A few months passed by. There is no time in the city, so don't praise the slow passage of time in the world. There are more than a thousand generations of ordinary people who have lived in Fengcheng for generations. From the time when they were young, wearing fresh clothes and angry horses, with hair on their temples as sharp as razor blades, to the time when they have gray beards, they are enjoying their old age. It seems that they are far from being separated by a very long time. Things change, stars move, spring and autumn intersect, hundreds of rivers return to the sea, and there is no end to the eastward flow.
During these seemingly uneventful months, Fengcheng was actually not peaceful. However, most people did not bother to talk about the rumors after dinner. Even if they did mention them intentionally, they would just add fuel to the fire and treat them as their own. In the end, no one can give a final say on whether everything is true or false. Most of the talk is just a joke or drunken talk. The bottom line is that it falls into the inferior category.
Among them, some of the strangest things that are worth talking about are the most indistinguishable from the word City Lord's Mansion. After all, among the three inner cities, only Toujia City can get some information about the City Lord's Mansion without too much speculation. , you can guess whether the rumor is credible or not. As for the city that is far away from the city lord's palace and ordinary people cannot easily enter the inner city, it is inevitable that some people will hear the wind as rain and the fog as clouds. Not to mention how many people would add fuel and jealousy to the word-of-mouth transmission, even if everything is passed word for word to these cities, it is still extremely difficult to find out whether it is credible or not.
The lord of Fengcheng had invited Gongsun Pan to a banquet a few months ago. No one knew about it at first, and the matter was kept secret. However, the next day, the sky above the lord's palace in Fengcheng was covered by clouds and mist, and the sound was so powerful that it blocked the sky and blocked the sun. Rolling winds and thunder poured down. In fact, the three inner cities were almost completely wrapped up, and only now are they beginning to show signs of collapse.
Listening to the sound of the wind coming from Neijia City, the clouds and fog were so strong that they were not even in the face of rain or frost. Even in the deep autumn sky, traces of clouds and mist can still be seen from Zhongyi City, and there are even more strange words. , it is said that someone once passed by the city lord's palace and saw that the city lord had jumped on the top of the clouds, and the same tail was as tall as the city lord's palace. The swans were fighting together. The lightning danced in the stream, and it seemed that the magical powers of the immortal family were frequently coming out.
But these words are mostly nonsense. People often just believe that strange things have happened to Fengcheng recently. In order to make the people in the city feel at ease, they make up such a story, saying that it is the city lord who is fighting with the swan bird. When the time comes, When the clouds and mist dissipated, they immediately said that it was the city lord who had subdued the dragon and descended the bird. No matter how good he was in building momentum, all reason would fall on the head of the city lord of Feng City. It was really a good plan.
No matter how noisy the matter is in Inner A City, after all, they are far apart and cannot cause too much trouble in Outer B City.
However, although the three cities of Waibing have always been relatively peaceful, in recent months, chaos has begun to appear. At first, people always had luck, thinking that they were forced by Han Jiangling or Fu Guiru earlier.
It can also be said that the shopkeeper of Buwu Tea House was forced by Waibing Sancheng to hang himself on the beam of the tea house that he had worked hard for many years. However, the chaos in Waibing City ended, but few people could have imagined that this man who resolutely asked for help The dead teahouse owner was only the first glimpse into the chaos in Fengcheng.
After the old shops that had been operating for many years in Waibing City were destroyed one after another, almost all businesses in the market were destroyed. It was difficult for everyone in Fengcheng to find a job to make a living and support their families. However, as long as there was a business to open up, it would be like the sea. Many unemployed people came to the door and almost broke the threshold. However, in this case, business people must reduce their monthly salary to a low level. Fengcheng has a vast land and rich resources, a large population, and the most indispensable thing is manpower. But even though all kinds of businesses have reduced money to extremely low levels, there is still no money to be made. Just for the shop space in the streets and the rent of the land, which is worth every inch of land, may not be able to be collected before the end of the year.
In just a few months, nearly 70% of the shop business collapsed, and people everywhere were unemployed. They had neither Hukou money nor the skills to start a business. Fengcheng was originally expanded, and houses and mansions were added to Waibingcheng, but it was no longer possible. It is difficult for people to make a living with such redundant money, let alone doing stupid things that waste money.
At that time, money was cherished for one's own sake, all in order to survive and support the family. Without money, the business in the market became even more decadent. However, the scholarly family was not among the famous families, and he studied hard for many years. Firstly, there are no officials on Yangguan Road, and secondly, even if you step on the single-plank bridge, you still may not be able to find an errand in Hukou. On the contrary, in the various government offices, there is countless money collected from Inner City, and almost all of it goes to the powerful. In their hands, they were exploited at all levels, but they could not be sent to the people in the three cities of Waibing. They were struggling to survive, and there was no money or food available.
Every man-made disaster will be followed by a natural disaster. Throughout the ages, there have been countless precedents of this kind, so it is also called "the anger of heaven and the resentment of people".
First, there were clouds and fog that blocked the sky in Inner Jia City, and the sky was not visible for months. Then, there were scattered villages and small towns outside Tongfeng City in Outer Bing City. There was no rain in April and May. The ground was ravaged and the fields were barren. , there used to be continuous fertile fields with no distant mountains. After this great disaster, there were sinkholes everywhere. The fields were barren and dry for a while, and the barren fields stretched for hundreds of miles. There were cracks in the barren fields. There were nearly several people, and the deep cracks overlapped like the top of a throne. The skin and flesh of the strong and powerful farmer was steamed to death by the sun, leaving only human bones.
Everyone says that Fengcheng is rich and noble, with inexhaustible money and grain. In Nejia City alone, the warehouses are overflowing with surplus grain. Year after year of hoarding surplus grain is enough to cause mold. There are strings of copper coins, and ropes are broken. Who knows where to go? For this reason, after only a few consecutive months of severe disasters, Neijia City no longer had the resources to help, and the clay statue and golden body could not protect itself when crossing the river.
There are a total of five cities in China, B and C, with more than tens of millions of refugees. At first, there were often dignitaries coming to Neijia City to receive seals from the city lord, but they did not see many refugees. Fortunately, Zhongyitou City, which had not suffered any disaster, was still brightly lit and the doors were not closed at night. It was a scene of peace, so most of them were deserted. Even if there are people who are willing to go to the other cities to observe, they will inevitably be deceived by the officials of other cities and do not know the truth. When it comes to reporting to the city lord's palace, even the slightest amount of money and food assistance has not been given to these five cities. The world is already in dire straits.
The entire city of Feng, within Zhongyitou City, is filled with lights, smoke and birds. There are young masters in rich robes and brocades who are leaning on the railings and composing poems. Every word of them is praising the lord of Feng City for his great achievements. His words and deeds are far better than flattery. However, outside the city of Zhongyi, there are ghosts crying from time to time, bones exposed in the wild, and Yi Zi competing for food. For several months, no wild dogs have been seen, let alone the true colors of ancient trees. Instead, there is a miserable expanse of white trees. In the belly of the skinny and hungry people, there are probably Those who grow animal skins from grass are very lucky.
Han Jiangling had already taken advantage of the previous catastrophe to send his parents to Zhongyitou City based on his friendship with Fu Guiru. Although they had not been sent to Inner City, it was Fu Guiru's best effort, regardless of No matter how the woman persuaded him, Han Jiangling was not willing to seek refuge in Yicheng. Instead, he took the child, the old man and the young man who was about to die, and walked among the refugees until they reached Zhongyitou City. Outside, I realized there was no way out.
Inside the city wall, every household has rice cooking in the oven. Outside the city wall, there are tens of millions of refugees who are already unable to walk and have no food in their bellies. There are cries but most of them are silent.
Crying and howling also requires strength. No matter whether you can barely stand up here, or you have fallen to the ground and been trampled and took away most of your lives, you no longer have much strength.
On the city wall, the armor and stomach glow, and the bows and crossbows reflect the moon. Han Jiangling, whose face was already dirty and dull, raised his head with difficulty and looked towards the city. Some people showed sadness, some showed contempt, and more people had unbearable expressions on their faces, but they had to hold the crossbows in their hands.
In the silent night, some people were carrying their infant children, and some were carrying their parents. But everyone was carrying mistakes that they should not have to carry themselves. Most people didn't know who they were carrying for. The bitter pill of Luo Yu, but he still kept his cloudy eyes open, guessing what kind of rice porridge the people in the city were cooking.
"After all, this is City B. In this year of great calamity, there is still the fragrance of rice. I have almost forgotten how rice porridge tastes." It is rare that this young man who was already terminally ill could survive to this point. Many times on the road , Han Jiangling almost threw this man off his back, but after stretching out his hand to check his breathing, he found that this man still had an extremely weak breath, and now he was able to tremble and speak. It was really weird. .
"It's better to save some energy. We don't know when the city gate will be opened. If we save some strength to endure it, maybe there is still a little bit of life left." The woman had already taken off her gorgeous clothes and exchanged all the money on hand for grain, rice and oxcarts. Cai Gong and several people walked hard to the foot of Zhongyitou City, touched Han Jiangling with their elbows, and followed the guidance of their eyes to an uninhabited place. They couldn't help but knock open a snack in their arms that was as hard as a mountain stone and handed it to them. Half of it went to Han Jiangling.
To this day, Han Jiangling still doesn't know why this woman who never goes down from the small building suddenly values him very much, let alone how she can go to City B or even City A with her parents. , why insisted on staying, suffering the pain of wandering all the way, but when the woman took the half-recognized dim sum from her arms into the palm of her hand, Han Jiangling still hesitated for a moment, and still did not reach out to take it.
The woman was embarrassed for a moment, but she still didn't take her hand back.
"I made this snack by myself, and it's not bad in quality, so I kept it until now. I don't know if it can still be eaten, but it should be non-dirty." When she said it was not dirty, the light in the woman's eyebrows suddenly rolled.
After living in the small building for many years, several people have tasted Zhu Chun. I think that people like Han Jiangling, who are so blunt that they don't know how to express their words, must not be willing to accept this snack.
But Han Jiangling blinked, reached out and took the half of the green snack, put it in his mouth and chewed it carefully. However, the taste was really hard to describe. His face twisted for a long time, but he still couldn't swallow it. The woman was almost crying, laughing and cursing. He punched Han Jiangling on the shoulder.
"If you can't eat it, don't eat it."
"I know he's not dirty, and his skills are okay. If he practices for a few more years, he might not be able to get married." Han Jiangling, whose cheeks were shaking like a lost dog, squeezed out a smile, which made the woman's eyes turn red.
