The fourth year of auspicious charm, the fourteenth day of the first month.

Chu Zhixia's palms were stuffed with a layer of hot sweat, she looked at the bleak battle situation on the chessboard, and admitted embarrassedly, "I lost." ”

Heizi changed his previous sophisticated and calm appearance, and strangled all the whites, revealing his edge. Chu Zhixia's white son had no power to fight back at all, and he had already reached a desperate point, so he could only admit defeat.

Chu Mingyan held down her hand, "Know this time, how can you win?" ”

Chu Zhixia looked at the chessboard again seriously, and said with a thirst for knowledge, "How can I win?" ”

Chu Mingyan reached out and pressed the edge of the chessboard and flipped the chessboard violently. The black and white chess pieces clanged to the ground, like a sudden spring rain, and the sound was endless. Chu Mingyan's light-colored pupils seemed to reflect a line of polished sword blades, and the light was cold.

"This is the last lesson I taught you, Changle." Chu Mingyan said lightly, "Then you won." ”

"Changle ...... Learn. ”

Chu Mingyan looked at her serious face with some distraction, and suddenly laughed. Chu Mingyan rarely showed such a relaxed, unguarded smile, and even a little brisk, which made Chu Zhixia a little stunned.

"I never thought I'd teach you this one day." Chu Mingyan shook his head, "It's really a creation that makes people." Changle, accompany my brother to see my father. ”

——

Chu Shixia only had a vague impression of his father, the spiritual position above the ancestral hall, and countless military exploits. But what impressed her father more was her father's woman, who was fat and thin, and competed for beauty.

Some of those aunts have soft waists, and some have silky eyes, and it is hard to imagine that there will be so many beauties in the bitter cold clouds. They are the most beautiful decorations in the northern palace of the town, and they decorate the dead and silent mansion with all their glory.

The king of the old town is a qualified general, but he is not a qualified father.

The old princess died of dystocia after giving birth to Chu Zhixia, and Chu Mingyan was only a teenager with a weak body, so he had to appease his frightened younger brother and take care of his infant sister. He was born to protect many and to be relied upon by many.

The name "Zhixia" was given by the aunt who was most favored by the king of the old town at that time, and it was a beauty with a strange fragrance, and she had her own style with or without laughing. The king of the old town north was fighting outside, and Chu Zhixia was thrown into the palace to be taken care of by her.

"I've always been thinking these days that Chang'an and I should have killed that woman earlier."

In the ancestral hall, Chu Mingyan took a candle and sat side by side with Chu Zhixia under the eaves. That little light can't shine through the deep snowy night in front of you.

"Aunt Xiang?" Chu Zhixia shook his head, "Actually, I don't even remember what she looks like." ”

Aunt Xiang died when Chu Zhixia was five years old.

That year, the homeless people rioted, and Aunt Xiang deliberately threw Chu Zhixia on the way to escape. Chu Mingyan and Chu Mingxiu disobeyed the marching order and searched around the refugee group before they rescued Chu Zhixia, who was almost reduced to a meal on the refugee's plate.

Back in the palace, Chu Mingyan ran in public and dragged Aunt Xiang's two children to death, and saw her crying to death with a cold eye, so he killed her with a sword.

"Do you know why she named you 'Zhixia'?" Chu Mingyan's voice was a little cold, "'Morning fungi don't know obscurity, cockroaches don't know spring and autumn', she wants you to be an ant who dies in the morning and twilight." She wants you to die early so that her daughter can take your place. These days, I'm always wondering, is this the name destined for you to leave our shelter one day? ”

"Brother," Chu Zhixia grabbed his brother's trembling wrist and said firmly, "I will live a hundred years old, and so will you." This definitely won't be the last year we'll have together as a family. ”

"Changle, why did you grow up overnight," Chu Mingyan was a little bitter, "Is it because my brother didn't protect you well?" ”

Chu Mingyan and Chu Mingxiu are eagles, but they are eagles trapped and dead at the border pass. Chu Zhixia pinned all the things they couldn't get, the only partiality, the unreserved love, and the freedom to do whatever they wanted.

She is their sister and their eyes that see the world.

"Because I'm afraid of losing you," Chu Zhixia held his hand, gently put the side of his face on it, and whispered, "Far more than you are afraid of losing me." Brother, you don't know how scared I am. ”

I'm afraid that when I wake up the next morning, I'll be dry bones in the grave, with you and my second brother lying next to me. The next snow in the clouds is just a dream for the dying man.

I don't want to spend even a day alone in this world.

I can't make it through.

——

The fifteenth day of the first month.

Chu Zhixia hid Buddhist beads under his sleeves, and wore a long blue jacket with three layers inside and three layers outside, and a white fox fur on his shoulders. She knelt on the futon amid prayer, Wu Zhu's fingers dipped in water and sprinkled on her forehead.

Worship your ancestors before you go away, and your ancestors will bless your children in a foreign land.

Outside the ancestral hall, there were a few elders of the Chu family.

"Changle, you are fifteen years old, you should have taken the word a long time ago. You are leaving home today, and this matter should not be delayed any longer. Chu Mingyan stood beside her and said loudly, "Eldest brother is like a father, now I will take the word 'Mo Xue' for you." ”

With the vicious curse of the name "Chu Zhixia" disappearing, her brother gave her the word "snow", which covered her winter and summer.

Don't ask for anything else, just ask her to be safe.

"Mo Xue, thank you, eldest brother."

——

Outside the palace in the north of the town, the carriages and horses have been prepared.

The eunuchs and scholars of the mission all waited respectfully under the car, and a man with a knife was in the middle.

The black armored soldiers stood like clouds, and Chu Mingxiu rode slowly from the end of the long street.

Before Chu Mingxiu went to the battlefield, he was also a well-known merry young man in the clouds, but in recent years, his murderous aura has become more and more serious, so that no one dares to look at him. The green horse trotted through the way that the soldiers had given way, and Chu Ming's figure was unbridled and chic.

He stopped beside the chariot and asked Yuzhu, who was guarding the car, as if unintentionally, "Those people are the lackeys from the imperial capital?" ”

Yuzhu nodded solemnly.

It happened that Mr. Liang and Chu Mingxiu in the mission greeted him, Chu Mingxiu smiled warmly and arched his hand to him, turned his head and whispered to Yuzhu with a smile: "I really want to kill them." ”

The man holding the knife in the mission frowned, raised his eyes and looked at Chu Mingxiu. Chu Mingxiu looked back indifferently, and the smile on his lips did not decrease.

Yuzhu's dignified smile almost cracked.

Chu Mingxiu was crawling around in the barracks at the age of fourteen, and he couldn't find a good skin the size of a palm on his body. He said that if he wanted to kill someone, he would definitely not let this person live until dawn the next day, such as Aunt Xiang, such as his ill-intentioned cousin in the courtyard.

The fortune teller said that Chu Zhixia was evil, but Yuzhu felt that the murderous aura of the second son was much heavier than Chu Zhixia.

When Yuzhu was worried, Chu Mingyan led Chu Zhixia out.

"Changle, the second brother has military affairs, so he can't send you to the imperial capital, he can only send you to Izumo." Chu Mingxiu smiled and said, "Don't be angry with the second brother, the second brother has good things for you." ”

"I've seen a lot of good things, what does the second brother want to give me?" Chu Zhixia tilted his head and smiled slightly.

Chu Mingxiu took off the long sword hanging from the saddle and threw it far away.

Chu Zhixia raised his hand to catch it, and his tentacles were cold—the scabbard was tightly wrapped in black shark skin, and the subtle lines on it were faintly visible in the sunlight. She drew her sword three inches out of the sheath, and the sword light was cold, revealing the three ancient characters engraved on the sword, "Drinking Stream Snow".

"The people in the clouds are like this, I hope you will come to tell the nobles in the imperial capital, don't take away the gadgets of the housemate chatting about homesickness." Chu Mingxiu bowed slightly on horseback, "Chu Mingxiu is here to thank you." ”

A group of messengers turned pale, daring to be angry but not daring to speak.

Chu Zhixia wanted to laugh when he saw it, but he held it back.

Chu Mingyan gently slapped her on the back, as if brushing the snow dust off her clothes, and said softly, "Go ahead." ”

Go, Changle, don't look back.

If you look back once, my brother will be unbearable.

In the middle of the dark armor soldiers, red flags fluttered. Chu Zhixia was like a tender shoot growing out of this pile of black iron covered with snow, and boarded the chariot step by step. Chu Mingyan looked at her back, Chu Mingxiu looked down at her side face, and everyone was looking at her.

But she didn't look back.

Not once.

Chu Mingyan closed his eyes tightly and felt that it was difficult to breathe.

"Send Miss!"

I don't know who shouted, and then the tsunami-like sound of the mountain roared in front of the Zhenbei Wangfu.

"Congratulations to the eldest lady!"

Letting a fifteen-year-old girl go to the imperial capital in exchange for the imperial capital's trust in the border pass is an insult to these soldiers who fought on the battlefield. However, they had no choice, not even the king of Zhenbei himself.

Chu Zhixia sat in the chariot and clenched the drinking stream snow.

"Let's go." Chu Zhixia said in a low voice, "If you take one step too late, I'm afraid I won't be able to leave." ”

——

Outside the meditation room of Huguo Temple, the abbot of Dream Machine paced back and forth, scratching his oily and slippery head, and hesitated again and again before knocking on the door.

"Shen Zhou, the eldest lady's frame has gone out of the city, are you still angry with her?" The abbot of the dream machine was a little embarrassed, "It's up to you whether you go or not, but if you regret it, I'm afraid you won't be able to catch up later." ”

Regret is bound to regret, if you can't catch up, you will inevitably find trouble with someone else.

Shen Zhou turned a deaf ear, sat down at the table and folded the opened letters one by one.

The letters did not pass through the inn, but were thrown in from the other side of the wall, and several were even tucked under pillows while he was away.

The letter wrote a lot of strange things to see, strange stories from all over the world, scenery outside the Central Plains Pass, and some of the letterheads were painted behind the towering Snow Pass, the undulating sheep's back on the grassland, and the lonely boat in the drizzle in the south of the Yangtze River.

The person who wrote the letter must not like to read, most of the wording was copied from books, and the choice of words and sentences was not elegant and subtle, revealing straightforward clumsiness.

Shen Zhou can imagine her pinching her pen and scratching her ears and cheeks - look, it's also fun here, it's beautiful there, this world is very good, you don't have to follow me to the imperial capital, if you can, don't be angry with me again.

Shen Zhou laughed out loud in anger, folded the last letter and stuffed it into his arms, and rushed out of the door.