(Chapter 3)

On the outside of Humu Township, there is a lilu of thirty or forty households, and because it is close to the warehouse, its name is "Kushangli". In a poor alley on the left side of the library, there is a shabby family, with a broken urn as a window, with a straw mat as a door, early in the morning, an angry voice came from the door.

"That shrew was obviously too mean, so she was driven away by me, what kind of theft, there is nothing at all, I don't know which person with a rotten tongue is talking nonsense, how much hatred this must be, I want to ruin my brother's reputation cleanly!"

Uncle Chen was thirty-four or fifteen years old, although he was tall, but because of years of hard work in the field, he had bent his waist early, his face was tanned, and his forehead was full of wrinkles.

Today, he went out to work early in the morning and heard rumors outside slandering his younger brother. He was an impulsive person, and he suddenly trembled with anger, reasoned with those who chewed the root of his tongue, and almost got into a fight, and was finally persuaded by Chen Ping to go home.

"Everything started because of my brother, and it was my brother's incompetence that dragged down my brother and sister-in-law."

Chen Ping, who is only eighteen years old, is different from his brother, he is dressed in coarse linen clothes, and he can't hide his tall figure, his face is handsome, like a crown of jade, although he is a little thin, but because his brother gave him all the good things to eat first, he has not let him go hungry for so many years, so he doesn't look like a poor child at all, and he has a bit of the elegant temperament of a scholar.

Although he learned the art of Huang and Lao, he was not the mainstream in Yangwu County.

"I don't blame you, I don't blame you, it's me who is not virtuous in marrying a wife."

Uncle Chen was so angry that his stomach hurt, he sat on the couch covered with wheat straw and gasped, his old problem was committed again, and the overload of work all year round was very devastating to people's bodies.

Despite this, Uncle Chen still held his body, carrying the wood cho for weeding, and said to Chen Ping: "My brother is a person who wants to do great things, and he can't be distracted by such sayings. ”

Chen Ping watched his brother go out, looked back at the home that had nothing, and sighed.

The whole house consists of three earthen houses, with thatched roofs and a small courtyard surrounded by broken fences. When I walked into the largest main house, I saw a long-cooled earthen stove with potholes on the ground, and the walls were blackened by the smoke of firewood and grass. Other than that, there is nothing else, a real family with four walls.

Adjacent to the main house was the place where Chen Ping slept, which was even narrower, with only a floor full of wheat straw, but fortunately, the windows here were opened very wide, and the light was excellent, and the sunlight shone in through the broken urn, shining on the bamboo roll on the couch that had been turned over and loosely stranded......

This reminded Chen Ping of the past.

Chen Ping's parents have passed away, so Chen Ping has lived with his eldest brother Chen Bo since he was a child, and was raised by Chen Bo, and the relationship between the two is not so much a brother as a father and son.

Uncle Chen is a kind and filial person, always thinking that his parents died early, only Chen Ping is left with a younger brother, the eldest brother is the father, and everything for the younger brother should be borne by himself. He didn't want his younger brother to suffer, so he didn't call Chen Ping to help early like other poor families, but indulged Chen Ping, let his nature go, and go with the flow.

Chen Ping didn't like to work since he was a child, he loved to travel and read. Although he was worried that this was not a career that the poor people in Luzuo could afford, Chen Bo would rather suffer a little harder, but also support his younger brother's ideals, gritted his teeth, and maintained all this by cultivating thirty acres of thin land, and funded Chen Ping to study in neighboring counties. Uncle Chen felt that his younger brother was different from him, and he was destined to be extraordinary in the future, so how could he be buried in the mud and dung.

So on weekdays, when his brother Litian and sister-in-law were weaving and cooking, Chen Ping only needed to focus on the light here and flip through the books.

But now that this series of things has happened, where can he still see half a word?

Many years later, the deceitful conspirator is still an eighteen-year-old young man who has not experienced too many twists and turns.

He has the figure of a jade, but he has not yet been carved by the years.

After counting the time and making sure that his brother had arrived at the edge of the field, Chen Ping came to the yard, picked up the hemp rope used to bundle firewood, and silently walked out of the house.

In the past, these jobs were done by his sister-in-law, but now his sister-in-law was driven away by her brother, and she had to pick up firewood and cook, so Chen Ping had to take it over, and she couldn't let her brother drag her tired body back, and she couldn't even eat a bowl of hot rice in the face of the cold stove.

That's right, Chen Ping's heart is higher than the sky, unwilling to live in this kind of toiling life in the countryside day after day, and longing to be like the Taigongwang respected by Huang Lao, one day get rid of the cold, meet the master, for a county, and even for the slaughter of a country!

But no matter how high the heart is, it is still a sincere conscience!

At least, it must be for the loved ones who raised him.

……

Chen Ping walked all the way out of Lilu, there was a group of young country girls in the ditch outside the Lu Gate, seeing the handsome Chen Ping coming, first his eyes lit up, and then he remembered something, or turned his head to ignore him, or deliberately spat on him, and said something loudly, causing everyone to laugh.

Chen Ping ignored it, and he continued walking, his destination was the woods outside the city.

This forest is logically said to be the private hill of Xizhang, the township hero, but Zhang Cheng, the patriarch of Xizhang, takes care of the township party and simply opens it completely, so that the villagers can come here to collect firewood at will. So here, Chen Ping can meet a lot of people who also come to collect firewood, and some of them are neighbors in the same place.

After seeing Chen Ping, they all showed meaningful smiles, and all kinds of questions floated from their mouths.

"Chen Ping, after so many years, it's rare to see you come to collect firewood, what about your sister-in-law?"

"Chen Ping, your family is obviously so poor, your uncle's stomach is screaming when he works, what do you eat every day to make you look so burly?"

"Your sister-in-law said that you ate chaff cores, is it true or false?"

"Chen Ping, I heard that your uncle drove your sister-in-law away? Why is that? It's not because of ......"

Every sentence is ill-intentioned, and every sentence is a vain attempt to hurt Chen Ping.

In the eyes of many villagers, Chen Ping is an idler who eats white rice, he has grown a good skin for nothing, he has achieved nothing at the age of eighteen, he is neither farming nor business, he is holding a roll of rotten bamboo slips all day long, he really thinks he is a scholar?

It's a pity that in addition, Chen Ping has no more disadvantages for them to scold, but now it's good, this son has done a bigger ugly thing, that is, stealing his sister-in-law!

So everyone was very excited, and as soon as they saw Chen Ping, they whispered and pointed, deliberately using words to stimulate him.

They really want to see the handsome man who is famous in the whole township show his ugly true face!

Then he pointed at him and said disdainfully, "Look, he is indeed a despicable villain." ”

Chen Ping's family is poor, Chen Ping has ideals, Chen Ping is spoiled by his brother, he does not have to work hard and produce like his peers, but can do things that they feel comfortable and relaxed, such as reading, such as studying abroad, so in the eyes of the villagers, he is wrong.

And gossip comes from this, the slightest change in his family will be magnified, and people always speculate on dissidents with the greatest malice.

But Chen Ping's handling method was different from Uncle Chen, he just smiled and didn't reply, which made the people who ridiculed him feel that he had punched him empty, which was quite boring.

Lao Tzu said that it is better to keep the middle than to talk too much.

Chen Ping understands very well that everyone's psychology has congenital shortcomings, and he likes to listen to small words the most. Tell them the truth, they often don't believe you, and are willing to use gossip to describe you, portraying you as ugly in their minds that you should be.

Therefore, the cost of refuting rumors is ten times and a hundred times that of rumors, and he will not waste that effort.

Under the boos, Chen Ping silently did his own thing, he lifted the firewood behind his back to his body, and began to walk back, he had already collected enough firewood for three days.

In the past, he didn't do anything to produce, rarely did this work, and seemed a little rusty, although there was not much firewood on his back, it made Chen Ping feel very heavy, as if it was those slanderous words, added together, it made him breathless.

Although Chen Ping learned from Huang Lao, he knew that he could not become a saint, and he was not worried about the current situation, but about the future.

Most people in the world only value clothes and not people, and most people are small things to comment on and measure a person's level, good and evil, right and wrong.

Chen Ping is very worried that today's slander of the "thief's sister-in-law" will follow him for the rest of his life and become an indelible mark on his body, although he has never done it at all.

This will greatly affect his reputation in the county, although now that the Wei State is about to fall, even if Humu Township returns to the Qin State, a person's reputation and reputation in the township party are still the key to determining whether he is recruited as an official and a superior person.

"If I am burdened by fame and am considered to be a villain with low morality who cheats my brother and sister-in-law, then it will be difficult for me to have a bright future in this township and in this Yangwu County."

This is what Chen Ping is distressed about, but this kind of thing, as a slandered person, he can't justify it at all, otherwise it will become more and more black.

Say what? Say "I didn't sleep sister-in-law?" "In that case, I'm afraid the rumors will be even more intense.

Stepping into the gate again, Chen Ping turned his head when he stopped to rest, looked at his shoulders under his linen clothes, and red spots were leached, and the thin hemp rope was strangled on it, it was very painful, and his flesh and skin, which had not done any work, had been ground out of blood.

Chen Ping was not worried, but happy.

Grinding blood is not terrible, it can make Chen Ping feel different from others. He didn't want to carry firewood for a lifetime, leaving two red marks on his shoulders and hard calluses.

Living today, but being able to see the life of the day of death, unchanged, is the most terrible.

"It is impossible to rely on others to save this matter, I must find a way to get out of the predicament as soon as possible."

Gritting his teeth, Chen Ping got up again and re-entered the inner door, the women who had been washing clothes here before were no longer there. When Chen Ping was about to get home, he found that they had all gathered outside his courtyard, which had been surrounded by water.

"Chen Ping is back!"

The sharp-eyed people shouted, and the neighbors gathered around the door immediately turned around and looked at Chen Ping, most of them gloating in their eyes, and only one or two people showed concern on their faces.

Chen Ping had an ominous premonition in his heart, it could be his brother......

As soon as the hemp rope in his hand was loosened, the firewood on his back immediately fell to the ground and crackled.

But when Chen Ping squeezed through the crowd and walked to the door of the house, he didn't see his brother, but saw a few Qin soldiers wearing armor and swords, who were standing in his yard at the moment!

Among them, the black-faced Qin official, who was wearing a crown and was obviously an official, even paced with interest with his hands behind his back, looking at his family's vegetable garden, looking at the dilapidated thatched roof, and even wanting to look inside the house.

"Qin people?"

Chen Ping chuckled in his heart, but he didn't panic at all on the surface, he opened the curtain door made of bamboo mats, walked into the courtyard, and bowed respectfully to the Qin officials, as if they were the guests he expected.

"I don't know that the official is here, it's really sluggish."

The Qin official wearing the crown hurriedly turned around, looked Chen Ping up and down, and then muttered a few words in Guanzhong dialect for the Qin pawn on the side to translate.

"You asked, are you Chen Ping?"

"It's the villain."

After Chen Ping learned that this person was the wanderer named "Heifu", he was even more surprised, for no reason, why did Qin officials come to the door? But his face was still calm, and he carefully observed this person.

But seeing that he was burly, his height was almost the same as his own, and a pair of eyes were staring at Chen Ping fixedly, and his expression seemed to see the jade hidden in it from a gray stone......

At this time, Qin Yan suddenly laughed, and then said in an extremely blunt local dialect that sounded like he had only learned a little: "Chen Ping, this official is looking for you!" ”

After that, Heifu pressed his sword and said loudly to Chen Ping, and also to the people who were watching outside: "Recently, this official visited the township and city, and heard that there are rumors that Chen Ping, the brother of Uncle Chen, stole his sister-in-law!" Although Qin takes the law as his teaching and the officials as his teachers, he also attaches great importance to ethics like the Central Plains! When the official heard the inquiry, he was shocked, and the uncle stole his sister-in-law, just like a brother invaded his own sister, which is a great evil! How can you let it go? ”

"Therefore, today this official specially came here to bring Chen Ping, Chen Bo, Chen's wife, and the neighbors in the library who spread this word to the village temple to inquire! This case of stealing my sister-in-law must be revealed today! ”

After that, Heifu asked Zhong Ming to repeat his words in dialect, regardless of the uproar of the people outside, and smiled at Chen Ping, who didn't know why:

"Chen Ping, today you went with me to the township temple to be interrogated, before you entered, you were covered with stigma, whether it was true or false, I couldn't tell if it was true. But when you come out, you may be punished by Qin's decree for stealing your sister-in-law......"

"Or, the injustice of you! Will be the snow by the hands of the officials! ”