Back to Jingling Snow Mountain, it was an early autumn evening. September is about to pass, and Yuxiguan to the south seems to be still immersed in the lingering summer heat, and the mud soil sucks up the sun throughout the summer, seeping out little by little.

The air is light, dry and skin-friendly, and the scent of osmanthus from the towns further south makes you feel relaxed and comfortable for a long time.

Just past Sangyu Town, and then go north fifty miles is Yuxi Pass. There were two people walking side by side, both dressed as ordinary passers-by, the two horses were gray and black, looking at the spirit, that is, covered with a layer of dust from servants.

The thin figure on the gray horse looked like a teenager, not yet full, with thin shoulders and a bulging bag tied to his back, taller than others, tossing and turning on the horse, feeling like he was about to fall out of the ground at any moment.

As he led his horse past the traffic, he looked around with his eyes dripping, wishing that he could take a long look at all the excitement of the market street.

Probably because this mission was done beautifully, coupled with the smooth return journey, and the weather was so pleasant, seeing that Yuxi was in front of him, there would be no more variables in the future, and someone pressed the tail all the way and finally couldn't hide.

“…… Hey, do you think there are a lot of people in that bun shop? Why do you say there are people queuing up to buy buns? It's not a rare thing...... Buns, it's not all that smell! It seems to be a little bigger than the one I've ever eaten......" The boy muttered as he stared at the overcrowded bun shop and swallowed unconsciously.

His companion frowned, glanced over to see him look at him thoroughly, then turned his eyes back, shook his wrist, and continued to let the horse walk unhurriedly.

The young man continued to stare at the bun shop, as if he had some obsession, and it was okay to break his neck.

“…… Tsk, it's good...... A broken bun, how can it be so fragrant! He said loudly as if he were talking to someone, and his throat moved, as if he had swallowed another breath of spoiled saliva.

In response to him, there were only chariots and horses, and the voices of people in front of the bun shop.

“…… Cough! Never mind. In the end, the boy decided to grit his teeth and succumb to the aroma,

"I ...... Just take a look. He stopped his horse, withdrew his gaze stuck to the bun, and turned his head to look at his silent companion on the black horse: "Hey Lu Jiu, are you hungry?" Do you want to be together? The man named Lu Jiu shook his head slightly, raised his eyes to stare at the young man, and pressed his wrist slightly, so that the horse also stopped.

It seems that he is extremely familiar with Lu Jiu's various expressions, and the young man waved his hand without waiting for him to make further movements, and a look of an old god was hung on a face that was quite a little baby fat, and it was not disobedient, and it was a little cute: "I know, I know, I know, three days, at most I will go back to report!" Don't worry, I have a number, the head of the seat only needs one head anyway, and the rest, he has always turned a blind eye. It's not been a day or two since those black crows want to trouble me, and I have a way to avoid them. Lu Jiu didn't speak, only blinked, indicating that he heard it.

"Alas...... You said that this has been busy for most of the decade, and it is a lot of work and effort. You've only been injured for a few days, so don't say slowly...... Today, you haven't touched your teeth from morning to night, and you're all on the horse, and now you can still hold on, and you won't eat the buns...... Lu Jiu, you are really going to become an immortal. The man on the black horse, looking at his figure, seemed to be one size smaller than the gray-clothed boy.

But the temperament is not small, probably because of the tiredness and dust all the way, and the reason for the lack of words. He glanced at the boy, but remained silent.

With Long Si's familiarity with Lu Jiu, he always felt that there seemed to be mockery in that glance just now. Hey, if Lu Jiu can speak now, according to this person's personality whose face is as cold as ice and poison as fire, he must be sneering: Hmph.

Dead foodie. The young man in gray didn't know whether he was amused by Lu Jiu or by Lu Jiu in his own imagination, so he laughed heartlessly.

He drove the horse closer, and patted a gray cloth bag hanging on the side of the horse with his right hand: "You take this back." This...... That knife, thanks to you. After saying that, as if he had been reminded of some kind of memory, Long Si's eyelashes trembled, and there seemed to be a substantial blade on the back of his neck brushing his hair, arousing his reflex to tremble.

He looked at Lu Jiu, who was walking all the way beside him, his pupils shrank. However, in a split second, he adjusted.

Shaking his head like a puppy, rubbing his hands, and purring his own hair, Long Si became the boy who talked a lot again.

Lu Jiu lowered his eyes, as if he didn't notice anything.

"Let's go, maybe we can catch up with the 'Living Man's Wine'!" Long Si put his hands behind his head, drove the horse to turn around with only his waist strength, and squeezed his eyes at Lu Jiu,

"Take a sip and take care of your throat!" Lu Jiu thought about it, nodded, reached into his arms again, took out a celadon vial, and threw it to the young man without looking at it.

By the time Long Si saw the pills in the bottle and then raised his head, Lu Jiu had already ridden away, and was cut into a fragmented and indifferent shadow by the bustling crowd.

Long Si was stunned, the celadon bottle in his hand was warm, and there seemed to be a faint smell of mint when he sniffed it.

The young man sat on the gray horse, and let the bun he was thinking about not far behind, and he didn't look back.

It seemed to be the right decision to throw the nagging, greedy and lazy Long Si on Sangyu, and Lu Jiu's feet were more than a little or two points faster.

In less than two hours, Yuxi Guan turned into a pale yellow silhouette behind him, and the Jingling Mountains became closer and closer to the field of vision, like a circle of palm roots rising from the ground on the horizon, and the fingertips were hidden in the cumulonimbus clouds above the mountainside, and the exposed mountains were half gray and half green, isolating the warmth and humidity in the pass, and the whole temperature seemed to drop sharply.

In another ten years, the exhaled breath of the people and horses will begin to churn out white mist. Running all the way, a thin layer of sweat appeared on Lu Jiu's body, sticking to the clothes and sticking to the skin, which made people uncomfortable.

He began to miss the barrel in his room. He dismounted, packed his bags, and led the black horse to the foot of a hill where the last rays of the setting sun shone on the day, smearing a dilapidated tavern warm yellow, so dirty that the curtain of its original color was barely visible, and the faint light divided the morning and dusk from it.

You can tell what's inside with your feet. Lu Jiu thought without any expectations as he walked. The broken tables and chairs are crumbling, but it seems that they have never been replaced with new ones over the years; There was a chubby-faced and smiling shopkeeper standing behind the counter all year round, and Lu Jiu had wondered if he had been planted behind that wine cabinet - because he had never been seen coming out, and he had been fiddling with abacus beads in that small space of a few inches, and he didn't know what he was counting; On the wall behind the shopkeeper hung a large wooden board mottled with insects, on which were scattered with the names of several dishes and wines.

The moment he opened the curtain and walked in, Lu Jiu didn't realize that he was actually relieved.

It was as if the taut bowstring had suddenly dissipated its devastating power, as if the straight back had suddenly pulled out the supporting bone, like a beast wrestling with heaven and earth in the frost and snow, suddenly returning to the shabby, dirty, but safe and familiar hollow of the tree, it gathered its bristles and fangs, curled up in a ball, and began to be invaded by extreme exhaustion.

All the way to a cup of tea

"Du" was placed in front of him, Lu Jiucai was startled, his fingers habitually tightened, and his fingertips touched the handle of the knife in his sleeve that was covered with heat.

Only then did he realize that he had just fallen asleep while sitting. The one in front of him is not a teacup at all, but a wooden wine bowl, and the lines and cracks of the years sink to the bottom of the tea and can be seen clearly.

Smelling it, it should be snow-topped evergreen - this spoonful of tea leaves is sold in the market, I am afraid that it can be exchanged for ten buckets of gold and hundreds of wine shops of this size.

But it was abused by others, and it was tossed in a rough way like boiling mugwort leaves, and it was displayed horizontally at the bottom of the broken bowl, like a mess of muddy aquatic plants.

Lu Jiu sighed silently, lowered his eyes, and raised his hand to hold the wine bowl. With a lift of his wrist, he drank all the tea brewed by rotten water plants.

Putting down the empty bowl, the person who had just stood next to him was already sitting down opposite.

"You're careless." He said in a deep voice. Lu Jiu subconsciously straightened his body and lowered his head to listen to the training. This man has never been angry and arrogant, not to mention that he looks quite angry now.

The man opposite is no longer young, with a jade crown and hair, tall and thin, wearing a dark azure coat in a moon-white placket, if it weren't for the place where the feather fan and jade jue should be worn around his waist, he was afraid that people who had seen him would think that this person was a literati with a bit of appearance.

He was used to being serious, and now he looked at Lu Jiu with a sinking face, and his appearance was even more cold and hard. But unlike the rest of the Ministry of Health, Lu Jiu was not too afraid of him.

In this position, it doesn't matter if you don't train close to people, or if you kill people, you should do it.

What's more, the head of the guard is evil and evil, and the evil is evil, but he has never treated his subordinates harshly, and he has always led the most difficult task, taking the lead and not hesitating; Some of his subordinates make mistakes, and they are punished behind closed doors, but when they go out, they are guilty of their own crimes, and they can protect their subordinates, and if they can't protect them, they must strive for a neat and decent appearance.

Such a person made Lu Jiu feel safe inexplicably. Lu Jiu is sluggish and clumsy in many ways, but he can show extraordinary sensitivity to certain things.

Probably because he has seen the purest kindness and the most direct evil thoughts, his division of people is always based on intuition, crude and clumsy to the point of paranoia: the wicked hurt me, the good man is the opposite.

Now the person sitting across from him stared at him coldly, as if he was about to burst out and cut people at any moment. But the tea that Lu Jiu just poured down was brewed by him.

Rushing back from Yeqin,

The residual poison of the "bone filament" has not been cleared, and Lu Jiu has been unable to speak for several days. Eating all the way, there is no opportunity to maintain and breathe, the fire in the throat is burning, like a piece of red-hot charcoal fire all the time, and there is a taste of blood rust in the swallow.

In that bowl of snow-roofed evergreen, I'm afraid there is something else. Lu Jiu touched his throat and cleared his throat, feeling that the unbearable burning pain was much lighter for a while.

He raised his eyes and looked at the cloudy face of the person opposite, inexplicably a little weak-hearted, and lowered his head again, his mouth moved, and he was silent

"Lord Guard".