When the first meteor fell, Ah Xiang ran to Huafang Ferry, just passing by an ice truck.
The hot sweat on her forehead was more than half washed down by the coolness, and she let out a deep breath.
A Xiangxu was fifteen years old, and his father was not early. In the early years, the family had a few acres of Susukida, but there was really no labor. The lonely old man and the weak daughter-in-law brought a baby, worked hard for a year, and couldn't dig out a few grains, and couldn't pay for hiring someone, so someone came to collect the land and build a factory, and the grandfather sold the land.
The first few years were not bad, and working in the factory earned money faster than farming, but the good times didn’t last long. The factory suddenly said that no one over 50 years old was wanted, and the family immediately lost their livelihood.
The money obtained from the land sale in those years became more and more irresistible to spend, which made A Xiangniang use up all of it after she became ill.
The money is gone, and no one is kept, only the grandparent and grandson are left to depend on each other. In order to earn a living, Li Fu, waiter... She followed her grandfather to do everything. It coincided with the general election year, and the grandfather and grandson came to Jinping to find jobs and did odd jobs in the factory area in the southern suburbs.
Ah Xiang made a small fortune this time around.
In the beginning, someone complained outside the gate of the south city. It seems that when the Tengyunjiao railroad track was being built, the family's land was stolen by the dog officials. Later, I don’t know if no one cared or what, anyway, those people started to hire people to sing with them in order to gain momentum.
This job is simple, as long as you get the certificate of identification and wait by the side of the road. When you see a beautiful car and horse passing by, you can hold up the certificate of paper and shout along with the big guys. You can get fifty dollars a day—at the pier, the most powerful, The most capable Li Fu can earn around thirty dollars a day.
Grandpa wouldn't let her go, old thing, there is always some godly reasoning, he said, "Calling false injustice without grievances is a blessing." Ah Xiang didn't listen, and said to himself: There are still "filial sons and virtuous grandchildren" in the countryside who help to cry and mourn. It's not that she has never done bad luck. It didn't hurt God. Grandpa still thought that he could win the big prize by buying the "Gold Pan Lottery" in Shuangtian. He spent all the lamp oil money to buy those waste papers, but he never saw a single penny.
This year Jinping is hot early, before the Dragon Boat Festival arrives, the summer heat has already risen. Grandpa Ah Xiang became ill from the heat. He hadn't eaten a bite of food for two days, but his stomach was bulging like a pregnant woman. Ah Xiang complained for three days, and got 150 yuan. He remembered that his grandfather said that he used to help out in the city, and the meal offered by the master's house included the duck head of Xifeng Pavilion. He had never eaten better than that in his life. With money in his pockets, he found Qifeng Pavilion.
Who knew that her grandfather's "best food ever eaten in this life" is actually the offal that they don't just sell
As soon as Ah Xiang closed his eyes, he seemed to hear the magic-like laughter in Qifeng Pavilion again.
"Little brother, don't run away, are you hot?" Seeing her follow the ice cart involuntarily, a stall owner selling cold drinks on the side of the road rushed to solicit customers, "Have a bowl of ice and snow balls to cool off the heat, and feel like a god! "
A Xiang paused, turned his head and saw the "ice and snow balls" sold at the cold drink stand: small balls rolled with sticky bean noodles were crystal clear, served with various fruits and mint leaves, and were cool in the sultry night. She couldn't help swallowing.
The stall owner saw that she was moved, so he said: "Come and have a bowl to taste, it can cool off the heat, and it won't hurt the stomach, it's very moisturizing!"
A Xiang originally shook his head, but when he heard that "it won't hurt the stomach", he hesitated again: "How much is a bowl?"
After a while, she was holding a jar full of ice and snow balls, and she was happy again—the kind stall owner heard that she was going to buy them for the elderly, and even praised her for her filial piety, and put them in a porcelain jar for her to take home to eat Pay it back when it's over.
Aren't the beautiful ice and snow meatballs more fragrant than that broken duck head
She thought to herself: When she has money, she will take over the Qifeng Pavilion, order a hundred whole ducks, and throw all the duck meat out to feed the dogs.
Ah Xiang was afraid that the shards of ice would be melted, so he ran all the way with the porcelain pot in his arms.
She ran across the downtown area of Dongcheng, deftly dodged the carriages passing through it, took a long leg, jumped over the hole dug by the road repair, and whistled at the flower seller on the side of the road. The girl came back to her senses and spat at her, but without spitting, Ah Xiang had already run out of the south gate.
The smell outside Nancheng is still bad, and the hawkers selling mixed noodle cakes are going to close their stalls, discounting the price to three for a penny.
"Uncle, don't buy it!" Ah Xiang exclaimed excitedly, "I ate well today!"
She was so good at running, like a wild horse, she ran all the way back to the factory without resting. A layer of water had condensed on the outside of the cold porcelain jar. Ah Xiang wiped his wet hands off his body, and suddenly found that the atmosphere in the factory area was unusual, surrounded by many people...all of them were officers and soldiers with knives.
What's wrong
After hearing a commotion, several people were beaten and scolded by the officers and soldiers, and they were all people Ah Xiang knew. She opened her eyes wide and was about to step forward, but someone beside her grabbed her. It was the salted fish uncle who usually liked to buy gold pan Cai with grandpa.
Uncle Xianyu has eyes that are several times bigger than ordinary people, staring almost out of his sockets, he dragged Ah Xiang aside, and whispered: "Don't go there!"
Ah Xiang: "What happened? Why are you arresting people?"
"It is said that those who complained outside the Nancheng gate are rebels, slandering the court, and they are investigating next to the factory... Hey, did you also go there?"
Ah Xiang was a half-grown child, and his words were all about his strength. He was so frightened that his heart was beating wildly, and his hands were colder than an ice jar.
And at this moment, she saw two soldiers dragging a person out of the factory area.
It's her grandpa!
The old man was ill, and was supported by two tall and burly officers and soldiers. His legs were limp and dragged on the ground, like a dying old dog.
Uncle Xianyu also saw it, and couldn't stop muttering: "Oh, it's broken! It's broken... Hey, what are you going to do?"
Ah Xiang, who was about to rush over, was dragged back by Uncle Xianyu: "My grandfather! My grandfather didn't go, my grandfather was wronged!"
"The official doesn't care if you're wronged or not when he arrests someone, just shut up and be honest!" Uncle Xianyu grabbed the girl, "I'll get you in later!"
Seeing another group of officers and soldiers approaching them, Uncle Xianyu turned pale with fright, and stuffed himself and Ah Xiang into the haystack involuntarily.
The boots of the city defense officers and soldiers trampled over the muddy ground of the factory area in the southern suburbs.
Meteors rain down.
"My lord," an officer ran up to Jing Zhaoyin, wiped off his hot sweat, and reported, "More than sixty people have been arrested outside the gate of the South City to make trouble and spread rumors about 'Tengyun Jiao eating people'. All have been detained awaiting trial, you... "
"Who are you? You are going to interrogate!" Jing Zhaoyin raised his eyelids violently, "Who instructed them to slander the court! If you don't tell me, you will beat me to death! The sage threw his imperial pen in court today, and asked us to take responsibility behind the scenes. The envoy! If you can’t hand over the head of the chief envoy today, you will have to hand over our heads tomorrow, so hurry up!”
The guard ran away, startling an old crow.
The ominous bird "quack" didn't know whether to cry or laugh, and flew to the west of Lingyang River.
The black cat in Zhuang Wang's Mansion stared at the flying bird without blinking, and twisted its buttocks excitedly, as if about to pounce, when a cold hand pinched the back of its neck halfway.
"Look at it, don't let it pick up wild animals, it's so dirty." Zhuang Wang stuffed the cat into Bering's arms, and sighed half-truthfully, "Hiring someone outside the south gate to call for grievances, what is Mr. Sun?" ... Well, prepare the car, I will go to the palace to intercede with the prince—by the way, is there a letter here today?"
Bering replied: "Not yet."
"I agreed to report my safety every day, and I couldn't think of leaving after just a few days." Zhuang Wang asked someone to change his court clothes for him, "You bastard without a conscience."
The heartless bastard Xi Ping hurried back to Qiu Ziyuan stepping on the locked spot.
After entering the house, he threw the unconscious puppet aside, and searched in the corner without giving up, wanting to see if there was any "surviving" spirit stone.
In the end, not to mention the spirit stone, the broken half-even didn't even leave him a single piece of "spiritual sand".
Xi Ping's efforts were in vain, and he hated the half-marion even more.
But when he rolled up his sleeves and went to settle accounts with the half puppet, he found that the half puppet had grown more than a palm out of thin air in just such a short time, and his jacket and trousers became cramped.
Because the half-puppet grows so fast, I don't know whether it is a bone or a moon-plated gold on its body. It creaks and its feet twitch non-stop.
Xi Ping carefully stretched out his hand to explore, and through his clothes, he could feel that there was a steam engine running at high speed in the body of the half-occupied body, shaking "chug", as if it was about to explode at any time.
Okay, let alone clean it up this time, he didn't even dare to touch it.
"If it really explodes," Xi Ping muttered in his heart, "Isn't my box of spirit stones wasted?"
He thought for a while, bared his teeth and pricked his finger, squeezed out a drop of blood stingily and wiped it on the dragon trainer lock. The blood beads were quickly sucked in by the Dragon Trainer Lock, and Xi Ping once again had that strange feeling of having an extra tail on his body, so he went to wash and go to sleep quite worriedly.
He has to keep his eyes open to "watch", in case something goes wrong with the "tail" in the middle of the night, he will know in time.
The dragon trainer lock sucked the master's blood, and the cold foil seemed to warm up, and it was not loose or tight around the puppet's neck.
Xi Ping turned off the light, and in the darkness, half-occasionally opened his bloodshot eyes, rolled them with difficulty, and looked in the direction of the bedroom.
He just couldn't move his body, but he was actually awake all the time.
Since the half-occupation has a vague memory, it has always been that half-human monster. His original owner never fed him spirit stones. He only took three coins a month to grind green ore into powder, washed it with water and gave him to drink, barely letting him live. So he didn't grow up, nor did he grow in wisdom, he was muddleheaded, and his mind was full of hunger.
Only in this way can his inspiration be extraordinarily sharp, and he can easily find a place with abundant aura for his master, so that he can be a good "spiritual dog".
Once the owner was drunk and didn't put away the Erliang Bi Zhang in his purse in time. The hungry Ban I couldn't hold it back, and swallowed the two taels of bishang whole.
When the master woke up, he was furious, broke his meridians on the spot, opened the magic circle on his bones, cut open his chest and abdomen, and took out the two bizhang stones. The cold blade cut through the flesh, and a pair of rough hands rummaged through the internal organs.
In order for him to develop a "memory", the master let him expose his remaining bones and flesh to the scorching heat for three days... and he is obviously such a monster that does not die, why does it hurt as much as a flesh and blood body
Fortunately, half-occasionally mentally incomplete, not even crazy.
Since then, he really has a long memory, and when he sees "Bizhangqing", his liver and gallbladder are torn apart, and even the spring scenery of the south of the Yangtze River is also afraid.
However, no matter whether it is a human or an animal, if they become hungry ghosts, they are all fearless of death. The original owner forcibly "abstained" Bi Zhang from him, but did not teach him to fear Sapphire.
Facing a whole box of unlocked sapphires, Ban Ou finally couldn't bear to repeat the same mistakes.
Xi Ping carried him to the Chengjing Hall, half-occupied, relying on his intelligence, which was not much better than cats and dogs, and knew that he had caused a catastrophe, and this time it was probably over.
Fortunately, he doesn't know what regret is.
He just wants to eat when he is alive, and when he is full, he can tear his corpse into tens of thousands of pieces.
But... why wasn't he chopped into pieces
The abundant aura in the sapphire washed over the half-doll's body that had been stagnant for many years, and every shoddy magic circle on his body was nourished. The half-doll's body and spirit grow rapidly like bamboo shoots welcoming the spring rain. As his body grew up like a cocoon, many confused things in his heart suddenly became clear. When he had the strength to open his eyes, he half-accounted for the ins and outs—someone gave up a hundred taels of sapphire and left him behind. This worthless life.
The drastic change of flesh and blood is torn inch by inch, and it will be torn again before it grows well... It is the pain of not being able to survive or to die.
Trembling all over, Banou bit off a section of his deformed tongue, and his mouth was covered in blood.
He hadn't realized it, and was just desperately struggling to survive: this life belonged to others.
The last meteor passed by, and the starry sky returned to silence. This night, the dreamland was lonely, and there were people who could not sleep at night.
Outside the south gate of Jinping, Ah Xiang rushed into his house. Uncle Xianyu said to find a way for her, to see if he could bribe one or two city defenses, and get them out first. Lord Ah Xiang was so sick that he hadn't been out of the house for several days, and the barefoot doctor in the factory area can also testify. It was she they should have caught.
But here comes the question, what to buy
Ah Xiang turned the small shack where she and her grandfather lived upside down, and except for a row of eldest sons who would feed their grandparents and grandchildren for half a month, there was only a pile of expired "golden pancai" left in the house. . Gold, silver and jewellery, auspicious clouds and colorful phoenixes are drawn gaudyly on the waste paper tickets, thirty-one of them, and each one is a shattered dream.
Grandpa folded the expired gold plate lottery tickets into paper ingots and put them on the simple incense table. There is no god statue on the altar, only an empty "safe and sound card", which is said to be the divine card of "Tai Sui Xing Jun". He didn't know the ins and outs of King Xing, he didn't know where he heard it from, so he believed with others, and every time he bought gold pan lottery, he would come to worship devoutly, but maybe this Tai Sui Xingjun didn't work as the God of Wealth, and he didn't even once Show off your spirit.
Ah Xiang was exhausted and desperate. By coincidence, she also folded an ingot for Tai Sui Xingjun, and prayed to the god card in a hurry.
It was too hot, and Ah Xiang was on fire. As soon as he lowered his head, the nosebleeds couldn't stop flowing down. Ah Xiang wiped off the blood on the "Sacred Card" in a panic, and said incoherently: "Save my grandpa, Lord Tai Sui, please save my grandpa. As long as you can save my grandpa, I will give you my life... "
The god card was made of some kind of special wood, like cotton, it greedily sucked the blood from her fingertips bit by bit.
Pang Jian strode into the General Administration of Tianji Pavilion, and asked his subordinates, "What did you say about those evil wooden signs?"
"Dutong, look." The blue clothes took out the reincarnation wooden card they seized from the evil spirit. The pale wooden card was stained with blood, as if someone had awakened the evil ghost in the wooden card, "Just now When the Southern Sky Star fell, it suddenly became like this."
A large steam freighter roared out of the pier, setting up a foul-smelling billow and engulfing a fly feeding on the canal.
Just in time, a beam of light swept down from the lighthouse fell on the green water surface, broke off from the dying insect, and pierced the thin water mist.
Xi Ping in Qianxiu Temple frowned and turned over, sleeping very restlessly, his ears filled with the sound of "buzzing buzzing".
Some people begged him to save "Grandpa", some were crying loudly, some were screaming miserably...
Amidst the noise, he seemed to have "dreamed" that the half owl next door woke up, opened his eyes, got up, and entered his bedroom.
Annoyed to death, Xi Ping covered his head with the quilt.
Half-occasionally slipped into Xi Ping's bedroom without a sound, and saw that this man had done something in his dream, and his whole body was hanging out, with the quilt rolled up to his chest. mean.
Squatting by the bed and watching Xi Ping for a while, half-occasionally stretched out his hand carefully, trying to dig him out of the quilt.
Suddenly, Banou jerked violently, took a big step back, and arched his thin back.
Xi Ping, who was sleeping like a dead dog just now, suddenly sat up from the bed like a corpse!
He slowly untied the brocade quilt wrapped around his neck, his eyes were as clear as if he had never fallen asleep. He raised his eyes, stared directly at the upper half, and then smiled strangely.
The hairs of the half-court stand on end.
"Xi Ping" twisted his neck slowly, straightened his clothes and loose hair, then he raised his hands in front of him, caressed and looked at them very lovingly, and sighed: "It's really a good hand that pampers you both."
It was indeed Xi Ping's voice, but the pronunciation position was so different from his usual speech that it didn't sound like a person. There was an indistinct sense of tranquility in the deep voice!
"Xi Ping" stood up and took a few steps. When he stretched out his hand, the puppet seemed to be hoisted by an invisible rope, and it was suspended in the air, at the level of his sight.
"Little thing," "Xi Ping" looked at him for a moment, then laughed, "You have no chance to be a man in this life, don't be smart like others, huh? Do you know what to say and what not to say?"
The half puppet opened its mouth, revealing a mouthful of deformed lips and teeth.
"Oh, you can't tell, that's great." "Xi Ping" slid his cold finger down Banou's lips, and Banou gave a vicious shock—the finger wiped the inscription on his body precisely. The place where he entered the magic circle was sharper and colder than the knife that cut open his chest and abdomen back then.
"You talkative, but you will be chopped into firewood and stuffed into the stove and burned." "Xi Ping" raised a finger to his lips, "Hush—"
After finishing speaking, he snapped his fingers, and the half-idol hanging in mid-air was pushed hard, and flew back to the study staggeringly.
"Xi Ping" turned and walked to the small courtyard behind the house, waved his hand to set a restraint, and sat down under a sweet-scented osmanthus tree.
Pushed by the shadow of the cloud, the pale moonlight swept across the ground, passed through the invisible restriction, and landed on "Xi Ping", revealing his shadow.
The shadow was not a human figure, but a pitch-black dragon.