Chapter 1119 Chapter 1060 Returning Home (Part 2)
I dragged passersby on the street and asked several times before finally confirming that the house in front of me was indeed the old house of the Su family.
The Su family left this old house more than ten years ago. After they left, the regicide shocked the world, and "Inner Demon" Ning Yi became the most taboo name in the world. Before the Jingping Shame came, there was of course a round of liquidation of various things related to the Ning family and the Su family, but it didn't last long.
After the Jingping Disgrace, King Kang Zhou Yong came to power and changed the Yuan Dynasty to Jianshuo. In the so-called Longxing land of Jiangning, the old house of the Su family has been sealed. During this period, the Jurchen wars reached Jiangning twice, but even if the city was destroyed, this old house was always peaceful and undisturbed. There were even rumors that Wanyan Xiyin or a certain Jurchen general Rumor has it that I went into town specifically to visit this old house.
Throughout the Jianshuo years, although the "inner demon" Ning Yi has always been a serious concern of the imperial court and the leader of the rebels, his regicide and resistance to the Jin Dynasty are still in some public opinion circles. Vaguely maintaining a positive perception - "Although he Although bad, but indeed powerful," such words, at least in the eyes of Prince Junwu, who was sitting on the defense line of Jiangning and the Yangtze River, were not such rebellious words. Even the princess's palace, which was mainly in charge of public opinion at the time, did not regard such things. He was not caught too harshly.
Of course, the house was destroyed after the Fair Party entered the city. At the beginning, there was a large-scale looting and burning, and the mansions and shops and warehouses of wealthy households in the city were the hardest hit areas. This house had been dusty for a long time, and there were not many belongings left inside except some wooden buildings and old furniture. The house did not suffer much damage in the first round. One of the forces with the banner of King Gao Tian occupied this area as a stronghold. But slowly, people began to spread rumors that this was the past residence of the inner demon Ning Yi.
Several groups of scattered forces cast their gazes over here.
A group of madmen under Zhou Shang first waved big flags, tried to break into the house and set fire to it, trying to burn the symbol of the "inner demon" Ning Yi. With great prestige, they were beaten by King Gao Tian's people. After leaving, Shi Baofeng's people, Xu Zhaonan's people, and even people under the banner of "Fairness King" He Wen also came. For a while, several negotiations broke out here, and then there was a fight.
There were several bloody killings. When people calmed down and looked carefully, they found that although the forces involved in these fights were under the banner of each party, in fact they were not the main force of each faction. Most of them were similar to An inexplicable little gang that plants flags randomly. As for the five largest forces of the Fairness Party, not even one of the generals from the lunatic Zhou Shang made it clear that they wanted to occupy this place.
It may be difficult to say whether there are five forces behind it, but on the surface, it seems that no big shot has clearly expressed his views on the "inner demon" Ning Yi - neither protecting nor protecting. Hostility - this can be regarded as a continuation of the ambiguous attitude that the Fair Party has shown towards the southwestern forces for a long time.
Aware of the existence of this attitude, the other small forces became active and regarded the house as a testing ground for ignoring the situation.
In the first month or so, there were fierce dragons crossing the river from time to time trying to occupy this area, hoping to leave a deep impression in the eyes of the top leaders of the five parties of the Fairness Party. For example, the recently famous "Big Dragon Head" sent a group of men to occupy this place for three days, saying that they wanted to open up a wide range of businesses here. Although they were beaten out, they still managed to win for a few days. reputation.
After that, there was another melee between all parties, until the matter became more and more serious, and almost thousands of people came into battle at one time. The "King of Fairness" was furious, and the "Dragon Sage" among the "Seven Sages" under his command led a team to seal off the entire area, and captured most of the rebels regardless of their flags, and then publicly executed them in a nearby square. One person hit twenty army sticks, and it is said that dozens of sticks were broken, so that the trend of large-scale mercenaries here was suppressed.
After that, the scale of the fights in the Su family's old house was much smaller. Most of them were just confrontations between dozens of people. Some small groups came to open casinos under the banner of Zhou Shang, and some came under the banner of Shi Baofeng. The people with the banner are running the black market inside, and some of the fierce dragons crossing the river will come here. He occupied a yard and stayed here for ten days and a half. Some people tore down the brick walls and sold them. After a while, they found that the Su family's wall tiles could not be counterfeited or verified. They were either outright fakes or simply fake. I brought sellers over to make on-the-spot selections, and various businesses emerged.
“Youngster, you can’t go in there, it’s very messy.”
When he dragged a fair-faced old lady from the Fairness Party to the street for questioning, she was kind enough to persuade him.
“I want to see the old house of the Great Demon King of the Southwest. Grandma.”
“The old house of the devil? Everyone says it is an old house. Which one is it? I can’t find it. Here..."
The old lady said this.
But of course you still have to go in.
It was already evening. Ning Ji spent fifteen cents at one of the entrances of the mansion and bought a broken flag from a Jianghu man, which was said to be passable. The flag belonged to the "Wuhan King" under the command of the "Warrior King". "Shengjun" is a small faction under Wushengjun called "Eisha", which claims to be very powerful.
"With this flag, you can walk along the main road inside, but some courtyards have no doorways and cannot be entered. Seeing that you are a kind-faced person, I would like to advise you to come out before dark and you can choose Bring a favorite brick with you. If something really happens, just shout out..."
Ning Ji nodded calmly, took the flag and put it behind his back, and walked towards the road inside. This side of the Su family's old house originally had no door, but the wall was demolished, revealing the courtyard and passage inside.
The Su family's old house has been built and expanded for nearly a hundred years. It consists of more than forty courtyards. It is no bigger than a palace, but it is definitely not small. The passages between the courtyards are paved with old and thick blue bricks, which seem to still have a sense of stability from the past, but there is a smell of defecation and a bit of putrid smell in the air. Most of the walls next to them are half-length, and some have a big hole in them. , the people in the courtyard leaned against the hole and looked at him with ferocious expressions.
Ning Ji didn't mind this at all. He looked into the yard and saw that the surrounding courtyards were all occupied by people. The trees in the yard had been chopped down, probably chopped into firewood and burned. They had a past. Many of the houses in the traces have collapsed, and some have their doors open. The inside is dark and cold, and some people in the world are used to opening fire in the yard, leaving a mess everywhere. Beside the passage paved with blue bricks, people poured the filth from the toilet into the narrow ditch, and the stench lingered.
There were other pedestrians on the road. Some were pointing and looking at him. Others, like him, might have come to "visit" the former residence of the inner demon. They were being guarded by people from all walks of life. Seeing the chaos inside, they were surprised. He couldn't help but shake his head. At a fork in the road with a half-ruined green wall, someone said that the house next to him was the former residence of the inner demon, and he had to pay twenty coins to enter.
Ning Ji also gave the money.
There are many people living in the courtyard inside. Some people have set up sheds for washing and cooking. The main houses on both sides are relatively well preserved. They are two rows of houses at a right angle of 90 degrees. Someone will point out which room is which. It was Ning Yi's house back then. Ning Ji just looked at it silently for a few times. Someone also came over and asked, "Where did the young man come from?" Ning Ji did not answer him.
This mansion is now a mixed bag of fish and dragons. With the tacit consent of the five parties, no one is enforcing the law inside, so any kind of thing is possible. Ning Ji knew their intentions in asking him, and also knew the intentions of those pointing fingers in the alley outside, but he didn't mind it. He returned to his hometown and chose to be polite before fighting.
If this gift is not respected by others, he will no longer give face to anyone in his old house, and will no longer have any scruples.
Perhaps because his silence was too enigmatic, the people in the yard didn't do anything to him. After a while, someone else was attracted by the "former residence of the inner demon" gimmick, and Ning Ji turned around and left.
The sunlight gradually tilts.
Only a few leaves and old branches stretched from the side of the courtyard wall to the top of the passage, casting dim shadows. Ning Ji walked and watched along the passage of the mansion. In my mother's memory, several beautiful gardens in the Su family's old house have long since disappeared. Some rockeries have been torn down, leaving stone ruins. This dark mansion stretches out, and there seem to be all kinds of people there, some with swords on their backs. The knight rubbed shoulders with him Then, someone was secretly talking about business in the corner, and there seemed to be weird noises coming from the other side of the wall...
There were three courtyards inside, and they all said they were inner demons. The place where you lived. Ning Ji read them one by one, but couldn't tell whether these words were true or not. In the small courtyard where my parents lived, there used to be two small buildings facing each other. Later, one of the small buildings burned down, and they all lived in the other two-story building.
Of course it would be impossible for him to find traces of those two small buildings, let alone the ground left behind after one of them burned down.
These memories of his mother were actually stories from before he was born.
Since then, spring rain and autumn frost have fallen on this house countless times, and heavy snow in winter has covered the ground countless times. At this time, the things of the past have been submerged in this ruins. , it is difficult to distinguish clearly.
There are also some slight traces left.
Ning Ji saw a series of notches on the old bricks of a courtyard wall that seemed to be used to measure his height. The notches only reached his shoulders. He didn’t know which house or which child they belonged to. My parents left it here.
On an old table with only three legs left, someone had left strange graffiti. There were many words around it, and one line seemed to say "Xiao Qi is a fool". Someone else engraved the words "Hello Teacher". There are suns, little flowers, and weird-looking boats and crows in the graffiti.
The sun sets. The light converges in the courtyard. Bonfires were lit in some yards, and various people gathered in their own houses in the darkness. Ning Ji was sitting on the wall of a courtyard. Occasionally, he heard a man shouting from the house opposite: "Jin'e, bring me some wine." ..." This dead house seems to have a breath of life again.
He walked around this large house twice, and most of the sadness he felt came from his mother. What I was thinking about was how sad she would be if her mother came back one day and those things from the past could no longer be found...
After this cycle, he came from a place on the other side of the house. Take the branch road and get onto the road outside. At this time, the big round moonlight was hanging in the sky, seeming to overlook the world more closely than before. With a flag on his back, Ning Ji slowly walked through the crowded road. Perhaps because of the rumors of the "God of Wealth", there were some stalls on the nearby streets. The stalls had lanterns set up and torches lit, and they were soliciting customers.
Ning Ji was walking for a while, but a voice among the chaotic noises ahead caught his attention.
"I...I hit the head of the inner demon Ning Yi back then...I hit the head of the inner demon Ning Yi..."
Among the swaying torches, there was a ragged beggar kneeling on the roadside. He was nagging such a story to the people on the roadside. One group of people seemed to be very interested in what he said. The leader The old man squatted down in front of him.
"You said...you hit your inner demon on the head back then?"
"Please sir...give me some food...give me some food..." The beggar stretched his hand forward. .
The old man took out a few pennies from his arms and gave him a penny first: "You say, if you agree, I will give it to you."
"I, I will give it to you. Overcoming the inner demon Ning Yi, hehe, I... My name is Xue Jin, Jiang Ning... No one knows, no one knows... My Xue family's 'Dachuan Buxing', back then... was with the Su family On an equal footing...Dabuxing..."
The beggar wore a broken felt hat on his head. He seemed to have been injured, and he spoke intermittently. But Ning Ji had heard the name Xue Jin. He sat down at a stall nearby. The group of people headed by the old man also found a place to sit down. They even ordered snacks and listened to the beggar talking. The snack stall owner said hey: "This lunatic often comes over and says that he hit the head of the inner demon. I think it is true that he was hit on the head. Don't be fooled by him."
But the old man just smiled: "Just for fun."
"Back then...I...beat the demon Ning Yi on the head...Why did I hit him? ... Back then, that girl from the Su family... Su Tan'er, she was beautiful and capable. In the future... she was going to inherit the Su family's business. I... hehe, I just wanted to marry her. Who knew...it was the nerd who got married later..."
"The inner demon...the inner demon Ning Yi was a nerd back then...that's why It was only after I beat him that he became enlightened...I remember...that year, they got married, and the young lady from the Su family, hey, escaped from the wedding..."
The beggar talked about that year intermittently. Those things, talking about how beautiful and tasteful Su Tan'er is, and how silly Ning Yi is, and adding some of their friends from time to time. The identity and name of his friend, how they knew each other and how they dealt with each other when they were young... Even though he beat Ning Yi, Su Tan'er and him were not really at odds with each other. Then he talked about what happened back then. How he lived his life as the young master of Okawa Buhang and what kind of good food he ate...
When the people around him heard this, some laughed at him for going crazy. If Ning Yi was really a fool, how could he have made it this far.
Some people ridiculed: "Well, I have to thank you for Ning Yi becoming smarter..."
Some people also said: "This man was indeed wealthy back then, but the world has changed! Now he is the Fair Party It’s time!”
These words are true. Without interrupting the beggar's memories of those years, he rambled on about a lot of details about how he beat the demon that night, what kind of bricks he took, how he got behind him, how he dropped the bricks, and how stupid the other party was... …The old man at the stall even asked the stall owner to give him a bowl of food. The beggar was holding the food, and he was talking nonsense. He put it down, picked it up, and put it down again...
"The inner demon..." he said, "Said that the inner demon is called Jiangning's No. 1 A talented man...the first lyric he composed was...I asked him...that year , the moon... you see, it is also such a big moon, so round, I remember... that is the Puyang family's six-boat row, Puyang Yi... where did Puyang Yi go... it is his family's boat, Ning Yi... Ning Yi didn't come, so I asked his little maid..."
"I asked her...Why didn't Ning Yi come? Is he...too embarrassed to come...I asked that Su Tan'er again...You don't know, Su Tan'er is so beautiful, but she wants to inherit the Su family Yes, that’s why I let that nerd Ziru's wife... I asked him, you chose such a nerd, he is so good, he must be able to write good poems, why didn't he come, and he said he was sick, he was lying... and then that The little maid wrote what her uncle had written The poem... was taken out..."
"I still remember that poem... it was about the moon, that poem was..."
The beggar knelt in front of the bowl of food. Staring at the moon blankly, having a good time After a while, the hoarse voice slowly sang out the lyrics. It might have been something that was often sung in the brothels in Jiangning back then, so he was deeply impressed. At this time, in the hoarse voice, the melody of the lyrics still remained. Wearing complete.
"When will the bright moon come..." he sang slowly.
“…ask the wine to the sky.”
"...I don't know what year it is in the palace in the sky..."
"I want to ride the wind back."
"I am afraid of the beautiful buildings and beautiful buildings..."
"It's so cold at high places, I dance to clear my shadow..."
"How does it look like...in the human world..." (End of this chapter)