Text Chapter 1: The Abandoned Son
Zhou Jiujian knew that he was an orphan without a father and a mother since he could walk and talk. Some people say that he was rushing down from the mountain when the ice first broke through the unnamed river outside the village, and some people say that he brought him to the village in the middle of the night, and as for why the wolf did not eat him as an ignorant baby, but came to the village, no one can give an exact explanation. Anyway, the people in the village have different opinions about the origin of this poor orphan, but there is no result. In fact, for this poor child, most people are not very concerned, it is the snow in front of the door that does not care about the frost on the tiles of others, in the end, it is mostly reduced to the talk of these village husbands and peasant women who are full of food and drink and have nothing to do, no one thinks of taking the baby back to their home for adoption, how can there be a little more kindness and compassion.
The talent is that among small families, the most stingy and thin!
But after all, it is in response to the old saying, life and death have fate, and each depends on creation.
In the end, it was the old man Zhou who had been lonely for many years at the end of the village who unexpectedly took him back to his home. A lonely old man who feeds the whole family without hunger, and an ignorant baby who is helpless, this pair of old people and babies who need to be supported by others no matter how they look at it, live together like this.
Old man Zhou came out of this mountain in his early years, saw the outside world, and then he didn't know what he had experienced, or he had the heart of returning to his roots, and he didn't return to his hometown until he was old, and he was the only person in this village who could read and write. Naming the baby is naturally not like other households like taking a cow and a dog like a cheap name that is easy to feed, so he took the word "Nine Swords", the surname is with him, it is called Zhou Jiujian, and the milk name is also quite good, called: Lin'er!
This week's house, don't look at the thatched huts in the courtyard are more dilapidated than other families in the village, but this week's baby, just by name, is more atmospheric and detached than the baby of other families.
It is said that on the day when Old Man Zhou named Xiao Jiujian, the originally sunny weather instantly turned into dark clouds and heavy rain, which was extremely strange and abnormal, but no one thought much about it, but this God did not wake up yet, and the climate was reversed. But what no one saw was that a new sapling appeared silently on the originally barren land in the courtyard of the Zhou family.
Everyone in the village was eagerly waiting to see how an old man with the lower half of his body in the loess could raise a baby who could only drink milk, and to see if the baby, whose name sounded so good, could survive this spring.
Fortunately, Xiao Jiujian seems to be born with a good life, there is no milk for him to drink, the old man Zhou slowly boiled the millet into porridge and fed him, I didn't expect him to be able to drink it, it seems to be still delicious, and there is not even a little problem, this child is like being favored by God, major and minor illnesses have not even had a cold, and he passed that spring peacefully.
Xiao Jiujian was like a small sapling in front of the door, taking root and sprouting in this impoverished small mountain village.
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For a period of time in the future, the most talked about in the small village was Zhou Jiujian, the child picked up by the Zhou family. After all, it is a small mountain village isolated from the world, and it is rare to meet an outsider for a year and a half, and on weekdays, there are mostly men and women who weave and hunt and fish day after day to earn a living, and naturally there is nothing new, at most, I stretched my neck and stretched my ears to listen to the "grandfather and grandson" of the Zhou family at the end of the village, and more, but it is about Xiao Jiujian.
Zhou Jiujian, this child is naturally smart and precocious, and his body bones develop very quickly, he began to grow teeth when he was four months old, he was able to stand against the wall at eight months, and when he was one and a half years old, he had begun to walk freely and babble and talk. There is no child in the village who can be like him, those long-mouthed village women saw it, and they don't know if they are jealous, and they hate themselves for tossing out of their stomachs but they are not as good as picking up on the roadside.
In addition to Xiao Jiujian's unusually precocious wisdom, there was another incident that caused panic and horror among the people in the small mountain village. It is still the courtyard of the Zhou family, and the sapling in front of the door, which was half a person high, has grown into a towering tree overnight, and the shade of the tree has shrouded the thatched house of the Zhou family, as if this simple thatched house is hidden in the lush leaves, and there are many birds and birds gathered on the branches of this big tree on weekdays, which is particularly strange.
This scene frightened many ignorant village women and villagers, thinking that the Zhou family's land must be evil, and the tree was even more spiritual. They hesitated for a long time, and only then did they introduce an old man who was the same age as the old man Zhou to go to Zhou's house, probably because they wanted to cut down and burn this big tree of the evil sect.
Old man Zhou was sitting under the tree at that time, looking at the sky that was about to fall into the night, and suddenly said inexplicably: "The sunset is infinitely good, but it is just near dusk." ”
The old man has been farming in this mountain village for generations since his ancestors, and he doesn't know a single word in Douda, and he can't understand what kind of book head he hangs, but the old man Zhou waved his hand to signal him to leave, but he understood, he flicked his sleeves, and left angrily with a look of ignorance of good people.
Old man Zhou smiled, touched the round little head of Xiao Jiujian, who was squatting aside and practicing calligraphy with a branch, and said, "Lin'er, have you ever recognized a few words?"
Naturally, the question was just said.
Zhou Jiujian raised his little head, frowned, and said in a glutinous voice: "Seven." ”
After hearing this, Old Man Zhou laughed: "Good!"
Since then, when the people in the village passed by the end of the village, they all avoided the Zhou family far away, and walked around the road, and naturally no one in the village would play with Jiujian.
Zhou Jiujian, who was gradually growing up, also understood a little bit in his little head, but these did not hinder him much. Since he was three years old, he had to go into the mountain with his grandfather every day, and he went all day, and he had to go down every day before he was exhausted and returned home with the old man Zhou, and at night he had to use the branch as a pen under the big tree to practice three thousand words before he could sleep, even if he was asleep, he had to maintain a certain posture and sleep. For all this, he naturally hasn't understood the truth yet, but since it was said by Old Man Zhou, he just needs to do it.
is like what Old Man Zhou said: "Plant a grain of millet in spring and harvest 10,000 seeds in autumn." "There's always something to be said in it.
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Summer and summer are harsh in winter, spring is in full bloom and autumn is remnant.
When Zhou Jiujian was nine years old, in the middle of winter, the old man Zhou had a serious illness, Xu was cold to the bones, the age of the old bones was not very good, and he lay down on the bed all of a sudden, and he couldn't get up.
The discerning people in the village could see that Old Man Zhou was really bad this time, and the death limit was approaching, so it was time to prepare for the future, so the eyes that were cast at Zhou Jiujian unconsciously carried a little pity. The nine-year-old child put on an animal fur sweater without saying a word, carried a basket on his back, and braved the goose feather snow in the cold winter days to step step on the snow as deep as his thigh and step into the mountains.
Everyone thought that this child was crazy, at this time, the snow covered the mountain, even the Orion family, who was familiar with the old way, did not dare to enter the mountain easily, however, no one stopped the child.
It's like a play, but pathos doesn't have to be sympathetic.
When the boy gritted his teeth and dragged the basket back, the basket was already covered with many herbs covered with frost. In addition, the child's left leg was still stained with blood, and I don't know what had cut his foot on the road, and the blood was flowing, so he just took a piece of burlap to bandage the wound at random. In such a cold winter, ordinary people feel extremely painful if they have a little bump, not to mention being scratched and bleeding, if it is placed in other children who are the same age as Zhou Jiujian, they would have already cried bitterly, but he just gritted his teeth tightly and persisted, his eyes were red and swollen, and if the tears had a tendency to overflow, he would wipe his sleeves on his eyes fiercely, and then continue to walk forward, just not to let the tears flow out.
Xiao Jiujian braved the snow to go up the mountain to collect medicine every day, he was afraid that it was still too cold in the hut, so he personally took an axe and cut down the towering tree in front of the door. At first, the roots of the tree were too big for him to cut at a young age, so he had to cut down those branches, thinking that these branches would be enough to survive this cold winter, and he didn't want this tree to know what kind of strangeness it was, and the branches would turn into ashes in less than half a pillar of incense when they were fired, and no matter how many branches they put in, they would all be the same result. Xiao Jiujian was annoyed in his heart, except for going into the mountain to collect medicine, eat and sleep, and take care of the old man Zhou, the rest of the time he took the axe to the same position at the root of the tree, and it took more than ten days to chop, and the axe was curled, and the big tree fell down with a bang, causing half of the people in the small mountain village to be amazed and watched.
Xiao Jiujian dragged a small piece of tree root into the house with an impermanent expression, and it was strange to say that the small piece of tree root thrown in the fire did not melt as soon as it encountered fire like a branch, but lasted for a long time and burned brightly.
That piece of root burned for a whole winter, and Old Man Zhou dragged Zhou Jiujian through the winter, but he still died.
It was just the beginning of spring, and the earth warmed up.
Before Old Man Zhou died, at the moment when he returned to the light, he grabbed Zhou Jiujian's hand tightly, and almost used all his strength to say: "Lin'er, don't forget to take revenge, my heart is uneven!"
Xiao Jiujian was already in tears, he gritted his teeth fiercely, just as he was strong when he went into the mountains to collect medicine for Old Man Zhou, but the difference was that his tears did not flow out at that time.
He nodded heavily.
The old man finally smiled with relief.
My heart is in peace, that is, my hometown, although my Zhou Honghu is dead, but there is a descendant Zhou Jiujian, the lights are not extinguished, my heart, peace!
Old man Zhou died, Zhou Jiujian's tears seemed to be dry, and for the first time in the world, he finally asked for a saw from a family surnamed Mao in a small village. Use the big tree cut down outside the door to make a coffin for the old man Zhou, bury it in a place on the mountain, and carve a tombstone by himself, and neatly engrave the "tomb of the sword fairy Zhou Honghu".
Then Zhou Jiujian knelt down in front of the tomb and snorted vigorously three times, without saying a word, he got up, turned around and left, the child still carried a wooden sword around his waist, which he made with the remaining part of the root of the tree, and it began to take shape.
After walking about a hundred and ten steps, the child couldn't help but secretly turn his head and look at the inconspicuous little grave, and a tear slipped down his cheek silently.
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