In the west of Xiangzhou, there is a city called Wuwei, which is the place where Ning Zhi led the army to the Northern Barbarian Army here, built a city to praise the might, and shocked the Northern Barbarians.

After the establishment of Xiangzhou, some disabled veterans stayed here with their families, and Ning Zhi took good care of these veterans, so he asked Xiangzhou to allocate some money and food to renovate the original town.

Expand the post road, erect the city wall, build the city tower, and within a few years, it will become a large city in the west of Xiangzhou that is comparable to Tianshui City.

The people in Wuwei City are the same as the name of their city, advocating the military, which is also related to the fact that most of them are from the Ning family.

Walking in Wuwei City, the old man you meet casually may be a brave soldier who killed the Northern Barbarians more than 20 years ago.

Now more than half of the remaining battalions in the 12 battalions of the Xiangzhou Army are Wuwei sergeants, and even their general Chen Xinru is a Wuwei veteran, and it is said that he still has some relationship with General Ning.

Outside the city, there was still some distance from Wuwei City, and Ning Xiaochuan rode on a post road full of pedestrians.

In spring, it was still very cold, Ning Xiaochuan did not rush into the city, the dead trees on both sides of the post road sprouted, and a vendor who sold Xiangzhou flower candy set up a shed to sell it twenty steps away from the post road.

Because of the cold weather, although there are many people coming and going on the post road, there are very few people who can stop to buy candy.

Ning Xiaochuan walked out of the post road, walked on the gravel ground, and went straight to the candy vendor, who had not opened for a long time, and saw a rich boy with a bulging money bag on his waist coming here, and hurriedly greeted him with a smile.

"Childe, let's have one, there are osmanthus flowers, peony flowers, moon flowers, Qingzhou begonia flowers, Jingzhou cherry blossoms, these are all the best flower candy boiled out of their ancestral craftsmanship, and they don't cost money if they are not delicious."

There are seven or eight large and small enamel pots in the bamboo basket in front of you, and just standing next to the bamboo basket, you can smell the fragrance of flowers.

He remembered that when he was a child, there was also a vendor selling candy in front of his house, and the fourth brother liked it the most, at that time he was young, and his mother didn't let him eat it, and the fourth brother would secretly touch some on his lips every time he ate it, so that he could taste some sweetness.

Smelling the familiar smell, Ning Xiaochuan leaned down and quipped, "This flower candy craft is unique to Xiangzhou, but it's a pity that the process of boiling flower candy is cumbersome, and this crockpot syrup is afraid that it takes a lot of time."

Relatively, the price of this one is not low, you just said that it is not delicious and you don't need money, if I finish eating it and deliberately say that it is not delicious, can you still ask me for money? ”

The young trader smiled, "Childe still knows a lot, but I said this, the gentleman said, the horse is difficult to chase, if the son thinks it is not delicious, then he should not want money." ”

Ning Xiaochuan smiled softly, pointed to a porcelain jar with begonia flowers written on it, and said, "Here's a piece of begonia flowers." ”

The young vendor nodded and smiled, and then skillfully opened the sugar jar, and the fragrant begonia fragrance was refreshing.

I saw the man take out two toothpick-like bamboo sticks from the bamboo basket and stir them back and forth in the sugar jar, and the viscous syrup condensed on the two bamboo sticks with the man's turning palm.

In the end, the man pulled hard, and a fragrant flower candy was ready, and the syrup about the size of a baby's fist was wrapped on a bamboo skewer, and the amount was sufficient, and there was no cutting corners.

Take a sip and it's sweet.

"Make a price." Ning Xiaochuan said while eating,

The vendor smiled a few years ago and stretched out two fingers, "Twenty Wen." ”

Ning Xiaochuan smiled and said while eating, "It's really not cheap." ”

The young man closed the porcelain jar and said with a smile: "You are knowledgeable, my price is low, if you enter Wuwei City, or go to Dunhuang, then you can't say anything without buying forty or fifty Wen."

My father is a veteran soldier in the army, followed the old general to attack the city and plunder the land for more than ten years, and broke an arm in the last battle with the Northern Barbarian Tiele Tu, the old general was kind-hearted, placed my father in Wuwei City, and gave our family a large amount of settling-in allowance and pension.

My father said, this person does things, he wants to have a clear conscience, whether he is marching and fighting, whether he is a businessman or a farmer, how much is the money, life does not bring death, it is not easy for anyone to go through this world, it is enough to have food and clothing. ”

Ning Xiaochuan didn't expect that the vendor in front of him was actually a veteran of the Ning family, and what this vendor could say at a young age was very thorough.

"Is that why you don't go to the city to buy it, but you are outside the city?"

"Sort of." The young man touched his head and smiled embarrassedly, "A few words of trickery made Childe laugh." ”

Ning Xiaochuan laughed at himself, "There are a few people in the world who live so brightly, but I envy you." ”

The young trader was also talkative, looked at Ning Xiaochuan and said, "Speaking of envy, in fact, it should be us who envy a scholar like Gongzi, who can read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles, unlike us, who will only have this one-third of an acre in this life." ”

"The master is in the world, and the little brother can be regarded as the hidden dragon and crouching tiger in the market, and the master is also a master." Ning Xiaochuan gave a thumbs up as he spoke.

The two looked at each other and smiled, and finally Ning Xiaochuan took out some broken silver and handed it to the vendor, which was about worth more than a hundred yuan.

The young trader immediately wanted to return it to Ning Xiaochuan, but Ning Xiaochuan refused, saying that it was just to buy a flower candy for the old man in the family, and the old man had been bitter all his life, so he should taste the sweetness.

The young trader only felt that the son in front of him was different from the one he had encountered, and his eyes revealed compassion and kindness.

Life is like a reverse journey, I am also a pedestrian, a person will meet a lot of passers-by in a lifetime, can not stand scrutiny, most of them are seen after never seen again, can not be bored is rare, if you can leave a good thought, it is very rare.

Ning Xiaochuan rode on the horse, finished eating the flower candy, looked at Wuwei City in front of him, and looked along the post road, the clouds on the horizon were thick, layer upon layer, accompanied by the cold wind blowing through the thick clouds as if they were about to fall, there was a feeling that the clouds of the nine heavens were sagging.

Ning Xiaochuan entered the city, there were guards outside the city, but there were fewer than Tianshui City, there were many passers-by in the city, most of them were business travelers, selling goods.

After entering the city, Ning Xiaochuan walked towards a mansion surnamed Chen in the city, there are also three religions and nine streams in Wuwei City, and there are also big families, and this surname Chen is one of the big families.

The son of the Chen family is Chen Xinru, the general who stayed in the battalion, the second son was only outstanding when he was young, and he was just promoted to the country to study last year.

At this time, in the Chen Mansion, in front of the small window railing, an elderly man was listening to the narration of a woman with pear blossoms and rain in front of him.

But when he said that he was emotional, he inevitably burst into tears, Chen Xianyu, as the head of the Chen family, has a slender figure, a jade tree in the wind, although his temples are slightly white, but the perseverance and courage between his eyebrows are rare among his peers.

This is also related to his background in Xiang Zhoujun, watching his daughter who married a wealthy family in Jiangnan being sent home with a letter of resignation, Chen Xianyu naturally felt uncomfortable.

After her daughter finished speaking, after confirming that there was no follow-up, the old man who relied on his military exploits to get his current family business seemed to have aged a lot in an instant.

He looked at his daughter's red eyes, gently stroked his daughter's hair, shook his head and said, "They don't look down on you, they look down on me, an uneducated father, come back when they come back, stay in the house these days, don't think so much about the rest, then the Wang family will have nothing to do with my Chen family in the future." ”

The youngest daughter of the Chen family had red eyes, and directly hugged her old father and cried bitterly.

She cried that she was not as beautiful as the kiln, and cried that she was a bad person, thinking that she was a gentleman, but she didn't expect to be a sanctimonious hypocrite.

There was the sound of the family's footsteps outside the door, and Chen Guoru quickly tightened her crying and let go of her father with tears.

The old man asked, "What's the matter?" ”

"There is a son outside the door who asks to see him, saying that he is an old man, and he is desperate and comes to you." Jia Ding arched his hand.

"After the deceased?"

The head of the Chen family was stunned in his heart, could it be the descendant of a certain comrade-in-arms?

Thinking of this, he walked directly to the outside of the house, and said as he walked, "Miss's affairs should not be spread outside, if there are rumors in the market, I can't spare you." ”

"Yes." The family looked down.

At the entrance of Chen's Mansion, a white banner was hung on the four-pillar gate and gilt plaque.

Ning Xiaochuan thought that something had happened to the Chen family, but when he asked, he realized that it was the late Ning Zhi, the reigning old general of the Chen family, who hung the flag and guarded the spirit.

Chen Xianyu, the head of the Chen family, is Ning Xiaochuan's uncle according to his generation, and when General Ning Lao was fighting in the east and west, Chen Xianyu was the captain of the pro-army under Ning Zhi.

When attacking Xiangzhou, in order to protect Ning Zhi, Chen Xianyu was hit by three arrows and almost died on the spot, but fortunately he was rescued, but he also fell into a dantian that was damaged, and his true anger was lost, and he left the Ning family army in desperation.

I heard Mrs. Ning say that when Chen Xianyu left the army, Ning Xiaochuan was less than a year old.

"Squeak!"

In his thoughts, the door of Chen's Mansion opened, and surrounded by a group of family members, a handsome old man with white temples walked out.

The old man was in a hurry, but when he saw that the man in front of him was a gorgeously dressed young man, he was also shocked.

The young man is neither as dark and rough as the Northwest man, nor as fair and slender as the Jiangnan Shizi, handsome and tall, like a martial artist from a rich family.

Ning Xiaochuan knew at a glance that the old man in front of him was the head of the Chen family, so he bowed his hand, "Little nephew, visit Uncle Chen." ”

Chen Xianyu frowned and looked at Ning Xiaochuan, "Virtuous nephew, seeing that you are dressed like this, you should be a rich and noble family in the Central Plains, how can you say that you are desperate and come to my Chen Mansion?" ”

Ning Xiaochuan chuckled, looked at the white cloth on the waist of the head of the Chen family, and his eyes were extremely sincere, "My father and mother died of illness, and the little nephew came to Xiangzhou to join the eldest brother, but the eldest brother was in Dunhuang, and there was a lot of inconvenience, and there was nowhere to go for a while. ”

"The old man of the Central Plains, the virtuous nephew, your father ......" His old comrades-in-arms are basically veterans who followed the old general to fight the world, and they are basically in Xiangzhou when they are alive, if you want to talk about acquaintances far away in the Central Plains, then there is only General Ning, but is he worthy of the old man in the old general's mouth?

Ning Xiaochuan didn't answer, just smiled, seeing this smile, Chen Xianyu felt more and more that the young man in front of him was like a person.

Suddenly thinking of something, Chen Xianyu's excited fingers trembled, pointing at Ning Xiaochuan who couldn't speak for a long time, tears brushed away, seeing this scene, Ning Xiaochuan stepped forward to support the old master, bowing his head slightly.

At this moment, the old man was weeping and grieving.

Chen Guoru, who saw his father like this on the small courtyard, wondered in his heart, who was this young man, and why his father was more excited to see him than himself.

Thinking of this, the already uncomfortable girl was even more aggrieved, gritted her teeth and tried not to cry, but the tears still fell on the back of her hand, cold to the bone......