Lin Ye Xiaoji

Contrary to Lin Shao's expectation, he didn't toss and turn and suffer from insomnia that night. He slept very deeply and didn't even have a dream. place.

When Lin Shao went downstairs, Zhou Zijian was settling accounts at the counter, and there were several tables of guests sitting in the hall, with a jug of thick wine and a few dishes of appetizers on the tables, chatting about what he had seen and heard from the south.

"It's really not peaceful now. Our boss said that we will take the water next time."

"Isn't that right? This time we crossed the Crow Mountain, a group of bandits stopped us, and they took [-]% of the goods once, and you said [-]% of the round trip, wouldn't we have done it for nothing for half a year?"

"Yeah, the bodyguards you hired are useless, those bandits are backed by the government."

"If it continues like this, if the waterway can't go, we can only cut off the business here... hey"

Lin Shao listened to these random thoughts at the stairs, and was a little surprised that the collusion between officials and bandits was so serious. No wonder the bandits they encountered last time were so arrogant.

"Boss Zhou, add a plate of peanuts to our table, fry them crispy."

"Okay, wait a moment."

Those people sighed for a while, and then began to chat about other things, bursting into laughter from time to time.

Zhou Zijian fiddled with the abacus, heard people walking this way, looked up and saw Lin Shao, smiled and said: "Your master has gone out to meet old friends. You want to go out? I will accompany you when I finish the calculation."

Zhou Zijian's eyes hadn't gone swollen yet, the red bloodshot eyes were obvious, and his expression was a little tired. It seemed that he hadn't had a good rest all night.It was only at this moment that Lin Shao realized that his uncle was also old, and he was no longer the robust young man who carried him up the mountain and held him up to pick the fruit from the tree.

He even regretted it a little, he should have told his uncle earlier to prevent him from pursuing this matter.He once heard people in Lushan comment that it was his uncle who harmed his family, and he also faintly felt that his uncle had been guilty for so many years.But the uncle was really kind to him, and he had never felt any hatred.

"I've never been to Xijing City, why do I want you to accompany me?" After finishing speaking, he picked up a winter jujube from the small plate, and rolled around on the counter in boredom.

"Shao'er, I'll let Daliang go to Zhang's mansion to invite your mother over. Do you want to meet her?" Zhou Zijian closed the account book and asked earnestly.

"No, I don't want to see you yet." Lin Shao held the date in his palm and replied casually.

"There are three houses in Wutong Lane, Zhang Mansion..."

"Uncle, let the kitchen stew the elbow well, I will come back after I go out for a walk."

Before Zhou Zijian could finish speaking, Lin Shao hurriedly interrupted him, strode towards the door, waved behind his back, and signaled that he was fine, don't worry about it.

Zhou Zijian looked at his receding back and shook his head.

Lin Shao wandered around the street, passing by a kneader's stall, and saw Tangdouer's favorite Mu Guiying among a row of colorful villains. Uncle Shi took it back to that little follower.

After paying the money, I thought about it and asked the old man who set up the stall if he would pinch small animals.

"Cats and dogs can pinch, what do you want to pinch?" the old man asked him with a smile.

"Let's pinch a rabbit, the one with red eyes." Lin Shao somehow thought of Ye Yun again, his red eyes when he was drunk was quite similar to a rabbit, and he didn't know when to send him off, he would won't like it.

There were three houses in Wutong Lane, Lin Shao stopped at the gate of Zhang's Mansion, stood there for about a cup of tea, and then walked back to the street behind Zhang's Mansion.

Suddenly something was thrown from the wall, and it hit his shoulder straight. Lin Shao stretched out his hand and grabbed it. It was a shuttlecock that little girls loved to play with. The color was bright and beautiful.

There was a commotion inside the wall, and the little girl's voice was crisp and clear, commanding: "Help me up the ladder, and let me see where it fell."

From time to time, a red figure pressed against the wall, the little girl's round face was a little familiar, and a few of her bangs were wet with sweat, sticking to her forehead.

Seeing Lin Shao holding his own shuttlecock, he shouted happily: "Big Brother picked up my shuttlecock."

Seeing the little girl lying on the wall, Lin Shao was afraid that she would accidentally fall, so he hurriedly said, "Shall I throw it for you?"

Unexpectedly, the little girl smiled even brighter, and shouted at him: "Wait a minute, I'll come out to get it right away, don't go." After speaking, she saw the wind disappearing quickly on the wall.

It turned out that the woman was afraid that she would get lost when she went out to play, so she was only allowed to play at home, so she often threw the shuttlecock over the wall, and then leaned on the wall to watch the little girl help her pick it up.Usually there are not many people walking in this back street, but today I suddenly saw someone picking up my shuttlecock, and I was so happy that I hurriedly climbed down the ladder to pick it up by myself.

Lin Shao stood under the wall, watched the door half open, then revealed a small head, looked left and right, met Lin Shao's gaze, stood up straight with a smile, and two little girls followed behind him .

The little girl walked up to Lin Shao, raised her face and said to him, "Thank you brother for helping me pick up the shuttlecock."

Seeing his cute appearance, Lin Shao couldn't help squatting down and teasing her: "Then how can you thank me?"

The little girl tilted her head and thought for a while, then said: "Since my brother helped me pick up my favorite thing, then let me give him another one of my favorite things."

"Oh? You have something else you like." Lin Shao asked pretending to be surprised.

The little girl untied a small purse from her waist, which contained two small candies. She held the purse with her palm and said, "I only have two candies. Brother, you can choose one. If you like to eat, You can take them all."

After speaking, he glanced at the purse reluctantly, raised his hand high, and looked awe-inspiring.

Lin Shao looked at the purse, which was patterned with colorful auspicious clouds and embroidered with the words "Peace and Joy". He also had the same one, which was hidden in a small box under the bed in his room.

Lin Shao touched the top of the girl's head and said softly, "Thank you, but I don't like sweets."

Seeing his refusal, the little girl was a little anxious: "It's delicious, really, you can eat one." After speaking, she ignored it, picked up a piece, and put it in Lin Shao's mouth.

The sweetness suddenly melts on the tip of the tongue, and the fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus fills the mouth.Lin Shao's eyes narrowed. He remembered the scent of sweet-scented osmanthus. There was an sweet-scented osmanthus tree in the yard of his house. Whenever it bloomed, his mother would always pick some sweet-scented osmanthus and make sweet-scented osmanthus for him to eat.

When the woman came out to look for her daughter, she happened to see the little girl stuffing candy into the mouth of a young man.The young man's face was resolute, with sword eyebrows straight into his temples, very similar to Lin Er when he was young, but the faint smile at the corner of his mouth softened all the harshness, and he seemed to have a gentle temperament completely different from Lin Er.

He reached out and took out two doughnuts from his bosom, and asked his daughter to choose, and the daughter pointed at the red-eyed little rabbit without hesitation.After a little hesitation, Lin Shao still handed it to her, and stood up to say goodbye to her.

The girl grabbed the corner of his clothes and said in a childish voice, "I'll give you candy, and you give me a little rabbit. Mother said, this is called reciprocating, which means that we have a very close relationship and will often see each other."

Lin Shao couldn't help smiling when he heard this, and nodded in yes.

"Shao'er?" The woman came over and called softly.

Lin Shao straightened up and looked at the woman in front of him.The woman's eyebrows and eyes are still the same as in memory, gentle and gentle like a Jiangnan woman, with a few sparse wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, showing the traces of the passage of time.She looked at Lin Shao with complicated eyes, mixed with excitement, regret and guilt.

"Mother, this is the little rabbit my brother gave me." The little girl saw the woman and held up the little rabbit to show her.The woman nodded perfunctorily, then turned her eyes to Lin Shao.

Lin Shao smiled at the woman, and said: "I have lived a good life these years, and my master and uncle have been very kind to me. I will go back with my master in a few days. I may not come to Xijing often in the future. You Take care in the future."

On the way here, he thought about asking, how did she escape back then?Where has she been all these years?How are you?Why not come back and see him?Don't you know he is in Lushan?

But when he saw that the woman was well-maintained and her clothes were well-decorated, he knew that she was living a prosperous life. He didn't ask those questions, but compressed his ten years of life into one sentence, telling her that he was living well.

Madam was stunned, she didn't expect her son, whom she hadn't seen for many years, to say goodbye to her and ask her to take care of herself.But she seemed to be imprisoned in place, unable to speak. He said that he was doing well, but he still wanted to ask him if he had been wronged?But after all, she chose to leave at the beginning, so she is not qualified to ask him to stay and listen to her gossip about the past.

The woman took the little girl's hand and watched Lin Shao's back disappear into the alley.

When Lin Shao passed the corner of the alley, he turned his head and saw that the woman squatted down and was wiping the little girl's face with a handkerchief.

He can still remember, when he was that old, in the small yard of his home, holding a small wooden stick, gesticulating with his father to practice sword.Sweating profusely from playing, my mother squatted down like that, with a smile on her mouth, and wiped the sweat off his face with a veil.

I still remember my mother sitting with her on a stone bench under the shade of a tree, spreading out a book, and teaching him to read those tongue-twisting poems.On a scorching summer afternoon, his mother brought him and his father mung bean porridge iced in well water, watched them eat, and fanned them by herself.

They used to be so happy, having the happiness that all ordinary people in the world can enjoy.

But compared with those warm feelings, he will never forget that day when he woke up and slept alone on the bed in the inn. He ran home quickly to find out what happened, but all he could see was a ruined wall and straw mats. Covered with dozens of charred corpses.

Then he was taken to Lushan by his master. At that time, he often sat on the stone steps, the evening wind blew through the pine forest and hummed, and the tired birds flapped their wings and returned to their nests. He felt that he was alone in the vastness.

Later, as he grew older, he slowly accepted that his parents would never be able to pick him up, so he hid those sensitive thoughts, and in the eyes of others, he seemed to be a different person suddenly, cheerful and stubborn, but reassuring .

At this time, I saw that my mother had married someone else and had a lovely daughter.Lin Shao felt that no matter what, he should not disturb his mother's life anymore. He knew that his mother had suffered as much as he did.