In the south of the Yangtze River, cicadas chirp all day and night after summer. Whether the noise is annoying or not depends on the person.
The rickety carriage stopped. Shangluo struggled hard twice before she could barely open her eyes. From the corner of the curtain, she could vaguely see the night sky outside. Only scattered stars hung in the sky. It seemed that today It's not a good night.
She opened the curtain, and there were two people sitting on the ground by the fire not far away. Beside the carriage, Lu Hanjiang stood with his hands behind his hands, as if waiting for her.
"Girl, you've been sleeping for most of the day, let's have something to eat." As he said that, Lu Hanjiang handed over a small cloth bag. When Shangluo opened it, there were pancakes and some dried meat inside, which was pretty good as far as dry food for the trip.
"Thanks."
Shangluo took a bite of the pancake and chewed it. She hammered her chest and swallowed it with some difficulty.
"Drink some water." Lu Hanjiang thoughtfully handed over another water bag. Shangluo took it without saying a word, pulled out the stopper and poured it into her mouth.
"Phew, come to life."
Shangluo wiped off the water stains on her mouth with her sleeve, returned the water bag to Lu Hanjiang, stretched and asked, "Where are we going?"
"Capital." Lu Hanjiang leaned on the carriage shaft, looked at the long official road, and said, "Your father is very capable, and he entrusted you to a noble man."
With that said, he handed the jade pendant Li Guishou gave him to Shangluo. It was a piece of fine jade made of excellent material, with a dragon tattooed on one side and the word "Luo" written on the other side.
Luo, a royal surname.
"Luo..." Although Shangluo doesn't like reading, she still knows this from her daily walks in teahouses and streets. She turned over the jade pendant for a long time and said, "Isn't it true that my father is not a gangster? A big shot in the imperial court, this jade... is my father a prince?"
"Be bold and make a guess. Maybe your father is the emperor." Lu Hanjiang smiled.
"Emperor..." People in the world have no respect for the imperial family. Shangluo quickly imagined a man with a beer belly chasing a group of women who didn't dress properly in a big room. picture.
She flattened her mouth and muttered: "It's better to be a gangster."
"Pfft-cough cough cough!"
Not far away, Liu spit out a mouthful of wine from his hand, choked his throat, and kept coughing. Ying Wushang who was standing by him quickly came over to pat him on the back a few times, and then pulled him away: "Brother Liu, I'm drunk. Now go to the vent to sober up, you must be drunk too."
"Ahem, cough, let's go together, cough, let's go together." The two of them ran away together.
Shangluo watched the two people walking away and stuck out her tongue: "Cowards."
"You are quite brave." Lu Hanjiang said amusingly.
Shangluo chuckled. Slowly, she stopped smiling and asked softly, "What happened to my father?"
"Dead," Lu Hanjiang paused and said, "The body has been buried by your neighbors for you. If you have the opportunity to return to Jiangnan in the future, you can go and pay homage."
"It's good to have a tomb. I thought he was cut into pieces by the Huangfu family and thrown into the river." Shangluo looked up at the stars, her voice was hollow, and she sounded a little less angry.
"The resentment of a person's death disappears. The Huangfu family is a noble family, and there is no reason to live with a corpse."
Lu Hanjiang said melancholy, and he took out a note and handed it to Shangluo: "The cemetery and the funeral are worth one yuan, a total of seven taels and three cents. If you give up the change, let's count it as seven taels."
"You buried my father in front of Huangfu's house! You're stealing money!"
Shangluo's little face wrinkled into a bun shape. She might not even be able to raise so much money even if she sold her. She looked at the jade pendant in her hand: "This thing should be worth dozens of taels."
"Don't, don't, don't, this time I'm doing justice and saving money." Lu Hanjiang was speechless. Shang Luo could really do this. If the royal jade pendant was pawned by her in the pawn shop, it would be great fun.
"Hmm, Xiao Qiao, you are quite a good person." Shangluo squeezed over, bumped Lu Hanjiang with her shoulder, and said with a smile.
"I remembered something I haven't told you yet," Lu Hanjiang cleared his throat and said with a smile: "Actually, my surname is Lu and my first name is Hanjiang. In case your biological father is a big shot, you have to remember how much time you spend in front of him. Praise me."
"Lu...Okay, what do you want to praise you for? I want you to praise you for almost shooting my father into a hedgehog?"
"Hey, isn't that your fake father? Let's forget about it."
"The fake father is also my father!" Shangluo waved her arms and bared her teeth.
"That's all up to you." Lu Hanjiang shrugged.
"Okay, then if you give me another three taels of silver, I won't care about you." Shangluo stretched out her hand towards Lu Hanjiang happily.
Lu Hanjiang rolled his eyes: "Your father is only worth three taels of silver. Hey, what do you want the money for?"
"It's expensive on the road. You're leaving in such a hurry, just throw me in the car. I haven't arranged the ceremony at home, so I'm not allowed to buy some new ones." Shangluo said matter-of-factly.
"You don't think I can earn a lot for a thousand households in a month, do you?" Lu Hanjiang took out the money bag from his arms, weighed it, and looked at the sky speechlessly. This month may have been in vain.
Shangluo took three taels from it and returned the deflated purse to Lu Hanjiang: "Thank you."
Gu~
An inappropriate sound came from Shangluo's belly. Her pretty face turned red, she took out the dry food and ate it silently.
Lu Hanjiang glanced at her and said, "The dry food is prepared by Deputy Liu Qianhu, and the court will reimburse it. The noodles are not worth much, so just eat the dried meat."
When Shangluo thought about it, it did make sense, so she put down the dough, picked up the dried meat and started tearing it apart. She didn't know where Lao Liu bought it. The dried meat was surprisingly hard. After a long time of effort, she couldn't tear off a strip. , hit him with his teeth.
Lu Hanjiang really couldn't see it, so he took out a small knife from the carriage bag and gave it to Shangluo: "Use this, it's more convenient."
"Hmm."
Shangluo removed the dried meat from under her teeth, picked up the knife and was about to strike, but was suddenly stunned for a moment. She came to her senses and used the knife to press hard on the dried meat several times. However, the blade of the knife was only embedded in the dried meat and she could no longer move. .
Shangluo had no expression on her face. She smashed the meat on the shaft of the carriage several times, but she couldn't pull out the knife. She looked at the knife intently, and suddenly felt nauseated. She covered her mouth, got off the carriage, and headed towards the landing. The nearby woods flew away.
Lu Hanjiang silently put away the dry food, picked up the blanket in the carriage, and followed.
Shangluo rushed all the way, and her foot was accidentally hit by a stone. She fell down and rolled several times. The wound on her leg began to hurt. She curled up together, buried her head between her knees, and sobbed slowly. It came out slowly and gradually turned into howling.
When Lu Hanjiang walked over, Shangluo cried so loudly that he didn't notice anyone approaching. He covered the little girl with a blanket and listened to her crying for half the night without saying a word.
Maybe she was tired from the pain, so Shangluo stretched out an arm from under the blanket, groping around for something, and said hoarsely: "My throat hurts, do you have any water?"
After getting no response for a while, Shangluo stretched her head out of the blanket, only to find that Lu Hanjiang had fallen asleep.
Shangluo was furious and punched Lu Hanjiang's legs.
"Huh? Is it dawn?" Lu Hanjiang opened his eyes drowsily.
"I'm thirsty and need some water!" Shangluo covered her head with a blanket again.
"Here." Lu Hanjiang yawned and put the water bag in her hand.
The hand holding the water bag retracted under the blanket, and soon the blanket was wet. Shangluo coughed for a while, and then said, "The money will be returned to you when I get to the capital and I can find a way to earn enough."
"Forget it, just think of me as helping people in need."
"I said I'd pay it back!" Shangluo suddenly opened the blanket and stared into a pair of rabbit-red eyes. At this moment, she was stubborn and unreasonable.
"Okay, okay, you have the final say."
