Chapter 184: Support
Murong Di originally wanted to find an excuse to leave Beijing after the Spring Festival Banquet.
But I don’t know if it’s because of Pei Shu, Murong Yu and Murong Di are missing.
Murong Di was unable to obtain permission from Murong Yu to go to Lingnan, and at the same time, his spies in the mansion were keeping a close eye on him.
So Murong Di could only continue digging holes while thinking about life in the mansion.
This time, Murong Di dug a hole behind his bed in the bedroom. With the joint efforts of him and Old Man Qin, he connected the tunnel he had dug before to the bedroom.
After digging the tunnel, Old Man Qin excitedly said to his apprentice:
"Little brother, it's a good thing that I can't leave for a while. We, the master and the disciple, are doing great things in Chang'an!"
Murong Di: "What's the big deal, Master? We have limited manpower."
Old Man Qin: "We don't need a lot of people for this. There are a lot of big ones near Chang'an. Master can help you practice. What we dig out later will be the capital for us to do big things in Black Bandit Mountain!"
There was a determined and fearless light in Old Man Qin's eyes.
Murong Di's face turned a little pale.
A large tomb, or a large tomb near Chang'an.
Murong Di: "Master, will I be punished by heaven for robbing our ancestors' graves?"
"How can you say that? You're clearly being filial, visiting the old man underground. If you find any holes left by thieves, we can patch them up."
Old man Qin changed his tone and comforted Murong Di.
"Don't worry, we won't start with the imperial mausoleum. Do you think the imperial mausoleum is so easy to rob? Don't even think about going there before you've practiced your skills."
"I'll show you a few simple ones to try first. If there's nothing good to take, just think of it as Master taking you on a tour."
Murong Di and Old Man Qin started their journey around Chang'an.
They would be out for two or three days at a time, so Cui Xiaoxiao had to cover for them.
"Miss Cui has a good plan. Thanks to you for getting rid of the person." Murong Di praised Cui Xiaoxiao.
Cui Xiaoxiao sat up straight now, without smiling:
"I almost failed to stop him this time. You were not here yesterday, but Luye and Qingluo happened to come and make a scene, which made Hu Xin angry and leave."
"Green Leaf and Green Lotus?" Murong Di almost forgot who these two people were.
Those were the two dancers that King Murong Qi of Chu gave him in the brothel last time.
Murong Di asked them to dance twice just for show, but he was busy recently and forgot about it.
Murong Di said, "I will stay in the mansion for the next few days. You can go back to the courtyard to rest and keep an eye on their movements."
"Yes," Cui Xiaoxiao lowered her voice. "Also, there's one more thing. Although I haven't been out for the past two days, I heard the servants sweeping the yard this morning talking about how the Mi Po Kingdom has launched an invasion of the southwest and has already reached Lingnan."
…
The heat wave in Lingnan is severe.
The cicadas in the trees are so noisy that it makes people's scalps tingle.
On the path, a mother and daughter walked forward anxiously.
I don’t know if it was because of the heat or nervousness, but there was a layer of sweat on my forehead.
The hems of the mother and daughter's coarse cloth clothes were worn and torn, their cloth shoes were covered in mud, and there was a small hole in the front, revealing part of their toes.
"Hurry, Qiao'er, walk faster." Aunt Jin wiped the sweat from her head and pulled her daughter Qiao'er to speed up.
They escaped from Yongzhou.
After conquering Jiaozhou, Mi Po's troops also conquered Yongzhou.
During those two days, Aunt Jin happened to take her daughter back to her parents' home to visit relatives. When they came back from her parents' home, they saw Mi Po's soldiers pouring into the county town from outside the city, and heard the deafening shouting and fighting.
Aunt Jin felt a mixture of emotions at that moment, a mixture of surprise and fear.
The good news is that the old man at home who drank and beat people every day finally died!
What they feared was that both mother and daughter would also die at the hands of the Mi Po people.
Aunt Jin fled back to her parents' home with her daughter, but the entire village had fled, leaving only empty houses.
The mother and daughter had to escape on their own.
I was thinking of escaping to the north and getting out of Lingnan first.
But in the hot summer, is it easy to walk out of Yongzhou to Lingnan Road on foot?
Squeak——
Qiao'er tripped over a clod of earth under her feet and fell.
The mother and daughter had not eaten enough for the past two days and had no strength. Aunt Jin was also dragged down by her daughter.
"Qiao'er, get up quickly, you can't stop." Aunt Jin climbed up. Her pants and flesh at the knees were torn, and the cloth mixed with dust and mud stuck to the bloody wound.
Qiao'er pursed her lips, holding back the tears in her eyes:
"Mother, how far do we have to run? Where can we find soldiers to drive the barbarians away?"
Aunt Jin: "The officers and soldiers were all slaughtered by the barbarians. Where are the officers and soldiers left? It's better to pray to the land god in the temple than to pray to the officers and soldiers."
When you have no hope in people, you can only pray to God.
After the mother and daughter took two steps, they actually saw a dilapidated land temple in front of them.
Aunt Jin took her daughter to the dilapidated temple. When they reached the door, they saw that there was no statue of god in the temple.
There were more than a dozen people sitting under the shrine.
There were people of all ages, carrying bags, and there were two carts at the door.
Among them, a young man wearing a cotton summer shirt said:
"You're going to Heishan Township too, right? Sit down for a while. Our township's pick-up will be here soon."
Aunt Jin whispered, "Heishan Township?"
She had heard of Heishan Township, which was the place that was recruiting workers everywhere before. One of her neighbors in the alley moved his entire family to Heishan Township.
Before Aunt Jin could figure out what was going on, footsteps were heard at the door.
"Wei Qi, we're here to pick you up." Two more villagers in cotton shirts appeared and called out to everyone, "Follow us."
Aunt Jin followed with her daughter.
There were about a dozen of them at first. After walking for a while, they passed by a small temple and led a dozen more people out from inside.
As we walked further, more and more people followed us, about sixty or seventy people.
The two villagers were holding a long bamboo pole with a pure black flag on it, which was very conspicuous in the sun.
Everyone followed the black flag.
They walked like this until they came to a large stone tablet with the words "Heishan Township" engraved on it.
There were several children standing next to the stone tablet, among them was a little girl with red lips and white teeth, about eight or nine years old, holding a black flag in her hand.
The two leading villagers said, "Zhizhi, we'll leave these people to you."
After they finished speaking, they returned with the black flag to pick up the people.
Su Zhizhi waved the flag and looked up and said, "Welcome to Heishan Township. I'll take you to where you'll live first."
Several children were divided into two groups, one group led the way in front, and the other group walked at the back of the team to prevent anyone from getting lost.
Su Zhizhi led the way while introducing:
"This is our Heishan Township's cloth shop, and over there is the ink shop. The cloth and ink we produce are both very good. This street is the main street of Heishan Township. If you want to buy something..."
Aunt Jin and Qiao'er, who were walking in the crowd, had already figured it out by this time.
They accidentally followed the people of Xunzhou and fled to Heishan Township for refuge.
Aunt Jin looked at the bustling scene in Heishan Township in shock. The shops and small vendors on both sides of the street were shouting and selling things as usual, and some passers-by were buying things.
People come and go on the road, each busy with their own things, and everything is in good order.
Unlike the places she passed by on her escape, which were sparsely populated and desolate.
Su Zhizhi and a group of other children took everyone to Mofang Mountain, divided them into two teams of men and women, and led them to their residence.
Su Zhizhi took the woman to one side, and Xue Che took the man to the other side.
Aunt Jin and Qiao'er followed him into a large room, which looked like a temporary workshop.
After Su Zhizhi brought the person over, Lu Chunniang came out:
"Zhizhi, you've worked hard, go have a bowl of mung bean soup."
"We still have to pick up another group of people. Let's drink together when we come back—" Su Zhizhi ran away with her friends carrying the flag.
A row of shadows followed and ran on the ground.
A person's shadow is small, while the flag's shadow is big.
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