The sky is still gloomy, and the rain is lighter than most days in recent days.
The road outside the house is not only difficult to see clearly, but also muddy and difficult to walk on.
It was impossible to herd the sheep, but the shepherds still went out.
The shepherd went to deliver milk to the goats.
Special wooden jars can temporarily store goat milk and are easy to carry and transport.
This is part of the shepherd's life and the economic source of the shepherd's family.
When a shepherd is in his prime years, he has a good wife and children.
But as early as fifteen years ago, he was just a poor orphan whose life was unsustainable.
His parents, like most people who should not have died early, died in the foreign troubles in those years.
He survived alone for five years with great difficulty, and then chose to leave the village to seek a chance to survive.
A year later, he came back and became the only shepherd in the village and even in the entire Fengshan Mountain.
He started herding sheep near Fengshan every day and selling goat milk in five villages.
The flock of sheep continued to grow, and the shepherd's life became better and better. Soon he added a wife and children.
Perhaps the houses in the village rarely live next to each other, and the so-called neighbors are indifferent to each other. Therefore, when the shepherd was at his lowest, few people in the village lent a helping hand to him.
Accordingly, when the shepherd's family underwent a prosperous change, fortunately, no one else was jealous, no one noticed, and no one even cared about where the shepherd's first few sheep came from.
Because of this, people near Fengshan have naturally become accustomed to the presence of shepherds, and many villagers with relatively decent families have been drinking goat milk from shepherds for a long time.
They can drink fresh goat's milk almost every day because the shepherds have been delivering goat's milk every day for more than ten years.
Goat milk naturally has to be delivered, but there is no need to risk one's life to deliver it.
Especially in this strange rainy weather that is rare in a hundred years, no matter how distant and weak the relationship between the villagers is, they will not hope that someone will die because of a can of goat's milk.
But the shepherd embarked on the journey to deliver goat milk without hesitation.
Even though the shepherd's family was worried about him, they didn't stop him from going out.
Their husband/father said he was repaying the favor.
Yes, pie never falls from the sky for nothing, and the first few sheep the shepherd brought back were not for nothing.
The year he left the village, he met some people, some good people.
Those good people taught him how to be self-reliant and gave him some sheep.
Those good people don't ask for anything in return, but he is a person who understands simple principles.
That simple truth is that a drop of kindness should be repaid by a spring.
Before he returned to the village, he found out that those good people were working in a Jianghu alliance called the Daoyi Alliance.
Since then, he has planned to spend the rest of his life repaying the moral alliance that gave him new life.
The shepherd is still an ordinary person, but he has an additional identity, the spy of the Daoyi Alliance.
When delivering goat milk on weekdays, he is responsible for conveying information about the Fengshan area.
Normally, he wouldn't go out to deliver milk every day, depending on the weather.
But a few days ago, he had received instructions to ensure that information was continuously transmitted in the past few days.
He guessed that something big might happen near Zhifeng Mountain, and it was closely related to Jianghu.
He understands that at this time, the transmission of information is more critical. If there is an interruption due to this unexpected weather change, leading to a delay in important events, even if no one blames him, he will have trouble sleeping and eating.
What's more, when he got up to go to the toilet at midnight yesterday, he heard some strange noises in addition to the sound of rain.
At that time, he was confused and couldn't understand what the sound was that was mixed with the sound of rain.
When he got up early in the morning, he had not forgotten the matter, and after a moment's thought he guessed that it was the sound of tapping the embankment.
What is the purpose of destroying the embankment at night?
Fengshan is a higher mountain range in the southern part of Jiangxi and Gansu provinces. There are two villages scattered in the mountains, and every household has built a house on a high place. Therefore, no matter how heavy the rain is, the rivers will not be able to flood them no matter how high the water rises.
The dyke blocks the Ganjiang River. Destroying the dyke will have little impact on the people living in Fengshan, but it will undoubtedly make the people downstream even worse!
This is all the shepherd can imagine, and he does not need to think too much. All he needs to do is to spread this important message as soon as possible.
This was also the reason why he went out in the dark early in the morning.
But the shepherd could not have imagined that from the moment he stepped out of the house, he would have embarked on a path of no return.
Before he completely lost consciousness, he did not regret the choice he made. He only regretted that he died in vain and failed to spread the news!
…
…
The shepherd died.
In the past, people around Fengshan might have been used to not taking him seriously.
Now, his death will definitely be taken seriously.
News of the shepherd's death will spread to Fengshan sooner or later.
But if you stay overnight, some things will be irreversible.
There are five villages near Fengshan, and at least four people are concerned about the shepherd's safety.
Three of them are his wife and children.
The other one is the Tofu Xishi in Dingzhai Village outside Fengshan.
Tofu Xi Shiben and Shepherd are from the same village.
There was no dirty dealings.
Only when the shepherd was in poverty, Tofu Xishi once handed him steamed buns.
The kindness of a steamed bun was remembered by the shepherd.
Ever since I met Doufu Xishi who was married to Dingzhai Village by chance, every time the shepherd went out to deliver goat milk, he would also send a jar to Doufu Xishi's family.
Coincidentally, Tofu Xishi's family of five also received favors from the Daoyi Alliance in their early years.
After learning what the shepherd did while delivering goat's milk, Tofu Xishi also voluntarily became a hidden stake in the Taoist Alliance.
A few days ago, Tofu Xishi also received instructions that recent news must be reported daily.
The shepherd made an agreement with Tofu Xishi that he must bring the information before noon every day. If the time is missed, a warning message will be sent out!
It's late afternoon.
The lunch meal of tofu and Xishi was almost inedible, and the whole family had a sad look on their faces.
After hastily washing the dishes, Tofu Xishi opened the wooden window facing the mountain road.
Staring out the window worriedly.
None of the family went to take a nap, they stayed with her quietly, waiting for the shepherd to appear.
Half a cup of tea, a cup of tea, a stick of incense, time passes slowly.
Thinking about it, the shepherd is already in dire straits...
Tofu Xishi stood up and walked to the kitchen, as if to pick vegetables.
The house that Tofu Xishi lives in is located on the bank of a stream. There is a mountain road in front of the house and a stream behind the house.
This stream is a small tributary of the Gan River. The water flow is not large and there are few boats coming and going, but there are always a few boats that go around here from time to time.
If not for anything else, I just wanted to see the news coming from Doufu Xishi’s family.
In addition to drying clothes, some fruits and vegetables are also hung on the drying pole behind Tofu Xishi's house.
If these fruits and vegetables are hung evenly, it means everything is safe and ships passing by will not stop.
If these fruits and vegetables are hung unevenly, it means that there is a message being conveyed, and the boatman will buy some tofu from the Tofu Xishi and take away the message hidden in the tofu.
If there are only three fruits and vegetables hanging out, and they are arranged in two short and one long, it is a warning sign.
The warning signal can only be interpreted in one way. Doufu Xishi does not know the details, but she is certain that the person who contacted her for the information was killed, so as to serve as a warning.
For more than ten years, Tofu Xishi has never hung three fruits and vegetables outside her back room.
Now she has picked out three eggplants, two short and one long.
She took one last look out the window. Apart from the pouring rain, there was still no one on the mountain trail.
She sighed and walked to the back of the house.
I was about to open the door, but I was surprised to find that I couldn't push it!
Plop!
When Doufu Xishi realized that the danger was coming, a sharp knife had passed through the wooden door and pierced into her heart! 166 Reading Network