Foreword:

When I look at Guo Waichun during the cold food season, I can see that wild people are everywhere without hurting their spirits.

——Cloud watch

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[Part1·Funeral Expenses]

Things started a few days ago.

Two tall and handsome men walked out of Zhaojiazhuang. They were a pair of local brothers from Taiguang County.

Zhao Dalang's name is Jianying, and Zhao Erlang's name is Jianxiong. There are four sons in the Zhao family. When the genealogy is turned to the character "Jian", the character "hero" is used.

It was a good time for spring to warm up. Zhao Da pulled the cart out of the village. Looking back, he saw his second brother slumped beside the cart, panting.

"Second brother!" Zhao Jianying shouted: "Can you walk? If you can't walk, just rest for a few more days."

Erlang's face gradually turned rosy, he poked his face out of his deerskin scarf, showed a pair of bright eyes, and responded in a deep voice.

"Brother, if you don't leave, you will stink."

Let’s look at the corpses on the bullock cart. They are the parents of the Zhao family, as well as the third and fourth brothers, Swordsman and Swordsman.

The two younger brothers were weak and left with their parents. It was cold in the twelfth lunar month, so the family kept them in the main room without fear of getting stinky and rotten. When spring came, the brothers could not raise the funeral expenses. The second brother Jianxiong's illness

It's not over yet, Jianying alone can't accomplish anything.

So the eldest brother took charge of the family and sold his ancestral home and two acres of paddy field in exchange for some travel expenses. He planned to take his second brother to Zhuzhou for medical treatment and find a geomantic treasure land halfway there to bury all the family members.

Zhao Da went to the Chenghuang Temple and bought a cow. He tied the animal to the cart. He had just reached the official road of Taiguang County and was about to enter the mountain road. He was still worried.

"Are you feeling better?"

"It's just that my throat is itchy." Zhao Er immediately responded: "Drinking water a few days ago was like swallowing iron nails. I will come to help you when you have some strength."

Zhao Da held the leather bag and water bag and led the animal forward one foot deep and one foot shallow. Looking at the deep mountains and old forests, his leather boots sank into the mud of grass and leaves, and a fishy smell of mud came out when he stepped on them. Moisture condensed on the ropes.

There was a layer of dew, the sun had just climbed up from the back slope of the hills, and a layer of white steam floated in the mountains.

"Old man Wu who sells road guides knows that our family is in trouble."

Zhao Er immediately said: "What did he say?"

Zhao Da then walked forward, carefully holding the cow's rope: "I gave him two bottles of wine in exchange for silk gold."

"Silk gold?" Zhao Erlang was only sixteen or seventeen years old and didn't understand the term silk gold.

Occasionally there are funerals in Zhaojiazhuang, and the young and strong eldest son is required to help. The money given to attend the funeral is called silk gold. The weak and young second son or girls are not allowed to see the dead, which is also a taboo against the plague.

This time there was a great epidemic in Taiguang County. Nine out of ten families in the villages and towns died and became extinct.

Of the six members of the Zhao family, only the eldest and the second child survived. It was these two brothers who were strong and able to endure the pain and suffering.

Zhao Da said: "It's just giving money to the deceased's family."

Zhao Er: "Everyone is dead, what's the use of asking for money?"

Zhao Da: "That's different, second brother. Villagers need to help each other, and the silk money can also be used as funeral expenses."

Zhao Er: "Are you arriving soon? Do you only have two bottles of wine?"

"There are not many left, they are all dead." Zhao Da stopped talking after saying this.

Relatives and neighbors in Zhaojiazhuang in Taiguang County have all been poisoned by the plague to some extent. Every household is doing white things at the beginning of spring. Some families with some food and money can still set up a mourning hall to worship, but those who can attend the funeral,

There should be very few left.

Old man Wu was an official in charge of the road administration in the county government. Seeing the misery of the two brothers Jian Ying and Jian Xiong, he could only search out two bottles of hard currency in his cellar. Wine and fermented wine were a rarity in all the counties in the southeast, and only those with abundant food

Brewing is only possible when the situation is right. Whether the two brothers use it to sell it for money or drink it to keep warm on the road, it is a precious gift that lasts a long time.

After leaving the fields and farmhouses around Taiguang County and entering the mountains, the road became increasingly difficult to walk.

The mountains are full of strange rocks and woods, and it is difficult for an oxcart to find its way. Zhao Da first went to explore the road and listen to the wind, and then came back to drive the livestock through the mud and across the stream. On the third day, Zhao Er was finally able to walk a few steps, so he followed

The eldest brother changes shifts and catches the bus together.

Just after noon, we arrived at a dry mountain col. After leaving Lion Rock, we saw a clear yellow field plain.

Zhao Da felt happy that he should be not far from Zhuzhou, so he took all the cow dung he had saved in the past few days, flattened the cloth bag and placed it in the hot sun to dry.

Zhao Er also came to help. Knowing that his elder brother was going to light a fire, he ran into the forest. His breathing gradually became smoother, and the pain on his body seemed to be completely healed. He took off his coat and deerskin scarf, only wearing an inner garment that was convenient for movement, and fetched it.

Use your slingshot to shoot birds for fun.

In just half an hour, Jianying cleared away the grass and leaves, dug two small pits, brought firewood and cow dung to dry the firewood. The weather in the south was like this. He pinched the branches he picked casually.

You can squeeze out a handful of water, but you can't start a fire.

When Jianxiong came back with two plump waterfowl, he was still shouting excitedly.

"Brother! There is a lake! There is a lake! I don't have a pole! Otherwise I will fish for you!"

"Hahahahaha!" Jianying saw that her younger brother was healthy, and her heart fell back into her stomach. It seemed that everything had color again: "That's it! I'll roast the bird to eat!"

The two brothers were squatting in front of the fire pit, while Jianying was warming firewood, while Jianxiong plucked the feathers and decapitated the prey, cut its neck to bleed it, and also dug a wind channel for the fire pit where the food was cooked to make the flames stronger.

After skewering the waterfowl on green branches, Jianying fiddled with dry firewood, fetched tinder from the cow dung fire pit, and blew on the haystack fire. The fire suddenly rose. He quickly folded the bamboo tube and returned it to his old man.

I'm afraid this precious fire source will be destroyed.

He did not dare to speak and stared closely at the fat meat on the wet branch, fearing that the good meat would be burnt. After a while, he saw an oily sheen coming out of the skin of the bird meat, and it gradually became darker.

Yellowish brown.

The same goes for Jianxiong. He hugged his legs and coughed a few times from time to time due to the smoke from the fire. Perhaps his illness was not completely cured and his lungs were still itchy.

The two brothers, who looked like savages with scruffy beards, just waited for the food to be cooked.

At this moment, Jianying's nose was brighter and he asked.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Stinky?"

Jianxiong didn't understand, he still couldn't smell it: "What's so smelly?"

Jianying: "Is it smelly?"

As he spoke, Zhao Da brought the roasted bird to his nose and smelled it carefully. There was no strange smell.

"I can't hear it, brother!" Jianxiong was covered in sweat. He had just walked a few miles to find his prey. He spent a lot of time catching the waterfowl. When he returned to his brother, he was already a little cold. When he went back to look for clothes,

, glanced at the bullock cart.

At this glance, Jianxiong was almost frightened to death.

Why does the barbecue smell so bad?

The old ox pulling the cart ran away long ago, and the ropes pulling the cart were chewed by several animals! Look at the several black figures crawling on the cart, with their arched backs and shiny hair, they are clearly wolves!

Zhao Er shouted: "Wolf! Wolf!"

The stench comes from the corpse. These wolves have bitten the belly of the corpse, ripped out the intestines and bit the heart and liver! How can it not stink?!

The Zhao brothers were too frightened to move at first. The fear in their hearts was gradually overshadowed by anger. Jianying dropped the roasted bird meat and ran towards the bullock cart carrying two burning logs.

The cattle had long since disappeared. These cunning wolves and dogs knew that the cattle were blunt and stubborn, so they bit off the ropes to drive them away, and then they dared to jump on the cart and gnaw at the carcasses.

Jianying threw herself on the cart, waving a torch to chase away the wolf, and saw that all the internal organs of her younger brother Jianjie had been eaten away. The eyes of the corpse were also opened! It seemed that he would not rest in peace!

The seven-foot-old man was so angry that his eyes were splitting. He also saw two wolves that seemed to be starved and were still fighting for his mother's body. They wanted to remove the old mother's hands and feet, dragging the body and tipping it under the car.

——

——When the beast saw the fire, it immediately retreated to the rear of the car. The slow-running female wolf called Jianying kicked her in the belly. There was only a "click" sound, and the waist of this big wolf of seventy or eighty kilograms was also kicked.

It broke, and some black blood spurted out from the throat. It hit the thick branches of the tree hard, rolled to the ground and lost its breath.

"Beast!"

Jianying roared, took away the hunting knife from the cart and rushed forward.

The wolves and dogs that were still feasting suddenly fled in all directions. How could Jianying catch up with these wolves? He could only watch helplessly as these beasts fled back into the dense mountain forest.

He chased him for half a mile, and Jianxiong also followed his elder brother all the way forward. The slingshot in his hand was used to throw stones. The hits on these big wolves were not painful or itchy, and the stones hitting the backs of the wolf dogs would only hurt.

He heard a whimpering bark, then clawed at the mud with his four paws, and ran faster.

The two of them couldn't catch up, so they returned to the cart. The corpses of their relatives were more or less bitten by the evil wolves. The third brother Jianhao died the earliest, and the corpse was also thoroughly rotten, but it was the most complete.

My parents and my little brother Jianjie lost their arms and legs, and there was not much left in their stomachs without the protection of bones.

Seeing such a tragic situation, Erlang of the Zhao family collapsed, leaned on the bullock cart and began to cry in mourning.

Zhao Da did not speak, as if he was infected by his younger brother's emotions——

——He didn't dare to cry, he was afraid that if he cried, Erlang would lose his soul and would be unable to move forward.

"There is no way to go on like this. I will dig two pits and bury my parents. The third brother and the fourth brother will be buried in another pit. This way, they can be clearly distinguished for worship in the coming year and it will be easier to arrange the incense altar tributes."

"Are you going to leave them here?! Brother?" Jianxiong's face was already covered in mud and blood, and now with tears in his eyes, he seemed to be unable to see anything clearly. "You're leaving? You're leaving."
To be continued...