Before the Chinese New Year, Li Mao inspected the Gongyan field and Xue Rong's office field, the public office field is within 20 miles around the city, but Xue Rong's office field is in the south of the county, Su Nu Township, three acres and fifty acres of land are connected together, the land is good, but the irrigation canal is in disrepair and almost silted up, Li Mao inspected the terrain on the spot, and gathered more than a dozen tenant farmers to discuss using the winter leisure time to clean up the silt.

An old tenant farmer said: "Over the New Year, the ditch of the Su family over there needs to be dredged, just the manager brings a word to their family, and the half-mile-long ditch will be cleared along with it. The tenant farmers echoed and said yes, Li Mao said with a smile: "You may not know the temper of the new county lord, that is the most fair and selfless person, and will never take advantage of other people's families, you still work hard, and the grain cost is deducted from the rent." ”

This was so fair that the tenant farmers did not dare to say more. It was already afternoon when he returned to the county seat, Li Mao was hungry, so he found a small hotel in Yichun Fang next to Xinglongfang and asked for two dishes and a pot of wine, just sat down, Feng Bu and two fast hands also walked in, Su Cheng Li Mao gave Feng Bu a big face on that matter, since then, he saw Li Mao is always polite, and when he saw Li Mao sitting alone, he invited him to eat and drink together.

The two fast hands saw that Feng Bu was very affectionate to Li Mao, and they also riveted enough to flatter, Li Mao was hungry and thirsty, and he didn't realize that he had eaten two more glasses of wine, and when he went out, he was blown by the cold wind, and the wine was surging, and his legs trembled for a while. Feng Bu and the three of them were about to go out of the city on business, but Li Mao refused to send him off and walked back against the wall.

Outside the south gate of Xinglongfang, Li Mao's mind was already a little unclear, he shook his head, and in a hazy way, he saw that the fang official was talking to a young man in a brown shirt, and thought to himself: "This drunk picture is over, let him laugh at it in vain." So he sat down with the elm tree by the street, leaning his back against the tree, wanting to catch his breath and walk again.

Unexpectedly, when he sat down, his head was even more dizzy, muddy, and it was difficult to distinguish between east and west, north and south. A young man in his early twenties passed by, glanced at Li Mao, was taken aback, and asked, "Is it Brother Maohua, why did you get drunk like this?" "The person who spoke was named Yi Zheng, who was just hired by Xue Rong, and he had only met Li Mao once, so he was not familiar with it.

Li Mao stared at it for a long time and couldn't remember who it was, grinned and smirked, and said embarrassedly: "I was greedy for two glasses of wine, I had a terrible headache, sit and rest, where is the girl?" Yi Zheng shook his head and smiled, knowing that Li Mao was not lightly drunk, and he couldn't even tell the difference between men and women.

He looked at the gray sky, frowned, and said, "Seeing that it is going to snow, I will help you go back." ”

Yi Zheng squatted down and picked up one of Li Mao's arms, trying hard to hold it up, but he didn't succeed, his figure was too thin, and Li Mao's body was too heavy. Yi Zheng sighed helplessly, helped Li Mao sit against the tree, and said, "You rest, I'll call someone to help." After putting Li Mao down, Yi Zheng walked towards the door of the fang, and greeted the fangguan and said, "Excuse me, help help an intoxicating person." The official glanced at him and replied angrily: "The sinner is looking for the yamen to arrest him." After speaking, he ignored Yi Zheng anymore, and continued to stalk his neck and reprimand the brown-shirted young man in front of him: "What about you, dumb, where did this knife come from, what do you want to do with a knife?" ”

Yi Zheng glanced at the young man in a brown shirt, with a stout body and a swarthy face, looking at his face, he was the kind of countryman who had never seen the world, and he was deceived by this treacherous official with a few words, and he didn't dare to say anything.

Yi Zheng's ancestors have been wide, and he has tasted the warmth and coldness of the world, and the most unaccustomed thing is the face of the honest man who bullies the honest man.

He had an idea, coughed, and said in a deep voice: "Excuse me, I'm Li Maohua, I have a friend who is drunk, you come over and help him." The words were cold and blunt, and his face was even darker and scary. Yi Zheng knows that he has just arrived, and the officials may not be willing to buy his face, but Li Mao is a big celebrity in front of the county order Xue Rong, these dog-eyed officials must have heard of his name, as for whether he will know Li Mao, Yi Zheng deduced that most of them will not know, the gold catcher is a powerful person in the county government, how can he deal with these unpopular officials.

Yi Zheng's judgment was not wrong, the official really didn't know Li Mao, but he had heard the word "Li Maohua" a long time ago. He glanced at Yi Zheng, although his clothes were a little shabby, but this temperament, no matter how he looked at it, looked like a person in a high position. The official hurriedly stood up, with a flattering smile on his face, and his waist bowed slightly: "It turned out to be a gold catcher, I have been looking up for a long time, but I don't know where your friend is now?" ”

Yi Zheng was funny in his heart, it was really the bark of a famous tree, he shouted for a long time and people didn't care, and when he mentioned Li Mao's name, he suddenly became closer than his mother and son, this kind of snobbery...... Hum......

Yi Zheng held back his anger, turned around and pointed to the elm tree not far away, and said, "It's ......"

Before he finished speaking, a fishy sweetness rushed to his throat, a mouthful of "wow" spurted out, and a sharp pain came from his waist, instantly paralyzing his consciousness.

The innocent-looking young man in the brown shirt strangled his neck with his arm, and stabbed him under the ribs with a sharp knife in his other hand, which was a one-foot-long thin-bladed fish-killing knife, the blade was willow-shaped, and it was unusually sharp. Yi Zheng's family was poor and couldn't afford to wear leather robes, and the robes made of linen could not resist the invasion of sharp blades. The young man succeeded with a knife, and did not give up, he strangled Yi Zheng's neck, and stabbed him three times in the ribs, the knife did not reach the hilt, and said in a muffled voice: "You hurt my brother to cut off his children and grandchildren, and I want your life!" ”

After stabbing more than a dozen times, he let go of Yi Zheng.

"Kill, kill, kill......"

The official watched "Li Mao" fall in a pool of blood, his lips turned black with fright, and he didn't even have the strength to stand if he wanted to run away.

The murderer threw the knife in his hand to the ground and said in a muffled voice: "There is a debtor who is wronged, and the person I killed will come to die!" "Stand there motionless. The official was stunned for a long time before he came back to his senses, and ran towards the workshop with a rolling belt.

"Kill, kill, kill!"

A terrible cry echoed in the sky above Xinglongfang......

Li Mao's drunken body was frightened into a cold sweat, he looked at the murderer blankly, and muttered in his heart: What is this, who did I offend?

The young man in the brown shirt glanced at his "Li Mao" friend who was "paralyzed by fright", grinned, and calmly took out a large cake from his arms and ate it.

This young man's name is Han Yi, the younger brother of Han Si, a fisherman on Xiaogu Mountain on the shore of Yanhu Lake, who has just arrived from Caozhou City, and the purpose of this trip to Chengwu County is to assassinate Li Mao. Su Gui spent 30 yuan to send him to Caozhou City to find Dr. Su to treat gout, and Su Cheng, who was a student in Caozhou, came to visit every once in a while. Last night, Su Cheng came to the house where he was staying with a roast chicken and a pot of wine, and after three rounds of drinking, Su Cheng "accidentally" revealed that the murderer who kicked and injured Han Si's lower body was Li Mao, who was praised by his brother Han Si as a good person.

Earlier, Han Yi had heard from his sister-in-law that two strangers had come to Xiaogushan to find Han Si, and they muttered and talked for a long time behind her back, and the next day Han Si went to Su Xiaodu with two carps, and then he was kicked and punished with a cane. Han Yi had always suspected that those two outsiders were the murderers of his brother, but no matter how he asked, his honest brother was silent.

After Han Si returned home from the county seat, the thing in the crotch began to be red, swollen and pus, and there was blood in the urine.

Han Yi believed that Lang Zhong's words were true, although his brother was a man of forty, he was not inferior to the young man in the room, and the chickens and ducks who often tossed after night were restless, but since the thing was red and swollen and urinated blood, he had never heard any movement. His sister-in-law gave birth to six daughters but did not have a son, he has not been cured of gout for a long time, and has not even married a daughter-in-law, the Han family is afraid that he will cut off his children and grandchildren, his brother is cowardly and afraid of things, he is not afraid, you Li Mao harmed my brother and cut off his children and grandchildren, I want your life, one report and one report, heaven and earth.