The fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival.

Longyou Liangzhou has started spring, tonight ushered in the first spring rain after the year, as big as a scoop.

Twenty miles east of Liangzhou City, there is a small town called "Yanguan", hundreds of households are planned to build a square square, and the outer edge is surrounded by a circle of low earth walls to become a small city with neat shapes.

In the first courtyard at the east entrance of the town, from the wall to the roof, it is mottled and scattered, patchwork, sewing and mending, it can be seen that the master's family is very diligent but the family situation is poor, and it is about to leak wind and rain, and it is dilapidated.

At this time, a poorly dressed and drenched young man was squatting on the threshold of the main house in the courtyard, and the room behind him was unlit and empty.

Every year on this day, the boy will be a little sad, and this year there is an extra sadness, because about half a quarter ago, a handsome young man came all the way here, jumped on the wall of his house, and said with a smile that the purpose of this trip was to take the life of his dog!

……

The boy's surname is Chu, his name is Lantern Xiao, he is an orphan, he is not very old, even if he has just turned thirteen after today, the child who was picked up does not know which day he was born, and he was picked up on the fifteenth day of the first month.

According to the old drunkard who had been dead for seven years, during the Lantern Festival thirteen years ago, when he picked up the child in a mountain col outside Liangzhou City, he was still a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.

No one knew why the more than thirty lives that were lying around the baby were killed in the wilderness, and no one knew whether his parents were among the thirty corpses, and when the old drunkard arrived at that place, there was no one alive except for the child in the package!

The old drunkard probably didn't think much about it at the time, but thought that maybe the perpetrator didn't think that he could survive as a newborn doll, or maybe he didn't care if he could survive or not, anyway, in the end, he was so lucky that he didn't make a knife to the ghost.

The winter was very long, the spring was very late, the sky outside Liangzhou City was freezing and snowing, this child was also fateful, he was not frozen to death when the old drunkard picked him up, it was really a mercy from God.

The old drunkard was originally an old Dugu with no relatives and no reason, and he was a border soldier in the border army of Liangzhou for the first half of his life, and he had no ability, and he spent most of his life in the barracks, and in the end he didn't even save a few military salaries.

Later, when he was old, he retired from the army, and he left the barracks with his broken saber that had been dusted at the bottom of the box for many years, and finally settled down in Yanguan Town, not far from the state capital.

The old drunkard who happened to have something to enter the city happened to encounter this incident, so he reported the matter in the mountain col to the official, and then took the child back to this small broken yard in Yanguan Town, and in the next few years, he could only raise the child to the age of six or seven years with a mouthful of batter and water.

Such a big murder case occurred in the borderland, the news naturally spread, and there are many kinds of speculations and theories that followed, among which the most reliable statement sounded was that they were unlucky to meet the rogue bandits who tried to kill them for money, after all, Liangzhou is a serious border area, although there has been no war in recent years, but it is indeed not too unusual to have a gang of wandering bandits.

In order to do this, the Liangzhou border army also sent a battalion of thousands of military horses to patrol and suppress bandits within a radius of hundreds of miles to ensure local tranquility, but the final result was that nothing was found.

……

Since then, seven years have passed.

The boy still remembers that he was seven years old when the old drunkard died, and that day was also a Lantern Festival.

The old man who went out early in the morning to earn a bowl of rice for their grandfather and grandson did not come back until the second half of the night, covered in a snowstorm, seriously injured and dying, and before he could wait for the seven-year-old little doll to stumble out and go out to find a Langzhong to come back, he had already swallowed his breath on the kang.

The old man had a bad temper before his death, he loved to drink very much, and his temper was even worse when he was drunk, and there were thousands of people from hundreds of households in a huge Yanguan Town, and he had lived here for nearly 20 years and was stunned that he had nowhere to find a friend.

So after Chu Yuanxiao, a seven-year-old doll at the time, sat all night after night, day after night, she could only cry while finding a place for the old man to bury his bones, and the family had no money, and he couldn't even afford a coffin.

The goose feathers were snowing, the cold wind was howling, and the biting cold was three inches into the heart, and the courtyard gate of the first courtyard at the east entrance of the town was a few steps away, and then to the foot of the mountain called the dragon's back three miles away, and the young man was now reluctant to remember how he dragged the old man's body out so far with his belt, nor did he want to recall how long the long snow footprints left behind him at that time were?

From that day on, the child who was picked up became an orphan again.

……

The courtyard of the boy's house went out of the courtyard gate and walked a few steps to the east, there was an old locust tree, the trunk was thick and strong, and several adults could hug it, and a thick trunk facing north on the crown hung a large bronze bell of no small age, the mark was mottled and crumbling.

It is said that this bronze bell was sent from the town entrance to the town to warn against horse bandits and bandits, but in recent years, the border land is peaceful, and the border army has a good way to defend the land, plus the battalion of the border army more than ten years ago turned the ground up and down in a radius of hundreds of miles, so in the following years, no one has ever rang this bronze bell again, and even later I don't know which loser stole the bell hammer hanging in the bell, so this old bronze bell has simply become an ornament, and there is no use.

There is a broken thatched hut on the other side of the town across an official road from the old locust tree with the bronze bell, when the old drunkard just died, there was still an old man surnamed Liang who was the same age as the old drunkard, and he could get a meager salary to live by keeping vigil for the town.

The old husband surnamed Liang and the old drunkard surnamed Chu are also neighbors, but they have always been very untreatable, and they never give each other a good face when they meet.

At that time, the old drunkard was newly mourned, and the seven-year-old doll suddenly lost his support, and eating a bite of food became a problem, always hungry and full, many times he would sit hungry under the old locust tree, and when he was dizzy with hunger, he looked up at the empty bronze bell without a bell hammer, comforting himself that the bronze bell was not hungry and I was not hungry, hoping that I would not be so hungry if I carried it too hard.

At this time, the old man Liang, who was in charge of the night watch, always sat in the hut, looking through the open door at the little doll sitting under the tree across the road.

An old man and a young man were silent across the road, the doll looked at the bronze bell, and the old man looked at the doll.

After about two or three months of this went by, the old man Liang, who was accustomed to pulling a face, finally couldn't stand it anymore, got up from the broken chair, walked out of the hut door, and beckoned to the little doll who was sitting under the tree again, closer to the big bronze bell.

The young man remembered that it was the first time he walked in front of the old man Liang, and the old man who was not very good-tempered only said one sentence: "Don't think about starving yourself to death if your life is not good!" No matter how bad you are, you have to be worthy of the old ghost who picked up your life! To be a human being, you have to talk about your conscience, not just think about yourself! ”

The seven-year-old little doll was a little sad to be scolded, but she didn't refute it, looking at the indifferent old man and nodded.

So after that, he had one more livelihood, and began to follow Old Man Liang every night to walk the streets and alleys to make a watch for this town, and every night he went out to go out and came back, Old Man Liang would share a copper plate with him as food money, that is, relying on the life-saving copper plate every day, this doll who didn't know whether it was a good or bad life had a life to grow from seven to ten years old.

He thought that in the future, he would follow the rickety old man through the streets and alleys every night in the night until he became an adult, and then give the old man a pension and send him to the end, and return the share that should have been given to the old drunkard to the old neighbor.

But unfortunately, God doesn't follow people's wishes, and God always seems to be reluctant to let him have a good time.

When I was ten years old, it was the Lantern Festival again.

That day, as usual, the ten-year-old boy who was standing at the door of the house waiting for Old Man Liang to set off to fight the watch, waited for a long time and didn't see the disgusting old man pull the door out of the hut.

He couldn't help but panic, and finally took the initiative to open the door of the broken thatched hut for the first time, and saw the old man who had saved his life sitting on the bamboo chair he had always loved to sit on, his eyes closed, his expression serene, but he had lost his popularity.

But this time it's better than the last time, it can be seen that Old Man Liang's popularity is somewhat better than that old drunkard, and the neighbors in the neighborhood heard that Old Man Liang passed away, and there are still people who take the initiative to help.

Several families originally wanted to put together a few thin planks to make a coffin for the old man, but the old man Liang was sitting on a chair and swallowed his breath, and it was found too late, and the body was stiff and could not be straightened or put into the coffin, and in the end there was no other way but cremation.

This burial method is actually not fashionable in Liangzhou, but there are occasionally one or two in ten miles and eight townships, and the situation of the old Liang Tou is special, so it can only be done in this way, the clay pot containing the ashes of the old man Liang is found by the young man from his own home, and the place where the clay pot is put into the soil is not far from the grave of the old drunkard, just across a small hill.

Two old men who were neighbors for more than ten years before their deaths, became neighbors again after their deaths.

Now the boy is thirteen years old, and Lao Liangtou has also been dead for three years, and now when he goes to the grave during the New Year's holidays, he will kowtow a few times in front of the two graves.

It is not easy for a living person to live, and he is grateful to the two old men who gave him a life.

……

In the following three years, although the boy has had little contact with others, he has more or less known some certain theories that have been circulating in the town, and in the past few years, he has never told anyone that he actually believes in these rumors, of course, it can be said that no one can say......

The townspeople would often talk about this half-grown doll who lived at the east entrance of the town, that he was a lonely star, and that anyone who was close to him would not end well in the end!

For example, the more than 30 lives that went out with him but were intercepted and killed in the wilderness outside Liangzhou City, and the old drunkard who picked him up, and the old husband who lived in the opposite door and gave him food with kindness, all of them died without exception in the end!

Swear, the evidence is conclusive!

In a rural place like this, most of the things that come out of nowhere, seek wind and shadows, are true or false, whispering and whispering, and they are often very easy, and few people really care about the truth or falsehood, if you have to care, you may not be able to find the source.

Some people believe and some don't, but this does not prevent the young man from being alone, few people have the courage to say more words to him, and even some people will hide from the side when they see it from afar, with strange eyes and pointing and pointing.

People don't like dogs, and this boy who really doesn't know whether he is good or bad at fortune-telling is how he has grown step by step to this day.

……

After Lao Liang passed away, the one who took over his errand was a sloppy middle-aged man, in fact, this person was a little sloppy and buried these two words, since Chu Yuanxiao knew him, it seems that he had never seen him wash his face, the ragged clothes that were more than a teenager were also full of mud, and the old cloth shoes on his feet that could not see the original color were always hanging on his feet, and the upper that should have been behind the heel had long been stained on the sole.

This raunchy and sloppy man is surnamed Hou, but he also has a good name that doesn't match his image, called Hou Junchen.

This Hou Junchen is about to be informal, three years ago Lao Liang died the day after the day from the salt official office to take over the errand, the same day directly went to the broken thatched hut at the east entrance of the town, regardless of his predecessor Lao Liang Tou was only carried out of the thatched hut yesterday, and he lay directly on the broken bed in the thatched hut and began to sleep with his head covered.

Although he no longer takes the boy with him to watch the night, he is one of the few people in the town who is willing to say a few words to the kid on the other side.

In the past three years, whenever the young man had time to sit back under the old locust tree at the entrance of the town, he liked to carry the dilapidated bamboo chair and sit outside the door of the thatched hut opposite, bare-chested and exposed, while raising his feet to rub the dirt between his toes with his hands, while shouting at the young man opposite: "Did the boy surnamed Chu bring anything to eat?" Good things have to be shared with others to be tasteful, you kid don't hide it! ”

……

Time is pushed forward day by day, and finally it is the fifteenth day of the first month of the year when the boy is thirteen years old, and it is the Lantern Festival.

When he came back from kowtowing at the foot of the dragon's back mountain outside the east entrance of the town, Hou Junchen sat at the door of the hut as always, rubbing his toes and looking at the young man with a smile and said, "You said that the fate of a lonely star like you, if you go to kowtow to the dead, will you kill those two old ghosts again?" ”

The young man who had just walked into the town was a little speechless, and he squinted sideways at the middle-aged man and choked back: "At least half of my breakfast, lunch and dinner in the past three years have gone into your stomach, why didn't I see you die in the West?" ”

The middle-aged man waved his hand as a matter of course when he heard this, "That's Lao Tzu's yang energy, just your bad idea, it's not enough to tickle Lao Tzu!" ”

The young man was too lazy to talk nonsense with this lazy man, rolled his eyes and was about to push open the courtyard door to go home, and heard the lazy voice of the man behind him: "Remember to lock the door at night, if you let unclean things into the house, your little evil anger is easy to kill yourself!" ”

The young man didn't look back, and raised his hand to wave at the man in response.

It's just that he didn't expect that what he thought was Hou Junchen's old bachelor joking, but it came true after dark, but it didn't seem to have much to do with whether he locked the door or not.

Jumping on the wall may be difficult for some people, but for others, it's not a problem.

……