sinking into sand

It was almost dusk, and the sky in Daocheng was much darker than the Lijiang River.When many people in the teahouse and restaurant had already left one after another, there was still a setting sun in the sky.

Xun Er listened to all kinds of news at Hongfei's side for a day, and his mind was dizzy. Before it was dark, he went directly to the main street, and happened to be seen by Guan Lan.

Yu Sha and Guan Lan waited for her in that teahouse all morning, and Yu Sha couldn't sit still after lunch.Divided into two ways with Guan Lanbing, one went to find Zhou Qu to ask her whereabouts, and the other stayed in this block to wait for her.

Xun Er knew that Yu Sha was worried that he came back too late, so he didn't dare to speak, so he and Guan Lan waited peacefully in the inn for Yu Sha's return.

After a long time, when it was dark, Yu Sha came back from outside.Seeing others, Xun Er immediately looked at his nose and nose, and his nose looked at his heart, with a particularly good attitude of pleading guilty.

Yu Sha looked at her, and for the first time didn't say anything to scold her, but just said that it would be fine when she came back.Then he asked, seemingly unintentionally, where is Guan Lan?

Xun Er's heart was so sore, he finally got a little bit of vigilance when his brother got married, and he was about to be put on small shoes by his sister-in-law, so he answered honestly and said it, in the backyard of the inn.

Yu Sha groaned, and told her to wait in the room not to run around, and went out the door without even sitting down.

In the backyard, Guan Lan was feeding their horse with a handful of fodder.

Yu Sha stood not far away and looked at him.It was dusk, and there was a huge Populus euphratica tree in the backyard. The leaves were golden because of the arrival of autumn. Yu Sha looked at this scene and felt that he had returned to the Lijiang River a year ago, back to the one in the backyard of the inn. The night that broke Guan Lan's whereabouts.

That day the peach blossoms in the courtyard lost their petals due to the rain, and they were far less splendid than today's Populus euphratica, but their mood was similar.

That was the first time that he and Guan Lan let go of their guards. Although there were still many unspoken words and secrets between each other, they had begun to be honest.

As now.

Guan Lan felt Yu Sha's approaching footsteps, looked up, and saw Yu Sha's eyes looking at him too.

He understood something at that moment, and said, "You went out to look for Xun Er this afternoon, what else did you see?"

A gust of cool wind blows, rustling the Populus euphratica.

Jing Jing and Guan Lan looked at each other for a while, and Yu Sha answered him.

"The mark of your Guan family seems to be the contact mark of General Guan's own riding."

Guan Lan raised his eyebrows: "You still understand this?"

Yu Sha said lightly, "I learned from Ye Wanwan when I escaped from the Li River."

Guan Lan and Yu Sha looked at each other for a while, obviously they only said two or three words, but they seemed to have exhausted everything.

After a long while, Yu Sha couldn't bear it anymore and opened his mouth first.

He carefully studied Guan Lan's expression, and asked in a low voice, "Aren't you going to contact them?"

Guan Lan said, "Not yet."

After he finished speaking, he turned his head and fed the remaining bit of fodder to the horse.Yu Sha was full of words and didn't know where to continue asking.

For the time being, that is still going to be in touch.

Guan Jingyue's pro-rider in the northern border naturally wanted to find Guan Lan to go back.In the current situation, Guan Lan is indeed not suitable for wandering in the South and Central Plains anymore.Guan Jingyue is really waiting for him by standing still now?Does Guan Jingyue know that he is not dead?Have they been in touch before?

What about Guan Lan himself?He also planned to contact Guan Jingyue, was he going back to the north, to marry Ye Wanwan?Restore his original identity?

Yu Sha pursed his lips tightly, he couldn't ask every question he wanted to know urgently.

He didn't say a word, but looked at Guan Lan with more complicated eyes.Guan Lan patted all the fodder in his hands, and tied up the horse again.As soon as he turned around, he bumped into Yu Sha's obscure eyes, which made him bewildered.

"What's the matter with you?" Guan Lan asked with a frown. After speaking, he diverged his thinking and guessed, his face became very serious: "The sound insulation of the inn is not good, that's what you said."

Yu Sha was stunned for a moment, and suddenly he was blocked when he couldn't speak.He didn't understand this at first.When he reacted, his face turned red.And suddenly he was very embarrassed, as if he didn't say anything, but all the complexity and melancholy were all poked away by Guan Lan in one breath, and at the end he asked him without knowing why, Is this a fart?

Yu Sha couldn't stay any longer, turned around and ran back to the inn.

He ran in a hurry, but Guan Lan didn't chase after him. He petted the horse in a daze, and glanced at a two-story building outside the courtyard.

In the end, I don't know what he saw, but he touched the horse's head for the last time, turned around and entered the inn.

In the inn, Yu Sha was still angry.When Guan Lan entered the room, he took the initiative to ask him what he would have for dinner, but he ignored him.

Xun Er keenly noticed that her brother and sister-in-law were having trouble, but this incident was not very new.At that time in Lijiang, she had seen Guan Lan's ability to make Yu Sha go crazy with just two or three words, so she didn't take it seriously.

So among the three people, two were fine and normal, which made Yu Sha extremely aggrieved.At the end of dinner, he couldn't remember why he was angry in the first place.When he finally finished drinking the soup Guan Lan served him, what entanglements, secrets, concealment, all really looked like a fart, gone.

Holding the soup bowl that was still warm after drinking, he thought, okay, that's it, just live like this every day.

After the three of them had dinner, they entered the night again.Yu Sha was planning to go to the county government prison again tonight, but he was worried about Xun Er, so he took him with him.Xun Er was eager to revisit the old place of the prison, so naturally he had nothing to object to.

On the way there, Yu Sha remembered that he had one more important matter that he forgot to ask, so he patted Xun Er's head vigorously, and asked her, "What's the matter with you, why you were arrested."

Xun Er was caught off guard. Seeing that Yu Sha hadn't asked, she thought Zhou Qu had already told him, but she actually forgot.Thinking of this, Xun Er felt even more sad, this is the elder brother who has a sister-in-law, it is really unreliable!

Sourness returns to sourness, things still have to go back to normal.Xun Er sniffed and explained, "It's because of promoting those deeds to Hanhao Village."

"Deeds?" Yu Sha remembered, "Then what kind of double-thorned flower."

Xun Er wished he had forgotten about such a matter, but he had to bring it up again when he talked about it. He had no choice but to bite the bullet and say: "No way, the better the publicity is, the better it will attract people. There is no affiliate in Daocheng. There are many Jianghu people."

Yu Sha groaned, understood, and said, "There was a power struggle, and I was caught by the Liger Gang."

When I saw him on Xun Er, I knew it, so I didn’t need to explain a lot of things. I just said: “After the chaos in the Central Plains, those who are capable will occupy the mountains and land in their original places. People who run west like us are people who have nowhere to go. , The Lion Tiger Gang is also recruiting them. But the Lion Tiger Gang's stronghold is in Daocheng, and originally they didn't care about the outside of Daocheng. But after autumn, they frequently expanded outwards. At first it was just a small friction, and then they started to arrest people randomly. I I went to deliver the letter today, and I heard that they started posting formally threatening that the big and small cottages must be merged into their forces."

"How do you ask?" Yu Sha asked: "Gangs have always respected the leader. Now that it is so chaotic, he is a small gang in a local area, and it is almost enough to collect money from the city. If he really conflicts with outsiders, how can he?" The person who came? If it is really included, there is no way to control it.”

"They don't seem to want to take care of those villages." Xun Er tried his best to pick out what might be related to this matter from the many news I heard in Hongfei today, "I remember Sister Hongfei said that the lion and tiger gang can ignore everything. , as long as the villages hang their flags!"

When Yu Sha heard this, his steps suddenly stopped, and he repeated: "Only the flag?"

Xun Er nodded affirmatively, "Yes, only hang the flag."

In the blink of an eye, Yu Sha suddenly realized something.The situation in the north and the south, the blissful side, the peace talks, the envoys who entered the city today, the refugee army, Daocheng, which has become the second transportation hub, and the Lion Tiger Gang.

"Oops!" Yu Sha exclaimed, "The Lion Tiger Gang is also part of the refugee army! They are likely to disrupt the peace talks and force the court to go to war with the North first!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the Daocheng government office that the three of them were about to reach within dozens of steps suddenly burst out with a loud noise, and black smoke and flames instantly shot up into the sky, emitting a frightening scorching brilliance under the night.

The three of Yu Sha were already very close to the county government, affected by the heat wave caused by the explosion, Yu Sha was able to protect Xun Er in a critical situation.Guan Lan hugged his waist and moved quickly to the side.

The three of them fell to the ground and rolled several times.After stopping, Yu Sha poked his head into Guan Lan's arms, and tried his best to look at the burning government office in front of him.

The several carriages parked at the entrance of the government office were all affected and were blown into a pile of fragments, and the few surviving banners were already on fire.

That is the flag representing the envoys of Dingzhou.

Far away, in the Zhulin Temple at the midpoint of Dingzhou and the Lijiang River.

Yu Wangling stretched out his wrist unhurriedly, and took out a sunspot from the jar.

On the chessboard.