Xialan Fanren: The Spectator

The most suitable thing to do in the afternoon is to lie lazily on the rocking chair and take a nap. People who have finished their busy work in the morning will always stop and rest at this time to prepare for a new round of busyness in the evening.What's more, the weather is hot now, especially in the afternoon, no one would be foolish to sweat under the scorching sun.As a result, most of the pedestrians on the street were sparse, and even the air became quiet.

After choosing a foothold, Mu Duan disappeared, and Yun Dan was not surprised, but Wen Qi used Yuan Qi to ask her where he was going.After all, they are people who came here together, and although they are not bound by her to come and stay, they don't want to let themselves be confused.

"Mutuan is someone sent by Lord Jiu, and I don't know where he can help." Yun Dan also used Yuan Qi to reply, but there was a little helplessness in his words, "Let's go and see the situation by ourselves. .”

She stood in the upstairs corridor and glanced down. In the lobby where there were no customers dining, only the shopkeeper who was yawning at the counter was left, and the waiter was resting after clearing the tables, chairs and benches.The view from the high place made the crowded and narrow space below look spacious and transparent. Yun Dan pondered for a while, and planned to go to the waiter's waiter to find out the news alone.Turning around, she saw Wen Qi standing next to her, also looking down.

After thinking about it, it's outrageous to be entrusted by someone this time to investigate the situation and leave him alone.So he raised his hand to caress the short lavender hair of the other party, like an elder treating a junior, although the two are actually of the same seniority. "I'll be called a sister for a while, don't be too surprised," she said.

Wen Qi didn't avoid her movements, nor looked at her, but just nodded.

Then Yundan went back to the room, rummaging through the baggage for something.Wen Qi turned around, her eyes fixed on her.In her eyes, she always felt that Yundan's movements and figure were very similar to someone from many years ago, and even the scene was very similar.

It wasn't until the blurry picture in her mind gradually became clear that it overlapped with what she saw before her eyes that she remembered that that person was her mother.

After counting, it has been nearly 20 years since I was sent to Jiugong Ridge, maybe even more?

Since being injected with zero energy, the body has stopped growing. In the past ten years, parents have passed away one after another without knowing it.Because my elder brother learned of his sacrifice, he never sent a letter home to Jiugongling, and he didn't know until a long time later that his parents were no longer there.

Like, it won't be too sad?

Since being sent to this isolated Jiugong Ridge, Wen Qi has never been out again, and she has never seen anyone visit her during the holidays, and when she wants to ask for leave to go home, she finds that she doesn't remember the way.

So what my parents left in my memory seems to be only those few backs from many years ago.

Wen Qi often forgets the fact that her real age does not match her body shape.People who are not familiar with her will think that she is a little girl just like her appearance, so they treat each other with soft words and smiles.She couldn't speak, and she didn't bother to argue for a long time. Occasionally, she felt that it was good to be coaxed like a child.After all, it seems that I have never seen my parents treat me like this before.

It seemed that they only spoiled their elder brother.

In the past two years, there has been no war to disturb her. In her spare time, she reads the poetry collections of literati, and she can always find resonance with any sentence lamenting the passage of time.

Thinking about it now, it's not just time.

"Let's go." Yun Dan locked the door and said.

She followed behind the woman in the blue dress in front of her, stepping lightly down the old stairs.

The people in the lobby were leaning against the pillars and resting their eyes with their eyes closed. When they heard movement in the direction of the stairs, they opened their eyes vigilantly. When they looked over, they found that it was the two girls who checked in at noon.

He pulled the cloth on his shoulders to roughly wipe his face, and greeted the two people who were obviously walking towards him, "Do you guys need anything?"

"I want to ask, is there a pawnshop or something near here?" Yun Dan asked with a smile.

The man looked her up and down, "You want to be something?"

"My sister and I were robbed and harassed by someone on the way here, and we only settled here when we met acquaintances." Yun Dan explained, "I'm sorry to trouble him all the time, so I want to pawn something in exchange for some money."

When Wen Qi was listening to her making up nonsense, she thought that the other party should be accustomed to answer twice, and then tell them the location of the pawn shop. Unexpectedly, the first reaction of this waiter brother was:

"You were robbed on the road? Impossible!"

Yun Dan clenched the hand that was about to spread. "What's this called?" Although she is a weak girl, Yundan has an aura of calm and prestige, not to mention that now she deliberately put on an angry look, angrily and laughing, "Do you think I'm tall?" It doesn’t look like you will be targeted by robbers, but you still think that I made these up for nothing?”

"No, no, no... that's not what I meant..." The boy on the opposite side was shocked by her, "I mean... I've been in Diancheng for so long, and I've hardly seen such a thing happen... ..."

Yun Dan felt it was even more funny, "If you haven't seen it, it doesn't mean you don't have it. And I'm not saying that we were robbed in Dian City, we encountered robbers on the way to this city." She paused, " I heard that the prefect of Wen has managed the place well, so no one would dare to do such a thing."

Waiting Hall suddenly raised his eyes to look at Yun Dan again, but his eyes were completely different from before.

"Am I wrong?" Yun Dan asked tentatively.

Waiter was very straightforward: "Yes."

This is probably the most unexpected gain of this trip.

Wen Qi also cheered up, and after exchanging glances with Yun Dan, both of them looked at the serious-looking waiter brother.Yun Dan asked back, "Why?"

Thousands of miles away, Master Jiu also asked the same question when talking about this person with an unknown senior official.

"You kid invited me to this meal just to get some soldiers for this man?"

The light in the room is transparent and bright, and the dishes on the table are rich and exquisite. The two sit next to each other, as if they were close brothers.

"I don't know." Master Jiu smiled wryly, and threw a fried peanut into his mouth, "They want to recruit some masters of the rivers and lakes from me, and give them the name of defending the country, I don't know what he said How true it is."

The person sitting next to Master Jiu had a benevolent face. Although he didn't have a beard, his face looked very thin and old, and even his hair was covered with a lot of gray and white.After taking off the official uniform and changing into a wide-sleeved robe, the whole person is like a celestial being who has attained the Tao because he can't see the disasters and injustices in the world and enters the world to save him.

But Master Jiu knew that this man was far from being as old as he looked.

"What did that friend of yours tell you back then?" He ate his vegetables calmly and asked after chewing a few bites.

Master Jiu looked at him with his double chin propped up, "She said that man went to join his sister."

"Since it's defection," the man squinted at him, his hands and mouth kept moving, "it means that this man didn't intend to go back to be his prefect."

Fatty Nine blinked blankly.

There was a trace of contempt in the eyes of the other party: "Don't you still understand?"

"...I understand half of it."

"That means there are still ninety-five percent that I don't understand."

"..." Master Jiu counted with his fingers, and it seemed that it was indeed ninety-five percent.No wait that's not the point. "Since you know that guy is unreliable, why didn't you just find someone to replace him?" He asked again.

The person on the other side gave him a supercilious look, and straightened his collar with one free hand, with a dignified look: "Do you think an official can do whatever he wants?"

Master Jiu was blocked for words, picked up the bowls and chopsticks to pick up the rice and vegetables, "I shouldn't have told you about this at meal time." He didn't eat either, but watched the person opposite him almost finish eating the big table as if nothing had happened.

"Hey, save some for your brother." The man poked his fat arm.

Master Jiu was angry: "You left it to me just now!"

"Hehehe." The man smiled wickedly, a bit disrespectful, "Talking to your brother, you are still a little tender."

"Hehehe." Master Jiu rolled his eyes at him with his mouth full of white rice, "I'm a businessman who can't compare to you officials."

The sun is shining outside.

The waiter's words didn't have any ups and downs. Occasionally, when he was angry, he would suddenly rise a few degrees, but he didn't dare to let himself go too much because he was afraid of offending the dozing shopkeeper at the counter.Yun Dan and Wen Qi sat next to each other. Although they were willing to listen carefully, they still couldn't resist the heavy sleepiness that hit in the afternoon.

They almost forgot that they were also tired for a long time.

The man's voice gradually merged with the heat wave outside, like a thick and warm quilt in winter, wrapping two people who are getting more and more tired.

"Yo."

Yun Dan woke up immediately.

The visitor is Muduan. "You two didn't rest in the room." After he took the room key, he fell asleep in it, and now he was much more energetic. Who knew that the two of them gave up a good rest time for nothing, although it was not wasted.

Wen Qi also raised his head and rubbed his foggy eyes.

"I thought you were gone." Yun Dan let out a long breath, raised his hand and gently pressed the Jingming acupoint between his eyes.

"How is it possible." Mu Duan asked, "Are you stupid?" "Am I like the kind of person who casually dismisses people?"

Wen Qi really wanted to say like, but unfortunately she couldn't speak.

"Hey, you guys go somewhere with me." Mu Duan suddenly put his hands on the table, lowered his body and said mysteriously.He looked like an opportunist who encouraged others to jump into the pit together.

Yun Dan and Wen Qi met each other's eyes, they were probably stunned by sleepiness for a while, and they didn't respond to each other for a long time.

The waiter saw that something was wrong, and wisely tossed the towel and exited the conversation, "You guys talk, I'll go to work."

The outdoors are no longer as sultry as before, and the cirrus clouds are gathered together, occasionally blocking the venomous light from the distant scorching sun.Yun Dan glanced indifferently at the sparsely populated street outside the door, and began to recall the fragmented collection of stories told by the buddy just now in his mind.She stood up: "Let's go."

But what she and Wen Qi didn't expect was that the place where Mu Duan took the two of them for a stroll was actually the outskirts of the south gate of Dian City.

"You have heard everything the buddy said." She turned her head and glanced at the south gate that was getting farther and farther away from her, thinking about the experience when she just left the city gate, "These soldiers guarding the gate are really relieved. .”

It was rumored that the enemy was pressing down on Dian City, but the soldiers stationed inside were not nervous at all.The people came in and out at will, without even turning over baskets and poking hay carts for inspection.

But Mu Duan took it for granted, walked ahead and led the way, and said something to her by the way: "And this is the South Gate."

Yuehe is located in the southern part of the Central Plains, and the foreign enemy Wen Zhifu described that day was the Yuehe tribe entrenched in the south of Dian City.

But right now, here is a peaceful and peaceful scene.

Wen Qi walked quietly beside them, unconsciously recalling Yun Dan's words earlier: "You should know better than me what kind of person your brother is."

Now she feels that Yundan has overestimated herself.

She didn't know what kind of person would climb up the tree to pick berries for her sister when she couldn't pick them, and would put the stolen goods into her sister's hands when she was found to have stolen something, making people think she was a berry. Thief.This person would sometimes stuff her with a few candies that were so sweet that she would lose her teeth, and would lock her in the woodshed for a whole day during hide-and-seek without anyone finding out.

This man laughed harmlessly to humans and animals, but when someone came to persuade his parents to send their two children to Jiugongling, he said that he had asthma and he wanted to let his sister go.

From before to now, she couldn't see clearly what kind of person her naive brother was.

"As a parent official in one of the country's cities, he left his post without authorization and fled to another place during his tenure. He knew that the people in the city were in danger of being slaughtered by foreign enemies, but he waved his sleeves and left. Such a person is completely unqualified to continue to serve as the magistrate. "

"But there is not enough evidence for this AWOL. He hid his whereabouts, and after returning to the city, he announced that he was recuperating behind closed doors due to illness. That's why he hasn't seen anyone for a long time."

The sea in the east was choppy, and the bright sun that had been shining above the city of Dengzhou for a short time turned gloomy.Layers of cirrus clouds stretched and gathered, and finally accumulated into mountain-like rain clouds.

Master Jiu saw his elder brother, who had been an official for many years, stand by the window with his hands behind his back, and his eyes, which had seen vicissitudes of life, were staring at the sky outside the house as if it was about to collapse.After a while, he sighed softly, and before the pouring rain hit the ground noisily, he replied to his ninth brother:

"So, without evidence, you can't talk about anything."