Ma Wu didn't know what he meant, so he answered honestly: "Master Hou lives on Pier West Street."
Zhao Han continued to inquire: "Is that the home of your Lotus Club?"
Ma Wu shook his head: "The Lotus Club's old home is on South Street, just under the city wall. There was a flood before, and a section of the north city wall collapsed, and many houses were damaged. The brothers of the Lotus Club all live in broken houses."
Zhao Han asked again: "How many people are there in Mr. Hou's family?"
Ma Wu said: "It's just his family."
Zhao Han said angrily: "I'm asking you, how many people are there in Mr. Hou's family? How many men are there, how many women are there, how many old people and children are there! Are there any servants to protect the house?"
"There is no nursing home, only a woman who cooks," Ma Wu thought for a moment and counted on his fingers. "At home, we have Mr. Marquis, his two women, and several children. Are the children three? Or four?
?Maybe five."
The situation has been verified and it seems that we can give it a try.
"Stand up and take me there!" Zhao Han scolded.
"Where to go?" Ma Wu was a little confused.
Zhao Han said: "Go to Mr. Hou's house!"
Rumble!
The thunder is louder, the lightning is brighter, and the rain is heavier.
When they arrived at West Street, brother and sister Zhao Han were soaked from head to toe.
"This is it." Ma Wu pointed to the courtyard door.
Zhao Han ordered: "Look more clearly!"
Ma Wu took a closer look. He had night blindness. How could he see clearly? He just said vaguely: "I can't recognize my mistake with my eyes closed. Little ancestor, I have brought you to the place. Can you let me go?"
Zhao Han pulled off the man's belt, tied up his hands and feet, then pulled a rag to gag his mouth, stuffed it under the eaves of the door, and said to his sister: "Don't wander around when I come out!"
Zhao Zhenfang nodded and said, "Second brother, I know."
The courtyard wall was not high, but it was very slippery after being exposed to the rain. Zhao Han was young and short, so he failed several times and finally gave up on climbing over the wall.
He went back to check the courtyard door and found that the door gap was narrow. If he wanted to open the door latch inside, he had to insert a very thin blade into it.
The scene was a bit embarrassing. Zhao Han was determined to kill someone, but he couldn't even get into other people's courtyard walls.
Being soaked by the heavy rain, and the cold rain slapping his cheeks, Zhao Han's thinking became calmer. He explored carefully around the base of the wall, trying to find the low part of the courtyard wall. He walked back and forth more than ten times, and unexpectedly,
I saw a small hole not far from the threshold!
This thing is called a dog hole. Cats and dogs can enter and exit. In fact, its real function is drainage.
At this moment, the rainwater accumulated in the courtyard is flowing out quickly from the dog hole.
The entrance to the cave is very narrow and adults cannot pass through it, but children can.
The dog hole was a vertical rectangle. Zhao Han tried it and found that he couldn't get in at all. So he lay on his side and crawled in. The height and width were just right.
The water gushing out from the dog hole made it difficult for Zhao Han to open his eyes and breathe, and he almost got stuck there and couldn't move.
After finally getting in, my sleeves were scratched and my arms were bruised and bloody.
This is a small courtyard house, with only the main house (north house) and east and west wing rooms, and no reverse side house (south house) was built.
There is a big tree in the courtyard and a large stone water tank.
Zhao Han quickly ran to the eaves of the north house, pierced a piece of door lattice paper, and lay there quietly waiting for lightning.
Lightning struck again, and Zhao Han could barely see what was going on inside the house with the faint light.
There were tables, chairs, and benches inside. It was obviously not a bedroom, but the main room of an ancient residence. He immediately turned around and walked to the next room.
He also punctured the window paper of the house on the left, and when Zhao Han listened, he heard faint snoring coming from inside.
The child's small arms could just fit into the window lattice, and Zhao Han quickly touched the window latch inside. However, because he was too short, he could only push it up with his fingertips, and the wooden latch fell off after a few pushes.
"Plop!"
The window latch fell to the ground and rolled, making a loud noise. Zhao Han was so frightened that he quickly ducked and hid.
The person in the room did not wake up, but just turned over.
Zhao Han carefully opened the window sash, climbed into the room through the window, and tiptoed to the bedside.
There was only one man on the bed, and the long beard under his chin was vaguely visible.
Zhao Han felt something was wrong, because he learned from Ma Wu that "Master Hou" had one wife and one concubine in his family, and according to common sense, he should not sleep alone.
He put the tip of his spear against the man's throat and pressed his hand over his mouth and nose.
Soon, the man had difficulty breathing and woke up with his eyes suddenly opened. He struggled subconsciously in panic, and his neck hurt from the tip of the spear. He was afraid to move any more for fear that his throat would be pierced.
"Don't shout. If you obey, pound the bed twice with your feet." Zhao Han said in a low voice.
"Bang bang!"
The man quickly raised his feet and struck the bed with his heels.
Zhao Han slowly let go and asked, "What's your name? How old are you?"
After the man was able to speak, he did not answer the question. Instead, he begged in panic: "Hero, spare my life, hero, spare my life!"
Zhao Han lowered the tip of the spear and asked again: "What is your name? How old are you?"
This time he finally became honest and replied: "My name is Zhang Chuncai, I am fifty-one this year."
Sure enough, we found the wrong person!
Zhao Han casually asked a name: "Where is Li Jianguo's house?"
"What Li Jianguo?" Zhang Chuncai said confusedly, "I don't know him. There is no one named Li Jianguo around here."
Zhao Han finally smiled: "Very good, you didn't just point me to a random place and send me away. Where does Mr. Hou live?"
"Master Hou?" Zhang Chuncai reacted suddenly and said quickly, "The hero is looking for the beggar Deng Gui? He doesn't live here, he has to go two houses further east."
Zhao Han was afraid that he would go astray again, so he asked, "How do you recognize the courtyard wall of Deng Gui's house?"
Zhang Chuncai thought carefully and said: "The head of his shop is a lion, and the head of my shop is a bat."
"What is a shop?" Zhao Han asked a naive question.
Zhang Chuncai was stunned: "The front of the shop is used to hang door knockers."
Zhao Han asked again: "Is there anything else?"
Zhang Chuncai thought about it carefully and said, "My dog's hole is square, and his dog's hole is round."
Zhao Han asked again: "Where are the clothes you changed out of?"
Zhang Chuncai said: "Next to the bed."
Zhao Han found a pile of clothes, tied his hands behind his back with his belt, and then randomly stuffed a ball of rags into his mouth.
"Uh-huh!"
Zhang Chuncai struggled hard, but the thing that was used to gag his mouth was his own foot wrap.
Zhao Han did not leave immediately. He stayed in the house and rummaged through the cabinets. Soon he found a weapon - scissors!
He returned to the bedside, cut Zhang Chuncai's clothes into many slender strips of cloth, and twisted the strips into several cloth ropes. He tied the cloth ropes to the bamboo spear, tied the scissors to his waist, and opened the door in a swaggering manner.
go out.
Ma Wu was tied under the eaves of the door and made noises from time to time, hoping that Zhao Zhenfang could untie him.
The little girl ignored him and huddled under the eaves, half of her body being beaten by the wind and rain.
"Gah!"
The courtyard door suddenly opened, and Zhao Zhenfang said in surprise: "Second brother!"
"Don't talk, don't run around, wait for me to come back." Zhao Han warned.
"Yeah." Zhao Zhenfang nodded obediently.
Zhao Han walked up to Ma Wu again, kicked him without any warning, then took off the gag and asked, "Is the dog hole in Mr. Hou's house square or round?"
Ma Wu said confusedly: "Round... round, right?"
Zhao Han put the scissors against the man's throat: "Ask me again, square or round!"
Ma Wu said with a cry: "I...can't remember clearly."
"Is this really the Marquis's house?" Zhao Han asked again.
Ma Wu was scared to death and said honestly: "I don't know, I have a bird blindfolded and can't see clearly at night."
"Useless things!"
Zhao Han cursed in a low voice, blocked his mouth again, and continued to explore the nearby houses.
According to Zhang Chuncai, Zhao Han quickly discovered the target. The door knocker was a lion, and the dog hole was also round.
But the dog hole was too small for Zhao Han to get in, so he had to go back to find his sister and let Zhao Zhenfang get in through the dog hole in the rain, and then unlock the door for him from the inside.
The brother and sister both entered the yard, and Zhao Han simply took the younger sister to the porch to take shelter from the rain.
When he came to the main room, he repeated his old trick. Zhao Han put his hand through the window lattice, but this time he used a cloth rope knot to tie the window latch to prevent it from knocking off the window bolt and falling to the ground.
The window enters the main house bedroom.
There were three people sleeping on the bed, one big and two little ones.
In the summer, without a quilt, one could clearly see a woman and two children through the dim light.
Zhao Han put scissors against the woman's throat, covered her mouth and nose to wake her up and said, "If you dare to scream, I will kill your son!"
The woman was speechless and trembling with shock.
Zhao Han let go of one hand and shouted: "Where is Deng Gui? Tell me!"
The woman trembled and said, "It's here...it's in the east chamber."
Zhao Han said: "I only want money, not human life, please stand up and let me tie you up!"
The woman did not dare to disobey, so she turned over and lay on her stomach, putting her hands on her lower back.
The cloth rope prepared by Zhao Han came in handy, tying up the woman's hands and feet, and gagged her mouth tightly.
Quickly arriving outside the east wing, Zhao Han quietly climbed through the window and entered.
Sure enough, I saw two people lying on the bed, a man and a woman. The man must be the Marquis Deng Gui.
The two of them seemed to have had a "fierce fight". At this moment, they were all sleeping naked, and Deng Gui was lying on his back, snoring loudly.
Zhao Han stood in front of the bed, hesitated for a few seconds, and then stabbed it with scissors.
You can't hesitate when doing big things, otherwise you will definitely suffer the consequences. Zhao Han doesn't have the capital to fight with the opponent back and forth, and even a head-on conflict has no chance of winning. He must take the initiative to solve the problem at once!
The scissors pierced his throat. Deng Gui suddenly woke up from the pain and subconsciously covered his neck.
He wanted to scream, but blood rushed into his throat, which turned into a continuous cough. The man grabbed Zhao Han's wrist, pushed the scissors up with all his strength, and kicked the bed with his feet randomly, asking for help.
The woman next to him was his concubine, and she said confusedly in her sleep: "Master, stop making trouble, haven't you done enough?"
"No...cough cough cough..."
Deng Gui only spit out one syllable from his mouth, and then it turned into a cough again, and he coughed and spit out a mouthful of blood.
As for his neck, the gurgling blood had flowed down and dyed a large area of the mat red.
Finally, Deng Gui's struggle became weaker and weaker, his arms dropped and his whole body twitched.
This evil man who was entrenched in the dock area of Tianjin, specializing in begging, stealing part-time, and occasionally kidnapping children, died in such a mysterious way that it was not even clear who killed him.
Perhaps there was too much noise, and the concubine next to me finally woke up.
She dazedly rubbed her eyes and sat up, yawning and said, "What does it smell like? It's very fishy."
Zhao Han was so frightened that he quickly jumped on the bedside, covered his mouth from behind, held the scissors behind his back and put it to his throat, and said in a low voice: "Don't scream!"
The concubine was completely awake and nodded in horror: "Uh-huh!"
Zhao Han slowly let go.
"ah!"
As soon as he let go of his hand, the concubine screamed. Zhao Han quickly covered it again and stabbed it down with the scissors.
It was the first time that Zhao Han planned to murder someone, and he was very nervous. He didn't want to kill the concubine, but he was stimulated by the other party's shouting and panicked and killed them all!
"Hoo ho ho!"
Zhao Han knelt and sat between the two corpses, breathing heavily as if he were blowing bellows. He was also very tired at the moment.
Moreover, he was in a trance, as if his murderous behavior was like sleepwalking, and he did such violent and cruel things by accident.
"call……"
Zhao Han exhaled a breath of thick air and forced himself to calm down.
Don't blame me.
Yes, don’t blame me!
This man wanted to catch himself and his sister, and broke his legs to make begging tools. He just resisted in advance. Moreover, this man had done many evil things. Killing him was to eliminate harm for the people. He was not wrong, but he had merit!
After wiping the blood on his hands, Zhao Han returned to the main bedroom again, pulled off the rag from the woman's mouth, and asked, "Where is Deng Gui's money?"
The woman said in horror: "I don't know."
Zhao Han asked fiercely: "If you don't tell me, I will kill your son!"
The woman quickly said: "There is a brick in the corner next to the bed, and the money is hidden inside."
Zhao Han found a loose green brick in the corner and used scissors to pry the brick out. Sure enough, there was a money bag inside.
"So much?" Zhao Han asked.
There are only some scattered silver taels in the purse, and the total can be at most ten taels of silver.
The woman quickly explained: "There are really only so many, and we have to take care of them from top to bottom. The officials, the clerks, and the generals, who can't be fed? The Marquis earns a living at the dock, and he gets it every month
Of the silver, 50% must be paid to the garrison and the Cajun army, and the remaining 30% is given to the officials, and only 20% is my own. Four of my five children are studying, and it also costs money to write pens, ink, paper and inkstones."
Zhao Han didn't believe it and said: "The remaining 20% is not a lot, right?"
The woman said: "Master Hou wants to find a career, and he just gave him a few hundred taels a few days ago, saying that he can get a government job at the dock. The money at home is really only this much, and I still have some copper coins under my pillow.
"
"Tough luck!"
Zhao Han not only took away money, but also took away several sets of children's clothing and even two pairs of children's shoes in front of the bed.
"What is this?" Zhao Han touched an axe-shaped object on the table.
The woman replied: "Fire sickle."
Zhao Han also stuffed the fire sickle into his arms and blocked the woman's mouth.
He rummaged around again, found the woman's dressing table, and put away all the jewelry. Before leaving, he found a comb and a grate. Thinking of his little sister's messy hair, he took the comb and grate away with him.
It was still raining heavily at this moment. Zhao Han took his sister out and found Ma Wu not far from the next door. He untied Ma Wu's rope and said: "You can go by yourself. I was killed by the Marquis. I was the main culprit in the way you led."
, you are an accessory, do you know what that means?"
Ma Wu was shocked and quickly replied: "I don't know anything."
"Smart." Zhao Han praised.
Ma Wu regained his freedom and immediately ran away in panic.
Zhao Han held his sister's hand and ran all the way to the city wall in the rain. He did not dare to hang out in the dock area because there was someone covering Deng Gui.
As for the recruitment of beggars, don't talk nonsense. At the top, you have to manage the officials and generals, and at the bottom, you have to compete with other beggars for territory. If Zhao Han was an adult, he might still be able to have fun, but he is only a ten-year-old child now.
The northern city wall of Tianjin collapsed dozens of feet and has not been repaired for twenty years.
The brother and sister waded through the muddy water, climbed in through the gap in the city wall, and arrived quietly inside Tianjin City.
(PS: Many thanks to the leader of Zhen Yi Zi for the reward, and also to the classmates of Yan Han Wu Xin, Bright Moon Sword Flying, Dragon Soaring, Heroes Meeting in Hollywood, etc. for their reward support. After the new book is put on the shelves, one leader will add two updates.
I’m saving it for now, I can’t update it too much before it’s put on the shelves.)