The sky is gloomy, and the wind should pick up.
The Qi Qin Dynasty was a dynasty near the sea, and here is a city not far from the sea. Regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter, the wind always blows at night.
Old man Liu hunched over, holding a lantern in the howling wind, walking through the small streets with a hoarse voice, beating the gong hoarsely.
He is a watchman.
After walking down a street, Old Man Liu panted like a broken bellows, and fell down for a long time.
As soon as he raised his head, Old Man Liu almost lost his breath in shock.
"you you… "
Old man Liu looked in front of him tremblingly.
I didn't know when, a person stood in front of him silently.
This person was dressed in black clothes that almost blended with the night, lean and lean, tall, with a bamboo hat. This person appeared soundlessly, like a ghost.
The people who appear in the dark are all kinds of things. Old man Liu has been a watchman for so many years and has seen a lot of things. Qing knows that if he wants to survive the dark night safely, he should be an honest watchman. Husband, I can't see or hear at any time, and walk with my head down.
Those people who come and go in the dark have nothing to do with these ant-like people.
Old man Liu has been a watchman all his life, his head bowed all his life, his back bent all his life.
But today, there was such a person standing in front of him silently.
Old man Liu saw too many of his companions, and the other watchmen died in the cold alley unknowingly. When he looked up and saw the man wearing the bamboo hat standing in front of him, he felt his hands suddenly twitching. Shaked up. Immediately, the corpses of the watchmen lying quietly in the cold alleys appeared in his mind, thinking that the people in the official family would just drag the corpses to bury without saying anything.
"I don't know anything."
Before the other party could say anything, Old Man Liu was trembling, and knelt down all at once.
The person who appeared on the opposite side also seemed to be taken aback.
"Old man, I'm just asking for directions."
After a pause, the man with the hat said.
Old man Liu buried his head desperately, almost lying on the ground, trembling all over, unable to speak completely, just kept saying that he would pretend he didn't know anything.
Everything is quiet before the storm, but the ants in the mountains can feel the change.
That disturbing movement.
The watchmen who died silently day by day, and the people who are in a hurry at night.
Old man Liu is just an ordinary watchman, old, but when he is old, he sees things much more clearly than young people. When the night was thick, the person who quietly appeared to ask for directions, could it be some ordinary person? No matter what kind of person they are, if they appear in the dark night wearing a bamboo hat, they don't want their whereabouts to be exposed.
Even if he answered the question of this kind of person honestly, he would still inevitably die in the end.
"I... I can't die..."
Old man Liu seemed to hear the sound of the cold blade being blown by the wind, and his hoarse voice was almost hissing with despair.
The person wearing the bamboo hat did not speak.
Suddenly, he asked: "You are so old, why do you still want to be a watchman?"
The voice was not as polite as before, with a cold knife-like feeling that ordinary people should not have.
Old man Liu was trembling, not knowing what the other party meant, he explained hurriedly upside down, as if he had caught a chance.
Old man Liu walked the streets and alleys every day in the cold night, just for a few taels of silver in exchange for some food. In fact, he is already very old. With his old bones, his broken voice, which has been hoarse all year round, is no longer suitable for being a watchman. But there was no way out, old man Liu's son died last month.
How he died, old man Liu himself can't say clearly.
Old man Liu's son is similar to him. He has been diligent and honest all his life. He finally got a wife a few years ago, and then got a big fat boy. Both he and his son liked it very much. In order to save some money to send his grandson to study in the future, Old Man Liu's son gritted his teeth and followed others to become a driver of Cangpu.
The flying boats of the Xian family are all over the mainland of the Twelve Dynasties. That's right, they belong to the Xian family. Ordinary businessmen can't afford them, so they can only hire a coachman to drive them from Qi Qin to Cang Pu to Jin Tang.
This kind of convoy takes a lot of time to go back and forth, and the wages of the drivers are considered very high, because the road is too long.
And it's a dangerous job.
The distance from Qiqin to Cangpu is as long as there are mountains and rivers along the way, and the poor mountains and rivers can kill a group of people, not to mention those wild beasts and ghosts. Following this kind of convoy is no different from hanging your head on your trouser belt. If it is not really impossible, which person who can barely survive is willing to make this money
Most of the coachmen made a few trips cautiously, and after earning some money and renting some land to make ends meet, they stopped running.
On the road from the Qi Qin Dynasty to the Dao Cang Pu Dynasty to the Jin Tang Dynasty, it is unknown how many people's bones were buried.
Many young lads ran to Cangpu with a little fearlessness, thinking of getting rich and then never came back.
When his son decided to be the coachman for Cangpu, old man Liu squatted in front of the broken door for a long time, feeling the sun was scorching and dazzling. The grandson was crying in the house without knowing anything, and the child's mother patted the son's swaddle and coaxed him in a low voice. The son stood in front of him silently.
The merchants of Qi and Qin were all over the Twelve Dynasties, and the Kyushu bank was very prosperous, but that was the business of the Kyushu bank, and it had nothing to do with ordinary people like them. In Qi Qin, those who have nothing to do with the Kyushu Bank don’t even think about doing business, and those who do business have to pay the Kyushu Bank every year.
It is not easy for businessmen, and it is even more difficult for ordinary people like them.
There are many people doing business, and the merchants buy fields as soon as they get rich. Tiantiantiantiandi is pitifully small, and the merchant's fields are owned by Kyushu bankers, and the dynasty dare not collect too much rent. Wouldn't the rest of the taxes be spread to poor people like them layer by layer
Old man Liu and his son have been exhausted all their lives, and they don't want their grandson to live like this anymore.
Then you have to read and read.
Only those who can read and write will be able to become an apprentice in the Zhuangzi of Kyushu Bank, be able to take the imperial examination, and be able to live without losing their personal appearance for the rest of their lives.
After squatting for a long time, the old man Liu stood up unsteadily, waved his hands, and said, "Okay, you can go."
As soon as his son left, old man Liu's heart began to lift.
It takes a few months for a caravan to go back and forth to Qi, Qin and Cangpu once. The son went there twice without any risk of danger. When he came back, he was so thin that only his bones remained, and he was so dark that he didn't look good. But also brought back some money. But a few months ago, the son went to Cangpu again with a businessman surnamed Chu.
Old man Liu waited and waited, but he didn't wait for his son to come back.
He asked someone to ask, and he said that the family of the businessman surnamed Chu was having a funeral.
Old man Liu's son just died so vaguely.
The son died, and the daughter-in-law hanged herself on the third day crying.
There are four people in the family, the old man Liu is old, the son is only a few years old, and there is not much land at home. Once the son died, this pillar was gone.
After a mat was rolled up by his daughter-in-law and transported to the mass grave in the south of the city for burial, Old Man Liu had no choice but to become a watchman again. In the night when the cold wind was blowing, he wore a torn padded jacket and continued to speak with his almost hoarse voice.
Then tonight, he was stopped by a man in black wearing a bamboo hat.
He knelt on the ground, not daring to say that he knew that the man in black would not be a good character, and would just repeat over and over again that he couldn't die, couldn't die.
The son is dead, the daughter-in-law hanged herself, and if he dies, what will happen to his grandson.
What should I do.
Old man Liu knew that no matter whether he was a fairy or a big man, he was like an ant in their eyes, worthless. It's normal to be killed casually. He was already desperate, but he kept repeating that he couldn't die.
The person who quietly appeared in the night didn't speak any more. Old man Liu could only feel that the other person was still standing quietly in front of him.
When Old Man Liu was waiting for a flash of saber, the man wearing the bamboo hat suddenly spoke.
I asked a few very remote places where most people don't know.
No one knows the streets and alleys of this city better than a watchman. They know where the most prosperous people are, and they also know where the most deserted places are.
Old man Liu said everything he knew tremblingly.
He was still kneeling on the ground, trembling, not daring to lift his head.
Then there was no sound in front of me.
The wind was blowing, cold to the bone, old man Liu raised his head little by little trembling, and saw the empty man in front of him, just like when he appeared, silently heard the news.
Old man Liu suddenly collapsed on the ground.
Panting for breath, he stumbled up for a long time and rushed towards his home.
……………………………………………………
Standing on the eaves, the figure merged with the darkness.
Just like his title, the raven hides in the darkness like a crow.
He watched the old watchman staggering to pick up his grandson, crying and laughing. Then he packed his luggage with trembling hands, halfway through packing, he threw it violently, and sat on the ground motionless, crying loudly.
Raven watched.
Small people also have the wisdom of small people and ways to survive.
Raven thought of the trembling hands of this old, crooked watchman the moment he saw him.
That kind of low-status watchman will never know what a raven and a canary exist in his entire life, and he will never know how many killers walk in the darkness, but relying on the intuition of a small person, he feels death the moment he sees him breath.
He should have killed the old watchman.
Anything that has the slightest hint of a leak, whether person or thing, should be disposed of.
But the knife held in the sleeve did not slip out.
Four months ago, the Ravens had dealt with a group of coachmen without leaving a trace, and their bones were thrown into the abyss of Cangpu. One of them was black and thin, who could be regarded as a young coachman. At that time, Raven was dressed as a merchant, and when he was sitting by the fire at night, he heard the young coachman talking about his wife and son to his companions.
Beside the red fire, the uneducated coachman talked about his daughter-in-law, and he would only keep talking about how delicious the rice she cooked and how warm they were under the quilt at night.
He also said that his son could already call him.
At that time, Raven was leaning on the carriage, holding a cold knife in his sleeves.
A killer is a character who works with a cold blade.
Immortal cultivators can be killers, ordinary people can be killers, and descendants of the eighteenth Gu family can also be killers. No matter what their previous identities are, as long as you add the word "killer", all the warmth will be gone from you. And go, only the cold knife is left in life.
Most killers are just as dead as alive.
However, the remaining small part lived by the burning anger in their hearts.
That bit of anger that doesn't know whether it's right or wrong makes them barely live as human beings.
But before he became a raven, he felt that he was also personal.
When the convoy drove out of Cangpu, the things in the box woke up once, and the drivers saw something they shouldn't have seen. Raven killed them all, and the knife was steady when he struck—he had already killed countless people like this. When the blade sank into the young coachman, Raven even felt a bit of pleasure.
What qualifications do others have for what he once owned but disappeared later
That was mean pleasure.
However, sometimes fate is really an inexplicable thing. He killed the old man's son, and then met the old man again, but this time he failed to kill the old, crooked old watchman.
Because of what
Raven himself didn't know very well.
Probably because, I suddenly remembered the happy face of the young coachman when he was sitting by the fire talking about his wife—what right did he have to feel happy? Obviously, he is just a poor wretch who has to do his best to survive.
But no matter what it is for, the knife will not slip out.
Silently followed the old watchman, watching him return home and hugging his grandson, watching him pack his luggage in a panic and want to leave here, and then suddenly dropped his things and cried loudly.
Raven understood why the old watchman suddenly left the house, and burst into tears.
Even if he ran, where could he go? The world is about to be chaotic, and people will die everywhere. An old watchman, a few-year-old child, can't survive anywhere.
What is the difference between running and not running
Raven looked no further.
It's just two dying people.
Raven pulled his bamboo hat, looked up at the Qingming Pagoda standing in the center of the city.
His black clothes were flapped by the wind, making loud noises.
Standing on the eaves, not far away is the crying old watchman, and Raven looks in another direction not far from Qingming Pagoda.
In this night, in the night where many people are sleeping, there are many people in black clothes, wearing masks, flying like crows in the night, just like a flock of crows from a mass grave.
It was a night destined to be recorded.
In the bank's treasury, the iron boxes accumulated over the years were lined up in a circle, and Elder Lin slowly opened those boxes one by one. In every box, there is a sticky and damp darkness, which is wriggling, as if it has limbs and consciousness.
There were deep panting sounds intertwined in the library.
When the box was opened, Monk Mingxin, wearing a dusty robe, stood in front of the gate of the Kyushu Bank branch.
He held the Buddhist beads with a serious expression on his face.
The Qianzhuang was dark and gloomy, and the smell of blood was so strong that it was disgusting.
Soft, sticky footsteps sounded, and under the gaze of Monk Mingxin, all the lights in the dim bank suddenly lit up. In the lights, the corpses of the disciples of the Kyushu Bank can be seen lying all over the place.
Wang Jingzhi walked out from the depths of the bank stepping on the sticky blood on the ground, the sword that pierced Liao Gan's heart hung down, and the tip of the sword was dripping with blood little by little.
There was a shallow, gentle smile on his face.
Monk Mingxin looked behind him.
Behind him was darkness that could not even be illuminated by lights.
"You are late."
Wang Jingzhi said softly.
"Buddha disciples of the Fanyin Sect, you are really a remarkable person. It's just..." The cold light on Wang Jingzhi's sword was flowing, "I won't let you pass by."
Monk Mingxin broke the rope of the beads, and the beads floated beside him.
When Monk Mingxin confronted Wang Jingzhi, men in black with masks climbed up the Qingming Pagoda. The disciples guarding the Kyushu Bank in the Qingming Pagoda were poisoned—Qi Qin is famous for his business. No one would find it strange that Cangpu's herbal medicines flowed into Qi Qin day after day for so many years.
No one would be wary of whether all those herbs were resold, or whether they were made into something else within the territory of the Qi Qin Dynasty.
This vigilance has paid off today.
The control of the Qingming Pagoda has always been mainly accepted by the disciples of the sect, and the people of the dynasty are only responsible for some accounts. But at this time, the tower guards of the dynasty and the man in black stepped onto the Qingming Tower layer by layer.
Liu Wuyan, who was running in the night wind, suddenly stopped.
The scrolls of mountains and rivers in her arms suddenly flew up and unfolded in the air.
The light is pointing in one direction - the Qingming Pagoda in this city.
However, Liu Wuyan didn't look in that direction anymore, she held the knife and looked in another direction.
A man wearing a golden mask and a black robe stood quietly in front of him, with an obscure aura—that was the aura of a demon.
In the night when the midwinter is about to pass, in the Shang capital of the Qi and Qin Dynasty, in the gloomy night.
This epoch frenzy kicked off.