As the night deepened, the flowing alley outside the main entrance of the Qiulu Inn sounded with a melodious sound of ticking hooves, and Mrs. Liu stood alone outside the door, hanging two gold ornaments in the shape of tiger charms around her waist.

A carriage stopped outside the door, and a middle-aged man in a scribe's green shirt walked down, not angry and arrogant, vaguely revealing a bit of Confucian demeanor, but the man looked tired at this time, and smiled when he saw the beautiful woman, "I've kept you waiting, let's go in and talk." ”

The woman turned lukewarmly and led the way.

The man glanced at the tiger talisman around her waist and frowned, "Need to be so nervous?"

The woman sneered: "I'm a small inn here, not as good as the adult's county guard residence, this is not two days ago just demolished the signboard shadow wall, can only swallow his anger and not say, now the culprit is also with a large group of apprentices and grandchildren, come to live with me, I can only obediently pinch my nose, accompany the smiling face to serve these immortal masters." All of this is due to the good governance of the county keeper......"

The man accentuated his voice slightly, "Okay, Jiahui, I know you have anger in your heart, but now I am no better, for this ceremony of sacrificing to the water temple, I have been busy from the early morning to now, and my throat and eyes are on fire, the reason why you are resting here for a while, instead of returning directly to the county guard's mansion, is to have a moment of purity in your ears, not to listen to your complaints and nagging." ”

The beautiful woman's eyes were resentful, but after all, she knew the general situation, and quickly cleaned up her little woman's emotions and changed the topic, "You have been busy for this festival for half a year this time, and you have to put on a show, the old thorn Shi is in poor health, although he can't be in person, his henchmen don't drive the adult, but they show their faces, plus those well-known writers in the court and the opposition, Famous monks and hermits can be regarded as having enough face, not to mention the inside, and even more inside, our county's private funding is enough to worship the two river and water gods elsewhere, right?"

The man nodded, "That's the truth. ”

The woman asked in a low voice, "Then we, the Lord of the Cold Food River and Water God, have finally added to your blue eyes this time?"

With his hands behind his back, the man walked into a quiet courtyard with familiar eyes, shook his head and sighed: " He wanted to avenge the people who died in vain, so he came to your Qiulu Inn and found the cultivator of the Lingyun Sect, a big battle, the Lingyun Sect monk was seriously injured, and even the shadow wall of your inn was destroyed, in fact, if the matter only came here, I could still control the situation, for example, as the head of a county, I could report to the imperial court, press the charge on the head of the loose cultivator, and remove the Lingyun Sect monk who caused trouble in the past, so as to appease the Lingyun sect that was deeply rooted in our Huangting Kingdom, but at the same time, I will secretly let the scattered cultivator go, at least in the county to hunt and encircle, It's just some superficial kung fu that is tight on the outside and loose on the inside, so as to delay time, so that he can take the opportunity to fly away, since it is a casual cultivation, then it must not be difficult to make the four seas home. ”

Speaking of this, the man showed a trace of chagrin, "But it happened before the Hanshijiang Sacrifice Ceremony was held, not to mention all the attention, who doesn't know that in the early days when this Jiang God became a god, he relied on the help of an ancestor of the Lingyun Sect to gain a firm foothold?" This incense has been carefully maintained by the Lingyun Sect for more than two hundred years, and it has never troubled the water god for anything, but in the past two hundred years, once a year, he has visited the door with heavy gifts, except for a mountain gate catastrophe, it has never been broken, so who do you think the water god will favor for this turmoil that shocked the county town?"

The woman looked at the county keeper who was pacing in circles and did not want to sit down, handed over a cup of hot tea, and joked: "My county keeper, alas, can you sit down and talk, if you continue to sway like this, the slave family will be dizzy." ”

After the man in the green shirt sat down, he laughed at himself and said: "I knew about the hidden location of that loose cultivator three days ago, and I thought that it would be possible to delay it for a day, no matter what, if it is delayed until after the sacrificial ceremony, maybe I can still leave a life." Jiahui, do you know what the Cold Food River Water God said to me in the Water God Temple today after he showed his golden body?"

The woman shook her head, of course she couldn't guess the mind of a righteous god.

As the principal of the Qiulu Inn, the woman's master is actually not much inferior to the Lingyun Sect, but each of the more powerful mountain sects has its own fixed territory, and in the land of the three states in the north of the Huangting Kingdom, the Lingyun Sect is the leader of more than a dozen cultivation sects of all sizes.

But whether it is a woman from a sect, or a monk of the Lingyun sect who can walk sideways on the mountain in the north of Huangting Kingdom, he is extremely in awe of the water god of the river that the emperor and the king have personally enshrined.

After all, Huang Tingguo is not a great dynasty like the Great Li Song Clan and the Great Sui Gao Clan, and the Huang Tinghong Clan has been one of the twelve vassals of the Great Sui since the founding of the country.

To put it mildly, even if the Great Sui let go of the confinement and let the Hong clan of Huang Tingguo wantonly reward and edict the gods of mountains and rivers, Huang Tingguo does not have this background.

Therefore, the river god who controls the water transportation of a place is an important role that needs to be tried to win over and curry favor with the county guard and even the assassin history.

The man put down the teacup and rubbed his temples lightly with both hands, "The water god told me to my face, 'I found out the day before the county keeper knew about the hiding place of the sanxiu. Although the county keeper is reluctant to enforce the law impartially, since I am the god of cold food and water, I must abide by the rules that cannot easily interfere with secular officialdom, and the county keeper has been diligent and meritorious in governing the local area for many years. ’”

The woman's face turned slightly pale, "The meaning of this Jiang God's words is that it won't help you take a step up?"

The man smiled bitterly: "This is still based on the premise that I will arrest that person tonight." ”

The woman regretted a little, "I shouldn't have been angry with you." ”

She immediately said indignantly: "This cold food river water god has a good reputation for hundreds of years, and when it comes to his own interests, isn't it the same to help relatives or not?" The person injured by the loose cultivator is just the third generation of disciples of the Lingyun faction, so he dared to see the lust in the City God Temple, coveting the beauty, first killed the couple outside the city, and later learned that after running away from a child, he chased and killed him overnight, Zhuangzi filled the door with more than 30 mouths, and killed him completely, such a tragic act, after being inadvertently broken by the scattered cultivator, before avenging the family, he chose to spread the news very smartly, and even posted a notice at the door of your government office, and after the scattered cultivation did this, he found the Qiulu Inn and fought with the murderer。 Inside and outside the county city are the eyes of his water god, how can he not know the slightest bit?"

On the contrary, the man was not as aggrieved and indignant as the woman, and just sighed softly: "Tianli Guozhi is in the hands of the people, what is the pursuit of the Dao of Heaven and Earth, what is the situation of the Guoju, what is it in front of the Qi practitioners? ”

The woman muttered in a low voice, "What if this county guard of yours is in the Dali Dynasty?"

The man's eyes lit up, and he slapped the chair handle heavily, "Liu Jiahui, don't talk nonsense! No matter how strong the country is, it is also from a barbarian background, if it is really unified by the Song clan of Da Li, it will be the day when the northern Sven of my Aquarius will be cut off!"

The woman exclaimed angrily: "If you are really iron-clad, why don't you simply disobey the wishes of the water god, and you must protect that loose cultivator to the end?" I don't believe that this water god is known as having hands and eyes to the sky, and he can really cover the sky and the sun in the north of Huangting Kingdom, it's really not good, it's a big deal that I move out of the sect's forces, and simply come and break my wrist with the Lingyun faction, the head snake!"

The man stretched out his finger and pointed at the woman, and laughed angrily: "How old is it, it's still so naïve and ridiculous." Do you think that the Emperor Dali was able to have today's momentum because he came all the way smoothly? We are a county, and this is still the case, imagine how the pros and cons of such a vast territory of the Dali Dynasty will be weighed? As the king of a country, the filthiness and forbearance in it are absolutely unimaginable to you and me. ”

The woman was silent.

The man took a sip of tea, leaned back on the chair, showed fatigue, pulled his neckline, and said to himself: "I am a protégé of Confucianism, so I will definitely try my best to abide by the rules, but I am still an official of Huang Tingguo, and there are millions of Li people under my jurisdiction, and I need to help them live a peaceful life with food and clothing, so I will not be an official with benevolence, righteousness and morality in everything." Because I need to bow my head and ask the immortal forces for magic weapons to resist all kinds of drought and flood disasters, I need to go to the door to give gifts, and pray to those gods of mountains and rivers who are above the top of their eyes to keep more luck in their own county as much as possible. Whether it is the people of the poor people under the mountain, or the wealthy gentry clan, they have suffered losses and been bullied by the immortals, so I can only sew and mend the seams, tear down the east wall and make up the west wall, and try to appease as much as possible. ”

The man closed his eyes, "If it weren't for this, I would have resigned or lost my official hat a long time ago, so that when the first notice was posted, he would have been taken down by a certain county guard who took the initiative to communicate with the water god, along with the soldiers and horses, and the monks." If it weren't for that, after Sanxiu died tonight, there wouldn't even be a tombstone. Of course, when people die, there is no tombstone after death, whether there is someone to toast, whether there is someone who remembers the good deeds he did during his lifetime, what difference does it make?"

The county keeper stood up and came to the window, his voice was low, "In the second year of Huang Tingguo Jialu, that is, ten years ago, the three states including Hezhou shook more than at night, and Hezhou was the most serious, the thatched houses, walls, ancestral temples and temples all fell, and more than 60,000 people died. In the following month, it was half a decade or a few days, until the end of the year, all the big rivers in the northern part of the country, including the Hanshi River, were so turbulent that nearly 100 people drowned in our county alone. In the fourth year of Jialu, there was a difference in moving mountains in Maozhou in the south. In the eighth year of Jialu, the water network of Hengzhou in the southwest was vertical and horizontal, and there were countless boats, and on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a fire broke out, and the fire stretched for more than 1,000 boats, and the remains of more than 10,000 human bones were all ashes. ”

The man's face was sad, and his lips moved slightly, "Are these natural disasters really natural disasters? The common people don't know the truth, I know." ”

The man turned his head and looked at the woman, "I even know that before that Sanxiu was arrested and killed, he would definitely call me a lackey of the Lingyun Sect and the Hanshi River God, hating me more than they hated them. ”

The woman stopped talking.

The man's face gradually became pale, "I can already be sure that after the death of this loose cultivator, there will soon be rumors deliberately spread by those powerful lords in the county, saying that in order to curry favor with the Lingyun faction, I worked hard to find the monk's hiding place and encircled and killed him. ”

The woman sighed, "Probably so." ”

The man smiled and said, "I'm not saying this to you, I'm talking to myself......"

In the old well of the Qiulu Inn, although there is a white mist constantly rising, and then scattering around, but in fact, the water level is extremely low, the inner wall is covered with green moss, and suddenly the water level rises rapidly, and the water level is level with the wellhead, and then there is a tall man wearing armor and holding a halberd, stepping out, the man's cheeks each have a long beard, other than that, it is no different from ordinary people.

The man looked around, as for the young man who was sitting quietly on the other side of the pavilion, he didn't pay attention to it at all, his figure rose from the ground, and instantly landed in the courtyard where the county keeper was staying, and said loudly: " Wei Junshou, the head of the loose cultivator has been cut off by my own hands, there were still many outsiders watching the play at that time, but I hated that guy who didn't know what to do, he scolded Wei Junshou before his death, it was very ugly, Wei Junshou you have a lot of shameless selfishness, and they all told that guy to be clean, and dared to pour dirty water on my family, I was really angry, I wanted to give him a happy death, but I was really upset for Wei Junshou, so I poked him a few holes before cutting off his head. This matter, after I go back, I will explain the situation to the adults, rest assured, and never let that guy's bastard words before death ruin your friendship with my family. ”

The subordinate of this cold food river water god left after speaking, without dragging the mud and water.

The woman stood at the gate of the courtyard.

According to the style and temperament of the loose cultivator, according to the man in the house, it is normal to scold him as a lackey before he dies, but it is very unreasonable to talk about it in front of the Lingyun faction and many forces in this county, because the man had private contact with him before, and both sides have a bottom in their hearts. If it is strange that a man, as a county guard, betrays the monks, then the last words of the scattered cultivators are also very abnormal.

"I thought I was still underestimating him. ”

The county keeper standing at the window, who had been practicing for many years, understood the way faster than the woman, and said softly: "There is chivalry under the mountain. ”

(End of chapter)