Xuanyuan Jue

Chapter 29
Seeing Feng Shen's question, the muskmelon was filled with grief and burst into tears.Hearing her cry miserably, the blind old man was also moved, and tears flowed freely in his blindness.

Feng Shen and Zha Wuzuo panicked and tried to persuade them.After comforting for a long time, the grandfather and grandson stopped their mourning.

"Little girl," Zha Wuzuo asked, patting the back of the cantaloupe, "don't cry in a hurry, just talk about any grievances, maybe we can take care of it."

"I... I'll eat a steamed stuffed bun, okay?" Cantaloupe raised her teary eyes and sniffled, "I'm hungry..."

"Yes, yes, yes! Eat first! Eat vigorously!" Zha Wu hurriedly handed over some meat buns.

Cantaloupe didn't answer, and stretched out its dirty little hand to grab it to his mouth and gobbled it up.Maybe it was because he hadn't eaten for a while, so he couldn't wait to chew the cantaloupe, so he swallowed the food in his mouth whole.Swallowing too hastily, the food choked in his throat, he hurriedly took a few sips of tea, and then went on.

"Eat slowly," Feng Shen looked at her, shook his head and smiled, "Be careful not to choke."

Xianggua looked up at Feng Shen, and nodded vigorously.But his hand still didn't stop, he grabbed the meat bun and stuffed it into his mouth fiercely.

"Old man," Feng Shen turned to the blind old man and asked, "From your accent, it looks like you came from Shandong?"

"Returning to Engong..." The blind old man coughed a few times, and hurriedly said, "We are from Pingyuan County, Jinan Prefecture. My surname is Tian, ​​and my two names are Jin Kai. She is my granddaughter... Her parents died early, I am afraid It’s not easy to feed, so I just gave it a nickname and kept calling it until I was old. Oh, the old man is confused! Haven’t you asked the two benefactors?”

"You are too polite, old man," Feng Shen said hastily, "My surname is Feng, and that one's surname is Cha. We are both juniors, so please don't call them 'benefactors' anymore."

"That's not the case!" Old Man Tian waved his hand, and said, "We are in such a difficult situation, others think we are dirty, not to mention begging for food, even when we see each other, we will stay far away...for several days in a row Today, water and rice have never touched my teeth, if there were no two benefactors to help me, I would have starved to death on this official road..."

"What's the point of worrying about some trivial matters?" Feng Shen said again, "Old man, you and your granddaughter left your hometown for thousands of miles. What is the purpose?"

"Does it need to be said? It must be that the hometown suffered a cold disaster?" Zha Wuzuo interjected.

The old man Tian listened for a while with his ears sideways, and then he said: "That... should be Mr. Zha En, right? Although the harvest in the past few years is not good, it is not enough for the lack of food. It's just the old man. Feeling that the time limit has come, I was afraid of leaving Xianggua alone and helpless, so I packed up my belongings and rushed to the capital to join an old friend. But who knew that just after passing the Cangzhou interface,..."

"Just met a bad guy and got robbed?" Zha Wu was very upset when he heard it, "The gang of thieves who robbed their houses should be wiped out!"

"I'm not afraid of bandits!" As soon as Zha Wuzuo finished speaking, the muskmelon cried out unconvinced.She had eaten a few buns, and she became more confident in her speech: "With my 'hands-swinging crossbow', I don't pay attention to four or five bandits! But what we met was a 'touching bag' ...I don't know when, that bag was stolen by someone, and there was still jewelry that Hei Erniang gave me..."

"Cantaloupe!" Before Cantaloupe finished speaking, Old Man Tian stopped him suddenly, "Don't talk too much!"

"Oh..." The cantaloupe stuck out its tongue in fright, and didn't dare to say any more. It just lowered its head and started eating those meat buns again.

Seeing such a big reaction from the old man Tian, ​​Feng Shen was also puzzled.He remained calm, just peeking at the grandpa and grandson.

Although the old man Tian is a blind old man, he is very tall.Ordinary blind people must hold a bamboo pole to explore the way when walking, but he has empty hands and has nothing to help him walk.His ears are square and his temples are raised high.There are thick calluses between the two palms and the tiger's mouth, most likely it is the one that has been holding the knife for a long time and is about to come out after grinding.Moreover, although Old Man Tian speaks a village accent, his speech has a quack flavor, unlike ordinary villagers.

Look at the cantaloupe field again.Regardless of her young age, there is a hint of heroism in her eyebrows and eyes.Just now she unintentionally uttered words such as "swinging the crossbow" and "dealing with bandits", making it clear that she knows how to do that.

The more he looked, the more Feng Shen felt that the grandfather and grandson were not ordinary people.But looking at them, one is sophisticated and profound, the other is simple and innocent, so they shouldn't be people with bad backgrounds.

Therefore, Feng Shen said: "Old man, the two of you do not look like ordinary people. If you hear the letter, you can tell me directly. To tell the truth to the old man, Mr. Zha and I are both members of the Gongmen. What's the problem? , you just open your mouth, maybe we can help a little bit."

Hearing these words, Old Man Tian was slightly taken aback: "The two benefactors... are both officials? I don't know... I don't know which yamen they are working as eunuchs?"

"Don't dare," Feng Shen said sternly, "Both of us are servants, taking orders from the Shuntian government office."

The old man Tian pondered for a long while, and finally heaved a long sigh and said: "Feng Engong, Zha Engong, if you are not an old man, you don't tell the truth... I really have some difficulties..."

"Old man," Zha Wuzuo also said, "If you have something to say, just tell me! Young Master Feng and I are discerning people, and we can see that you two have suffered..."

"Alas... it's hard to say!" Old Man Tian said slowly, with a gloomy expression, "Since the two benefactors asked, I can't lie to deceive benefactors...Actually... the old man, I am Boxing Boxer!"

Feng Shen and Zha Wuzuo looked at each other, and said in surprise, "Yihequan?"

Old Han Tian paused, and slowly replied: "Exactly... If the two benefactors suspect that I am from a 'Boxer' background...just take me and send me to the official..."

Zha Wuzuo looked at Feng Shen, not knowing what to say.

"Old man, what are you talking about!" Feng Shen looked up at the old woman guarding the stove, and said in a low voice, "Shut up when you are old, I will come when I go."

After finishing speaking, Feng Shen walked to the stove and said to the old woman: "Madam, do you know if there is wine syrup in this tea shed?"

"The guest officer wants to drink?" the old woman asked, and hurriedly said, "But this is a small business, and we didn't prepare any drinks."

"It's a bit tricky..." Feng Shen pretended to be suspicious, "It's freezing cold right now... We want to boil some wine to warm up... The tea shed is not ready, but I don't know if there is any place nearby that sells wine? If so, Can I trouble Mammy to make a goblet for us?"

"There is wine brewing in the village," the old woman looked distressed, "but the village is more than three miles away from here, and I'm afraid it will delay the business..."

"Nurse, don't worry." Feng Shen took out half a piece of broken silver from his pocket and handed it to the old woman, "Can these make up for the business you delayed?"

"I don't need this much," the old woman hurriedly wiped her hands on the stove skirt on her body before she dared to take the money, "Guest officer, the old man will go back to the village to get you some wine! The rest, let's go back to the village." Here you go..."

"No need," Feng Shen said with a smile, "the rest of the nuns can be kept by themselves!"

"Thank you, guest officer!" When the old woman heard this, she quickly thanked Feng Shen a thousand times, took the money and happily left.

Seeing Feng Shen like this, the others knew that he was trying to excuse the old woman.So, they all kept their mouths shut.It wasn't until the old woman walked away that he continued to walk around.

"The old man's sin," the old man Tian said after hearing that there were no other people around, "you let Feng Engong ruin the banknotes again."

"The old man speaks too seriously," Feng Shen said, waving his hands, "I just heard you mention Boxing Boxing all the time..."

"That's right!" Zha Wuzuo also frowned, "Although a few years have passed since the Gengzi Year, it seems that the imperial court is still suppressing the boxing party..."

"Ah... so to speak," Old Man Tian sighed, "But if we want to talk about this, we have to go back several years ago. Back then..."

"Oh, grandpa!" Old man Tian was about to speak, but the melon pursed his lips, "Are you going to talk about those things again? I've listened to it a hundred and eighty times, and my ears and eyes are almost covered with calluses! You guys If anything, I don't want to hear it. I'm sleepy and I need to take a nap first."

After finishing speaking, Cantaloupe pushed the plate in front of her and fell asleep on the table before getting up.

"This silly girl," Old Man Tian smiled wryly, "It's easy to eat a full meal, and she's as heartless as before."

Seeing the cantaloupe's straightforward temperament, Feng Shen and Zha Wuzuo couldn't help but smile, and let her lie down on the table to rest for a while.

The old man Tian coughed a few times, and began to narrate such and such and such and such:

When this old man was young, with his good fists and feet, he escorted a bodyguard in a bodyguard company to get rid of his luck.When I got older, I didn't want to travel far and wide, so I went back to my hometown to live in peace and care for the elderly.

Old man Tian had an only son, who also asked for a daughter-in-law when he grew up.One year after their marriage, the couple gave birth to a girl, who is muskmelon.Old man Tian accumulated a lot of family property when he was a dart, and the family lived well in food, clothing and clothing.

But there are unpredictable things.That year there was a severe flood in Shandong.The continuous torrential rain caused the Yellow River to burst.The flood flooded as far as Pingyuan County.It was so easy to wait for the flood to recede, but because the drowned humans and animals were too late to catch, the corpse poison was spread again, and the plague broke out.

The plague came so fiercely that eight out of ten households were wiped out, and people were infected and died every day.At the beginning, when people died, they could still buy thin-slab coffins, but in the end, too many people died, and they couldn't be buried, so they simply rolled them up with broken mats, and found a mass grave to throw them away casually, and let the wild dogs tear them apart.Cantaloupe's parents died of the disease at that time.In the entire Tian family, only the grandfather and grandson are left to live by each other.

One old and one young, life is a bit tight.Old man Tian is too old to live in the land, and Xianggua is still young and a girl, so naturally he can't afford to be a family.

(End of this chapter)