This year's Qingming Festival, the rain will come later.
On the hillside in the south of the town, a young man with a grass stalk in his mouth was lying leisurely on an old scalper, with his hands behind his back, watching a huge group of people come to worship their ancestors.
The 12-year-old boy is an orphan in the village. No one knows how he came here. All they know is that a boy lying on the ground on a snowy night was found by the county magistrate. There was only the word "Xu" in his swaddling clothes. He was later found by the old county magistrate. He was given the name "Qingmu" and treated as a scholar among his peers. Xu Qingmu swung his feet on the back of an ox and watched the county magistrate's family offering sacrifices in boredom. A red birthmark like a flower was exposed on his left foot.
The young man thought the sacrifice was quite interesting. People who cursed each other on weekdays would always bring various parents, grandparents, and even eighteen generations of their ancestors to express their greetings. But on the day of the sacrifice, everyone looked respectful and expressions It is solemn and pious. When you were alive, you didn't see any meat for half a year, but when you were dead, you could fill the sacrificial table with chicken, fish, meat and eggs. It is not known whether the ancestors could eat it, but the wild dog outside the village had gained a lot of weight.
There was no corner of the dining table when he was alive, but after his death, his tombstone fell into the hall! How ironic.
A group of servants stood in two rows in front of the tomb, and the flat altar was filled with six gloriously "sacrificed" animals. The old county magistrate and the county magistrate's son Lin Zhenbei knelt on the left and right in front of the altar, holding incense in their hands. There are several flavors.
As in previous years, we burn incense, kowtow, and leave after finishing the work.
Just as Lin Zhenbei was about to kowtow, the old county magistrate took out a veil from his arms.
"Put it on, you are just idle all day long, how dare you meet your ancestors?"
The young man was stunned and took the veil. He looked at his father who indulged in wine and sex all day long and searched for people's wealth. Where did he get the confidence?
"What about you?" Lin Zhenbei asked.
The old county magistrate calmly took out another one, which was thicker and covered his face.
"I wear it too."
...
When a group of people left, Lin Zhenbei ignored the crowd and walked straight towards Xu Qingmu. The two playmates who had grown up together since childhood did not appear to be unfamiliar regardless of their status.
The only conflict was about the old scalper under Xu Qingmu. The old cow was a seven or eight-year-old buffalo. On a whim, the two of them argued about whether the milk they sucked directly into their mouths was sweet or salty. The county magistrate's son Lin Zhenbei immediately decided that it was sweet. Xu Qingmu said otherwise. Xu Qingmu, who has read a lot, believed in the principle of "what you learn on paper will eventually become shallow, and you must do it if you know it", and asked the two to play guessing, and the loser had to "do it" ”.
Unfortunately, Zhenbei is a little inferior.
Then the housekeeper saw the six or seven-year-old son of the county magistrate, kneeling under the old cow, grabbing the old cow's buttocks and raising his head to suck the milk.
The final result is unknown, but Lin Zhenbei was imprisoned in the house by five or six servants. The county magistrate spent a lot of money to hire two Taoist priests from the mountain in fluttering white clothes. On his own body, he cried loudly to Zhenbei's dead mother, saying that the child had a hard life and was weaned too early.
Since then, the two children did not speak for a week because someone told the boy that the cow did not produce milk and was male.
"I've seen people wearing pastries to worship, but this is the first time I've seen people wearing veils." Xu Qingmu spat out the grass stems and joked with a smile.
Lin Zhenbei patted the old cow and signaled the young man to move his buttocks, and then jumped on the cow's back. The old scalper moved a bit, and no one was sitting on the wide buttocks, and everyone was crowded on the back.
"My father is not planning to marry a new concubine recently. He is too embarrassed to see his mother, so he drags me into the water." Lin Zhenbei said helplessly.
"I heard that a sword cultivator came to the Yamen recently. My father hired it personally. He said he was going to teach me how to practice swordsmanship. Do you want to learn it?" Zhenbei held a wooden stick in his hand and gestured with him.
"If I don't practice, I have to study." Xu Qingmu, who was Lin Zhenbei's study companion in the early years, was not qualified to enter the school. But Lin Zhenbei wanted to drag Xu Qingmu along with him, and in the end the two of them went to the private school one after another.
Sit opposite each other.
But in terms of talent for reading, the county magistrate's playboy son was really not good at it. In just one day, Lin Zhenbei almost committed suicide in the school. On the contrary, Xu Qingmu, the young man who was not even qualified to enter the school, studied the three-shift lamp.
They had a good appearance. Later, the number of people who attended the school frequently changed from two to one.
The old county magistrate didn't care about this. He, Lin Xiao, didn't get his position as magistrate by studying. No matter how uneducated Lin Zhenbei was, his uncle who was above the court could still make him a seventy-year-old man.
, it can also be called longevity test.
If you can't write well, you can practice martial arts.
Now on Zhenbei's twelfth birthday, he invited a well-known local swordsman - a middle-aged man in white clothes who came down from Zhenhu Mountain.
"Then you study and I practice swordsmanship. When I become a first-class master, you will assist me and let's go to the high places of the temple!" The twelve-year-old boy was full of ambition and reached out to pat Xu Qingmu's shoulder, as if
Cheering for their lofty ambitions.
The first thing to learn is to be determined. Xu Qingmu agrees.
But Xu Qingmu's book told him that Jianghu was just like that, only wine was good. The young man didn't understand Jianghu, but he was just curious about what was good about the bitter and spicy wine.
The two of them chatted for a while, and when the light rain fell, Lin Zhenbei went back to the Yamen first.
The young man sits alone on the back of an ox, his lonely shadow in the dusk.
Looking at the busy and pious passers-by on the road, the young man felt a little sad. He lowered his head and scratched the itchy birthmark on his heel, which turned bright red.
-----------------------
By the time the old cow finished eating grass and wandered home, it was already nearly three quarters in the afternoon.
Before entering the town, I saw a yellow dog running away like crazy. Behind it was an old beggar who was in ragged clothes and was very angry. When he saw a man and an ox, the old yellow dog suddenly became emboldened. He squatted in front of the boy with his tongue out and squinted.
The old beggar looked down at the old beggar. The old beggar carrying a wooden stick kept cursing:
"You bastard, you pooped and peed in my den while I was away. If I don't peel off your skin, your bones will turn into soup!"
The appearance of the old beggar and the young man were extremely coincidental. On that snowy day, after the Yamen servant discovered the young man lying in the snow, the old beggar settled in this remote Funiu town in the north.
The relationship between Xu Qingmu and this old beggar is very good, and it belongs to the kind of master and apprentice. However, what he learned is not martial arts, but the ability to steal chickens and dogs to fill his stomach. Funiu Town is as small as the Ping family people, as large as the restaurants and brothels.
I have been patronized by this young and old man.
Although the boy was adopted by the county magistrate, the old beggar lived in a leaky and out-of-service stable and ate scraps. The boy often lived without enough to eat in his childhood, but the old beggar taught him all he had learned.
This made the young man's body not so weak. It was not until Lin Zhenbei, the son of the county magistrate, got older that the situation improved. No matter how dissatisfied the iron cock was, he had to hold his nose and let the young man move into the house and live with Lin Zhenbei.
Neighbors on the left and right.
Since then, the old beggar has also moved his residence to a cave dwelling not far from the county government office.
"Okay, old beggar, after all I raised Ah Huang with my own hands, so give me some face. I'll give you some information and let's stop this matter. How about that?"
The old beggar, who was about to agree, accidentally saw the yellow dog spitting at him, and suddenly became furious.
"No, at least two pieces of news! I still have to see if it's worth it." The old beggar glared at the dog fiercely and spat back, one man and one dog, refusing to give in to each other.
Xu Qingmu thought for a while, as if he had given up a big opportunity, kicked the yellow dog, and raised his first finger:
"Master Lin invited Lin Zhenbei to have a sword cultivator from Zhenhu Mountain. I heard that the sword he is wearing is the second-ranked Qishan Sword in Zhenhu Mountain. Do you want to go and take a look?"
The old beggar still held the wooden stick and remained unmoved. After spending time together day and night, the old beggar had already figured out Xu Qingqian's master, who would not come up with a trick until the end.
The young man sighed and stretched out his second finger:
"This year's sacrifices from the village bully Wang Mazi's family include a roasted chicken, a plate of pig head meat, a pot of peach blossom stuffing, and three melons and fruits..."
The old beggar dropped his stick and ran away.
I hate that dead dog, but it turned around like a grasshopper, followed the old beggar, and ran away.
When Xu Qingmu led the old scalper past a tavern, he saw the signboard saying:
"The Jade Tower and the Golden Tower are returning lazily, and Luoyang is intoxicated by placing plum blossoms"
The young man decided to write this sentence in his home.