The locusts in the sky seem to have no end, and the further they go, the more they go.

The Taoist rode by on a donkey, and it was not until he saw it with his own eyes that he understood the pain of the disaster.

On the way, I passed through some villages, and found that they were all empty, and the idyllic towns of the past were now uninhabited and in ruins.

Some of them have long been empty from the village, and dust is everywhere.

Some are new, and even the abandoned things are neatly placed, as if they still hope that when they return, they can be seen and seen at a glance, and they can know at a glance how much reluctance and entanglement they have experienced when they leave.

The fields were barren, everything was eaten up, and after the swarms of locusts had passed, there was a blank space.

Climb over a wasteland and walk up a high ridge.

The Daoist's gaze suddenly stopped looking down.

Of the barren fields everywhere, only this one still has wheat.

Sowing in October of the previous year, after winter, the wheat sprouts in the spring, showing a green color and radiating hope.

But now most of them are dead, and there is a little dampness all over the field, and it seems that someone is trying to save it, but to no avail.

At this moment, the mighty flying locusts in the sky passed by here, and kept falling towards the farmland.

In an instant, the fields were full of locusts.

"Oh!

"Go!"

And in the field there was a thin figure, holding a gong and banging non-stop, constantly shouting and shouting, trying to scare the locusts away.

I want the locusts not to fall, but to fly straight by.

"Bell! bell!"

"Go, go, go!"

It was an old man, although thin, his dark skin was full of strength, and his face was full of wrinkles, which was brought about by the hard work in the fields every day, and it was the epitome of the tens of millions of peasant families under the Great Zhou Dynasty today.

And this hard work can only barely exchange for a full meal, and in this disaster year, it is a landslide.

"Bell, bell!"

"Go, go, go!"

The old man banged the gong vigorously, and ran through the field again and again with his bare feet, shouting loudly at the top of his voice.

The not tall figure seemed so small compared to the flying locusts that covered the sky.

It's like mortals fighting against the will of Brilliant Heaven and against fate.

But the locusts kept falling.

This vast natural disaster cannot be reversed by manpower.

The old man was tired of beating, but found nothing, and finally looked blankly at the flying locusts, and at the half-dead fields and the wheat that was constantly gnawing.

I could only sit on my knees on the ground, hide my face, and cry.

When I turned around, I just saw the young Taoist oncoming on the ridge.

The Taoist looked at the fast wheat field in surprise, while the old man looked at the Taoist even more shocked.

The old man rushed up with the gong, wiped his face, looked at the young Taoist on the ridge, looked the young man up and down, and then looked in the direction he came from, and at a glance, he knew that he was coming from outside Lingzhou.

immediately said: "Where did you come from, everyone else ran outside, why did you still run back?"

The Taoist rode down the ridge on a donkey, looked at the field and asked, "Uncle, do you want to help?"

The old man himself laughed, not knowing whether he was laughing at his useless actions just now, or laughing at the way of the world.

The bitterness in the dry laughter is only known to the old man himself.

"No, no, no, it's useless, even if there is no locust, there is a great drought, and this wheat seedling will not survive. ”

"The old man also knows that it's useless, it's just ......"

"I can't hate it. ”

The old man struck the gong, made a bell, and then shouted to the sky.

"Eat!

"Eat all clean!"

"After eating, hurry away, go back to heaven, and don't come down again. ”

It's like shouting to locusts, and it's more like saying it to the gods in heaven.

Folk rumors say that the locust plague is rumored to be lowered from heaven by the emperor to punish the world, and when a certain amount of land is eaten, people's sins will dissipate, and they will return to heaven.

Otherwise, where did so many locusts come from? The people could not imagine it, and they could only attribute it to the gods.

The Taoist led the donkey down, but the old man took out water from the burden on the side.

"Housheng, it's been a long time, sit down and drink saliva. ”

The Taoist and the donkey sat down on the ridge and watched the field and the distance with the old man.

Neither of them spoke, probably because of this situation, which was really speechless.

After taking a sip of the water handed over by the old man, the old man took out another piece of hard cake from his arms.

hesitated and tangled for a moment, and stuffed the cake into Gao Xian's hand,

"You eat it in the future, run away from the desert after eating, you are not very old, what is still growing in the back?"

The old man persuaded the Taoist and asked him to dispel the idea of going further: "This is located on the border of Lingzhou, to the south, there is food there, and you can always live." ”

"Further ahead, there is a great drought everywhere, and you don't know the situation in your later life. ”

"Anyway, I can't go, I can't go. ”

The Taoist was silent for a while, took the cake given by the old man, and still took a bite.

It's not delicious, but it's inexplicably precious.

The Taoist opened his mouth and asked, "Since you can flee to the south, why does the old man refuse to leave?"

The old man sat on the ridge, touched the depression on his gong, shook his head and said, "The old man is so old, if he doesn't leave, he can't walk." ”

"The old man has lived to this age in this kind of land all his life, and he doesn't want to die in a foreign country, and he has to die here. ”

It is rumored that people who die in a foreign land will become lonely ghosts, and what people seek is a soul to return to their homeland.

The Taoist sat beside the old man and silently finished the whole cake.

When he got up, he looked at the locusts in the sky and smiled.

"This flying locust should indeed go back to heaven. ”

With a flick of his fingers, the fire snake roared out from his sleeve, and in the blink of an eye, it turned into a fire dragon dozens of feet long and hovered in the sky.

The fire dragon continued to spread, burning the sky red.

In the end, it exploded, and even spread out layers of fire circles, sweeping towards the boundless locusts.

The locusts fell one after another, as if it had fallen into a heavy rain.

The locusts in Tanaka also exploded and died one by one, burning so much that they emitted sparks.

The old man saw that the gong in his hand fell to the ground in fright, and there was a roar.

Turning his head and staring at the young Taoist beside him, the boss with his mouth open.

"You...... You...... It's a god!"

The Taoist led the donkey down the ridge, stood in front of the wheat field, turned around and looked at the old man with a smile and said, "The heavens also felt the suffering of the mortal people, so they sent the poor Dao to take back the locust plague that had fled to the lower realm. ”

"Great! Great!"

"The gods have blessed us......!

When the old man heard the news, he happily bowed his head and wanted to bow down, but was stopped by a force.

"Today, I drank a bowl of water and a dry biscuit. ”

"In the coming day, the locust plague in Lingzhou will go, and thousands of miles of sweet rain. ”

Straighten up and look again.

The immortal had vanished into a cloud of smoke in front of the withered wheat field, leaving only a word in the wind.

There was also a bag of flour at the old man's feet.