At dawn, the voice of Huo Weilou suddenly opened his eyes. He listened for a moment, then turned his eyes to look at the person lying on the couch. You reflected a vague outline. She was a person with a very regular sleeping appearance. She lay flat all night and did not move very much. At this moment, her breath was still long and she slept very deeply.
Huo Weilou leaned over and pulled the robe towards her, got up and walked out the door silently. The attendants outside the door were resting on the spot in the wing. At the moment, they were talking to two government officials. Seeing Huo Weilou came out, a few people were busy. Proceed to salute.
Huo Weilou went out and stood under the eaves: “What happened?”
The servant said, “Master Hou, it was the head catcher that asked the villain to come over and say that the son of Granny Zhang hid near Wu’s house last night and was held by the villain at dawn.
Huo Weilou stared at him, “He is hiding near Wu’s house?”
Ya almost nodded, “Yes, he wanted to take the child away. As a result, there were a lot of people around the yard and we were found.”
“How is Sun Zhao’s trial?” Huo Weilou asked again.
“A few people are tough, especially the mother-in-law Zhang, who wants to seek death, but the second child of the Zhang family brothers seems to be able to speak. Although the Wu family confessed his guilt neatly, he did not want to say how detailed and unwilling to say. To testify against other places where the corpse was hidden, there was also a one-armed old man. Because of his age, he was dizzy before he could even finish the questioning.”
The sky is indigo blue, the clouds are piled up, and the light is behind it. The morning is approaching. Huo Weilou raised his eyes and took a look.
The government official responded, turned around and went back to report.
The mountain breeze in the morning was cool and refreshing, and Huo Wei Tower was slightly tired by the mountain breeze, and the whole person felt refreshed. He stood for a moment, then turned back and walked towards the main house. Before approaching, he heard the inside.簌簌 sound.
He pushed the door in, and saw that Bo Ruoyou had sat up. She was holding his robe with sleepy eyes, looking for something in the room in a daze. When he entered the door, her eyes just lit up, “What’s wrong?” “
Huo Weilou bent his lips unconsciously, “The government officer came to report that Granny Zhang’s son was wandering near Wu’s house and wanted to take the child away. But the government officer found the trail and held it, and said that several people were hard bones. , Only the second child of the Zhang family confessed a little.”
Bo Ruoyou rubbed her eyes and was pulling away from her sleep a little bit. She rarely looked so confused. Huo Weilou watched with enthusiasm. He raised his hand and brushed the hair scattered on the side of her face. You can sleep a little longer.”
Bo Ruoyou shook his head, completely awake now, and then looked at Huo Weilou, “Hou Ye didn’t sleep last night?”
“I have been here.” Huo Weilou looked at her.
Bo Ruoyou felt his heart jump again, looked at the robe he was covering, and quickly wanted to stay in, “I’m not going to sleep anymore, Lord Hou, let me rest. I want to check it out. If someone confesses, I’m afraid that I will have an autopsy. “
She put on her shoes and handed the robe to Huo Wei Lou. Huo Wei Lou took it. She seemed to have expected that she would not rest when she woke up. “Let’s go and take a look.”
He wore robes, Bo Ruoyou put up his hair again, and the two of them went to Wu’s house.
As soon as I arrived at Wu’s house, I saw that there were a lot of government officials outside the yard. They were supposed to search the mountains to get people, but Zhang Dalang unexpectedly fell into the trap, saving them trouble. Seeing that the Huo Wei building has arrived, the public officials are here. One after another came forward to salute.
Wu Xiang in the courtyard received the letter and immediately greeted him. It was already bright at the moment. Wu Xiang, who had been boiled for a few days, was also obviously exhausted. He said in a polite way: “The second child of the Zhang family is recruiting. Are you going to listen?”
Huo Weilou nodded, and a few people walked into the main hall. Now Wu’s house is being used, and Zhang’s mother-in-law and others are holding them separately. Sun Zhao is interrogating people in the left room, the door is hidden. The voices of Sun Zhao and Zhang’s brother It came out from within.
Wu Xiang wanted to tell Sun Zhao, but Huo Weilou raised his hand to stop him, and whispered: “Just listen here.”
After the door, Sun Zhao sneered, “If there was a cure in the past, why bother to seal your village? You feel unfair, but if it makes you come out and infected more people, how will you explain it then?”
“That’s your business! The government is incompetent, but it wants us to lose our lives in vain. Why? There are not so many people in our village who are sick, but the government sent all the sick to our village. I’m only seventeen or eighteen years old. My elder brother is not even 20 years old. We obviously haven’t gotten sick. Why should we be locked up by you?”
Sun Zhao said in a deep voice, “This is a natural disaster, and it is not human-powered to change. At the beginning, you chose your village because of the concentration of patients in your village, and the terrain is also on the closed mountain. It is not a big deal to have resentment in your heart. You also survived by your ability. It’s a good thing to get a life back, but since you survived, why didn’t you survive and did evil instead?”
Zhang Jia Erlang seemed to be touched by the pain, and his voice trembled: “You people, when you have never experienced those purgatory-like times, how can you accuse us without shame? At the beginning, the village was all sick, and those who didn’t get the disease also became infected. When we got up, we were afraid, so we ran up the mountain and kept running. We were born in a cave for half a year. At first, many people went up the mountain, but later became sick and starved to death. In the end, the mountain even or The flying insects and beasts are gone.”
At this point, Zhang Jia Erlang also gave a negative smile, “The adults must not guess how we survived.”
Outside the room, Bo Ruoyou looked suspicious, turned his eyes to look at Huo Weilou but saw him with a clear look, he seemed to have guessed what Jia Erlang was going to say.
“My brother and I survived by eating the flesh of my cousin.” He laughed strangely again, “Because she didn’t die from the plague, she was injured on the mountain and didn’t have the medicine to stop the bleeding. In addition to her frailty, she suffocated like that. She was originally assigned to my brother’s unpassed wife. Later, in order to survive, our brothers had to survive by eating her meat.”
“Two months, the last two months of ours, is to rely on the breathless people to eat their meat and drink their blood to survive. Most of them are our relatives and friends of the same race. If it weren’t for the plague, we would have to be brothers for the rest of our lives. , Or we will get married, but who would have thought that they will eventually become our rations for survival.”
He numbly laughed, “Just ask the adults, even if you don’t hesitate to do with your relatives and friends, what is the life of others? We survived so easily, but do adults know how difficult it is for us to live? Because at that time, if people knew We escaped from Guzhang Village, so we have to report to the official, and after we report to the official, we must **** us back. It’s a death to return!”
“We leaned on the trail on the cliff to escape from the village, because we really couldn’t live on the mountain anymore. When we walked from the cliff, we still fell to death because of our lack of strength. The hatred in our hearts, it was hard to survive. Ah, the Wu family…No, it’s Gu’s sister and Gu’s aunt, both of whom are sick but not dead and have become disabled. Gu’s cousin chopped off his own hand in order to survive. Every one of us wants to live. If We can live well when we get down the mountain, but how can we get down to such a dead hand?”
“We didn’t dare to flee elsewhere. We climbed the mountains and waded all the way. We just wanted to go to a remote place and survive in hiding. At that time, we ran into this place by mistake. In front of people, it was a few of us who came into the village to find food, but we never expected that we were still noticed by the villagers. They looked at us like monsters and said they were going to report to the officials. Oh, how could we let them go? News officer—”
“This place is remote and there are only ten families in the village. Seeing that their attitude is so clear, we thought about it, and felt that even if we escaped from this place and went to the next place, it would still be the case. The savages usually live in the woods, so why don’t we turn this village into our original home?”
“After all, our original home was destroyed by you people!”
Zhang Jiaerlang was out of breath, listening to the negative test, as if recalling the old things made him grief and indignation, but he was straightforward and confident, without guilt, and he was shockingly cold and numb.
Wu Xiang said outside: “That village is called Gu Zhang Village, because there used to be people with the ancient surname and Zhang surname in the village. Later when they arrived here, they changed their surnames to Zhang and Wu. They called them for so many years. I’m not used to the original surname.”
Sun Zhao was also shocked by what he said, and he paused for a while before continuing: “So, you killed the entire village, and then you still want to pay homage to your water **** with the people in the village?”
“Water God…” Zhang Jiaerlang finally hesitated in his tone, “That plague was the punishment given to us by the Water God. The old people in our village believed in these, but our juniors didn’t care about it. Later, it turned out that the Water God was the one who believed in this. We must be punished with heavenly punishment. We crawled out of the dead. Even if we occupy this place, we dare not care about it. It just so happens that there are so many people in this village that we will kill all of them, so that the God of Water will protect us. “
In the end, his tone was chilling, and Sun Zhao asked, “How many people in the village were killed by you? Except for the corpses in the black water pool, where are the corpses of other people buried by you?”
Zhang Erlang was very calm, “Buried behind Aunt Zhang’s house.”
Wu Xiang frowned, and listened to Zhang Erlang continuing to say: “There is a pine forest behind their house. The tree was planted after the bones were buried. Because the pool was too small to accommodate so many people, the tree was planted. The safest.”
I saw it when Wu Xiang helped Granny Zhang repair the house in that pine forest! Wu Xiang’s eyes widened, and immediately went out to call Hou Yang, “You take the rest of the people to the pine forest behind Zhang’s mother-in-law’s house and start digging now, and you have bought a lot of corpses underneath.”
Hou Yang’s expression became tense, and he hurriedly went to convene people.
In the room, Sun Zhao asked again: “Zhang…Zhang Yu’s father is Zhang Heqing, right? The baby you worshipped in Luohe this time, but his biological daughter?”
Zhang Erlang became calmer when he heard the words, “Yes, water is yin, and it is more useful to pay homage to girls.”
Sun Zhao couldn’t help but said in a cold voice, “That’s his biological daughter, and his daughter was smothered to death, what about his wife?”
“Die, they have already decided on this matter. If it is a baby boy, it will stay, if it is a girl baby, it will go to the gods. His daughter-in-law didn’t know. I didn’t even think about how to treat her. She died after giving birth regardless of her own blood collapse.” Zhang Erlang’s voice did not seem to be talking about the death of a mother and daughter, but as if to say that today was a good weather.
“Who sent the baby to the bank of Luohe after the baby died? Where was her mother buried?”
“It’s Qinghe. The people here don’t like to leave the village. He is the only one who walks outside. His wife is also a foreigner. She has been here for a long time. She is a stupid and good-natured child, so she didn’t notice anything wrong. After she died, she seemed to be buried in the pine forest behind Zhang’s family.”
Sun Zhao darkened his face, “Besides these, have you harmed other people? In the past few years, have you never harmed other babies? Haven’t harmed other people to sacrifice to gods?”
“No, a lot of people were killed back then. We also know that it was a murder. It’s just that after so many years, the bottom of my heart has become more and more disturbed, and they are afraid that the things of the year will come back every day, and they are getting sick and getting sicker and sicker. , I want to ask the **** of water when I have nowhere to go for medical treatment. Aunt Zhang has also been infected, and her legs and feet are about to be disabled.”
Zhang Erlang’s answer was straightforward. Speaking of these, his voice was silent and vague, as if it were something unusual.
After asking this, Sun Zhao understood everything and said, “How many people did you kill back then do you remember? How did you succeed with so many people in the village? How many people did you kill?”
“How many people can’t remember. Anyway, we can’t keep any of them. How to get it right… First, a family found that our origin was unknown, and looked like people who had been wandering for a long time. Reporter, the few of us first dealt with their family, and then we went back to discuss it and felt that it was better not to do nothing. Anyway, there was a murder case. When the government came, I was afraid that we would be targeted. At that time, most of the women’s families were there Hidden in the woods, the five of us figured out the number of people in each family and did it at night. I can’t remember how many people I killed. Anyway, I cut the mess quickly and didn’t give them a chance to escape.”
Zhang Erlang gave a blunt explanation, and his voice disappeared. He listened thinly outside the room, and when he thought of the knife marks he had seen in the empty room, he seemed to think that the family was sleeping peacefully that day, but the culprits broke into and killed him. The fear of despair comes.
Sun Zhao asked a few more details, but Zhang Erlang explained them one by one. After a while, Sun Zhao walked out of the house and saw Huo Weilou and Bo Ruoyou approaching. He stepped forward to salute and asked, “How long has it been for Master Hou? ?”
“For a moment.” Huo Weilou glanced at the wing room, “I heard most of what was said in it. When the trial is reached here, the events of the year will be clear. When the people who went to Qinshui County come back, the deceased can be identified.”
Sun Zhao nodded, “Yes, the most important thing now is to find the bones of other people.”
Wu Xiang hurriedly said: “I have ordered someone to dig it, I believe it will be digging out soon.”
Sun Zhao sighed, “Extremely vicious, really vicious. Although the plague back then was a catastrophe, but these people were too lawless. They stayed up all night and just didn’t ask a few words. By this morning, this person suddenly As if I wanted to open it, I was willing to speak. I haven’t seen such a tragedy in years.”
This case is tantamount to the massacre of the entire village, and in order to sacrifice to the gods, even his own flesh and blood was not spared, making it even more frightening. Sun Zhao stayed with Huo Weilou for a while before proceeding to interrogate others. However, the others were still not easy to pry. Open your mouth.
Seeing that nothing else could be found in the trial for a while, Bo Ruoyou asked where Zhang Yu was. The government officer took her to the back cover room, and Huo Weilou followed along.
The place was narrow and cramped, and it was piled with useless furniture. When the door was opened, Zhang Yu was sitting on a dusty wicker chair. Hearing the sound, he looked over with expectation. When he saw it was thin, his body was clear. She shrank back, and the tears flowed more fiercely, but he still held the small boat Bo Ruoyou had given him in his hand.
The paper is rough, and it has been deformed after being held by him for a long time, but he still holds it tightly. Huo Weilou stood at the door, and Bo Ruoyou entered the door. She walked to Zhang Yu and sighed, “Don’t be afraid. Your mother-in-law and father have done bad things, but it has nothing to do with you. No matter what you do afterwards. They, the government will give you a place to go.”
Zhang Yu’s eyes were streaming with tears, and there was fear on his face. Bo Ruoyou never calmed him this time, but said a little sternly: “Don’t believe the words your mother-in-law taught you. There is no heavenly punishment to punish you, only if you make a mistake. Only things will be punished, and now you still can’t tell these things clearly, you will surely know when you can, and you must do more of the right things.”
Zhang Yu was still a child and didn’t have a good education. He didn’t understand what he said. Bo Ruoyou took out a towel and put it in his palm, then got up and walked out, the door opened and closed. Inside Zhang Yu’s sobbing voice was louder, and Bo Ruoyou sighed a little worried. When he came out, he asked, “If such a child, where would he be placed?”
Huo Weilou thought for a moment, “The Xiangguo Temple outside the city once set up a small temple. There were mostly orphans without father and mother. They should be raised as little novice monks. When they are older, they can return to the vulgar if they don’t want to enter Buddhism.”
Bo Ruoyou was relieved. Seeing Huo Weilou looking at him deeply, he said, “Master Hou knows I once had a younger brother?”
Of course Huo Weilou knew, and knew that the child died early, but his expression was ordinary, and he only signaled Bo Ruoyou to continue, and Bo Ruoyou said as he walked: “I was only one year younger than me, and his name was Lan Zhou. As a result, there was an accident back then. I passed away. At that time, I was still young, and later I became ill. I can’t remember many things. I just remember that every time he cried, I folded a paper boat out of paper for him and he stopped crying. .”
“So you have a little pity for the children.”
Bo Ruoyou twitched the corners of his lips, “Perhaps, in fact, I can’t remember his appearance anymore, so when I see someone of the same age, I always feel that if he reaches this age, he might also look like this.”
The two turned out from the back porch, and there was no one around, Huo Weilou held her hand and squeezed.
He quickly let go, but this time, Bo Ruoyou’s heart was dissipated, and she said: “My father, mother and younger brother died accidentally, and I was the only one left in our three rooms, so they once said After I hit the fierce Shake and killed them.”
Huo Weilou let go of the hand and took it back, and he stopped to look at her, “The person who said this is both stupid and vicious. You don’t have to take it to heart.”
Bo Ruoyou blinked, “Aren’t you afraid of Lord Hou?”
Huo Weilou smiled, “No one in this world dares to beat my fate.”
Bo Ruoyou mentioned this, although she expected that Huo Weilou would not care, but she knew that many people in the world believed this, until Huo Weilou said that her life was hard, the tension in her heart was relieved.
When I walked to the main hall, I saw that the sky was high and the clouds were clear, and it was clear and clear. At this time, Yang ran in from the courtyard and said, “Hou Ye, catch the head, and indeed the skeleton was dug in the pine forest. From outside, we dug I arrived at a female corpse that was never boneless.”
Wu Xiang said: “It’s Zhang Yu’s mother. Zhang Er has already recruited. Let’s go. I will let you see.”
When Bo Ruoyou heard that the bones and corpses had been found, and knew that he was going to work, he also went to the pine forest. Huo Weilou wanted to accompany him when he saw it. Back to Beijing?”
Huo Weilou pulled his lips, “Go back to Beijing this afternoon.”
Bo Ruoyou thought for a moment, but didn’t say anything. Wu Xiang waited for Bo Ruoyou a step before, and asked her mysteriously: “Bo, why is Lord Hou here for? Why am I looking at Lord Hou? I’ve been with Xiaobo, and I haven’t seen any other personal affairs.”
Bo Ruoyou’s cheeks warmed, “I don’t know, catch the head, we have to be quicker, and return to Beijing sooner after the inspection.”
Wu Xiang responded without paying attention, and went straight to the pine forest behind Zhang’s house.
When I arrived in the pine forest, I saw about 20 government officials working together. They had dug large and small pits from the pine forest. Some people were cutting trees, and the female corpse that Hou Yang said was at the outermost periphery.
A dozen new pine trees have just been planted there, all of which are waist-high. At this moment, the middle one is pulled out, and a simple coffin is exposed in the pit dug by the government officials. The lid of the coffin has been opened and has not yet been reached. In front of him, Bo Ruoyou smelled a rotten smell, and when he walked to the edge of the pit, he saw the female corpse in the coffin at a glance.
Bo Ruoyou said: “The corpse must be removed.”
The yamen got started, lifted the corpse out of the inside with a cold face and placed it on the flat ground. Bo Ruoyou put on a handguard, rolled up his sleeves, and put a towel on his face, and then squatted down for an autopsy.
Huo Weilou stood by and watched, seeing her busy as an outsider for the first time.
The deceased died for many days, the corruption was serious, and because he died after childbirth, the wounds rotted even more. Bo Ruoyou had listened to Zhang Jiaerlang’s confession, and naturally he was the first to determine the cause of death, and when other people around continued to dig for bones. She checked this remote corner by herself, and Bo Ruoyou straightened up after the hour of two sticks of incense.
Wu Xiang strode over from a distance, “Xiao Bo, how about it?”
Bo Ruoyou said sternly: “Zhang Er didn’t lie, she really died in a **** collapse.”
Wu Xiang stared at him, “Fortunately, instead of being murdered to death, I still have a little conscience. It’s just that I have pity for her and can’t save my daughter, so my life is also accounted for here.”
Bo Ruoyou frowned, “Although he was not directly murdered, it is also the ruthless family. In spite of her hindrance, she insists on using a baby to sacrifice to the gods, but if her heart is softer and stopped by her, it may not be this far.”