At the dinner table in the early morning of the second day, Zhou Ziruo carefully observed Mu Qijun, who was eating happily and couldn't be more energetic, and faintly let go of his worries. This guy has such a good appetite, it's impossible to be entangled by 'it', and his appetite came as soon as he felt relieved. Lu Lixiao happened to break half of an egg yolk and brought it to his mouth, and he ate it contentedly.
Village head Su suddenly mentioned: "Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of the two elders of the Duan family. I have already prepared the things for the grave. Get up early tomorrow, and I will take you to the mountain."
"I'm sorry." Lu Lixiao said politely.
"The two elders have saved some savings for Brother Duan over the years. They passed away in a hurry, and the money has been deposited with me. I will give it to you now." Village Chief Su put down the bowl and got up.
Lu Lixiao stopped: "No need..."
"Yes. Although elder brother Duan has cultivated immortality and despises the yellow and white things in the world, it is the hard work of the elders after all." Village Chief Su entered the bedroom, and then the sound of rummaging through boxes and cabinets came out.
The three people at the dinner table exchanged glances and were silent.
The two elders must have missed their only son Duan Peng very much when they were alive, but I'm afraid they never dreamed that Duan Peng had passed away a long time ago.
Zhou Ziruo shook his head sighingly, ate the last piece of egg yolk, and stretched out his tongue to lick Lu Lixiao's fingers clean. At this moment, he noticed that Mu Qijun was peeking at him with a shocked expression on his face.
Take a look!
Zhou Ziruo bared his teeth at Mu Qijun, Lu Lixiao followed him to look, Mu Qijun turned his face away hastily, happened to see the bare wall from the wide open door of Village Chief Su's room.
"Eh?" Village Chief Su came out with a red cloth bag and closed it to the door. Mu Qijun asked, "Cillage Chief, have you taken down the paintings on the wall?"
"Dong Dong" several times, the red cloth bag fell to the ground, and the broken silver inside rolled out. Village head Su hurriedly leaned over to pick up the silver back into his bag, stood up and said, "Painting?... What painting?"
"It's the painting you hung in the room..."
"I have never hung a picture scroll in my room! You read it wrong!" Village Chief Su said seriously.
Mu Qijun was stunned, and everyone looked at Village Chief Su, who realized that his tone was too tough, and forced a smile: "Little brother, I was rude... There is a custom in the village that you are not allowed to hang pictures on the wall. too excited… "
"Oh... It's okay, I'm probably confused." Mu Qijun said.
After dinner, Lu Lixiao and Leng Mo went to look for clues at the old house of the Liu family where they were married to the Duan family, while Mu Qijun was still in the village asking people for news.
Liu's mother, daughter, orphans and widows came to the village and belonged to the outside households in the village. The house was built at the end of the village, the location is very remote, and there are few people on weekdays. Daohe villagers are simple and honest, and no one will go in and mess with things in empty houses, so even in the past few decades, basically everything has remained the same as it was before.
Leng Mo unlocked the door with a needle, and the small palm-sized house of the Liu family appeared in front of his eyes. The place where women live is always well-organized, even if they make up their minds to move out and never come back, they will not make a mess.
Lu Lixiao searched Liu Shi and her daughter's bedroom, the room was dimly lit, he lit the short candle he brought, turned around and saw Zhou Ziruo crawling under the bed, half a moment later he heard him shout, "There's something!"
There was a small iron box under the bed, Lu Lixiao dragged it out and put it on the ground, the old lock on it "clicked" open.
After looking for the living room, Leng Mo opened the door and came in. Seeing him, he asked, "What's inside?"
Lu Lixiao looked at it for a while, then turned the box around to show him.
In the box, a layer of water-red silk cloth was carefully laid out. On the silk cloth were some clever objects for little girls to play with, as well as an opened letter.
Although the contents of this box are well preserved, after more than 30 years, the words on the letterhead are completely unreadable.
"This box should have been sealed before Mrs. Liu left the village. Mrs. Liu's family only has this letter like a family letter. Could the reason for her leaving have something to do with the content on the letter?" Leng Mo guessed, then became annoyed, "It's a pity After too long, the handwriting can no longer be read clearly, and there is no way to know about Liu's mother and daughter!"
Zhou Ziruo was also very discouraged, this was the clue he found.
"It's not necessarily true." Lu Lixiao twisted up the letter paper and lit it on the candle. Zhou Ziruo shrugged his nose, smelling a faint fragrance.
Leng Mo was surprised, "This fragrance is..."
"The cedar paper, which is a specialty of Yiyang City, is added with pine snow juice during the paper making process. After the paper is made, it has a pleasant fragrance, and it becomes stronger when it is burned. Although it has been more than 30 years, it is a high-quality paper product after all. There is still a lingering fragrance." Lu Lixiao said.
Leng Mo crossed his arms, "Is this letter sent from Yiyang City? Yiyang City is not too far from here and Qingyang Mountain..."
"It seems that we need to take a detour to Yiyang City when we go back." Lu Lixiao folded up the remaining letter paper, put it in an envelope, and put it back in the box. At this moment, he caught a glimpse of Zhou Ziruo lying on the table hiding under his stomach from the corner of his eye. With something shiny.
Zhou Ziruo caught Lu Lixiao's gaze, lowered his head guiltily and pretended not to see it, Lu Lixiao stopped closing the box and said, "Take it out."
Leng Mo didn't understand, so he didn't understand until the fox on the table aggrievedly pushed out a small jade carved fox.
This jade fox carving is fairly fine, but the jade is really not a good jade, and it is estimated to be worth one or two pennies if sold. Of course Zhou Ziruo would not be greedy for such a worthless thing, but when he saw this little jade fox and thought of himself, he suddenly felt a kind of "I have a companion", so he couldn't help but want to take it away.
Lu Lixiao poked Zhou Ziruo's forehead fiercely with his finger, "Good character. Have I wronged you?"
If Zhou Zi is not convinced, the things in this box are all Liu's don't want, so why not treat him as a pick-up
"Still talking hard?" Lu Lixiao's fingers intensified, and Zhou Ziruo became angry because his forehead hurt from being pressed down.
Originally, he didn't have to have this jade carving, but now he is on par with Lu Lixiao. He nimbly retracted from Lu Lixiao's hands, bit off the jade pendant hanging from Lu Lixiao's belt and threw it into the box, the jade pendant made a muffled sound as it fell on the silk cloth, Zhou Ziruo stretched out his claws and grabbed the fox jade carving away.
This piece of Kodama is much more valuable than this jade carving! Anyway, he still owes Lu Lixiao nine hundred and ninety-eight coins, so it doesn't matter if you add more! He paid the money, can he take this broken jade carving
Zhou Ziruo vowed to defend the jade carving little fox to the death, his fur stood on end, and he was ready to fight Lu Lixiao to the end. Lu Lixiao was stunned for a moment, then instead of asking him to put the jade carving back, he seemed to acquiesce in his act of using his own jade pendant to offset it, and silently locked the iron box.
Zhou Ziruo was dumbfounded.
"Fourth senior brother, your piece of warm topaz..." Leng Mo couldn't help but reminded.
Lu Lixiao seemed to be in a good mood, put the small iron box back under the bed, and picked up the confused Zhou Ziruo: "He belongs to me, of course I will pay for what he took. Let's go."
These words struck Zhou Ziruo like a bolt of lightning.
Nani?
That's not what I mean! ! The young master just borrowed your money for a piece of jade to make things difficult for you! ! The young master is not yours! ! ! How magical is your brain circuit, male lead? ?
It's too late to put this broken jade carving back now, woo woo woo! ! !
After Mu Qijun broke up with Lu Lixiao and the others, he walked around the village, still thinking about the painting last night, so he went back to Su Village Chief's house.
During the day, the village head Su and Su Jin are usually not at home, because they are guests at Su's house these two days, and the door of Su's house is not locked at all. Anyway, people in Daohe Village are honest, and there has never been a case of sneaking.
Mu Qijun sneaked around the house to observe, and made sure that there was no one in the house, so he quickly stepped through the door. He struggled for a while at the door of Village Chief Su's bedroom, and finally walked into the room muttering "I'm just looking, just looking."
Village head Su is a scholar, and the bedroom is tidy and tidy, which almost makes Mu Qijun a little bit helpless.
Mu Qijun first looked under the bed, and then looked for the cabinet, but there was nothing like a scroll at all. He couldn't help but wonder if it was his eyesight that made a mistake last night
Just as he was scratching the back of his head and thinking this way, he accidentally kicked a tall vase standing beside the bed, he hurriedly stretched his arms to hug the vase, the vase shook, and half of the scroll spit out from the mouth of the vase!
Mu Qijun said "Hey", pulled out the scroll and unfolded it, and the girl standing gracefully by the stream on the long silk looked at him with winking eyes like silk and a smile on her lips, she was so beautiful.
This was indeed far from what he expected.
The person in the painting looks like a young girl who has never left the court, so it can't be the wife of the village chief, right? Could it be the wife of the village chief before getting married
It's just a painting, why did Village Chief Su deny it? Mu Qijun couldn't figure it out, rolled up the scroll and put it back in the vase, closed the door and left the room.
It was still early, and he planned to go to the village to inquire about Duan Peng. He had just walked outside the fenced courtyard when he saw Su Jin stumbling towards him.
Sujin's already sloppy clothes are even more dirty and ragged now, and her bare|exposed skin is full of indistinguishable dirt. She didn't seem to expect that there was someone in the family at this time, with her head lowered, almost buried in her chest, running past Mu Qijun quickly.
Mu Qijun knew that the children in the village must have bullied Sujin as a monster again, so he quickly took off his outer shirt and chased after Sujin, and put it on Sujin, "Go and sit in the room, I'll fetch water to wipe you off!"
Sujin grabbed the shirt on her chest, staring blankly at him clumsily throwing buckets to fetch water. Mu Qijun filled half a bucket of well water, soaked it in a clean towel and handed it to Sujin, turned his face away and said, "Wipe it yourself, I won't read it."
After a while, Mu Qijun heard suppressed sobbing, he turned his head, Sujin did not wipe the dirt off her body, but huddled into a ball and wept softly.
Mu Qijun sighed in his heart, sympathized with the girl very much, and raised his hand to pat her on the back. The coat that was draped over Sujin's body slid halfway down, revealing her thin back, and Mu Qijun's hand lightly placed on Sujin's shoulder suddenly stopped.
He frowned and looked there, only to see a string of crimson marks all over the thin and thin back among the filthy filth!
The author has something to say: Although the jade carving fox is unwanted by others and is not worth much, but Xiao Zhou can’t help the temptation of sympathy. It’s not advisable to take other people’s things. Good children don’t learn from them. Punish the uncle for the official job ╮(╯_╰)╭