At the end of the day, the sky began to glow with a pale blue light, and the little mallet pushed open the wooden door, and the first thing he did was to look at the wooden house to the east—the strip of cloth tied to the door had not been touched, and it seemed that the master had not returned all night, and he did not know where he had drunk and gambled.

She sighed and shook her head to fetch water from the dirt well in the back of the courtyard.

In summer, the day dawns early, and in a short time the sunlight has broken through the white mist in the forest and sprinkled in this small courtyard. The yard is not big, three wooden houses side by side, surrounded by a fence outside, a few small fields behind the courtyard, planting some turnips and greens indiscriminately, and an earthen well next to it, with two wooden barrels tied to the reels of the well, and a few larks are stopping on it.

The small stick mallet is small and thin, and it takes a bucket of water to lift for half a day, and it takes several times to fill the water tank. One day, the Master led her to the edge of the well, compared the top of her head, and said, "Little mallet, you are now taller than this well, so you can do the work of carrying water in the future." ”

Alas, Bi Jing Gao, was she six years old at that time? Or was she seven years old? Forget it, anyway, Master has always been an old man who is disrespectful to the old, and she has long been used to it.

There was nothing to eat at home, so the little mallet took a long time in the kitchen to turn out two sweet potatoes that were about to dry up, moved a bamboo chair, and sat in front of the door to peel and chew.

The sky is getting brighter, the birds in the forest begin to rejoice, chirping one after another, the wind in the forest is cool and damp, it is a pleasant morning, if you forget the messy and heartless master, maybe it will be more pleasant.

I can guess with my toes that the little money they earned so easily last month was just that they had already lost it to Master. He has always been so bad at luck, but he is also very addicted to gambling. Their master and apprentice spend most of the year in a foreign land, pretending to be a ghost and deceiving, working hard to get some money, just because he is drunk and gambling money, and the result is that no matter how he lives, he will never be able to get new clothes and good food, she is ten years old this year, and she is still wearing the robe that the master changed from the early years, which is full of patches, and I don't know how to make up for it if it is broken.

Master likes to call himself a living immortal, and he has learned some miscellaneous techniques out of nowhere, and often deceives people in the name of subduing demons and eliminating demons, and scribbles a few runes on people to say that they are purifying filth. In the early years, when she was still young, the master would not take her out, but when she was five years old, she spoke quite fluently, and she began to follow the master to swagger and deceive, he pretended to be a great immortal, and she pretended to be a medicine boy beside him; he pretended to be a Taoist master, and she pretended to be a little Taoist boy. Over the years, I have traveled from south to north, and the days I can stay at home are really numbered.

Two sweet potatoes under the belly, the little mallet feels not full, I don't know if I want to grow tall again, I always feel that I can't eat enough, but there is no cooked food at home, she can only touch the half-full belly to water the radish greens, and loosen the soil by the way.

As soon as the hoe got off the ground, a big black centipede came out of the soil in a panic, and the little mallet couldn't help but think of the centipede spirit they surrendered in Cloud City last month, which was a monster, hundreds of times larger than ordinary centipedes, taller than people, and would spit black smoke, and the master threw ten pieces of cinnabar rune paper to get rid of it.

Speaking of which, Master still has some real materials, and occasionally he can subdue some troublesome demons, such as the centipede essence last month, but there are not so many demons in the world, and in order to make a living, there are still many cases of deception.

The little mallet took out a few pieces of yellow rune paper from her bosom, on which the charm had already been drawn with cinnabar, she learned the master's posture, concentrated, and threw the rune paper out with a whoosh, and as soon as she threw it out, it was blown away by the wind - still not good, she shook her head.

Over the years, she has also been learning magic from her master, and it is said that she wants to use the aura of the five elements of heaven and earth for her own use, so that the rune paper can shoot out steadily and stick to the monsters to subdue them. She never felt any aura, no matter how she meditated, no matter how she settled, she couldn't understand what it was like to have aura.

Perhaps, as Master said, she has no talent and can't eat this line of food.

However, if she can't learn the arts, what will she do in the future? Master is old, and they are not like the others, a lively group of people living in the town. Because of pretending to be gods and playing tricks everywhere, the master and apprentice have always lived in this house in the deep mountains and old forests, saving themselves from being troubled.

Alas, although there are many people in this world, only their master and apprentice depend on each other.

Early in the morning, it's really not good to think about these gloomy things. The little mallet rolled up her sleeves, but she was still hungry, so she simply dug up a few radishes and burned them to eat.

As soon as he turned around, he heard the sound of slow footsteps outside the courtyard, followed by a choking smell of tobacco leaves, and the master came back with a smile on his pipe.

“...... Master, you're back. The little mallet looked at him expressionlessly, and his voice was cold.

"Oh, as soon as I came back, I saw your female doll with a zombie face. The master seemed to be in a very good mood, smiling and crooking on the old rattan chair where he often sits, and his mouth couldn't be closed: "A little girl doesn't laugh or make trouble, she has a straight face all day long, and she is annoyed when she sees it." Forget it, I have good luck today, I have won a lot, and I don't care about you for the teacher. ”

As he spoke, he took out an oiled paper bag from his wide sleeve full of patches and threw it over: "I bought you a new set of clothes, and I will quickly change it to Master." ”

The little mallet was finally shocked, the master bought new clothes, for her, the stones in the yard all knew how hard the master was, and he would never admit it if he won money, let alone buy new clothes, and he was reluctant to buy her even a piece of candy in the past ten years.

Was it a dream? She quietly pinched herself.

"You didn't react when I bought you new clothes, and you won't even say thank you, Master?" Master knocked on the cigarette stick on the stone, very dissatisfied.

"This ...... ......She hesitated, looked down at her skirt, looked up at Master, looked back and forth for a long time, and finally asked suspiciously: "Are you sure you bought it for me?" Master, are you drunk? Do you remember what my name is?"

"Little mallet. The master spat out a puff of cigarette, quite impatiently, "You just wear it, and talk about something."

The oil paper bag in her hand was strangely heavy, she slowly opened it, and there was a pink Luo skirt stacked in the paper bag, silk and satin material, and the corners of the skirt were embroidered with blue grass, which was delicate and beautiful, and the beautiful clothes that she could only look at from a distance before were now lying in her hands.

Luo skirt...... Or pink...... She hadn't worn a girl's clothes until she was ten years old, let alone so beautiful and delicate, she held the skirt in her hand and looked at it over and over again, she couldn't figure out how to wear it for a while, she always felt that this dress was beautiful, but it was not something she should wear at all.

"Wear it quickly, wear it quickly!" the master urged impatiently.

The little mallet let out a long breath, and without saying a word, she was about to take off her tattered old clothes, when the master hit her on the head with a cigarette stick: "You are a female doll! You are ten years old and you still look like a wild boy? Change your clothes and go to the house for me!"

Wearing a skirt feels like the whole person is wrong, as if she is no longer a small mallet, I don't know if it will become a medium mallet or a big mallet. The small mallet carried the overly long skirt, and the road was not easy. The new dress was large, and the skirt covered the top of her feet, and she carefully lifted it, pushed open the wooden door, and walked out.

"It's dressed. "This skirt is light and fluttering, how do you do it and how do you do it? Won't it get dirty?

The master looked at her with burning eyes, and then laughed: "I'm still a wild boy in a skirt!" With thick skin and thick eyebrows and a dark face, when will I be like a girl?"

The little mallet touched her head, and her hair was tied up like a boy, so it was convenient to do things, but it probably looked ridiculous with a Luo skirt. She remembered the little girls she had seen in the town before, dressed up and delicate, with hairpins on their heads, beautiful colored beads on their ears, and clogs stuffed with powder, and walking with lotus swaying and swaying, not like she was a person of the same world.

"Why did you remember to buy me a dress?" she still couldn't help asking.

The master smiled: "Think about the fact that you are ten years old, so old, I should buy you something for the girl." Hey, time flies so fast, ten years in a blink of an eye, and when I picked you up from the river, my little face was not as big as half my palm, and I was alive and kicking at this time. ”

This is the first time he has talked about her life experience, he used to only say that she was picked up, so she was thrown into the river.

Master seemed to be very interested today, swallowing clouds and mist, gushing: "It's the river at the bottom of the mountain, early in the morning, I rushed to get the talisman paper cinnabar, and I saw you floating down from the upstream, wrapped in swaddling clothes, with neither letters nor tokens around you, and the umbilical cord seemed to have just been cut. I still thought that it was a family with no conscience upstream who lost their biological children, and I held you all the way and asked all the way, but in the end I didn't ask why. You were a little small at that time, you didn't cry when you were hungry, and you just hugged me for a few days, but the eyebrows and eyes looked more and more like me, I thought, maybe you and I have a fate, so I left you to raise yourself. ”

As he spoke, he looked at the expression of the little mallet, and she had no expression at all, as if she was listening to someone else's story, and she didn't move. As soon as this child comes home, she is like this, how well-behaved she is when she is a little Taoist boy outside, she can talk and laugh, why is she a stuffy gourd at home?

"That, little mallet......" Master cleared his throat, "Don't you have anything to ask about your background?"