Eighteen years of hunting.

Hibiscus Dynasty, Suzaku Castle.

At the end of February, good rain knows the season, when spring happens.

With the spring breeze that quietly blew yesterday evening, the silent night rain sneaked into hundreds of alleys.

It brings good sleep to the people, awakens the young shoots of Asakusa to the earth, and the whole city seems to be renewed, full of fresh earthy smell.

Before the hour came, in Taoli Lane in the south of the outer city, the concierge of the rich family had already opened the side door, and began to sweep the mud on the stone pavement in front of the gate in high spirits.

In the shimmer of the morning light, the blue-black slate became brighter and more moist after being cleaned, and stretched out in a staggered manner towards the main street.

In the mud on both sides of the stone path, grass sprouted from the edge of the stone slab, and the peach and plum trees also pulled out buds overnight.

A few slender fingers were lowered from the corner of the curtain, and the view outside the window quickly faded through the closed gap, and the carriage returned to its pre-dawn darkness.

At this time, the drizzle was drizzling, the sky was not yet bright, and the black carriage drove quietly through the empty street where the mist had cleared.

The people in the carriage had a pair of heroic sword eyebrows, a high nose, and a handsome face, and their faces were less than twenty years old.

He sat upright, his back just half a centimeter from the back wall of the carriage, and even in the dim carriage, his bright and moist starry eyes slowly closed, looking like he was resting against the wall because he had risen early.

In the coachman's gaze floating to the rear, he was just wearing an ordinary scholar's white robe, but the coachman felt that he exuded a calm aura all the time, and he always involuntarily attracted his attention.

If the coachman knows that there is a saying called "poetry and books in the belly", then he will definitely not hesitate to praise it from the bottom of his heart.

However, this is just the driver's own thoughts, and the so-called aura is just that the person in the car is breathing and practicing all the time.

After about a quarter of an hour, the carriage was already jolting up and down the road, but it was much faster than it had been on the flat streets of Taoli Lane.

"Slow down. The young man, now alias Mu Qing, whispered to the dark-skinned middle-aged coachman in front of him.

"Childe, it's not dawn yet, everyone has this mud leg alley, it's better to hurry up. The middle-aged coachman drove slowly, and turned back to Mu Qing to remind him kindly.

The place where Mu Qing was going was still in the west of the city, and the carriage set off from the south side of the city, and had already driven through the Taoli Lane where the grass and trees had just sprouted, and in about a quarter of an hour, it was now located in the southwest of the outer city.

Mud Legs Alley is actually the name of these coachmen and traders.

Before the "Heavenly Hunting" era began, a large area on this side was where the mansion of a certain big clan in Suzaku City was located. It's just that after the first year of Tengaku, the entire mansion was burned down and quickly disappeared from people's field of vision.

Even if it wasn't raining, the entire street that ran through the area was also a cross-flow of sewage, and people walking around would naturally be stained with mud, and over time they would be called Mud Legs Alley by people passing by.

Therefore, only years can be bartered, and more than ten years can make the old man older, and the old man can become a handful of soil in the cemetery outside the city, and it can also make a child of a few years old suddenly grow up and become a stranger who suddenly appears.

In the past, the main road in the outer city was the most orderly, and could accommodate three carriages in parallel, but it became a mud leg alley in the mouth of coachmen and traders. The current street has long since lost the original spaciousness, and there is no bluestone paving smoothness.

And after a night rain, the dirt in the mud legs alley is now scattered everywhere, the road surface is even more sewage, and the smell of cold smell that penetrates into the nostrils will only make people who come here nauseous and nauseous.

"Is there a place to sell breakfast food in front of you?" Mu Qing lowered the frequency of his breathing and asked the coachman thoughtfully.

"Childe has been here before? There is indeed an alley in front of the right, but it is all rough food, I'm afraid you won't get used to it. The coachman slowed down the carriage slightly, turned around, and replied enthusiastically.

Mu Qing lifted the curtain of the carriage on the right, lifted his chin slightly, maintained the coldness he had set for himself, and motioned to the coachman to look at the alley on the right with his eyes.

At this time, there happened to be a few young beggars who were not very old and dressed in tatters, and they were driven out with shouts.

The little boy of about six or seven years old at the head was dragging half of the steaming coarse grain bun in his hand, and looking at their hurried but protective appearance, he might have been chased and beaten by the white eyes just now, but now they are looking at the bun, and there is only joy in their eyes.

"There are so many little beggars here now, where did they come from?" Mu Qing asked the coachman as best he could keep his unhurried pace of speech.

Mu Qing saw that the little boy who was like the king of children, divided half of the bun into four, the largest of which was divided into the hands of a petite and beautiful child, he found that the most petite child was probably a girl, and somehow thought of his sister Peony.

"Uh......", the coachman was silent for a moment, and sighed gloomily at Mu Qing: "Now even adults can't support themselves, where can they take care of these children." ”

Because he was swept away to the Hidden Valley when he was six years old, Mu Qing didn't know what the current dynasty was like.

In the first year of the Heavenly Hunt, after the new emperor ascended the throne, he announced to the world that taxes were exempted and prisoners were pardoned.

But what are the facts?

Because of the continuation of the imperial dynasty, the generations of royal families that have been bred by the Bai dynasty, as well as the magnates at all levels who are clustered under the interests of the royal family, do not know how to develop sustainably, and only know how to plunder ready-made things, and they are about to eat up this rich land.

As the people of the Hibiscus Dynasty, their lives were already doomed, the nobles may be reduced to commoners or even slaves, but the common people can never become nobles.

For the sake of their own perpetuation and their own interests, the rulers, as the most powerful weapons of the royal family and nobles, will let the army recognized as the strongest in the entire continent slaughter the rebellious people one after another, just as it is easy to harvest the seedlings in the fertile land at this time because they are untended.

The Bai dynasty used slaughter to maintain peace, and many ordinary people either died of oppression, or became slaves without freedom in the aristocratic mansions in exchange for survival.

So now, it has become a bleak world in which the powerful Zhu Men cooks wine and meat, and the children compete with dogs for food in the alleys, some children have become orphans, and some children are similar to orphans.

"Go sell some food for the kids, and count it in my car money." Mu Qing's tone was gentle, and he sat in the car, as if he didn't want to do these little things, so he said to the driver sitting on the front board.

After finishing speaking, he tilted his head slightly, his clear lips pursed slightly, and the sadness in his slightly dark eyes flashed, falling into memory.

The coachman didn't want to stay here longer, but looking at Mu Qing's tone of voice and the momentum that could not be refused, he had to refuse softly: "Childe, please be considerate, the little one doesn't have a copper plate on his body." ”

Mu Qing frowned, the coarse bun used to cost two cents a piece, even if the price of grain is rising now, the purchasing power of the copper plate is not as good as before, but judging from the fact that the fare for this trip costs one hundred wen copper coins, this coachman is probably just prevaricating.

He took out a purse embroidered with pink peony flowers from his sleeve, took out half a tael of silver to the coachman, and said to the coachman in a slightly cold tone: "It's me who was negligent, there are enough fare for five lying cars here, you don't have to make up for it, just go and go back quickly." ”

The coachman saw that the scholar was so generous, and in the end he couldn't refuse, so he had to agree to take the broken silver.

He parked the carriage on the side of the road before heading towards the group of children. I saw him say a few words vaguely to the group of little beggars, and then led a group of happy little beggars into the alley where they had been driven out before.

About half an hour later, the coachman returned to the car, and while handing Mu Qing the food covered in burlap, he said to Mu Qing with a simple smile: "Childe is a good person, my Lao Zhang doesn't take too much advantage of you, this is the best white flour steamed bun, the store doesn't make much, I bought it all." ”

The look of surprise in Mu Qing's eyes flashed, his tone softened slightly, and he calmly said to the coachman: "No need. ”

With a short speech and a calm and repulsive tone, the coachman thought that Mu Qing felt unclean, so he didn't say anything more.

At this time, the children came out of the alley with each other in their arms, each holding some steaming coarse grain buns in their hands, and a happy smile appeared on their faces.

Among them, the most petite child, with his left hand held the steaming steamed bun to his chest, his right hand pulled the corner of the boy's clothes at the head, pointed to the side of the carriage, said a few words, and the leading boy nodded.

He came to the carriage alone and said quickly to Mu Qing in the carriage: "Sir, my sister told me to thank you."

He seemed to feel embarrassed, and was about to quickly return to his friends, but was suddenly stopped by the coachman.

I saw that the coachman took out two steamed buns from the still fragrant linen package, handed the rest to the boy, and said in a stiff tone: "How can you thank your benefactor like this? ”

The boy's face was a little ashamed, his wet hair pressed against his dirty forehead, he lowered his head and took the package handed to him by the coachman, and the corner of his eyes drifted to the window covered by black curtains, as if waiting for Mu Qing in the car to speak.

"Let's go. Mu Qing didn't pull the curtain, as if he knew the gaze floating outside the window, and said without emotion. In fact, what he wanted to say in his heart was: "You must take care of your sister." ”

The boy bent his body sincerely this time, thanked Mu Qing in the car again, and then nodded to the coachman before running back to his own small group.

The occasional act of kindness disappeared at the mouth of the alley, and the carriage continued westward toward the city.

At this time, it was the eighteenth year of the Hibiscus Emperor's hunting, and he was eighteen years old.

For the young man who now uses the name "Mu Qing", twelve years have passed by in a snap of his fingers, and the mud legs alley in his eyes are no longer with some old people, and the steamed buns handed over by the coachman have no fragrance in their memories.

But for many of the people who still live in Mud Legs Alley, the riots and rebellions have taken away too much life, and the lives of the nobles are getting better and better, and their lives are getting harder and harder.

In the time before Mu Qing was six years old, his identity was similar to that of the group of little beggars just now, a little beggar who wandered around and begged to exist in the mud leg alley, but the difference was that in his clear memory, he was never short of food, and he had a better choice.

At that time, he was undoubtedly happy and content.

As for the time from which he knew from the mouth of the "traitor" of Peony, that after her father Lao Zhang's legs and feet were not good, he would take care of Lao Zhang's breakfast stall on time every day, and under the guidance of Peony, he always succeeded unexpectedly smoothly every time, leaving Lao Zhang standing in place and pointing at his back as he ran away.

It's more like a play-and-play game for a family of three, except that happy days are always short-lived and can't be kept.

I'm afraid that he, who was nicknamed "Ah Liang" at that time, would not have known that twelve years later, when he revisited his hometown, he would be in such an identity.

At three o'clock, the carriage drove through the "Yiqi Bridge" connecting the two streets of "Pingbu" and "Qingyun", and came to the south bank of the willow branches and the wind.

Mu Qing arrived at the destination of the trip: Liuye Bookstore.