Hu Qing is an idle man in his thirties who has yet to make a living. He has no children, no daughter, no wife, and only a widowed mother at home.
The two of them lived a difficult life.
Hu Qing usually makes a living by walking around the streets and doing odd jobs.
Sometimes I was so hungry that I would secretly climb over walls, pick locks, and make a living by stealing things.
There is always no wife, and as a man, life is miserable, and he often gets up secretly at night and goes to the next yard to listen to the corner to relieve himself.
That evening, Hu Qingxing returned home in a hurry, his face full of joy.
But I was in a restaurant in the city, and I got some leftovers from other people's meals. There was a little bit of minced meat in the vegetable soup, which smelled delicious.
His family lived in a dilapidated courtyard on the edge of the city. They had two loess houses with drafts on all sides, barely able to live in them.
Hu Qing put the begged food in an old wooden basket and quickly returned home.
The widowed mother was sitting in the yard. She was very skinny. She was a little blind due to a long-term lack of meat, and her legs and feet were not very convenient. She was wearing a brown shabby old cloth, her face was sallow, and her feet were made of straw shoes.
Hu Qing fed the food to his mother, and the two of them ate everything together.
Hu Qing finally used bamboo slices to poke through the gaps in the wooden baskets that had been filled with food, and took out the food residues stuck to them one by one, leaving nothing to eat.
Then he put the wooden basket in a broken wooden bucket filled with water at home, rinsed it clean, smashed it and said to his mother:
"Today I brought these food to eat. I brought some meat oil and rinsed it with water. The oil fell into the water. Next time I will use the water to cook other things. It smells like oil and will definitely be delicious."
"Yes." My mother was also very happy and nodded slowly.
night.
Hu Qing, who had nothing to do during the day, was also restless at night. He could not sleep, tossing and turning, listening intently, but his mother was already asleep.
Hu Qing stood up quietly, pulled on his straw sandals, and came to the yard.
The sky is filled with stars on the dome.
He looked into the yard next door, and then skillfully climbed over the low wall made of soil mixed with grass stalks.
There was a low voice coming from the room next door. Hu Qing licked his lips, stepped under the window, and began to eavesdrop.
"ah…"
In the dead of night, I suddenly heard a cry.
Hu Qing was surprised, such a big movement?
But he soon realized that the sound was not coming from the room next door.
He turned and looked outside the courtyard.
In the direction of the inner city, a ray of fire suddenly appeared, lighting up the night sky.
Immediately, there was a ball of black energy, like a demonic dragon rising into the sky, rising to a height of tens of feet, then suddenly disintegrating, overwhelmingly pressing towards all directions in the city.
Almost instantly, most of the city was flooded with black air.
Soon, panicked shouts rang out in the city, and it seemed that the whole city was in great panic.
Hu Qing's family lives in a corner of the city and has not yet been affected by the black air.
He was so frightened that he rushed back home and said to his mother who also heard the noise and sat up: "Mom, I don't know what happened in the city. I'm afraid the Qi people or the Zhao people are coming again.
I'll go out and take a look, don't move around."
The border town of Yan has experienced many confrontations with Qi and Zhao in the past.
The mother was not too panicked and nodded: "Be careful."
"I'll just go to the door and have a look."
Before the voice fell, Hu Qing had already ran outside the house.
But not long after, he ran back in a panic, held his mother on his back with both hands, and said: "Mom, there is a layer of black air outside, and anyone who touches it will die.
I'm afraid we can't stay in this city anymore, so let's get out of the city first."
While talking, he ran out with his mother on his back.
His house has only four walls, so he doesn't need to clean it up. He can just move it with his mother on her back.
As soon as Hu Qing walked out of the yard, he saw the door of the next door open and a disheveled man and woman rushing out.
The two of them dragged and dragged them, followed by three sleepy-eyed children, and families of all sizes also ran out of the house. Apparently, like Hu Qing, they discovered the changes in the city and the black air was spreading, and they planned to escape for their lives.
The man had a weathered face and an honest look, but he was still quite strong.
The woman is in her early thirties, with an average appearance but a plump figure. Her clothes are half-undressed in a hurry, revealing a touch of fair skin.
Normally, if Hu Qing saw the woman's open clothes, he would probably be unable to walk, but at this time, he didn't bother to take a closer look and said loudly:
"I know a way out of the city quickly. If you want to get out of the city, just follow it?"
In the blink of an eye, the two families rushed into the street one after another.
Hu Qing had been wandering around the city all day, but now he had an advantage. He carried his mother on his back, looking for small roads that others didn't know, and walked quickly through them.
————
Yucheng, on the border between the Yan people and Zhao and Qi, was an important town for the Yan people.
There are heavy troops stationed in the city and the population is hundreds of thousands.
Pei Yu and Yin Wugou followed him all the way across the Zhao border and finally arrived at Yucheng on the border of the Yan people.
The team led by Zhang Song and Lu Xiu, the guests of Pingyuan Junfu they were following, were obviously well prepared and successfully passed the city gate and entered the Jade City.
Pei Yu and Yin Wugou followed outside Jade City, communicated secretly, contacted the Ye Yufu spies lurking in Yandi, and asked about the situation in Jade City, and then changed their appearance and entered the city with the help of local spies.
They delayed for a while, but after entering the city, they had already chased Zhang Song, Lu Xiu and others from Lord Pingyuan's house who had entered the city first.
However, Pei Yu was good at tracking, and after a lot of manipulation, he found clues again at nightfall and tracked down the guest from Pingyuan Jun's Mansion after he entered the city.
However, just as he and Yin Wugou were lurking in secret, watching from a distance where the diners at Pingyuan Jun's mansion were, something happened in the city.
The fire burned out and the black air spread throughout the city.
That black air was exactly what they saw permeating the mountain valley during the day. Whether it was vegetation or living things, it would kill them if they touched it.
"Your Majesty..."
Pei Yu immediately informed Zhao Huaizhong of the accident in Jade City through a bone mirror.
When Zhao Huaizhong opened the mirror, the city was already in chaos.
People were running on the streets, and the garrison in the city was responding.
However, the Yan army was soon swept away by the black energy, and its body withered and collapsed and scattered like dust, just like what was seen during the day.
On the streets, people who woke up in the night panicked and fled in all directions.
Hu Qing was carrying his mother on his back, followed by the family next door.
They were currently standing on a slightly higher ground, trapped by the black air, and had no way forward.
On the ground, black air spread from the inside of the city to the outside, and soon spread to the edge of the city, trapping them in the middle like a rising tide.
On the street not far away, many people noticed that Hu Qing and others were on higher ground and came closer one after another.
There were about ten people in total, leaning against each other.
A piece of high ground with a radius of several feet is like an isolated island in the ocean, carrying everyone's hope of survival.
The black air is rhythmic, and only when you get closer can you see that what is detected in the black air is actually a thread as thin as a gossamer, as if it has life, entangling and attacking the people around it.
The hairsprings in the black air are like countless venomous snakes swarming around, which is extremely weird.
There is black air everywhere.
Hu Qing's face was full of panic and he looked around, trying to find a way out.
The family following him was also anxious and panicked: "Hu Qing, you have led us into a dead end. There is black air everywhere now. Where are we going..."
Hu Qing murmured: "There is no way out, where to run?"
Behind him was the outer wall of a house.
Seeing that there was no way to escape, the black energy spread from the city close to the ground, and was about to be forced to his feet. Hu Qing turned around and went to the wall. His mother was thin, so he planned to lift her to the wall first to avoid the black energy.
To be continued...