twin moon

Chapter 14 Act Two
Before the Zhihe crossing, the noon sun was shining on the ground, but it couldn't make people feel the slightest warmth.More than a hundred corpse vultures gathered in the sky, circling, and the blackness was overwhelming.They seem to have predicted in advance that they will be able to enjoy a sumptuous meal of human flesh in a short time.

Under the cold sun, the crowd formed an irregular circle in the open space.This is a temporary execution ground, and the one who is being pushed to the gallows by the jailer right now is a young woman with ashen face.His thin body was trembling unceasingly because of fear, but no sound could come out of his throat.

The so-called gallows is just a lonely banyan tree in the town.Two tall and burly executioners supported the prisoner on the left and the right, and stood on a thin wooden stake standing under the tree.The wooden stake can only accommodate the small half of an adult's foot, so the woman had to stand on tiptoe and tense her body in a strange posture to temporarily prevent herself from falling off the wooden stake.

The executioner put a thick hemp rope around the woman's neck.The other end of the hemp rope went around a thick branch more than two feet high above his head.The new shoots on the branches are green and green, and they will bloom and bear fruit in three or two months. They are full of vitality, but they don't have any pity for the life that is about to wither and dissipate under them.

Under a few nearby branches, several corpses that still had body heat were hung up in scattered places.There were one or two prisoners who were not yet dead, and occasionally their toes twitched violently, which made people shudder.

Right now, in the open space in front of the banyan tree, many Zhihedu townspeople gathered around to watch the execution.They were blocked from the execution ground by the soldiers with knives, but they all stretched their necks, wanting to see what the officials called the "sea bandits" from a distance.

"I beg you, don't kill my mother!"

Suddenly, a few hoarse children's voices were heard from the crowd, causing quite a commotion.Those who yelled were two half-grown children who seemed to be no more than seven or eight years old, a boy and a girl.The woman hanging under the tree immediately recognized the familiar voice, raised her head with difficulty, tears streaming down her face, and finally squeezed out the word "wronged" from her throat in a hoarse voice.

However, Ting Wei, who was sitting in front of the case, was unmoved at all, and waved his hand to signal for immediate execution.The executioner got the order and kicked over the thin wooden stake that the woman was stepping on.The rope immediately strangled the prisoner's throat and embedded deeply under her flesh.

The woman's complexion quickly turned red, and the veins on her forehead were also bulging.Her bound hands and feet kicked wildly in the air, and her whole body was like a fish that had just been caught on the surface of the water, struggling to wriggle in the air, but she couldn't exert any strength at all.

A moment later, pink blood froth rose from the corner of the woman's mouth, as if her throat had been completely crushed by the rope.The body also gradually calmed down, his eyes stared weakly ahead, and two lines of bloody tears rolled down from the flushed eye sockets.

"Mother! My mother is not a bad person, why did you kill my mother!"

The two children got in from under the armpits of the soldiers maintaining order around the execution ground, and rushed towards the banyan tree, crying loudly, but they were still stopped by several executioners and pushed down to the ground.

"Didn't the prisoner say that she has no children? Why do these two brats call her mother?" Ting Wei raised his eyebrows and raised his chin to signal to the executioner, "Since we are allies of the pirates, we will do it together. There will be no future troubles!"

"Oh, how can you be so cruel! It's just two children!"

"Yeah, these prisoners seem to be honest and responsible people, so how could they be pirates?"

There were a few vague comments among the spectators outside the execution ground, and they seemed to feel that the scene in front of them was too cruel.When the two children were sent to the gallows crying, many people lowered their heads, and some even shed tears on the spot.

"After the criminal is hanged, he has to die here for seven days, so that the world will know the fate of being with the bandits! If there is another person who speaks rudely and disturbs the execution ground, he will be guilty of the same crime as the bandits! Take the next one!"

The sound of commotion soon reached Ting Wei's ears, causing him to shout angrily on the spot, and the frightened crowd fell silent again.With a wave of Ting Wei's hand, the jailers quickly dragged out another old woman from the temporary cage, and pushed her to the Shangguan.

Ting Wei snorted heavily in his nose, only looked up at the prisoner, and asked sharply:

"Then, it's your turn to tell me where the pirates in the village are hidden by you?"

"My lord, the grassroots are really wronged. Our village has struggled to survive at the foot of the hill for more than ten years, isolated from the world, and only hoped to live in peace. How could we know how to break the law and deliberately let those two murderers The kid is gone!"

This old woman is the witch who once made things difficult for Jiang Yan and Ning Yue.It turned out that although the cavalry general of the Ye Kingdom fell off his horse and was seriously injured, the horse still knew the way back to the camp, and dragged its owner all the way back to Zhihedu.The new Captain Xiaoqi who was in charge of patrolling the area saw this and immediately led his troops into the mountain to search, but only found one member of the team who entered the mountain together with the cavalry general. No trace.

In a rage, the captain ordered his men to capture all the living people who were hiding in the nearby forest and bring them back to Zhihedu.Among them, men, women, old and young, were all identified as fellow pirates, handcuffed and fettered, and put in prisons.

The witch knelt on the ground and kept begging, her voice becoming more and more piercing because of fear.Ting Wei didn't listen to his excuse at all, and frowned tightly:
"Bold and cunning woman! You didn't let me let you go, could it be that I let you go?"

"My lord, I have absolutely no intention of that—"

"The corpse of the hunter lying at the entrance of the village is from your village! And the one who was hanged just now is his neighbor, his wife and children, right?"

The witch didn't know what the other party meant by asking, but she didn't dare to lie, and nodded timidly.

"Then let me ask you, if it is true as what you said, the Orion never sheltered the pirates, let alone confronted them with swords, so why did the cavalry team who went to investigate the village kill him on the spot? Besides, what do you think? , With only two children in the district, if there is no one else to help, how can they retreat after seriously injuring the leading cavalry general and killing the second person?!"

"That demon girl must have done it! She cast a spell in the village before, causing the world to turn upside down, and the chickens and dogs are restless!"

"Full of nonsense! Are you really so old and confused that you have forgotten that the secret art of witchcraft has long been banned by the Dasheng law, and countless books related to it have been burned hundreds of years ago. Those who are proficient in the art, He was even rounded up by all the countries and tortured to death, and there is no one alive! How could it be such a coincidence that a witch who is proficient in witchcraft appeared in your village? Or, it wasn’t that witch who would Spells, but one of you?!"

Lieutenant Ting was frothing, it seemed that today, no matter what, the villagers would be charged with the crime.Seeing this, the witch completely lost the last ounce of courage to beg for mercy, and she collapsed on the ground and burst into tears.

"Troublemaker! What are you trying to achieve by shielding pirates so willingly? Since you are not afraid of death, then I will help you!"

Ting Wei didn't have the patience to ask any more questions, and immediately got up and ordered the executioner to take the old woman to the tree to hang herself.However, before he finished speaking, a strong and powerful hand pressed his shoulder behind him, and pressed him back to the seat.

"Master Tingwei, please wait a moment, I still have something to ask this old woman."

"General, why are you here? Just ask if you have anything to say, just ask!"

When Ting Wei turned his head, he immediately put a smile on his face.Standing behind him was a burly general with beards.Wei Ting heard that this person was originally a general in the boat division, and was temporarily relegated to this place to be the captain of the owl cavalry because of his defeat a few months ago. other side.

The person who came didn't say much to the Ting Wei, but instead asked the shivering old woman kneeling on the ground:

"Old woman, this general can now order you to be released together with the rest of the villagers, but before that, you must answer a few questions for me."

"Is it wrong for General Luo to do this? I have signed a military order this time, and I would rather kill by mistake than release by mistake!" Tingwei approached from behind and reminded in a low voice.

The visitor glanced at the other party sharply, and Ting Wei was so frightened that he didn't dare to say any more: "I can do it if I say it. Don't interrupt!"

Then he turned to the old woman again, and continued to ask:

"The general just wants to know, if the Orion you are talking about is really a pirate, does he always carry any unusual things with him? For example - an old yellow map?"

The old woman was eager to survive, and immediately tried to recall, and finally said in a trembling voice after a while: "I have never seen Maple before, but he has a short knife that he wears with him. I have never seen a knife in such an old age." It's more delicate than jewelry."

"Oh? What kind of knife is that?"

"Extremely exquisite! The scabbard of the knife is engraved with many strange patterns and inlaid with countless precious stones. But it seems that Orion You doesn't care much about it, and gave the knife to the little devil when he first came to the village."

"Give the knife to the child? What did the two escaped children look like?"

"The demon girl is a red-haired girl, but she looks pretty. The boy has a fierce face, with black eyes like a barbarian, and frowns all day long—oh, by the way, his right eyebrow is in the middle, and A long scar."

"Are you sure you remember correctly?"

"Absolutely not. That kid has lived in the village for more than a month, and there is absolutely no way I can remember it wrong."

Listening to the old woman's description, the captain suddenly narrowed his eyes, as if remembering something.After a moment of silence, he didn't continue to ask questions, but pressed the iron long knife hanging on his waist with his left hand, turned around and wanted to go back to the camp.

As the hand on Ting Wei's shoulder was removed, he finally had a chance to stand up again, and hurriedly asked loudly at the other's back:
"General Luo, can these villagers be released?"

"Release? You and I have signed the military order this time. We would rather be killed by mistake than release by mistake! There is no need for another trial. They will all be hanged and no one will be left alive!"

Captain Luo, surnamed Luo, said such a sentence without looking back, which immediately caused wailing and howling in the execution ground.The whimpering wind that was blowing gradually seemed like countless lonely and wild ghosts grinning in the air, hoping that the new dead would soon join their ranks.

(End of this chapter)