Broken Iron Clothes

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In the Governor's Mansion, Lu Tianrui said to Yuan Mucheng while handling the military affairs on the case: "In the past few days, according to the branding you painted, I have checked many people in the city, and I will send some more people to estimate that I can find almost a few years ago. .”

Yuan Mucheng sat not far away, rubbed the bow he took off from the wall, and said, "I'll put more people here, and I'd better find out their background as soon as possible."

Lu Tianrui stopped his hands, raised his eyes and asked, "People have checked, what do you plan to do after checking?"

Yuan Mucheng plucked the bowstring, listened to the sound of the string, and replied after a while: "This group of killers can walk on the streets of Yancheng in a dignified manner, and the forces behind them must not be simple. The interests in this city are very entangled. Before we sort it out, we can’t scare the snakes, and affect the whole body, these scourges still need to be wiped out.”

Lu Tianrui nodded: "Yes, if you want to save your life, you must not be alone. The more people's lives are tied to your body, the easier it is to survive. If there are more people who want to live, you will not be able to die. Those people who live and die together, That's the truth."

"I'm afraid that the rotten roots under the city are too deep, and half of the city will be overturned if you pull them up." Yuan Mucheng weighed the weight in his hand, and then said, "When the time comes, I will pass the wedding dress to others. This city is given away as a betrothal gift."

Seeing that the building is about to fall, but he has to admit that it is impossible to support it, this is the most helpless thing for Lu Tianrui as a courtier.He doesn't like the calmness in the city, but he can no longer lead the horse all the way out of the city like he was so depressed and uncomfortable when he was a boy.

Thinking that it was because of his willfulness at that time that he became attached to Yuan Muqing. The two drank wine and competed swords together, but he was the one who watched Yuan Muqing go to the battlefield with her hair tied up.

"I, Lu Tianrui, was born as a general of Li, and died as a ghost of the city. I can't keep the city, and I don't have the face to take up the post of the great general. It's not a loss to end up living and dying with the city."

Lu Tianrui's fierceness has been suppressed under the title of "Great General" by the wind and rain in the city, and his words are as if they are on iron armor, fortitude and heavy.

Hearing this, Yuan Mucheng stood up, hung the bow back on the wall, then turned his head and smiled, and said, "You put this away for now, my eldest sister is still waiting to get married."

Lu Tianrui laughed: "You really..."

"Right now, if Lai Chang is to be kept, the General should first think about how to deal with His Majesty," said Yuan Mucheng, grabbing the saber on the table, and said, "I'm going first."

"What to do?"

Yuan Mucheng hooked his waist badge and shook it: "Go on an errand."

Seeing his frivolous appearance, Lu Tianrui warned again: "Recently, you have been in the limelight, so be careful."

Yuan Mucheng walked out with a smile, turned his back and waved his hands, and was immersed in the warm light.That figure was vigorous and vigorous, and he climbed out of the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood carrying a heavy burden, and it was rare that he was transparent.

Lu Tianrui watched, and followed the figure to see the wilderness and the blue sky. On the other side where the north wind howled, there should be someone who watched the back like this.

Until Yuan Mucheng left the gate of the mansion, Lu Tianrui still did not move, just like when he was standing at the gate of the city, watching the woman on horseback follow the Xiongxiong army into the edge, but that day he stood at Sunset West Mountain, but he didn't wait for that person's death look back once.

-

On the other side, Yan Lingyong didn't stop, he visited the house for several days in a row, Jiang Zhai refused and refused the gifts that he threw money at the door one after another, Gu Nanxing felt that the house was noisy, so he went out every day to look for wine, drinking until midnight .

The piles in the house were an eyesore, so Jiang Shiqing simply asked people to put the large and small gift boxes in the front yard. Yan Lingyong could see them when he returned to the door, but he was embarrassed to add more, so he changed another way to please Jiang Shiqing .

Hearing that the market was lively recently, he came to invite people to hang out in the street today, but Jiang Shiqing didn't push him, just put on some clothes and went out with them.

The market is crowded with people, and there is no way for cars and horses. No matter how you look at it, it looks like a prosperous and healthy world.Jiang Shiqing walked slowly through the crowd, and Xu Guo followed behind. Yan Lingyong always squeezed towards Jiang Shiqing under the guise of pedestrians, and almost went straight a few times, but was blocked by Xu Guo with the handle of the knife.

Not far away, an old man was pushing a charcoal cart to the market with a nursing child on his back, but was stopped by the guards.

"Charcoal sellers, go to the gate of the city, you can't enter here."

The old man didn't go any further, just pulled the cart and walked aside, then shook the black sweat towel off his shoulders and shouted, the guard walked forward with a sullen face, kicked the charcoal cart, and said annoyedly: "I don't understand Is it true, I will let you go to the city gate."

The old man stabilized the shaking charcoal cart, arched his back, and begged: "My lord, please do me a favor. There are no more people in the city gate than in the market. The people who buy things here are rich people. Who buys charcoal for the poor?" Say yes?"

"It doesn't work to plead with me, I only obey the orders of the superiors," the officer stepped forward and pulled his thin clothes that were blackened by the smoke, and said, "Besides, you are so shabby, are you worthy of selling things here? ?”

The child behind him was frightened and cried. The old man hurriedly put the child off his back, gently wiped away the child's tears with his rough fingertips, turned his head and closed his dirty hands between his fingers, once and for all. He bowed and said: "What you are saying, sir, is that it is not decent for me to be a rough man who burns charcoal by the mound every day, but you see that I still have a grandson to support, so I will take care of you." Allow me to sell here today, I will definitely not go to the market, tomorrow, tomorrow I will go back to the city gate, please..."

The guard said impatiently: "It doesn't matter if you carry a small one on your back. If someone brings a yellow-haired boy to intercede, I have to answer. What else should I do for an official position? Just go and become a Bodhisattva!"

"Officer..." The old man wanted to continue pleading.

Seeing that more and more people gathered, the guards stepped forward and shoved: "It's okay, don't talk about it, I need to do it to grow my memory, right?!"

The old man was pushed to the side of the charcoal cart, and when he was unsteady, he fell off the cart and hit the crying child sitting on the ground.At the very moment, a plain white figure flew over and quickly picked up the child from the ground.

The old man hit the ground on his back first, still thinking about his grandson, he immediately turned his head to look for someone, but he saw a fair and clean young man beside him holding his grandson with both hands, stroking his back and coaxing him.

The child flushed from crying threw himself on his shoulder, and when he turned to look at the old man, his nose and tears were running down his face.

Xu Guo stepped forward to help him up, and Jiang Shiqing just happened to hand the child into the arms of the old man.

"Old man, I bought this car of charcoal," Jiang Shiqing said regardless of the charcoal dust on his clothes, "but I don't have enough people with me, so I have to ask you to deliver the charcoal to the door."

"I must, I must," the old man was so grateful that he wanted to kowtow but was stopped, but he kept repeating, "Thank you kind man!"

"Wait!" The guard rubbed the ashes from his hands, raised his foot and crushed a piece of charcoal, and said displeasedly, "I'll clean up the broken charcoal on the ground first."

"Who are you calling for? Didn't you get it when you pushed him?" Xu Guo walked forward with a straight face, but the guard turned a deaf ear.

But before he could rub the dust off his hands, someone locked the back of his neck and immediately pressed his head onto the charcoal cart. When the guard was about to break free, his hands were clasped behind his back again.

Jiang Shiqing moved his fingers, hooked the guard's dusty wrist and slowly exerted strength, and said with a smile, "If you don't want to be a Bodhisattva, will I be able to?"

The pain from the broken bones caused the guard to howl, and he couldn't help kneeling on the ground with his legs bent, but Jiang Shiqing was not soft, and there was a little joy on his face when he saw the man screaming in pain.It wasn't until the guard became dizzy and said for mercy that Jiang Shiqing let go of his hand, and the fierceness in his eyes faded away.

Yan Lingyong led the people to Jiang Shiqing's side, and said to the guard who was erected: "This is the end of today's matter. If you refuse to accept it, you can report my name to Yan Lingyong with your superiors."

Then he waved his hand and asked someone to take the guards down, turned his head to look at Jiang Shiqing's clothes carefully, and said, "Huaichuan, your clothes are all dirty."

The sad expression on Yan Lingyong's face was somewhat realistic, but his hands took the opportunity to hug that slender waist.But just as his hand touched the silky cloth, he was grabbed and pulled back.

His arm hurt, Yan Lingyong frowned and was about to look back, but he heard first: "Isn't this Mr. Yan?"

Hearing Yuan Mucheng's voice, Yan Lingyong's face froze, his dissatisfied expression turned into a warm spring breeze in an instant, he turned his face and said with a smile: "General Yi, what a coincidence."

Yuan Mucheng tilted his head, his eyes bypassed Yan Lingyong and pointed at Jiang Shiqing, and he said to the man, "This young master looks familiar."

Jiang Shiqing turned around slowly and said with a smile, "Jiang Shiqing, I met the general in the string song workshop."

Yuan Mucheng said with a look that he just remembered, "Yes, look at my memory, I went to Jiang's mansion in person to make amends, but I was refused at the door several times, and the person I begged to see, Young Master Yan, easily moved me. , it seems that Mr. Jiang also picks people when making friends."

Jiang Shiqing said: "We haven't seen each other for a while, why is the general so fond of joking?"

Yuan Mucheng stared closely at his eyes, and replied, "I've been feeling very depressed recently, and it's hard to talk about joking."

When the two were talking, Yan Lingyong always felt a strange atmosphere unfolding around him. In addition, he had a rift with Yuan Mucheng when he was young, so he was a little anxious and rushed to take Jiang Shiqing away.

"Huaichuan, don't you want to go back to Jiangzhai, I'll see you off."

Seeing that Jiang Shiqing didn't respond, Yan Lingyong turned to Yuan Mucheng and said, "Then don't disturb General Yun."

Yuan Mucheng nodded and smiled politely, took a few steps back to make way for others, but he was alert to the eyes on him behind his back, and when he turned his head, he saw only the scattered crowd.

However, a certain person who was leaving with a fist at this time had a very small word "snake" branded on the back of his neck close to the collar.The man tightened his clothes and quickly hid himself in the crowd.

-

Half a day passed by, and Yuan Mucheng was supposed to follow the brand of Lai Chang to search for people in the city today, and meet He Xiao after nightfall, but he became vigilant at the moment his back felt cold, and wasted half a day On the way out of town.

The horseshoes stepped on the moonlight, splashing the mud, and the gust of wind rolled up the scattered leaves beside the road. Occasionally, frightened wild animals moved among the vegetation, and then there was no sound.

Yuan Mucheng stopped in a bamboo forest, got off his horse and drove the horse out of the forest with a wave of his palm.

There was dead silence everywhere, the bamboo leaves swirled down, and the texture of the stones on the way fell to the ground. Yuan Mucheng tightened the armor of his arms indifferently, and frowned slightly.

"Followed long enough."

A gust of wind blows, the bamboo leaves in the forest rustle, the bamboo branches can't hold the swaying leaves, the cold wind trembles under the black sky, a flying knife pierces the dark night, cuts the fallen leaves, and appears in front of Yuan Mucheng's throat in an instant .

The blade was unsheathed, and after a clear sound, the flying knife was knocked away and directly embedded in the bamboo pole.Several black shadows burst out from the forest, bamboo leaves swelled, flying knives poured out, wind was blowing at Yuan Mucheng's feet, several of them turned around to avoid the light of the knives, and all the flying knives missed.

Yuan Mucheng just stood up, but the black figure beside him held a knife and slashed down. He slashed with the knife horizontally, and the blood gushing out flew into the distance. The corpse just slid down a long bamboo and fell to the ground. Create a circle of shadows.

Several sharp knives swung down at the same time, Yuan Mucheng bent down to block the knives behind his back, and pressed down on the hilt of the knives on his back. Kick in a circle and land firmly.

The blood red that was splashed just now rolled down his chin, he smiled evilly and raised his hand to wipe it, full of bloodthirsty ferocity.Everyone who was kicked to the ground picked up the murderous knife and slapped it on the ground. Yuan Mucheng held the handle of the knife with five fingers and turned it vigorously. The blood on the blade flew and splashed on the green bamboo.