Chen Ping'an ate the sugar gourd that he had not tasted for nearly ten years, and returned to Mud Bottle Lane with a locust branch, passing through a house that was more dilapidated than his ancestral house, Chen Ping'an felt guilty, thinking about whether to borrow some silver from Master Ruan first and repair this house, although he has lived in this Mud Bottle Lane since he was a child, Chen Ping'an has never seen this house inhabited, and chased and fought with the moving ape on the roof, deliberately tricking it here, causing the roof to be stepped out of a big hole by the old ape, Chen Ping'an felt that he had to take this mess on his body, otherwise he would inevitably be exposed to the wind and sun in the future, and suffer the sin of rain and wind, Maybe the house could have survived for twenty or thirty years, but now I'm afraid it won't even last for five years, and the beams of the house will decay quickly, which is very similar to Chen Ping'an's body being forcibly "instructed" by Cai Jinjian, both of which are leaking from all sides, so Chen Ping'an is more and more concerned, thinking about how to repair this ownerless house, not to mention how bright and stylish, firm and strong always can't run away.

Chen Ping'an didn't think about taking out a gold and copper coin and exchanging it with someone for real gold or copper coins, such as the old man Yang in the Yang family's shop, or Master Ruan in the blacksmith shop, but Chen Ping'an has an intuition that this kind of thing is really hard to find, and every time one is used, there is one less, as for the silver and copper coins, they can be earned anywhere, it is nothing more than the size of the effort. So Chen Ping'an decided to ask Master Ruan to borrow it first, if it can't be borrowed, and then use gold and copper coins to solve the problem, he will definitely feel distressed, but since there are some imminent problems that have been clearly placed in front of him, he can't pretend to turn a blind eye, Chen Ping'an is very afraid of indebting others.

Chen Ping'an returned to the yard, put the little girl's gift of the locust branch, leaned against the courtyard wall, the priceless sword grinding stone is still in the basket, but of course it will not be so openly thrown in the yard, has let Chen Ping'an move to the house, if it is not for the urgency of time, Chen Ping'an can't wait to dig a deep pit in the yard, bury the inconspicuous but valuable sword grinding stone, slash the dragon platform, just listen to the name, it feels more precious than the three bags of gold and copper coins.

Chen Ping'an heard the crow of chickens in the yard next door, when Song Jixin and Zhigui left the town, they couldn't take care of the old hens and chicks in the cage, it was estimated that they were a little hungry at this time, Chen Ping'an went to the house to pick up the set of keys, and then brought a handful of rice from his house, walked to the door of the courtyard next door, opened the chicken coop, squatted down and leaked out of his fingers a little. After feeding the chickens, Chen Ping'an opened the door of the stove room, wanting to see if there was any surplus grain such as rice, so as not to spoil and mold in vain, but he entered the stove room, which opened Chen Ping'an's eyes, a large vat of rice, just opened the lid to see, Chen Ping'an was full, there were pots and pans in the cupboard, everything, there was a row of ham and dried fish hanging on the wall, everything was cleaned up, refreshing and refreshing, large and small objects, miscellaneous but not messy.

Chen Ping'an was suddenly attracted by a pair of firewood near the stove, approached and squatted, sure enough, it was the wooden man who saw Zhigui chopping with a kitchen knife that time, she didn't know how to chop firewood at all, so it was cut for a long time and had little effect, replaced by Chen Ping'an three times and two times, he could chop the wooden man who was about Mo and others tall, at this moment, Chen Ping'an squatted and bowed his head, and found that the wooden man was very strange, with a lot of red dots carved on his body, all over the body, sparse, some places were densely clustered together, and some places were separated from the distance There was only a red spot like cinnabar, Chen Ping'an picked up a piece of wooden man's arm and looked carefully, next to each red dot, There are even extremely tiny ink-colored small characters engraved with them, the red dots are the size of rice grains, and the strokes of those small characters are even more invisible, and it is thanks to Chen Ping'an, who is replaced by ordinary people's eyesight, I am afraid that they are only seen as red dots and black dots.

Chen Ping'an tried to put those stumps and broken bones back together, and it didn't take long for the wooden man to reappear in its original shape, fortunately, the wooden man did not lack any large pieces, but unfortunately many of the spliced places, the red dots and black characters have been cut or scraped by Zhigui's kitchen knife, and it is estimated that the relatively complete Zhu dot ink characters are still seven or eight out of ten.

Chen Ping'an got up and opened the window to make the light in the stove room more transparent and bright, and then continued to squat down, looking at the past carefully, not daring to miss any details, which took almost an hour. Although Chen Ping'an didn't know most of the ink characters, he still tried his best to memorize their stroke structure.

For reading and literacy, Chen Ping'an has always had expectations in his heart.

When he was a potter, many times after Chen Ping'an climbed to the top of the mountain, he looked at the town from afar, in addition to looking for the direction of Mud Bottle Lane, the second place he wanted to know was the school. When I was young, there was a dark and thin child, who often went to school, squatting against the foot of the wall, with the sound of books above my head, although I couldn't understand what was being said, but the child would inexplicably feel at ease and at ease, the heart was very quiet, and the grievances received for a day were gone.

However, for the orphans of Mud Bottle Lane at that time, it was much more luxurious than sugar gourds, so just look at it from afar.

At this time, Chen Ping'an closed his eyes, and with his memory, he constructed a complete wooden figure in his mind.

If there is a vague memory, Chen Ping'an is not in a hurry to open his eyes to check the truth, and skips it first, and as a result, from beginning to end, there are about forty or fifty uncertain Zhu dots and ink characters in the wooden figure.

Identifying and remembering those omissions one by one, Chen Ping'an took a deep breath, and wanted to do it again, but as soon as he closed his eyes, his head was swollen and a little dizzy, Chen Ping'an resolutely stopped forcing himself. Some efforts are not just done with dead effort, otherwise they will only get busier and more chaotic. After Chen Ping'an learned to burn porcelain, he was deeply touched by this, not because he was talented, but purely because he was scolded by Old Man Yao all day long and was constantly scolded.

Chen Ping'an disrupted the wooden figures again, stacked them in the corner of the stove, walked out of the stove room, closed the courtyard door, thought about it, or go to the east gate of the town, find the janitor again, and become a formal apprentice in the blacksmith shop in the future, most of them will live there, so it is unlikely to deliver letters, so Chen Ping'an wanted to say hello to the bachelor, but he looked for it once before, but he didn't find it.

After Chen Ping'an trotted to the east gate of the town, the yellow mud house was still closed and locked, sighed, and sat on the stump of the tree where the janitor Zheng Dafeng often sits. Chen Ping'an sat there in a daze, rarely busy.

I don't know how long it took, on the road in the town, there was a burst of car wheels, Chen Ping'an turned his head to look, when the head of an ox cart, followed by two carriages with carriages, a group of children sitting on the ox cart, and two familiar faces, Li Baohua with a big red cotton jacket, Shi Chunjia with two blushes, in addition, I think it is Li Huai, Lin Shouyi, Dong Shuijing, and the three school Mengtong mentioned by Shi Chunjia.

There were five children on the ox cart, chattering and lively.

The coachman is a middle-aged man's unfamiliar face, and the old man who swept the floor in the school sat behind the coachman.

Chen Ping'an looked at it, except for the little girl in the red cotton jacket who was born in the four major surnames Li on Fulu Street, the other four children are very different just by dressing, Shi Chunjia's ancestors have lived in Qilong Lane for generations, guarding the old shop called Pressing the Year, worry-free food and clothing, but it is not very rich, so the little girl can only be considered comfortable and warm, but Shi Chunjia has a peer with a cold look, wearing a new and precious black fox fur, with a slightly pale face and indifferent eyebrows and eyes. Li Huai's father, Li Er, is a well-known nest man in the town, and Li Huai also has a sister named Li Liu, but his father and sister all went out to beg for a living, leaving Li Huai alone to be fostered in his uncle's house, and now he is also leaving his hometown and following the old man surnamed Ma to the mountain cliff academy. The last teenager, with a thin spring shirt, wore two coats that were sewn and mended, full of poverty and misery, and at first glance he was a bitter child who grew up in a poor alley.

Li Baohua, Shi Chunjia, Li Huai, Lin Shouyi, Dong Shuijing.

Five small town Mengtong, riding an ox cart that could not shelter from the wind and rain, drove to the holy place in the hearts of countless scholars in Dongbao Aquarius, the Mountain Cliff Academy, one of the seventy-two Confucian academies. At this moment, the five children will definitely not know that on the territory of a continent full of dynasties, countless generations of hairpins and wealthy lords, even if they have sharpened their heads and exhausted the incense of human affection, they also want to send their own children into it, follow those masters and gentlemen with broad sleeves and belts, and learn the self-cultivation of Confucian sages to govern the country and level the world.

Naturally, they won't know how rare it is to be able to call Mr. Qi Jingchun. On the contrary, these children will only feel that Mr. Qi has a lot of rules at the moment, often with a straight face, and is not close at all, Mr. Qi occasionally laughs, and the children don't even know what they are doing right, which makes Mr. so happy.

Li Baohua's eyes were sharp, and he saw Chen Ping'an sitting on the stump, jumped off the ox cart with lightning speed, stumbled a little, ran quickly in front of Chen Ping'an, and stood still suddenly, but he didn't seem to know what to say, and finally only puffed up his chest and said, "I'm going to a far, far away place", and his little face was full of pride.

The old man with a high crown said in a deep voice: "Li Bao Vase!"

Although he was not very happy, the old man still asked the coachman to stop the ox cart. The little girl pursed her lips, but still turned and ran towards the ox cart, she suddenly heard the guy behind her call her name, and when she turned around, she saw him raise his fist at her, and shook it slightly, presumably asking her to try.

Li Baohua also waved his fist at him, signaling that he would work hard.

Chen Ping'an smiled knowingly, feeling that most of the efforts of this little girl in a red cotton jacket were used for play, and Mountain Cliff Academy would leave her footprints everywhere.

Chen Ping'an looked up, the old man who had seen the floor sweeper several times in the school, and wanted to nod himself, but Chen Ping'an subconsciously returned the salute with a smile.

At the same time, someone in a carriage behind gently lowered the curtains.

Although there was only a glimpse of it, Chen Ping'an saw the person's face clearly, it was the person who went to the blacksmith shop to find Master Ruan.

Chen Ping'an watched the ox cart and carriage slowly drive out of the town.

If Chen Ping'an could be like Ning Yao's sword volley, overlooking this thousands of miles of mountains and rivers that had just taken root, he would definitely be shocked by all kinds of visions.

There are countless birds and beasts of all kinds, entrenched on the border between this Lizhu Cave Heaven and the territory of Dali, and further out, there are countless of their kind running frantically here, as if they are absorbing something.

On that invisible border, they dare not take a step forward, nor do they want to retreat a step back.

There was also an old woman standing at the end of the stream within the boundary, her upper body exposed to the water, and her blue hair poured down like a waterfall, spreading around her body like a black lotus.

The old woman, whose face was mottled like the bark of a dead tree, was now a woman under forty years old.

There is also the cloud-covered mountain, which seems to be arched by the earth's surface, slowly rising at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The cave was shattered and reduced to a blessed land.

In the past, the people of the small town who were born and raised in Lizhu Cave, whether rich or poor, whether they were good or evil, all had an afterlife.