Copper Coins

Lu Nianqi wiped away his tears, and returned to his obstinate appearance. He clutched the corner of his clothes, and instead of looking at Xuan Min and Xue Xian, he turned his head to stare at the fading tongue of fire in the brazier, and said sullenly. : "About half a month ago, Lu Shijiu told me that he was going to visit the gravehead island in Jiangxin..."

The river road facing Wolong County is relatively shallow and narrow compared with its upstream and downstream, and there are scattered small islands in the center of the river.Most of those small islands are tiny places, even the small chicken coop where the Lu family brothers live is extremely crowded. Those small islands are covered with slender white thatch, and they are only used for waterfowl on the river on weekdays. Rest your feet.

Only one of them can make a few laps, and it can barely be regarded as a small island in the middle of the river.

Seen from a distance, there is a wild forest growing on the small island, with branches and crowns connected together, which looks like a green steamed bun or a grave.So the locals call it "Mantou Island" or "Fengtou Island".

Ordinary people don't like to go to Fentou Island. After all, there are only weeds and weeds there. It's barren and cloudy, so it's not a good place to go.The only people who will go to the Fendou Island are the medicine men from the villages near and far. It is said that the wild soil of the Fendou Island is fertile and moist, and a lot of herbs have grown on their own.

Lu Shijiu has been there two or three times.

One morning half a month ago, Lu Nianqi opened his eyes and found a note pressed beside the bed.Lu Shijiu couldn't use a brush, so he used to dip his fingers in the ink to feel for writing, so the handwriting was very easy to read.There was only one crooked sentence left on the note: Go to Fentou Island.

As outsiders can perceive, the two brothers of the Lu family are not close, Lu Nianqi is full of thorns and has a stubborn temper, and Lu Shijiu has a strange temperament and reticent, leaving a note and leaving is his habit.

So Lu Nianqi didn't think much about it, he just lit a fire, cooked and went out to collect firewood, doing his daily chores while waiting for Lu Nineteen to come back.

As a result, I waited until nightfall, and it started to rain, but there was no sign of Shijiu.

"I went to the ferry, and the boatman who was moored there said that the rain was in a hurry and he would not go to the center of the river. He also said that the one on the [-]th was old man Liu's awning, and that old man Liu never came back. In all likelihood, it was raining too much, so we took a break. It's there." Lu Nianqi looked at Xiao, but spoke clearly, "I vaguely saw the fishing lights on the boat in the middle of the river, and I guess I was really hiding from the rain, so I came back. Who knows——"

Unexpectedly, it rained for three days in a row, and the water in the river rose a little bit.Lu Nianqi went to the ferry every day to take a look at the fishing boats before returning, restlessly waiting until the rain stopped.He touched a few copper coins, went to the ferry to find a passenger boat, and went to Jiangxin Fentou Island, but he didn't see Lu Shijiu or old man Liu.

"I almost went all over Fentou Island, but I didn't find him, but I heard his voice once." Lu Nianqi said, "But when I called him, the voice disappeared again."

Just like that, Lu Nianqi went back and forth six or seven times to Fentou Island, but he couldn't find Lu Nineteen no matter what.A few days ago, a dark vortex grew around Fentou Island for some reason, and two passenger boats capsized there one after another.

What was even more exasperating was that Lu Nianqi could always hear the sound of someone knocking on the door early in the morning and in the middle of the night these days. For the first two times, he thought it was Shijiu who had come back, so he hurried to open the door, only to find that there was no one outside.When he searched around and returned to the house, he found that the box in the house seemed to have been moved.

"In it are the four pennies we saved, all of them are gone! There is not a penny left! What am I going to call a boatman!" When Lu Nianqi mentioned this, he looked like a wild dog with a hair all over.

Hearing Xue Xian tsk-tsk: "No wonder you poured a basin of water on me when you opened the door. Which ancestral grave is so shameless that it smokes, even stealing an eight or nine-year-old child! But you can't be stolen for four years because of yourself." You come to grab my beads while hanging money, what kind of reasoning is this? Thanks to my limited mobility now, otherwise I will definitely hang you upside down and put you into the river for two rounds."

"Who is eight or nine years old?" Lu Nianqi was so scolded that his sky was red all over, and he bit the bullet and replied.

"You!" Xue Xian said angrily, "Who else could it be?"

"I'm fifteen!" Lu Nianqi said angrily and angrily, "It's just that I was sick before and didn't grow taller. Don't just look at people's faces and guess other people's ages."

Xue Xian was a little surprised, but it didn't matter how old this bad-tempered brat was or how tall he was. He wanted to know if Lu Shijiu was still alive.

Obviously, he was not the only one who had an idea.

Seeing Xuan Min raised his sleeve and swept it away, the weakened flame in the brazier was completely extinguished with a "poof", leaving only green smoke curling up.He passed through the green smoke with his fingers, and picked off Xue Xian and Jiang Shining who were hanging on the winter jasmine branches.The two thin paper skins have been baked thoroughly at this time, so there is no serious problem.

The only fly in the ointment was that the strokes on his face were blurred a bit.

Jiang Shining hastily transformed into a human form at the side, and now there are two dark circles under his eyes, which are much more obvious than before, taking up half of his cheeks, and he looks like he is dying.And Xue Xian was even worse, he was inconvenient in his legs and feet, so it was not suitable for him to transform back into a human form.The smudged ink is more conspicuous on the paper, flowing down the corners of the eyes and the nose.

Originally, it was just death, but now it directly turned into bleeding from the seven orifices.

Really... Hot eyes.

Xuan Min glanced down, and then resolutely stuffed him into a secret pocket, his cold expression showed a numbness of "out of sight is in sight".

Seeing that the cold monk was about to leave, Lu Nianqi couldn't help asking, "Where are you going?"

"Jiang Xin." Xuan Min said.

Hearing this, Lu Nianqi jumped up, ran after him and said anxiously, "Are you looking for Lu Nineteen? Can you take me with you? I'll go too!"

"Anything you want." Xuan Min lost two words without looking back, and strode towards the ferry.

Having not stayed in Xuan Min's secret pocket for a few days, Xue Xian found something extra in it as soon as he entered.In addition to his precious gold beads and the cloth bag containing the silver needles, there were also some bits and pieces of hard objects. Xue Xian moved over silently, raised his hand to touch it, and tried to bite it...

There is still a lot of broken silver, and I don't know where it was exchanged.

The ferry was covered with snow and mist, and there were several passenger boats moored, and the boatmen were probably huddled in the black tent cabins, looking very deserted.

Xuan Min shook the brass bell hanging beside the flag.Several boatmen poked their heads out of the tent one after another, and one of them lazily shouted: "The fog is too heavy to cross the river, so come again later."

"Not across the river." Xuan Min rushed to a point in the river, "Go to Fengtou Island."

As soon as these words came out, the boatmen shook their heads, and then retracted into the awning without saying a word.Only a boatman who seemed to be more talkative explained to him: "There is a dark vortex near the grave head island, turn over the boat, little master, are you not a local? No matter what you want to do, I advise you to change places, there are no boatmen here Willing to go."

Xuan Min listened to him quietly, and said, "If it's just for renting this boat, how much will it cost?"

The boatman was taken aback.

There are many people who rent pleasure boats and flower boats, but those who rent this kind of small boats are much rarer.After all, passenger boats are narrow and difficult to control, and without a boatman, it is difficult for ordinary people to safely roll the boat to the other side.

"This—" the boatman hesitated.

Xue Xian unobtrusively took out two shattered silver particles from the secret pocket, and silently held out the mouth of the pocket.

Xuan Min: "..."

He hacked the silver that the villain dug out, and then pressed the claws of the villain back, without any delay, he directly handed the silver grains to the boatman.

Xue Xian didn't feel at peace when he was pushed back into his pocket, he patted Xuan Min's waist, and said seriously: "I'm in this state now, it's not convenient to pay, don't worry, I won't take advantage of you, bald donkey, and I will give you back double. "

Xuan Min Quan pretended that he did not exist.

The boatman took the silver grains and knew that the weight was not light even without weighing them.He was a little embarrassed: "I can't do this."

But Xuan Min's expression was too cold, more freezing than the snow scum floating in the sky.Seeing that he didn't intend to change his mind at all, the boatman had no choice but to get off the boat in embarrassment, let Xuan Min and the others board the boat, and then asked worriedly: "Are you really good at rocking the boat?"

Lu Nianqi had the same worries as the boatman, but he was afraid that if he asked a few more questions, Xuan Min would change his mind, so he could only hold back his doubts, staring at Xuan Min and Jiang Shining suspiciously, and followed behind them. up the boat.

Xuan Min stepped on the board of the boat and snapped a water reed.

Lu Nianqi was wondering why he brought water reeds, when he saw Xuan Min took out a folded yellow talisman from his pocket, patted it on the bow of the awning boat, said "go boat", and put the reeds in his hand The pole hangs in the water.The awning boat moved in response to the sound, slowly breaking through the water.Xuan Min shook the reed lightly, and the bow of the boat turned, heading straight towards the string of islands in the middle of the river.

Twenty Seven stared at the familiar yellow talisman for a while, and finally remembered that this was the one that Xuan Min used to stick to his forehead earlier, and immediately felt a little angrily: Can you change the trick?

Even with the yellow talisman to make the boat move and the reed pole to control the direction, Xue Xian was still a little worried about Xuan Min. He silently lay at the mouth of the pocket, staring at the reed pole in his hand without saying a word, without taking his eyes off it. .

He looked at it for a while, and couldn't help but raised his face and asked Xuan Min: "Why are you looking for Lu Shijiu? You are also looking for someone by borrowing something?"

Just as Xuan Min was about to answer him, he heard Lu Nianqi suddenly yelled "Ah" from the side.