Mo Dongyang

The aunt in charge of the place came late, and I waited under the old locust tree for a long time before I saw the mid-mature old aunt slowly wandering into the courtyard from the east side.

I have to say that the first time I met this aunt left a deep impression on me, because it was the beginning of winter, and she almost put on all the cotton clothes she could wear, but she was bloated and fat, and several layers of coats were wrapped in bulky clothes. The palace clothes made her look like a big rice dumpling made from the fat slaughtered from an old sow, greasy and unreal.The facial features were squeezed together on the plump face, and a pair of small eyes were squinted above the high cheekbones, which made me feel that she had never been able to open her eyes.

She lazily led me through the entire yard, but her hands were always tucked into her sleeves, and she muttered in a low voice with her purple mouth trembling, cursing the damn weather.She finished talking about the rules and matters in the courtyard on her own, and then led me to greet the old maid.

Pushing open the door of the side room of the main house, a strong sour smell hits the face, it is a kind of smell unique to the elderly, mixed with the solid liquid fermented and mutated in the chamber pot, and the whole wooden house is old. The smell was so pungent and disgusting that I couldn't help frowning.Although the furnishings in the room are quite old, they are still neat and tidy, but when I got closer, I realized that the tables and chairs had already been covered with dust, and it seemed that no one had cleaned them for a long time.The owner of the house has not been able to get out of bed for a long time, and the servants are having fun, and they are not willing to pack those unused items.

"Aunt Yang, this is a new palace lady. I brought her here to greet you. From now on, she will be in charge of your daily life, Auntie. Qi Xin, hurry up and greet Aunt Yang."

The aunt in charge covered her nose with her swollen hands in disgust, and said reluctantly while standing three feet away from the bed curtain.

I hurriedly knelt down on the ground, enduring the dust that filled my nose that was instantly raised by the ground when my knees touched the ground, and bent down with difficulty to respond.

"Slave, Qi Xin, please greet Aunt Yang."

I couldn't see clearly what was inside the yellowed and shabby mosquito net opposite. The person inside seemed to have turned over, and it took a while to make a sound, dull and trembling.

"Understood, let's go."

The aunt in charge hurriedly dragged me out of the room after she reported back. She stood in front of the room and explained some details of the service to me impatiently, then walked away quickly with a look of disgust.

I was alone in the empty courtyard, feeling a little overwhelmed, but I quickly cleared my mind. I found a broom and a basket full of cobwebs and dust from behind the old wooden gate in the kitchen, and planned to clean up the mess first. The garden is cleaned.Fortunately, the leaves on the old locust tree that reach the sky have also faded due to the bleak winter, so I didn’t fill in unnecessary troubles, but the weak broom couldn’t remove the thick dead branches and leaves on the ground, so I simply rolled up With fat long sleeves, he bent down and picked up the rotten debris on the ground one by one, and threw them into the bamboo basket.

Because of the long-term barrenness, the nutrients emitted by the fermented and decayed branches and leaves are enough for most insects to survive. They use these remaining corpses as a shelter and multiply here in large numbers, but they don't know that one day the doom of genocide will also be the same. will come.I watched those innocent little bugs running out of the wet rotten leaves like fleeing, and fled in all directions, just like those refugees who went southward in a panic. It was also easily broken into several sections, and then fell into the loess, and no one knew about it since then.

I crushed the centipede that was trying to escape from me, broke it in half and threw it into the bamboo basket beside me, and continued with this huge project.

Finally, I restored the original appearance of this small courtyard. The ground was swept and washed with clean water to reveal the original dark bluestone slabs. I also piled up the discarded sundries in the corner, and the ground was empty, which made it not spacious. The courtyard in the garden has become more lively and popular, and finally it didn’t cost me a lot of hard work and difficulty. I straightened my sore waist in satisfaction, clapped my hands, and happily walked out of Yitian Temple, intending to go to the residence of the aunt in charge nearby, and bring it back Aunt Yang's food box for dinner.The kitchen of Yitian Palace has been abandoned for a long time, and no one uses it anymore, but I thought, I will ask the aunt in charge for instructions. After tidying up the kitchen, I don’t have to bother other palace servants to take care of the food in Yitian Palace, anyway. I guess the aunt in charge will definitely agree to take advantage of this.

The setting sun hangs far above the bare old locust tree branches, broken and weak, I can't help but feel inexplicably desolate and helpless, I walked into the side room with a food box, and the room was extremely dark.

"Aunt Yang, it's time to eat."

I lit the lamp, put the food box on the small oil-stained wooden table next to the bed net, and said in a low voice.

The person on the bed turned over and wanted to straighten up, but it took a long time to get up from the bed. I hurriedly pushed aside the mosquito net that was in the way, trying to help the old man, but I just lifted the bed. At the moment when I closed the tent, I was so shocked by what I saw that I forgot my original intention for a moment, and I froze for a moment before hurriedly helping the old man on the bed.

I never knew that the maid who served me would neglect her duties so far, torturing a dying old man in such a state of dross.The skinny old man looked haggard, leaning on the bed, with sparse yellow hair like a beehive, sunken cheeks, and his body was covered with old age-specific spots and deep or shallow wrinkles. The dirty bedding was hanging on her body, Discolored food residues remained on the stinky sheets, and the whole bed was messy and dirty, mixed with the smell of defecation, which made people want to turn around and flee.

I finally understood why my aunt in charge always looked disgusted, but I couldn't leave.I carefully sat on the head of the bed, picked up the wooden bowl of meat porridge on the table, and blew on it spoon by spoon, feeding it.The old man was a little shocked, watching me hesitate for a moment for the wooden spoon before opening his shriveled mouth tremblingly to swallow it.Because of hasty chewing and swallowing, the thick soup slipped from the corner of her mouth, and I hurriedly picked up a handkerchief to help her wipe it off.The old man ate almost all the food. When I stood up to clean up the dishes, the old man who had been silent for a long time suddenly spoke.

"Your name?"

"Slave, Qi Xin."

I bowed my head in response.

"You know, you are the first person willing to serve me like this."

I heard a burst of old wry smiles and helpless self-mockery. I didn't know what to reply for a while, so I could only lower my head and freeze.The old man sighed deeply and told me to leave. I picked up the plate and was about to leave when the old man suddenly added a sentence.

"Prepare some hot water for me tomorrow, I...I want to wash."

Instantly, I felt a sense of sadness welling up in my heart. This was originally the responsibility of a court lady, but the old man's tone was full of earnestness and temptation, as if this was such an embarrassing and troublesome job.I turned around and bowed my head and replied respectfully, tomorrow I will help her wash up and clean the side room.

Early the next morning, the southwest corner of the courtyard was left unused for a long time, and the kitchen was cleaned. Several pots of hot soup were burning on the stove. Aunt Yang hadn’t washed for many days. Huang's bath soup finally became clear. After I helped Aunt Yang change her clothes, I helped her to the front hall, served her food, and then returned to the side room to start cleaning the dirty room.Open the windows to ventilate, wipe the tables and chairs, change the bedding and bed curtains, clean the chamber pot, and a busy morning is over.I was too tired to be in shape, but I still had to drag my drowsy body to the residence of the maid in charge to get Aunt Yang's lunch box, otherwise there would be another round of scolding.

There are only two servants in Yitian Palace, me and the fat in charge, but because I have always been active and hardworking, the former aunt in charge completely let go of the big and small affairs here. He held a position and hadn't come to inspect it for two or three months. Yitian Palace has almost become a forgotten corner of this huge palace city, unvisited and little known.

I stayed here for several months, and I just served Aunt Yang every day. Apart from receiving my monthly salary and some daily necessities, I seldom left the Yitian Palace, but during these boring and boring days, I still found some fun.From time to time, there will always be some celebrations and palace banquets in the palace. At this time, I will always sneak to the end of the silent Changshi Lane, climb up the old palace wall overgrown with weeds, and look at the resplendent and prosperous palace in the distance. I am fascinated by the luxurious harem feast, and as long as there is a grand ceremony, I will be lucky enough to see the bright fireworks all over the sky, which are colorful and extremely gorgeous.

But I always feel a little pity, I don't understand why the craftsman who makes fireworks wants to make the life of fireworks so short, bloom gorgeously in an instant and then dissipate in a hurry, no one can have it at all.

Aunt Yang is more than 80 years old, and she is considered a long-lived person in this palace, but in these years, Aunt Yang's body is getting worse day by day. At first, when I first came, Aunt Yang would let me help Let her sit on the porch for a while, or just take a few steps back and forth in this small courtyard to relax, but after the winter of the second year, Aunt Yang became ill due to the cold, and the whole side house was full of thick herbs. Until the end, the sour smell from the old lady's body became stronger day by day, covering the original herbal smell that filled the room.

Everyone knows that this is the breath of death.

The aunt in charge made a bet that she was doomed not to survive the next spring.

Indeed, in mid-February of the ninth year of Jiahe, Aunt Yang died of typhoid fever.It is said that the emperor's kindness is great, and he gave a special burial. Aunt Yang was buried near the royal cemetery to accompany the late emperor. However, such a gift is extremely ridiculous in my opinion. In this life, I have worked for the royal family, but ended up in my old age. Miserable and desolate, no one will die, and in the afterlife, you must be grateful to Dade for continuing to work hard, and you will never let it go until you die.

He stayed in Yitian Palace for more than two years until Aunt Yang passed away.I can still clearly remember that when Aunt Yang was about to leave, she tightly held my wrist with her withered hands, took out a delicate cloth bag from the bedside, and shoved it into my palm tremblingly. Huang's pearly eyes were filled with tears of grief.

She told me that this is what I deserve, and in a few years these will become the capital for me to go out of the palace.

I asked, why did I leave the palace, I want to stay in the palace for the rest of my life, there is no place for me outside the palace walls.

Aunt Yang said that the disaster in the palace is about to come, and I must leave before the disaster comes.

It's just that before I had time to ask what the disaster was, Aunt Yang closed her eyes forever.

At that time, being young and ignorant, I didn't pay much attention to the so-called disaster predicted by Aunt Yang, but I never thought that the disaster that would befall the country five years later would be an unprecedented catastrophe. 70 years later, people are always silent about the catastrophe that devastated people. It is like an ugly scar, which is too embarrassing and frightening.

It's just that the details of the past can be more or less found in the unsophisticated folk histories sold by small traders and hawkers in a few rough-made bookstalls in hidden market corners.

In the tenth year of Jiahe, in early spring, I was assigned to the Zhilan Hall of the Harem, and eventually became one of the servants of the huge Harem. I was 16 years old that year.