The shipkeeper who was raising the boat was named Wang Sanliu.
What does this name mean? It’s very simple. He was born on the sixth day of the third month, so it’s called Sanliu.
Back then, most children from poor families named this kind of name, because their adults had limited educational level, and because they were indeed not suitable for those particularly noble names.
Think about it, a fisherman has basically no one in his family. If you name him Zixuan or Zihan... Will he write it secondly? Maybe he will be ridiculed when he grows up.
For example, there is a wealthy family. The master is low-key, with the surname Yu, and the single name is Qian, and he is also very humble. As a result, he has three servants who work as a mate, one is Long Aotian, the other is Zhao Ritian, and the other is Dong Batian... How do you think this master feels?
On weekdays, I asked them to do things and said, "Ri Tian, ​​make a pot of tea for me and dominate me, and make a basin of my foot wash. Oh, did that dog feed me today?"
You think this master is so awkward?
In addition, there is another relatively superstitious saying among the people, which is the so-called "famous name is easy to support".
One said that a child is energetic but not mentally conscious, so he is easily targeted by ghosts, so he can ward off evil spirits by even ghosts. Another said that when the King of Hell turned over the Book of Life and Death, he would be impressed by the name that was too distinctive, and he would be hooked, but those names like Zhang San, Li Si, Goudan, and Pork Son are easily ignored.
But in the final analysis, it is because the medical level was too low that the probability of children suffering from illness or being disabled is a bit high, so this kind of statement has a market.
Wang Sanliu's family believed in that style. When he was a child, he often listened to the elders at home...especially the elderly people talked about these things.
Among the many stories he has heard, there is one that impressed him deeply, that is the legend of "Lanruo Temple" on the island in the middle of the lake.
According to legend, more than a thousand years ago, the Xihe River was not called Xihe, but "Zihe River". There was a big monster living under the river, known as the "Zihe Ancestor".
What is "elimination"? Elimination means extinction and waste.
Just listening to this person, this monster's hobbies are of the first grade...
At that time, countless people died in the corpse river every year, and these people, without exception, became the food for the ancestor of the corpse. The ancestor of the corpse was tortured by the corpse, drew demonic power from the soul's sorrow and resentment. When a person's three souls and seven spirits were almost wiped out, the ancestor of the corpse would swallow his body and squeeze the last little flesh and blood dry. It was truly a true "eating people without spitting bones."
Needless to say, such a bad thing will definitely not last long.
One day, an old Taoist came, and he didn't say anything nonsense. He jumped into the river and started fighting with the monster. This man and the monster fought for three days and three nights, and the battle was so dark that the sky was dark, and ghosts cried and howled.
In the end, the old Taoist was slightly better and killed the old ancestor who destroyed the corpse at the bottom of the river.
However, the monster's body had accumulated too much flesh and blood and resentment from the unjust corpse soul. As soon as it died, all the things surged out, and they all mixed and transformed into thousands of walking corpses, evil ghosts and evil spirits, who were about to climb up the shore from the bottom of the river.
When the old Taoist saw that the matter was about to happen, he hurriedly sacrificed his magic weapon, used all the last bit of the power of the Tao to summon a mountain from the sky, conquering the heart of the river, and pressing the demons and evil spirits under the mountain.
Since then, there has been such an island in the middle of the lake at the mouth of the Sancha River, and the "Zihe River" has also been renamed "Zihe River" in order not to touch the word "Zihe" so as not to call out the thing below.
In this way, hundreds of years passed in a blink of an eye, and the end of the previous dynasty was reached.
That year, the king was foolish, treacherous ministers were everywhere, natural disasters and man-made disasters, and people were living in poverty.
There is a saying that officials force the people to rebel. Since they want to rebel, they will definitely fight.
At that time, Taizu of Shi personally led the rebel army to fight with a unit of the previous dynasty, who retreated step by step and retreated to the south bank of the Xihe River.
The former general who was chased by Taizu was named Yelu Baoqi. This guy is greedy for life and fears death and does evil things. He also knows that even if he surrenders, the rebels will most likely not save their lives. Therefore, seeing that he has been forced to the point of being in the water, Yelu Baoqi did something extremely shameless, and he actually took advantage of the night to escape with more than a dozen confidants and guards, riding on the only bamboo rafts and the fishing boat he stolen.
All the soldiers of the army were left by him and waited for death by the river.
I don’t know if it was God’s will. That night, as soon as Yelu Baoqi arrived at the heart of the river, the wind blew on the surface of the river, which made the waves turbulent and the water rush.
Yelu Baoqi had no choice but to go to the island in the middle of the lake with his subordinates for a while.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, the rebel army took advantage of the night to rob the camp and launched a raid on the camp by the river.
An army that had all lost their heads and generals, like a headless fly, was hit like this and was naturally in chaos and was soon killed and defeated.
In this way, Yelu Baoqi watched the fire from the other side of the night, watching the soldiers following him being slaughtered on the other side dozens of meters away from him, and clearly listening to the wails and screams.
But he felt no guilt at all about this, but instead was glad that he ran in time.
Soon, thousands of lives disappeared, and their blood dyed the water of the River Red.
And the pain and resentment of being betrayed and abandoned connect their blood with another force pressing under the island in the middle of the lake...
The next day, Taizu led the rebel army to the island in the middle of the lake, preparing to capture Yelu Baoqi alive, but found that Yelu Baoqi and his dozen of his confidants were all dead.
The clothes and armor on the dead body were all intact, and there were no obvious scars, but each of the corpses... had no flesh or internal organs, and had only a frame of bones, with a complete, undecayed human skin on the outside.
This is evil.
Even though there were a bunch of big men in the army, and it was daytime at this moment, when everyone saw the death of Yelu Baoqi and others, they felt a chill on their backs.
However, they can't manage such things even if they want to, so they can only leave it alone.
It was not until many years later that Taizu conquered the country and established the Great Land.
One night, he had a dream, dreaming that he returned to the Sancha River estuary of the Wuhe River and was drifting on a bamboo raft. Suddenly, thousands of heads suddenly appeared on the water surface around him, and the face of each head was similar to Yelu Baoqi's dead shape, with empty eyes, but the surface of the bone was covered with a fresh human skin.
Awoke to a nightmare and sweat all over.
This dream scared Taizu very much, and he sent the national master to explain his dreams overnight.
What kind of character is the national teacher?
Do you think you are just a royal fortune teller and can fool you?
impossible.
This position has high requirements for literary attainments, common sense of natural science, psychological ability, royal family rituals and laws, and even appearance.
On weekdays, in addition to doing astronomy in Sitianjian, telling fortunes, interpreting dreams, and treating the emperor and the empresses, according to the requirements of different emperors, the national teacher may also have to preach, preach, treat diseases, drive away disasters, seek rain, and catch monsters...
The most important thing is that even if the additional factors such as changing dynasties and changing generations of dead emperors are included, there is at least one "sacrifice to the sky" every year.
Sacrifice to heaven is a major event in the feudal dynasty.
A big deal.
For the national master, hosting sacrifices to heaven every year is like experiencing a tribulation today. Even if you make a major mistake in hosting the Spring Festival Gala, at most you will disappear from the TV screen next year; in ancient times, if you hosting sacrifices to heaven, you will disappear from the earth next year.
Therefore, those who can become national teachers and should be stable have their IQ, speech, and psychological qualities... that are definitely not ordinary people.
The first national teacher next to Taizu was undoubtedly such a person. When he heard Taizu talk about the dream, his eyes turned around and asked Taizu indirectly if he had been to that place before, so Taizu told him about the annihilation of Yelu Baoqi's family back then.
The national master laughed after hearing this.
What are you laughing at? First, you are happy and you know what to do. Second, you can make him confident with a smile.
After laughing, the national master told Taizu that the people who died there were very resentment and somehow had something to do with you. In the past, you were still fighting the country, and you had no skills and no ability to care about them. They didn't blame you, but now you are the king of a country, they think you should save them, so they sent a dream to complain.
When Taizu heard something was right, he asked again: "Then how can I help them?"
The national master said: "It's easy to do, just build a temple there."
As soon as this idea came out, the "project payment" for building the temple was obtained. Can the national teacher not peel the layers of skin first? As for how the people below subcontracted them layer by layer after he finished cutting, it was another matter.
Anyway, the temple was built like this.
Moreover, in order to build this temple, the engineering team also built a bridge on the south bank of the lake island (it was too troublesome to transport building materials by ship), and the cost increased a lot, so that later the national teacher asked the emperor to pay for this matter.
A few years later, the temple was built, and the national master named it "Lan Ruo", which means "silent, pure, and without suffering and troubles."
However, this temple has been an empty temple since its completion.
Originally, who would have gone to the temple built on the island in the middle of the lake? If there was a knock on the north bank of the island, connected to the other side of the river, it would be easy to say, so there would be people coming and going, but now it is a dead end, where can the incense come from?
Furthermore, the island is so big that it is impossible to cultivate farmland and grow grain. If someone stays in the temple, he still has to buy grain and daily necessities from outside to deliver it to the island?
Therefore, Lanruo Temple is like the "face project" created by many bureaucracy. After spending a lot of money to get it out, the actual meaning is to show it to the leaders. By the way, it also gave some people some personal gain.
After a few years, the bridge on the south bank of the lake island was also washed away by water; of course, this is reasonable. When the temple was built, the cost was insufficient because of the layers of subcontracting, so when the contractor built the bridge, he thought: This bridge can be made with a little bit of tofu, as long as it can last until the temple is completed.
I have to say that he did a very successful job. After the completion of Lanruo Temple, the bridge lasted for several years before it collapsed.
Anyway, no one left the bridge at all, and a few years later, Taizu had long forgotten about the matter here, so no one took it seriously even if the bridge collapsed.
Time passed by again, and in a blink of an eye, another two hundred years passed.
That is...thirty years ago.
That year, four sworn brothers appeared in the world, known as the "Four Thieves of the Central Plains"
The boss "Taotie Thief" Han Li, who ate the sun and ate the rice, and had a kilogram of food and wine. It is said that 90% of the property he stole was spent on eating and drinking by him.
The second son, "Longyang Thief", Zhu Meng, whose name is completely different from the feeling he gives. He looks "strong" at all, and he looks pretty, like a woman, and his voice is soft and whispered. This person is a "flower picking thief", or "grass picking thief", because he only picks men, and his taste is a tall and mighty man who is thirty years old...
The third brother "Zhuge Thieves" Lan Shuoli, whose surname is Lan, is not Zhuge, but he is called "Zhuge", which shows that this person is quick-witted and resourceful. Unfortunately, his martial arts are a bit worse than those of the other three brothers; in addition, Lan Shuoli's hobbies are quite special. He likes "smart things". In today's terms, it is some small inventions similar to magic props, such as some exquisitely designed mechanism traps, smoke screens that can use deceptive methods, and plot against others' flying needle drawers and poisonous capsules, etc.
Finally, there is also the fourth old "Flying Thieves" Li Yuan, who has reached the pinnacle of his light skills. According to rumors in the martial arts world, his light skills are of the level of "stepping on the left foot and spiraling up to heaven", and those who are not talented cannot achieve it; Li Yuan's hobbies are the most normal, he loves money and has no quirks.
There are only four people. In those years, they were very popular in the world and were rampant for a long time.
But in the end, they were "thieves" and not "righteous thieves", so they were not in the glory for too long and were chased by the miserables of the enemies who gathered together.
That night, the four of them were chased to the death. After reaching the bank of the Xi River, they took a boat and fled to the island in the middle of the lake.
The people who chased them did not give up. The twenty or so figures from the world also brought ships to cross the river, chased them all the way to Lanruo Temple.
However, after the Four Thieves in the Central Plains and their enemies entered the temple, they never came out again...
The fishermen who had borrowed the boats by them had to take the boats back, so later some people came to the island to pick up the boats; some were taken back, and some had been washed away by the wind and waves and disappeared, so they had to give up.
Among those who went to pick up the boat, some of them were brave and quietly went to the door of Lanruo Temple to look inside, but they couldn't even see a ghost, and only a gloomy wind burst out from it.
It was a coincidence that the guys who were blown by the wind would get sick when they came back and died when they were sick.
Since then, the legend of "people-eating" in Lanruo Temple began to spread nearby. Together with the two passages from more than a thousand years ago and more than two hundred years ago, the people were told vividly everywhere. After listening to them outside, the adults got numb and went home to scare the children to play.
Wang Sanliu heard this story under such circumstances.
When I heard that, he was ten years old, and now he is forty-seven. I still remember clearly, and he really believed it.
Of course, in this storm, he could not tell the above words completely to the travelers on the boat. Even if he wanted to say them, he would not stand in the rain and listen.
So, he could only simply say something like "The temple is haunted and can eat people", so how could he believe it?
Seeing that he could not convince the other party, Wang Sanliu ignored it. Anyway, he would never approach Lanruo Temple, and he would not go even if he was soaked in the rain.
Seeing that the boatman was so stubborn, everyone had no choice but to leave him and go by themselves.
In addition to Wang Sanliu, who was raising the boat, there were seven people in this boat.
Everyone is already familiar with Sun Yixie, Huang Donglai and Lei Buji, and the other four are: a scholar, a doctor in the martial arts world, a businessman with a footsteps, and a strong man with unknown identities.
Chapter completed!