On the fifth day of the fifth month of May, the Dragon Boat Festival.

Rotten Ke Town, Qiaozi County, also wraps zongzi like the rest of the place, but the difference is that the people of Rotten Ke Town have to pull some artemisia grass and put it in front of the door window every Dragon Boat Festival.

Although Langke Town is a town, it has a good location, on the trade route from Xishu to the Central Plains, and there are many business travelers, and the scale is no less than a small city.

Ranke Town originally belonged to the Song Kingdom, but a few years ago, as soon as the big guys woke up, a notice was issued at the yamen saying that we were from the Qi Kingdom. The common people are puzzled, but they don't think much about it, and it's useless to think about it. There are some elderly birthday stars in the town, who have never been out of Rotten Ke Town in their lives, but they have already been citizens of three countries.

On the bank of the Qingni River squatted a young man dressed in green clothes, thirteen or fourteen years old, with his hair half-draped and half-bunched, holding a long willow branch in his hand, and he didn't know what to poke in the water.

The boy's name is Liu Guzhou, and he was just kicked home two days ago because he beat the master of the school. I was afraid that I would be beaten when I went home, so I simply hid outside and didn't go back. But at this time, I was really hungry and couldn't stand it, so I took a willow branch and squatted by the river to fish.

Where would the boy who played children's meals to open his mouth and stretch out his hand, such a flower job that the wisher took the bait? I've been sitting for an hour, where is the fish on the hook?

Liu Guzhou dragged back the willow branch, tore off the bark and threw it in his mouth, and then hurriedly spit it out, babbling.

He said to himself, "Good girl, so bitter? ”

The young man said that he was afraid that he would not be able to get a fish, but it was not a way to be hungry, so why not go back and admit his mistake?

Just thinking about it, a hand stretched out coldly and grabbed Liu Guzhou's ear, the young man didn't have to think about it, and immediately said bitterly: "I was wrong!" Wrong, wrong, Aunt Buckwheat is merciful! It's not like you're paying me to treat my ears when I have my ears removed. ”

The young woman glared and grabbed Liu Guzhou's ears and twisted them violently.

Liu Guzhou was all over, and said that the long pain was better than the short pain, so he tried his best to escape from Zhao Qiao, but as a result, Zhao Qiao hid the willow branch in his hand and swooped on Liu Guzhou's body.

There was a sound of pig-killing screams, and the young man ran wildly in front of him, and the young woman chased after him with a willow branch.

Running back to the town, Liu Guzhou saw a young Taoist priest who was setting up a stall to tell fortunes, rushed over with all his strength, jumped up and kicked over the table, and scolded as he ran: "Stinky cow's nose, is it useless for the thirty pieces of the master and the talisman you bought, and I will settle accounts with you when the master passes this level." ”

The young Taoist priest almost burst into tears, squatted down and looked at the cinnabar sprinkled on the ground, and wanted to scold a few words, but when he turned his head and saw the fierce Zhao Qiao, he hurriedly turned his head and said bitterly: "I have said that sincerity is spiritual." ”

The young man ran wildly all the way, and when he ran back to the Yang Huai Inn, there was a middle-aged man dressed in gray who was holding a wooden sword and dancing at the door.

Liu Guzhou shouted: "Lao Jiang, quickly take out your peerless swordsmanship to save my life!" ”

After saying that, he ran into the inn.

The middle-aged man was confused, but he pulled a sword flower in a chic manner, and said in a thick voice: "I see who ate the leopard's gall and dared to bully my young master!" ”

As a result, after seeing Zhao Qiao, he hurriedly threw away the wooden sword in his hand and hid to the side and looked up at the sky.

The middle-aged man said to himself: "Don't blame me for not being righteous, my cultivation is completely lost, and I really can't beat the owner." ”

Zhao Qiao glared at the middle-aged man and scolded: "Jiang Zhongke, if you dare to tell Liu Guzhou about your sword breaking the moon, you will go and clean up your bedding rolls." How old did you be, and you thought it was when you were young? ”

Jiang Zhongke was submissive, sneering and nodding, "Yes, yes, yes, don't say it." ”

There was another sound like killing pigs from Yang Huai Inn, Jiang Zhongke shrank his head, and said in his heart that this kid would not be beaten for three days, and he could manage it for half a month at most.

A fat middle-aged man walked out slowly, with an extremely wide leather belt around his waist, a few knives pinned to the belt, and a wine gourd in his hand.

The middle-aged man turned his head and asked, "Don't go to persuasion?" If we run away from home again, we have to find it. ”

Jiang Zhongke's eyes widened, and he couldn't believe it: "You are very iron-headed? I persuaded last time, but the money that the owner deducted from us hasn't earned it back yet! ”

While the two were talking, a bearded young man approached him, who looked at him at most twenty-eight or nine, and he said, "I'll go." ”

There was also a middle-aged man who looked like a scholar in the door, and he walked out with his neck curled, and happened to hear the muffled gourd talking. After the bearded man walked in, the scholar sighed and said, "Yes, one of them is going to run away from home tonight, and the other is going to be a monk again, this is only May, has Xiao Lian already led the hair to practice three times?" Do you say that the monks of Chidoriji Temple don't bother him? ”

Hu Er took a sip of wine and said indifferently: "I earned two months' money to add incense, do you say others are annoying?" ”

After a while, the wailing stopped.

A group of horses drove slowly on the street, and the leader shouted: "Cut twenty catties of mutton, prepare six rooms, the old rules, the goods are lost here, you help me take care of it." ”

The three of them shouted in unison at the door, and then they went their separate ways.

It will be dark, and the bearded Xiao Lian walked out of the Yang Huai Inn and walked towards the Chidoi Temple in the south of the town. This guy has to recite the Buddha to kneel and kowtow every three steps, which is really extremely pious.

The locals of Langke Town have long been surprised, and they will come every two or three months. But this is a trade road, and the caravan of merchants is a little curious.

Someone wondered: "This person has nothing wrong with his brain, right?" ”

When someone even replied: "Outsiders don't know, there are three monsters in our Rotten Ke Town, the first one is a perennial stall in the east of the town, and he is a Taoist priest who lives in the monk's temple." The second blame is this Xiao Buddha who wants to become a monk at every turn. ”

"What about the third monster?"

"The third weird? It's the sissy of Zhenxi who lives in Zhenxi, obviously a man, but he speaks like a nightingale's voice, which is extremely good. ”

The man stammered, "It's really weird." ”

In the second half of the night, Mr. Jiang Zhongke, the bookkeeper of Yang Huai Inn, Song Xin, and Hu Er, the cook, were lying on the window on the second floor, watching a young man work hard over the wall with a burden.

The three of you, look at me, I look at you, and said in unison: "Who is going this time?" ”

Zhao Qiao kicked open the door and glared: "No one is allowed to go!" I'm going to see how far he can go. ”

After speaking, he turned his head and left, Hu Er took a sip of wine, and said in a low voice: "Qiao Yutian and Qiao Yuce are both in Qiaocheng, this time he is estimated to go to the east." ”

Jiang Zhongke said helplessly: "Toss around, in addition to going to Qingxing Mountain when he grows so big, he only walked out of Langke Town for three miles at the farthest time, slept in the grass pile for a night, and was scared to the point of urine, what is the picture?" It's better to learn from us honestly. ”

Song Xin grinned: "Make a bet? I'm betting he's going out two miles. ”

Jiang Zhongke said three miles, and Hu Er bet on one mile.

Of course, this is not the first time Liu Guzhou has run away from home, since he came back from a trip to Qingxing Mountain at the age of seven or eight, he has to make such a fuss almost every time he is beaten. It is true that he is determined to run away from home, but he is sleepy when he goes out for more than two miles at most, so he has to fall down on the side of the road to sleep. As a result, as soon as I closed my eyes, I dreamed that there was a giant beast overflowing with flames at the entrance of the town, and I was chased and killed all night in the dream, and when it was dawn, I walked back to the Yang Huai Inn by myself.

Liu Guzhou just walked out of the town, found a place where no one was, spread out his baggage, turned out a few talismans from it and pasted them on himself, and then continued to walk forward.

The young man said to himself: "Stinky cow nose, if these talismans are useless, master, I can let you set up a stall in Rotten Ke Town again, and I will remove Liu Zi's knife!" ”

Walking forward hard, he finally walked under a willow tree with a crooked neck, Liu Guzhou looked at the mark of running away from home last time, simply gritted his teeth, and ran over.

ran straight out for a mile, and Liu Guzhou stopped suddenly.

Hey! Not sleepy this time?

I just wanted to shout a few times, but an angry roar came from my ears: "Go back!" ”

Liu Guzhou only felt that his eyes were dark, and the whole person suddenly fainted, and he fell into the grass on the side of the road.

A little further on, it was the river, and a woman's voice came from the river, "It's coming, I didn't expect to be able to eat a good meal when I first arrived, this kid has fine skin and tender meat, I don't need to sprinkle condiments, just eat it raw." ”

Two cloaked figures slowly emerged from the river, a man and a woman.

The two figures floated to Liu Guzhou's side, the man swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and said with a smile: "This kid's flesh and blood are clean, we can increase a lot of cultivation after eating him, and building a spiritual platform is just around the corner!" ”

At this moment, a donkey's cry came, and a young man with a knife jumped up from the donkey's back, did a front flip, and stepped on the tip of the grass a few times to reach the river.

The young man was dressed in a gray coarse coat, with a hemp rope tied around his waist and a horizontal knife hanging from his left side.

The young man squatted on the riverbank, looking at the flickering figures of a man and a woman as if he was busy, and when he saw that the two figures did not move, the young man said, "Busy with you, leave me alone." ”

The woman narrowed her eyes and said coldly: "Look at the martial artist who looks like a few brushes, do you know that there are some idle things that you can't manage?" If you manage it, you have to put your life into it. ”

The man also frowned, and said in a deep voice: "Don't meddle with your acquaintances, my wife and I have entered the ghost path, spare you as a little grandmaster of the rivers and lakes, I'm afraid that you won't be able to defeat the two ghost cultivators of the Qi Refining Realm!" ”

The young man's face was expressionless, but his words were extremely frightened, "It turned out to be a ghost, hey, it scared me to death." ”

As soon as the words fell, the young man pointed and wiped horizontally, and a white light crossed, and only he and Liu Guzhou were left on the riverside.

The young man jumped to Liu Guzhou's side and carried him on his shoulder, grinned, and said to himself, "This job is so easy. ”

The young man suddenly felt a chill down his spine, and hurriedly turned around, and there was a fat man squatting above him with a wine gourd in his hand and a knife in his belt.

Hu Er grinned and said gratefully: "You are a good person!" ”

The young man didn't see anything wrong when he looked horizontally and vertically, there was no aura fluctuation on this person's body, but he felt that he was squatting there, like a big mountain.

Out of caution, the young man shouted a few words in his heart, but the donkey not far away did not move.

Hu Er smiled and said: "This thousand miles alone is very good, but the realm is a little lower." ”

The young man took a deep breath and slowly put down Liu Guzhou.

"This job is not easy, I don't earn any money, can I go?"

Hu Er smiled and said, "Horizontal or vertical?" ”

The young man smiled bitterly: "Do you have a choice?" ”

Hu Er suddenly sighed and said softly: "Tell you a secret, in fact, I also came to take him away, and now I have become a cook." Before and after me, there were two more people in total, both of whom had come to take him away. As a result, one became a bookkeeper, I became a cook, and the other became a hall runner. ”

After a pause, Hu Er smiled and said, "Huh! Now there is a shortage of long-term workers. ”