Shangguan Shu turned around and saw a little beggar running away, shouting, "Help! Help!"
"Water ghost?" Shangguan Shu frowned and looked around. "Where did the water ghost come from?"
After a while, he didn't find it and sneered, "You have such poor eyesight, and you still want food?"
After saying this, he came to his senses and continued walking towards the Duke's Mansion.
The little beggar ran a long way and stopped when he found that the water ghost did not catch up with him. He patted his chest in fear.
Every morning, he would go to the vegetable market in front to pick up some rotten vegetables that were thrown away last night. If he went too late, the rotten vegetables would be picked up by other beggars, and he and his uncle's family would go hungry.
But he had just met a water ghost, so the little beggar didn't dare to go this way again. He had to take a detour through a small road. However, the small road was time-consuming, and when he arrived, as expected, all the rotten vegetable leaves were gone.
The little beggar then took a broken bowl and started begging. After begging for a whole morning, he finally got two rotten steamed buns and two cents!
The little beggar was very happy. He hid the two cents in his worn-out shoes and went home.
In fact, it was not really a home, but just an abandoned temple on the outskirts of Beijing with a few houses where beggars lived.
The house was leaking and was on the verge of falling apart. The stronger beggars lived in the better houses, while he and his uncle's family, with the old, the disabled, and the young, lived in the most dilapidated house.
But it doesn’t matter, as long as my uncle is there, that is their home.
When the little beggar returned to the dilapidated temple, it was already afternoon. At this time, ambitious beggars were still begging outside, so only his uncle's family was in the dilapidated temple.
It’s not that my uncle’s family is lazy and greedy, but they are really miserable!
My uncle is over fifty years old and is so thin that his bones are visible. He recently fell ill and the doctor said it would cost five taels of silver to cure him.
My great uncle has a daughter who is paralyzed and crazy. She always quarrels with my great uncle and says she is the Dragon Girl or something like that.
As for his great uncle's granddaughter, she is a few years younger than him and is the most willful and greedy. The mother and daughter always bully his great uncle, and he dislikes them very much!
But they are my great uncle's relatives, and my great uncle saved his life, so my great uncle's relatives are also my relatives.
He will take good care of them for his uncle.
"Uncle, I encountered some dirty things today and didn't pick up any vegetables, but luckily I begged for two steamed buns."
When the little beggar entered the house, he saw a skinny, white-haired old man lying on the ground, who looked like he would not live long.
There was a woman on the kang. When she heard his voice, she scolded him, "You're back so late, do you want to starve me to death?!"
The little beggar sighed, took out a steamed bun from his arms and threw it to the woman. The woman seemed to be very hungry, and she hurriedly took it, put it in her mouth, and gobbled it up.
There was a foul smell when it entered her mouth. The woman paused for a moment, then swallowed it whole while whimpering and crying, with a hint of forbearance in her collapse.
The little beggar was used to it and ignored her. He walked up to the old man, broke the steamed bun into small pieces and fed them into his mouth.
The old man's eyes were blurry, his mouth was covered with thick film, and his whole body exuded a fishy odor, like rotting raw meat. It was midsummer, and there were many insects and flies. When the little beggar approached, the swarm of flies were startled and swarmed up. The little beggar fanned them away with his hands.
The old man opened his mouth with difficulty and chewed the steamed bun in his mouth.
The woman on the kang screamed at this, "Don't give it all to him, leave some for Zihua!"
The little beggar was not convinced and retorted, "Why don't you leave some for your daughter?"
The woman was about to curse again, but the little beggar's hands were patted. The little beggar looked back and saw the old man shaking his head at him, saying hoarsely, "I... am not hungry..."
"You eat...you and...Zihua...eat."
The woman hummed in triumph upon seeing this.
The little beggar suppressed his anger, hid his red eyes, and said, "I'm not hungry either. I've eaten."
"You stinky beggar, you're actually eating outside!"
The little beggar ignored the woman's sharp insults, fed the old man half a steamed bun, and went out to fetch some water and fed it to the old man.
After the woman finished eating, she asked him to carry her out to bask in the sun. The little beggar did as she wished, then fetched a basin of water, took a cleaner rag, and went into the house.
The old man's clothes were stripped off, revealing the horrific skeleton underneath.
Yes, the skeleton.
It was covered in rotten flesh, and the internal organs were exposed.
Huge maggots were crawling and drilling inside.
The little beggar picked out the maggots with an expressionless face, and then wiped the old man's flesh.
After finishing everything, he leaned over to the old man's ear and whispered, "Uncle, I got another two cents today. I'm still fifty cents away from the five taels of silver. I'll be able to collect it soon, and then I can help you find a doctor to cure your serious illness."
The old man raised his hand and touched the little beggar's head, tears welling up in his cloudy eyes. "Thank you...thank you..."
"Uncle..."
After the woman finished basking in the sun, she was carried back into the house by the little beggar. She then began to mutter to herself, "Didn't you say that the emperor was ill and wanted to find Zihua to prolong his life? Why haven't they come yet?"
【I heard that too.】
"Why are you so useless! If you can't help me, why do you come back and do this?"
"I don't want to come back either, but I have nowhere else to go now. I can only do my best to help you get back to the storyline. If you think I'm useless, I think you're useless too!"
“!@￥%……&*!!!”
The woman started cursing wildly again.
The little beggar watched the excitement for a while, and finally walked out in silence.
He wanted to put the new copper coins he had collected today together with the ones he had saved before.
The little beggar walked to a corner of the wall, looked around, and after making sure that there was no one around, he removed the loose bricks. Inside was a piece of oil paper, which wrapped his silver.
He opened the oil paper and froze in place the next second.
There was nothing inside; his money had been stolen!
The little beggar was immediately panicked. This was his uncle's life-saving money. Who was it? Who was it?
Just at this moment, a little girl came skipping from a distance, holding malt sugar in one hand and carrying a few bags of cakes in the other.
If the little girl is not Zhao Zihua, who is she?
The little beggar's eyes went dark, and a terrifying rage shot up to his head. Without thinking, he rushed over and grabbed Zhao Zihua's hand, "Did you steal my money?"
"Let me go! You stinky beggar, you're hurting me!"
"If you don't let me go, I'll let my mother beat you!"
"Mother! Mother!"
The little beggar couldn't listen to anything else. With bloodshot eyes, he yelled, "Did you take it?!"
Zhao Zihua pushed him away and shrieked, "So what if I took it?"
The little beggar looked at Zhao Zihua in disbelief. "That was your grandfather's life-saving money!" He pointed at the cakes in her hand. "For these, you even disregarded your own grandfather's life!"
Zhao Zihua's eyes flashed with madness and cruelty. She gritted her teeth and said, "He's not my grandfather. My grandfather is the emperor. He deserves to die! If he hadn't stopped my mother, how could we be living a life worse than death here? It's all his fault! He deserves to die!"
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