiang watched her all the time. At the end, his body suddenly shriveled down again, and he said sourly, "It's better to be at your house." Good singing, good temper - why didn't I pick up such a pretty girl. ”

Qi Yuanshan ignored him.

Actually, if it was once upon a time – not six years ago. Just three years ago. If Yu Yongqiang came over like this, he judged his woman's character. Qi Yuanshan must have poured a pot of hot oil on his face.

The last time Li Zhen came here, the situation in the world was not so bad, and the isolation zone had not come. At that time, Yu Yongqiang was good - but Li Zhen still had a little suspicion that this person was pretending in front of him. But if he stays for two or three more days, he will find that this person has indeed undergone some kind of essential change.

In fact, the reason is quite simple - he was convinced by Li Zhen. Or when a person really loses the capital and ability to do evil. will indeed restrain the "evil" in his heart and try to become an "ordinary person".

At that time, his life was not bad, and it was going well.

Then disaster struck suddenly.

On that day, many people inexplicably turned into dry bones in an instant, and many buildings collapsed. Unfortunately, Yu Yongqiang's decent "office" was on the barrier—an entire wall had fallen down and crushed his good leg, and the other lame leg was unable to exert its strength.

He was in a coma under the ruins for three days, and when he woke up, the whole world was so quiet that he was terrified, so he cried out for two days, sometimes drowsy and sometimes sober.

On the fifth day, when he ran out of oil and felt that God was finally going to take him away, Qi Yuanshan picked up the rubble and rotten tiles that were pressing on him.

Whether Qi Yuanshan wanted it or not, he saved this guy once. In the following more than a year, Yu Yongqiang stuck to him like a piece of kraft candy. Qi Yuanshan didn't like to take care of him in his heart, but this former gangster regarded him as a life-saving benefactor, and he came over and dangled around with a shy face every once in a while, saying that he wanted to cover him.

In fact, at that time, he was almost starving, and he was just trying to fight the autumn wind.

Liu Cui'e also died at that time. So only Qi Yuanshan was left alone. After that, he pinched his nose and accepted such a friend, and the two of them propped up the small storefront. It's just that, just like now, most of the people who do the work are Qi Yuanshan, and Yu Yongqiang always can't hold back his restless temperament, and he mingles with a few gangsters.

However, in the past, with Qi Yuanshan accompanying him every night, he finally stopped doing those things that bullied and dominated the market, and became a speculative man.

Qi Yuanshan ignored him, Yu Yongqiang pursed his lips, and continued the topic just now: "Actually, Yuanshan, I still have something I wonder about - why didn't Li Zhen come to see you?" ”

Qi Yuanshan put the fritters into the oil pot again, and said after a while: "He's busy." ”

"How busy can it be." Yu Yongqiang said.

Qi Yuanshan turned over the fritters in the pot with some distraction, and suddenly turned his head: "He's for my good." ”

He glared at Yu Yongqiang and repeated: "He is for my good." Don't you remember how many of those mighty people died? Otherwise, let him take you to the front to fight, will you go? ”

Yu Yongqiang pouted: "Then I can't do logistics?" ”

Qi Yuanshan snorted and turned his head again: "I don't have that face." ”

"Tsk, you ......" Yu Yongqiang got up from the stool, stuffed the last mouthful of fritters into his mouth, walked to the side of the board and twisted a shredded pickle to eat, and opened the curtain and walked out.

Behind the curtain is the dining room. When it used to be a barbecue restaurant, there were more than a dozen tables in the dining room, and beer in green plastic boxes was stacked at the door. Now the barbecue restaurant has been changed to a breakfast shop, and the name has become "Liu Ji Breakfast". As for the back kitchen, the front and back kitchens are very large, but in the first two years, Qi Yuanshan took up one-fifth of the area of the back kitchen, and the small warehouse at the back was in one place. Because at that time, he had to live with Yu Yongqiang.

After Liu Cui'e died, her property should have been inherited by Qi Yuanshan. It's a pity that the building where she used to live has been decayed into a piece of gravel by the isolation zone, and now the isolation zone has been removed, but there is still a piece of gravel.

So Qi Yuanshan still lives in the back - with the Filipino daughter-in-law he "picked up".

Now the dining room is full of people, all grizzled construction workers. That wasn't the case in previous years—they were at least cleaner and more energetic than they are now. But a disaster destroyed so much that the high-tech machinery of the past was no longer usable, and not even the remaining big ones that were left in good condition would not have been driven here - they built affordable housing here.

Affordable housing is the housing of homeless civilians who had no money and no rights in the past.

There is almost no sound of speech in the store, only the sound of snoring and drinking tofu brains and chewing fritters.

Yu Yongqiang walked slowly in the middle aisle like a mountain king, and a few people who knew him took the time to raise their faces and nod to him, he turned his head back in ignorance, and then walked out of the store.

There is a small board next to the door of the store with the main food products written on it. He subconsciously glanced at the board, and found that his mark was not known to be pasted by a bear child with mud.

This is marked below the word "fritters" - when Yu Yongqiang saw Qi Yuanshan lift the board out, the first thing he noticed was these two words. Because he knew the English of this thing—he had been taught it by one of his bastards.

So at that time, he asked for paint and happily added two English words - oil-tiao.

After all, it was his first time doing serious business, and he was always a little excited. It wasn't until later that he felt that it was really boring to work in the kitchen and rejoined the "rivers and lakes", but he still remembered this masterpiece of his own, and he had to appreciate it for a while every day.

Yu Yongqiang spat on the ground, slowly bent down and grabbed a handful of thin snow on the ground, and wiped the mud clean.

Then he realized that it wasn't fucking mud, it was shit - he was mugged.

"Which little rabbit of your mother am I—" He immediately scolded, and quickly bent down to grab the snow on the ground and rub his hands. This time, however, he bent too quickly, and his legs and feet were not flexible, and he fell headlong to the ground.

His whole face was covered with snow, and the tip of his nose was broken by a stone. When he fell to the ground, he instinctively reached out to support him, but unfortunately the weight of his body pressed his two hands directly to his face. This was the worst offense in his nose - a foul smell rushed to his head, and he almost threw up on the ground.

Qi Lingling, who was busy in the house, Qi Yuanshan's daughter-in-law, hurriedly put down the plate and ran out.

Yu Yongqiang saw her and yelled: "Don't touch me!" He roared and moved to the side, trying to get up and get away from the beautiful woman he admired. Unfortunately, the lame leg was not angry, and he still fell.

Qi Lingling was about to help again, and Yu Yongqiang roared again. At this time, Qi Yuanshan ran out of the kitchen. He pulled Qi Lingling behind him to protect him, and was about to scold Yu Yongqiang for a few words. However, when I saw his miserable appearance, I couldn't say anything.

So he frowned and whispered a few words to Qi Lingling. Then he said to Yongqiang: "What a big person, what kind of lipi." Hurry up and go home to clean up, I'm busy. ”

Then he took Qi Lingling's hand and walked back to the door, and couldn't help but sigh.

waited until they walked in, and Yu Yongqiang sat back on the ground. Rub your hands clean with the snow first, and then slowly stand up on the ground. A few workers sitting in the doorway looked at him probingly, and their numb faces finally became more angry because of this episode. But Yu Yongqiang didn't glare at them, turned his head and walked away.

He walked all the way to another sparsely populated alley, and then suddenly scolded like a shrew - "I X your God......" (to be continued......