afternoon

The scorching sun is exposed to the sun.

In the north of Yueyang City, at the North Gate Pass, the flow of people shuttles and the traffic is busy.

Due to the rumors of the Kyoto Crusade and the Yueyang Rebellion, which spread wantonly in Yueyang City, and the public government or the Jianghu Yuan government did not have high morality, they stood up and said the last one. As a result, panic broke out, and from noon to the poor people at the bottom, and even the shopkeepers with a little savings, they all packed up the soft and coarse grains, and dragged their families to leak out from the four gates of Yueyang...

The poor people are okay, and they can escape from the city with a pat on their buttocks, and hide in the ravines and ravines for a while. Those little shopkeepers are still embarrassed. Everyone knows that when the war burns out in Yueyang City, the most worthless thing is the storefront. Now that the shopkeepers are going to flee, this house is ironclad and cannot be taken away, and the only priority at the moment is to quickly exchange these oil bottles for gold and silver. But at this juncture, how can a building in Yueyang be sold at a good price? There are many officials who collect the house, but the price given is darker than the other. The original lot of 30 taels of silver and a foot is now Shengsheng has been pressed to less than 10 taels by the people who came to shout and buy and sell. If you don't like the price, it doesn't matter if you don't sell it, anyway, there are people behind you who take the title deed to exchange for silver. As long as you walk to the door and take a look at it at random, the flow of people who sell the deed has been discharged for dozens of feet, are you afraid that no one will sell?

I'm afraid, if you don't sell it now, when you think about it and come back, I'm afraid I don't know if I can sell it for five taels.

This is the profiteer, the profiteer who has no business and no traitor.

You are not optimistic about Yueyang City, and you plan to liquidate and flee. There will always be so many optimistic people to take over, and the difference is the price. As long as Yue Yang is fine, it will be several times and dozens of times the profit. In the face of such a rich reward, any businessman with courage will go crazy for it. The so-called coexistence of risks and opportunities...

"Bastard!

"These bunnies are really hungry ghosts reincarnated, I haven't seen silver in my previous life..."

North of Yueyang City, twenty miles away from Chengguan.

In a deserted mountain, in a sparse grove, under a hundred-year-old tree. Several sacks of sacks were thrown at random on the pile of dead leaves, and two plainly dressed old men rested their feet with their backs against the roots of the trees, one meditating with his eyes closed, and the other holding a small hookah pipe.

Not far away, in the path, another old man dressed in the same plain clothes, was holding a wad of silver tickets, shouting, and striding angrily towards the two men.

"Bastard!"

"I've worked hard to run a teahouse for more than ten years, and these bunnies just gave me a few tickets and sent me away!

The old men here were already very old, and judging from their spinach-like faces, they were the same age as the old man on the top of the Tianshan Mountain. It's just that, looking at this old man who is striding towards the meteor, his tone is full of energy, and he can be regarded as old and strong.

Looking closer, several people could see their faces vaguely clearly, and some were familiar.

We seem to have seen these people somewhere...

If you look closely, it turns out that it is no one else.

It was last night, in a small house in the north of Yueyang City, eating cold peanuts, watching the battle in Yueyanglou from afar, and seeing the three old men who scattered and left. The identities of these three people are not ordinary, and they are likely to be the people who survived the shocking war twenty years ago.

But on this hot day, why did they come to this quacking place?

"Hey... Pity my teahouse. ”

"Pity my good Biluochun, I'm so angry. ”

Heartbroken, whining and mourning, the old man who came was angry, and his face was congested into pig's liver. Under the big tree, the old man who was chattering and smoking hookah looked at the old man who came by with a pipe in his mouth, and asked, "What is the price of your teahouse?"

"Four hundred taels!"

The old man who came over angrily raised the silver ticket in his hand and scolded: "Bai Laosan's grandson, just give these four hundred taels, and don't give any more copper plates!, my restaurant is a prosperous shop on Qingzhu Long Street, and they just give me this bit of chicken minced! I really am a beggar!"

"If you have Liu'er, you can save it. ”

The old man who closed his eyes and recuperated opened his eyes, raised his palms, and comforted: "They are businessmen, and they know how to speculate and steal fruits best. At the moment in Yueyang's market, it is already good that he can give you four hundred taels. A few days later, I'm afraid no one will even give you a hundred taels. ”

"Huh!"

The old man who approached sighed helplessly.

When he came to the tree, he threw the silver ticket in his hand, threw it to the old man with a hookah, and sat down cross-legged in a rage. The old man hanging the hookah stretched out one hand, picked up the silver ticket from the ground, roughly counted the number of tickets, and then took the pipe from his mouth with the other hand, and asked, "Ahem... Second brother, do you say that this bit of silver is enough for us to go to Kyoto?

The talker coughed twice in one sentence, obviously suffering from an old illness.

The old man, who was called the second brother, glanced at the silver ticket and replied: "The third brother is frugal, and it is barely enough." ”

"The problem is, it's not just the three of us. The old man, who had just sat down, interjected angrily.

The old man with the silver ticket was a little embarrassed: "It's just Sa, don't you still have Mo'er and the boss, we can't starve them, right?"

After talking so far, it is not difficult to hear that this old man should have sold the teahouse in Yueyang City for some silver, and planned to go to Kyoto. It's just that, between words, this trip to Kyoto seems to be more than just three people, and there should be two more people who have not yet arrived. It's no wonder that the old man who went to sell the restaurant was so annoyed, Kyoto is 50 million miles away from Yueyang, and ordinary people can't walk 12/12 in a few lifetimes, and only birds and horses can travel between the two places. And the price of buying birds and animals is not low, besides, the people along the way have to eat, the horses have to be fed, and they have to find a place to settle down at night, which costs money everywhere.

Four hundred taels of silver, it seems to be a lot, and it is indeed enough for a family to spend most of their lives as an ordinary person, but from Yueyang to Beijing, it is really just barely enough for the expenses of these three old men, if there are two more, then you will have to go hungry halfway.

The old man who was called the second brother had a slightly embarrassed expression, and said insincerely: "Can't be so pessimistic, I think the two of them should also know about Kyoto Lu Yao, and they will be more or less prepared to be entangled, right? ”

". ”

The old man, who was still angry, was even more displeased when he heard this, and he stiffened his mouth and complained: "You still think that he will be entangled with two times? You are really naïve." Don't you know what kind of virtue you have? It's okay to have something to do, every once in a while he comes all the way from the west of the city to my restaurant to eat and drink, and he has never paid a copper plate, can he have silver on him? Not to mention the boss, our brothers said that it was good to lurk in Yueyang and secretly guard the sword, and she was good, so she would simply get married. It doesn't matter if she marries someone, she doesn't want to marry a butcher who sells meat, and she is a butcher who can only kill pigs and not sell pigs! Every time her family sells leftover meat, no one wants it, and the meat is stung into mud by flies, so why don't you ask me to send someone to take it back at a high price to feed the dogs? Do you expect her to bring you a coil? You dream, you..."

"Are you aggrieved?"

"Can I not be wronged, I... Uh..."

Indignant and angry, it seems that more than ten years of grudges have turned into droplets, gushing everywhere!

It can be seen how indignant this old man is at what his other two classmates have done over the years. Grievances, that's real grievances. So much so that when he was just finished speaking, he was asked if he was wronged, and he answered without thinking about it. However, when he said the word "grievance" smoothly, he regretted it...

His face changed dramatically!

The angry pork liver red instantly retreated into a large piece of green!

Because, he suddenly recalled, the previous sentence did not seem to have come from both sides. And it's not the voices of the other two old men here. It was a plain female voice, from the path he had walked into the woods!

“......”

Trembling and turning his face, he looked at it from afar.

But I saw that in the depths of the secluded path, behind the sparse grass and grass, an old woman led a hunchbacked old man leading a carriage, which was wrapped in countless oil papers piled up like a hill, and was slowly approaching from a distance. They walked very slowly, firstly because the load on the wagon was so heavy that the axles could pull the solid stone ground out of a ravine. The second is that the old horse pulling the cart is too old and panting, and he has to rest his hooves every two steps. There is also the hunchbacked old man walking in front of the carriage is too old, and his rickety waist is about to fall to his knees.

"Liu'er, since you are so wronged, why don't you tell me in person?

In the distance, the old woman leading the horse shouted at the three men under the tree.

"Bang Bang..."

The one who was called Liu'er was the old man who was still angry before, but after seeing this old woman, he didn't dare to burn any more fire. Hurriedly got up and patted the dust on his buttocks, threw off his sleeves and ran into the path. As he ran, he shouted, "Ouch, senior sister... Big sister... You can come and hey, Liu'er has been waiting for you for a long time..."

The six old men ran on their front feet, and the other two old men who were sitting against the roots of the tree also got up one after another, picked up the package that had been thrown aside, and followed. From this point of view, this old woman who is leading the horse should be the most senior person among the several old men here, that is, the "senior sister" they said mysteriously last night.

Because, no one here dares to despise her.

The old woman who came asked in a playful tone, "Heh... Don't shout so nicely, I can't stand it. What did you say earlier? You said that my meat can't be sold so I asked you to buy it and feed it to the dogs, right?"

"No, no... No... Senior sister, you heard me wrong... I must have heard it wrong..."

As the old men approached each other, the faces of the old woman and the hunchbacked old man could be seen clearly. The old woman didn't look old, and there was still a bright red life under the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. And, the hunchbacked old man is really old, his open mouth is black, and he can't even see a few old teeth, and Zou Ba's face is no different from the old trees in the forest, one pile after another.

"Big... Senior sister, what are you loading in this carriage?"

The six old men ran out of the path and ran to the old woman. Looking at the countless oil-paper packages on the carriage like a hill, he was stunned in his heart, as if he had guessed something, but he still pretended not to know and asked without knowing the topic.

"Hmph, take it. ”

The old woman snorted coldly, stuffed the reins of the horse into the hand of the old man in front of her, and said, "What else can there be, it is all entangled on the road, enough for you to live to Kyoto." ”

"Uh..."

Not long after, two other old men who followed behind also came over. Unlike the old man in front of them, they obviously didn't immediately guess what the carriage was carrying.

The two nodded casually, and said hello to the old woman and the hunchbacked old man. Then the two of them passed the old woman to the back of the carriage, and each of them curiously took a greased paper package from the carriage. The greasy and greasy seal paper sticks to the touch, and before you open the package, you can smell the smell of meat coming out of it...

Well, now the two old men don't have to guess, and they know what is wrapped in the seal. The two of them looked at each other, and they were immediately surprised, and there was a slight hint of complicated helplessness. Helpless and silent, unpack it casually, as expected. Wrapped in oiled paper, it is a charred skin, white flesh, what a big piece of braised pork!

"Ahem..."