Prologue

A shower, like panicked ants, the people on the road are noisy and squeezed into an herbal tea shed. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 The info shop is simply built with thatch and a few bamboo poles, a tile earthen stove is smoking, and a copper kettle is burning on the stove, and the bottom of the pot has been covered with black ash, which has been a utensil for many years.

The people who came in patted the rain on their hair and clothes, and there were a few wooden tables behind them, stumbling and full of wormholes. Several young men sat around the table, one of them dressed in linen and holding an earthen bowl gently blowing the oil stains floating on the tea surface, then took a careful sip, smacked his lips, and spat out a piece of tea that had not yet been brewed, which stuck to the table.

The fat man sitting across from him frowned, as if he was extremely dissatisfied with his behavior, and also seemed to be extremely dissatisfied with the dirty herbal tea shop on the table and the bowl of coarse tea in front of him.

"It's been a few months since that rain in the north?"

The person who spoke carried a long sword wrapped in cloth, wrapped so tightly that only a faint drop of cold could be seen.

"Three months and seven days, it seems to be about to stop. ”

Someone answered him.

The sky in the distance was pressed with black clouds, darker than the bottom of the pot on the stove, which made people's hearts dull, as irritating as the weather.

There are also some moths that try to flash their wings, but they are stupid enough, they can hide from the rain under the shed, but they fly to the place where the rain is bigger, and finally they are slapped on the ground, wrapped in mud, and can no longer move.

。。。。。。。。。

Desolate land, desolate city, three months of rain turned this once dry desert into a swamp, and even surrounded lakes of various sizes.

A group of people knelt in front of a totem that had been destroyed by the wind and rain and could not see clearly, kowtowing vigorously, muttering in their mouths.

The rain slid down their faces, dripping on the ground, stained with a trace of blood, and in an instant it melted into the water again, and they stumbled so hard that their foreheads were already broken.

A shirtless young man in animal skin trousers looked at the bare and somewhat pitiful totem, his long hair like black algae draped over his back, and the rain on his body fell on his back, and suddenly evaporated, and from a distance he seemed to be shrouded in a layer of fog, blurred.

。。。。。。。。。

The old monk plucked the rosary and suddenly stopped.

The dozing little monk was dazed.

"Master, what's wrong. ”

"Go and borrow a bowl of water from this family. ”

The old monk stood outside the door, the wind and frost and the cold dew, and everything was quiet.

The little monk knocked on the door and entered the house, and soon a middle-aged man went out, and saw the old monk bowing deeply, and the little monk stood in the door, holding the water and looking at him with some puzzlement.

"Master. ”

The middle-aged man still did not get up, and half-bowed.

The old monk's beads finally stopped moving and stopped on a round ebony bead.

"Let's go north. The little monk brought the water, and the old monk drank it in one gulp.

The middle-aged man still did not move.

A woman came from the backyard with a child under her arms in her arms.

The child was crying, not hearing the birds, not the cicadas, and irritable.

The old monk looked at the child and suddenly sighed. Remove the broken scoop from his waist, pour a seed out of the scoop, and hand it to the child, who raises his hand to take it.

The autumn frost suddenly melted around, the autumn cicadas revived, the cold birds returned, and the children burst into tears and laughed.

The woman held the child and bowed.

The two got up, and the old monk and apprentice were gone.

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An old man driving an ox cart with a straw hut on top of it, which seemed to be boiling something, and bursts of white smoke slowly dispersed from the roof of the straw hut.

The snow was blank, and the ox cart stood out like a black pebble falling into a pile of salt.

"Would you like to go back and have a look this time?"

The man driving the ox cart seemed to be asking about the white snow, his breathing was even, and bursts of white mist slowly erupted from the tip of his nose. A cold wind blew, and he tightened the scarf around his neck, saying that the scarf was better than a black cloth, stained with oil, as if he had not washed it for many years, and he did not see the scarf frozen into a popsicle in this cold and snow.

The wind in the mountains is like a knife, blowing the ridges and stones of the mountains, depicting the appearance of thousands of years.

The sound of the wind is galloping like thousands of horses, making a strange howl, and it is eager to try in every corner.

I don't know how the hut on the ox cart and the ox cart stand in the wind and move forward slowly.

"There is a little apprentice this year, of course I have to go back and have a look. ”

It turned out that there was a man in the ox cart, who seemed to be chewing something, as if he was afraid of being hot, and his speech was a little inflexible.

There was a small pot boiling in front of him, and some meat was stewed in the pot, gurgling white smoke, and he picked up another slice of meat, dipped it in some chili peppers, and slowly passed it into his mouth, chewing it carefully and attentively.

"I just don't know when I'll be able to go back. He said again, opened the flask beside him, took a sip, smashed his mouth, and raised his chopsticks to rummage in the pot.

"Yes. After all, some birds can't stand the cold and want to change their nests, so wait. The man pulling the oxcart looked up at the snowstorm and replied softly.

The wind is stronger, the snow is heavier, and spring is slowly gathering in every snow.

。。。。。。。。。。。

The remnant sun was like blood, sprinkled on the red pillar, like freshly painted paint, bright red and hideous.

The bluestone bricks are one after another, neatly and orderly to drain a road, then a courtyard, and finally a whole palace. The bird felt that the atmosphere here was too solemn to stay, and the little maid outside the door clutched the hem of her clothes tightly, and the sweat had already wet her thin clothes.

Clusters of peonies are in full bloom, the goldfish in the pool swim quietly, it seems that no one has fed them for too long, the goldfish are a little listless, a stone rolls down from the rockery and falls in the pool, startling the fish.

A baby cry, loud and vibrant, sent its first greeting to the world, firm and a little uneasy.

The maid exhaled a big breath, raised her sleeve and wiped the sweat from her forehead, her calves and chin were still trembling, she finally dared to breathe a little louder, the setting sun was slowly approaching the ground, and the stars would brighten.

She remembered that it was time to light the candle and walked gently to the backyard.

Half a moment after she was gone, there was a cry, followed by the cries of many more, and a resting crow stood on the edge of the red wall, startled by the cry, and flew out of the city.

。。。。。。。

The tea on the table was already cold.

A physician knelt tremblingly outside the door.

"Your Majesty, the crown prince is healthy. ”

"The Queen... Sadly, he died!"

A teacup fell to the ground, and splinters fell to the ground.

The cicadas outside the window suddenly fell silent in an instant, and the goldfish in the pond no longer swam, hiding in the cracks in the stones and not coming out.

The room was as quiet as death.

The imperial physician kneeling at the door wiped the tears on his face, gently picked up the fragments of the teacup that fell out, and then wiped it off his neck tremblingly, and the dark red blood slowly flowed out, soaking through the cracks of the bluestone bricks, like a mountain stream breaking out of the ice.

The remnant sun completely fell, and the blood-red clouds were finally invisible. The cries in the distance seemed to become more intense, and a pale moon hung silently in the air.

The crickets in the shadows no longer chirped, only the intermittent cry, sandwiched by the loud voice of a baby, otherwise abrupt. The clouds in the distance did not dare to touch the moon, so they let it shine quietly.

And the city, and the land, and the quiet mountains beyond.