Winter is always the season when God takes over human life. Some rich people cannot survive winter when they are old, and poor families are even more difficult. The winter of the 17th year of Chengde is particularly cold.

The wind and snow are in a hurry at this time.

"Baby, are you cold or not..."

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

It was snowing heavily outside. In a dilapidated temple outside the capital, the old and the young were not wearing very thick clothes. They were leaning against the low walls of the dilapidated temple, trying their best to avoid the cold wind blowing from everywhere. Unfortunately, the wind was leaking everywhere in this dilapidated temple. No matter how they dodge, there would always be a sharp cold wind blowing on the two men of the old and the young.

When people are cold, they will miss home.

The young man looked like he was only fourteen or fifteen years old. He was trembling all over by the cold, and he kept whisking his body. His body stiffly turned his head and looked 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 this sentence with great difficulty, using the authentic Yongzhou dialect.

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

The old man also forced his eyes to open his head and looked at the boy, his voice trembling: "Xin'er... you... your mother is gone. Before she left, she asked me to take you to the capital to find your father. From now on, this capital will be your home..."

Neither of them stuttered, but because of the extreme cold, they were stuttering. It took a long time to finish a sentence.

The young man's name is Li Xin, who is fifteen years old this year. In the middle of this year, his mother passed away due to illness. Until before leaving, the woman who had been scolded for more than ten years revealed Li Xin's life experience, saying that Li Xin was the son of Li Shen, the Marquis of Pingnan, the capital, and asked his uncle to bring Li Xin to the capital to look for relatives.

Thinking of this, the young man barely looked down and glanced at the snow-white jade pendant in his hand. The jade pendant was engraved with the word "shen". This was the token given to him by his mother. He asked him to bring this jade plaque to Beijing to find his father.

The young man gritted his teeth and put the jade pendant into his arms, with tears hidden in his eyes.

"But...we went to that... Marquis' Mansion yesterday."

Li Xin spoke intermittently, and his thin lips were almost bleeding from his bite.

"The person in the marquis's mansion... also scolded me... a wild breeder."

For more than ten years, Li Xin had been dependent on his mother for life. His mother was scolded for more than ten years, so he was naturally scolded for more than ten years of wild breeding. After he grew up, he fought with others for this. Later, his mother simply took him into the mountains, and both mother and son rarely contacted outsiders.

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

However, when he and his uncle knocked on the gate of the Marquis' Mansion in Pingnan, they got two cold words.

"Battle Breed."

Li Xin has listened to these two words for more than ten years, and he has gradually become accustomed to them, but when they say them in the Li family, they look particularly harsh.

My uncle blinked hard, curled up, hugged Li Xin in his arms, and his voice was soft: "Your father, he is out on a war, I don't know you are coming. When he comes back from outside, he will naturally come to recognize you. At that time, your hard days will come to the end."

The old man said, taking out a small wooden pot from his waist and handing it to Li Xin's mouth.

"Come on, open your mouth and take a sip. It's too cold, take a sip to warm your body."

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

Li Xin shook his head and hurried in the old man's arms: "Uncle...you drink, Xin'er is not cold."

My uncle had an old face and used all his last little effort to pour the only little bad wine left in the wooden pot into Li Xin's mouth.

Li Xin's body was warmer, his body shrank in the old man's arms, and he was crying: "Uncle, I don't want to be in the capital. Can we go back to Yongzhou tomorrow... It's so cold here..."

Yongzhou is in the south and the capital is in the north. Compared to the winter in the capital, it is more difficult to endure.

The old man was also a little sad. He patted Li Xin on the back and his voice was weak: "Okay... tomorrow... we will go back to Yongzhou."

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

The wind and snow outside were in a hurry, and the heavy snow blocked all the roads, destined to be the young and old, and would never be able to return to Yongzhou.

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

………………………………………………

Hiss...so cold...

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

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

strangeness……

In my memory, I was drinking with those little bastards last night, and then I was drunk by several bastards, fell to the ground and fell asleep. Why did I wake up... so cold?

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

He looked around and the sky was covered with white.

Hell, it was summer last night!

Then he saw an old man lying beside him. The old man seemed to be holding himself tightly in his arms, but his face had turned into a lifeless blue-gray color, and he had obviously been dead for a long time.

Li Xin staggered up from the ground and barely recognized it clearly. This was a dilapidated temple. There was nothing else in the dilapidated temple, only some broken statues of gods and some messy straws.

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

Damn, these little bastards are messing with me?

However, just as this thought flashed through his mind, he felt dark before his eyes, and then he fell to the ground, without waking up.

He is too weak.

People need to consume their own calories when fighting against the cold. Now his body has reached its peak.

So Li Xin simply fainted.

At this afternoon, the next afternoon, at the entrance of the dilapidated temple, an old man in rags, pushed a wheelbarrow and led a little girl in the same clothes to pass by the dilapidated temple.

This is also a pair of young and old men, who are about sixty or seventy years old. The little girl looks young, and at most she is about five or six years old.

However, unlike Li Xin, the old man and the little girl were covered in black and gray, especially the old man, whose hands almost turned black, and the cracks of his fingernails were covered with black coal ash.

Obviously, they make a living by selling carbon.

It's too cold in winter. The men in the city won't use the heat in their bodies to resist. They will set up beautiful stoves at home and throw a few pieces of carbon into the stove, and the whole room will become as warm as spring.

Most of the carbon in this era is charcoal.

Charcoal needs to be burned by people, so there is a profession of cutting firewood and burning charcoal. In winter, go up the mountain to cut trees, and then burn it into carbon to sell it to the men in the city.

However, if you can only burn ordinary charcoal in this profession, you can only earn a living money, not even food and clothing, let alone wealth and honor.

Poor, my clothes are so simple, I am worried that I am humble and wish that the weather is cold, and I am talking about them.

It was already afternoon, and an old man passed by the gate of the ruined temple. The little girl suddenly stopped and pointed to Li Xin who was lying in the ruined temple. She said frankly: "Aweng, there is someone in the temple..."

The old man stopped, put the wheelbarrow aside, and then walked into the ruined temple with the little girl in his arms. After seeing Li Xin lying on the ground and looking at him with a handsome face, the old man bent down and looked under Li Xin's nose with his dark hands. After confirming that Li Xin was still breathing, the charcoal seller sighed quietly and his voice was old: "It's also a poor child. In this cold weather, there is no way to live here."

As he said that, he bent down, walked to the gate of the ruined temple, pushed the wheelbarrow in, and then moved Li Xin onto the wheelbarrow with great difficulty.
Chapter completed!