Taiping Inn

While stopping to rest, the little girl got off the carriage and followed the "Xiu Chun Quan" that Li Xuandu taught her, imitating the others and began to stretch her muscles.

The little girl heard all the conversation between Hu Liang and Li Xuandu just now. After the boxing, she came to Li Xuandu and whispered, "Brother, are we going to the home of that hero Song?"

Li Xuandu made a face at her and smiled, "Yes, given Brother Song's personality, if he knew that we didn't enter, I'm afraid we wouldn't even be friends. Besides, Fenglei Sect is big and powerful, and it's not afraid of Qingluan Guards, so your uncle Hu Liang and I discussed it and decided to go. After all, the Jianghu is all about human relationships and courtesy."

The little girl said, frowned slightly, and her little face showed a bit of solemnity.

Li Xuandu touched her eyebrows and asked with a smile, "What's wrong?"

The little girl shook her head and said nothing.

At this time, Hu Liang interrupted and said, "You told her about the Nanshan Garden incident. Once bitten by a snake, you will be afraid of the rope for ten years. Add to that the two stories I told her last night, and the little girl must have been scared."

The always strong-willed little girl pursed her lips lightly, and for the first time in her life, she did not refute.

Li Xuandu laughed dumbly.

Although the little girl was gentle and looked like a stranger, she was still a child after getting to know her. When the three of them spent the night by the forest yesterday, the little girl insisted on asking Hu Liang to tell a story. I thought Hu Liang would tell a story about a hero fighting evil and protecting the good, or a story about the twists and turns of love between a young hero and a heroine, or at least a story about how the devil was lawless and evil, but Hu Liang told two stories that made the little girl entangled for half the night.

At that time, Hu Liang followed the great general Qin Xiang to the west to recapture Qinzhou. At that time, Qinzhou was devastated, nine out of ten houses were empty, and the government offices of various prefectures were also destroyed. So Qin Xiang ordered the military officers in the army to act as local officials. Hu Liang was the deputy general at that time, temporarily taking over the responsibility of the criminal prosecutor and taking charge of criminal cases. Although that period was very short, an incident happened during that period that left a deep impression on Hu Liang.

The case was not big, and the family involved was just an ordinary wealthy family. The male owner of that family was a businessman who was often away from home because of traveling all over the country. The wife at home was in her prime, and she had no worries about food and clothing. Finally, she couldn't stand the loneliness of staying alone in the empty room, and she had an affair with a scholar in secret.

There is no impenetrable wall in this world, and the truth will come out eventually. The male owner accidentally discovered this matter. Although Qinzhou is not as strict as Jiangnan, where people are often thrown into a pig cage, and because of the long-term war, the folk customs are quite open and widows are allowed to remarry, but they cannot tolerate such things, so the male owner decided to send his wife back to her parents' home with a divorce letter.

The wife lost her reputation and was kicked out of the house by her husband's family. Even her two children did not recognize her. She thought she still had a lover, but after she was kicked out of the house, she was short of money, and the scholar treated her worse than before and ignored her. Under all these circumstances, the woman finally got into a demon barrier.

What happened afterwards opened the eyes of Hu Liang, an old man in the world. The woman, with the idea of ​​destroying both jade and stone, tricked the scholar into her home for dinner, got him drunk, and strangled him to death with a rope.

Then she took advantage of her ex-husband's absence and ran back to her ex-husband's home to beg her mother-in-law for forgiveness. Her mother-in-law was soft-hearted and asked her to stay at home for dinner. She took the initiative to cook for her mother-in-law and secretly poisoned the food.

The daughter was poisoned to death. Because the mother-in-law ate less, she woke up after the woman left in a hurry and was rescued by the servant.

The son went to school and played with his friends outside after school, so he escaped by chance.

When the mother-in-law sent someone to report to the officials and the police captured the woman, the woman was looking for her son everywhere. The head of the police found a hammer in the small bag she carried with her.

During the trial, before the torture, the woman confessed frankly: she planned to use a hammer to kill her son, and then wait for an opportunity to kill her ex-husband, and finally hang herself.

The captain who tried the case felt that the case was serious and did not dare to make a decision easily, so he reported it to Hu Liang. Hu Liang decided to personally question the woman and asked her: Killing her lover is fine, which can be barely excusable, but what is wrong with her ex-husband, mother-in-law, and child? Why did she do this?

The woman said: The ex-husband was wrong in catching her adultery and divorcing her, the mother-in-law was wrong in supporting her ex-husband to divorce her, and the child was wrong in not wanting to recognize her as a mother after she was divorced.

Hu Liang asked her again: Even a tiger will not eat its own cubs, why are you so cruel?

The woman replied: Because I feel that life is boring and I don’t want to live anymore, and I’m afraid of loneliness on the road to the underworld, so I want the child to go down to accompany me.

Finally, Hu Liang determined that this woman was no longer a human but a demon, and should not be judged by human laws. He regarded her as a demon and ghost, and used peach wood as firewood and set her on fire.

There is another story that Hu Liang saw and heard in Liangzhou.

Compared to Qinzhou, Liangzhou at that time was almost like hell on earth. Because of the war, there were refugees everywhere. All the grass roots and tree barks were eaten, and people were eaten. Officials could not stop them. Women and children were sold in the market, called vegetable people, and butchers bought them like pigs and sheep.

At that time, Hu Liang had a general under him who had just arrived in Liangzhou and had no idea why he went to a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant said, "I've finished the meat, please wait for a while." Then he saw the store grabbing two women and walking towards the kitchen. The deputy general hurried to the kitchen and saw a woman who had been cut off her right arm with an axe and curled up on the ground. The other woman trembled with a look of no one. After seeing the deputy general, two whimpered and shouted none the time, and the woman who had broken arms was only silenced. Asked for death quickly, another woman asked for help. The deputy general was compassionate and spent two taels of silver to redeem the two women. The woman with broken arms committed suicide with a sharp knife, while the other woman was killed by the deputy general Take it as a concubine.

At that time, a master of Taiping Sect accompanied him to look at the deputy general and said that he should have no son in his life, but he had such good deeds to ignite a stick of incense for the family. Later, the concubine really gave birth to a son. The child had a red line from his armpit to his shoulder blades, just like a broken-armed woman who committed suicide that day, which confirmed the words of the Taiping Sect master.

When the Taiping Sect master left the army, he wrote a poem.

It is better for the husband and wife to die of hunger and starve to death in the year of the year.

If you get three thousand money, you can get one mile.

The two limbs were broken and the butcher's house was slaughtered, and the thighs were cut and the soup was taken.

If you don’t order, you must not ask for fresh meat, and you can see the hungry people in your stomach.

Especially after Li Xuan heard this, he felt like he fell into an ice cellar, and his back felt cold, and he couldn't help but sigh again.

A kind mother cuts her flesh and feeds her son, and a bad father changes her son and eats her.

Compared with these tragedies in the world, the bloody storms in the world have become nothing, and he has become more and more aware of what Zhang Suqing and the others wanted to do back then.

The Confucian sages said that they established their minds for the heaven and earth, established their destiny for the living and the people, inherited their unique knowledge for the past sages, and opened peace for all generations.

Those four old men want to bring peace!

Why do people in troubled times say that people are not as good as peaceful dogs? The secret dog of the peaceful world can still be full and barking, but people in the troubled world can fill their stomachs with extravagance.

The shepherd guards the people of the world, not to mention the prosperous times, but at least he has to give the people of the world a way out. It is said that God has the virtue of living a life, but in the troubled times, such a trivial requirement is more difficult than climbing to heaven.

How miserable are the people?

Li Xuandu said to Zhou Shuning: "There may be monsters and ghosts in this world, but there is no real demon. The so-called demon is ultimately human. Demons are in the hearts of people, and they are the way of demons. We meet in Nanshan Garden. This is the case with Chen Guhong. The kindness of the kindness told you this is to let you know that people’s hearts are sinister, that they should not have the intention to harm others, and that they should not be despaired in this world. There have always been two sides, and people's hearts are changing, and black and white transformation is often only in one thought. You can also think of your father. If this world is a night sky, then he is a star in the night sky. With such a person, our world will not be completely dark. When the night is covered with stars, will this world still be dark?”

The little girl raised her head, looked at Li Xuandu, and asked seriously, "Where is the bright moon?"

Li Xuandu looked down at her and said sadly: "There was a bright moon once, but it was eaten by Tiangou in the second year of Tianbao. Since then, I have been waiting for the second bright moon."