Qingming breaks the snow, and the valley rain breaks the frost.

In the late spring twilight of the 35th year of Longqing, a young man was half-lying on the stone steps of his small courtyard, and he used the pu fan in his right hand to drive away the floaters that had begun to grow. A spring rain had just been drained, and a drizzle fell on the potholed eaves and patted on the edge of a well in the courtyard. The boy seemed to be a little displeased, and moved the chaise longue farther away from the ash well.

The boy's surname is An, a single name is pronounced, his father died early, and his mother changed his name.

Ice and charcoal do not speak, cold and warm self-knowing.

Therefore, Nian'an, a child, learned to be independent very early.

The border city where the boy is called Qubai, is a special place on the northwest border of "Great Xia" for merchants to stop, and the active business travelers in this city every year pour into the city from the beginning of summer until the Zhongyuan Festival after the eighth day of the ninth month will stop some. Because of this, when Nian'an's demon mother was still alive, she relied on selling some exquisite handicrafts, although her life was not easy, the young man did not worry about food and clothing.

In the early years, I didn't know that the world was difficult, and then Nian'an was a trip to the mountains, a trip to the water, a change in the wind, a change in the snow, pressing the loneliness, and a person going down in a thousand zhang lamps.

Old people often say that when you are lonely, the coldest will be the warmest.

So Nian An leaned back on the recliner at this time and stared at the dark night sky carefully, but the boundless night seemed to just want to eat people, swallowing the young man's gaze little by little.

The young man is watching the sky, and the bangzi at the north gate is urging people.

So he got up and went to check that the bolts on the outer doors of the lower courtyard were tight.

In another courtyard separated from Nian An's house, a young girl was squatting on the ground boiling a pot of fish soup. The smell of flesh was already flowing throughout the courtyard of her house. The girl tried to find a spoon to taste the saltiness, but she was so annoyed that the guy next door hadn't returned the wooden spoon.

"Nian'an, where's my wooden spoon?"

The boy carefully let go of the chaise longue, and his pants rushed to the back room like a fire, but his foot tripped over a pile of firewood placed in front of the door because of his hurry, and a stumble slammed into a pile of debris beside the door, causing a muffled noise and smoke.

The man on the other side of the wall looked over for a moment, his gaze like a little firefly in the moonlight.

"Hey, are you alright?" the cold voice softened slightly.

The boy scrambled to get up from the pile of debris, but there was a "crackling" sound.

The girl hesitated slightly, but put down the fish soup in her hand and pushed open a half-human-high door made of firewood in the middle of the earthen wall.

It turned out that the courtyard of Nian'an's house and the courtyard of the girl's house next to it were connected by a firewood door.

By the moonlight, two people who were already familiar with each other met for the first time tonight, Nian'an's neighbor looked about thirteen or fourteen years old, but he had the demeanor and charm of seventeen or eighteen years old, and he had a simple headdress with a cloth on his head, which was not pretty, but with the evening breeze and the sunset moon crossed his waist to that station, it also became a scenery of his own.

The dusty boy hurriedly handed over the wooden spoon, and the girl reached out and gently dusted off the ashes on his head. After making sure that the boy was okay, she took the wooden spoon and knocked him on the head three times.

The wood door closed gently.

Nian An stood still until the person on the other side of the chai door walked gently back into the house, and then turned around and paced into his own door. The world was silent, and the boy seemed to have something on his mind, so he lay motionless on the plank bed and buried his head in the blue lattice bedding on the bed.

Tomorrow it's April 21.

Two years, today, it seems like a world away.

The mother reclined on the chaise longue and faced the old well, but never opened her eyes again.

Lang Zhong said that it was a strange disease that no one had ever seen, and the people in the town said that he was a disaster that killed his parents.

Nian An actually didn't care about being said to be a half-human, half-demon freak, because he was called like this for as long as he could remember, probably as a matter of course.

Saying that he was a scourge for killing his parents, he didn't want to argue about anything.

Just use all your strength to bury your head in the dark.

The young man raised his hand and gently pounded the bed board, slowly took out a dusty wooden box from underneath, and blew it before opening it, and there were dozens of copper plates and a little broken silver lying inside. Nian An took out all the broken silver and put it in his arms, carefully closed the lid, and put the wooden box back in.

He thought about going to the Taoist chief who set up a stall in Qingyang Mountain in the south of the city tomorrow to ask for some blessing paper.

......

The boy was thinking about his thoughts, and the girl was serving fish soup, so she walked to the wood door between the two courtyards and knocked three times regularly.

Hearing the sound of the firewood door, Nian An wiped his face with his hand and hurried out to check. A bowl of fish soup with a wooden spoon and a small handful of silver stood there. There was even more silver than he had just put in his arms. The corners of the young man's mouth grinned, as if he was afraid of being seen, buried his head down, and knocked on the wood door three times, which was a sign of gratitude, and it was an agreement between him and the person next door.

The sky was getting dark, the moon was hanging high, Nian An quietly raised his head and slashed towards the courtyard next door, only to see a faint busy silhouette.

The owner of the other end is called Wang Qiuqiu, and she is also an unfortunate girl.

Thirteen years ago, there was a famine in the northwest, and the imperial court was too busy to take care of itself, and a group of mobs were coerced to Qubai and rushed into the northern city, and Qiuqiu's parents left at that time. Therefore, Qiuqiu grew up eating hundreds of meals since she was a child. Every summer night when it rains and blows wind, Nian'an's mother will take the little guy next door over to live for a while.

However, Qiuqiu actually has an uncle in Qubai, who is a gentleman who teaches children to read in Qubai Beicheng. Although he was tightly managed by his aunt, but when he was young, his uncle would still eat some food from his sons every year to help his niece who had lost his parents. When Qiuqiu was seven or eight years old, her appearance gradually opened, and she was dragged by her aunt to live there for a few years, and I heard that she was also taught some etiquette that only girls from large families learned.

The good times didn't last long, probably because of the matchmaker that my aunt had planned in her early years, Qiuqiu finally turned her face with her aunt.

Last year, the little girl was slapped twice and moved back to the old house from the north of the city.

This year, Nian'an's wooden box began to save money.

He couldn't say why, but he had to leave some for the future. Therefore, in addition to the broken silver that went to the north of the city to ask the Taoist chief for blessings and paper money, Nian'an kept all the copper plates he had worked so hard to save. It is not easy for a helpless orphan like him to make money. What's more, most people in the town think that he killed his parents, and the neighbors around him were unlucky.

The boy is actually very kind to others, and he can always remember the etiquette taught by his mother since he was a child.

But there is always something soft in the town.

So at the age of twelve, the orphan Nian An got a job in the restaurant in the south of the town to transport the water in the kitchen, and every day he had to drive a donkey cart for an hour to transport the water and dirt from the kitchen in the house to a ditch a few miles north of the city to be cleared. The emaciated teenager was barely able to move when he came home every day for the first few months, but it didn't seem to be so painful for a while now.

This errand was actually given to him by a child of a family in the academy in the city, this person's name is Ren Nanhua, who is a well-known scholar and talent in the northwest in the past two years. From Mr. and Teacher, to a lonely and poor child like Nian'an, he treats him as if he is as gentle as jade. This is actually an encroachment on etiquette in Confucianism, but Ren Nanhua doesn't seem to care, even if Qu Bai's other children of the family secretly keep stumbling on him, he still goes his own way.

Nanhua Gongzi's hometown is actually not here, he came to Qubai Town three or four years ago to study with a famous reclusive here, and his family happens to have some kinship with Qubai's big clan Chang family, so people who are familiar with him here will also call the young master.

Although he is a cousin young master, he is probably not as good as the real young master of the Chang family, and he is a bad head like Nian An. Although the steward gave the half-demon boy an errand, it was the lowest errand in the restaurant.

However, the boy himself was very satisfied, because after the meal, he could save some copper plates every month.

For this, Ren Nanhua personally came to the door to apologize to the boy who had just turned twelve years old.

Seeing that the crown was like a jade, Ren Nanhua, who was wearing a green shirt, bent down and saluted him, Nian An was so shocked that he didn't speak, and clumsily learned to return the salute to the boy in the green shirt.

It looks like a chicken pecking rice.

So Ren Nanhua bent over and took off the crown jade and held it in his hand, bending his waist even lower.

"Both are rotten good guys. ”

This is the evaluation of Qiu Qiu after Ren Nanhua left.

......

......

At this moment, Xinghe seemed to have fallen asleep, and Nian An could occasionally hear a few frogs chirping in the Wei River not far away. The candles in the courtyard opposite the earthen wall were also extinguished, and the young man sighed with peace of mind, arranged his shoes and socks, and lay down.

Tossing and turning, but the chaise longue dangled in the middle of the view.

So the boy buried his head in the futon and sniffed, and he didn't know how long it was before he was about to fall asleep.

Half-asleep and half-awake, he heard someone singing outside the window, and the sound was supposed to be that the drunken beggar old man in the north of the city was strolling along the north street again.

"A pot of worship for the rising sun, a pot of respect for the moonlight, a sober person is the most absurd. ”

Nian An blinked vigorously, pricking up his ears to listen more carefully, but there was just silence.