The north wind howled, the trees withered, and the silver-gray clouds galloped across the sky, and soon there would be a heavy snowfall.

At that time, it was the middle of winter, counting nine cold days, and freezing for thousands of miles. A teenage girl is holding a seven-year-old boy in her hand, facing the bone-chilling wind, walking on a long snow-covered mountain road.

The girl's hair was messy, she was dressed in sackcloth, the cold wind and snow slapped mercilessly on her thin body, her pale little face was covered with a thin layer of frost, her feet had already frozen to the point of no feeling, her lips had turned blue and purple, but there was a rare perseverance in her clear eyes, and the hand holding the boy did not relax at all.

The boy wore a small felt hat sewn with a tiger sewn on his head, his two faces were frozen and bloodshot, he raised his little head, and asked the girl tremblingly, "Sister, where are we going?"

The girl said gently, "I'll take you to your uncle." His lips twitched as he spoke, and he sounded a little slurred.

The boy looked surprised and asked, "We still have an uncle?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, nodded heavily, and said, "Yes." ”

The boy was hungry and tired, walked a dozen steps, and cried out: "Sister, I can't walk." ”

The girl was actually exhausted, and she was afraid that if she stopped for a while, she would not be able to walk out of this sea of snow. So he leaned down and said, "Come, my sister carries you." ”

She carried the boy behind her back, and moved more slowly, but there was only one thought in her heart: I can't die, I want to take my brother to live!

This girl's surname is Liu, a person from Xiurong in Shanxi, this year's hometown suddenly suffered a major drought, Shanxi Fenshui and Zhanghe rivers were exhausted, the seedlings were dried up, the crops were not harvested, many people starved to death, starvation carried the road, and eight or nine out of ten died.

The plants, trees, animal skins, insects and flies have all been eaten, and in some places there is a phenomenon of cannibalism. Liu Ruxu's parents died early, so he escaped from the village with his younger brother Liu Rufeng.

Liu Ruxu heard her mother say when she was a child, Jiangnan is the most beautiful and warmest place in the world, so she wanted to take her younger brother to Jiangnan, but she didn't know where Jiangnan was, but she just walked to the south, and she wanted to come and walk for more than a month.

The younger brother leaned on his sister's back, brushed the snowflakes stuck to her hair with his little hand, and asked in a low voice, "Sister, how long do we have to go?"

Liu Ruxu said with a look of longing: "Come on, when we get to Jiangnan, we will have white flour flatbread to eat every meal, and we will not be able to eat it all in our lives." ”

The younger brother suddenly became interested, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and hurriedly asked, "Is there a radish pickle to eat?"

Liu Ruxu smiled: "Yes, make sure you can eat as much as you want." After speaking, he also secretly swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

After a while, large snowflakes poured down from the clouds, and the valley was full of snow and wind, and it was full of bone-chilling cold.

Liu Ruxu became more and more difficult to walk under her feet, raised her head stiffly, and the cold wind blowing with snowflakes blew on her face and was already unconscious, only to see snow in all directions, her vision was blurred, and she couldn't distinguish between southeast and northwest.

The footprints when he came had been covered by heavy snow, so he had to carry his younger brother on his back in the barren mountains and mountains. The surrounding pine branches were frozen and frozen by frost, and the world seemed to stop at this moment, and his heart seemed to be still.

Liu Ruxu was afraid that she would fall asleep, so she weakly called her younger brother behind her twice: "Ah Feng, Ah Feng?"

But the brother on his back didn't want her. Liu Ruxu was about to look back, but her front foot was crooked and she fell into the snow.

Liu Ruxu wanted to struggle to get up, but she couldn't, looking at the gray sky, she saw pieces of snowflakes falling one after another, and there were bursts of wolf howls in all directions.

Liu Rufu was dizzy, Venus was dancing, in a trance, it seemed that a white cake fell from the sky, and the ears seemed to hear the sound of insects and birds, and he couldn't help but exert his last strength, and shouted excitedly: "Brother, the big cake! We have arrived in Jiangnan!" After saying this, his eyes were dark, and the whole person lost consciousness.

Liu Ruxu only felt that her body was cold for a while, hot for a while, and someone seemed to be talking in her ears, but she couldn't really hear it, her mind suddenly sudden, and she fell asleep again.

When I woke up again, I found myself in a small room, lying on a warm kang with a quilt on my body, and suddenly a spirit sat up and shouted, "Ah Feng!"

But when he saw his younger brother lying beside him, he was sleeping soundly and did not wake up, so he was relieved.

At this time, I saw an old woman in her seventies outside the house lift the quilt hanging on the door, walked in slowly with a white bowl in both hands, and said softly to Liu Ruxu: "Child, drink some porridge when you wake up, these two days have not been like a word." ”

Liu Ruxu looked at the porridge in the bowl, her eyes lit up, she licked her lips, although she wanted to take a sip in her heart, even if it was a small sip, she remembered that her mother had taught her when she was alive, and she should thank others for their favors.

So he said "thank you, mother-in-law" first, and after the mother-in-law smiled and nodded, she took the bowl and drank two big sips greedily.

She hadn't eaten for three or four days, and as the food entered her stomach, a warm current flowed through her body. She only felt that the rice soup in her mouth was sweet and mellow, not to mention how delicious it was.

Liu Ruxu suddenly stopped in her throat, put down the bowl in her hand, but didn't eat it, and turned to look at her younger brother who was lying beside her.

The old woman seemed to see through her thoughts, looked at her with a smile and said, "Even if you eat, there is more." ”

Looking at Liu Ruxu's gobbling up, it can be seen that these two children suffered from wind, frost, hunger and cold along the way, and the mother-in-law sighed: "Hey, what a pair of poor children." ”

Seeing that she was dressed in shabby clothes but with a beautiful face, the mother-in-law gently touched her hair and asked, "Child, where did you come from?"

"Xiurong, Stone Village. Liu Ruxu's cheeks were bulging, and his mouth was not authentic.

After seeing her finish eating, her mother-in-law took the empty bowl and asked, "Do you still want to eat?" Liu Ruxu shook her head.

The mother-in-law walked out of the inner room, came to the right corner of the outhouse, scooped the scoop of water in the water tank, and was about to clean the dishes and chopsticks, only to see the door "bang" opened, and a man in his thirties walked in.

The man was a burly man, with thick eyebrows, and a tiger fur hat on his head, and put the two hares he was carrying on the table and said, "Mother, I brought you the game." ”

The mother-in-law went to close the door, looked at the two hares on the table, and complained: "What are you doing for me, take it home and give it to Qin'er ......" Before she finished speaking, she stopped.

The middle-aged man was also silent, and the air suddenly fell silent.

Suddenly, the middle-aged man slammed his fist on the table and said angrily: "What a bird mountain god, bullshit! Every few years, a virgin boy, a virgin, pigs, sheep and livestock are offered to him, where to find so many, it's a big deal to fight with him!"

"Ahh

The mother-in-law hurriedly went to close the door, shook her hands tightly, and said, "Son, don't say like this, don't say like that! If you are heard by the mountain god, I am afraid that disaster will befall you!"

The middle-aged man heard movement in the back room, and asked in a low voice, "Mother, who is inside?"

The mother-in-law sighed and said casually: "My mother went to the mountain to collect firewood the day before yesterday and rescued a pair of sisters and brothers. ”

As soon as the middle-aged man heard this, the flame of hope that was about to be extinguished was rekindled, and his heart was pounding, and he hurriedly asked, "But a pair of sisters and brothers?"

The mother-in-law nodded and said, "That's right." Suddenly turned around and said, "I know what you're going to do, but my mother doesn't agree." ”

The middle-aged man stepped forward to take her hand and said hurriedly: "Can you bear to let your granddaughter go to worship the mountain god?"

The mother-in-law bowed her head and said, "They are all hard-working children, I can't ......"

The middle-aged man's words were slightly excited: "Mother, you and they are plain all their lives, but Qin'er is her, she is your own granddaughter!"

The mother-in-law hesitated and said, "This ...... This ......"

At this time, the door of the inner room opened, and Liu Ruxu's little head stretched out, and then slowly walked out of the house, looking at the two of them: "Mother-in-law, I have heard what you said, do you want people to send something to the mountain god father-in-law to eat? Thank you for saving me, I am willing to go." ”

The middle-aged man said strangely: "You ......"

Liu Ruxu grinned, revealing two little tiger teeth: "Sister Qin'er is afraid of the cold, it's really cold this day, I'm frost-resistant, I'm not afraid of the cold, just let me go on her behalf." ”

The middle-aged man was very happy to hear this, and suddenly he was at a loss for excitement, with tears in his eyes, and stepped forward and said, "Okay, good." ”

The mother-in-law saw that she was young and ignorant, and was about to say something, but when she saw the middle-aged man's eyes, she remembered her granddaughter Qin'er, so she stopped talking.

That night, the mother-in-law boiled a bucket of hot water for Liu Ruxu to take a good bath, cooked the two hares, and made two large bowls for her to eat.

Liu Ruxu only ate a small piece, shook her head and said that she would give it to her mother-in-law and younger brother. The old woman's heart was sour, and she twisted her head to the side.

After eating, her mother-in-law asked her to sit in front of the mirror and comb her hair with a comb.

Liu Ruxu was very happy, shook her head, and sang the ballad that her mother had taught her: "Whose sister is amorous, standing at the foot of the mountain and singing mountain songs, the elder brother who is holding the boat heard it, smiled and waved hey." ”

Although she was childish, her voice was clear and sweet, and her mother-in-law saw that she had a pair of big eyes that were dark and bright, and she must have grown up to be an amazing beauty.

On the twenty-sixth day of the lunar month, there was still goose feather snow outside the house, and the north wind blew the panes.

The mother-in-law in the house is teaching Liu Ruxu sister and brother to cut paper, Liu Ruxu learns quickly, cuts very carefully, and the younger brother next to her looks at it intently.

Suddenly, the door opened, and it was the middle-aged man who strode in that night, bringing in a blush of snow.

The boy heard his sister say that he wanted to take himself to find his uncle, and when he saw this man, although he was born, his mother-in-law was really good to his sister and brother, and he was about to call him "uncle" in a daze, and the middle-aged man greeted in a rough voice: "Mother, it's time to take the little girl away." ”

The old woman's fingers flicked, and the scissors snapped to the ground. Liu Ruxu leaned over to help her pick it up, and said with a smile: "Mother-in-law, my legs and feet are fast, and I can come back in half a day." ”

Seeing that she was so sensible, the old woman was extremely reluctant in her heart, but she couldn't open her mouth to leave her, so she only held back the tears in her eyes and said with a pout: "Hmm." ”

Liu Ruxu instructed her younger brother: "My sister wants to go out and come back in the evening, you have to listen to your mother-in-law." ”

The boy's little hand grabbed the corner of her clothes, and said timidly: "Sister, come back quickly, Ah Feng is afraid." ”

Liu Ruxu touched his little head and said with a smile: "Got it." ”

The middle-aged man put a hat in his hand on Liu Ruxu, untied the wide strip of cloth around his neck, and covered her face tightly, and then said, "Let's go." He glanced at the old woman and walked out of the door with Liu Rufu.