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In the wilderness, it is difficult to live inhabited by people. The mountains here are remote and the land is barren, making it unsuitable for ordinary people to farm and live.
Here you can see thorns everywhere and thorn vines crawling on the ground. Because the land here is very barren, the branches and tips of the old trees and vines are all burnt yellow.
In such remote countryside, when the scorching sun hangs in the sky, both trees and vines are sick and wilted. Even if birds and animals occasionally appear, they are hiding in the shade with their heads hanging down and panting. .
In such a wilderness, everything is boring and lifeless. Although there are green branches and wild vines, there is no real life. It seems that all life here will just lie down and wait for death.
It gives people a feeling of being sick and wilting. When all life grows here, it will feel lifeless. Everything in the world is just that. There is nothing in the world worth living and nothing worth pursuing. of.
When the sun is blazing above your head, when you see the green trees and wild vines wilting with disease, when you see the scorched yellow on the treetops, when the heat is rising at noon, you will have a feeling, If you are alive here, you might as well bury yourself here and forget about dying here. Stop living!
In such a boring wilderness suburb, there is a small flat land halfway up the mountain. This small flat land is surrounded by thorny wild vines and thatch with sharp leaves.
There is a small hut built in such a small flat land. The hut is made of old wood as a frame and then covered with mud. This is a very primitive hut. Even the roof is made of old bark. .
From this hut, you can see how poor the owner of this family is. It is obvious at a glance that the owner of this family lives in a barren life.
The wooden door of the hut was ajar. Sometimes, when a feeble breeze blew by, the wooden door would make a feeble "squeak-squeak-squeak" sound.
There is a path in front of the house. Let's call it a path for now, because such a path is covered with thorns and there are no traces of the road. We can only say that someone has walked here, so we can barely call it a road. Bar.
It can be seen from such a small road that no one has been here at all. Except for the owner of the hut who occasionally walks down the mountain, no one has ever walked on this small road.
It was on such a small road that it was almost impossible to find a path. Today, a young man climbed up. This young man pushed through the weeds and thorns, climbed all the way from the foot of the mountain to halfway up the mountain, and climbed to the hut.
The young man who climbed up from the mountain was Li Qiye. When he saw this hut, he couldn't help but smile.
There is a small open space next to the hut. In this open space, there are a few sparse vegetables. In addition to the few sparse vegetables, a small ridge of sweet potatoes is also planted.
At this time, there was an old man working in this small vegetable field. In fact, this old man was not very old. Based on the age of a mortal, he was about fifty years old.
Although he looked about fifty years old, he looked a little shabby and looked old and weathered.
This old man was wearing gray clothes. The clothes were gray and white. It could be seen that the old man had washed these clothes again and again. Although the clothes are washed frequently, over time they become worn and dirty.
Even though the clothes were washed frequently, they were not very clean, and the old man was working in the fields, so there were dirt stains on them.
The old man didn't have many wrinkles on his face, but his complexion was sallow and the skin on his hands looked dark. It could be seen that the old man not only had poor food and housing, but also worked hard for many years and was obviously malnourished.
The old man's hair is gray and sparse. Although he combs it neatly every day, he inadvertently makes it a little messy during work.
When the old man opens his mouth sometimes, he will find that there are not many teeth left in his mouth, and a few sparse teeth are still growing there. Even if there are only a few teeth left, they are still black and yellow. And the old teeth have already developed cavities.
It is such an old man who lives in such a wilderness suburb. He works at sunrise and rests at sunset. On weekdays, he can only rely on a few crops grown in the land to satisfy his hunger. He barely lets himself starve to death and spends his time here. Day after day.
Just imagine, this is such an old man, living alone in the wilderness, with no children, no relatives or friends to visit him on weekdays, let alone neighbors. Working with the loess and the scorching sun behind you during the day, and sleeping in the darkness of the wooden couch at night, what a barren life it is, what a lonely life it is.
At this time, the old man was waving an old hoe with both hands, hoeing the sweet potatoes growing in the soil. He is also old, and every time he hoe the soil, it seems very difficult. A young man can hoe out the sweet potatoes in the soil with one or two hoe, but he has to swing the hoe at least ten or eight times to get it out.
After hoeing out the muddy sweet potatoes, he squatted down to knock out the mud one by one and put it into the bamboo basket that had a small hole in it.
Every time he picked up a sweet potato, the old man gasped from exhaustion.
While watching the old man hoeing the ground, Li Qiye couldn't help but smile. He walked over without saying a word, bent down, picked up the hoeed potatoes, knocked off the soil, and put them into the bamboo shoots.
In this way, the old man was hoeing the soil with difficulty, while Li Qiye was picking up the sweet potatoes. Every time the old man swung the hoe three or five times, he would put it down to take a breath and rest for a while, while Li Qiye was leisurely and leisurely, picking up the sweet potatoes. Knock the dirt off the sweet potatoes very rhythmically.
The two people worked together seamlessly, but never said a word to each other from beginning to end, as if this was a matter of course and everything was normal.
After spending most of the day, the old man finally hoeed out six or seven sweet potatoes from the soil. At this time, the old man picked up the bamboo shoots, picked up the hoe, and returned to his hut.
Without the invitation of the old man, Li Qiye also walked into the hut. He saw that the inside of the hut was a little dark. Even when he walked in in broad daylight, his eyesight was dark. It was hard to get used to it.
There were not many things in the hut, and it could even be said that there was nothing superfluous. There was a wooden bed on the left side of the hut. Although the quilt on the bed had been washed, it was also blackened. On the right is an earthen stove, and an old iron pot is almost rusty.
There is a wooden table near the window. The small wooden table can only seat two or three people. All meals and tea are on this wooden table.
At this time, Li Qiye was sitting in front of this extremely simple wooden table, looking at the fields outside, looking at the diseased trees and wild vines, he couldn't help but support his chin with his palms, and fell asleep, as if he was about to fall asleep. .
The old man had already made a fire to cook the sweet potatoes, and the flames were dancing on the stove. This may be the only active thing in this world. When you see the flames dancing, at least you know you are still alive.
The old man sat dryly in front of the stove, adding some thatch to the stove from time to time. He was as dead as a dead tree and lifeless, as if his only purpose in living in this world was to wait for death.
In the midst of this idle chatter, finally, after a long time, the fragrance of sweet potatoes wafts in, which finally brings a little bit of vitality to the world. At least when your stomach is growling with hunger, you can smell it. When you smell this fragrance, you will suddenly feel powerful all over your body.
At this time, Li Qiye, who had fallen asleep, also opened his eyes and sat up straight.
At this time, the old man had already put the cooked sweet potatoes into the dustpan and brought it to the table. When the sweet potato was served, before the old man could sit down, Li Qiye took it without any ceremony, peeled it three or five times, and ate it slowly.
The old man also took one, peeled it off, and chewed it slowly. It seemed that he had bad teeth and ate slowly.
"Some people say that he wants to stay away from the hustle and bustle, but no matter how lonely he is, at least there is him in this world, and there is an old man selling buns, or an old woman selling salt." Li Qiye said after eating a sweet potato. : "Actually, this is not loneliness, this is just wanting to be far away from the world."
"When your world doesn't even have the old man selling buns, or the old woman selling salt, then you will be the only one left in this world." Li Qiye said.
The old man was just eating sweet potatoes, as if he was inexpressive and taciturn.
"What is loneliness? It is loneliness here." Li Qiye couldn't help but smile bitterly and said: "Whether it is an immortal emperor or a great emperor, escaping to the place of exploration, he is still famous in the ten worlds, he is still above the nine heavens, he is still the emperor's power Infinite. This is escape, just to avoid being punished by God. And today, we are here eating sweet potatoes, this is called escape from the world."
The old man still didn't speak, just eating sweet potatoes, because he hadn't spoken for a long time, and he couldn't even remember the last time he spoke.
The old man didn't speak, and Li Qiye didn't mind. He peeled another sweet potato and ate it slowly. After a while, he raised his head, glanced at the old man, and said, "When will you die?"
The old man still didn't speak and chewed slowly. He valued this hard-won food very much and ate it very cleanly and carefully.
"I don't know either." After a long time, the old man spoke. He gently sucked his fingers and said, "I am also waiting for the day I die."
"That's right." Li Qiye smiled and shook his head and said: "The only purpose of your life is to wait for death! When we were in the Nine Realms, I told the boy from the Yu family that you still have a small wine shop, and I come here from time to time to drink his bad wine, which is worse than horse urine. His waiting for death is really nothing. At least there are many things in this mortal world for him to see."
"It's too long for you to wait for death. You can't open your six senses, so you just wait for death." Li Qiye said with a smile: "It's not that easy even if you want to die!"
