Shen Fengming sighed when he said this. "Back then, he was one of the best killers of black bamboo, but he was not known in the rivers and lakes, if his dagger could be half as famous as a sharp black sword, we should also know his identity. He didn't say, and we didn't ask—people are sometimes weird—one moment they were scared and wary, and the next they suddenly trusted themselves without asking. If I had to give a reason, I would have regarded this man as the greatest good man when I met him when we were about to run out of food. In addition, I have always longed to learn martial arts in my heart, and suddenly I got a dagger, although I can't dance yet, I am really happy in my heart, and I am no longer hostile to him. ”

"He didn't ask you where you came from?" Okra interjected.

"Didn't ask. Shen Fengming said, "Tacitly - each of them is measured, and it can be regarded as a kind of courtesy, right?" It's just that when I thought about it later, if I had asked it clearly at the time, it might have been better......

He didn't know what he thought of again, and he was silent for a long time, and then he reached out and held the wine glass again as if he came to his senses, and then said: "I still remember that night my mother used the things he brought to brand a few vegetable cakes, and he took a dagger to carve a spirit tablet for the dead 'brother' and placed it on the wall. I left him to eat the bread, but he didn't eat it, put down the dagger, set up the spirit card, told us to wipe it occasionally, and left.

"But it was he who was the most diligent—he came from time to time to offer wine to the man, and also brought us some rations by the way, so that our mother and son would not go out and run into outsiders. Although my mother knew that she should not be favored for no reason, she was also for me—this place was indeed safe, and it would keep me safe, and if I left this place, I don't know when I would have such a place. So I want to wait until I have memorized all the lessons of Yunmeng before I make a plan.

"As the days went by, I gradually didn't feel anything wrong. I started listening to my mother's things in my mother's womb, and I couldn't remember many things when I was a child, but I memorized those things, and I repeated them for several years, and I remember them more at this time. This is the only thing my mother treats me the most, but even though I can recite it freely, she gradually restricts me. She still has scruples when I want to go out, but if I have a thorough companion, she doesn't care about it later.

"They didn't take me far, most of them were getting dark, so they took me to sit on the roof, or walk around a few nearby rooftops, and pointed out to me whose house this is and whose house it is. Later, he thought I was clumsy, so he began to teach me light exercises. After that, they were able to take me out during the day.

"Thoroughly, he taught me three things - light skills, daggers, and drinking. I often wonder if he survived to this day, and would be happy to see me as I am, at least not to disgrace him and disappoint him too much, but if he really lived to this day, I wouldn't have to be who I am today. Most likely, I won't be in Heizhu anymore. ”

"So you're the black bamboo that you entered later because of the bones?" asked Okra carefully.

Shen Fengming didn't answer, he looked at the void as if he hadn't heard it, and even forgot the wine in his hand for a while. "My mother found out that I was learning martial arts too late. I thought she would say a few words to me - but she didn't say it, but urged me to practice more diligently, so as not to let down the hard work. I was in high spirits at that time, and I came to see me almost every day—early in the morning, late in the evening, and only saying, 'Go and drink with old friends.'" But there are times when he doesn't come—if he doesn't come, he won't see anyone for ten days and a half months. I didn't know at the time that he was going to kill people in his absence, and he would sneak up the roof to peek near his house to see if there was any movement. On one occasion he had been away for a long time—a month and a half. When he came back, I saw that he was still wounded, so I asked him where he had gone.

"I've asked him once or twice before, and he has been vague in his answer. But for the first time that day, he replied that he was going to kill someone.

I was shocked by this answer. I hadn't thought about what he did before that. For me, that night, I knew for the first time that he was a killer, what kind of place this town was, and the person in front of us, the person I thought of as Master, who turned out to be from 'Black Bamboo', the 'Black Bamboo' who killed my father. ”

When Xia Yan and okra heard this, they looked at each other and did not speak.

Shen Fengming continued: "He went to two or three missions in a row that time, and a few more people may have died. After he came back, he was not in a good mood, he didn't go home, he came to us, drank some wine, told him his identity, told a lot of things about Heizhu, talked about a lot of people in Heizhu, and the original owner of the house also said that night. My mother didn't say a word, as before, after eating with him, she cleaned up the dishes and chopsticks, and at the end, as in the past, she said, 'Feng Ming, send Uncle Thorough'. I sent him to the door, but he didn't leave that day, he turned to me and said, 'Fengming, tell your mother, what I just said is in the past. I can keep them all in the past. I can stop being a killer. My mind was blank, I didn't know what to say, and I looked at him, and I didn't even forget to say a word. Before he left, he put something in my hand and said, 'Your mother must look good in this.' I went into the house and showed my mother something—it was earrings. ”

"It's the pair of ......," okra blurted out.

"It's the pair of earrings. Silver piercing, pearl pendant. I still remember the first time I held it in my hand. Shen Fengming's gaze had a strange sadness, but his tone was suppressed, "When I was in Luoyang, my mother seemed to dress up a lot—but I don't remember those decorations at all. It's probably because she's been living too hard for more than a year, and I haven't seen anything like this in a long time, so ......"

He stopped talking for a moment and turned his gaze to okra, "Do you have it?"

"In—there. Okra got up and touched the luggage that had just been put in order, and found the old wooden hairpin from her own things. "Inside, I didn't move. She handed it to Shen Fengming.

Shen Fengming took it and stared at Mu Hai for a long time. "When I left the Shen family, I left everything behind, but this wooden hairpin, my mother refused to leave. If you want to say that this hairpin is worn, it is very simple, if you want to say that there is a lot of goodness inside, and the craftsmanship is very rough, it is just that Yunmeng has passed on for several generations, and it is of some significance, she is reluctant to lose it. In those days, her only ornament was it. ”

He unscrewed the hairpin, and two small round beads rolled out, still shining in the dim light with a white luster that had been separated by eighteen years.

"Then you mean, back then, he was interested in your mother?" Okra was a little surprised. "I thought he should be about the same age as Ling Li, but he was ...... at that time"

"He's a few years younger than my mother, but it doesn't matter anymore. Shen Fengming's tone was a little bitter. "If he wasn't from Heizhu, if my father hadn't died at the hands of Heizhu, this matter might have been simpler. I don't know why he told us that, and if he really wanted to leave the past behind and get out of there with us, then it would be nice to just say what he meant, and just give him that pair of earrings, and not have to confess his identity, wouldn't it be a lot less troublesome? I learned that when people in the world want to treat another person sincerely, they are really different. I wouldn't have done it — I don't like to leave the choice of going or staying in the hands of others, and I'd sometimes prefer not to say it. ”

After a pause, he added, "That night, neither my mother nor I slept. At my age, although I can't fully understand the meaning of the bones, I still have a vague sense of consciousness. I know that my mother can't do anything to the bone, even if he is an ordinary person, because she still has my father in her heart. Not to mention, in a sense, our enemies.

"I also know that it is unfair to put the words 'killing his father and enemy' on his head, but isn't that what Heizhu will do - you kill this, he kills that, and whose hands my father died is just providence or coincidence. But I thought about it for most of the night, and I couldn't even feel a trace of hatred for the bones. Anything else, at least for so long, he has been the benefactor of our mother and son, far more than hatred.

"So I went and asked my mother, and I asked her, is it our enemy after all? My mother said, 'If you want to seek revenge on him, he is the enemy.' If you don't want to, he's not. I said, 'I don't want to.'" Do you want to?' said my mother, 'I want revenge, but not him.' I breathed a sigh of relief in my heart, and I said, 'Since my mother does not regard him as an enemy, why is she so preoccupied that she can't sleep?'

"My mother was silent for a long time, and only said, 'Feng Ming, we mother and son wipe a stranger's tablet every day, but we didn't set up a card for your father, isn't it strange?'

I couldn't answer at the time, but when I thought about it, I understood what my mother meant. - I can't sleep because of the identity of the black bamboo, but my mother can't sleep because of his pair of pearls. She must have never thought that she would be interested in her until that day, and all this time, they rarely even spoke. This made her miss my father even more.

"I said in my heart that the 'stranger' enshrined in this room was the owner of this house—although we had never met, we lived in his house, and we used him to eat him, and even when my father was alive, wasn't that what he could give me?

"Of course these words cannot be said to my mother. Although my father is very weak in my heart, it should be completely different to her. She didn't want me to answer, she just told me to go to sleep. I fell asleep in the middle of the night, but she wrote a short note to the bone. Early the next morning, she gave me this hairpin and asked me to pass it on to him when I came to the bone. She said that everything she wanted to say to the bones was in this hairpin. ”