The official road from Yixian to Nanzheng is generally built along a river called Dishui, almost all the roads run through the valley, plus the green mountains on both sides of the Dishui are green trees, and the cool breeze in the river valley is breezy, so although the sun is still blazing overhead, walking on the road is not very tired, even if you are sweating all the way, you can rest your feet in the woods, listen to the pine waves chirping birds in your ears, and you will sweat all over your body after a while. The two stewards of the pack team were also veterans who were accustomed to this path, and they arranged when they started and when they stopped, where they stopped, and where they stayed in an orderly manner. Several outsiders who followed the team were also old merchants who had dealt with Liu Ji Warehouse for many years, and they could trust both the warehouse and the two stewards, no matter how big or small, they only listened to the arrangements of the two stewards, and never quarreled with the stewards. So along the way, although there were also one or two small accidents that overturned the pack frame and injured the pack horse, the journey was almost not delayed, and on the fifth day after setting off from Yi County, the pack team arrived in Nanzheng County. In the Nanzheng branch of the warehouse, he changed the pack horse and replenished the dry food, and rested in Anpingyi the next day. On the morning of the third day, we crossed the water at Anping Ferry, and entered the "three regardless zones" of Duanzhou Mansion and Hengzhou Mansion in Nanzheng County. Three months ago, the bandit leader who was wiped out by the official army broke through the sky and was entrenched here in the first place.

From here until he walked out of Yanshanwei and entered the Quzhou territory, the road was almost all circling and winding in the deep mountains and old forests, and from the companions who walked through this road, Shang Cheng also knew the names of the places that made people tremble when they heard it. According to those people, the big bandit who was suppressed by the Yanshan Guards a few months ago broke through the sky, and he was entrenched here with his minions at the beginning, forcibly seizing money and killing people, and the single travelers and merchant caravans in the past were not less harmed by him.

When walking through the evil tiger, Shan Wazi also told Shang Cheng a story. Four years ago, there were two brothers in the Li family Zhuangzi who followed a pack team to pass here, and unfortunately met a group of minions under the hands of the sky, and the elder brother of the two brothers in order to protect his pack horse, and the bandits had a dispute with two sentences, and the ferocious bandit tied the brother to a big tree on the side of the road, cut countless small holes on him with a knife, and then smeared wild honey, and then let the swarm of ants surround his second brother into an "ant-man".

“…… The younger brother wanted to go up to save his brother, but his head was split in half by a bandit with an axe," the mountain baby slowly recounted the tragedy of the year with a tense face, "The news came back to Zhuangzi, and the father of the two brothers vomited blood at that time, and he couldn't even survive a night; The eldest lady was blind from crying in both eyes...... The sister-in-law cried and begged someone to collect the corpse, and exchanged all the things that could be sold in the family for money, and even the two girls were sold to Renyazi, so that she could collect ten yuan of money, so that she could take back the corpses of the brothers...... On the night the brothers were buried, she hung the beam. …… Since then, the family has been extinct. ”

The mountain baby said a sigh, and the calm tone made people ooze a cold breath from the bottom of their hearts. The people around him didn't speak, just walked with their heads down. They hear about this kind of thing two or three times a year, and they are already a little numb; While they are sympathetic to the suffering of others, they are also inevitably worried about themselves.

It was the first time Shang Cheng had heard of such a thing, and his face was so pale that he could hardly look at it directly. Listening to the mountain baby's seemingly intermittent narration, listening to the mountain baby's calm tone as if he was chatting with a parent, his heart was as if someone had tied a rope to the tip of his heart and grabbed it hard. His teeth rattled, and the reins of the pack horse in his hand were almost digging into the flesh, and his arms trembled uncontrollably because he was so hard and excited that he was so excited.

The deputy steward of the pack team walked beside them, and after being sad for a while, he comforted the mountain baby with kind words: "Now that family's revenge has been avenged, the left army of Yanshan has exterminated the sky." I saw his head in Yanzhou, packed in a wooden cage, picked up with a long wooden pole and hung on the city gate. Forty-three human heads hung along with his head, all of them minions who had broken through under the hands of the heavens. Listening to the people of Hengzhou, more than 200 bandits who were captured alive by the officers and soldiers are all in Yanzhou, and none of them who have been stained with blood in their hands can survive, and they will be sent to Zhenqian Pass to do coolies to repair the city without carrying their lives, you can rest assured, in less than two years, none of these guys who are not human will survive......"

A packer in front of him snorted coldly: "It's cheap to be a coolie!" According to me, they should all be chopped up and fed to the dogs! ”

"Dogs don't eat their meat!" Someone retorted.

"Then take it and feed it to the wolves!"

"Just give it to the Turks, and let them drag them to death with horses! One by one, they were all dragged to the point of rotten, but they couldn't die after being dragged out for ten miles, and they could only breathe for another half a day! "Someone else made a suggestion.

The pack team immediately fell silent, and many people looked at the guy who made the suggestion with cold eyes. Even the mountain girl, who had been wiping her tears, stared at the boy viciously. is still the deputy steward with deep experience, although he is also tired of the guy who can't speak, but at this time he can only come out to play a round: "If you want to delay, we have to drag it!" Not only dragged those bandits to death, but also arrested all the Tuqi people, and dragged them from Beizheng to Yanzhou Mansion one by one! His words immediately drew echoes, and some people also suggested that the method of dragging them to death was not good, and that the easiest and most direct way was to tie the hands and feet of the Tututs to four horses, and then let the horses run in all four directions, and the damned Tuqi would die no more. The idea was met with immediate applause. However, there are also those who oppose this method, because if this is done, the people of Tuqi will not have much pain before they die, and it is better to drag them to death, so that they can also taste the taste of rotting their intestines......

Some people sneered and said, "What can you do if you break through the sky?" There are also leopards in the north of the mountain, and there are also iron-headed owls in the south of Duanzhou and the mountains of the grandmother. Not to mention far, on the ground of Quzhou where we are going, there is a living person Zhang from Lao Ou Village, you are thinking about how to clean up those bandits here, it is better to pray to God that we don't run into him......" Before the man finished speaking, he was slapped on the head fiercely: "Plagued things!" Can't you say it's good to be obedient?! Are you cursing us all to death?! The man covered his head and turned back angrily, but he did not dare to speak back, he walked angrily, and said again after a while: "I am telling the truth! The living man Zhang has been rampant in Quzhou for almost ten years, and he has not been exterminated by the official army. Hum! If these bandits are not eliminated, the world will not think about peace, and we poor men who drive pack horses through the state and the government don't want our families not to worry! ”

Shang Cheng didn't know what kind of bandit leader Zhang was the old eagle village living man Zhang that the man said, so he asked Shanwazi in a low voice.

"It's a big bandit over there in Quzhou."

"How do you call such a nickname? He...... Robbing the rich and helping the poor? Shang Cheng didn't believe it himself. Seeing that the packmen in front and behind were all silent, it was obvious that this living man Zhang was not a so-called "righteous thief". Could it be ......

Shan Wazi's face twitched several times before a few words burst out from between her teeth: "That beast eats people." - Eating the living. ”

Shang Chengden felt a cool breath jump up from the palms of his feet, and suddenly rushed straight to the top of his head, and the heavenly spirit was covered with a piece of numbness, and it seemed that even the tips of his hair trembled and stood up. For a moment, he felt as if his heart had stopped, and the blood all over his body froze into ice. In a trance, he asked, like in a dream, "Eat the living?" ”

The people around him walked with their faces gloomy and their heads bowed as if they hadn't heard him.

Suddenly, a whistle came from the front, one by one, it was a warning from the people who were exploring the path in front!

The whistle rises and stops, as if someone had used scissors to hinge the whistle into two sections, and only the first one was released.

The pack horse immediately became in a commotion at the sound of this whistle, and many of them looked pale with pale faces, trembling hands and weak feet, and tremblingly tugged at the reins of the pack horses. The two merchants wrapped in the middle of the pack team were so panicked that they sat down on the ground as soon as their feet went limp. However, Shang Cheng and Shan Wazi were quite calm, and after the initial anxiety and panic, they immediately picked up the straight knife from the warehouse from the pannier; The packer who had just scolded the man who was talking nonsense also rushed over with a straight knife and stood with them. Shang Cheng and the others knew that this person was a townsman from Zhao Ji, and at this time, he could still remember "a group of three", and he was obviously a sober-minded guy. "Holding a group of three people" is something that the instructors of the Weijun Army repeatedly told us during the training of the Xiangyong, and it is also an important subject of training.

In a short period of time, the steward of the escort team in the back had already stubbornly chased over with a knife, and next to him was the Yuan Da merchant from the Shangjing Plain Mansion. Seeing that the merchant Yuan Da walked fast on this rugged mountain road, and there was nothing stumbling under his feet, he did not seem to be a pampered person; And he also wore a sword at his waist. Two of his retinues followed him closely. Although the two men did not hold the knife in their hands as the two stewards did, one of them pressed his hand against the hilt of the waist knife, and the other held a lacquered wooden bow in the other, and carried an arrow bag diagonally behind his back; Both of them squinted their eyes, looking back and forth, left and right.

Yuan Da Merchant stood behind the chief steward and looked at it for a long time, but he didn't see that he was ugly, so he had to ask, "There are bandits in front?" ”

"I don't know." The archsteward said succinctly. He beckoned to a guy from the warehouse, "Go see what's going on up ahead!" If there are bandits, remember to warn! No matter what happens, don't get tangled with bandits! The young man, who looked to be no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, turned pale and pale, and his hand holding the knife trembled, and he did not move his place for a long time. The chief steward slapped him with a backhand, causing the young man to spin on the spot, and five finger marks immediately appeared on his face, and blood was dripping against his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. The chief steward didn't look at him again, but pointed to another fellow and said, "You go." ”

The man took the knife in his hand, and under the cover of the rocks and miscellaneous trees down the cliff, he slipped away. But there was no response for half a day, and the people who were waiting in place were even more anxious. The steward was already impatient, but he did not dare to send his men out again to find out. He knew that if he really encountered the bandits, there were only three or five or seven of these people in front of him who could come in handy, one by one Yuan Da had a noble status and would definitely have to be well maintained, so his two relatives could not command casually, not only could not instruct, but also relied on them to protect the safety of the four merchants behind; There are only five men in the warehouse, two are exploring the way ahead, one is useless, one is sent over and there is no news, and the remaining one can't be out of trouble anyway; Of the more than 20 packers, only three of them could barely make it, and the rest were all burdensome; Plus he and the deputy steward...... He stroked the knife and jumped in his heart, forcing his mind to keep his hands from trembling, but he could no longer spit out a word in his mouth.

The deputy steward is slightly stronger than the chief steward, and he can also say a word: "Yuan Dongjia, you take your people to the back first!" This is not a consultation, but a command. Yuan Da was stunned and wanted to say something, but when he caught a glimpse of the nervous and almost hideous face of the deputy steward, he remembered that now was not the time to speak, so he hurriedly took his own people back. The deputy steward lowered his voice and said to the chief steward, "Do you want to send someone over to take a look?" ”

The chief steward clenched the straight knife, and the joints of his hands were clenched blue-white, but he gritted his teeth and said nothing.

"I think it's better to send someone over to take a look......" said the deputy steward. Seeing that the chief steward did not speak, he didn't care much, turned his head and raised his arm to draw at the end of the team, and it took a long time for a guy from the warehouse to stagger up with a knife, and before he could run to the place, he first tripped himself on his stomach, and knocked his head on the stone on the side of the road, and the blood immediately came out of his forehead, and the straight knife also fell out of the long way. The guy didn't dare to say a word, he didn't even care about the blood on his face, he picked up the knife and crawled to the ground in front of the deputy steward. The deputy steward didn't even look at the blood on the man's face, waved his hand, and said to him, "You go to the front and have a look." If there are bandits, immediately warn them! Whatever you see, don't dwell on it! The guy wiped the blood from his face and was about to walk forward, when the mountain baby suddenly said, "You can't go!" ”

"Huh?" The eyes of the two stewards forced their eyes towards the mountain baby together. The chief steward's gaze stared at his face for a long time before he asked in a calm voice, "Why can't you go?" ”

"If the bandits really have an ambush, go to one and die!" Shan Wazi said as she licked her lips with a straight knife.

The two stewards looked at each other. They all knew that what Shan Wazi said was the truth, but they didn't know that the situation in front of them was even more tormenting. Enter, the life and death of the three guys are uncertain, retreat, who knows if there is a way out, if there is no stalemate with the bandits, the place where the pack team is now is a place that does not go up and down, there is a mountain wall on one side and a steep cliff on the other, there is not even a way to escape, and the packmen will collapse without waiting for dark...... The chief steward gritted his teeth: "Go explore the way!" ”

The guy was about to leave, but Shang Cheng had already put the straight knife back on the pack and said, "No need to explore, there are no bandits in front." As he spoke, he took off a thick rope from the pack horse next to him and put it on his shoulder, and said to the mountain boy and the village warrior, "You go with me to save people." After speaking, he didn't wait for others, and ran along the road by the mountain wall. Shan Wazi and Na Xiang Yong hesitated for a moment, looked at the two stewards who looked at each other and looked at Shang Cheng's back, and then looked at each other, and Shan Wazi chased after him with a knife. That Xiangyong seemed to be a little undecided, and hesitated for a long time before learning the example of the mountain baby, and rushed out with a straight knife in his hand.

The chief steward was so angry by the repeated actions of the three of them that Venus was in front of him, and his body shook a few times before he could barely stand firm with a pack horse, and he was about to scold after taking a long breath, but the deputy steward pulled his sleeve and cut off his breath. The chief steward held his breath in his chest and churned, his face was swollen and red, and he endured and endured it with a knife, but he couldn't bear it after all, and when he was about to spray all his anger on the face of his partner for many years, the deputy steward suddenly raised his hand and instructed him to silence: "Listen! ”

The chief steward's heart sank, and he hurriedly held his breath and listened carefully. After listening to it for a long time, all he could hear was the howling of the mountain wind, the rolling of the pine waves, the chirping of birds and insects, the sound of the nose of the pack horse and the click of the horseshoe against the stones, one by one, he couldn't help but want to scold his partner. At this moment, he heard a cry as thin as a gossamer in the midst of all the sounds:

"Come on! Help me! …… Help me! Come on! ……”

The voice was both flamboyant and anxious, hoarse and crying; Every time you shout, you have to stop for half a day. If it weren't for the deputy steward's reminder and his careful identification, he wouldn't have heard it at all. From the first shout for help, the chief steward immediately concluded that this was not a false shout after the guy was held hostage by the bandits, first of all, it was impossible for the bandits to take the young man hostage, and secondly, since the bandits could capture the little man alive, they naturally would not be afraid of the pack team...... He immediately said to the deputy steward, "You come slowly with the pack caravan, and I will go first!" As he spoke, he took the young man who was bleeding and ran in the direction from which the voice came.

Running along the mountain road, which was not a road, stumbling for a long distance, until the pack team behind them was hidden behind the mountain, the chief steward saw Shang Cheng and the mountain baby were swelling with purple faces, gritting their teeth and pulling the ropes up one by one. One end of the rope was tied to a black rock on the edge of the cliff, and the other end was wrapped around the waist of the unknown countryman; Xiang Yong leaned on the cliff with his back against the cliff wall, holding a person with both hands, but he didn't exert his strength, and only let two people drag him up. Running closer, the chief steward saw two young men from the inn leaning against the cliff wall, one with a bloody face, and the other with a pale face, with his arms hanging and just panting.

As soon as the two chief stewards arrived, things were immediately easy to handle, and with the addition of two new forces, the guy with Xiang Yong tied to the rope and Xiang Yong's arms was quickly pulled up. The guy didn't know where he was fallen, he couldn't see any scars on his body, his eyes were wide open, but he didn't have any spirit at all, he stared straight ahead stupidly, no matter how the people next to him called, but he didn't even roll his eyes, and he didn't reflect at all.

"I'm caught by a mountain ghost." The mountain baby was obviously more knowledgeable than the chief steward, and after only glancing at the guy, he said with confidence, "People who are trapped by mountain ghosts are like this, and you can return your soul by asking the puppet master to dance a dance." ”

"Bullshit!" Shang Cheng was helping Na Xiangyong deal with the wound on his back, and when he heard the mountain baby make a random diagnosis, he turned his head and scolded. Just now, this Xiang Yong was holding a big living person heavier than himself in his hand, and he was all focused on saving people, and he didn't care about himself at all, and when he was dragged up by Shang Cheng and them, his back was scraped by the stone ridge on the cliff and was full of blood. Shang Cheng didn't have anything to do at hand, so he could only help him pull down the larger stones and broken grass first. Shang Cheng beckoned the young man to take over his own business, walked to the side of the mountain boy and pushed him aside, first rolled up the eyelids of the guy who was covered by the mountain ghost and looked left and right, and then touched his hand carefully on his head, and when he withdrew his hand and saw that there was no blood on the palm, he asked, "Who is carrying the water bladder?" ”

The big shopkeeper immediately untied a leather bag from his waist and handed it over: "I have wine here, can I make it?" ”

"It's best to have wine!" Shang Cheng took the wine sac and opened the stopper, sniffed at the mouth of the sac, took a small sip and tasted it in his mouth, and said with some dissatisfaction, "The degree is lower, but it will be able to be used." He did not pour the wine into the man's mouth, as the chief steward thought, but stuffed the wine bag into his bosom again, and asked, "Who has a water bladder there?" ”

The guy who came to explore the way but didn't hear back said with difficulty, "I'...... I...... I have ...... here. Yes...... There is water...... Water...... Water ......"

Shan Wazi didn't wait for him to say the word "sac", so he took the water bladder from his waist and handed it to Shang Cheng. Shang Cheng took a sip of water, and a mouthful of water rain sprayed on the face of the ghost-obsessed guy. This trick immediately had some effect, and the chief steward saw it so clearly that the man's eyes actually moved. "It's moving! It's moving! His eyes moved! Shang Cheng sprayed another mouthful of water. This time, not only did the eyes move, but it seemed that the person had also improved, but the eyes were still confused and gloomy. The third salip of water squirted over the fellow like a cat with its tail stepped on, and he screamed and jumped up, babbling and yelling, crawling to the side with his hands and feet, and never letting go of one of the legs of the mountain baby. The mountain baby struggled twice and didn't kick him away, and slapped him over, and the guy let go of his hand and fell to the ground in response.

"You! ......" The chief steward was almost anxious with Shan Wazi, but was grabbed by Shang Cheng, and he stuffed the water bladder in his hand and said, "You let him drink some water and it will be fine." It's not that the mountain ghost is in trouble, it's just that he was too frightened, and after drinking water and finding someone to talk to him, it's almost over for a night's rest......"

"Talk? Say what? The chief steward asked, holding the water bladder in his hand, puzzled.

"Say whatever you want, say whatever you like, just talk to him......" After speaking, Shang Cheng no longer took care of the ignorant and confused chief steward, and faced the team that was chasing up, and said to the deputy steward, "Don't go first, let people find a leeward place to make a fire and boil water." Put salt in the water, not too salty, the water must be boiled, and then put a bundle of raw cloth on the pack horse, tear it into strips and put it in and cook it for 30 minutes...... Cook for two quarters of an hour! After cooking, scrub their wounds with strips of cloth dipped in boiling water, and then wrap their wounds with strips of cloth! Remember, the strip of cloth used to scrub the wound cannot be used to cover the wound! Also, the cloth that covers the wound should be dried in the shade! "He is tall and has the story of fighting wolves with his bare hands, and he naturally speaks with a kind of prestige. When he had said a word, the deputy steward repeated it, and when he had finished speaking, the deputy steward immediately sent his hands to make a fire and boil salt and boil cloth as he said......