The autumn day was high and warm. Li Yuan followed Peng Qingying to the edge of the forest to dig a few wild vegetables. On the way back, he picked some mountain mushrooms. Then Li Yuan went to the river to bring back a few buckets of water. Peng Qingying started Washing vegetables and cooking.
Lunch was simple, with fried mountain mushrooms and blanched wild vegetables, but Li Yuan ate it extremely deliciously. He ate it all in one go and kept praising Peng Qingying. Peng Qingying was naturally very happy. After clearing away the bowls, she gave Li Yuan a mat and a small bamboo pillow to take a nap. Li Yuan said that he did not need to take a nap, but Peng Qingying did not insist and went to the second floor of the wooden house.
Li Yuan moved a chair by himself and sat on the wooden porch in front of the house, enjoying the gentle breeze and looking at the beautiful scenery around him, the white clouds and the gurgling river. He felt extremely calm and peaceful. I have to say that life here is miserable and boring, but the scenery here is really beautiful. If I were really a pure person who had nothing to do with the world, I would definitely like living here, even for the rest of my life, but I am not that kind of person.
Fish jumped out of the water from time to time in the river not far away, which caught Li Yuan's attention. Although the lunch meal is delicious, it is vegetarian after all. Li Yuan's stomach and intestines were nourished by meat and wine on weekdays. Occasionally eating vegetarian dishes would make him feel delicious, but when he thought of eating vegetarian dishes every day, his scalp became numb.
I thought everything was fine, and I was free now. Since there were fish in the river, why not catch some and give Peng Qingying some fish to eat.
Thinking of this, Li Yuan acted immediately. He picked up the ax that was lying diagonally behind the house, went to the forest to chop some wood under the sun, dragged it to the river and started making tools. It is nothing more than making a harpoon. A thin wooden pole of uniform thickness is cut into a plum blossom shape at the head. After being sharpened, it is squeezed into the gap of another thicker wooden pole, and then tightly wrapped with rattan. Tied up, it becomes a beautiful harpoon.
Then Li Yuan found a bamboo basket in the wooden house, put a grass rope on it and hung it around his waist.
Peng Qingying did not take a nap. She had been watching Li Yuan's movements secretly from the window on the second floor. She saw that Li Yuan was chopping wood and making things. He was very busy. She didn't know what he was going to do. So the probe looked down and shouted: "What are you going to do?"
Li Yuan wiped a handful of sweat from his forehead, raised his head and said with a smile: "Let me catch some fish in the river. Let's cook them for dinner tonight. Do you want to come?"
Peng Qingying frowned and said, "But I don't know how to swim."
Li Yuan smiled and said, "Just watch me from the shore."
Peng Qingying happily ran downstairs and saw that Li Yuan had already walked to the shallows with a harpoon and a fishing basket on his back, walking back and forth happily on the shore with bare feet. After groping for a moment in the shallows, Li Yuan said loudly: "No, fish like deeper water, and you can't catch them here. Qingying, don't come over here, I'm going into the water."
Listening to the sound of running water beside her ears, Peng Qingying was startled. Just when she was about to speak, she saw Li Yuan quickly taking off his clothes, revealing his strong muscles. Peng Qingying blushed with embarrassment and couldn't help but said angrily: "What are you doing..." Before she could finish her words, she saw Li Yuan make a "plop", untie the bamboo basket and only hold the harpoon, like a It plunged straight into the river like a flying fish, causing a huge splash.
Peng Qingying screamed and covered her face with her hands, but her face was still splashed by cool water droplets. She wiped the water droplets while stamping her feet and looking into the water.
There was no trace of Li Yuan. At first, a black shadow could be seen swimming in the river. After a while, nothing could be seen, not even the water bubbles. Peng Qingying stood on the shore, looking straight at the water, anxiously searching for Li Yuan's figure, but as time passed, Ah Luo became a little panicked. It had been too long. Could it be that Li Yuan couldn't come up?
"Where are you? Where are you?" Peng Qingying started to shout, her voice echoed on the river, but no one answered except the echo.
"Don't scare me!" Peng Qingying's voice sounded like she was crying. After all, this underground river is notoriously deep.
Suddenly, there was a "crash" sound in the middle of the river about ten feet away, and Li Yuan's head popped up quickly like a spear. He wiped the water droplets on his face with one hand, and raised the harpoon high with a two-foot-long spear. The big fish is twisting and jumping.
"Qingying, do you see that? What a fat fish! You live by the river, surrounded by fish, but you eat plain vegetables and plain rice every day. Isn't it a waste of natural resources?" Li Yuan shouted with a laugh.
Peng Qingying's heart finally dropped as she raised her throat, and she hurried closer. After Li Yuan swam back to the shore, she caught the jumping fish, threw it into the bamboo basket, and said eagerly: " You scared me to death! I didn’t come up for a long time, and I thought you couldn’t come up..."
Li Yuan shook his wet long hair and said with a smile: "Why, do you think you are going to be a widow? You have a good idea."
Peng Qingying blushed and whispered: "Huh, it's a matter of life and death. Of course I'm worried about you. What are you thinking about!"
Li Yuan laughed loudly, then stretched his waist a few times, and then jumped into the water again. Peng Qingying also knew that Li Yuan had good water skills, so she no longer worried about him. Soon after, Li Yuan emerged from the water again, and another big fish was harpooned and jumped on the harpoon.
"Wow! What a big fish, even fatter than the one just now!" Peng Qingying exclaimed in surprise.
Li Yuan swam back with a smile. After Peng Qingying took the fish and put it into the basket, she said happily: "If I had known that fish were so easy to catch, I would have learned how to swim and catch the fish myself."
Li Yuan stared at him and said, "Is it easy to catch fish? The fish here are as smart as spirits. I swam after them for a long time before I caught them twice. And do you know that the water in this river is surprisingly cold and icy?" It’s so painful that it goes to the bone.”
Peng Qingying was stunned and said hurriedly: "I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you. This underground river flows from the mountains. Now that it's autumn, it's naturally freezing cold. Come up quickly, don't freeze. body."
Li Yuan shook his head and smiled: "You really care about me, not bad. But I have to catch another one. I will eat one tonight and have two more meals tomorrow. I don't want to just eat wild vegetables."
After catching the third fish, Li Yuan dragged his wet body to the shore. Peng Qingying hurriedly ran back to the wooden house, got a cloth to wipe the cold water on Li Yuan's body, and carefully wiped Li Yuan's long, wet hair. Go ahead, after Li Yuan put on his clothes, the two of them talked and laughed and carried the loot back to the wooden house.
The three big fish were gutted, sprinkled with a little salt and hung to dry, just waiting for cooking in the evening. The busy afternoon passed so quickly. Before the sun set, Li Yuan brought water and watered some fruits and vegetables planted by Peng Qingying near the wooden house.
Naturally, there was a fat fish on the dinner table in the evening. The purely natural fish meat is extremely delicious. There are no complicated condiments in this era, and there are only some simple ingredients like salt here, but the fish soup is still delicious. The two of them ate all the fish meat and drank all the fish soup, smacking their tongues at each other. And laugh.
After dinner, the two spread out a mat by the river and sat under the moonlight chatting. Peng Qingying told Li Yuan many legends and legends about the various tribes in Dongxi, and Li Yuan also told Peng Qingying some experiences that she had never heard before. But from the beginning to the end, the two were just talking and joking, and seemed to deliberately avoid sensitive topics between them, and even avoided excessive eye contact.
Although in this beautiful moonlit night, the temptation of a man and a woman living together in the mountains and forests is obvious, they still deliberately restrained each other. Until late at night, Li Yuan finally closed his eyes in confusion, and under Peng Qingying's gentle words Zhong fell asleep peacefully.
Peng Qingying sat aside and stared at Li Yuan's face with a smile for a long time. Finally, she sighed softly, picked up the quilt and covered Li Yuan, and went upstairs alone. That night, the candlelight in Peng Qingying's room stayed on for a long time and was extinguished only after dawn...
Early the next morning, Peng Qingying brought Li Yuan a set of clothes from somewhere. It was a kind of clothes commonly worn by Dongxi people. It consisted of a leather felt hat, a huge waistcoat, and tight-fitting cloth shirt and trousers. . Li Yuan didn't refuse and put on this suit of clothes, instantly transforming into a handsome Dongxi boy.
In fact, this is a new set of clothes that Peng Qingying spent all night making for Li Yuan. Although the women in Dongxi are good at sewing leather clothes, this is the first time for the pampered Peng Qingying to make clothes for someone. The fabric used is naturally They used local materials, all of which were his own floral skirts and fabrics, so that when Li Yuan put them on, they were a bit gaudy and looked nondescript. However, Li Yuan didn't feel weird at all. He spoke words that Peng Qingying didn't understand, but they were always compliments. .
The second day passed very normally. They just continued to pick vegetables and fruits, watered flowers, caught fish, and told each other stories under the moonlight at night. It couldn't be more peaceful. One of them was wearing a leather skirt and floral dress, the other was wearing a felt hat and waistcoat. They looked like an ordinary Dongxi couple, living a simple and ordinary life.
If any uninformed people saw these two people, they would probably find it difficult to imagine that one of them was the lord of Dongxi and the biological sister of Duke Peng, and the other was the most popular Governor of Langzhou in the Tang Dynasty, Wu Ping. Military envoy.
The second day passed quickly. During the two days, no one came to disturb them. Peng Shiyu seemed to have deliberately not disturbed Li Yuan and Peng Qingying. He actually did not send any soldiers to check, and his duty was to protect Li Yuan personally. Lin Sichang and other personal guards were naturally as anxious as ants on a hot pot, but they had no choice but to wait outside Li Xu.
The moonlight was thick, and when Peng Qingying danced and finished telling the last story, Li Yuan stood up, took off his clothes, put on the purple robe he was wearing when he came, and walked alone to the mottled river.
Next to the river, a cool breeze blows, making people feel refreshed and comfortable. There were gentle footsteps behind her. Peng Qingying was stunned for a long time before finally reacting. At this moment, she walked gently to Li Yuan's side. Her hair was tied up high in a bun with a silver ribbon, revealing her slender and elegant neck, which made her tall and elegant figure stand out.
"You're leaving, right?" In silence, Peng Qingying said softly.
Li Yuan sighed and nodded: "Yes, it has been two days. These are the two days that I have the most leisure time and the happiest time, but I have to go. After all, there are still many things waiting for me to do, and I can't stay here anymore. ”
The two of them were speechless and silent for a while, but they could hear the whistling of the mountain breeze at night, the sound of running water, the chirping of birds and insects, and the waves of forest echoing between heaven and earth like a tide.
