Volume 1 Chapter 1 First time escaping in the snow
"Snow drifts thousands of miles away, passing through Longsha in an instant. It gathers and disperses from the clouds, and is swirled and tilted by the wind. It brushes against the grass like butterflies, and falls from the trees like flying flowers. If I give it to someone who has left, I will pick it and replace it with a beautiful flower."
This poem about snow was originally written by Liang Dynasty poet Pei Ziye. With just a few words, he vividly described the scene of snowflakes flying in the cold wind and dark clouds rolling. Only in the last two sentences, he expressed his feelings in the scene, expressing a trace of sympathy and helplessness for those who had to leave their hometowns in the cold winter. Looking around, the land of Liaodong was vast. The heavy snow that had fallen for a whole day finally stopped. Only the north wind whistled from time to time, sweeping the snow on the dead trees and branches on the roadside down, just like butterflies flying over flowers. If you are in a rich family, sitting by the stove and watching the snow behind the curtain is not a bad thing. However, for the poor, they just look outside and say "auspicious snow means a good harvest", then gather their sleeves tightly and shrink back into the thatched cottage with wind blowing everywhere.
It was during the Tang Dynasty, and the country's name had been changed to Zhou for more than a year. Which emperor stepped down, which queen ascended the throne, and which prince was demoted, but the discussions did not affect the life here at all. The only thing they cared about was how much tax they had to pay every year. In the words of the village tax officer, "It doesn't matter who you pay it to, you have to pay it back."
It is near the end of the year, and it is the rare slack season for farmers every year, commonly known as "hibernation". Every household closes its doors and prepares for the New Year. The snow has accumulated to a depth of more than a foot. Although there is wind and snow, the sun is hanging high in the sky, emitting a bluish-white light. Everywhere is white, and it seems bright and dazzling. There are clearly a few drops of dark red blood dripping on the snow, extending to a pile of firewood in a farmland in the distance. The closer it gets, the more blood there is, as if it was spilled on the ground. The sound of fighting with weapons is getting louder and louder. It turns out that there are more than a dozen masked men surrounding a middle-aged man in a black singlet. The man is panting, supporting himself with his sword, and has injuries somewhere on his body, and is still bleeding. Several of the dozen or so people on the other side are also seriously injured, and someone has fallen in the snow, not knowing whether he is dead or alive.
A masked man stepped forward and said, "I admire you as a brave man, but you have been running for days and your strength is almost exhausted. There is absolutely no chance of survival today. You might as well surrender instead of resisting so desperately. I will definitely leave you an intact corpse."
The man swayed, apparently being hit on the head by the other party, but he stood up straight, stared fiercely at the group of people, and said with gritted teeth: "Shut up, if you have the guts to kill me today, then go ahead. Otherwise, if I survive and go back, I will definitely track you all down and chop you into pieces to avenge me!"
There were gusts of wind and snow. Everyone shuddered when they heard his sinister and cold tone, but they still slowly moved towards the man. The masked man in the lead slowly raised his palms, and the snowflakes melted into drops as soon as they were an inch away from his palms. As soon as they fell on his palms, there was a "hiss" sound as if they fell on a red-hot iron. It was obvious that he had exerted all his strength, and with a muffled shout, he flew up and slapped the man.
The man saw the palm coming, but he did not dodge, and poured the little internal force he had into the sword. Then he heard a loud "snap" sound, and the palm had hit the man's chest. Although he was seriously injured, the man used the palm force and the sword to bounce back, flew back several feet away and fell instantly. The masked man shouted "not good", and immediately rushed to the place where he fell. When everyone arrived, there was only a large snow pit that was smashed, and all around was white, but there was no trace of the man in black!
After searching everywhere, they returned empty-handed. The masked man stomped his feet in anger and said, "We were careless for a moment and let him escape again! Well, even though he used force of my palm to fly away and removed most of my power, I'm afraid he will freeze to death in this cold winter. Let's retreat!" After saying that, he turned around and left. The dozen people retreated completely in an instant.
After a while, the snow in the furrow of the field suddenly began to wriggle. At first glance, it looked like a ghost with only a face and hands. After careful identification, it was the man in black just now, now dressed in white, with his face still covered with snowflakes. He had just taken a risky move, borrowing the power of the man's palm to flip several feet away, unbuttoned his clothes in the air, and quickly turned over and put them on after landing, hiding in the furrow, grabbing a stone and hitting the tree trunk next to him with all his strength. The snow on the tree immediately fell and covered his whole body, thus deceiving the dozen people. This escape from death is easy to say, but it is something that only a wise man could not think of, and only a bold and careful man would dare to do.
The man let out a long sigh and tried to sit up with both hands, but a mouthful of blood spurted out of his mouth. He knew that the palm strike just now would be no problem under normal circumstances, but today it had severely injured his lungs. The man barely turned over, but he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He used his sword as a crutch and slowly crawled to the road beside him, but as soon as he got to the road, he could no longer support himself and fell to the ground. The man felt his whole body getting colder and colder, and he thought to himself, "Is God going to kill me? I finally escaped from the pursuit of these traitors, but I have to die in this ice and snow? No, I still want to seek revenge on him..." He repeated the enemy's name in his heart for a few times, but he felt that his face seemed to have stiffened and his mouth could no longer speak. Slowly, he could not feel anything.
In the evening, the village road was covered with snow. You had to look carefully to recognize a gray line on the vast snowfield winding to a village. At this time, an old man and a young boy walked on the road, supporting each other. Although the snow on the road was more than a foot deep, the young man didn't care at all. He was very playful. He let go of the old woman and took a few steps forward. Sometimes he bent down and rolled a snowball and threw it hard into the distance. Seeing this, the old woman smiled kindly and didn't stop him. She just shouted with a little worry: "Lan'er, jog, don't fall!" While shouting, the child seemed to be tripped by something and fell in the snow. The boy named "Lan'er" didn't care. He climbed up, patted the snow on his body and looked down at his feet and said: "What is that? Why is it lying in the middle of the road..." His face changed drastically. He jumped a few steps away and turned back and shouted: "Grandma, grandma!"
The old woman heard the unusual cry and rushed to the front. She followed Lan'er's finger and was also startled. She hugged Lan'er into her arms and patted her head while muttering slowly: "Touch her fur, she won't be scared. Pull her ears, she will be scared for a while. Lan'er is not afraid, Lan'er is not afraid."
The thing lying across the road was a frozen corpse, covered with a thick layer of snow. The two bravely brushed away the snow, revealing a purple square face under the snow, with lips tightly bitten, messy hair, thick beard, and frozen. It seemed that he was in his prime. The clothes of the frozen corpse were exquisite and gorgeous, but very thin, and covered with spots of blood. What was even more strange was that the clothes seemed to be turned inside out. Although he was dead, he was holding a long sword tightly in his hand, and the joints were blue and white. I guess he would never let go. The old woman sighed and said to Lan'er in her arms: "It seems that he came from a long way and must have suffered a lot after the long journey. Maybe he wanted to rely on relatives and friends, or maybe he wanted to avoid being hunted down, but he froze to death on the road. He is also a miserable person. If we let him fall on the road, it will scare other passers-by when it gets dark. Let's do a good deed and carry him to the grass by the roadside."
The two men were about to lift the frozen corpse, and saw an object fall out of the corpse, emitting a soft green light on the snow. After putting the corpse in place, Lan'er ran to pick up the object, which turned out to be a jade plaque. He was young and poor, and had never seen such an item. He didn't know that he was holding a piece of fine ancient jade, which could be exchanged for hundreds of taels of silver in any pawnshop. He just squatted down next to the frozen corpse and stuffed the jade plaque in his hand back into the man's clothes.
The old woman smiled when she saw Lan'er doing this, and she seemed to be quite appreciative. However, she saw that Lan'er still had one of his hands inside the frozen corpse's clothes, and he never took it out. He looked up at the old woman in confusion and murmured, "Grandma, why is there still heat on the chest of this corpse?"
The old woman squatted down hurriedly, and probed the nose of the "corpse" with her finger for a long time before she found a very weak breath. It was already dark, and the surroundings were getting colder. You have to know that in the cold winter in the north, you need to work and move from time to time to drive away the cold. At this moment, the two of them had not hurried on their way because they were moving the "frozen corpse", and they were gradually feeling cold all over, and their limbs were a little stiff. The old woman thought to herself, "Lucky we found him, otherwise he would have fainted here and would have frozen to death in an hour or two." She and Lan'er dragged a dozen dead branches from the roadside, tied them up hastily, and placed the man on the dead branches. One of them pulled and the other pushed, sliding on the snowy road. One of them was an old woman over fifty years old, and the other was a child. They took great pains to get the man back home, and they were sweating profusely. Lan'er was still panting while sitting on the doorstep. The old woman pounded her chest, coughed twice, and walked into the house. After a while, there was a crackling sound of burning wood, smoke rose, and the house slowly warmed up.
About half an hour later, the man woke up slowly, opened his eyes, looked around, and found himself in a small house. Inside the house stood an old square wooden table with an oil lamp burning on it, and there were teapots and tea bowls on the table. There were two wooden boxes covered with blue and white cloth stacked against the wall. It looked very simple, with only a few new New Year pictures pasted on the earthen wall, as if to convey some festive mood of the New Year. But he heard a child outside asking hesitantly, "Grandma, shall we go to the market tomorrow to buy firecrackers?" The old woman said, "There is a patient at home. We will go to the town tomorrow to ask a doctor to take the pulse. Let's wait a few days." The child seemed very unhappy and said, "I had agreed with Agui and the others... They are going to say I am stingy again." The old woman replied, "Lan'er, is playing more important or saving a life more important?" The child said, "You want to reason with me again. Of course, saving a life is more important..." The old woman ignored the child's disappointment and ordered, "Lan'er, go in and see if the kang is hot?" Then there was a sound of "da da" footsteps. He quickly stretched out his hands from the quilt and touched the side, but found that his long sword was beside him. He quickly grabbed it in his hand, closed his eyes, and secretly gathered strength in his hand, waiting for someone to come close and hit him by surprise, but he felt that his body was unusually heavy, and the severe injury on his chest was still painful, and he couldn't lift it at all.
While he was thinking, someone approached. A pair of small hands reached under his body and fumbled around for a while, then tucked the corner of the quilt more tightly. The man stood up with all his strength, grabbed the man's wrist with his left hand, and with a clang of his right hand, the long sword was already on the man's neck. It turned out to be a child in his teens. He seemed happy to see him wake up, but gradually turned to fear. There was horror in his eyes, and his lips kept shaking, as if he was about to cry. The man loosened his wrist a little and whispered, "Don't move. Where is this place?"
The child pursed his lips and was about to cry, but seeing that the other person had a decent face but a fierce aura, he dared not cry loudly anymore and said softly, "This is my home. Grandma and I carried you back." After saying that, he began to sob softly. But he heard footsteps getting closer. The old woman was walking outside and said, "Lan'er, why don't you speak? Is the kang warm enough?" He must have been anxious because he didn't hear a reply for a long time, so he wanted to go into the house to check.
When the child heard the old woman coming in, he hurriedly shouted, "Grandma, don't come in!" From the sound, he was very worried that the old woman would be in danger after coming in. He ignored the long sword on his neck and saw the cotton curtain being lifted from the outside. First, a bowl of hot soup was handed in, and then an old woman came in. Seeing the scene in the house, the bowl in his hand shook and some of it splashed out. The old woman also looked horrified, but she forced herself to be calm. She put the bowl of hot soup on the table, turned around and looked at it for a while and said, "You look much better. You are frozen. You are wearing only a single layer of clothes in such a heavy snowstorm. No one can resist it! We are an ordinary farmer in a remote mountain village. Even the tax collectors rarely come down on their own. There will be no danger. You don't have to worry about anything. Let the child go." Although these words were said very calmly, her voice was trembling slightly, and it was obvious that she was very afraid that the man would hurt the child in his hand.
The man hesitated for a moment, but the child beside him kept struggling and shouting, "You bad man! If it weren't for us, you would have frozen to death!" The man was shocked and showed a look of shame on his face, but he still didn't let go. The old woman saw that he was moved and said slowly, "We saved you and don't expect you to be grateful. We just ask you not to hurt us, an old man and a child."
The man's face turned slightly red. He knew that he was in an ordinary farmhouse and was not in danger, so he put down his sword, let go of the child's wrist, got down from the kang and bowed, "My benefactor, please don't blame me for being reckless. It's because I am a frightened bird now. I have to be on guard against others hurting me even in my dreams..." After that, he pulled the child's wrist again. Seeing a circle of bruises from his grip, he felt very ashamed. The child was still afraid. Seeing him pulling his wrist, he did not dare to resist. He just looked at his expression silently, which was a look of extreme guilt.
