Just after midnight, when the waning moon was in the sky, dark clouds drifted overhead, and a gust of mountain wind blew in the face, and even the big locust trees on the street could not hold on to swaying from side to side.

Although it was just a few days after the beginning of summer in early April, the weather was still very cold, and the hunchbacked old man Zhang wore a thick linen short coat and carried a Kong Ming lantern, walking from the end of the market to the other end of the market, shouting loudly while playing the watch: "The third watch of the child, safe and sound, no local tyrants!" ”

Some old people who have little sleep will come back loudly through the house: "Brother Zhang, if you find any unusual noise, can you remind everyone?" Those local thugs kill people and plunder goods, they are not as good as animals, but you have to be careful. ”

Every time I hear my brother say this, Zhang Laohan haha, he is dozens of years old and has not seen anything buried in half of the loess, and he is afraid that the local tyrant will not succeed?

This Luojiabao is seventy or eighty miles away from the county seat, it is the only market within a radius of thirty or forty miles, and thirty or forty families live in the market from beginning to end.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the administrative division of inland provinces such as Sichuan was basically formed, and the area of a county ranged from nearly 1,000 square kilometers to 2,000 or 3,000 square kilometers.

In such a large area, it is impossible for villagers in remote villages to go to the county seat to buy groceries, so it is often the case that markets of different sizes are formed in some important places on land and water.

This is similar to the county (today's Sichuan Nanchong Peng'an County) covers an area of more than 1,330 square kilometers (about two million acres), including the county seat, the county has a total of seven markets, the large market is three days every ten years, and the small one is 1-2 days every ten years.

This Luojiabao is a larger bazaar in Xiangru County, with a radius of more than 200 square kilometers around it, and it is on the spot every ten years and twenty-five eight, just like the township market in the previous life.

Although the mouth is hard, but Zhang Laohan is still a little worried, during the Chongzhen period, there were four droughts in northern Shaanxi, especially in the past few years, the king Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong went deep into the Sichuan realm many times, and now there are bandits and hooligans everywhere, and the place is not peaceful.

Two years ago, Yao Huang was in trouble in northern Sichuan, and I heard the past merchants talk about the monsters with three heads and six arms, green faces and fangs, and strongmen who drank blood and killed people without blinking.

Especially after this year (the sixteenth year of Chongzhen), these local tyrants are more like Sun Monkeys have become a climate, and in the past few months, they actually occupied these large prefectures and counties in northern Sichuan, Bazhou, Dazhou, and now even King Rui, who is far away in Hanzhong, can't stay and is moving to Qianqing Mansion.

From time to time, there were rumors of people who had been victimized by local thugs in the nearby cottages, or who had blatantly robbed their homes, or sneaked into people's homes to steal money and things, and even more so that some sons and daughters of large families were taken to the mountains to extort property or something.

The little grandson of the family used to be naughty and tight, but now if he is disobedient, the adults often use the local thug to scare Yao Huang, and the little grandson is afraid to cry when he hears it.

Thinking of the naughty little grandson, a rare smile appeared on the old face of Zhang Laohan, there are not many families after the Luo family's mansion, and he can return to his house to lie down immediately after knocking on the change, thinking of speeding up.

This Luo master Luo Jiatan was born, and he repeatedly tried to join the government as a small official for ten years, and became the chief of Luojiabao a few years ago.

These four squires did not need to send grain to the capital like the provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, but they also selected squires to assist the government in collecting taxes and managing local affairs, and were respected among the people as the chief of the guard.

Vaguely, Zhang Laohan felt that something was wrong there, in the past, the big yellow dog that walked past the Luo family from the Luo family's mansion barked non-stop, but today there was no movement at all, which was also too unusual.

Zhang Laohan picked up a branch in his hand, bent his waist and shouted gongs and walked towards the north of the market, and suddenly found the big yellow dog squatting in front of the left through the Kong Ming lantern.

As the saying goes, dogs fight people, and the dogs of Mr. Luo's family are different from others, not only tall and mighty, but also quite fierce to people, often biting passers-by all year round, and dare not approach at all

Since he has entered his territory today but has not heard the barking of a dog, has this beast changed his sex and is not called secretly biting?

Zhang Laohan cheered up, holding a lantern in his left hand and a watch in his right hand, shaking back and forth to resist the vicious dog lurking in the night.

Suddenly, a foreign object appeared in front of the left, squatting on the ground, Zhang Laohan was scared into a cold sweat, and the knock was even more urgent, but the yellow dog did not move at all, and the two sides were deadlocked for a long time, before he pretended to have the courage to go over and take a look, the yellow dog of the eldest master of the Luo family had already spat at the mouth and was dying.

Beat the dog to see the owner, the big yellow dog of the Luo family is much more valuable than ordinary people, Zhang Laohan pondered for a while, and did not dare to slack off and shouted loudly.

All of a sudden, the sound of gongs and drums shook the sky, and the strong men rushed out of the house one by one with torches, and everyone came running out of breath with shovels, axes, and all the guys who could be used as weapons.

Everyone gathered around the big yellow dog and gossiped, it was the big yellow dog who was so bold and reckless that he dared to make enemies against the Luo family and poison Master Luo's housekeeper.

While pondering, he suddenly heard a heart-rending cry from the Luo family's mansion.

Everyone was shocked and rushed to the courtyard of the front door of the Luo family, and saw the Luo family's family crying and mourning one by one from a distance, everyone shouted that the son of the Luo family was gone, and the personal maid Chunhua died in the child's room.

Master Luo was young and graceful until he was old and still had no children under his knees, and the newly married fifth aunt gave birth to a son the year before last, and he was a baby all day long.

Now seeing that the whereabouts of the murdered son of the personal maid are unknown, this is obviously to kill Master Luo.

The Luo family was in a mess, and Master Luo burst into tears, so he bowed down when he saw people, and said that whoever can find the son will definitely be grateful for it.

As the saying goes, rabbits don't eat the grass next to the nest, this Lord Luo took care of his neighbors when he was on an errand in the yamen, and now seeing that the family has become like this, everyone can't bear to say that they will help find it.

Threesomes in groups of five, shouting torches and looking around.

Thinking that he was poor and had no Yiluo to let him stay in the town to work on the watch, Zhang Laohan didn't care about his hunchback and inconvenient walking, and followed behind everyone with a lantern high and a short foot.

After walking half a mile like this, they suddenly heard a shout from in front of them, and everyone stumbled over, only to see a black shadow fleeing from the intersection into the depths of darkness, and through the flickering firelight, many people clearly found that the other party was very strange.

The timid covered their eyes, and the bold rubbed their eyes again and again, there are really no wonders in the world, and there are all kinds of monsters at the end of the troubled times.

I saw the other party's bear-headed body, the black bear head swayed and swayed, twisted towards everyone from time to time, and let out a hideous long cry from time to time, the cry tore through the night, and the sound was long, making people shudder.

In addition, this beast-faced human monster is very fast, jumping and jumping extremely fiercely, the villagers in the vicinity are frightened and throw down the torches to flee, and the villagers in the distance feel strange and desperately shouting, hoping to scare this monster away.

Finally scared off this monster, everyone rescued the dog baby in fear, and the other party fell into extreme panic.

Covering the wound on his face with both hands, his voice trembled, it turned out that the two searched together, who expected that a monster with a bear head and a human body rushed out of the roadside, and knocked the cow baby to the ground with a burst of fists and kicks.

The dog baby is more cunning, and when he sees that the situation is wrong, he runs away and screams loudly, so he can pick up his life.

Bear-headed human monsters? Everyone was even more frightened, everyone didn't dare to disperse like at the beginning, just hoping to find any clues that could be handed over by Master Luo.

Everyone continued to search for a long time, but to no avail.