Maybe it was because he had been sleeping for too long, when he was awakened by a violent cough, Ouyang Xuan didn't know where he was for a while, and his whole body was weak. He twisted his neck to look around, and found himself lying on a low wooden bed in a dimly lit hut, where the sunlight shone through the walls of bamboo, forming pillars of light of varying thicknesses on the potholed dirt floor, the roof was made of dense reeds, and the faint sound of the murmuring river could be heard. He struggled to get up, but a feeling of dizziness hit him, so he had to close his eyes and continue to lie on the bed. Memories slowly began to wake up. He slowly remembered the hike during the "May Day" holiday, and remembered that he fell into the Jingjiang River under the cliff in the wind and rain, and was then swept away by the rapids......

Ouyang Xuan, 25 years old this year, graduated from a second-rate university in Chengdu three years ago, because the chemical engineering major he studied belongs to the "Tiankeng" major with difficult employment, he has been repeatedly frustrated in the job search during the graduation season, and he can't find his ideal job at all, and he has also broken his desire to stay in the big city. At the request of his parents, he was admitted to the career establishment of his hometown Chongzhou City and became a librarian in the library. Chongzhou City is a suburban county of Chengdu City, only 50 kilometers away from the main urban area, which is not far away. The librarian's income is not high, but he is better at leisure, and it is in line with his interest in reading, so although Ouyang Xuan is unwilling, he slowly accepts this plain life. He reads books when he has nothing to do, and he especially likes to read history and military books. It's just that his family background is ordinary, and he has a typical passerby face, as a low-profile and not handsome affordable man, his personality is introverted and shy, so he still doesn't have a girlfriend. In his own words, "the people he likes are already famous, and the people who like him are miserable." However, as a lying flat family, I read books during work hours, and went to the wild mountains and hiked on holidays, but I also lived a comfortable life.

The most beautiful April day in the world. This time it was the "May Day" holiday, which was the most beautiful season in the western Sichuan Plain, so Ouyang Xuan asked the travelers from the outdoor group to hike in the mountains of Jiezi Ancient Town. Jiezi Ancient Town is close to the famous Qingcheng Mountain, and has become a popular place for off-road and hiking around Chengdu in recent years due to its convenient transportation and close to mountains and rivers. Because Ouyang Xuan is a senior traveler and a native of Chongzhou, he was pushed by the group to be the team leader, responsible for walking in the forefront of the team, leading the way and navigating the way, and cleaning up the thorns on the road by the way.

The Jiulonghou Mountain is located in the Longmen Mountains in the transition zone from the Chengdu Plain to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with an altitude of about 2,000 meters. The first half of the trip went well, but on the way back, there were troubles. Just as Ouyang Xuan led the team to climb over the top of the Harrier Rock, the sky suddenly darkened. The mountainous area around Jiezi Ancient Town is located in the famous West China rain screen belt, and the weather is often changing, the sky can be sunny one minute ago, and it can be dark clouds in the blink of an eye. He leaned on the ground with the trekking pole in his hand, panting and looking up at the gloomy sky, he couldn't help but frown. As a senior traveler, Ouyang Xuan often encounters bad weather and even snowstorms and storms when hiking, and they also brought enough rainproof equipment this time. It's just that unlike the usual weather changes, today he saw a strange blue-purple in the dark clouds drifting over, which made him feel a little uneasy in his heart, so he shouted to his companions to hurry up, and he still walked to the front of the team to lead the way.

In a short time, the mountain wind accompanied by scattered raindrops blew up, and in an instant, it was accompanied by lightning and thunder, and the torrential rain came as scheduled. Bad weather makes the rough roads even more precipitous. "It's easy to go up the mountain and difficult to go down", not to mention that the wilderness trail from the mountainside to the foot of the mountain is like hanging on the mountain, next to the trail is a cliff more than ten meters high, and under the cliff is the surging Wenjing River. Although the road is dangerous on weekdays, it is not too difficult for Ouyang Xuan, but the rain today is too heavy, so he has to carefully bury his head in finding the way. When he came to the last corner, Ouyang Xuan was so shocked by an extremely loud thunder that his ears rang, he couldn't help but raise his head, and saw a ball of lightning the size of a room in front of him slowly drifting by, and in an instant, the air was filled with strange smells, and the scenery in his field of vision became colorful and blurry and distorted. In a terrified trance, he stepped into the air, stumbled and fell off a cliff, and fell straight into the rushing water. The last memory that remained in his mind was the exclamation of his teammates.

The sound of a violent cough came again, interrupting Ouyang Xuan's memories. He turned his head to follow the voice, and the cough came from an old man in tattered clothes and gray hair in the corner of the shack. Seeing him wake up, the old man brought a clay bowl and handed it to him, "Drink." The old man spoke with a strange accent, not very clear but intelligible. Looking at the thick soup mixed with soybeans and sorghum rice, he felt the muscles and intestines at the moment, so he tried to sit up and drink directly to the bottom of the bowl in one go, before he reluctantly returned the bowl to the old man.

"How is the elder feeling now?" The old man asked.

"Thank you, uncle!" After the thick soup was down, Ouyang Xuan felt that his strength was back. "Where am I? What kind of place is this? ”

"Elder, this is Jiangqu Township, Yongkang County," the old man replied.

"Yongkang County? Why haven't I heard of it, how far is it from Jiezi Ancient Town? Ouyang Xuan scratched his head, as a senior traveler, he was very familiar with the local geography, what Yongkang County did the People's Republic of China have in Sichuan and Chengdu? However, he seems to have seen it somewhere, during the Southern Song Dynasty, Jiezi Town was indeed the seat of Yongkang County, thinking of this, he thought that this uncle was really funny, and it was serious to make a joke.

"Jiezi Ancient Town?" The old man's wrinkled face was full of bewilderment.

"There was only Yongkang County in the Southern Song Dynasty, and now it is ....... hahaha."

"Elder, this is Yongkang County, Chongqing Mansion of the Great Song Dynasty. Old man, I won't speak in front of the monks," the old man said firmly.

Even by comparison, Ouyang Xuan learned that the old man's name was Wang Da, this was Yongkang County, Chongqing Prefecture, Chengdu Fu Road, during the Baoyou period of the Great Song Dynasty, and the Baoyou year name was Wang Da when he was supporting the bamboo raft to cross the people, and he learned from the passers-by that it was specifically how many years of Baoyou, and Wang Da, who was a rural villager, was not very clear. But from the mouth of Wang Da, it is known that since he was young, the Tartars have entered the four roads of Kouchuan Gorge many times, burning, killing, looting, and wantonly slaughtering, and now Shu is full of ruined walls, and it has long been ten rooms and nine empty, and the land is barren, and it is no longer the country of abundance of "Yang Yi Yi Two".

"There are only more than 100 people left in Jiangqu Township now", Wang Da's face was full of sadness. Although seeing Wang Dazhong's honest appearance didn't look like lying, Ouyang Xuan didn't believe him, he just thought that he was old and confused, and he was just talking nonsense.

"Does the government care about you? Why don't you go to Yongkang County and Chongqing Fucheng? Ouyang Xuan didn't believe it, after all, in China in the 21st century, all kinds of scams emerged one after another, and there were not a few scammers encountered by his colleagues and friends.

"The city and the fort are inhabited only by officials and soldiers, and a little cloth is also a strong man, like my old and infirm useless people, not allowed to enter," Wang Da lamented.

In Wang Da's narration, the current Tartar scouts still haunt and plunder the countryside from time to time, and the villagers who were not killed either went down the river and took refuge in Jiading Mansion, Chongqing Mansion and other places, or hid in the mountains, and Wang Da's family of nine was also killed by the Tartars so that he was the only one left. Because he was too old to run, and because he had nowhere to go, he stayed in the local area to make a living by growing some food and occasionally catching some fish, and the tattered sackcloth and long hair tied up randomly on his body also corroborated his statement, which made Ouyang Xuan panic for a while.

In Wang Da's account, he was fishing on a raft by the river outside his house two days ago, when he saw a person lying on his stomach on the river beach in the distance, so he went to investigate. Because he still had a snort, he carried Ouyang Xuan who was in a coma back home, and it has been two days and one night now. Wang Da's words made Ouyang Xuan more and more flustered, and he couldn't help but touch his head with both hands and kept rubbing his hair. His fingers touched the extremely short cut hair, which made his skin tingle slightly, and he now understood why Wang Da called him "elder" over and over again. It was this inch, strange clothes and strange bags that made Wang Da misunderstand. Because in the thirty miles of mountains in the upper reaches of the river, there is a Huacheng Temple quite famous, although it is a period of war, there are still wandering monks from time to time to visit here. Wang Da mistakenly thought that he was a wandering monk who had fallen into the water.