Compared with boiling salt, the process of boiling Artemisia knotweed ash is much simpler, after boiling for a while in a cauldron, the ox asked Erniang to cut two pieces of homespun cloth and tie it into a filter bag, and pour the Artemisia knotweed ash water into the filter bag after simple filtration, and then get a relatively pure liquid.

Then in front of everyone, the gray water, lime and white salt were stirred into a mud-like solution, and then Fushou and Yuemei went to the mule shed to get a small half bag of rice husks for feeding the mules, and when the two came back, the scalper had already soaked the chicken and duck eggs in the solution.

After soaking the eggs in the solution for a while, the scalper took a jar and asked Fushou and Yuemei to learn to take out the eggs and roll them on the rice husk, and then put them in the jar.

After finishing the jar, the scalper clapped his hands and said, "This is good, there will be preserved eggs to eat in half a month." ”

After putting the jar away, the scalper washed his hands and came out, just in time to see his old man squatting at the door of the hall, so he smiled and said, "Dad, are you back?" I heard that my mother and uncle are also here, why don't you see him? ”

Huang Laoqi coughed, first glanced at Yao Erniang who came out of the stove room, and then got up and said, "Come into the house and talk!" ”

The scalper followed the old man into the hall in a daze, and when he raised his eyes, he saw a pile of copper coins on the dining table in the middle of the hall.

"Sit down and talk!" The old man pointed to the bench next to the table and asked the scalper to sit down, but he signaled Yao Erniang, who came with him, to close the door of the hall, and then asked with a gloomy face: "Dad asked you, you really broke the bones of the crutch last night, and you saw the river of?" ”

Hearing the old man ask, the scalper was also a little surprised, so he had to nod and say: "I said it was true, but my father, Uncle Wang, and Uncle Zhao didn't take it seriously!" ”

"Inferior!" The old man slapped the table and scolded: "What a disaster! ”

Yao Erniang was shocked when she heard this, and hurriedly asked, "Old man, what's wrong?" ”

The old man squinted at the scalper, and then looked at Yao Erniang and said: "Mother-in-law, this morning, someone fished out a floating corpse at the mouth of the Benhe River outside the Xishui Gate, and when he carried it to the door of the mansion, he was judged to have a broken shoulder bone and drowned. The head hunters were sent to investigate, but they recognized that this floating corpse was Ma San, a thief who fell into the grass in the Huanghuadang River in Xiajiang, and he was also the kidnapper who tied up the little lady of the Wan family last night, and a head is worth twenty miles! ”

"Ahh Yao Erniang exclaimed, then jumped up, pointing to the copper coins on the table and couldn't make a sound.

But the old man looked at the scalper and said, "Inferior goods, what else do you have to say?" ”

The scalper was stupid, his eyes were straight, and he muttered, "I killed someone?" Did I kill someone? I...... Really killed? ”

Seeing his son's eyes trembling all over, the old man immediately stretched out his hand and slapped his son's head with a palm, and scolded: "Last night, the dog dared to kill someone, are you afraid of coming here at this time?" ”

The old man almost knocked the scalper to the ground with one palm, but he also woke up the scalper, and couldn't help but exclaim: "Dad, I really killed someone?" ”

The old man smiled, pointed to the copper coins on the table and said, "Surprised! If you kill it, you will kill it, and if you kill a thief, or a thief on the river, you will not only be innocent but also rewarded. Look, that's the bounty. ”

"Ouch! My mother's forehead! Old man, you received a reward from the government? Woe to you! What a curse! Without waiting for the scalper to react, Yao Erniang screamed, pointed at the old man and scolded: "But the lard is blinded, how can I get this reward?" But didn't the thief's accomplices know that the person was killed by our cow? The Huanghuadang is known as the 200-mile water village, and there are not 1,000 thieves in the grass but 800, how can this be good? ”

"Humph! Ha ha! Hahahaha! The old man looked at his wife, who looked like a madman, and then at his son, who was still stunned, and suddenly looked up and laughed: "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! My mother and uncle have taken care of this matter, and they have already made a plan to get rid of our cow! ”

"How?" Yao Erniang hurriedly asked, "How do you get out of it?" ”

The old man told the story eloquently, but said that after the Wan family was taken captive last night, the Wan family didn't know until they were rescued, and they sent someone to inform them, and Zhang Hu, who went to report the news, didn't know whether he ate the ambitious leopard gall or was also blinded by lard, and actually didn't mention that it was the scalper who saved the Wan family Xiaoniang, but took all the credit to his father, and even Zhang Bao, who went to the yamen to report the case, was bold enough to say that it was his father Zhang Wu who found the kidnapper and saved the Wan family Xiaoniang.

And yesterday evening, in addition to the Wan family people who came to pick up Wan Chunnu at Zhang Wu's house, the government also sent a catcher to listen to the confession, who knew that someone had fished up the floating corpse at the mouth of the Benhe River early this morning, and carried it to the yamen to see that it might match the number of last night's kidnapping case, which naturally alarmed the government and his maternal uncle Yao Zheng.

Yao Zheng is the lord of Huangzhou, and he is in charge of everything from colluding books to urging tax supervision, as well as cashiering official property, hearing cases, and peacefully settling prison lawsuits. In short, there was a murder case in Huangzhou, and the police were naturally arrested by the yamen, and the official who handled the police was also the main officer.

After learning about this, Yao Zheng naturally wanted to inquire carefully, and after he knew that this matter was related to the Huang family, he personally took someone to bring the reward money from the yamen to Lizheng Zhang Wu's house, and called the old man to go to interrogate, and finally gave the name and suspense of killing the thief and saving people to Zhang Wu's father and son, who originally wanted to grab the credit.

As for the five yuan on the table, it was the hush money given by Zhang Wu, and even according to the old man's words, Zhang Wu's father and son were definitely blinded by lard, and it seemed that they didn't understand that this matter was a big disaster.

The scalper was not at the scene, so he naturally didn't know if what the old man said was true, whether this Zhang Wu really didn't figure out whether he was worried about getting into trouble by Ma San's accomplices when he stretched out his head to receive this reward, and whether this maternal uncle was making a plan to lead the way to the east, because he was now replaying the scene in his mind last night when he rushed to Ma San's back and slashed at his shoulder with an axe in both hands.

Thinking about it, the scalper suddenly felt a churn in his abdomen, and he couldn't help but rush out of the hall immediately, and threw himself in the courtyard and retched.

At this time, it was almost noon, and the things that I ate in the morning had already passed the stomach pouch and entered the intestines, and after retching a few times, I began to vomit bile water, and the old man and Erniang came out to take a look, so I had to let Fushou scoop water to rinse his mouth with him.

This vomit made the scalper vomit in the dark, and when he vomited out the bile water, he was helped to lie down in the house.

"It's weird!" The old man sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his pale son, and said with a smile: "I haven't really seen a dead man, but I do like this." Back then, your father saw the head of the Jiangyang thief outside the south gate, and the ghost head knife cut a bowl-sized bloody mouth, and the blood line of the cavity spurted out a foot high, and also smacked your father's face, but your father didn't blink his eyes. ”

"Gross!" When the scalper who had just recovered his breath heard the old man say this, his stomach immediately churned again, and he opened his mouth and retched, but the bile water had already been vomited, so naturally he couldn't vomit it.