All rivers and mountains are safe

Shen Ming'an even wanted to leave overnight, but Lu Ciheng thought that his fever had just subsided, so he forced him to sleep on the bed for an extra night.

Just after Yinshi on the second day, and it was still pitch black outside, Shen Mingan began to urge him to get up, ready to leave for Yizhou.

Lu Ciheng has been getting up since he was a child, and Shen Mingan called out this early in the morning, not so gently, and when he sat in the carriage with him, he looked unhappy, "All the relief funds have been allocated, we are just going Supervision, does it make a difference if you go early or late?"

Shen Mingan wore a light-colored shirt today, and the pure white fleece collar at his neck was something that Lu Ciheng insisted on wrapping around his neck before leaving the house. Shen Mingan tried to take it off several times, but Lu Ciheng was confused The flames rose up, but Shen Mingan couldn't resist him, so he let him go.

Compared with yesterday, Shen Mingan's complexion improved a lot, but half of his face was hidden in the thick fleece collar, and his whole body looked thinner. He sat in the carriage and said lightly: "Since it is a supervisory job, the boss It cannot be said that all the food money has already arrived in Yizhou, but no one manages to distribute it.”

"The relief food funds can only be allocated by the Ministry of Households. How many people have to go through the process. Who wants to get some money from it? When the money reaches Yizhou, it is what is left after layers of exploitation. The position is nothing more than a vacancy, sir, you have read the classics and history books, and you have taught for so many years, don't you even understand this?"

Lu Ciheng hadn't called him Mr. since he came back from the army. He called him Mr. on the bed to humiliate him. The rest of the time Lu Ciheng called him that basically to ridicule him.

Shen Ming'an was stunned for a moment, he naturally understood that even the supervisory officials couldn't control the withholding of the grain money before it arrived in Yizhou, but he was always worried about the people in Yizhou, and always thought that it would be good to arrive in Yizhou sooner.

Shen Ming'an was in a heavy heart, so he didn't reply to him. After Lu Ciheng said this, he didn't respond, as if he had punched the cotton with his fist. Suddenly, he felt that it was meaningless, so he leaned against the wall of the car to catch up on sleep. up.

The distance between Shangjing and Yizhou is very far, and no matter how fast the carriage is, it will not be fast.

Several prefectures and counties close to Shangjing are quite lively, but the more you go in the direction of Yizhou, the surrounding scenery becomes more sparse, the vegetation is scorched, the fields are covered with thick white snow, and the thatch covering the roof is completely lifted up. There are very few people on the road, and occasionally a few of them are wearing only rags and ragged clothes in this freezing weather, walking on the snow with straw woven hollow straw sandals.

"Don't look, there's nothing to see. Floods and snowstorms happen every year. If you give them one or two steamed buns, it's just to make them have an extra meal. Maybe they will starve to death in the wilderness tomorrow." Lu Ciheng took the dry food Throwing it to Shen Mingan's side, he said without emotion: "You might as well eat it yourself."

Shen Mingan frowned slightly and lowered the curtain of the car window, lowered his eyes to hide the worry in his eyes.

The last time I sat down to have a good meal was at the Tongzhou post station two days ago. The dry food and water on the carriage were replenished at that time. When encountering disaster victims along the road begging for food, Shen Mingan couldn't bear it and would always give them some. Until now Not much left.

He didn't have much appetite, so he didn't take the food that Lu Ciheng handed to him, and said lightly, "You can eat."

Lu Ciheng didn't let go, put his head close to his ear, and said with a smile, "Ming An wants me to feed you?"

The space in the carriage was small, and Shen Mingan was half propped up on the seat, trapped in the corner and unable to move.

The scene when Lu Ciheng fed him the medicine in the Shen Mansion is still vivid in my memory. In the past few days, the two of them spent most of their time in the carriage, and Lu Ciheng often pushed him against the carriage wall when he disagreed with each other. Kissing him arrogantly and unreasonably made the clothes on Shen Mingan's chest rumpled.

Li Xingyuan, who was driving outside, was only separated from them in the carriage by a curtain. Shen Mingan endured so much that he did not let himself make a sound. He did not dare to scold Lu Ciheng, for fear that he would sob when he opened his mouth.

Only in the sound of the wheels, he dared to let go of his lips, let out a few unbearable heavy gasps.

Lu Ciheng loves to see his eyes filled with water vapor, the corners of his eyes flushed, and his clear and cold face with a blurred expression.

The cold wind was bitter, and when the car was going fast, a corner of the car curtain would be blown up by the wind, revealing the back of the guard outside. Lu Ciheng held him in his arms and covered his back with a big cloak, but Shen Mingan still stood upright. Shivering, I don't know if it's from cold or fear.

Even the fur on the pure white velvet collar was stained and stuck together in strands, making it impossible to wear it anymore.

This directly caused Shen Mingan to have no intention of talking to him these few days, he obediently took the food from Lu Ciheng, broke it into small pieces and put it in his mouth.

In half a day it was time to arrive in Yizhou, but the snow was so heavy that the wheels got stuck in the snow and the driving was slow.

Shen Mingan felt the carriage stop suddenly after he took a few mouthfuls, and stopped moving forward.

The carriage curtain was lifted by Lu Ciheng, and Li Xingyuan was standing beside the carriage with his sword in his arms. He was slightly younger than Lu Ciheng, taciturn, dressed in black, and looked very old. He should be the person Lu Ciheng trusted most, Shen Mingan I often see him by Lu Ciheng's side.

Li Xingyuan looked at the dozen or so people blocking the road in embarrassment, and asked for Lu Ciheng's opinion, "My lord, this..."

This is the junction of Yizhou and Jiangzhou, which is an area without jurisdiction. The people blocking the road are refugees, all of them are yellow and thin, wearing only a rag-like clothes, old and weak, women and children Yes, there was another woman holding a small and thin baby. He had probably been hungry for several days and didn't even have the strength to cry, and the crying sounded like a newborn kitten meowing.

Among them was a seven or eight-year-old boy, Lu Ciheng, who had just met. Half an hour ago, his black and thin hands were clasped on the car window to beg for food, and Shen Mingan gave him a white flour steamed bun.

At this moment, he was hiding among the group of people, with some steamed bread crumbs on the corner of his mouth, and he avoided looking at them, but his eyes showed greed.

Lu Ciheng instantly understood that these people were probably acquainted with this boy, and just because he got a steamed bun from Shen Mingan, he wanted more food to satisfy his hunger.

The rest of the people also had the same idea, even if they couldn't get it, they could grab it by force, so they gathered together and stopped their carriage.

One of them stared straight at the half-eaten steamed bun in Shen Mingan's hand, "Please reward us with some food."

Shen Ming'an weighed the little dry food left in the cloth bag, and said helplessly: "I don't have enough for you, the imperial court has already allocated the relief food funds, and at the latest in Yizhou, we will build a shed for the porridge , here is not far from Yizhou, you can go to Yizhou..."

Before he could finish his sentence, the person closest to him snatched the steamed bun from his hand, and his nails grabbed the back of Shen Mingan's hand so much that blood oozed out.

The man stuffed the steamed bun into his mouth so hard that it filled his entire mouth, his face was flushed, and he couldn't breathe because of the steamed bun. Seeing that he had snatched it, the rest of the people swarmed up without fear of death.

"What are you talking to them about?" Lu Ciheng saw that they were desperate for food, and immediately threw the cloth bag containing the food in the direction of the refugees, then dragged Shen Mingan back to the carriage, and said to Li Xingyuan and the guards Said: "Break through!"

The carriage drove quickly, leaving these people behind, the food in the cloth bags scattered and fell on the snow, these refugees rushed forward, fighting for these steamed buns, blood spread in the snow.

Lu Ciheng felt that Shen Ming'an was so naive as to be ridiculous. Human beings can't do anything in order to survive. If these refugees met the carriages of ordinary people who had no force to fight, then it wasn't the food that would be torn and robbed, but the food. They have this carriage and people.

"Look, these are the people you knelt at the gate of Huaxing Palace for half a day and wanted to save." Lu Ciheng stared at Shen Mingan's bloody hand with a pair of gloomy eyes, and wiped off the blood beads on it with a handkerchief , said coldly: "You want to save them, but who will know, and who will remember your kindness."

"They don't need to remember." Shen Mingan pursed his lips and said, "I do my best, only to look up to the sky and not to be ashamed of others."