At sunset, the sky is splendid with the sunset glow, and the finely shattered scale clouds in the sky are dyed with the afterglow of the setting sun.
The Yuan family had a rare visitor. The parents were entertaining guests in the front hall, and the sisters were busy boiling water and cooking. Yuan Xianger was left alone to chop wood in the yard.
Holding a sharp axe, Yuan Xianger stood in front of Chaidunzi with a dark face, and whispered to the empty wooden stake,
"Step aside."
In her sight, there was a chicken paralyzed on the short wood pier at this moment, to be precise, a long-necked chicken in clothes.
It was neatly dressed in a small gray robe, its hands were neatly tucked into its sleeves, and a thin and long chicken neck was sticking out from the collar. This nondescript little monster defiantly put its neck on a guillotine-like wooden stake, posing as if it was ready to give up generously at any time.
Yuan Xianger knew that if she chopped it down with an axe, the little chicken head would roll down to the ground, roll in a circle in the dusty ground, and automatically return to the broken neck of the chicken. Then lie down again without hesitation.
This long-necked monster, who doesn't know where he got his weird hobby, always likes to lie on the mound where people are chopping wood, playing this game of beheading over and over again.
Yuan Xianger, who can see its appearance, does not want to play this kind of game with it,
"Go away, I'm going to chop wood." Yuan Xianger said.
On the little chicken's head, there are two disproportionately dull eyes. I saw one eyeball up and one eyeball down, and the two eyes turned around, avoiding Yuan Xianger's line of sight, begging for nothing. Lying on the "guillotine" refused to move.
"If you don't leave, I will burn you as firewood." Yuan Xiang'er was both angry and funny.
At this time, the voice of the eldest sister Yuan Chunhua came from behind, "Xiang'er, are you talking to yourself again?"
Yuan Xiang'er was startled, hurriedly turned around, and scratched her head in embarrassment.
The eldest sister took the axe in her hand, held her hand, and looked at her red eyes, obviously she had just cried.
"Dad said... I asked you to come over."
"Dad called me at this time?"
Yuan Chunhua shook her head, saying that she didn't know the situation either. But he turned his face to the side, avoiding his sister's sight, and quietly wiped the tears on his face.
But Yuan Xianger was not a real seven-year-old girl after all. Her father had been chatting with a strange guest in the front hall for a long time, but now she asked her sister to take him there. A bad premonition suddenly surged in her heart.
The so-called front hall of the Yuan family was nothing but a thatched cottage with air leaks from all sides. The dilapidated shrine was enshrined with several gods and Buddhas. Years of fireworks had blackened the entire wall. A tarnished dining table was placed in the middle. On weekdays, meals, hospitality, and rewards are all in this room. There were two thick tea bowls for hospitality on the table at the moment, and three small silver ingots squatted dazzlingly beside the tea bowls.
Father Yuan sits cross-legged on a bench beside the table next to the table. The years have left deep marks on his face. Years of excessive toil have made this man in his prime look tired and old. demeanor. He kept rubbing his thick and yellow fingers, and when he saw his little daughter walk in, he lowered his head a little embarrassedly.
Opposite him sat an unfamiliar young man, dressed in inconspicuous clothes, dressed in plain short brown, with straw sandals on the soles of his feet, and a bamboo hat placed beside the legs of the stool. It's just that his indifferent temperament and good looks make it difficult for people to ignore his existence even if he dresses like this.
Wearing ordinary clothes and sitting in such a simple and barren house, this man can still give people a feeling of being at ease. As if he wasn't sitting at an oily table, drinking rough tea from a sea bowl with a gaping mouth. It is the elegant residence in the green pines reflecting the snow, the painting building with the spirit of Zhilan, and a cup of fragrant tea fried in the melting snow.
Seeing Yuan Xianger coming in, he raised his eyes and nodded to the little girl with a smile.
Yuan Xiang'er's swarthy eyes swiveled around the room and landed on the silver ingot on the table. In such a remote area, the villagers used copper plates for transactions, and silver ingots would not easily appear.
Unfamiliar guests, large transactions, and the situation of a family with four walls.
Yuan Xianger finally set her eyes on her father, whom she had called for seven years, but her father avoided her gaze.
So, she knew that her parents could not bear the load of five children and sold herself as a commodity.
The evening wind poured in from the hole in the wall, blowing Yuan Xianger's heart a little cold. But if you must have a daughter in the seller, compared to the eldest sister who is about to come of age and the ignorant second sister, an undead who has come to another world is indeed the most suitable choice to leave this home.
She had no father in the last life and spent seven years of cold and summer in this world. She once thought that she had made up for the regret in her heart. It was only now that I suddenly realized that I was still a stranger to this world.
Since it is only a guest, there is nothing to be sad about, Yuan Xianger said to herself in her heart.
"Sir, this is the third girl." Father Yuan called the young guest Mr. In this era, those who read and read, those who exorcise demons and exorcise demons, and those who settle accounts in the accounting room... can all be called gentlemen, but I don't know which kind of man this man belongs to.
The gentleman looked at Yuan Xianger and slowly introduced his family: "My surname is Yu, and my name is Yao. My name is natural, and my nickname is Kunpeng. I have been practicing the techniques of Yin-Yang and Five Elements all my life. I want to accept you as a disciple, but I wonder if you are willing?"
Yuan Xianger wanted to say that I didn't want to, but she was so eloquent that she might be a magic stick like Mrs. Wu. Why should I leave home with a stranger with you, who knows whether you want to abduct me or concoct me. But when she saw her father's earnest eyes lingering on the bright silver coins on the table, she knew that this matter was not up to her own will. The main thing was that the price this person offered had satisfied her father.
"Okay." She said lightly.
Father Yuan raised his head and glanced at his seven-year-old daughter. The child was thin and small, and he spoke very little on weekdays, but his eyes were exceptionally clear, as if he could see everything in the world.
At this time, he finally remembered that this was a sensible and quiet girl he had grown up with.
Although she was despised by herself when she was born, she has hugged her, teased her, and watched her grow up little by little over the years. Father Yuan's heart that was happy because of the unexpected wealth finally raised a trace of genuine guilt.
But what about this, this year's harvest is not good, the family can't open the pot now, and the whole family can't starve to death together in winter. The son who inherits the incense must not be sold, and he can only give up one of his three daughters. After all, three ingots and ten taels of silver are a lot of money to use in the countryside. Not only can the whole family survive this bad winter, but it can even save a large part for the sons to marry their wives in the future.
He sighed, "Go to the back room to meet your mother and your grandma."
Yuan Xiang'er looked at him for a while, then turned her head and entered the back room.
The mother and eldest sister in the back room were sitting on the edge of the bed crying opposite each other when they saw her come in. Her mother pulled her to her side with tears in her eyes, reached out and touched her head, looked up and down, choked up.
The mother's palm is very warm, with the rough feeling of long-term labor, rubbing on Yuan Xianger's skin with nostalgia, conveying a kind of tenderness that belongs only to mothers.
But that's all.
Yuan Xiang'er waited for a long time, only to see the crackling tears, and she didn't wait for a word of retention, and the little expectation that sparked in her heart finally cooled down. So she withdrew her hand.
"Mom, I'm leaving now."
The eldest sister Yuan Chunhua was wrapping a piece of cake that had just been baked and three or two pieces of her sister's clothes into a cloth bag. After hearing this, she couldn't help crying.
"Mother, don't sell your sister, sell me if you want to." She cried.
"Don't talk nonsense." Mother reprimanded softly.
The cry attracted the children who were playing outside the house. Yuan Dabao, Yuan Xiaobao and Yuan Zhaodi saw the fragrant scones in their sister's hand at a glance, and immediately asked for the cake.
Mother Yuan looked at the crying sons in embarrassment, and then looked at the little daughter who was about to leave, and finally reached out and tore a small piece from the round cake, put it in the hands of the eldest son, and tore off another piece. Small pieces in the hands of a toddler. Then he pushed aside Yuan Zhaodi, who was making a lot of noise on the ground, stuffed the rest of the pancakes into the bag, packed the bag, and hung it on Yuan Xianger's arm.
The grandmother of the Yuan family had been bedridden for many years. When Yuan Xianger entered her room, the dim room was filled with a musty, rancid smell. Yuan Xianger still clearly remembers that when she was just born, the strong grandmother stood at the door of the house with her arms on her hips, scolding the street for a day, and scolded her mother to the point of shame and embarrassment.
But now, perhaps because of her old age, when she heard the news that she was leaving, the dying grandma deflated her toothless mouth, and tremblingly groped for a packet of caramel sealed in red paper from the earthenware pot beside the bed. shoved into her hands. I don't know how many years this package of candy has been in it, and even the red paper has faded. Yuan Xianger pinched the red seal that grandma had hidden for many years, and put it together with the missing pancake.
The family sent Yuan Xianger and the "Mr. Nature" to their doorstep.
After seven years in this world, her identity changed from daughter, sister, sister and granddaughter to apprentice. But she doesn't plan to give any more affection to her apprenticeship. Yuan Xianger thought silently in her heart, and when she was a little older, she would find a way to leave this man who wanted to be her master and live alone.
Yu Yao stretched out his hand towards her. It was the palm of an adult male. It was wide and powerful, neither hot nor cold. With just the right temperature in the world, he clenched her small hand tightly.
Yuan Xianger took a last look back, the simple thatched hut and dilapidated walls, and a family of seven surrounded by the gate. A long-necked chicken head, two pointed fox ears, and a few small things poking out from the head of the wall.
The afterglow of the setting sun is a good time, and the color of the sunset on the horizon becomes rich and gorgeous.
Yuan Xianger said goodbye to the home where she had lived for seven years, and without looking back, holding Yu Yao's hand, she walked towards the depths of the sunset.
Yuan Zhaodi looked at his younger sister's back, and finally understood what happened.
"Wow, I don't eat pancakes anymore, I don't eat pancakes anymore, A-Niang, don't sell my sister."
Her angry cry was sent far away by the cool summer wind, making Yuan Xianger's bitter heart a little better.