After listening to Yang Chuncheng's experience, everyone knew that he had offended the court, caused his wife and children to commit suicide, and his daughter was also given away to raise, and they were sympathetic and sad, and they spoke comfortingly.

The seven children heard that he and Lord Zheng went to Beijing to take the exam, and met the emperor, and Lord Zheng had been a guard in the palace for eight years, and they were envious, and asked him many questions, such as what the emperor looked like, what clothes he wore, whether the palace was made of gold, and so on, Yang Chuncheng answered patiently.

Wen Moshi said worriedly: "Brother Yang, even if the officers and soldiers can't find you, but Lord Zheng's killing of his buddies is exposed, and the government will not let him go!" ”

Yang Chuncheng said: "Mr. Wen, don't worry, no one saw Lord Zheng when he killed someone, as long as he doesn't admit it, it's not a big deal." ”

Shu Zhengqi nodded and said, "Brother Yang is right, there have been few soldiers and horses in this year, and there are still fewer dead?" If this guy hadn't been involved in Brother Yang's case, the government wouldn't have cared about his life or death. ”

Wen Moshi breathed a sigh of relief and said, "If that's the case, I'll be relieved." ”

And when they talked again, they were a little sleepy and yawned.

Yang Chuncheng said: "It's not too early, let's burn the fire and cook the rice first, and rest early." ”

Shu Zhengqi agreed, took an iron basin, called Wen Moshi and the Xia family brothers, and drilled out of the tunnel with him, only to see the snow falling, the wind howling, the church burned into ruins, full of devastation, the water tank in the room had already been smashed, where was there still clear water.

Shu Zhengqi went to the courtyard and brought a pot full of snow, Yang Chuncheng, Wen Moshi, and the Xia family brothers groped around, found some doors, windows, stools and chairs without burning embers, smashed them into pieces with bricks, and found a lot of charcoal, all of which were carried into the tunnel.

Shu Zhengqi lit firewood, and the smoke billowed in the tunnel, choking everyone couldn't stop coughing and crying.

After a while, the firewood smoke dissipated, a pile of charcoal fire turned red, and the tunnel was as warm as spring, and the children were happy and playful.

Shu Zhengqi melted the snow on the firewood and cooked the rice in a clay pot, and after a while, the crockpot was steaming hot, overflowing with the aroma of rice.

When the rice was cooked, Shu Zhengqi took the crockpot aside, hugged the mattress that had been packed in, spread it around the charcoal fire, two women and seven children covered the quilt and slept inside, and five men huddled outside to rest.

Yang Chuncheng had something in his heart, where could he sleep, took off his boots, pulled the quilt and burned his feet, then blew out the oil lamp, hugged his hands, leaned against the damp earthen wall, while listening to the cold wind howling outside, while thinking about his thoughts, from time to time to add some charcoal to the charcoal fire, and there was silence all around.

He saw Shu Zhengqi and them sleeping on the muddy floor, snoring one after another, and he was very ashamed, and the scene of getting along with them these days resurfaced in front of him.

On the night of the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, he and Zheng Yixia braved the heavy snow and howling cold wind, crossed several streets, walked through a deserted dirt road, jumped over the fence, and entered the church.

Zheng Yixia saw that everyone had rested, so he knocked on the window paper and woke Shu Zhengqi up.

Shu Zhengqi hurriedly lit the oil lamp, opened the door and came out, and welcomed the two into the house.

Zheng Yixia lied and said that Yang Chuncheng's name is Li Zaojiu, a native of Pingxiang, Jiangxi, his hometown was flooded and fell here, his wife and children are gone, he was hungry on the street just now, gave him wine and food, took him to the church to live temporarily, and took care of each other in the future.

Shu Zhengqi naturally agreed.

Zheng Yixia also said to Yang Chuncheng that Shu Zhengqi's hometown is in Anhui, and he used to work as an errand in the county yamen, and in addition to him and his son, there are other people living in this house, and they will see him tomorrow.

Shu Zhengqi said a few polite words, and when he saw that Yang Chuncheng was unkempt, he lit an oil lamp and went out to boil water to bathe him.

Zheng Yixia said in a low voice: "Brother Anguo, you live here in the future, don't reveal the details." They are all homeless people, the government will not come to bother, if there is any trouble, I will come to you. With that, he took his leave.

After a while, Shu Zhengqi brought hot water, invited Yang Chuncheng to take a bath, and then took him to a simple side room to rest.

The next morning, when he got up, he saw that the church was surrounded by a wall, and on the east side of the courtyard was a domed tower, and on the west side of the courtyard were six two-story side houses, which had just been repaired, and that the courtyard was made of large stone inlays, which was very solid and level.

Strangely, the main building is a three-storey western-style house, ruined, with a huge white tripod standing on the roof, I don't know what kind of foreign religious emblem it is.

He entered the house and saw Wen Moshi and the Xia family brothers, and since then he has been hiding in the church. Fortunately, the church has been abandoned for a long time, although it is in the county seat, two or three miles away from the downtown area, no one comes to disturb it, except for the occasional child who goes outside to graze cattle in the wasteland, it is also very quiet.

He learns carpentry and rope kneading with Shu Zhengqi and the Xia brothers every day, and earns some broken silver together to make ends meet.

Wen Moshi does not know how to do crafts, in addition to teaching seven children to read and write, often go to the county street to set up stalls, pick up some uncovered calligraphy and painting to make a living, and earn a few pieces of silver.

The children gathered around the table and watched him uncover the tattered calligraphy and paintings with his skillful hands, all of them were amazed, and their little faces showed a look of envy and inexplicability.

When Yang Chuncheng is idle, he often climbs the domed tower on the east side of the courtyard, looks into the distance by the railing, and meditates on his thoughts.

At the bottom of the tower is the façade of the church, which is about several feet high and very steep. The top of the tower was surrounded by a fence, and on the ground was placed a huge bronze bell, about five feet high, about two feet wide, rusty, about two thousand pounds, I think it was originally hung on a beam under the dome, and then the church was abandoned for a long time, and the rope broke, and then it fell.

When he was in Hangzhou, he went to the church of foreigners, and saw that the bronze bell was not too big, as long as the rope was pulled and the mechanism was pulled, the built-in small bell hammer would hit the bell wall, making a crisp and melodious "jingling" sound.

But the bronze bell in front of him is very heavy, and there is no mechanical setting on the beam, I don't know how to strike, he thought, I don't know what kind of foreign church this is, the emblem is a triangle, it is very rare, and the bronze bell is also cast so huge, it is even more puzzling.

One day, the county town rushed to the big gathering, Wen Moshi took the children to the street to buy paper and ink, Shu Zhengqi and the Xia family brothers also went to sell woodware, hemp rope, and female red, Yang Chuncheng did not dare to show his head, and went to the open hall on the second floor of the main building to do carpentry.

He did the carpentry work for a while, thinking that since he had fled, he had not practiced his fists and feet for several months, and he was afraid that his kung fu would be wasted, so he might as well try the big bell on the tower to see if he could lift it, so he put down the planer, jumped down the second floor, ran to the wall, and jumped up the tower again.

He stood in front of the giant bell, his anger sank into the dantian, and he bent down and inserted eight fingers into the gap at the bottom of the bell little by little, and finally pulled out a gap in the bell, and slammed it into the two palms, and lifted it vigorously, only to feel that the bell was very heavy, and his blood was so strong that his blood was stretching, and the tiger's back was sweating, and he only lifted the bell mouth more than half a foot high, and he could no longer lift it a little.

He had no choice but to jerk his hand and take two steps back, and the big bell threw itself back to the ground, making a loud "boom" sound, rolling up a gust of wind, blowing dust and ashes, mixed with a smell of corpses, I don't know why.

He wiped his sweat and wondered, only to hear the impact of "knock, knock, knock" from the big bell, dull and hoarse, neither copper nor iron, as if it was a piece of wood, and thought: "Could it be that this bell can't be hit with a crossbar?" ”

After a while, the sound slowly stopped, and he turned to go downstairs, thinking: "These days, I only care about fleeing, and my kung fu is wasted a lot, so I just take advantage of their absence, and hurry up to practice my fists and feet." He walked back to the open hall on the second floor and practiced what he had learned in his life several times.

Later, as long as he was okay every day, he secretly practiced kung fu in the open hall on the second floor, and he didn't dare to waste it.

Fuzhou is located in the bitter cold land, the winter is extraordinarily long, and then a heavy snow fluttered for more than a month, and some counties have snow up to two meters thick, causing snow disasters, crushing houses, freezing livestock, and starving many people to death.

Soon after, they heard that many hungry people had poured into the county seat of Fuzhou, and some of them were eating human flesh raw, and they couldn't help but be very worried.

Four days ago the night, they sent the children to sleep, around the fire, was worried about all kinds of rumors outside, Zheng Yixia dressed in civilian clothes, carried two bags of grain noodles over, said that a few days ago there was a rice rush in Zhimo County, not far from the next door, hungry people rushed into the county office, killed more than 30 people including the county magistrate and the county Cheng, making people panic.

When everyone heard this, they were even more worried and worried.

Zheng Yixia also said that there are more and more hungry people in Fuzhou County, and there have been several incidents of snatching and eating dead people in the past few days.

Shu Zhengqi and others hurriedly agreed and thanked them repeatedly.

Yang Chuncheng saw that they were worried, so he came up with an idea to dig a tunnel in the church, so that if something happened, there would be a place to hide.

Everyone immediately agreed, but the yard was full of stones, and digging tunnels was easy to be discovered, so they decided to dig a tunnel in a side house the next day.

Everyone chatted for a while, and Zheng Yixia found an excuse to ask Yang Chuncheng to go to the courtyard to chat about the current situation, and said, "Brother Anguo, when you came, did you pass by Hengyi County?" ”

"Passing by, what's wrong?"

"They've changed the county, guess who?" Zheng Yixia said, "You saw it in the capital nine years ago. ”

"Who?" Yang Chuncheng couldn't remember.

"Go to Hangzhou to arrest your four-grade guards with knives, Wang Xuan."

Yang Chuncheng was taken aback and said, "Isn't he a member of the West Palace, why did he come out to be a dust official?" ”

"Isn't it thanks to our brothers?" Zheng Yixia said with a smile.

It turned out that a few days ago, Zheng Yixia's friend in the palace sent a letter to say hello, and by the way, he talked about Wang Chu's body.

On the evening of the fifth day of October last year, Cixi ordered Wang Chun to set off in the starry night and rushed to Hangzhou to arrest Yang Chuncheng.

His family is three generations of single transmission, afraid that his son has three long and two short, hurriedly invited Lang Zhong to the home for diagnosis and treatment, and was busy until midnight, seeing that his son was fine, he led people straight to Tianjin in the starry night, and when he arrived in Hangzhou, a few hours late, Yang Chuncheng had already fled first.

Cixi was furious when she heard this, and ordered a strict investigation of the leak of secrets, and later received a secret report from an official of the Criminal Department, saying that Wang Chan was treating his son's illness, and he had delayed the court's business because of his private abolition.

Cixi was furious, demoted him from the palace, and went to Hengyi to become the county of Qipinzhi.

Yang Chuncheng sighed and said: "The fourth grade has been reduced to the seventh grade, this heel has fallen a lot, I'm afraid that he will hate us to the bone." ”

"yes!" Zheng Yixia said, "My family's shop in Hengyi County usually communicates with the Tianjin General Counter by telegram. Two days ago, the guy came to deliver a telegram from his father, saying that the people in Hengyi County were saying that after Wang Zhan took office, he had a very bad temper and often insulted his subordinates in the public court. ”

When the two heard that Wang Chan was covered with dust, they both sighed for a long time, but they couldn't be happy, and after chatting a few more words, Zheng Yixia said goodbye and went back.

The next morning they began to dig tunnels, pile dirt in the yard, and then pick it out again in the evening and pour it on the wasteland behind the church.

They hurried for three days, and by last night, they had finally dug the tunnel, which was as tall as one person and as long as three zhang, and it was very open enough for them to hide in it.

They put a lot of effort at the entrance of the tunnel, which was not easy for people to find, and at night they brought in rice noodles and soybean oil, and as soon as they went to sleep, those hungry people broke in and caused this catastrophe.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh secretly: "Fortunately, this tunnel was dug, otherwise now the church is burning, and there is really nowhere to hide." ”

At this time, it was nearly three watches, he was sleepy, and was about to be confused, when he suddenly heard the whistling cold wind outside, someone was vaguely talking, and he was taken aback, and when he hurriedly looked at the entrance of the tunnel, a few faint and unknown red rays of light shot in from the gap, swaying.

He saw that everyone was sleeping, so he hurriedly lifted the quilt, put on leather boots, touched the entrance of the tunnel, and when he looked out from the gap, he saw snowflakes flying in the sky, and red light flashing in the distance, but a piece of broken wall blocked the hospital, and he couldn't see who came.

He heard the footsteps getting closer and closer, so he pushed away the stone slab, jumped out, touched the remnant of the wall, and when he quietly stretched out his head to look, it turned out to be five officials, holding a lantern in his left hand and a short knife in his right hand.

I only heard a servant say in a low voice: "Master Jin, I heard that this Qin prisoner is a second-class martial artist, even if we find him, can we beat him?" ”

A tall bearded servant said: "You kid, don't grow up with other people's ambitions, destroy your own prestige!" You recognize him as a martial artist, but you can't recognize the knife in Lao Tzu's hand! ”

Another official said, "That's it! We've practiced it anyway, five against one, I'm afraid he's a bird, don't you say, Jin Ye! ”

Jin Ye said: "Don't say a few words, and if you shout again, Beijing will hear it!" ”

Several people stopped talking, lowered their heads and searched carefully, seeing that they were getting closer and closer.

Suddenly, a servant whispered, "Come and see, footprints!" ”

The four officials hurriedly stepped forward to take a look and said, "What footprints, and the snow on the ground has also moved!" ”

Jin Ye used a lantern to shine a series of footprints on the ground, looked towards the ruins of the side house, and said in a low voice: "The tunnel is ahead, everyone pay attention!" ”

The four of them agreed, held the single knife tightly, and crept over with him.

Yang Chuncheng saw that they found the footprints left by Shu Zhengqi when he was carrying the snow, he didn't dare to delay, quietly picked up a piece of rubble, and with two fingers, he aimed it at the lantern of a servant, only to hear the sound of "plop" on the ground, and the lantern was immediately extinguished.

The official was taken aback, hurriedly lifted the lantern, and said, "Hey, damn it, why is the lantern out?" ”

Jin Ye hurriedly said: "The wind is too strong, be careful of the lanterns!" He and the three servants gathered the lantern to their side.

Yang Chuncheng took advantage of their hurry, and quickly popped out three pieces of rubble, extinguishing three lanterns, leaving only one to illuminate.

The five officials looked around, looked at each other, and suddenly exclaimed: "This is the church, there are ghosts, there are ghosts, run away!" "Hurriedly throw away the lantern and run away.

Yang Chuncheng immediately flew to catch up, and even cast a heavy hand, and killed the four officials to the ground in a few strokes, leaving only one thin officer, seeing that he couldn't escape, he hurriedly turned around, shouted and scolded in his mouth, and raised his knife and Yang Chuncheng to fight.

Yang Chuncheng wanted to leave a living mouth to interrogate, so he rose into the air, made a move "Harrier turn over", kicked his short knife away, and stretched out his right arm and slapped him on the shoulder.

The thin servant screamed and fell to the ground, and the red tasseled hat rolled off to the side.

Yang Chuncheng jumped to the ground and shouted, "Who are you!" ”

Seeing that he was wearing the uniform of a thousand commanders, the thin official thought that he was an officer of the Eight Banners who had come to search for the Qin criminals, and was afraid that the five of them would rob the first prize, so he killed the killer, and hurriedly knelt on the ground, kowtowed and begged for mercy: "My lord's life, my lord's life!" The lowly position is called Qian Sixi, and he is the official of the county yamen! The humble post no longer dares to be delusional, so go back, go back! ”

"What do you want to do?"

"Adults are angry, adults are angry!" Qian Sixi panicked, "When it was dark, the humble and this Jin Ye were on an errand at the east gate-"

"Who is Jin Ye and what is he doing?"

"If you go back to your lordship, he is our foreman on an errand and his name is Jin Liujun." Qian Sixi pointed to the bearded servant who died next to him, "We heard that there are Qin criminals hiding in the church, and the adults set fire to the church, but they didn't catch anyone. ”

"How do you know about the real thing?"

"Jin Ye said that there are piles of mud behind the church, and most of the prisoners have dug tunnels!"

"You said just now, you came here to try your luck, what do you mean?"

Qian Sixi's eyes rolled a few times, and he wanted not to say it, but he was afraid that he would not be able to hide it, so he hurriedly said: "My lord also knows, Lord Qin Cha said that whoever catches the Qin prisoner will be promoted to the third level and rewarded with ten thousand taels of silver." He also ordered that as soon as the sky dawned, the officers and soldiers of the Eight Banners would search the whole city, even this church, and beware of Qin criminals hiding in the tunnels! ”

When Yang Chuncheng heard that Cao Shichun was going to send troops to search the tunnels at dawn, he was shocked and angry, and sneered: "Just the five of you, you also want to catch Lao Tzu to be promoted and make a fortune?" ”

Qian Sixi knew that he was Yang Chuncheng, he was stunned with fright, and hurriedly said: "The good man is angry, the good man is angry, no, don't do the villain's thing, it's all Jin and Jin Liujun's idea!" He, he said, the villains are on an errand in the county yamen, and they have never had such a good opportunity to be promoted and make a fortune in their lives. Hero, please spare and spare the villain, you really don't do the villain's business! ”

Yang Chuncheng sneered, slapped his heavenly spirit cover, and when he landed, the seven orifices bled and the corpse was lying on the ground.

He picked up the lantern from the ground, picked up five more knives and tossed them aside, and when he looked up, the snow was getting heavier and heavier.