Updated: 2012-12-02

Cross the river and cross Longma Mountain. The more you go west, the more desolate the scenery along the way.

I couldn't see anyone on the winding and muddy mountain road for a while. Looking around, there were only rows of lush cypresses and short and twisted shrubs.

In the deep autumn, the ground is filled with yellow and orange, red fallen leaves. Horses step on the dead leaves, making a rustling buzzing sound.

The sun gradually tilted westward, and the brilliant clouds fell in through the shaded branches and leaves, sprinkling with mottled spots.

Everyone had been away for seven or eight days, but they were still wandering around the mountain nest. Whether it was the soldiers who came to the army to make a fortune or the vendors who planned to go out to sell goods, they were all depressed. Although the leader You Boxing Shi repeatedly comforted everyone, saying that Jincheng was behind the mountain in front. There were so many mountains in Minzhou that there were so many mountains. After crossing a mountain, another one was posted on the face, which made people feel numb.

Li Kuo, the captain of the Xuanjie of the Suzaku Regiment of the Shence Army, was riding on Qingfeng at this time, and his mind was full of sorrow. Since he drove out of Shangqiu City, everyone had not been able to replenish food along the way. He had no worries about the fresh water in his bag. He walked in the deep mountains, and there were clear rivers everywhere. As long as everyone wanted, he could drink enough anytime and anywhere. However, the dry food could not be transformed out of thin air. Although he deliberately ordered the soldiers to hunt along the way to replenish food, not every valley would suddenly burst out with antelope or two antelope or deer. Looking at the gradually shriveled bags around everyone's waists, (Note 1) Li Kuo sighed lightly. If he did not walk out of this continuous mountain within a week, everyone would be at risk of losing food.

"General, look there!" Dou Qing pointed to a bush and said in a hurry.

Li Kuo pulled out of deep thought and plucked the horse in the direction of the bushes. After turning over and dismounting, he walked more than a dozen steps into the forest, but the young man was shocked.

More than twenty corpses fell across the bush, and all of them were half rotten and frustrated. The dead were all headless and their deaths were extremely terrifying. Almost all the objects called money were abducted, and even the brocade clothes on the dead were not spared. This can be seen from the thread scraped from one side of the shrub.

You Long jumped off the horse and strode towards the bush. Before approaching, he leaned over and touched the back of a deceased person, gently pinched the thin touch, without any worries about the ghost coming to the door, mistakenly treating him as the murderer.

"This group of people has been dead for about a week, and the weather is cold, so it has not completely rotted." You Long stood up, walked more than ten steps west from the direction of the deceased, and stopped at a shrub. He bent down and picked out a carved feather arrow from the weeds at the corners of the tree.

"That's right. This group of people should be some merchants who came from Longma Mountain, but unfortunately encountered horse bandits in this mountain. They should have all horses, and led their heads to escape in the direction of the bushes. The trees in this forest are low and there are many branches. The vendors ran a little shortly after running far away. So they turned over and got off the horse and ran northwards." You Long pulled out his silk and unscrupulously restored the scene at that time. "At this time, the horse bandits had gradually chased after them. They shot arrows, and the unarmed vendors were shot to death in an instant. This also just shows why the dead were all on the ground on their faces, and they were shot in the process of running away."

Li Kuo nodded slightly, but said suspiciously: "If it is as Brother You said, it is reasonable. But I am a little confused. Since these vendors were shot from behind, why can't they find a feather arrow?"

You Long smiled and said, "General Li, you don't know anything. In this poor mountain and remote ridge, feather arrows are precious. Generally speaking, most horse thieves in Xiaogangzi cannot afford feather arrows, and only rely on a saber to make a living. All horse bandits who can afford feather arrows are big bosses with a radius of hundreds of miles. But even they are unwilling to waste feather arrows on a group of vendors. Pull them out and take them away, so you can use them next time."

"But why did you find a feather arrow from the corner of the tree over there?" Zhang Yanji rushed out of nowhere, with a suspicious face.

"Well, if you were a vendor and were being chased by someone at this moment. Behind you are some extremely vicious bandits who kill without blinking, where would you escape?" You Long kept a secret and deliberately joked with Zhang Yanji.

"Well, it should be heading north. The north is densely packed, so the bandits can't catch up!" Zhang Yanji blurted out without even thinking about it.

"Wrong, it's obviously going west. It's mortal, mortal." Zhou Wuzui gave Zhang Yanji a blank look and sighed.

You Long clapped his hands and said, "Person Zhou said it well. He should be fleeing westward. Although there are shrubs in the north, he will eventually be caught up by the horse bandits. Besides, the horse bandits have enough feather arrows on their hands to shoot them out of a hundred steps! If they turn west, it seems to be more dangerous to separate from their companions, but if you are a horse bandit, would you chase a sheep or a flock of sheep?"

"So that's it!" Zhang Yanji patted his head and suddenly realized. "This vendor was the opposite, fleeing in the opposite direction of his companion's escape. The bandits naturally would not let him go, and would scatter westward. But they could not send people to chase the vendor because there was greater benefit waiting for them. And the vendor successfully escaped, and this feather arrow was scattered in the corner of the tree."

"You are not hopelessly stupid." Zhou Wujue shrugged, his face full of inattention.

"You, fat man, who do you think is stupid?" Zhang Yanji refused to suffer a loss for nothing, so he acted and wanted to go forward and compete with Zhou Wuzui.

"Don't both of you, please stop making trouble, listen to Brother You's analysis." Li Kuo stopped the two of them from arguing and nodded at You Long.

"Actually it's very simple. If I'm not mistaken, this is a murderous man." You Long tapped his finger and concluded. "If it's a robbery, there's no need to make such a ruthless move. If it's a revenge, there's no way to leave any survivors. The only reasonable explanation is to buy a murderer. They take the money from the buyer and naturally kill all the vendors. However, if one or two people are occasionally missed, the buyer won't pay attention. This is why all the dead have no heads, and this is a token!"

"His grandma's is actually the same as the way our Tang Dynasty recorded military achievements, with one person's head and one force." Pu Dachu smashed the tree trunk and punched it down a tree of fallen leaves.

Li Kuo frowned and said, "But if it weren't for the robbery, why didn't the horse thief even let go of the dead's clothes?"

You Long shrugged and said, "I don't know much about this. Maybe it's just to cover up the truth. However, for these horse thieves, there is no taboo to gods and ghosts. They are all doing business that licks blood from the edge of the knife. You should make more money if you can make more money."

"Then let's leave this sooner, don't be targeted by this group of horse thieves, and you'll be implicated in vain." Zhang Yanji turned his head and left, leaving a complaint.

"I didn't expect that the brigade chief was afraid of ghosts." Ni Xin's annoying big pie face floated over again at some point, and her words were full of burrs.

"Who is afraid of ghosts? There are no ghosts in this world. They are all things fabricated by you guys who are guilty. Besides, even if there are really ghosts, I, Zhang Yanji, are not afraid. All of our hundreds of brothers have sharp swords in their hands, and are they afraid of him and a few lonely ghosts? They were bullied during their lifetime and could not take advantage of them after death?" Zhang Yanji trembled and put his hand at the hilt of the horizontal knife, raising his courage for himself.

"Then you'd better follow closely and don't leave the order." Ni Xin walked slowly to Zhang Yanji and whispered in a very low voice: "Ghost, I like to bully you, a timid man like you. Do you know why? You're even less courageous than a ghost!" After that, he quickly walked to his mount, jumped, and turned to the horse's back.

"You, Dabingface. Come back for me!" Zhang Yanji waved his fists and gasped.

"I don't want to walk with the rats, I'm afraid of ghosts!" Ni Xin beat the horse and whipped it away.

The setting sun stretches out the light and shadow, and the decaying grass is just around the corner. Among the lush and twisted branches, a leaping black cloak makes the red leaves halfway up the mountain in an instant.

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Note 1: Baby: Baby is a kind of cloth pocket used by the people of my country for a long time in the past. It is usually made of a very sturdy home machine cloth, rectangular with an opening in the middle. It contains paper, pen, ink cartridges, envelopes and letters, seals and stamps, land deeds, documents, documents and books... etc., which are all utensils for handling documents. In the past, merchants or accountants always put it on their shoulders when they went out, making them easy to move with both hands.

ps: Please collect it, please!

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