"What kind of place is Ninggu Pagoda? A barren place where prisoners are exiled! There are bones everywhere under your feet, but you can't see a living person for hundreds of miles! The place is bitterly cold all the year round, no grass grows, and no grains grow. Even Rats don’t want to make a nest there, it’s human! I heard that most of the people who were sent to Ningguta committed suicide before they got there! Even if they got there, there were not many people. Can survive a year!"
"Oh!" Ah Chou sighed softly. I secretly said a few times in my heart that I was unlucky.
The third day of March in the thirty-second year of Jiasheng
capital.
On March 3rd, worship ancestors. Such a good day. Miss Duan Mansion Duan Rulan sat on the carriage to Ninggu Pagoda weeping, and there was no ready-made wedding dress for the bride, but fortunately, Madam Duan's wedding dress was still there. At any rate, she was dressed, and Ah Chou also put on a new dress, although it was still rough. But at any rate, it is much stronger than before.
Escorting Duan Rulan to Ninggu Pagoda were two guards from the Royal Forest Army. One had a darker face and the other had a fairer face. Duan Feihong cobbled together ten taels of silver and sent them to the two of them. He repeatedly told him to take good care of his daughter along the way.
The white-faced guard accepted Baiyin. He grinned at Duan Feihong indifferently. Then he got into the carriage with the black-faced guard and flicked the whip. The carriage galloped towards the gate of the city.
Duan Rulan was sobbing in the carriage, Ah Chou couldn't coax people. Silently took out a piece of handkerchief from her bosom and stuffed it into Duan Rulan's hand, then Duan Rulan cried louder, maybe the guards outside were impatient. Shouting and cursing at the carriage, Duan Rulan trembled all over, then suddenly covered her mouth, her crying became quieter, but the tears couldn't stop, like pearls with a broken thread.
While Duan Rulan was sobbing, Ah Chou opened the curtains, and she looked out of the window. There were many wine shops and restaurants, bright signboards, and strings of festive red lanterns, which A Chou had never seen before. From the age of four to sixteen, she was a slave for twelve years in a prosperous and splendid life. A palace wall cut off her connection with the world. Now she has finally left this palace wall, but she has to go to that place again. A dreadful place where not a single blade of grass grows.
A Chou looked at a candied haws stand on the side of the road. The stall was filled with all kinds of candied haws, bright red wild red fruits, and the unique sweetness of candied fruit. It was so tempting. It was a taste that A Chou had never tasted.
Ah Chou looked at the pouting little doll picking candied haws in front of the stall with envy in his eyes.
She stared at the little doll without blinking, until the carriage turned a corner and the little doll could no longer be seen, then Ah Chou lowered the curtains.
Duan Rulan was still crying, the cramped carriage was filled with her sadness and despair, it was so depressing that Ah Chou couldn't breathe, Ah Chou thought to himself, it would take at least two months to get from the capital to Ninggu Pagoda , how to survive this journey
The fifth day of April in the thirty-second year of Jiasheng
Tongliao.
Ah Chou and his party have been on the road for a month. They arrived in Tongliao on Qingming Day. When they left Beijing, it was spring back to the land, but when they arrived in Tongliao, it was colder than Beijing. Ah Chou found a cloak from the package and put it on Duan Rulan. Then he randomly pulled out a torn blanket and draped it over his body.
A group of people stayed in the post house and asked for three rooms, two guards had one room, and Duan Rulan and A Chou lived in one room each. , but the heart is even higher, and there is absolutely no reason to live in a room with others, let alone such a lowly servant girl as Ah Chou.