"Master, everything is ready, do you want to take a look again?"
"No," Li Jinrong seemed to always be in a hurry. She lowered her head and waved her hand, and asked again, "Mr. Zhou and Mrs. Wang still haven't replied?"
The female disciple who was doing chores for her said eloquently: "Not yet, this time Beigou has made a real move. All of us in the north have lost contact with the village, and Mrs. Wang will have no choice but to do it for a while. But we, Mrs. Wang. Who is it? Even if the old man encounters Beidou head-on, Beigou should give way, you can rest assured."
Li Jinrong ignored this relief, because in her opinion, "relief" is also a kind of nonsense, and she still frowned and asked, "Where did Ma Jili and the others wrote to you last time?"
The female disciple observed her words and expressions, hurriedly swallowed the unnecessary words, and said, "The last time I wrote a letter to report, it seems that it was just out of Shu. It was the first time for Junior Sister Li to go out, and she was a little naughty..."
"Return a letter to them and ask Li Yan to be honest. The outside is not like the home. You don't have to mess with her. You can beat and scold her if you need to." Li Jinrong rubbed her brows, thinking in her heart if she had missed anything. He absentmindedly said, "Go ahead and do your work first. Tomorrow we will leave early in the morning, and ask the elders of each village to come to me after dinner."
The female disciple did not dare to disturb her, so she responded and left.
Li Jinrong let out a long sigh of relief. She remembered that when she was seventeen years old, with a knife and a few people, she dared to go north by herself. Over the years, she became more and more burdened, and going out was almost like moving a mountain.
Everything at home and outside had to be explained clearly, and he hesitated for several days just by taking the chariots and horses with him. What a refreshing person she is, she was dragged into a helpless slowness by her family's business.
Li Jinrong walked into her small study and closed the door cautiously.
Most of the things in the study room were left by Zhou Yitang. The study room and books were still in the same place and had not been moved. There was a large row of bookshelves in the corner, which were filled with four books, five classics and various classics. A name test is probably enough. However, since Zhou Yitang left, no one cares about these books, and they have already received a layer of dust.
Li Jinrong pulled out a copy of "University" and shook off the dust on it. When she opened it, she saw that there were more annotations written in familiar handwriting than the main text. A nerdy air rushed towards her face, and she couldn't help it. With a snort, he gently put it aside, took off the several bookcases on the middle layer of the bookshelf one by one, reached out and touched the wooden frame, and then digged and broke, "click", Li Jinrong took off a piece of wood.
There is actually a secret grid behind the wooden board against the wall, and inside it is a small ordinary wooden box.
I don't know how many years I haven't taken it out, and the small box is about to take root in the wall.
Li Jinrong didn't think it was dirty, she rolled up her sleeves casually, and reached out to take out the wooden box. She checked the exception, and she was quite satisfied - the rotten box that was enough to make the old man jump and howl was just a little bit in the corners. It was moldy, and the mushrooms had not yet grown. Judging by Li Jinrong's standards, it was already well-preserved.
The iron shaft of the wooden box was already rusted, and as soon as the lid was opened, it died with a musty crunch.
Unexpectedly, what was in this box, which was collected by Daddy Li's family, was not treasures and secret books, but a pile of miscellaneous items.
On the top is a jacket of faded floral fabric. The shoulders are slightly narrow and the size is not large. Only a girl of thirteen or fourteen years old can wear it. Li Jinrong reached out and stroked the layers of pleats on it. The clothes have been left for too long, and they feel a strange and sticky feeling from dampness. The pleats have become part of the clothes and cannot be removed like stitches.
Li Jinrong tilted her head and looked at it for a moment, and the memories that had been sealed for many years flooded into her mind—
"I don't have a place for a snowbreaker..." The girl rushed in the door recklessly, and then paused, "Father, what are you doing?"
The legendary Nan Dao head flicked his finger without raising his head, and the thread on the needle tail was immediately cut off cleanly. He picked up his "masterpiece" and looked at it for a while, as if very satisfied, raised his hand and threw it at the girl. :"then."
Girls' Generation's Li Jinrong didn't dare to be careless. Even if it was a piece of cloth thrown by her father, she cautiously took two steps back before adjusting her posture to catch it. What Li Zheng threw was a very lively floral clip. The jacket is well-cut, and the stitching is very neat. Although the craftsmanship is not very sophisticated, it is quite decent. Whether it's the color, style or size, you can tell it's for her.
Li Jinrong was stunned for a while, and then her face turned red. She felt that she was a big girl, and she always felt that it was a bit embarrassing for her father to sew clothes, so she said angrily: "Why are you... I want to wear new clothes, and I can't do it myself. ?"
"Your sleeves are almost as short as your elbows, and I haven't seen you make one." Li Zheng gave her a white look and ranted, "The little girl's family, you are such a sloppy one, I really don't know. Like who, who will you marry in the future? Sigh, go back and try on the clothes, if they are not suitable, I will change them for you. Jinrong, my father told you... "
There was an endless long discussion behind, Li Jinrong put down his old clothes, and the corner of his mouth couldn't help showing a mild smile.
No matter which version of the legend of Nandao is spread outside, anyway, in Li Jinrong's memory, Li Zheng is always a "strange man" who is unhurried and nagging endlessly - usually nagging her, because his younger brother is more than her He has a good temper, and he listens carefully to whatever he says.
Li Jinrong always doubted that Li Zheng sometimes had nothing to do with her and chattered on purpose. Every time she said it, he was like a great achievement, and he floated away happily.
But when she was young, she always did what he wanted.
On this point, Li Jinrong felt that Zhou Fei was not really like her. Although Zhou Fei was a wild girl who didn't like to talk to others most of the time, her mind was more serious than when she was young. What Zhou Fei saw and what she thought , she was reluctant to speak out, except that she didn't learn the point of being "kind and polite", but her temperament was more like Zhou Yitang.
Although Li Jinrong seldom gave any face-to-face affirmations to the younger generation, she felt that whether it was Li Sheng's smoothness or Zhou Fei's sharpness, they were much better than the self pampered by Li Zheng back then—even though the two of them were accustomed to It seems that Wu's talent in this area is not named Li.
But even if there is no second martial arts, how far a person can go is sometimes determined by things other than martial arts.
Li Jinrong couldn't help but walk away for a moment—I don't know where Zhou Fei and Li Sheng are now. They were playing wildly outside and no one cared.
Li Jinrong shook his head, put aside the old things and chaotic thoughts, and took out a gold bracelet from under the box.
It was a very simple open bracelet, with no extra patterns, the size of a half-old child, Li Jinrong looked serious, groped around the inner circle of the bracelet, and finally felt a bump near the opening, she looked carefully at the light After observing for a while, I saw a water ripple pattern engraved there.
Li Jinrong narrowed her eyes, took out a letter from her body, and hurriedly flipped to the place where it was signed—there was also a seal, which was exactly the same as the ripples on her bracelet.
This letter was very scribbled, as if it had been written in a hurry, only one place name was clearly written, and then it was explained that "the accident that the old village owner suffered in those years may have other hidden meanings", and there was nothing else.
This time, Li Jinrong finally decided to leave Shuzhong. Except for the recent unprovoked disconnection of the Forty-Eight Villages in the north, which forced her to deal with it, other reasons fell on this letter.
Li Zheng had only given her such a bracelet since he was a child. Later, seeing that she didn't like it, he never bought a second one. This was an ordinary gold bracelet. Although it was worth some money, it was not very precious. Nothing out of the ordinary.
If it weren't for Li Zheng's last words.
His last sentence for her to hear clearly was, "Keep the bracelet that Dad gave you."
There is a vague sentence "Don't inquire..." and so on.
But don't inquire about what? He never got a chance to say it again.
What does the water ripple pattern on the bracelet represent
Why does that letter have an identical mark on it
The person who wrote this letter is precisely an elder she once trusted very much, and when this person could not find a way to contact the 48th Village for the time being, he entrusted Zhou Yitang to hand it over.
Forty-eight Village is a paradise independent of the world, and it is also a miracle.
This miracle was accomplished because of its completely shattered sectarian views and its extreme closure to the outside world. Both are indispensable. Li Jinrong has been in charge of the forty-eight villages for many years, and she knows this too well. For many years, she has been trying hard to maintain this balance. With the peace in this corner of Shu, the four words "no relatives and no reason" are basically achieved to the outside world, but there are still some people who can't ignore it.
Whether it is the death of the old village owner, or the father of her daughter.
After Li Jinrong received this mysterious letter, she immediately received news of a series of incidents in the north of the Forty-Eight Village, and she suddenly had an ominous feeling in her heart.
When she decided to go there in person, she sent letters to Mrs. Wang and Zhou Yitang, asking Mrs. Wang to detour to the south as soon as possible. For the sake of safety, she could temporarily entrust the group of burdensome young people to Zhou Yitang. He wrote another letter to Zhou Yitang, and expressed in secret words that only the two of them could understand, "I will leave Shuzhong someday, and I may go to see him after finishing some things."
Li Jinrong couldn't just pack up two things and change clothes like Zhou Fei did. She had to explain and arrange everything from the top to the bottom of the forty-eight villages. In this way, from the decision to the preparation, there was a delay in the middle. months.
What made her even more uneasy was that in the past two months, neither Zhou Yitang nor Mrs. Wang had replied to her.
The communication in the north was blocked, and Mrs. Wang's correspondence was slow and normal, but what happened to Zhou Yitang
If something really happened to him, he couldn't hide it from the truth, it could only be that the way of sending the letter was blocked... Could it be that after the accident at the dark pile in the north, there are still ghosts in the south
With this thought together, Li Jinrong hadn't had a good night's sleep. While she was putting countless eyeliners in the forty-eight villages, she was still worried, and temporarily found a group of trusted confidants and sent Li Yan away.
In the late autumn of the 21st year of Jianyuan, after the situation in the north and the south had stabilized for a period of time, it began to become dark and unclear due to the frequent movements of the Beidou to the south. , Soldiers, officials, taxation, farmland, merchants, etc., have completed the old-fashioned renovation that indirectly took the life of the emperor, like scraping the bones to cure poison... But most people in the rivers and lakes are not engaged in production, and no one cares about these things.
What they are concerned about is that Huojiabao is overturned; Beidou still ignores the declining Central Plains martial arts after 20 years of resentment, and becomes more and more presumptuous; With the names of "home and country" and "righteousness", it means to gather another hero meeting; at the foot of Hengshan, the descendant of Nandao was born and killed the head of the four saints, except for the Suzaku master Mu Xiao, who betrayed the four saints. In addition to Qiao, the other two mountain tops, the living and the dead, expressed their revenge for this; the recently famous owner of Qingyungou originally claimed to have a knife in the Central Plains, but unexpectedly he was also defeated by the new "Nandao". , Leng Touqing in the wild land is not too embarrassed to show his eyes, and he publicly announced the result, so that the black and white of the Southern Dynasty are now looking for this god-like descendant... and Li Jinrong, the head of the forty-eight villages, quietly left the village and disturbed him. Into this pool of wind and clouds.
What Li Jinrong didn't expect was that when she had just left the 48th Village, the person who arranged to leave before she left was walking back.
Although Ma Jili was tasked with transporting the troublesome Li Yan to Jinling, after listening to Zhou Fei and Wu Chuchu's original narration, he had to take the initiative and turn around and go back to the middle of Shu... Especially the troublemaker Yang Heitan is not ashamed After publicly publicizing her defeat, Zhou Fei stood on the cusp of the storm.
Although Li Yan was interrupted in the middle of going out for the first time, she did not object at all. After listening to the events in the area of Yueyang Huarong, all the elders looked heavy, but Li Yan cried a lot without any scruples. The eager anticipation was all gone in the news of Chenfei's death.
Ma Jili ordered someone to send a letter to Li Jinrong, and quickly prepared the carriage and horses, disguised a low profile and went to the middle of Shu.
With her own family leading the way, the remaining part of the road will be much smoother. You can connect with the hidden stakes in the Forty-Eight Villages everywhere. Zhou Fei also learned about the trouble she caused, and it is rare to be honest.
In the blink of an eye, they were already approaching the middle of Shu, and the liveliness of being separated from the troubled times gradually came to their faces. Ma Jili let them rest for a night, and the next day they had to send a letter and officially enter the Forty-eight Villages.