All rivers and mountains are safe

The woman's surname was Zhou, and she was kind-hearted. She took two umbrellas from her house, supported one for herself, and gave the other to Shen Mingan and the others. In the cold weather, she carried a small oil lamp to guide them.

Aunt Zhou is also a poor person. She said that her husband died early, and her only son was lost when she went to the market with her more than ten years ago. She was only three or four years old when she was lost. , Later, when her parents got older, they all left one after another, and now she is left alone in the village.

During the conversation with Aunt Zhou, the two of them realized that this place is Dongyang Village, which is a small village belonging to Jiangzhou. It is located on the border of Yizhou and Jiangzhou. state.

There are several snow-capped mountains near Dongyang Village, and avalanches are very easy to occur when there is heavy snow in winter. Speaking of this, Aunt Zhou also said that they are really lucky. Everyone in the village knows that the mountains are dangerous and they will not go there, but every year Some people strayed into the snow-capped mountains here, not to mention there are often wild beasts haunting the mountains, and by the time they were discovered, they would have already lost their bodies.

"You may have to live here for a while." Aunt Zhou said in a rambling voice, "The only way out of the village is the road at the entrance of the village. That road was blocked by heavy snow a few days ago. Only when you melt can you go out."

Lu Ciheng's body was covered in snow, and the umbrella in his hand was unconsciously tilted towards Shen Mingan. It was as if he had not supported it. He looked at Shen Mingan, and Shen Mingan frowned, looking out of his mind, not knowing what he was thinking, pale His lips moved, and he said softly, "How long will it take to melt the snow?"

"The snow will slowly melt at the beginning of spring, and now it is the depths of winter, so it will take a full moon for the snow to melt."

"Can't you go out during this time?" Shen Mingan asked.

"Well, if you really want to go out, you can only climb over the mountain, but it has been snowing recently, and it is easy to encounter an avalanche. It is better not to go out."

While returning to him, Aunt Zhou used the key to open the lock on the door of the old house. The bronze lock was rusted badly, and the wooden door creaked when unlocked.

The room is not big, and there is no furniture. The bed and table are covered with cloth to prevent dust. Aunt Zhou lifted the cloth covering, took out a quilt from the cabinet, and said: "This quilt is newly made this year. , but in such a cold day, this quilt may be cold, and there is only one bed in this room."

Aunt Zhou lingered on Lu Ciheng and Shen Mingan, and said hesitantly, "Xiao Lu, you two...are you brothers?"

Just as Lu Ciheng was about to speak, Shen Mingan spoke before him: "I am his husband."

This is the second time Shen Mingan has said this in just one day. During the day, he told Wang Xingyan that he was his student, and now he said the same thing to Aunt Zhou. When someone asked about the relationship between him and Shen Mingan, Shen Mingan wanted to draw a clear line with him, as if he was afraid of avoiding him, and wanted to cover up the teacher-student relationship by putting it on the surface.

"That's right." Lu Ciheng didn't want to follow his wish, he nodded naturally, staring at Shen Mingan with amber eyes, and said ambiguously: "My husband and I have always slept in the same bed."

What you do in a bed is self-evident.

Shen Mingan stared at him, afraid that he would say something more, Lu Ciheng pinched his waist when he said this, it seemed that he was replying to Aunt Zhou's words, but in fact it was in his ear, and he only said it to him Listen.

Aunt Zhou didn't think there was anything wrong with what Lu Ciheng said, so she felt relieved and said, "Then you all have to make do with it first."

Although no one has lived in this house for a long time, it is very tidy. Obviously, Aunt Zhou often comes to clean it.

After Lu Ciheng sent Aunt Zhou out, Shen Mingan tidied up the room briefly, spread the quilt and quilt on the bed, looked at the pillow that Aunt Zhou sent on the bed, hesitated, and got up to go into the closet After looking through it, I found another one, and put the two pillows side by side at the head of the bed.

The pillowcase embroidered with big red happy characters was particularly conspicuous. Shen Mingan leaned on the bed and waited for Lu Ciheng, and not long after he was too sleepy, he lay down with his clothes on.

When Lu Ciheng came back with the firewood, Shen Mingan was half asleep and half awake. Lu Ciheng picked him up, fed him some warm water, couldn't help but kissed him on the forehead, and said, "Get up!" , take off your clothes before going to bed."

Shen Mingan was so sleepy that he couldn't keep his eyes open, Lu Ciheng simply helped him strip off his wet clothes, put him under the quilt, and pressed the corners of the quilt tightly.

There was a small charcoal basin in the room. The dead branches that Lu Ciheng picked up in the dark were all damp, and it took him half a day to light the fire. He sat by the charcoal basin and dried his and Shen Mingan's clothes, and went to wear them for Shen Mingan. It was only when he put on his underwear and dirty pants that he realized that his hands and feet were cold, and he hadn't covered them for a long time.

Lu Ciheng turned off the light and lay down under the quilt to hug him, Shen Mingan's body followed the heat source, and subconsciously leaned into Lu Ciheng's arms.

Outside the window was the howling wind and snow. Lu Ciheng had just warmed up by the fire, and now he hugged Shen Mingan in his arms, and his heart was full of warmth. He suddenly felt that let alone a month, even a year or ten For the past year, he and Shen Mingan have been living like this in Dongyang Village, which seems to be very good.

Aunt Zhou refused to accept the 500 taels of silver bill even though she said nothing. Before she left, Lu Ciheng secretly stuffed the silver bill under the base of the small oil lamp she was holding, but she returned it the next day. After coming back, Lu Ciheng gave her a piece of agate pendant worth several 500 taels that he carried with him. He said it was a worthless gadget, and Aunt Zhou was willing to accept it as a token of his affection.

Dongyang Village is not big, and the folk customs are simple. The news of two strangers coming to the village quickly spread. The villagers didn't care what their identities were. On the contrary, they were very hospitable. Some rice noodle cured fish and the like.

Shen Mingan seems to be born to be liked by children. He is good at cooking, and he made some simple pastries with flour and eggs without any other ingredients. He distributed them to the children in the village, and soon the children in the village cooked them for him. They couldn't forget the cakes, and in the afternoon, they crowded into the small and dilapidated kitchen of this old house to wait for Shen Mingan to make the cakes, and then ran out to play contentedly.

However, they lived in Dongyang Village and ate wild vegetables the most in the past few days.

Wild vegetables are tasteless, no matter how delicious Shen Mingan cooks, they still taste the same, so Lu Ciheng planned to buy some wild vegetables.

Shen Mingan smelled the smell of blood, and when he saw the blood all over the ground in the backyard, he thought that something had happened, and ran over in a hurry, only to see Lu Ciheng holding a plucked bald pheasant in his hand, Holding the bowl in the other hand, he handed it to him, and his tone couldn't hide his complacency and joy, "I made a trap on the mountain, and I didn't catch anything for several days. I didn't expect that when I went to see it today, I found a pheasant in it. We can finally improve the food, I will make a fire to roast the chicken later, don’t waste these, you go and cook whatever you like.”

There were bloody chicken intestines and liver in the bowl. When Shen Mingan saw it, his expression was very bad, but he didn't say anything, and took it in silence. After cleaning it up, he cooked a bowl of chicken offal soup.

The pheasant was roasted crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with oil bubbling on the outside, and the aroma was tangy. Lu Ciheng filled Shen Mingan's soup with vegetables and waited for Shen Mingan to taste it. It was like when he was a child, he would always be excited after practicing a word. Immediately show it to Shen Mingan, in order to get him a compliment.

But Shen Mingan frowned and pushed the soup in front of him away a little, saying, "I don't eat organs."

It was the first time for Lu Ciheng to know that Shen Ming'an didn't eat offal, so he put chicken in Shen Ming'an's bowl, "Then eat some chicken, you drink some wild vegetable soup every day, your face will almost turn green."

He thought that Shen Mingan would always eat two bites and say something delicious, but Shen Mingan lowered his eyes, picked up the rice in the bowl, and said indifferently: "I went around and looked around. There is not much snow these days, and there has been melting at the village entrance. There are signs of snow, we have not been seen for so long, the news has probably reached the emperor and the prince, if they send someone to look for it, we should be able to go out within a month..."

"Why are you in such a hurry to go back to Beijing? Is that why you don't want to be with me so much?!" Lu Ciheng slapped the bowl and chopsticks on the table, his voice suddenly raised, "The prince is already in his 20s, and he can't die without you! "

Shen Mingan looked at him in astonishment, and said hoarsely, "I'm not because of the prince..."

"Then you told me! Why are you rushing back to Shangjing? The day we arrived here, you asked Aunt Zhou if you could go out, and how you could go out, and you asked no less than three times!"

Shen Mingan pursed his lips, but did not say a word.

Lu Ciheng felt irritable and angry, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that Shen Mingan couldn't stand being with him every day, so he wished he could get out of this village right away.

He was addicted to living an ordinary and gentle life with Shen Mingan in this Dongyang village. In the past few days, he hugged Shen Mingan to sleep every night, and Shen Mingan never resisted.

Shen Mingan was reticent and introverted, he thought it was a sign that Shen Mingan was slowly accepting him.

But he thought that the lingering and torturing with love was all his wishful thinking, and to Shen Mingan, it probably could only be regarded as torture.