The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

When Dongmen Bao returned to Dongmenli, it was already night. Fortunately, the prison guard had not yet closed the door of the village. Dongmen Bao hurriedly squeezed in, and walked towards home in the dark amid the prison guard's scolding.

Dongmenli is located inside the east gate of the county town, so the roads in the village are straight, and the houses are connected to each other, and the lanes are arranged neatly. However, most of the houses on the left are simple, and they are inhabited by hired farmers and tenants called "Luzuo". These people have no land and can only make a living by farming. The ones on the right are better, and there is even a mansion with white walls and red tiles. That is the home of a county official.

Dongmen Bao's family also lives in Luyou, but the house is not magnificent, just ordinary. Although the original structure is good and there is a foundation of two courtyards, it can be seen that the walls have not been painted for many years, and the paint on the door has all fallen off, showing a decayed look.

Fortunately, everything in front of and behind the house was cleaned up, and the fallen leaves were gathered in the corners and pressed with stones. It was difficult to find firewood in the city, and sometimes they had to rely on these dead branches and leaves to cook.

Dongmen Bao took out the key from his arms and fumbled to open the door.

At this time, the door suddenly opened, and a thin woman in her twenties, wearing a thorny hairpin and a cloth skirt, stood inside and said in surprise: "My beloved is back?"

This was the wife Dongmen Bao married last year. She lived in the north of the city and was the daughter of a peasant family. She was ordinary in appearance but gentle in character. She had no jewelry on her body, and her clothes were old, washed white, and the cuffs were almost broken.

Dongmen Bao hummed indifferently, then lowered his voice and asked, "Have you eaten yet? Has mother rested?"

Although he looked like a fierce man, he was also a well-known filial son in the village. After his father got drunk and drowned in the river, his mother raised Dongmen Bao with great difficulty.

The bride said weakly, "Mother went to bed after dinner, but she is still awake. She said that today is the day when your service should end, and she insisted on waiting for you to come back. I will heat up the remaining corn with the broth and eat it with you..."

"I ate a lot with my comrades in the same squad at the restaurant. You can eat by yourself."

Dongmen Bao took off his dirty clothes covered with mud, put on a clean short brown, and handed a heavy bag of money to the bride. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Go to the market tomorrow and buy some silk cloth to make new clothes for you and mother!"

The bride picked up the cloth bag and found that there were at least four or five hundred coins in it. She was shocked. Although after a year of getting along, she knew that her husband was a kind-hearted man with a bad face, his aggressive temper also made the new wife worried. Now seeing so much money, she thought that Dongmen Bao had stolen it. She couldn't help but look pale and said with trembling lips:

"Where did this come from! My dear, did you do something illegal..."

"Don't think about it, this is given to me by the chief..."

At this time, an old woman's voice came from the next room: "But Abao is back?"

"Mother, it's my son who has finished his military service!"

Dongmen Bao responded quickly and told his wife: "I'll talk to you slowly. I'm going to pay my respects to my mother. I have something to discuss with her."

As he said that, he walked towards his mother's room. Before he entered the door, he seemed to have changed into a different person. His movements became light and his voice became soft: "Mother, Abao came back late, and you always missed him..."

Then there was the sound of bowing.

The bride hurriedly ate two mouthfuls of cold rice, then boiled a basin of water and brought it in. Although she hadn't seen her husband for more than a month and had many things to say to him, she still wanted to serve her mother and let her rest first.

Unexpectedly, in the house, the bride washed her mother's feet while listening to Dongmen Bao telling her about what happened in the past few days and his plans for the future. As Dongmen Bao became more and more excited, the bride's face became paler and paler...

"Thank you, mother. With your permission, there is no need to worry!"

After a while, after finishing the story, Dongmen Bao withdrew with a relaxed look. Just now, he told his mother that Hei Fu asked him to apply for the job of thief in Huyang Pavilion. His mother was very generous. Seeing that her son wanted to go, she agreed to it.

But the bride was a little resentful.

"My husband also said that Huyang Pavilion is more than half a day's journey from the county town, and you can only come back three or four times a month. If you leave, my mother and I will be the only ones left at home..."

She tidied the bed while whispering, "Besides, I heard that Huyang Pavilion is very dangerous, and there are often murderers and thieves. Is it appropriate to go there just for a word from the night watchman?"

"A woman's opinion!"

Dongmen Bao was angry, and the birthmark on his face turned red. He slammed the table and asked the bride to shut up, but he was afraid of disturbing his mother next door, so he had to lower his voice and scold:

"A man should keep his promise. How can he break his promise? Besides, I am a public official after all. As a thief, I can get 1.5 liters of food every day, which is more than 4 stones a month, enough for the whole family. I will never let you and your mother go hungry. As for danger? Ha, compared with thieves, we are the most dangerous people in Anlu County. And you don't know that these 500 yuan can only be obtained by Hei Fu. If I follow him in the future, I may have a chance to make meritorious deeds. Isn't it better than being hired to carry sacks at the dock?"

Dongmen Bao said while staring at his bride, his eyes seemed to be blazing with fire. Finally, he picked up his thin wife and put her on the couch without saying anything. While untying his belt, he muttered: "I have made up my mind. I will apply for the job of thief tomorrow. Don't make any more noise about this matter!"

...

On the other hand, on the next day, that is, in the afternoon of November 1st, Ji Ying, Hei Fu and Xiao Tao said goodbye at the fork in the road and returned to their home in Yushui Township.

Like Dongmen Bao, he also lived in the village, but it was located outside the township, between the mountains, forests, fields and swamps. Because the land was mostly rice fields, it was called "Rice Flower Village".

When Ji Ying arrived in front of the village gate, two men in brown clothes were squatting by the wall to bask in the sun. Seeing Ji Ying coming from afar, the two shouted.

"Isn't this Ji Ying! Are you back?"

Ji Ying knew them. These two were soldiers in the village and his former companions. In winter, there was no farm work, so they liked to be idle, pick lice and chat. If it weren't for his military service, Ji Ying would be one of them.

The two men came up to him, their faces full of joking. One of them said with a smile: "Are you back from military service? At the beginning of last month, county officials came to check your household registration. We thought you were arrested for committing a crime."

The other one also pretended to be mysterious and said: "Those county officials also asked if you had committed a crime. We concealed the fact that when you were ten years old, you asked the two of us to climb over the wall to steal your chicken..."

"Go away!"

Ji Ying was so angry that his father almost broke his legs just for that skinny chicken. This matter was known to everyone in the village. Fortunately, his father did not report it to the government in a moment of confusion. Otherwise, Ji Ying and the other three would still have to face the lawsuit even though they were minors at the time.

But Ji Ying was still chased by his father to the rice field that had just been fertilized. In order to avoid the stick, he dived into it...

Since then, Ji Ying, with mud all over his head and feces on his face, has become the object of ridicule and mockery in the village, and the funny man in the rice flower.

But after returning this time, Ji Ying thought he was no longer the same.

He coughed and said to the two of them: "You don't know, the county official came to check my household registration not to punish me, but to reward me!"

As he said that, he suddenly opened his tightly wrapped winter clothes, but saw that it was full of strings of copper coins, hanging all over his chest and abdomen, and there were more than a dozen strings! No wonder he kept ringing like a wind chime when he walked.

The scene was shocking at first glance. The two villagers were shocked. One of them gasped and said, "This is probably one or two thousand coins! Ji Ying, tell me the truth. Which wealthy family did you break into, or did you steal pigs and sheep to sell?"

The other one was more imaginative: "I don't think he sold himself as a slave. I heard that an adult slave in the county market is worth more than 4,000 coins. Ji Ying was probably too thin, so he only sold it for this little..."

"Your knowledge is as shallow as a sparrow! This is obviously the reward I got!"

Ji Ying was so angry that he screamed. Seeing that the young servants in the village came around one after another, he sat in the corner and took out the posture of talking about lice on weekdays, telling all the things about how he captured thieves and won rewards in recent days, and how he won the championship in military exercises in ten days.

Although he was not good at other things, he was good at speaking. During the story, every time he reached a wonderful moment, the young people in the village exclaimed one after another. Ji Ying deliberately paused and glanced at everyone with a smug look.

After he finished speaking incoherently, everyone said in disbelief: "It turns out that you are the one who was rewarded for catching the thief together with the warrior! I didn't expect it, I really didn't expect it."

"Of course!" Ji Ying raised his head: "Brother Heifu fought one against three, and I helped him to contain another thief. Afterwards, I got a reward of 2 taels. When the military exercise was held ten days later, I got another 300 coins. This is the origin of the money."

Someone else asked curiously: "Who is that Heifu? I heard that he is nine feet and five inches tall, with a strong back and waist, and has infinite strength. He can take down the door with one arm and tear people apart with his bare hands..."

"Not only that, brother Heifu's ability is much greater than this!"

Ji Ying began to brag about Heifu non-stop, and finally said: "My brother Heifu is not only a celebrity in the county, but also respected by the government and temple. He was recruited by the county magistrate and county lieutenant as a pavilion chief and will take office next month!"

"He knew my ability, so he invited me to apply to be a guard in the pavilion. Although I refused repeatedly, he begged me hard, and finally I had to agree to help him and manage the ten-mile area of Huyang Pavilion together. I will make greater contributions in the future!"

After saying this, Ji Ying looked at these servants who were sighing and envious with a smug look on his face, as if he already had an official background and was superior to them.

Unexpectedly, joy turned into sorrow, and a cold voice came from the side.

"Ji Ying, where did you say you were going to be a guard in the pavilion?"

Turning around, Ji Ying was shocked to find that his father was standing by with a dark face, carrying farm tools...

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