Huang Hu'er licked the ten fingers twice with his tongue until all the grease on them was licked, and then poured a clay pot full of mountain spring water, supported his swollen belly, slowly lay down in the grass next to the sugarcane seedlings, and smacked his lips with satisfaction: "Damn, this is the life of people", Li Ya'er next to him said: "This has to thank the Thunderbolt Army for their life, and thank Lord Ouyang and Lord Yu for their compassion, otherwise we may have frozen and starved to death, and turned into bones gnawed by wild dogs on the side of the road."

The two came to Liuqiu Island by chance half a year ago to plant sugar cane. The standard distance of the sugarcane plantation is to drink clear soup porridge with wild vegetables in your spare time, eat rice with salty vegetables when you work in the fields, and eat meat if you work well. Although the first two can also mix with a round belly and have enough nutrition - the two of them have grown tall and strong in the past six months, but where is the meat smell of vegetarian food? Therefore, the first thing they did when they opened their eyes every day was to look forward to the bell of working in the field, and as soon as the bell rang, they grabbed their farm tools and rushed to the sugarcane field, hoping to win the labor competition award of the day - the prize was a large piece of fat pork. It's just that they want to eat meat, and others want to eat meat, and the competition between them is extremely fierce. In the past six months, Huang Hu'er has only eaten meat twice, and although Li Ya'er has not won a single award, she has also eaten meat with Huang Hu'er.

Both of them were originally people under the rule of Li Pu in Shandong. After Shandong was occupied by the Jin state, the Han people rebelled against the brutal rule of the Jurchens, and Li Pu's father, Li Quan, was the leader of one of the rebels, the Red Jacket Army. At the time of the battle between Mengjin and Jin, Li Quan took refuge in the Mongol army, and later became the strongest Han army in Shandong, occupying the eastern part of Shandong. After Li Quan's death, Li Pu inherited his father's throne with the permission of the Mongols and married the Mongol king. Although Li Pu and other Han military princes were Han Chinese, they also levied and extorted tyranny against the people under their rule, and the taxes they collected were only slightly better than those of the Mongols. Under this kind of oppression, a large number of people went bankrupt and displaced, either selling themselves into slavery and attaching themselves to the big landlords, or fleeing to the Southern Song Dynasty. It's just that the Southern Song Dynasty was also a serious land annexation, and the refugees who fled to the Song Dynasty by luck were also clothed and foodless, and became beggars on the streets.

Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er are both homeless orphans who live by begging, although they are both fourteen or fifteen years old, they look only about ten years old due to malnutrition. Yellow-haired and blue-eyed, his mother gave birth to him after being humiliated by a Mongol soldier. When his mother died of illness when he was seven years old, he wandered to the countryside and survived with tenacious vitality, and was known as the Yellow Beard because of his physical features. Li Ya'er is a native of Jiaozhou, and the reason why he is called Li Ya'er is because he is black and his voice is hoarse. When he was ten years old, his parents and clansmen were killed in the slaughter of the Mongol army, and he escaped with his life, so he wandered around begging for work, and later met Huang Hu'er, who had a sympathy for his fate.

One day in November last year, the two of them were snuggling up in a ruined temple and were talking weakly. They hadn't eaten for three days, and the fire around them had begun to go out, but they were hungry and cold, and they didn't have the strength to go out and look for firewood. At this moment, the cold wind outside the temple carried snowflakes, and their bodies were only wrapped in rags, and they couldn't walk a few steps, and their whole bodies would freeze and stiffen. At this moment, Huang Hu'er is thinking about her mother's appearance, but after many years, the appearance of her mother in her mind has become blurred and vaguely indestructible. Li Ya'er pleaded softly with her companion that after she died, she must not let the wild dogs eat the corpse, otherwise her soul would not be able to return to her parents.

Hunger and cold can make people in a state of collapse, just when the two of them were in a trance, the only remaining wooden door of the broken temple creaked open, and a gust of cold wind poured in, making the two of them excited. Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er also thought about tearing down the wooden door to keep warm, but one had no tools and no strength in their bodies, and the other was that if the wooden door was demolished and the cold wind poured into the house, the two would die faster. After the cold wind, three strong men dressed as monks walked into the ruined temple and walked straight to the fire. Seeing that the fire was about to go out, two of the monks turned back and went out, while the other sat on the fire and looked at the two of them.

Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er were so hungry that they couldn't get up, but they forced themselves to talk to the visitors. It's just that this monk is full of southern accents, and the two of them don't understand it. Fortunately, not long after, the two monks who had gone out returned with firewood. They first stirred up the fire, and then took out the dry food in their bags and roasted it. As the aroma of food overflowed, Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er's stomachs also growled. Seeing the undisguised green light in their eyes, the leading monk smiled understandingly, and handed over two more baked wheat cakes.

The two snatched the wheat cake with lightning speed and shoved it directly into their mouths. Seeing this, the monks hurriedly took out the gourd they carried with them and poured a few mouthfuls of water for him, so that he could relieve himself. The water in this gourd was not ordinary water, but light wine with a sweet taste, which made Huang Hu'er can't help but take a few sips. With the hot food in their stomachs, the two slowly became angry, and the conversation box also opened. One of the monks was from Haizhou, Shandong, and there was no obstacle to talking to the two, and several people became acquainted with each other at the moment.

When they learned that Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er were both lonely and helpless vagabonds, the monks told the two that there was a big island called Liuqiu overseas, which was rich in products without harsh winters, and was also rich in grain and molasses, which could be called a paradise on earth. The owner of the island took pity on the Han people in the north who suffered from the pain of the Mongol swords and soldiers, and the oppression of the Han army and the princes, so he was willing to accept the hungry and cold people to settle down. When you get there, as long as you are willing to work hard, you will have a field to plant, clothes to wear, a good job, and meat to eat. Hearing that there was meat to eat, Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er's saliva couldn't help but flow down again. The last time they ate meat was during the Spring Festival three years ago, when the two of them were hungry and sneaked into an official's house to steal a small piece of meat, but the price was that Huang Hu'er almost lost his life in the mouth of the family's vicious dog.

On the second day, the monks left the ruined temple and continued their journey inland. Before leaving, they gave them a small wooden sign, and told them that if they wanted to go to Liuqiu, they had to rush to a remote port fifteen miles south of Haizhou City before dark tomorrow, where there were ships going to Liuqiu. Huang Hu'er and Li Ya'er were also well-informed when they wandered around, and seeing that these three monks were extraordinarily knowledgeable and carrying simple knives and spears, they knew that these three people were by no means ordinary monks. It is not surprising that the monks carry knives and spears to defend themselves, not only are bandits rampant in this troubled world, but there are also many tigers and wolves wandering in the countryside to forage for food, but the monks who are strong and talk extraordinary are really an unusual number.

These monks have strange origins, and the two of them are suspicious of what they say, after all, what they see and hear when they grow up is that the lords of the government oppress and loot the poor, and they have never heard of such a kind-hearted lord who is willing to give his land to others. Why do these monks go out to deceive penniless homeless people? Could it be that he killed and ate meat? The two shuddered at the thought of this, but then laughed again. Under each other's eyes, the two of them were skinny and skinny, and they were not even qualified to become two-legged sheep. After thinking about it, the two decided to go to the harbor that the monk had mentioned. Instead of lying in a ruined temple and dying of starvation, why don't you go to the place that is called heaven on earth and fight, what if it's true?

The two hurried to the designated harbor, and sure enough, several large ships docked. When he boarded the boat and looked back, Huang Hu'er noticed that there was still a steady stream of people coming from the surrounding road leading to the harbor. After entering the cabin, they found that hundreds of people were already sitting in the cabin, and the two finally found a place to sit down in the corner. When I inquired with the people sitting around, all of them were poor people, and they all listened to the words of the traveling monks or the foot merchants, and went to the place that was called heaven on earth.