The Yellow River, is the great river of the southern Zhanbu continent, originating from the Kunlun Holy Land, because of the noble birth and destined to be extraordinary, starting from the inaccessible, cold Bayangela Mountain, all the way to the east, a hundred twists and turns, gradually converge, a bend into the Hetao Plain, create the richness of the south of the Yangtze River, and then bend out of the Longmen natural danger, with an unstoppable momentum of a thousand miles.

According to legend, thousands of years ago, when the Yellow River reached Hukou, the river flooded due to the blockage of the mountains, and the surrounding people suffered greatly.

There was a sage who ruled the water, drew his sword, and it was a sword against the mountains. This sword sword qi is hundreds of miles longitudinal, the mountains and rivers are discolored, and a gap of more than ten miles is split between the mountains, and the river water bursts down along the gap, forming one of the world's most realms, the scene of Tianhe Waterfall.

Thousands of years later, there is a world-famous Tang Dynasty scholar, walking here, seeing the peerless landscape of Tianhe Waterfall, standing for three days, chanting out the peerless sentence of "the water of the Yellow River comes from the sky, rushes to the sea and does not return", and realizes the sword of "full of flowers drunk with 3,000 guests, a sword of frost and cold 14 states", and directly stepped into the realm of legends, no one can beat any Taoism in the world.

Let's say that the Yellow River, after experiencing the tempering of the mountains, the shackles of the plateau, and the galloping of Heluo, walked into the last stop before entering the sea, the land of Qilu.

There is a section of the Yellow River called Qishui. In the south of Qishui, there is a blessed land on earth, there are many springs in the territory, the chaos is opened, there are saints who find the beauty of the spring water, clear and delicious, begin to build houses around the spring, fish in Leize, cultivate in the mountains, after years of accumulation, build a city scale, named Qizhou. Qizhou, because it is at the foot of the north of the mountain, is called Lixia.

Qizhou City, known as "lotus flowers on all sides and willows on three sides, a city with mountains and half a city lake", has 72 famous springs, one of which is known as the first spring in the world. The three caves on the flat ground protrude a few feet of snow, the sound is like hidden thunder, the winter and summer are the same, the three springs are like a thousand piles of snow, and the three feet above the ground are like jasper piles.

In the south of Lishan, there is a small town called Yaojia Town. The town is surrounded by high mountains in the north, south, and south, and there is a small river named Yuqing River in the west. After the Yuqing River, there is an old official road that leads to Qizhou in the north and Tai'an in the south.

It is said that it is the old official road because it is the official road cultivated by the Dasong Dynasty in the past. The people of the Da Song Dynasty are not good at riding horses, so the official road is relatively narrow, and some places are around the mountain, which is relatively steep, only suitable for people, not suitable for horse running.

After Jingkang, thousands of miles of territory in the north of the Dasong Dynasty, including Qizhou, were all returned to the Dajin Dynasty. The people of the Dajin Dynasty were good at riding and shooting, so the original official road that was only suitable for pedestrians was abandoned, and a new official road was rebuilt more than 30 miles west of the original official road, which could run six horses and drive two carriages in parallel.

Yaojia Town, the town is not big, there are about more than 1,000 households. Yaojia Town, there are two major families in the town, one is the Yao family and the other is the Li family.

The Li family has a patriarch who is nearly sixty years old, originally named Li Zhonghai, and later changed his name to Li Zan, but he is still called Li Zhonghai on the family tree. Previously, he served as the Taishou of Qingzhou in the Dajin Dynasty, and everyone respectfully called him Li Lao.

The Li family, the family is very large, the grandson has twelve heirs, the youngest is a son, born in the year of Jingkang, the day of Chongyang, the clan called him Twelve Lang, his real name is Li Quai.

This year, the twelfth year of Shaoxing, this day, the first day of the second lunar month.

Twelve, twelve years old.

The sky is slightly bright, the rooster has not yet crowed, the watch has just knocked three times, Li Qu's illness has already gotten up, this is the request of Mr. Xiangju, every day at the third watch began to recite the sage book; there is an old Taoist in the town, once taught Li Qu's illness a few of them to walk to save their strength to breathe and breathe, but also let them smell the chicken dance at the time of the third watch.

Li Quzhi found a way to combine it, which was to run around the town three times every morning, breathing according to the methods taught by the Taoists, and reciting the poetry of the sages.

Li Quzhi opened the door of the house and found that the sky was dripping with a light rain at 3:5, and the raindrops were gently dripping on the bluestone pavement and shattering into mercury.

When he came to the courtyard, after taking a deep breath, Li Quzhi began to run around the town, reciting in his mouth, "At the beginning of the ancient times, who preached?......? What is the heaven, the twelve points, the sun and the moon, the stars, and the ?......".

The town is surrounded by no city walls, the mountains on three sides are the city walls, and the river on the edge of the town is the moat. The people in the town are very simple.

There are three main alleys in the town, namely Fushou Lane, Anping Lane, and Shujian Lane, and the three alleys intersect in the three dojos.

The so-called three dojos are at the intersection of three alleys, there is a large piece of flat land, the flat land is paved with stones relatively flat, there are three peach trees in the middle of the flat land, and there are three plum trees, and six trees surround an ancient well, three feet square.

In the words of the old man, the ancient wells were flooded infrequently and gushed rarely, so they were basically unused, and the people in the town went to the three wells near the river to carry water.

The ancient well was not used, and they were worried that the children would often go to play, so the adults built a one-person high stone fence on the ancient well, and a stone cover was added to the well, and there were nine six-inch round holes on the stone cover.

There are naughty children, who do not listen to the dissuasion of adults, often climb over the fence, climb over the stone cover, and look down through the round hole. There are even naughty little boys who pee directly into the well.

In order to scare children, old people often say that "this well is a locked dragon well, and there is a dragon locked underneath". Legend has it that when Dayu ruled the water, he found that there was a dragon making waves, so he locked the dragon in the well, and the dragon agreed at that time, only when the "iron tree blooms, and the flat shoulder sprouts", it can come out.

Children will often ask, "Did the dragon come out?"

The old people often twisted their beards and said things that I don't know if they had said dozens or hundreds of times: "I heard that one day, a farmer came to the town with a flower branch on his shoulder, and was seen by Jiao, thinking that the flat pole had sprouted, so he came out with water and flooded the town. In the end, it turned out that it was not the flat shoulder that sprouted, and it was pulled into the well again. ”

The three peach trees and three plum trees in the three dojos have not borne fruit for many years. Later, everyone began to tie wood between the peach trees and plum trees, and when the weather was good, many people would hang their quilts or washed clothes on the wood to bask in the sun. Under the tree, there are four or five tree trunks, which are set on a few stone slabs, and there are simple benches.

Every summer and autumn, the people of the town like to enjoy the shade here. In summer, there are a lot of mosquitoes, so the people of the town also put some mosquito repellent leaves. It's just that more than ten years ago, mosquitoes suddenly disappeared, and the people in the town didn't feel anything, they just felt strange, and after thinking about it, of course, they didn't care what the reason was.

Behind the three dojos, there is a long staircase up the mountain, and at the end of the steps is a Yingxiang Palace, with white walls and green tiles, and the weather is magnificent. The statue in the ancestral hall, the crown is in charge, the eyes are closed, the beard hangs down the chest, the left and right are equipped with the two concubines, and the beaded crown python suit.

Li went to the sick house, it is a big family in the town, on the edge of the three dojos, leaning on Fushou Lane and Anping Lane, the main gate is open on the side of Fushou Lane, and there are two Shoushan stone lions at the door. Opposite is the Yao clan chief's house, leaning on Anping Lane and Shujian Lane.

Not long after Li Quzhi went out, he could vaguely see a few faint candles and hear the sound of reading inside.

Not far from Li to the patient's home, there is a grocery store in the town, and the one who sells groceries is a lame man, who needs to hold a cane when walking, and the people in the town call him Tie Guan Li, laughing that he is a god in the sky, and over time, the real name of the lame man is difficult for everyone to remember.

How Tie Guan Li's leg was lame, Tie Guan Li himself was secretive. In addition to the family, other people actually don't care too much, after all, it's someone else's leg that is broken, and if you know how to be lame, it's probably an extra after-dinner conversation. However, a friend who played with Li Quai, said that he had seen a scar on Tie Guan Li's body, and he felt quite scary.

Probably because of the inconvenience of his movements, Tie Guan Li always got up early, opened the door of the shop after getting up, cleaned up the shop, and then sat at the door and smoked a dry cigarette.

Every time he runs, Li Quai's illness will say hello to Tie Gui Li, and Tie Gui Li will also nod his head with Li Quai.

Ran through the grocery store, and it didn't take long to reach the end of Fushou Lane, Li Qu's illness came back, passed through the three dojos, and ran to Shujian Lane, where Li Qu's illness was studying.

The township school was opened by the two families of Yao and Li and several other families in the small town to raise money, and the current teacher surnamed Liu Mingzuozhan, who called himself Yingning Jushi, came here three years ago.

Mr. Liu, the former teacher of the township school, suddenly said goodbye three years ago, leaving only a letter, saying that there was an urgent matter at home and needed to go back to deal with it, in order not to delay the children's schoolwork, he took it upon himself to invite Mr. Liu, who he was more familiar with, to replace him, and I hope you will forgive me.

Mr. Liu is full of scriptures and books, and is good at poetry, and once wrote the famous sentence "Cooking beans in the kitchen, and falling in the well smelly chunhua". Mr. is very knowledgeable and has a higher character, but he is extremely strict with the students in the township school. However, Mr. Liu never scolded and blocked those children who did not pay the money and hid outside the window to secretly "study", and sometimes he was afraid that everyone would not hear him, so he deliberately spoke loudly.

Further back, it was the Taoist temple where the old Taoist who preached the "Taoism" to Li Quai's group of children was located, and it was said that it was a Taoist temple, but in fact there was only one old Taoist.

When the families in the town encountered white things, they asked the Taoist to do the practical things. On important festivals, Taoists will open altars to drive away filth.

After all, there are few people in the town, so on weekdays, the old Taoist will put a fortune-telling booth at the door of the Taoist temple, which may be familiar to the villagers, and the old Taoist never takes the initiative to solicit business. Each family is willing, and those who wish will give more.

The favorite thing of the old Taoist people is to teach them the "Taoism" when Li is sick. I heard my grandfather say that the old Taoist's full name is Chen Munan, he is a foreigner, he came to the town on the day Li Qu's illness was born, Chen Daoren came to help the village a big favor, and then Chen Daoren never left the town, and with the help of the villagers, he built a small Taoist temple, and the Taoist temple was so small that it had no name.

When he arrived at the Taoist Temple, he reached the end of Shujian Lane, Li Qu was sick and turned around and ran back, running to Anping Lane. Li Quai's best friend, Xiang Huaiying's house is here.

When Li Quying ran here, he heard Xiang Huaiying's reading, and said to the house as he ran: "Huaiying, study." ”

Xiang Huaiying will also reply as always: "Twelve, what about running." ”

The two laughed at each other across the courtyard wall, not knowing that this was the first time that the two had repeated such a simple conversation hundreds of times.

At the end of Anping Lane is the small river outside the town, on which is a stone arch bridge connecting the town to the old official road, and a rusty iron sword hangs under the bridge.

After crossing the stone arch bridge, there is a post station on the old official road, a small square building, which used to be a place for foot delivery, horse delivery and express delivery and other officials to eat and lodging and change horses on the way. However, because of the opening of the new official road, the post station on the old official road is no longer manned, and most of the gray wall skin of the small building has been peeled off, revealing the blue bricks underneath, and the black tiles on the roof have also been incomplete. But after all, it is an official thing, and ordinary people dare not use it.

Li Quzhi did not cross the stone arch bridge and ran to the old official road, but turned around at the end of the stone arch bridge near the town and ran along the river.

In February, the Yuqing River is slightly cold and the waves are not prosperous.

The spring breeze in February cut out thousands of silk threads from a big willow tree by the river. The new shoots that have emerged one after another on the willow branches are unusually green.

After running for about a few miles, Li Qu came to a rock, and after standing still, he touched the stone.

The stone was blue-brown in color, six feet square, but not rounded at all. I heard from the people in the village that there was no such stone before, and I don't know when, but suddenly there was this stone, but fortunately, this stone was only on the side of the road, not on the farmland of each family, so no one cared about it. However, every time Li Quzhi saw this stone, he had an indescribable sense of closeness.

This stone is the end point of every run for Li Quai, and when he runs here, he has to turn back and run back.

By the time Li Qu ran the third lap, the town began to be lively.

The door of the pastry shop in Anping Lane opened, and Li Yunlong, the shopkeeper, walked out.

happened to meet a man who went to fetch well water, the man looked at Li Yunlong and kept rubbing his waist, and said with a smile: "Shopkeeper, I lost the fight with my daughter-in-law last night." But you're really, man, you have to be able to bend and stretch. As for the two lumps of meat on your daughter-in-law's chest, which are bigger than the largest white-flour steamed bun in your family, can you stand it? And those two legs, I think they can clip you to death. ”

The shopkeeper smiled: "Brother Changji, you don't understand this, men should be hard when they should be hard, and soft when they should be soft." ”

At this time, a lady with mountains came out of the shop, and the woman laughed and scolded: "You are a dead bachelor who has suffered a thousand cuts, and you want to take advantage of the old lady, be careful that I break your three legs." Besides, there are only tired oxen, and there are no ploughed fields. Since ancient times, men and women have fought, and there is no reason why men will win. ”

The woman said, looking down to see her feet, then smiled with satisfaction, and muttered, "The clothes are small again." ”

Li Quzhi nodded to the two, and then called the second brother to the man. The man's name is Li Changji, and the grandson of the Li family is the second in the first generation.

Li Quzhi continued to run forward, and at this time, the blacksmith shop and pork shop on this side of Fushou Lane also opened their doors.

The blacksmith shop was at the end of Fushou Lane, near the river, and the sound of striking iron could already be heard at this time. The man who struck iron was a man with a foreign surname, called Tie Zhongtang, and the person was as his name.

I heard that my parents and siblings had lost their parents and siblings in the great accident 12 years ago, and they were helpless and wandering around. In the end, he wandered to Yaojia Town, and Li Mazi of the blacksmith shop saw that Tie Zhongtang was a brute force and a good material for making iron, so he accepted Tie Zhongtang as an apprentice, and married his daughter to Tie Zhongtang. But then again, Li Mazi's daughter is really not very outstanding, but fortunately, she has a graceful temperament, Li Mazi described it very proudly, this is called soft and rigid, and she is a blacksmith.

The pork shop is the most troublesome for Li Quai, he really can't hear the screams of the pigs, but his favorite dish is pork stewed cabbage. Now the world is too bad, even if their family is the most prosperous in the town, they can't eat meat every day.

The shopkeeper of the pork shop is called Li Shanchang. In his words, not everything is a white knife in and a red knife out.

Grandpa told Li Qubing a secret, this butcher has been killing pigs for 20 years, using a very thin pig-killing knife.