"Xing Renju? Great pilgrimage? The bewitching woman looked up at Xing Renju, and pointed to Xifeng and his godfather on the stake, "You are not in a group with them?" ”

Xing Renju shook his head: "Whether I am their accomplice or not, I think, you should know that I have been watched by you since I entered the village, to be exact, it should have been your people who rescued me, but as for why I was rescued, I don't know." ”

The bewitching woman snorted coldly: "You guessed wrong, the person who brought you into the village is not our person, but I know who it is." ”

Xing Renju was immediately confused, because there was no need to hide it in front of this woman, so to speak, after she suffered heat stroke yesterday, someone else saved herself, who would it be?

At this moment, Xing Renju suddenly realized something, he looked at the bewitching woman and asked, "You are not from the Southwest Tietang!" ”

The bewitching woman squatted down, lifted Xing Renju's chin, sniffed his mouth like a cat, and whispered, "Yes, we're not, but that's okay, as long as others think we are, that's fine." ”

After that, the bewitching woman got up and waved her hand: "The time has come, let's start." ”

As soon as the words fell, the Mai villagers threw the performers scattered around them to the pyre in the middle, and the still awake performers knew what their fate would be, and they were all begging bitterly, some of the timid had already wailed and cried, sobbing and begging, and the few two people had collapsed with feces and urine, and they were so frightened that they could not even speak.

Xing Renju was thrown on the outermost periphery, and then the surrounding Mai villagers began to walk up with drums of fire oil, pouring fire oil on the performers and the pyre, and the people around him wailed, but Xing Renju suddenly calmed down, and subconsciously raised his eyes to look at the half-covered Mai villager in front of him.

The reason was simple, because the man in front of him was not pouring oil on him, but water, and water mixed with something else, because the water had a pungent smell.

The man who was half-covered blinked at Xing Renju, and after the people on both sides had finished pouring the oil, he whispered, "Lie down on the ground." ”

With that, the man left with the empty bucket and returned to the crowd, watching from afar.

Xing Renju subconsciously looked at the bewitching woman standing on the stage, the woman raised her hands high with a strange and excited smile, and whispered words he didn't understand as if reciting a mantra, and then danced on the ground with her hands, saying that she was already Zhu Rong's upper body, and she would severely punish these villains.

After the dance continued for a while, the bewitching woman suddenly stopped, and with one hand, a person next to the stage threw a torch, which she clung to and howled to the sky, and then threw the torch directly on the pyre.

The torch fell into the pyre, because of the relationship between the fire oil, it burned instantly, the flame immediately spread, and the surrounding Mai villagers also began to dance the weird and terrible dance under the guidance of the enchanting woman, and the mouth made a "whirring" sound similar to the wind blowing the flames, as the fire got bigger and bigger, the screams of the people in the fire became more and more miserable, and their dance movements became more and more crazy.

Xing Renju took advantage of this opportunity to keep his head and body under the pyre, and used his body to dispel some of the people around him and the firewood, although the flames had burned to his side, but they did not burn any part of his body, and Xing Renju knew that it was all due to the bucket of sour water that the half-covered man poured on him.

But the temperature around him rose rapidly, and Xing Renju's consciousness became blurred, and he knew that even if he didn't burn, he wouldn't be able to live long in the flames of high temperatures.

Just as he was becoming unconscious, he heard shouts around him, followed by the footsteps of a large number of people leaving, and then someone rushed to his side, grabbed him, and resisted him to run into the forest in the distance.

Xing Renju, who was carried on his shoulder, raised his head slightly and looked behind him, and saw that the flames of the firewood pile above the flat dam had risen several meters high, and there was no doubt that except for himself, Xifeng and the other people in the troupe had all been burned to death.

After running for a while, the man stopped and put Xingrenju down, and let him stand on the edge of a pond.

Just as Xing Renju was about to thank him, the man directly pushed Xing Renju into the pond.

Xing Renju fell into the pond, struggling in it, smelling a pungent strange smell in the pond, just like the smell of the bucket of water that the man poured on his body before, at the moment when he struggled to emerge from the water, he saw that the man was already squatting on the edge of the pond, staring at him, and asking, "Are you Xing Renju?" ”

Xing Renju wiped the stinky water off his face with his hands, and after snorting twice, he replied: "I am Xing Renju from the Jiu'an pawnshop in Shanhaiguan, who are you?" ”

The man took off the piece of cloth that he had half covered his face, groped the side of his cheek again, and then took off the mask of disguise directly, revealing a beautiful and innocent face, and said with a smile: "I am the head of the Southwest Tietang you are looking for." ”

Xing Renju looked at the girl in front of him with a pure face who looked to be no more than 20 years old, as well as her burly body that was very incongruous with her head, and showed a puzzled look.

The girl realized something, stood up, took out the padding from her clothes, took off the wide and strange linen clothes, and then stood there cross-legged, smiling at Xing Renju.

But even so, Xing Renju was still shaking his head, because how could this girl's strength be so great? Can you carry yourself that far? And walking is like flying, like walking on the ground.

The girl saw Xing Renju's doubts: "The people of the Southwest Tie Tang family are all like this, it can be regarded as natural divine power, even if it is not, we must exercise from an early age, so our height is not high." ”

The girl rolled up her sleeves and smiled confidently, showing Xing Renju the muscles in her arms.

Only then did Xing Renju believe it, and while climbing up, he asked, "You saved me yesterday?" ”

"Yes." The girl Shuqi pushed him back into the pond with one finger against Xing Renju's forehead, "Soak for at least another quarter of an hour, and then follow me to the river to wash, otherwise, your skin will fester." ”

Xing Renju nodded slightly: "What kind of water is this?" ”

"This was originally a lime pond, and the lime has basically settled down over the years, and later the villagers dumped wastewater into it, because of the lime, it cannot form biogas, but it can retardant fire oil." After the girl finished speaking, her expression changed, and she said very seriously, "My name is Tang Xiashuang, and I don't know how many generations I am the descendant of the Southwest Tang family, nor how many generations I have been in charge, because I am the only one left in the Southwest Tietang." ”

Xing Renju was stunned: "Huh? You're the only one left? Why? ”

Tang Xiashuang said coldly: "At the beginning of the second year of the Republic of China, the warlords were fighting, and the family was either arrested or arrested to work in some arsenal, and it was not until the year before last that I found out that I was the only one left in my family." ”

Xing Renju shook his head: "I'm sorry, but why is this happening?" Why are you sitting still? ”

"The tree is a big wind." Tang Xiashuang said with a wry smile, "At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Tang family forgot about their ancestral teachings and began to expand their own business, and had direct contact with Brother Pao, recruiting protégés and expanding their own power, but no matter how you expand, you can't compare to those marshals who have soldiers and guns. ”

Xing Renju nodded slightly: "No wonder when I met Brother Dingbo in Xiaocheng that year, why did he not say a word, only drank alcohol, it turned out to be so, he also said at the time, maybe in the future, the family members of the Southwest Tietang will be women, I now understand why, it is because the original rule of the Tang family is that the family must not be a woman, and later the words of the woman were passed on, and outsiders did not know, and they would not focus on the women of the Tang family." ”

Xing Renju said that the "Dingbo brother" is the previous generation of the Southwest Tie Tang family Tang Dingbo, he once saved Tang Dingbo in Xiaocheng, and later Tang Dingbo also went to the Jiu'an pawnshop under the Shanhaiguan to visit him, and told him that if there is any difficulty, you can go to the northwest of Sichuan at any time to find him.

That's why Xing Renju has come all the way here.

Tang Xiashuang only nodded slightly, and stopped talking, waiting for a quarter of an hour to pass, and then took Xing Renju to the small river of the Panjiang tributary at the foot of the mountain to carefully clean, and at the same time revealed what the people who pretended to be the Southwest Tietang came from.

The village where the Tang family is located was destroyed in the war as early as ten years ago, and later ventured to move to Cai Village, for two reasons, one is that the iron ore used by the ancestors of the Tang family to cast iron is above Cai Village, and the big well is the entrance to the mine; Second, the Cai family is a distant relative of the Tang family, to be exact, it should be a branch of the Tang family a hundred years ago, and the surname was changed to Cai for this iron mine, and the purpose of guarding the iron mine is to prevent outsiders from knowing the source of the Tang family's cast iron.

When Xing Renju put on the clothes Tang Xiashuang got in the bushes, he asked at the same time, "Why is it like today?" ”

"Simple, the Tang family is almost dead, and the Cai family wants to inherit everything from the Tang family, but unfortunately, they don't have the craftsmanship of the Tang family, and they can't sell the iron ore directly, but they found that around the iron mine, there are also Dan sand mines." Tang Xiashuang stood there with his back to Xing Renju, "It's a pity that they don't have the skills to polish the Dansha mine, so they have to go outside to find sellers, about five years ago, the first batch of buyers came, and the sellers thought that the Cai family was honest and decided to occupy this mine, and the Cai family found that these buyers were very rich, so on the night when the buyers attacked them, they first subdued the buyers, and they tasted the sweetness of the first killing, so they decided to make a living from it." ”

In just one year, the Cai family killed five groups of buyers who came here to explore the Dan sand mine, and the government also sent people to investigate, but in the end they all returned in vain, because the Cai family pretended to be victims, so that the government thought that the buyers took advantage of them and fled.

However, the Cai family knows the significance of the Dan sand mine, and they need someone to help them mine the Dan sand mine, because it is impossible for them to learn it from scratch, so the Cai family began to send people out to spread the existence of the Dan sand mine here in a targeted manner, attracting knowledgeable people to come and help them mine At the same time, they also deliberately disguised themselves as being controlled by those buyers with evil intentions, and then looked for suitable opportunities to catch them all after they relaxed their vigilance.

After Xing Renju changed his clothes, he walked out: "No one is left alive? ”

Tang Xiashuang said: "Don't leave a mouthful, regardless of men, women and children, kill them all, at first they also used knives and guns, and then they simply burned them to death, what to worship Zhurong, although the Tang family is dedicated to the god of fire Zhurong, but they will never use living people to sacrifice, they do this to make the outside world think that everything is done by the Tang family that has almost disappeared." ”

Xing Renju asked again: "What about you?" How did you survive? ”

"It's very complicated to say, my father's surname is Tang, but my mother's surname is Cai, after I was born, because the Tang family has begun to gradually decline, so my father under the instructions of the head of the family, sent my mother and me away, sent to Chengdu to live for a long time, and then came back, when I came back, I went directly back to Cai Village, and declared to the outside world that my mother married someone in Chengdu and gave birth to me, which has nothing to do with the Tang family, and the people of the Cai family did not have the leisure to investigate these things. Leaving the last seed for the Southwest Tietang, we are not a real Jianghu sect after all, just a group of craftsmen, but sadly, we forgot to hide ourselves in the troubled times. ”

Xing Renju nodded slightly, and was about to ask again, but Tang Xiashuang asked first: "Mr. Xing, the head of the family has also explained, if you come here to ask for help one day, the Tang family must help you, you say, as long as I can help you, I will do my best." ”

Xingren raised his brows and frowned slightly: "Don't you need me to help you solve the Cai family's affairs?" ”

Tang Xiashuang asked coldly: "They have hundreds of people, and we only have two people, how to solve it?" Go to the police? There are two official words, plus Cai Village has hundreds of mouths, who do they believe? In troubled times, officials think that more things are better than less. Besides, I help you, and I don't need any exchange conditions, the Tang family is trustworthy, what the master has said, it must be counted, you say, what do you want me to do? ”

The kind of calmness and sophistication revealed in Tang Xiashuang's words made Xing Renju a little surprised, he didn't expect that Southwest Tie Tang would become like this, let alone that Tang Xiashuang would not let him help revive the Tang family at all, which made him very uneasy in his heart, but he felt a little sorry for the previous head Tang Dingbo.

However, Tang Xiashuang is right, what can he do by himself? There were hundreds of them, and they were all lunatics who had lost their conscience.

Tang Xiashuang looked at Xing Renju: "What do you want me to do for you?" ”

Xing Renju thought for a long time, and took out a pair of chopsticks from the mezzanine of his close-fitting clothes: "Help me hide a pair of chopsticks." ”

"Chopsticks?" Tang Xiashuang frowned, "What chopsticks?" ”

The moment Tang Xiashuang took the chopsticks, he subconsciously said: "Iron chopsticks? ”

"Hmm." Xing Ren nodded, "It's the iron chopsticks that Brother Dingbo helped me build, there are mechanisms around them, and you must turn the mechanism on the chopsticks in the right way to take out the things in them, and the things in them are ......"

"I don't want to know what's inside!" Tang Xiashuang immediately stopped Xing Renju and continued, "I just want to know, how do you want me to hide, and for how long?" Will you pick it up yourself, or will someone else pick it up? If someone else came to pick it up, what would he do, and how should I answer? ”

Xing Renju shook his head: "I won't come to pick it up, and I hope that no one will come to pick it up, but I think it's impossible, no matter how carefully I arrange it, someone will always untie it, so as long as someone comes to you or your descendants want this pair of iron chopsticks, you give it to him, so you have to live, you have to have children and grandchildren, and your revitalization of the Tang family." ”

Tang Xiashuang took a deep breath and understood what Xing Renju's intentions were, he didn't want Tang Xiashuang to give up on himself in a predicament.

Xing Renju looked at the village in the distance: "You wait here, don't leave, I will be back in an hour or so." ”

Tang Xiashuang nodded, Xing Renju left quickly, and after an hour and a half, Xing Renju returned, still holding something wrapped in cloth in his hand.

Tang Xiashuang looked at the thing handed over by Xing Renju and asked, "What is this?" ”

"Dansha." Xing Renju said seriously, "This is the best dansha I can find in the mine in an hour, you hide this dansha, you have the opportunity to go to Chengdu to find Wan Xiaobao for Bao Zhai, and then he will give you a sum of money." ”

Tang Xiashuang frowned: "Are you pitying me?" ”

"Equivalent exchange." Xing Renju shook his head, "Don't get me wrong, this is the rule, if you help me hide something, I must give you money." ”

Tang Xiashuang hesitated for a moment, and finally took the piece of dansha: "Can I ask?" How much is this thing worth? ”

Xing Renju looked at the piece of dansha and said, "A lot of money, enough money for you to revive the Tang family, you take care of yourself." ”

When Xing Renju turned around to leave, Tang Xiashuang asked, "Where are you going?" Don't you want to know, where am I going to hide something? ”

"I'm going to Xiangxi." Xing Renju stopped and said, "I just said that I won't come back to pick up the thing, and I hope that no one will ever come to pick up this thing, so I don't want to know where you are hiding." ”

Tang Xiashuang raised the pair of chopsticks: "Then I might as well melt these chopsticks!" Isn't it straightforward? ”

Xing Renju turned around and said, "Then you will get into big trouble, because I will leave other clues to let the people who come to find this thing know that this object is in the hands of your Tang family." ”

Tang Xiashuang clutched her chopsticks tightly: "Xing Renju, what do you mean?" Didn't you take off your pants and fart!? ”

Xing Renju said calmly: "Master, I understand why you are reluctant to revive the Tang family, but you should also understand why I want to do this, although some things cannot be present, but they cannot be sealed in history forever, maybe you still don't understand, that's good, then never understand." ”

After saying this, Xing Renju turned to leave, and soon disappeared into the woods.

Tang Xiashuang stood there and waited until the movement of Xingren was completely gone, then he put down the chopsticks in his hand and looked down carefully.

At this time, the enchanting woman jumped down from the tree on the other side, and the woman slowly walked to a stop not far behind Tang Xiashuang, and asked in a low voice: "The master, do you want to take someone to chase after you?" He's a talent. ”

Tang Xiashuang showed a weird smile: "No need. ”

The bewitching woman looked at the chopsticks in her hand, but Tang Xiashuang twisted a few times, opened the chopsticks, didn't look at them, and said: "As I guessed, there is nothing in these pair of chopsticks, this Xing Renju is very smart, he has already hidden things, it is in Cai Village, it should be in the mine." ”

The bewitching woman nodded slightly: "Master, what is he going to hide?" Why did you say yesterday that a big deal was delivered to your door? ”

Tang Xiashuang handed the chopsticks to the bewitching woman: "The previous master said before his death, if the only person who knows where Qimen is today is Xing Renju." ”

The bewitching woman said: "You mean, if he really hides the clue in Cai Village, we can find Qimen by following the clue and looking for it?" ”

Tang Xiashuang smiled: "What do you think?" Tell me to go down and search the whole village! ”

After Tang Xiashuang finished speaking, she walked in the direction of the mine with an expectant smile, and the bewitching woman hesitated for a moment, then glanced at the direction where Xing Renju left, and then quickly caught up with Tang Xiashuang.

And in the darkness in the distance, lurking under a tree, Xing Renju, who heard the conversation between the two clearly, slowly got up, but smiled.