beg for chivalry

Yan Jiubian was born as a counterfeit.

The Yan family in Qi province can also be regarded as a family of craftsmen, but ordinary craftsmen only make utensils such as wooden carts and smoked balls, but they are completely different.

What the Yan family built was——“human”.

In the house in Dengzhou, the slaves with different appearances were locked in a private room, and the ones who looked good were selected, and then they were sent to the Xi Temple to have sex in front of the statue of Zhusheng Empress.The craftsmen worked day and night in the painting studio, molding asphalt shells according to the portraits on mulberry paper. When the newborn babies were brought, they would peel the skin and rasp the bones, and carve out different faces with razor blades.If the baby was born wrongly and didn't meet the painter's wishes, the midwife would strangle the baby with the umbilical cord, bled it and kept it for the slaves to share, and mixed the ashes in the earthen wall.

The Yan family's business was endless, and the kings, grandsons, relatives, and high-ranking officials flooded in like water.Sometimes the nurse or mother-in-law lost their hands and accidentally lost a golden branch and jade leaf seed, so they came to ask the Yan family to make a fake.Here, the false and the true are equally valuable, and the false and the real are difficult to distinguish.

Yan Jiubian was amazing from birth, when the midwife wiped off the fetal fat and everyone saw his face clearly, they were all amazed and delighted.In the Yan family, the flat and obliterated child is like the finest jade. It seems that there is no other child in the world who is so easy to mold. He can be anyone.

"Keep him," said the painter. "It's a waste of time. He's the best thing I've seen in the past ten years. I'm afraid I haven't seen a benefactor worthy of him in the past ten years."

So Yan Jiubian was not exposed that day.But instead, his whole body was sewn with fine silk threads so that his flesh could be easily peeled off later.Babies have soft bones, and the older they grow, the more difficult it is to mold them, and the pain in molding the surface will accumulate.

There are bamboo rafts in the garden, and a string of children are lying on them like bedding.Four-year-old Yan Jiubian looked through the small window, everyone's face was tied with white gauze, and blurred flesh and blood could be vaguely seen, his glazed eyes stared lifelessly at the sky.

He wondered because their faces were different from his.

The mothers-in-law look at him with reverence and respect, as if they were looking at the sky celadon porcelain in a firewood kiln, asking him to stretch out his clothes and open his mouth for his food, for fear that he might fall somewhere.Every day he was wrapped in colorful brocade, and even if he took an extra step, he gasped in shock.

"who am I?"

"You will be anyone." The waiter always answered his question like this.

He asked stubbornly, "Who is anyone?"

Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay, and finally pointed at themselves. "It's me, it's him, it's her. There are many others. You can have all kinds of faces and thousands of looks."

Someone answered him in a low voice. "... except yourself."

In the days when Yan Jiubian was not a fake, he would not be regarded as a human being, but just a vessel for expressing affection.There are only objects in Yan's house, which are watched and played like copper pots, and trampled under feet like a blanket. Objects will always be broken one day. People have no hard edges and corners, but have weak inner organs, which will deteriorate faster .

When he was six years old, the mother-in-law who was waiting on him accidentally dropped a shallow plate, and the white porcelain splashed to the ground, and a few stars scratched his cheek.Yan Jiubian touched it numbly, and then he realized that he was no different from the ear pot, and his belly was filled with fiery red juice.The old woman disappeared the next day. She was a kind old woman who would secretly bring him some snacks, sometimes it was just fried sesame seed cakes, or a small bowl of barley soup mixed with sugar.

Yan Jiubian didn't miss her, but only missed the feeling of fullness when swallowing snacks.

It took him a while to see her who had been peeled from the last straw in the small window. The millet stalks poked out from the empty skin pouch and filled her shriveled mouth. howl.

Yan Jiubian didn't cry, he quietly stood in front of the small window and stared at it all night.It was the first time he knew the whereabouts of the utensils. Whether it was the sadness when the porcelain plate was shattered, or the emptiness when the old woman died, they all turned into chaos in his heart.From birth to death is a process of self-sustained rotation, living like stagnant water, passing away vividly and brightly, and then returning to death forever, Yan Jiuchang was amazed at that moment.

The utensils came and went, and the babies were born with carved skins, turning over and over on the bamboo rafts like stranded fish.Yan Jiubian could never tell them apart, because their faces were exactly the same, and they were all wrapped in silk cloth, oozing blood and broken skin.

At the age of seven, Yan Jiubian finally shed her skin.The painters of the Yan family often refer to shaping as moulting. Some people want to goug out their facial features, while others should file off their bones. After all, he has to break free from the silkworm chrysalis made of flesh and blood.Yan Jiubian sewed a face according to the wishes of a woman. That face has sharp eyes, like a mixture of Xihu blood and Central Plains people.

"I'm him?" On the day he left Qi Province, Yan Jiubian sat in front of the mirror, staring at his new face and asked dumbly.

This is his face from the back, his eyebrows and eyes are as sharp as the tip of a knife, and even his indifferent heart seems to have been stabbed.He is finally not anyone, but has the foundation of survival, and he only needs to live for it from now on.

The woman in mountain armor leaned down, her arms were as cold as iron, and there was a smell like a sea of ​​blood.She obsessively traced his eyebrows and eyes with her fingertips, over and over again, as if she wanted to grind the hot skin that was attached to him.

Zuo Buzheng said softly:

"Yes, you are him. Always mine."

-

In Jiulong, the rain line continued to the sky, and the sound of falling water was endless.It seems that there has never been a sunny day here, the sun is always hidden behind the veil-like mist, and the light shines dimly.

The oil umbrella could not be held, Yan Jiubian sat on the edge of the stone steps to rest his feet, the twilight had been buried in the black clouds, and the night came with thunder.People in the shop frantically lit up the lamps, and the yellow lamp beans danced warmly, like crystals of amber.

"Father! What are you doing! Pretending to be old and simple, stealing the copper cup at home and throwing it in the pawnshop for money?"

The girl's fierce and loud yell came, followed by the man's low voice admitting his mistake, which made the eardrums twitch.Yan Jiubian looked at the children running barefoot on the street indifferently, the water splashed feet high, and there were crystal rain waves.The cook threw the straw sandals on the shoulder pole and moved with one deep step and one shallow step.Someone climbed to the eaves and used clay pots to collect rainwater from high places.The sound of laughter and noise became one piece, and the firelight was comfortable and warm, embracing Jiulong.

Only Yan Jiubian was still sitting in the dark, with the cool rain blowing head-on.Wet strands of hair fell from his forehead, covering his shadowy eyes.

"Looking at these people, do you remember the time in Qi Province?"

A man walked out of the shadows, wearing half of the Aiji ghost mask, the lower half of his face was like a rotten wood with festering bacteria, two rows of lacquered teeth blackened by fire were exposed in the mouth missing his lips, he was Jin Yi, the head of the Jin family.

Yan Jiubian first picked up the Duoyi Ghost Mask from his bosom and covered it over his face, then said. "No."

"It's no wonder that you and I, and even the rest of the Houtianlou, have nowhere to go. Wild dogs don't think about the dog cage back then. No matter whether we go forward or backward, we are all dead."

Yan Jiubian was naturally disgusted by the Jinbu people.They wield knives and guns, and use the dangers they have been in as a talk of being superior to others.

"No, I'm thinking..." Yan Jiubian shook his head slowly, and when he opened his eyes, there seemed to be treacherous and fierce turbulent waves churning in his dark pupils. "How to get into the shop, cut their necks, and put out the lamps with blood."

He was like a tiger lurking in the dark, happily thinking about how to stain his claws with blood.And the more peaceful and peaceful the family was, the more his heart was about to move, and he couldn't wait to see their miserable appearance.

Jin Yi asked: "How is the affairs of the leader of the Wumen League going?"

Suoyigui bowed his head, he thought of the man who straightened up like a Confucian scholar, but couldn't hide the fierceness of a warrior when he got angry.He looked very clumsy and foolish, he uttered words of hatred for his own son, but he couldn't hide his preference for the little boy named "Golden Crow", who should have died.

For some reason, he felt envious.When Wu Wugong handed him hot tea, wrapped his coat carefully around his body, and gently stroked the top of his head with his powerful palm, he actually felt a tinge of warmth from his heart.The heart is hot and itchy, like insects and ants scratching impatiently.

Maybe this is the meaning of tenderness between people, he is a utensil from Yan's house, and there are only two ways to make and break.

Yan Jiubian looked up at the rain line and murmured. "Got to kill."

A tumbling hatred welled up in my heart, and a crack seemed to appear in my heart.In an instant, he gritted his teeth, and his facial features twisted together. "Kill him, I'm going to kill him. It's so ridiculous, what Wumeng, what Golden Crow, why is he the only human, and we are just ghosts, camping in the dark? I want to kill Wu Wu at the meeting Old man Gong, in the face of his favorite nephew, taught him to die in the clouds."

He stamped his feet fiercely, the water splashed all over his body, slid down the body of the gold-twisted brocade, and shattered into ripples on the blue bricks.

Jin Yi said: "It's not 'we', but 'you' think so."

As if his voice was silenced in an instant, Yan Jiubian remained silent.

"Shui Jiu, the young host is extremely reckless, but if we want to kill him, it is like waiting for Tianlou's old knife, merciless and without emotion." Jin Yiqu's black ghost face was hidden in Ning In the dark of Mi, "Why do you hate him? Didn't you two get very close back then? I thought it was you who couldn't bear to do it."

Yan Jiubian didn't reply.He staggered to his feet, picked up the oil umbrella that was placed aside, and dragged it in the water without opening it.

The Aiji ghost is hidden in the darkness.He stepped on the rain flowers and left, feeling more and more upset.He stood at the corner of the street for a while, biting the silver thread between his fingertips, until the fine smell of blood poured out from his tongue and fingers, and then he calmed down.The utensils shouldn't be in a mess, so he exhaled deeply, trying to calm down with the usual method.

A voice came from the half-closed lacquered door behind him, the girl who hadn't found the copper pot of kerosene poked his father's spine hard, and blamed him for taking the family's things to exchange money for the manager.The man naively took out the shortbread wrapped in parchment paper and broke some with her, then the cursing turned into playfulness, which sounded very peaceful.

He took a long breath.Two people, too much will make him tired, less taste will not be enough, only the smell of blood can make him calm down a little, this is his favorite method all the time, only when he is immersed in the sea of ​​blood, with dead things accumulating beside him, he feels I seem to be alive.

The silver thread in his hand suddenly tightened.

Yan Jiubian stepped onto the bluestone steps, and slowly pushed open the lacquered door.