Chapter 2 Hope
His footsteps quickened with his thoughts, and not long after, Lin Yan arrived in front of a simple wooden bungalow, and the sound of reading could be heard in the distance.
"Gongwei is married to you, how dare you harm it? Women admire chastity, and men are good when they imitate..."
The plaque on the door reads "Mu Qing Study". It is a private school jointly founded by wealthy people in Liuyingfang. An old gentleman named Li was invited to teach.
Lin Yan entered the yard by the familiar route, put the candy in his arms, rolled up his sleeves, picked up the bucket first, and went to get two buckets of water two streets away.
When the water came back, a group of children around ten years old ran out of the courtyard, and a circle of people in luxurious clothes gathered at the door.
Mr. Li was wearing a white coat and holding a copy of "Knocking on the Lamp", sitting in the courtyard drinking water.
"I've met Mr. Li."
The old gentleman raised his head and glanced at him: "Have you found any new ancient books recently?"
"I am disappointed with Mr. Li, I never found it."
Mr. Li looked disappointed and did not look at him. He waved his hand to signal him to go down.
Mr. Li's name is Li Muqing, and he is a member of the Li family, a well-known wealthy family in Liuyingfang.
It is said that he practiced martial arts in his early years and was quite famous. In his later years, he fell in love with literature and Taoism. He taught classes here, and most of the students were students from wealthy families.
Lin Yan had no money, so he copied and revised several famous works such as "Bringing In Wine", "The Road to Shu is Difficult", "Ascend the High", etc., and synthesized it into a "Lamp Knocking Collection", disguised as a fake ancient book bought in the market.
Then he regarded it as a gift, which made Mr. Li particularly gracious and agreed to let Xiao Zhi stay in the study in exchange for cleaning the study.
It's the one that Mr. Li is holding.
It's a pity that literature in this world is just a minor path. Even someone like Mr. Li, who loves literature, saw these masterpieces and just said: "Well written."
Otherwise, he would not be so embarrassed by copying poems and writing lyrics.
Lin Yan entered the house carrying water.
"Guo Guo!"
With a squeaking sound, Lin Xiaozhi pinched the corner of her clothes and walked over timidly with surprise on her face.
She was about three years old. She was as tall as a little cub, only reaching Lin Yan's calf. Her clothes were washed clean and even a little white, and her hair was neatly combed.
His face was smeared with black mud like spider legs, and his original appearance could not be seen, and he looked sloppy, but his big eyes, as bright as morning stars, blinked innocently.
"Xiao Zhi, thank you for your hard work."
Lin Xiaozhi shook her head like a rattle: "Everyone is fine."
Lin Yan rubbed Xiaozhi's little head.
Xiaozhi is very smart, her intelligence is as good as that of a seven or eight-year-old child, her memory is very good, and she can actually understand the lessons in the study. And he is very well-behaved, even so well-behaved that it makes people feel a little distressed.
He took out the candy from his arms: "Xiao Zhi is so good, I will reward you with candy!"
Lin Xiaozhi's eyes suddenly lit up, and she looked straight at Ye Tang.
When Lin Yan handed it to her, she still didn't believe it and didn't dare to reach out to take it: "Is this for me?"
"Eat it, but you can only eat one now. Leave two behind and eat them after dinner."
Lin Xiaozhi carefully took the caramel and did not eat it herself. Instead, she raised the caramel above her head with both hands, raised her head and said crisply: "Guo Guo, you eat too!"
Her throat rolled slightly, obviously swallowing.
This timid look made Lin Yan feel slightly sad in his heart.
"I've already eaten. You're sitting on the side eating. I'll clean up first."
Gently picking up Xiaozhi and letting her sit on a high stool nearby, Lin Yan bent down, dipped a rag in water, and began to wipe the tables and chairs in the room.
Lin Xiaozhi stretched out her hand and twisted out a piece of candy, carefully wrapped the other two pieces, and then gently put them into her mouth. Her eyes suddenly curved into crescents. Even if there was mud blocking it, she could still see that her whole face was happy. .
Lin Yan kept holding the stone in his hands, caught a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye, and sighed again in his heart.
The mud was smeared on her face, making it smelly, wet and greasy, but Xiaozhi didn't even complain.
This sludge was applied by Lin Yan himself.
Before going out every day, Lin Yan would give Xiaozhi a "mud makeup".
Because Xiaozhi is so beautiful, like a porcelain doll, she is a natural beauty.
However, in the strict and chaotic city of Ding'an, a good-looking person, especially a good-looking girl, is not only not a blessing, but a disaster, a big disaster.
In various major villages, there are countless human traffickers who are secretly active, focusing on children from poor families, abducting and selling them to brothels or rich families as slaves.
For this reason, Lin Yan did not dare to leave Xiaozhi alone at home, so he took her to Mu Qing's study every day. This place was run by wealthy households in Liuyingfang, and human traffickers generally did not dare to run wild here.
Not for studying, just for safety.
Wipe the tables and chairs vigorously, then sweep the floor, wipe off the dense sweat on your forehead, and then bend down to wipe the floor.
It took more than half an hour of work to really clean the inside and outside.
When I went out, I saw that Mr. Li had already left.
Lin Yan wiped the sweat off his face and picked up Lin Xiaozhi: "Xiaozhi must be hungry. Let's go back to eat."
His home is not in Liuyingfang, but in Zhubaifang, west of Liuyingfang, which also belongs to Xiafang.
Compared with Mochifang, Zhubaifang is relatively cleaner, but the overwhelming smell of feces, urine, sweat, and yellow and white things that can be seen everywhere are still standard.
Along the way, in the messy and dilapidated alleys, some people squatted in the corner with their pants down and defecated, some people lay on the ground and kept wailing and begging, and some people surrounded others and beat them with sticks. It was extremely chaotic.
Lin Yan hugged Xiaozhi, avoided other people as much as possible, walked through the streets and alleys, and finally came to a narrow alley.
"Huh? Someone!"
In the alley, a man happened to walk out casually and met Lin Yan face to face.
This man had a ferocious face and was half a head taller than Lin Yan. Lin Yan quickly avoided him.
The man didn't care either.
But just when the two were about to pass each other.
"Huh?"
The man's copper bell-like eyes looked at Lin Xiaozhi in Lin Yan's arms.
Lin Yan's heart tightened, and he protected Lin Xiaozhi and walked into the alley.
He could feel a burning gaze focused on his back. It didn't disappear until he opened the door and closed the wooden bolt.
"Guo Guo, that person was staring at me just now!"
Lin Xiaozhi suddenly said softly.
Lin Yan's heart trembled, but he suppressed his uneasiness and comforted him: "Don't be afraid, the door is closed and no one can come in."
After putting down Xiaozhi to rest, he started to light a fire and cook, but he kept thinking about the look in the man's eyes just now and felt uneasy.
Is that person a human trafficker?
Can this broken door of my house stop those crazy human traffickers?
His eyelids were drooped, and the work on his hands was a little more intense.
"Xiao Zhi, you're here for dinner. I'll wash your face first."
Xiaozhi made a sound, jumped over in small steps, closed her eyes and raised her head.
Lin Yan dipped a towel in water and wiped it carefully. As the mud faded away, a small face carved in pink and jade, like a fairy child, was revealed.
Jade-like skin, big, aura-like eyes, a beautiful nose and a beautiful mouth, as delicate as a porcelain doll.
Her facial features were vaguely similar to Lin Yan's, and they looked like brother and sister, but one grew up in heaven and the other grew up on earth.
I don't know how beautiful a woman is to cause such a huge mutation in his father Lin Mo's ordinary genes.
Yes, Xiaozhi's mother is not Lin Yan's mother. Although they are biological siblings, they share the same father and mother.
The room is very small, there is no space for a dining table, and the food is placed directly on the stove.
Lin Yan directly brought a high stool and sat beside the stove with Xiaozhi in his arms.
A small bowl of brown rice with pickled cabbage and tofu. Xiaozhi ate it with gusto, but Lin Yan felt quite distressed.
While he was eating, he took out a letter and paper from a small drawer next to the stove.
This is the suicide note left by his father Lin Mo.
In this life, he was born in a civilian family. His mother died when he was seven years old, leaving him and his father Lin Mo to depend on each other.
Four years ago, when he was thirteen, he fell seriously ill.
In order to raise money for medicine, his father Lin Mo had no choice but to participate in the ranking battle that year in exchange for housing expenses.
Later, Lin Yan's illness was cured, but his father disappeared on the battlefield and there was no news.
It wasn't until three months ago that a group of escorts came to his door and delivered Lin Xiaozhi and a suicide note. This not only stimulated him to awaken his past life memories, but also made him realize that his father was not dead, and he had extraordinary circumstances and gave birth to another child. daughter!
Opening the letter, Lin Yan read it again.
"Lin Yan, my son, sees the words as if he had met each other.
"When you see this, I should be dead. In the past four years, as a father, I have never wanted to go home to see you, but no matter what, no matter...
"Lin Xiaozhi is your half-sister. Although I don't like it, I can't bear to see her die innocently. I have no choice but to send her back quietly. You won't blame me, right?
"Remember, don't try to find me, don't ask for anything about me.
"My father's lifelong wish is that you live out your life in peace. If something happens to you, my father will never die in peace!
"I can't accompany you anymore. I just wish I couldn't see you one last time. My son cherishes it, cherishes it..."
The love is heartfelt and every word is sincere.
Lin Yan has read this letter many times. The handwriting throughout the letter is very fast, obviously written in an extremely hurry.
Lin Yan couldn't be sure whether this letter was written by his father, because four years ago, his father Lin Mo was still a gangster who could not read or write.
But Lin Xiaozhi's resemblance to his eyebrows cannot be faked.
What happened to his father?
Based on Lin Yan's understanding of Lin Mo, it was impossible for him to say that he didn't like having a daughter, unless the daughter was not the one he wanted to have.
And why don't you ask him to explore? What kind of danger is involved behind the scenes?
"Dad, dad, you really left me with a big problem..."
After dinner, Lin Xiaozhi spanked Haqie repeatedly. Lin Yan came out of the inner room after wiping her face and coaxing her to sleep.
This house was left by his father Lin Mo. It had only two rooms, a stove room for cooking, and a sleeping room with two beds, one large and one small, next to each other, which was extremely narrow.
Thinking back to today's robbery at Hutou Camp and the villain he met at the alley entrance, Lin Yan couldn't help but feel a strong sense of urgency.
He stood on the stove and brought down a wooden box from the black chimney vent.
The wooden box was covered with rotten debris, and seven or eight mushrooms with red umbrellas and white stems spread out in all directions among the debris, growing freely.
Seeing that the mushrooms were growing well and in good health, Lin Yan breathed a sigh of relief.
The poisons in this world are controlled substances, and ordinary people have nowhere to buy them.
These are the red umbrella mushrooms he bought from a mountain man. In order to prevent Xiaozhi from accidentally touching or eating these poisonous mushrooms, he could only put the wooden box in the smoke vent to cultivate it, barely creating a warm and humid environment. environment.
I stretched out my hand and twisted off a mushroom. It was bright red and looked delicious.
He stretched out his hand to touch the soil on the mushroom and laughed at himself: "Red umbrella, white pole, lie down on the board after eating, this is a highly poisonous thing..."
He gritted his teeth, stuffed the finger-long poisonous mushroom into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
“It’s a little fishy, it tastes good, it tastes like chicken...”
After swallowing the poisonous mushroom, he concentrated and opened the Bodhi Gold Medal in his mind.
Of course, he was not seeking death, but he was sublimating the special effects before the experiment.
As he gradually concentrated, lines of text slowly appeared on the Bodhi gold page.
basic information:
[Skill]: Swallow (100%)
[Black Jade Bodhi]: The wonderful path and fruit, the Mahayana of Prajna (currently 1/2 times)
Special effects:
[Black Jade Bodhi·Ultimate Sublimation]: When a skill reaches 100% proficiency, it can be fully sublimated once.
[Swallowing·Poison]: Because you have tasted hundreds of poisons without dying, you have a physique that is invulnerable to all poisons. Swallowing poisons can transform qi and blood to feed yourself.
As he focused on [Detoxifying], he felt his stomach gradually becoming hot, as if a weak fire was rising.
This feeling is the same as when I reached my peak.
At that time, he seemed to have fallen into an illusion, swallowing countless poisonous things, and his liver and intestines were severely broken, but he never died. In the end, his belly burned like a blazing fire, which gave rise to the special effect of [transforming poison].
The special effect of [Converting Poison] is obtained after the devouring skill is fully sublimated.
Devouring, to put it bluntly, is actually eating, and eating is a skill that everyone has.
Similar ones include running, jumping, attacking, defending, and even sleeping...
It is a basic survival skill.
It may be that the person grew up eating snacks, or it may be that he was used to technology and hard work in his previous life. Among all these skills, only the proficiency of swallowing reaches 100%.
He also thought about skills such as defense and attack, which would definitely become more powerful after being fully upgraded.
However, its skill proficiency is too low.
With his financial resources and physical strength, he couldn't support high-intensity training at all, so he had no choice but to give up and temporarily chose to devour for the ultimate sublimation.
As the fire in his stomach grew stronger and stronger, Lin Yan clearly felt a wave of heat rushing from his stomach to all parts of his body.
"call……"
A tingling sensation filled his whole body, making Lin Yan unable to help but make a sound.
He felt that all the muscles in his body were trembling slightly, as if the rain was coming after a long drought, greedily sucking in the heat.
"Um?"
After a while, he felt the heat gradually weaken.
The medicinal power of a red umbrella was too weak. Lin Yan picked another one and put it into his mouth, and the heat rolled again.
There were a total of eight red umbrellas in the wooden box, some large and some small. Lin Yan picked four of them and fed them to his mouth. Only then did he feel a full and tight feeling in his body.
The fatigue of the day was swept away, and there seemed to be endless strength.
He clenched his fists, not sure if it was his imagination, but he felt a little stronger.
Could it be that qi and blood have something to do with martial arts training?
There is martial arts in this world, not the fighting skills of the previous life, but truly extraordinary martial arts.
Like Fugui Mihang's guard Geng, who is as strong as an ox and even five or six adults can't get close to him.
It is said that a powerful warrior can form a formation with one person and be unstoppable by a thousand armies.
The status of a warrior is also extremely high. A skilled and capable civilian like him can earn at most five or six hundred coins a month after working hard.
And any warrior can easily earn three to four taels of silver a month without much work, as well as various extra income.
Lin Yan also thought about learning martial arts. Over the years, he had heard about or inquired about some martial arts opportunities.
But either the price is high, or you have to sign a contract for ten to twenty years.
There are some free ones. Hutouying teaches martial arts for free. It is said that there is also a supply of precious martial arts elixirs. Unfortunately, he narrowly escaped death and had to sacrifice his life.
For more information, civilians like Lin Yan would not be able to find out.
"It's time to ask Mr. Li for advice..."
Lin Yan took out a book that Juan had finished writing from the cabinet next to him, titled "Mu Zhai Ji".
On it were copied dozens of famous works such as "A Fang Gong Fu", "Xia Ke Xing", "Shui Diao Ge Tou" and so on.
Mr. Li was once a martial artist and was born into a wealthy family. He must know where there are better opportunities to practice martial arts.
He had already made plans to use this as a gift to ask Mr. Li for advice.
He had tried his best to write silently these days, but it took so long that he couldn't remember many of them. It wasn't until these two days that he finished writing silently and dried the ink.
"I will send it to Mr. Li tomorrow and ask him about martial arts practice."