The rain is still falling, but the atmosphere is not very harmonious. Since ancient times, the struggle between the government and the people has been one-sided, but it is not without exception.
In Lu Xinfang, in front of Wuhou Pu, Fang Qidou and some older Taoist priests from Hongdao Temple, and the young Taoist boys knelt in the rain again, crying and howling from time to time, which made Wuhou Pu unbearable for a while.
Most of the older Taoist priests didn't even wear raincoats or bamboo hats, and they looked like drowned rats; the young Taoist meng Meng huddled in twos and threes under an oil-paper umbrella, but their legs kneeling on the ground and the hem of their robes were still wet from the rain.
When the residents in the market saw this, they all felt pity and cursed the unscrupulous guards of Wuhoupu. When these curses were heard by the guards who occasionally came in and out, they would inevitably run away with red faces and hot ears.
The Taoist priests in the audience had knelt here after breakfast. By this time, it had already been nearly two hours. Some Taoist boys who couldn't hold on stood up, but they had no intention of leaving. A few of them were holding oil-paper umbrellas in groups.
, waiting quietly for Zhang Wuhou to appear in the rain. Fang Qidou naturally knelt in the front. Because of the shelter of the wide eaves, his head and body were dry, but his knees were wet from the rain that came over, which made him a little uncomfortable.
Shortly after noon, the Taoist priests heard a neighing sound from the left side of their horses. But it was Zhang Wuhou, wearing a raincoat and bamboo hat, riding a strong Huihe horse. He had just returned from somewhere else, followed by six or seven bad guards.
.Seeing the Taoist priests kneeling here, I felt really helpless, so I shouted: "Taoist priests over there! Come here and talk to me!"
Fang Qidou stood up from the rain and walked towards Zhang Wuhou with a calm expression. The rain soon revealed spots of wet marks on his green robe: "Master Wuhou! We have been waiting for you for a long time. I wonder if my temple master has asked
After talking, can you go back with us?"
Zhang Wuhou turned over and dismounted, and habitually pressed his right hand on the handle of the knife. The other Taoist priests looked at it and couldn't help but feel a shiver in their hearts. However, Zhang Wuhou laughed and said, "The case of the Taoist priests being kidnapped is now clear. The Taoist priests you are observing have provided some clues.
Coupled with the interrogation of the bad guards of Wuhou Pu, it will be settled today and tomorrow. I, Zhang Songyue, have done something to give you face."
Fang Qidou saw that he was avoiding the truth, but he refused to let go: "Then the master of my family..."
"Your temple master needs to be a guest in Wuhoupu for a few days. No one will make things difficult for him. He will return in a few days! This is the Shangguan's order. If you are still not convinced, you can go to Taiwei Palace and Ziwei City to report it.
Me!" Wu Hou Zhang Songyue suddenly became angry and interrupted Fang Qidou's words rudely and arbitrarily.
Fang Qidou felt the emotion in Zhang Wuhou's words and knew that his words were true, so he respectfully raised his hands and said: "My temple master would like to ask Mr. Wuhou to take care of you. Junior Brother Yang, I am also looking for it. If there is something beyond the reach of the whip, I will come again."
Ask for help, sir."
Zhang Wuhou threw the horse's reins to a bad guard, glared at Fang Qidou, and went directly into Wuhou's shop. Fang Qidou stood in the rain and thought for a while, and heard something else from Zhang Wuhou's seemingly arrogant words.
Knowing that the matter was not that simple, he picked up the older Taoist priests one by one, and then took the little Taoist boy in hand, and staggered back to Hongdao Temple.
In Hongdao Temple, Senior Brother Shang Sizuo, Senior Brother Zhu Jieran and some other brothers in the temple were standing under the eaves of Xuanyuan Hall, taking off their raincoats and bamboo hats, and arranging their Taoist robes. When Fang Qidou brought someone back, Shang Sizuo
Then he asked: "Junior Brother Fang, can't the temple master be put back?" Fang Qidou shook his head, but his expression was less anxious and nervous than before.
Zhu Jieran said from the side: "This morning, we searched northward from the vicinity of Nanshi, and finally our junior brother Mingzong saw something strange. In the reed marsh next to Luoshui in the north of Jiayoufang, there was a very small thatched cottage.
After the two Taoist priests left the thatched hut in the morning, they headed straight towards Mingjiaofang in the south of the city. They entered Longxing Temple and never came out. After getting the news, we picked out two of us and followed Brother Ming Zongzi back, and quietly approached the thatched hut.
We wanted to explore it, but there were voices inside. To avoid alerting others, we retreated."
Fang Qidou said seriously: "Brother Zhu, you did it properly. If Junior Brother Yang is really inside and we go there rashly, the people inside will definitely threaten Junior Brother Yang's life. If you want to be absolutely sure, it is best to go there at night to investigate.
Tan. But if you move at night, it will be a big trouble if you attract unscrupulous guards patrolling the city."
The emperor's sons, Lian Jiangping and Zhuo Songtao, also came back from the outside at this time. They didn't even have time to take off their raincoats and bamboo hats. Lian Jiangping said: "The market hasn't opened in the morning, so I'm talking to the guys from the cloth shop in Naxi City and Nan City."
These words are convenient. I didn’t find any useful information in Nanshi, but there is a quite large cloth shop in the West Market, and I often do business with Longxingguan.”
Zhuo Songtao had already taken off his coir raincoat and bamboo hat, and continued Jiang Ping's words: "The cloth shop recently made a batch of Long Xingguan Taoist crowns and turbans, but the person who came to order was not Long Xingguan, but a wearer.
A middle-aged man in regular clothes came with the order of Taiwei Palace. It happened that the cloth shop clerk was a Taoist believer, and one of them recognized the man, but he was a supervisor from Jingyun Temple!"
Fang Qidou went through the whole thing in his mind at this time: Chong Lingzi was kidnapped, Temple Master Yuchi was arrested, Gongsun Zhenren has not returned yet... All these things come together, and everyone has encountered each other in the past two days.
nails and a few clues, and it seems that I have some insights.
Fang Qidou thought for a while and then said: "It seems that Taiwei Palace, Jingyun Temple, and Longxing Temple are definitely involved. The Daochong Temple seems to be a suspicious tomb, which lured us from the beginning.
In the past, it also hindered the audience. But we are not from Wuhoupu. Even if we have many clues, we cannot go there and confront them..."
Zhuo Songtao suddenly said: "When we went to Nan City and West City to inquire about news in the morning, we met the bad guards under Zhang Wuhou. They were also scouting around the city, so we told them the news. These bad guys
Wei didn't seem surprised, and only said that he would report the truth to Marquis Zhang Wu. I think they had some scruples, fearing that the case would involve some Shangguan."
Fang Qidou also said: "Those unscrupulous guards did not deal with you. When we saw Zhang Wuhou in the morning, he had already mentioned this matter. Now that we have come full circle, it is actually four words - 'saving people is important'. Since it is so important
Senior Brother, Senior Brother Zhu and others have discovered something, so why don't we divide our troops into two groups: one group will continue to explore near the hut by the Luoshui River in the afternoon, and first "encircle without attacking" to find out what's going on. The other group will go by myself in the afternoon.
Pay a visit to Zhang Wuhou, tell him this discovery, and find out the attitude of their Wuhoupu. If they are willing to send troops and help, they will naturally have thunderous and heavy hands; if they are not willing to send force, it is impossible to say, we will rush over to save people ourselves.
.”
Zhuo Songtao had a good impression of Zhang Wuhou, so he took the lead in agreeing to Fang Qidou's proposal. After hearing this, the other brothers felt that in order to open up the situation, they had to take the initiative. Just like a martial arts competition, only real moves can be used
, only then could we take the upper hand. So they all nodded in agreement.
On the south bank of Luoshui River, inside a low thatched cottage, it was not a comfortable place. Under the influence of wind erosion and rain, the thatched cottage began to sway with the wind, and bursts of damp and cold air penetrated all the way, killing the rough-skinned and thick-bodied Taoist Bing.
, the Taoist priest Ding was shivering from the cold. There were some mosquitoes in the hut that were not yet frozen to death, and they came and went, biting the two of them miserable. The two of them chatted intermittently about absurd topics, about ghosts, demons, fairies, and demons.
No, it added an eerie and terrifying atmosphere to the already desolate hut.
Taoist Bing endured it for a long time, and finally couldn't hold it in any longer. He held his stomach and ran out of the hut. He found an open space with few reeds in the distance, untied his lower skirt, pinched his nose with one hand, and released it to his heart's content. He spent a long time burning incense.
, just as he was holding his breath and trying to get up, he heard a strange noise in the reeds not far away from him, and shouted hurriedly: "Who is it!" There was an uncontrollable tremor in his voice.
There was suddenly no sound over there. But after two breaths, he saw a tattered, slightly faded skirt slowly rising from the reeds, floating towards him wanderingly. Taoist Bing almost wanted to
He was so frightened that his Yang Yuan left his body. He didn't bother to wipe himself and ran away. In his hurry, he forgot to pick up his lower garment and fell into the mud and grass. However, he kicked off a ball of sticky mud with his right foot and pulled it out.
When I took a look, it turned out to be my "masterpiece" that I had just completed.
When his life was hanging by a thread, he didn't care about so many things. He quickly picked up his lower skirt and ran towards the hut, shouting as he ran: "Ghost... there is a ghost!"
Taoist Priest Ding was sitting on a dilapidated wooden couch, humming the tunes he heard in the theater out of boredom. Suddenly he saw Taoist Priest B breaking in the door, so he jumped down from the couch, drew his sword, and stood ready, thinking that something had happened. Carefully
At first glance, Taoist B's face was pale and his voice was trembling: "The ghost... the female ghost is here..." After hearing what he said, Taoist Ding opened the door and looked outside. There was only the endless autumn rain and the vast reeds.
Together, they form a deserted landscape.
"It's dazzling! You are so timid when you go to the toilet. You still bump into ghosts during the day. Have you done too much to your heart's content?" Taoist Ding closed the firewood door again and laughed. Taoist Bing just recovered from the shock, but
Ignoring him, he thought of the fear, grief, anger, and despair that were fixed on the faces of the women who had been humiliated and killed on the street corners a few years ago when they were paying gold, silver, and silk to the Huihe cavalry.
Can't forget it either.
"Hold your face and see if the Taoist boy below is still alive! Don't suffocate in there and become a resentful ghost to haunt us..." Taoist Priest B suddenly thought of something and immediately shouted.
However, Taoist Ding covered his mouth and stared at him for a while before letting go and covering his face with a black cloth. Then he lifted up the old wooden couch, pulled out the wooden rafts, pulled up the rope, and pulled Yang Zhaoxi away.
He was pulled out of the manhole. Taoist Priest B hesitated for a long time before he plucked up the courage to stretch out his trembling fingers and put them on Yang Chaoxi's body, who was still unconscious. He felt warm breath coming out, so he felt relieved and let himself go.
Taoist Ding lowered the person down again.
It was still dark in the rain. Apart from the sound of reeds and rain, the only thing that could be vaguely heard around the hut was the sound of the rushing Luo River.
Sure enough, the reeds not far from the hut moved a few more times, and several figures had already stood up. One figure threw down the tattered skirt that had just been propped up with reed poles, and said in a low voice: "Senior Brother Zhu, it's nine out of ten.