The biography of Gu Qi, a poor girl

It is a year, troubled times.North of Yuzhou, three years of severe drought.

At a glance, as far as the eye can see, there is no greenery anywhere, and there are some bare tree trunks with their branches and leaves removed, which makes people feel panicky.

While chopping firewood, Gu Danian secretly looked at Qiyatou who was making a fire and cooking alone, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt that this little girl who had passed through the gate of hell was a bit weird.

But if you want to say where the specific weirdness is, Gu Danian really can't tell.

After fleeing famine all the way, half of Yunzhou was gone.Those who escaped from Gujia Village together, the dead and injured are now scattered and disappeared, and their wife, eldest son and daughter-in-law don't know where they went, and whether they are still alive.

I feel sorry for my three-month-old grandson, who left early before calling him a master, and now only he and Qiyatou are left, and I don't know how far the road will go. The bad days can last for a few more days.

"Father, don't chop this bundle after you finish chopping the firewood. If you have some strength, you still have a long way to go tomorrow morning."

"How can this work? I promised yesterday that the steward of Zhou's family in the town would send five bundles of firewood to their house. One bundle of firewood is worth three big coins, and five bundles can get fifteen big coins. Now I just split it." Three bundles are still two bundles away." Gu Danian rambled.

After three years of severe drought, food in Yuzhoufu is as expensive as golden beans. Usually, you can buy two catties of corn noodles for ten yuan, but now it has risen to eighty yuan per catty. It has increased by sixteen times and there is nowhere to buy it. .

The fifteen big money that Gu Danian said was nothing more than three taels of corn noodles, not enough to fill his stomach for a day, but he had to work for two whole days to earn it. (ps: 1 catty is converted into 16 taels)

In normal years, no one would do this kind of money-losing work, but now everyone is rushing to do it.

Gu Danian was able to find this job because he had a little friendship with Zhou's housekeeper when he was young.

Seeing that Gu Danian didn't listen and was not annoyed, Gu Qi just said with a normal expression: "I went to the town this morning to beg for food and happened to see the gate of the Zhou family's backyard open, and there were two horse-drawn carts and a donkey cart parked inside. .

A few slaves of the Zhou family are busy packing boxes and piling things on top of them. They are afraid that the Zhou family will be empty before tomorrow. If you want to come to the Zhou family for five bundles of firewood, you will not want them. "

"How can this be done!"

When Gu Danian heard this, he became anxious, and even the tone of his words trembled a little: "Qingshan just said it to me early in the morning yesterday! Why did you go back on your word today.

The Zhou family is a big family in our Linping town. I heard from Qingshan that the Zhou family’s old house has been in the town for hundreds of years. Why do you just move as soon as you talk about it? My daughter, you are dazzled.

Outside the back door of the Zhou family's old house, there was an old Chinese parasol tree two people thick. Beside the parasol tree was a hundred-year-old well with a large Chinese character Zhou engraved on the mouth of the well. Girl, did you see it clearly? "

What Liu Qingshan was talking about was the manager of the Zhou family.Earlier, he was the eldest son of the Liu family in the neighboring village of Gu's Village, about the same age as Gu Danian.The two were childhood playmates. When they were wearing crotch pants, they often went up the mountain to catch rabbits and fished in the river.

When he was older, Gu Danian devoted himself to working in the fields, while Liu Qingshan was sent out by his family to work as a clerk in the Zhou family's shop, where he learned the skills of counting in and out from the accountant. The half-year-old son of Twelve is now in his forties and only takes the position of steward of Zhou's family's outer courtyard.

Gu Qi knew that the sycamore tree in the backyard of the Zhou family that Gu Danian was talking about, but it was a pity that it lost all its leaves two years ago, and now it is so withered that it doesn't look like it.If it hadn't been too old and those intertwined old roots were too deep, I'm afraid it would have been eaten by the famished victims who fled to the town long ago.

As for the old well next to the phoenix tree with the inscription Zhou, it was dry three years ago, and now the loess is almost half covered.

Seeing that it was almost noon, Gu Danian was still babbling and asking questions, but Gu Qi kept on burning the fire and didn't answer.Fortunately, Gu Danian didn't care whether his daughter answered his words, he just felt that some words were stuck in his chest and he felt uncomfortable if he didn't talk about them.

In fact, Gu Danian believed what Gu Qi said from the very beginning, that the Zhou family was really going to escape, and the three bundles of firewood he chopped for a day might not be sold.

But some things are like this, and you just can't accept it for a while.

Knowing that Gu Danian was feeling uncomfortable, Gu Qi didn't interrupt him, and let him talk.He only waited until the stewed wild vegetable leaves and roots in the pot were fully boiled before saying:

"Father, the root of the tree is boiled. Let's fill our stomachs first. In the afternoon, I will carry these three bundles of firewood to Zhou's house and ask them. If they still want it, they can keep it. If they don't want it, I will go to another house to ask them."

"What if I can't sell it?" Gu Danian frowned and said anxiously.

"Whether it sells or not, we have to leave tomorrow." Gu Qi filled a bowl of root soup in the pot for Gu Danian, and filled it with two spoonfuls of wild vegetable leaves.

"Let's go again, where are we going? Where can we go..." Gu Danian couldn't help but sighed, they had been walking for three months from Gu's Village To Liu County, and from Liu County to the current Linping Town, we have traveled more than half of Yuzhou Prefecture, why haven't we come to the end yet?

"Go where there is food, go where there is a way to survive." Gu Qi's voice was a little empty, as if he was not talking to Gu Danian but to himself:

"The residents in Linping Town are now [-] to [-]% empty. If God doesn't rain, I'm afraid Xiao'an River outside Linping Town won't be able to last for a few months.

Father, the tree roots at the foot of the mountain were dug up by the victims a few days ago, and there are not many left on the Linping Mountain. We must leave tomorrow morning. "

"No, if you want to live, you have to go, and the day when you reach the Palace of the King of Hell is the end."

It was not the first day for Gu Danian to say such frustrating words, and Gu Qi has been listening to Gu Danian saying such words intermittently since the day he came in.

Now that three months have passed, Gu Danian has not seen the slightest thought of committing suicide. He also drank most of the root wild vegetable soup he cooked every day, and then he cursed and took the rest to himself.

No, while Gu Danian scolded God despondently, he swiftly scalded the leafy vegetables, leaves and roots in the pot and scraped them clean.Seeing that no drop could come out, he reluctantly handed back the empty pot in his hand to Gu Qi, thinking about it but unwilling, couldn't help but raised his voice and angrily said:

"Qi Yatou, why are there so few vegetable root soups today? It's half as much as yesterday's. What are you thinking about all day long? Are you lazy?"