Chapter 1 The Boy's Decision

Xiaoqiu shook the wicker whip in her hand hard, inhaled deeply the smell of warm vegetation, and made the most important decision in her life.

He had only lived for twelve years, and it was impossible to grasp the full significance of this decision. However, the residents of Yelin Town who were familiar with him knew that this was a stubborn young man, like a little wolf who had just learned to use its limbs and teeth flexibly, knowing full well what was ahead of him. It's a cliff, but you have to rush to the edge to find out what's going on. No one can pull you back.

"I need your help." Xiaoqiu said eagerly, her dark eyes full of expectation.

In front of him, four teenagers of about the same age were squatting on the grass, looking up at Xiaoqiu blankly. A little further away, several groups of livestock were lazily grazing. They were all shepherd boys, and a dozen of the horses were driven by Xiaoqiu is responsible for taking care of it.

"You want to snatch Fangfang away?" Daliang is Xiaoqiu's best friend. He has a kind round face, but at this time he did not show full support.

"Yes. It's not a robbery, it's a rescue. Fangfang will come with us voluntarily." Xiaoqiu corrected her with an affirmative tone.

"Are you sure?" Daliang looked at the other three shepherd boys and felt even less confident, "Did Fangfang tell you personally?"

"No, you all know that Mr. Qin does not allow me to enter the school." Xiaoqiu will not lie in front of her friends, "But this is obvious, Fangfang can't...it can't be..."

Xiao Qiu was thinking about the words when Daliang's younger brother Erliang, who was two years younger, continued for him, "Fangfang definitely doesn't want to marry into the Shen family. I wish someone would take her away."

"That's the truth." Xiaoqiu flicked the wicker whip again, "Let's take action tonight. Two people will stand guard outside, and three people will go into the school to find Fangfang. It's that simple."

The four shepherd boys looked at each other. Daliang pushed the straw hat on his head and said uneasily: "The Shen family is the richest man in the town. Most of the cattle, horses and sheep we see belong to his family. I think... I think Fangfang You may not be willing to get married.”

A dark and thin shepherd boy provided support for Daliang's view, "I heard that Mr. Qin is very happy to marry the Shen family, and tomorrow's auspicious day was chosen by him."

"Mr. Qin is a money addict. He sold Fangfang to the Shen family and received a lot of money." Erliang said contemptuously, gesturing with his hands like a pile of gold and silver treasures.

The last shepherd boy spoke up, "Mr. Qin is not a money-grubbing person. His family is an outsider and hopes to gain a foothold in Yelin Town, so he is particularly willing to marry the Shen family.

"Mr. Qin seems to be a nice guy, and he even gave me a name." Daliang frowned, trying to remember his official name.

Xiaoqiu was a little anxious, so she simply squatted on the grass and looked at the four companions opposite her, her eyes unblinking, "We are not talking about Mr. Qin, we are talking about Fangfang. She is unwilling - who wants to marry a fool? "

The shepherd boys shook their heads at the same time. Erliang was more inclined to help Xiaoqiu and continued: "The eldest son of the Shen family is over 20 years old. He can't even feed himself. He will beat others when he loses his temper."

The children in Yelin Town have all seen the eldest young master of the Shen family. At the same time, they raised their heads and recalled the scene when they were chased and beaten by him. The thin black shepherd boy added: "Dasha lived in Harazi from morning to night, and Fangfang married him, Why don’t you wipe it for him every day?”

"How's it going? Can you help?" Xiaoqiu asked, feeling very hopeful.

But he was disappointed. When the key issue was mentioned, all four shepherd boys retreated. Even Erliang, who had been helping him speak, lowered his head, as if he was more interested in the ants on the grass.

"Brother Xiaoqiu." Daliang felt a little guilty. Usually he never refused any proposal from his good friends.

But this time is different, "You don't... still think Fangfang is your wife, right?"

Erliang and the others lowered their heads to suppress their laughter and made a chirping sound from their noses.

With a cold face, Xiaoqiu inserted the wicker stick into the soft grass, "What I said is true."

"Isn't that a joke?" Daliang whispered, noticing that Xiaoqiu's eyes were becoming more stubborn and stubborn, so he relented. Although there was a word "big" in his name, he always acted as a follower in front of Xiaoqiu, "Okay, I help."

"I'll help too." Erliang immediately expressed his attitude excitedly.

The other two shepherd boys agreed.

"Go home as usual later. After dinner, we will meet on the bridge." Xiaoqiu felt a stone fall in her heart and felt extremely relaxed.

Time flies. The five teenagers gathered their grazing animals and returned to Yelin Town together. They were all enthusiastic about tonight's action. No one came up with a more specific plan. Just like Xiaoqiu said, "It's that simple."

Walking out of the forest, on the small bridge east of Yelin Town, their enthusiasm was hit for the first time.

Seeing the cows and horses coming from the forest path in the distance, Er Shuan jumped to the ground, worked hard, and shouted loudly: "Hey, Xiaoqiu, your wife is going to marry my brother tomorrow, are you coming? Let’s have a wedding banquet?” Er Shuan thought about this sentence in his mind for a whole day and shouted it out, feeling very comfortable in his heart.

These are two completely different groups of teenagers.

The five shepherd boys were surrounded by herds of pigs, cows, horses, and sheep. They wore straw hats on their heads, with their cuffs and trouser legs rolled up high. Their bare feet were covered in mud, and their skin was deeply tanned by the sun. It was dark. Although the six teenagers on the bridge were wearing coarse clothes, they were all clean. They had just spent an idle day and wanted to have some fun before dark.

"Ignore him." Faced with Er Shuan's provocation, Daliang didn't want to accept the challenge. He was hungry now and just wanted to go home to fill his belly. "Let's take a detour and cross the river."

Thinking of the plan for the evening, Xiaoqiu almost agreed to Daliang's suggestion, but the teenagers on the bridge burst into laughter, making him change his mind.

Xiaoqiu walked in the front, followed by more than a dozen horses. Daliang and others followed behind not too far away. They were still a little afraid of Ershuan.

Ershuan was the second young master of the Shen family. He was not stupid at all. He was tall and strong. His slender eyes always warned others with a squint: he was not easy to mess with.

Xiaoqiu actually accepted the challenge. Ershuan was very happy. He stood in the middle of the bridge with his hands on his hips. Five companions lined up on both sides of him, completely blocking the road.

"You are blocking the road." Xiaoqiu said in a muffled voice. Behind him, the docile horses found someone blocking the road and stopped, patiently waiting for the problem to be solved by themselves.

Ershuan had been waiting for this moment for a long time, and said with a smile: "I am here to give you an invitation. Tomorrow your wife will be my sister-in-law. Come over and say a few auspicious words, and I will ask my father to give you a few copper coins. Oh, where is the invitation? It was just here."

Ershuan pretended to touch his body, and his friends laughed. Lengzi, who was half a head shorter than him but equally strong, joined in: "Xiaoqiu may have received the invitation from Mr. Qin's family, because Fangfang is his wife."

The teenagers on the bridge laughed so hard that they couldn't straighten their backs. The youngest bald man had just been allowed to join the gang, and he was eager to show off. He pointed at Xiaoqiu and said: "Your wife...your wife will call others her husband, haha, Xiaoqiu..."

Xiaoqiu had heard enough, and slapped the chestnut horse next to him hard. The chestnut horse was startled and jumped forward.

For the narrow bridge and the teenagers in Yelin Town, the chestnut horse was equivalent to a behemoth. The teenagers who blocked the road panicked and avoided it, and the neatly arranged team dispersed at once.

"Xiaoqiu, this is my horse! How dare you..." Ershuan was furious.

The red horse didn't know who was the real owner. It jumped out of the bridge in two or three steps. The horses behind followed closely. The teenagers could only cling to the railings on the side of the bridge in fear and watch them pass.

Ershuan would never allow the decisive battle he had planned for many days to end like this. Before the last two horses crossed the bridge, he was no longer so scared. He found the right gap and jumped at Xiaoqiu.

The two teenagers wrestled on the bridge. More than a dozen horses turned around on the shore, looking at the scene blankly, and soon lost interest and lowered their heads to eat the grass on the roadside.

Ershuan was taller than Xiaoqiu and looked stronger, but he did not have the upper hand in the fight. Even if his companions cheered loudly, he still couldn't knock down his opponent immediately.

With a splash, the two teenagers flipped over the bridge railing at the same time and fell into the river.

The river was not deep, just above the waist, but Ershuan was the overlord on the bridge, and he lost his temper when he touched the water. Xiaoqiu was as flexible as a fish in the river and took the initiative completely.

Ershuan's companions on the bridge threatened at once, and no one dared to go into the water to help.

"Ding..."

A sound that the teenagers had never heard of sounded in their ears, so sharp that it would pierce the eardrums. Everyone turned their heads and saw that a strange adult had appeared on the shore a dozen steps downstream.

The strange man wore a blue double-breasted robe, his hair was tied into a towering bun, a long hairpin was inserted horizontally, a few strands of beard were floating under his chin, and he carried a long sword on his back. Even in the eyes of the most discerning people, he could be regarded as "immortal", but in the remote Yelin Town, his dress just looked weird.

The strange man shook a fist-sized brass bell in his left hand, making a harsh sound that was disproportionate to its size.

"Who are you? What are you doing in Yelin Town?" Ershuan asked in a trembling voice while standing in the river. He had never been afraid of strangers alone, even adults, but for some reason, the ringing of the bell seemed to have emptied his heart.

Xiaoqiu stood beside Ershuan without saying a word. He regarded the ringing of the bell as an enemy and concentrated on fighting it.

The weirdo put down the bell and took out a dull bronze mirror in his right hand. a.c. slowly shook it in front of the teenagers, and finally pointed at the two wet teenagers. After a while, he asked, "Are you hot?"

He probably hadn't spoken for a long time. The sound coming out of his throat was hard and astringent, as strange as the old bronze mirror in his hand.

Xiaoqiu and Ershuan took a step back at the same time. They were not afraid of the weirdo and his voice, but the dull bronze mirror. A small thing of five or six inches seemed to cover the entire sky. The sunlight was weakened a lot at once. The two shook their heads together. They were not hot at all, and even felt a chill on their bodies.

The strange man lowered his arms, but in the blink of an eye, the bronze mirror and the bell disappeared. His expression was slightly relaxed, but also more tired. "Stay away from demons," he said, looking around, pretending to listen attentively, as if there were demons hiding nearby. "Stay away from demons," he repeated.

The teenagers were terrified, and even Xiaoqiu felt flustered. He hurriedly climbed to the shore with Ershuan, his heart pounding. The sun suddenly became scorching again, and the wet clothes stuck to his body and were very uncomfortable. They didn't care about these things, they just wanted to stay away from this strange man as soon as possible.

The duel between the two groups of teenagers ended anticlimactically, and they hurriedly ran to the town. They wanted to tell the adults that a madman had broken into Yelin Town.

Ershuan's group ran faster without the restraint of livestock, and their figures disappeared quickly. The five shepherds chased the livestock all the way to the edge of the town, turned around and looked at the place where the strange man had stood, but the man was gone, and no one knew how he disappeared or where he went.

"See you tonight." Xiao Qiu was the first to get rid of the influence of the weirdo, but he still had to carry out the rescue plan that night.