All rivers and mountains are safe

A meal was too much to taste, Shen Ming'an's appetite had never been very good, so he didn't eat a few mouthfuls of food, and Lu Ciheng had no intention of eating because he had an argument with him.

The food on the table was basically untouched, there was a layer of oil floating on the cold chicken offal soup, and the garlic leaves couldn't cover the smell of the cold soup, Shen Mingan silently cleaned up all the dishes.

Lu Ciheng was rare, he didn't say a word to Shen Mingan all night, he went out without eating, and came back more than an hour later, with a gloomy face, he threw the dead tree branch he picked up to the ground with a "slap". After throwing it away, the charcoal fire didn't even start, and went to bed after simply washing up, without even looking at Shen Mingan, completely treating him as if he didn't exist.

When Shen Mingan was sitting by the charcoal basin warming the fire, Lu Ciheng had already fallen asleep.

It is very difficult to make a trap on the snowy mountain. Wild birds rarely appear in snowy days. You have to climb up the mountain from time to time to check if you have caught any prey. Even if Lu Ciheng didn't tell Shen Mingan, he would know how much it was to catch this pheasant. not easy.

What's more, in the past few days, Lu Ciheng went out early and returned late to collect firewood, dig wild vegetables, and look for food, and even his eyes were slightly black and blue.

Shen Mingan lifted the quilt after roasting, and lay down next to Lu Ciheng in a soft voice. The swollen lump on the back of his head hadn't gone away after a few days, and he couldn't touch it at all. Sometimes it hurt even if he didn't touch it, a dull pain It often made his eyes blurry. In the past few days, he could only sleep on his side.

He lay on the bed, unable to fall asleep, looked at his hands through the snow light outside the window, closed his eyes, but today's bowl of bloody internal organs and the burning coals in the charcoal basin just now recurred in his mind.

The lingering blood color overlaps with the firelight and the picture in memory——

The Shen family has practiced medicine for generations. A few generations back, Shen Ming'an's great-grandfather was an imperial physician at the former Chaotai Hospital. After retiring from his old age and returning to his hometown, he founded the Renxintang, where he specialized in consulting and prescribing medicines for the common people.

His great-grandfather had excellent medical skills, and the doctors were benevolent. As long as the patients came to see the doctor, regardless of their status, they would try their best to diagnose and treat them.

Passed down to Shen Mingan's father's generation, Renxintang has already become the largest clinic in Jiangzhou. Apart from seeing patients in the clinic every day, his father puts more emphasis on doing medicine business.

Renxintang has a century-old reputation. Compared with other pharmacies, the price of medicinal materials has always been inexpensive, and the quality is superior at the same price.

But because of this, the business of other pharmacies gradually deteriorated. For a while, several Jiangzhou pharmacies closed down one after another, and Renxintang almost monopolized the Jiangzhou medicinal material market.

That's how the misfortune came.

The shopkeeper of a pharmacy was cut off from his fortune, and he held a grudge. It happened that the helper in that pharmacy used to be a bandit in the village, and he knew many brothers from all walks of life. The gang came to kill.

Shen Mingan was only about eight or nine years old at that time, but even after so many years passed, the scene of that night was still vivid in his memory, sometimes he would wake up without warning when he fell asleep, and the dream was full of red flames and shouts that could not go away Voice.

In order to make it easier for the common people to come to see a doctor at night, Shen Ming'an and his parents lived in the backyard of Renxin Hall, and lived with the fellows who fetched medicine in Renxin Hall.

That night, when Shen Mingan was woken up in a panic by his mother, he didn't know what happened at home. He smelled a strong smell of smoke, which was harsh and pungent. The room is far away, and the sound is blocked by the door.

His mother was covered in dust, and hurriedly handed him a wet handkerchief soaked in water, hid him in the closet, and told him that the front yard was on fire, and if the smell of smoke was heavy, he should cover his mouth and nose with the handkerchief, but no matter what Don't come out when you hear any sound.

"But if it's on fire, shouldn't I run outside, and I can also help put out the fire." The closet is not big, and Shen Mingan is completely stuffed inside, so there is very little room for movement.

"Outside...they are all fighting the fire outside now, and you can't help much if you go out." The mother hid him in the depths of the closet, covered him with clothes in a panic, turned her head from time to time to look outside the house, and repeated in her mouth Forte said: "It's chaotic outside, don't come out, I'll come find you later."

It was very dark at night, and he didn't find the dark red blood on his mother's body. He only saw his mother leave in a hurry through the gap in the closet. Before he left, he took a deep look at him, with deep worry and reluctance in his eyes.

Shen Mingan has been obedient since he was a child. He hid obediently in the cabinet for a long time and did not see his mother come back to look for him. Someone passed by outside the door, with very noisy footsteps, as if they had stayed in front of his house for a while, and suddenly kicked the door open.

The leaders were tall and tall, with fierce faces, holding a machete in their hands, and strange patterns embroidered on their clothes. They looked around the room with eagle-like eyes, and cursed a few words when they found no one in the room. With foreign accents mixed in, Shen Mingan couldn't even understand what they were saying.

He held his breath, didn't dare to make a sound, and was in the cabinet anxiously. After those people came out of the room with knives, he immediately pushed open the door of the cabinet, and ran out in the opposite direction of the group of people with a soft voice. .

He ran all the way to the front yard, and saw a mess all around him from a distance.

The corpses of servants at home, clerks in the pharmacy, maidservants and nurses beside him, many, many people, just lay in disorder in the yard, with blood flowing everywhere, and they were all faces he was familiar with.

His mother was leaning against the doorframe dying, her eyes half-opened and panting feebly, most of her face was covered with sticky blood, her pale fingertips were clutching her collar, and there was a knife mark in her throat that was as deep as the bones, The fleshy half of the neck could not support the weight of the head, and limply tilted to one side.

The group couldn't find Shen Ming'an anywhere, and returned to the front yard, violently picked up his mother's hair and lifted her from the ground, and said viciously, "Where did you hide your son?"

The wound on the mother's neck was bleeding profusely, and her head was about to be torn off. Her formerly clear face was bloodless, and she said in a broken voice, "He's not at...home..."

Shen Ming'an could even see his mother's larynx, which was exposed to the flesh, moving up and down with her movements. He wanted to run over like crazy, but was suddenly grabbed by someone. The person behind him was more than twice his size, dragging Then he took him behind the pillar and covered his mouth desperately to prevent him from making a sound.

He watched helplessly as the group of people used a machete to open up his mother's belly, and the tip of the knife stirred inside, scraping out the blood-red liver and intestines, cursing in their mouths: "You are just like your man. It's tough."

Shen Mingan was dragged by Wang Xingyan, and the two hid behind the pillar together. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't break away from Wang Xingyan's arm. When his mother saw him, she twisted her neck almost invisibly, her gray eyes stared at the direction Shen Mingan was in, trembling. Lip said to him silently: "Don't come here."

That gang was tyrannical and cruel, and their methods were vicious and cruel. There were dozens of people in the Shen family, and none of them survived.

They didn't ask for money, they just wanted to kill people. They wandered around the yard for a while, but couldn't find Shen Ming'an, and set fire to Shen's house before leaving.

The fire was quickly extinguished. These people set it on fire only to destroy the corpses. Many people saw the Renxin Hall on fire and rushed to put out the fire spontaneously, but the disgusting smell of burnt corpses was still around.

After the group of people had all left, Wang Xingyan slowly let go of Shen Mingan. Shen Mingan rushed to his mother, fell to the ground, and used his hands to block the huge blood hole in her stomach. He was so afraid that he couldn't even speak. Incomplete, I can only say over and over again: "Mom, wake up..."

Such a big opening couldn't be blocked at all, not to mention that his mother died a few breaths after being cut open. The blood on her face made her face more and more dirty.

Mother's hand, which was still warm a moment ago, is now cold,

The night breeze dried the tears on his face, and Shen Mingan sat motionless in the courtyard holding his mother's gradually cooling body.