After a pause in the sound of crying in the hall, Zhu Gaoxu said a few more words to the man in gray shorts at the next table, and asked if there was anyone surnamed Tang in the near left. The man immediately responded, saying that there was a place called Xiguan to the west, near the lake, where many people with the surname Tang lived.

Zhu Gaoxu suddenly became interested, and asked if he knew that there was a woman named Tang Sai'er. The man didn't know, but he still kindly suggested that there was a matchmaker in Xiguan, and he knew a lot of young girls, so he could ask the matchmaker; It is better to ask her than to ask Lizheng, because Lizheng probably only knows the men in his jurisdiction.

Duan Xue hated seemed to be a little curious about Zhu Gaoxu's search for a woman with a surname and a surname, so she turned her head to look at him, but she didn't say anything. After the villagers served the food one after another, Duan Xue hated to eat it first, and then put it in the bowl in front of Zhu Gaoxu.

After lunch, Zhu Gaoxu asked Hou Hai to say goodbye to the master's house, and then left here with a dozen people and followed the road to the west.

The lake was soon seen, and Zhu Gaoxu looked at the shore of the lake for a while, and then ordered scouts to go nearby to find someone to ask where the "Xiguan" was.

At this moment, I saw a group of several people on a dirt road, coming towards the lake. Among them, there was a Taoist priest wearing a Taoist robe and holding a wooden sword, and the other people were wearing black cloth scarves on their arms, looking like the people who were doing white things just now.

Zhu Gaoxu sat on horseback, wanting to see what they were doing.

When those people saw Zhu Gaoxu and the others, they all bent down to worship from afar, because there were people wearing official uniforms in the procession. Then a long-faced man walked this way, and the others continued on to the lake.

The long-faced man walked up, and knelt and kowtowed to Hou Hai, who was wearing a red robe, and Binzhou Wupintong, who was wearing a green robe, claiming to be "adult". This is a custom of title left by the Yuan Dynasty, and it is still used by people today. The long-faced man is here Lizheng, also surnamed Tang.

Hou Hai asked him, "Where is Xiguan?" ”

Li Zheng replied respectfully: "This side is called Xiguan for several miles. ”

Regarding Zhu Gaoxu's concerns, whether it makes sense or not, Hou Hai is very concerned, and he immediately asked: "Do you know that there is a little lady named Tang Sai'er?" ”

Li Zheng thought for a while and said, "The villain will help you ask right away." When he had finished speaking, he got up, said one more goodbye, and hurried away.

Relying on the government to eat is upright and very deferential, but those people don't pay much attention to the government, and most of them don't know much about etiquette. The villagers who arrived at the lake put down their things and were silent.

Suddenly, an old man with gray hair and beard grabbed something and threw it at the lake, where there was a sound of a rustle of raindrops. The old man threw the small pieces again and again for a while before he stopped.

Then a few men lit a fishing net and sprinkled the ashes into the water again. The Taoist priest then came up, took a wooden sword, lit the rune paper, and recited the words there.

Zhu Gaoxu looked at it for a long time, but he didn't understand what they were doing.

When the villagers packed up their things and were about to leave, Zhu Gaoxu jumped off his horse and walked up. Zhu Gaoxu didn't show his identity, so he was polite to these villagers, and stepped forward to ask, "What are you doing?" ”

The Taoist priest bent down and said, "Lock the resentful soul." ”

"Oh?" Zhu Gaoxu made a sound.

The Taoist priest explained: "The place where the main son fell into the water yesterday is here; And in the same place, a woman drowned the year before. Before the woman had a good death, the resentful spirit was trapped in the water, and could not go down to hell to be reincarnated, but had to pull a person into the water before she could be reincarnated. The woman of the previous year has gone to the underworld, and the resentment of the master and son is here again, and the person who will be harmed next time will be a woman, so it will not be able to end it.

To stop the ghost from harming the surrounding villagers, lock it up. Throw iron filings and mineral sands into the water, drive them to the bottom of the water without turning over, and then tie them with fishing nets. If the poor road is locked with talismans, the resentful soul cannot move and can no longer harm the world. From then on, there will be no more drowning in this place. ”

Zhu Gaoxu nodded thoughtfully.

Duan Xue's hateful voice suddenly said, "Can the resentful souls who are trapped under the water still be reincarnated?" ”

The Taoist priest said: "Naturally, I can't, I will only be trapped here forever." ”

Then the old man who threw the iron filings sighed.

The Taoist priest hurriedly said: "This is the old father of the deceased, and the poor Dao can only do it with the consent of the master's family." Leave. ”

The group then bent down and went back along the dirt road.

Zhu Gaoxu looked at their backs, and then turned his head to look at the water's edge. Duan Xue's hateful voice said behind him: "Why do you bother? Let him continue to drag people into the water, and everyone can be reincarnated in the future. The life of the villagers is so hard, it is better to die early and live early. ”

"Makes sense." Zhu Gaoxu turned around and said.

Hearing Duan Xue's words, the lustful man Asari was also stunned. However, these superstitious things obviously not only exist in the countryside of the Ming Dynasty, but also on the grassland, after all, people are very imaginative.

Zhu Gaoxu saw Duan Xue's depressed mood again, so he said kindly: "Not to mention whether there are ghosts or not, even if there is that kind of thing, something beyond the world's knowledge must not be so simple, I'm afraid it can't be trapped by mortals with a few strokes." It's all self-deception, you don't have to worry too much. It's not the ghosts that matter, it's the human heart. ”

Duan Xue hated her head and said, "I don't understand, why the deceased's father is willing to do such a thing. ”

Zhu Gaoxu couldn't answer for a while.

On the contrary, Hou Hai said: "De Concubine Mingjian, there is a difference between yin and yang, life is father and son, and death is not." Moreover, they called them 'firstborn' and not sons, and it was clear that the old man had more than one son. ”

Duan Xue hated to ignore Hou Hai and fell silent sullenly.

Zhu Gaoxu understands her mind very well. Mainly because when I was about to have lunch before, there was a woman in the mourning hall who cried about the deceased, and said that the life of the deceased was very miserable and boring, and Duan Xue hated it too. The life of this drowned villager was burdened by poverty from an early age, and he toiled all his life to work and serve as a servitude, and then drowned, or could be counted as liberation, and as a result, his soul was locked under the water, and he could not live forever.

The misery and suffering in the world really have no bottom line.

Even if Duan Xue hated being an assassin, she didn't seem to be able to stand it, she was not a cold-blooded and ruthless person. Maybe women are easy to be soft-hearted, and Duan Xue hated being born in the Mu family, even if the adoptive mother Duan Yang was paranoid and at least a member of the Duan family in Dali, she may indeed not know much about this other kind of suffering.

Of course, Zhu Gaoxu didn't believe that a country Taoist priest could have any spells. Therefore, the dead man was trapped in the water at the back, which was only the imagination of the living, and he believed that death was the end.

The group rode slowly by the lake and waited for a long time.

Li Zheng, surnamed Tang, finally returned, Li Zheng approached, knelt down to Hou Hai in a red robe and said: "My lord, there is indeed a little girl named Tang Sai'er in Xiguan, who is the only daughter in the family, and she is fifteen years old. It's a pity that before her father went out, he had made her marry the third son of the Lin family in the neighboring village. ”

Zhu Gaoxu was a little surprised, he didn't think that there was a great chance of finding Tang Sai'er in advance, but this time the place he chose to be stationed in Binzhou was very coincidental and happened to be not far away. Moreover, the daughters of the common people's families generally do not have names, and he originally thought that Tang Sai'er might also have changed her name after becoming the leader of the rebel army; But now it seems that perhaps Tang Sai'er has been called this name since he was a child.

Li was talking to Hou Hai, and Zhu Gaoxu didn't say anything.

In the countryside, Li Zheng can deal with the local county officials, so he is more knowledgeable than the average villager. He should know that the person wearing the red official uniform is a senior official, and the person wearing the blue official uniform is a middle and low-level official, in fact, even a scribe wearing a green round neck can wear a lizheng uniform. And Zhu Gaochu was wearing ordinary military clothes, and it was impossible to know the emperor, so he should think that Zhu Gaochu was the son of a certain official, and he recognized Hou Hai as a bureaucrat even more.

Hou Haidao: "Lead the way, let's take a look." ”

Everyone followed Li Zheng, and Li Zheng talked a lot along the way, and talked about Tang Sai'er's family again. said that her family was not poor in the local area before, but in Tang Sai'er's generation, there were no men in the family, so now the family situation is getting worse and worse.

Li Zheng asked Hou Hai again, how did he know the name of Tang Sai'er's little lady. Of course, Hou Hai couldn't say it, so he made an excuse, saying that there was a house slave who had been helped by Tang's father in the field. If you look for it temporarily, of course, there are many loopholes. Li Zheng quickly said that Father Tang went out to work as a coolie, how could he know a nobleman?

Zhu Gaoxu finally spoke, and said: "Her family only has one male father, why do you still have to serve as a servant? ”

Li Zheng hesitated, glanced at Hou Hai quietly, and said: "How many Ding servants should be transferred in ordinary counties, the small ones only need to pass the word, and it is up to the local villagers to find people." ”

Zhu Gaoxu pondered that the apportionment of forced labor, with the current rules, must be entrusted to a certain extent to the moral cultivation of the local village gentry, so as to ensure relative fairness; However, there are so many officials and village elders in the Ming Dynasty, and it is unreliable to rely on morality, and it is inevitable that this kind of favoritism and burden transfer will occur.

He can cure the villagers and the righteous people in this place, but if he wants to cure this kind of person in the whole world, he can't rely on such a stupid method of personally interfering.

So Zhu Gaoxu's tone was not too harsh, and he just said quietly: "In the future, the list of conscripts, the officials of the county government, and Li Zheng, must supervise more, and don't force the destitute to die." The imperial court has ordered the reduction of three years of forced labor and grain in Shandong, and asked the county to bring back Tang Sai'er's father and let him farm at home with peace of mind. ”

The Tongzhi of Binzhou Mansion hurriedly bent down and said, "Yes, yes." ”

The official glanced at him with an extremely dissatisfied gaze. Zhu Gaoxu guessed that after he left, this Li Zheng, the local village elders, and even the county officials here would be unlucky. The officials of the Ming Dynasty had direct jurisdiction over the county seat, but to rectify a specific person in the township, a few scribes could find many ways.

Seeing the posture of the green-robed official, Li Zheng also seemed to feel that something was wrong, and he was observing Zhu Gaoxu from time to time.

However, Zhu Gaoxu stopped saying a word, and just rode forward slowly.