Winter has always been the season when God takes people's lives, some rich people can't survive the winter when they are old, and the poor people are even more difficult, and the winter of Chengde in the seventeenth year is extremely cold.

At this time, the wind and snow are urgent.

"Baby, it's not cold......"

"Uncle, I'm not cold......"

It was snowing heavily, and in a broken temple outside the capital, an old man and a young man who were not wearing very thick clothes were leaning on the low wall of the broken temple, trying their best to avoid the cold wind blowing from everywhere, but unfortunately, this broken temple was leaking everywhere, no matter how to dodge, there would always be a cold wind blowing on the body of the old man and the young man.

When people are cold, they feel homesick.

The young man looked like he was fourteen or fifteen years old, he was shivering from the cold, the whole person was constantly swinging, his body was stiff and twisting his head to look at the old man, and his upper and lower teeth were constantly fighting.

"Uncle... Uncle, I... I want to go home. ”

The young man finished such a sentence with great difficulty, using the authentic Yongzhou dialect.

The old man was his uncle, his mother's uncle.

The old man also reluctantly opened his eyes, turned his head to look at the young man, and his voice trembled: "Xin'er...... You... Your mother is gone, before she left, I asked me to take you to the capital to find your father, and this capital will be your home in the future..."

Neither of them stammered, but because of the extreme cold, they were stumbling in their speech, and it took a long time to barely finish a sentence.

The young man's name is Li Xin, fifteen years old this year, his mother died of illness in the middle of this year, and it was not until before he left that the woman who had been scolded as a "slut" for more than ten years confided in Li Xin's life experience, saying that Li Xin was the son of Li Shen, the Marquis of Pingnan, in the capital, and let his uncle take Li Xin to the capital to look for relatives.

Thinking of this, the young man reluctantly lowered his head and glanced at the snow-white jade pendant in his hand, which was engraved with the word "Shen", which was a token given to him by his mother, and asked him to take this jade plate to Beijing to find his father.

The young man gritted his teeth and took the jade pendant into his arms, tears faintly in his eyes.

"Yes...... We went to that yesterday...... Hou Mansion. ”

Li Xin spoke intermittently, and his thin lips were almost bitten out of blood.

"The man in the Hou Mansion...... Scold me too...... Bastard. ”

In the past ten years, Li Xin has been dependent on his mother, his mother has been scolded for more than ten years, he has naturally been scolded for more than ten years, after growing up, he has not fought with others for this, and then his mother simply took him to move into the deep mountains, and the mother and son rarely have contact with outsiders.

Such a young man who has been scolded for more than ten years, this time he came to Beijing with hope, he wanted to see what his father was like, and asked him why he didn't come to visit him and his mother for so many years.

However, when he and his uncle knocked on the door of Pingnanhou's Mansion, they got two cold words.

"Wild seeds."

Li Xin has listened to these two words for more than ten years, and he has gradually gotten used to them, but when these two words come out of the Li family's mouth, they are particularly harsh.

Uncle blinked his eyes with difficulty, the whole person curled up, hugged Li Xin in his arms, and said in a low voice: "Your father, he is going out on a campaign, I didn't know you were coming, and when he comes back from outside, he will naturally come to recognize you, and when the time comes, your hard days will come to an end." ”

As he spoke, the old man took out a small wooden pot from his waist and handed it to Li Xin's mouth.

"Come, open your mouth and take a sip, it's too cold, take a sip to warm up."

This small pot made of wood contains extremely turbid spirits, which the old man brought all the way from Yongzhou to the capital.

Li Xin shook his head, and the whole person shrank in the old man's arms: "Uncle...... You drink it, Xin'er is not cold. ”

The uncle's face was old, and he used his last strength to pour the only bit of bad wine left in the wooden pot into Li Xin's mouth.

Li Xin's body warmed up a little, his body shrank in the old man's arms, and he cried faintly: "Uncle, I don't want to be in the capital, let's go back to Yongzhou tomorrow, okay... It's so cold here......"

Yongzhou is in the south, the capital is in the north, in comparison, the winter in the capital is more difficult.

The old man was also a little sad in his heart, he patted Li Xin's back, and his voice was weak: "Okay...... Tomorrow...... Let's go back to Yongzhou. ”

The cold wind blew again, and both of them shrank back.

The wind and snow outside are urgent, and the heavy snow has blocked all the roads, dooming the old and the young to never be able to return to Yongzhou.

Because on this cold winter night, both of them froze to death in this dilapidated temple.

………………………………………………

Hiss...... It's cold...

When Li Xin woke up again, the only feeling was a biting cold.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the white sky.

Odd......

In my memory, I was drinking with those little bastards last night, and then I was drunk by a few bastards, and fell asleep on the ground, how did I wake up...... So cold?

Soon, the biting chill made Li Xin completely sober up.

He looked around for a moment, and the sky was white.

Hell, it was summer last night!

Then he saw an old man lying beside him, as if he were holding himself tightly in his arms, but his face had turned a lifeless blue-gray, apparently dead for a long time.

Li Xin staggered up from the ground, and barely made out that this was a ruined temple, and there was nothing else in the ruined temple, only some broken statues of gods, and some messy straw.

At this time, he had only one thought in his mind.

Damn, these little bastards?

But as soon as this thought flashed through his mind, he felt that his eyes were dark, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

He was too weak.

To fight the cold, people need to consume their own calories, and now his body has reached the extreme.

So Li Xin simply fainted.

At this time, it was already the afternoon of the second day, at the gate of the broken temple, an old man in rags, pushing a wheelbarrow, led a tattered little girl who was also wearing it, passing by the broken temple.

This is also a pair of old and young, the old man is about sixty or seventy years old, and the little girl looks young, at most about five or six years old.

However, unlike Li Xin, the old man and the little girl were covered with black ash, especially the old man, his hands had almost turned black, and the nails of his ten fingers were full of black soot.

Clearly, they make a living selling carbon.

It's too cold in winter, and the old men in the city don't use the heat in their bodies to resist it, they will set up beautiful stoves in their homes, and then throw a few pieces of carbon in the stove, and the whole room will become warm like spring.

Most of the carbon in this era is charcoal.

Charcoal needs to be burned by people, so there is a profession of cutting wood and burning charcoal, going up the mountain to cut down trees in winter, and then burning it into charcoal to sell to the old men in the city.

However, in this profession, if you can only burn ordinary charcoal, you can only earn a mouthful of living money, not even food and clothing, let alone being rich and expensive.

The poor clothes are single, and they are worried about the cold weather, and they are talking about them.

At this time, it was already afternoon, an old man and a young man passed by the gate of the broken temple, and the little girl suddenly stopped, pointed to Li Xin who fell in the broken temple, and said crisply: "Ah Weng, there is a person in the temple......"

The old man stopped, put the wheelbarrow aside, and then walked into the broken temple with the little girl in his arms, and after seeing Li Xin, who fell to the ground and had a handsome eyebrow, the old man bent down and probed his dark hand under Li Xin's nose, and after confirming that Li Xin was still breathing, the charcoal seller sighed faintly, and his voice was old: "It's also a poor child, this cold day, there is no way to live here." ”

As he spoke, he bent over, walked to the gate of the broken temple, pushed the wheelbarrow in, and then carried Li Xin onto the wheelbarrow with considerable effort.

Fortunately, Li Xin is very thin, otherwise he really can't move this young man.