Xiao Qinghuan

The 28th of the twelfth lunar month.

As New Year's Eve approaches, most of the people have already rushed back to their hometowns, except for those wandering merchants and rivers and lakes who make their homes all over the world, sitting around the stove with their relatives, drinking and gossiping lively.

It seems to be the same, the passenger flow of the only inn in Xianyang County has been reduced by more than half, and there are a few familiar faces in the lobby every day, and even Xiao Er has had the New Year's ceremony and went back to the countryside for the New Year.

The proprietress of the inn is a young widow. It is said that she is a local. Her husband was originally a headhunter in the county. Unfortunately, she was killed by bandits two years ago, leaving two orphans and widows to depend on each other.

Fortunately, the widow was hot and hard to provoke, and the colleagues in the government office of the widow's mansion often took care of her, so she brought a three or four-year-old girl to open the shop without causing any trouble.

Xianyang County is close to Chang'an, although it is a small place, but when New Year's Eve is approaching, the city is also very lively. There is a market every even number, and there is no shortage of melons, fruits, snacks, heavy meat and wild game in the market.Holding a small bag of broken silver in his hand, Lu Feng wandered around the market on the street in front of the inn from beginning to end. Finally, he sat at a small stall on the corner of the street and ate a bowl of Yangchun noodles without chopped green onions. After drinking from the shop, he walked to the inn contentedly.

The market was crowded with people, some hunters outside the city wanted to take advantage of the last few days to sell game in the city, farmers also wanted to buy some new year’s goods back in the city, and each stall took up most of the street, and even settled down None of the places.

When Lu Feng returned to the inn, his clothes were all crumpled, and he looked very miserable.

There was a lot of people outside, but the inn was deserted, not even a single guest. The lady proprietress stood behind the counter and fiddled with the abacus. Steamed fish.

"It's from me," she said.

Lu Feng's nose moved slightly, and when he smelled the sweet scent of pasta in the room, he realized that there were only two days left until New Year's Eve.

On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, every household should prepare noodles for New Year’s Eve. In addition to food for people, people who worship ancestors should also prepare noodles. Those who pay attention to it will make bean buns into the shape of dragon fish, and pay attention to it for more than a year.It's a pity that the cooks in this small town are not very skilled, and the arowana was pinched like a fat-headed fish. If it weren't for the two whiskers hanging out of the plate, Lu Feng would have thought it was some novelty created by the cook.

He smiled and thanked the proprietress, and before he could touch a handful of the hot bean buns, a little girl in red and green rushed out from behind, as if her butt was burned.

"Grandpa!" The little girl was just as aggressive as her mother: "You can't eat my mother's steamed buns for nothing, you have to give me candy!"

This little girl's ability to buy and sell by force is not small, Lu Feng raised his eyebrows, and suddenly felt that this little Douding, who has not yet grown his teeth, will also be a capable role in these ten villages and eight stores in the future.

"I don't have any sugar." Lu Feng said while shaking the flagon: "Do you want wine?"

The little girl is not very big, but she follows the waiter every day, how can she not know what wine is, and suddenly shows a look of disgust: "Who wants your wine."

She rolled her eyes and said, "Then you don't have any sugar, you can tell me a story."

Normally, Lu Feng would have laughed and thrown her to her mother to clean up, but today he changed his temper somehow and left without lifting his foot.

The burning knives brought from the wine stand were scalded and very hot. Lu Feng drank half a glass before saying seriously: "Once upon a time, there was a handsome young man from a family who treated him very poorly. Well, I threw him outside to practice at a young age. The young master walked all the way from Chang'an to Lin'an Mansion, and finally settled down on the banks of the Qiantang River and bought a small courtyard."

"The weather that year was different from usual. Begonia flowers bloomed half a month later than usual. My son waited for ten days for the flowers to drink. Then one night, there was a spring rain, and the courtyard was full of flowers that night. The crabapple flowers on the tree bloomed quietly, and the next morning, the morning light was twilight, and the aristocratic family hadn't woken up before there was a knock on the door." Lu Feng paused, poured a glass of wine and drank it himself, Then he said again: "He opened the door and saw a handsome young man standing outside. The young man had a good appearance, but unfortunately he was not very serious. He came to touch porcelain, and he said that the crabapple flowers in the prince's courtyard were smashed. He passed by and sprinkled him with rainwater, so he couldn't move on."

The opening of this story is different from that of the storytelling stalls outside. The little girl was very surprised to hear it, and asked repeatedly: "Then and then."

Then the two stars with different fates overlapped suddenly, and the star trails intersected, drawing two lines that diverged from each other.

"Then?" Lu Feng smiled and said perfunctorily, "I don't remember the rest."

The little girl quit immediately: "What kind of story are you talking about! There is only a beginning but no end, when will you remember it?"

"Hmm." Lu Feng pondered for a while, smiled and stretched out his hand to compare the height of the little girl's head to an unattainable height: "When you grow tall enough to break down the top branches of the willow tree at the intersection, I will remember gone."

The proprietress behind the counter raised her eyelids and looked at him thoughtfully.

"It's already 28. At this time, the ones still in my store are either duckweeds without a home or mouth, or prodigal sons without a name." The proprietress pushed the abacus: "Which one are you?"

"There is a family, a reputation, but no heart." Lu Feng finished drinking a pot of wine, sighed, "He is an old vulgar person who cannot escape the vulgar."

Everyone has a story. The proprietress has met a lot of people of all kinds in the past years since she opened the shop, and she doesn't ask too many questions.

"My family has Xinqi's daughter Hong on New Year's Eve... You've lived with me for more than a month, so I'll give you a cheap price." The proprietress said, "Five coins a pot, do you want it?"

Lu Feng laughed loudly, took out a tael of silver from his bosom and threw it on the counter: "Excuse me, prepare two pots. They must be hot. I will use them when I get up early in the morning."

After he finished speaking, he swayed upstairs with his hands behind his back.

The little girl didn't finish listening to the story, stomped her feet angrily, and went to the back kitchen.

Lu Feng didn't finish the story, but he could deal with the little girl, but he couldn't deal with himself.

The playbooks in the world are all clichés, no one can be an exception.The young man originally wanted to touch porcelain, but he didn't expect to touch himself in it. It was not until two years later that he realized that the yard was rented by a son, and the other party was not a son of a family at all.

A person's life is doomed. When Lu Feng was young, he would occasionally wonder if Ning Zongyuan was his doom.But later, as the sun rose and the moon set, autumn passed and winter came, and time passed day by day, Lu Feng gradually stopped thinking about it this way.

Kunlun was founded more than a thousand years ago, and each of them was cultivating the way of heaven, but each of them was eventually lost in this huge world of mortals.

As long as the living heart in the chest still hurts, it is impossible for a person to become a fairy.

On New Year's Eve, every household got up early and was busy with ancestor worship and New Year's Eve dinner. When Lu Feng got up, it was still before dawn, and two pots of hot Naughty Red were placed on the empty counter.Lu Feng took the wine and went out of the city.

The farther east you go, the more remote you go, the imperial tomb is located in a place with strong dragon veins, and Lu Feng didn't want to do anything hypocritical about saying goodbye after separating the yin and yang, so he bypassed the imperial tomb and boarded the unnamed mountain behind.

In the harsh winter, the grass and trees on the mountain were all withered, and the snow and dead branches were scattered under the feet, making a creaking sound when one stepped on it.Lu Feng found a gentle slope facing the imperial mausoleum, and picked a clean cypress tree to sit on.

On New Year's Eve, the ancestors were worshipped, and the imperial mausoleum was busy with beating gongs and drums for most of the day, and it was not until the sun set to the west that it barely returned to tranquility.

Lu Feng squinted at the blue silhouette in the distance, and took out two thin pieces of paper from his pocket.

It was Ning Zongyuan's funeral speech. The emperor passed away, and the temples and Taoist temples inside and outside Chang'an City had to ring [-] bells. These two pieces of paper were accidentally left out during the sacrificial ceremony in Caotang Temple, and they happened to be picked up by Lu Feng. with.

People live for decades, and the merits and demerits of their life are ultimately no more than these two thin sheets of paper.

Lu Feng drank the two pots of Nurhong alone on the cypress tree. The wine had a strong aftertaste. Lu Feng leaned against the tree trunk and fell asleep at some point.

He had a dream.

In the dream, the tide of Qiantang River was surging, and the tide was pulled into a white line on the horizon, rolling in like thunder.

The restaurant by the Qiantang River was full of tourists who came to watch the tide. Some people walked up the narrow stairs and walked to the private room on the upper floor of the restaurant.

In the dream, Lu Feng was still young. He was wearing a green shirt, and the Kunlun Pei hanging around his waist made crisp sounds as he lifted his feet.

The young master in brocade clothes on the high platform turned his head and saw him coming up the stairs.

The others were watching the tide, drinking tea and reciting poems, but only Lu Feng was carrying not only a small jar of wine, but also a roast chicken.

The tidal water rushed in from a distance, hit the river bed fiercely, and created a huge wave of more than ten feet.The voices of people downstairs shouted, the muffled thunder exploded in everyone's ears, and the tide surged in, with the potential to destroy the dead.

"Look at the tide every year." Lu Feng handed the wine jar to the young master on the high platform, and he sat on the fence without paying attention: "What's so good about it?"

The young man in brocade clothes and fine clothes looked plain, but his words were not polite: "Perhaps the cow thinks the same way when he plays the piano to the cow."

Lu Feng couldn't say no to him, so he snorted dissatisfiedly, and turned his head to look at him after a while: "After the Mid-Autumn Festival, are you going to leave?"

The young master looked at the tide in the distance without looking sideways, his lips moved, and he said something.

His cool voice was mixed in the chaotic noise, but Lu Feng heard it clearly.

He said, "Do you want me to stay?"

The tide suddenly shattered this dream, Lu Feng woke up from his sleep, a sparrow fell by his hand, was pecking his finger carefully, saw him wake up, crawl and fly away.

Half of Lu Feng's thoughts were still in a dream. It was a past event that he had deliberately forgotten. At least he hadn't had a dream for more than ten years.

But the scene in the dream is not exactly the same as in his memory, he still remembers what Ning Zongyuan said on the high platform of Guanchao Inn.

He said, "Would you like to come with me?"

Ning Zongyuan was absolutely right, he has practiced for so many years, but his heart is still the same.

Lu Feng smiled wryly, shook the empty jug, and turned to look at the imperial mausoleum in the distance.On New Year's Eve, the imperial mausoleum was lit with candles all night, and the villages in the distance began to light up fireworks when the time came.

The fireworks exploded brilliantly in mid-air, one after another, short but brilliant.He was alone in this dry forest, and everything in the world was only the whistling wind in his ears.

Half of Lu Feng's body was illuminated by the fireworks, and he looked deeply at the door outside the imperial mausoleum, and recited a whole part of the mantra of the past life almost silently.

While reading, he took out a fire folder from his bosom and blew it open, stacked the two sacrificial speeches with Ning Zongyuan's life written on them, wrapped them in a piece of yellow paper, and placed them on the flame tip of the fire folder. superior.

But for some reason, the yellow paper couldn't be ignited. The flame licked and climbed to the edge of the paper, almost burning Lu Feng's finger, but the yellow paper was still unscathed.

Lu Feng held the fire paper patiently, and after half a cup of tea, until the firework of the fire paper gradually became unbearably small, a corner of the yellow paper was condescendingly burnt open.

This seemed to be a signal, and the flames immediately climbed up that corner, burning the paper bag completely in an instant.

Lu Feng rubbed his slightly hot fingers, and said softly: "...You always get what you want."

As he said that, he pressed the fire pocket and stuffed it into his arms, turned over and jumped off the tree.He had just walked a few steps when something grabbed the hem of his clothes. Lu Feng stopped, and when he turned around, he realized that it was caught by a forsythia plant.

Lu Feng was silent for a moment, then turned back and gently folded off the branch that was hanging on the hem of his clothes, put it in his arms, gathered up his collar, turned around and walked towards the town without stopping.

He had just fulfilled the last promise in his life, when the sky filled with fireworks fell behind him, his back merged into the night, leaving only a barely visible outline.

The ashes from the paper burning just now were scattered in the wind, and a few strands fell lightly on the forsythia plant, hidden among the branches, but disappeared in a moment.

——END

The author says:

There are still three extra articles left~ But because I went to Linshi to attend a friend's wedding a few days ago~ so the efficiency of code words has decreased, but if there is no accident, it will be released before next Sunday~ There is so much to say about Xiaoqinghuan Yes, then I will post a postscript after the episode is over~ [And thanks to Pata Pata, cpw****so2azj51r, it’s Fuxu, he will think that I am really sick, Xuanxuanxuan xxx, insufficient balance . A sweet peach, a big ham that can't eat enough, are you a pig? , Yanzi 01 for feeding the fish food~Thank you for waiting for time, Yanzi 01, Chen Ye for feeding the catnip~Thanks Bai Jian, Chen Ye for feeding the Rainbow Candy~