Outside the gate of Songmon Castle.

With the grinding sound of copper plates, the closed gate of Songmen City opened, and all the refugees looked up in the direction of the gate at the same time, only to see a unique convoy coming out of the city: two soldiers pushed a flatbed truck, and a large tank was placed on the flatbed, and the whole convoy consisted of a dozen flatbed trucks. "The city lord is making porridge!" I don't know who shouted, and the refugees outside the city took out well-protected earthen bowls from their arms and rushed towards the convoy.

The city lord will not give bowls of porridge, and the earthen bowls are made by the refugees themselves and with thin mud, which is not strong after being dried by fire, but it can be used several times if it is well protected. The refugees do not ask for more, but only hope that the spoonful of porridge that they have finally asked for will not leak out or spill out, but if the bowl is broken and leaked, the porridge that has been finally distributed will spill out, and there is not much that they can finally drink into the stomach. Seeing the refugees rushing over, the soldiers defending the city shouted: "Whoever takes a step further will not have food!" The refugees immediately hurriedly stepped on the step and did not dare to take another step, but the refugees in front of them stopped their feet but were hit by the refugees who did not have time to stop their feet, and for a while the refugees pushed and shoved each other into a mess.

There was a young refugee in the crowd, and one of the bowls in his hand accidentally fell to the ground in this push, breaking a corner, and tears appeared in the corners of the eyes of the distressed refugee.

Clay bowls need time to be slowly dried over fire, and are usually made at night when the fire is lit to keep warm, and it is too late to redo it now.

The young refugee's eyes were red in a hurry, and he forgot about it, but his mother-in-law was pregnant, and he was counting on this porridge to save up his strength to have a child, and it was all over.

In all kinds of helplessness, the young man couldn't help but squat down and hugged his head and cried out, crying, feeling that his shoulder was gently patted twice, the young refugee turned around, only to see an old refugee wearing a broken flag cloth smiled and took out a very thick earthen bowl wrapped in a rotten cloth from his arms: "Young man, don't cry, manly man, my bowl is changed with you, how about it?"

The young refugee couldn't believe the scene in front of him, the porridge would only be once every three days, all the refugees would not let go of the opportunity to receive the porridge, and now there were people who were willing to exchange a good bowl for their broken bowl, the young man subconsciously wanted to reach out and take the earthen bowl from the old refugee, but hesitated: "Old man, if I take your bowl, what will you do? My bowl can't hold much porridge." The old refugee smiled and stuffed his bowl wrapped in rags into the young refugee's arms: "You will continue to give it to you, the old man, I am old, my appetite is small, I can't eat much, you don't have to worry about the old man, me." What's more, you have to take this bowl of porridge with you?" the young man listened, thinking of his pregnant mother-in-law's increasingly hungry and emaciated face, and subconsciously protected the bowl wrapped in rotten cloth stuffed by the old refugee in his arms.

At this moment, the refugees finally began to line up under the shouting of the soldiers of the porridge, and the old refugee took the opportunity to push the young man: "Don't go quickly, you won't be able to line up if you go late." The young man immediately carefully protected the bowl wrapped in rotten cloth in his arms, knelt down and kowtowed to the old refugee, and then quickly got up and said that it was too late to say words of gratitude, and the girl squeezed towards the group of refugees in line.

Don't look at more than a dozen flatbed trucks and more than a dozen large vats are quite large, but the real porridge can not be divided into all the refugees' heads, and soon the porridge in the more than a dozen vats will bottom out, in the wailing of the refugees, the soldiers pushed more than a dozen empty porridge vats back to Songmen City, some refugees did not give up, followed the convoy in the hope of begging the soldiers to let themselves into the city, but were forced back by the spear.

Once again, the gates of Songmen Castle were tightly closed, locking the refugees out.

The refugees once again squatted back to the base of the wall of Songmen City, some of them were holding the earthen bowl and squeaking with a happy face, while those who were not holding their legs and leaning against the city wall and looking at the dim sky in a daze, waiting for the next porridge.

......

"Sir, why do you have to do this? ”

The old refugee held an open-minded earth-breaking bowl and leaned against a straight pine tree, squeaking without a mouthful of the clear rice porridge that had not been left in the bowl, lowering his brows and squinting his eyes, humming comfortably, as if the old refugee was not leaning on the rough blood pine bark, but on a soft collapsed seat covered with tiger skin embedded with pearls, and the sip in his hand from time to time was not a clear soup rice porridge with a few rice grains, but a bowl of rare delicacies that gathered the dragon's liver and phoenix marrow in the world: "You don't understand, this is the realm." Saying that, he squeaked at the broken bowl again, the night in Songmen City was very cold, and the bonfire in front of him could only warm the limbs, and a mouthful of thin rice porridge with a slight residual temperature could give people a sense of fullness from the heart.

A figure emerged from the shadows behind the pine tree, although the person's face was ruddy and full, and the cheeks could even see the rich flesh, but the facial skeleton stretched the structure of the whole face as a whole and destroyed the richness of the whole face, plus the narrow eyebrows at the corners of the eyes were almost nothing, giving people a feeling of a little like a mouse, but no matter what, this person knew by looking at his face that he was definitely not a refugee.

The man looked flattering: "This ...... The small realm is not enough, but I don't understand the true meaning, and I hope that the master will give me advice. As he spoke, the rich flesh on either side of the man's cheeks shook, and he looked more like an overnourished weasel than a mouse.

Old Refugee ...... No, at this time, it can be seen that the old man in front of him is not a refugee. I saw that he was not in a hurry and took a mouthful of the clear water rice porridge in the broken bowl again, and frowned - the climate outside Songmen City was a little domineering at night, and the things in the bowl that were still steaming were already a little cool after only a few mouthfuls, so the old man casually poured the rice porridge in front of him as a treasure and even relied on to sustain his life, the bonfire was burning vigorously, this small bowl of rice porridge was inextinguishable, and the millet porridge was burned by this bonfire, and a slight smell of firewood mixed with the unique food aroma of rice porridge was emanated.

Suddenly a small bowl of rice porridge poured in and poured the bonfire to sway, and the surrounding shadows continued to jump under the leadership of the jumping tongue of fire, like a group of demons dancing, the shadow on the old man's face was reflected like a pitch-black claw dancing wildly in the night, and the shadow was like a pitch-black magic hand caressing the old man's face, and the old man spoke: "Mouse, how many years have you been with the old man?"

The voice of the man called the mouse came from behind the pine tree: "Back to the old man, the mouse has been loyal to the old man for more than fifty years. "yes, more than 50 years. ”

The old man nodded, picked up a dead branch and poked the bonfire in front of him, skillfully turned over the firewood that was wet with clear rice porridge, covered the damp side underneath, and the bonfire was vigorous again: "Originally, the old man should have been at peace with the status quo for the rest of his life, but the sword you presented to the old man back then aroused the ambition of the old man, look at these people." The old man pointed at the group of refugees leaning against the city wall with the dead branches stained with sparks: "Don't you think it's funny? A living person, but relying on the hope given by others, shrinks like a dog in the corner, and if you give a little favor, you will be regarded as a spark in the dark, a hope in despair......

The old man gently shook the dead branch stained with sparks in his hand, and the spark on the dead branch became brighter: "Then continue to release light and heat in the struggle, and then use a little force to ......" The dead branch poked into the dry grass pile used to light the bonfire, and after a while, the dry grass pile emitted black smoke, and then the dry grass pile turned into a vigorous flame, the old man gathered it a little with the dead branch, and swept the dead grass pile lit by Mars into the bonfire, and the burned weeds turned into gray residual smoke in the bonfire and rose: "Then turned into flying ashes." ”

The old man smiled in a low voice: "This is the heart of the people." ”

The bonfire was still lit, and the tongue of fire kept beating, pulling the shadow of the old man to grow long, and with the leap of the tongue of fire, the shadow of the old man also danced wildly with the surrounding shadows, like a crazy monster.