Xu Ke helped Master Yuanren onto the horse, and he led the horse, and the two talked while walking......

At this time, a round of the rising sun had risen from the mountain in the east, and this round of dawn, as large as a disk, erupted thinly, constantly radiating dazzling light to the surroundings. This dazzling light, through the infinite heavens, reflected on the vast earth, but also for the undulating mountains, clothed in a colorful golden light. The hills and courtyards in the distance, shrouded in this golden light, seem so quiet and serene......

If it weren't for personal experience, who would have imagined that this peaceful and quiet village was still a "slaughtering village" that "eats people without spitting out bones......

How many innocent victims have lost their lives here? How many beautiful creatures have been brutalized here? This is not so much a manor on earth as a miserable hell?

If Xu Ke hadn't missed the Qincha honor guard and stayed here by chance, I don't know how many lives would have been buried in this hellish "slaughtering village" in the future......

The monk Yuanren seemed to be very unfamiliar with this big official, Xu Ke was patient, listened to him for a long time, and finally knew why Yuanren was also trapped in this "slaughtering village......

It turned out that this Venerable Yuanren was not from Qianguo, but from Sang in the east. Enhito has been a monk since he was a child and studied Mahayana Buddhism at Mt. Hiei in Kuanggu. When he was twenty-eight years old, one night, Yuanren dreamed that an old monk walked to his bedside, smiled, and reached out to stroke Yuanren's head, while saying kindly: "I am your master, I have a few volumes of Esoteric Buddhism to teach you, in the future, you can come to Qinglong Temple to find me......" After Yuanren woke up, he asked around about the location of Qinglong Temple, and later, finally there was an envoy to Qianguo to inform Yuanren that Qinglong Temple is located in Chang'an, the capital of Qianguo, and is an ancient temple famous in Qianguo.

After Yuanren learned about this, he didn't think about tea and dinner late at night, and was determined to come to Qianguo to practice Esoteric Buddhism from the monk in his dream. After two years of preparation, Yuanren finally found an opportunity to follow a team of cross-sea merchant ships from Sang to cross the ocean, cross the rough sea, and come to the south of Qianguo.

After Yuanren landed with the caravan in Quanzhou Mansion in Baban Road, he broke up and went north alone. He made a fortune all the way, slept in the open air, and endured all kinds of hardships, until he patrolled for more than half a year, and then rushed to this Huaiyang Road Xuchang Mansion. I didn't want to miss the lodging last night, I wanted to be the same as Xu Ke, I wanted to go into the village to spend the night, but just after eating the soup, I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I was hung on the beams of the house, my toes were cut, and the bleeding kept ......

After hearing this, Xu Ke couldn't help but laugh and said: "Master Yuanren, your luck is really bad! You and I entered the Zhuangzi one after the other, I just had a sleepy nightmare, but you were stabbed and bled by someone......

Yuanren immediately folded his palms and bowed to the air, and sighed leisurely: "Amitabha, when the poor monk hangs on the beam of the house, he keeps praying in his mouth, praying that my Buddha will be merciful and bless me to escape from the village and return to my hometown...... The benefactor appeared in the room at this time, saving us from the sea of suffering, my Buddha is merciful, good, good...... This is all blessed by the Medicine Master of Great Compassion and Great Compassion!"

Xu Ke smiled again: "According to what the master said, everything has a cause and effect, I accidentally stumbled into this 'slaughtering village' last night, but it was specially sent by your Buddha......"

Yuanren said with a straight face: "The cause of the house is structured, everything is fate, the donor travels fast late at night, there is a store that cannot be lived, and he wants to come to this village to stay, and in the underworld, it is all guided by God...... The poor monk looks solemn, has a solemn appearance, a cloudy eyebrow, and a harmonious demeanor, and is a living Bodhisattva in the world......"

There is a saying that "thousands of clothes are worn, good words are not worn!", the compliments of this Taoist monk made Xu Ke's heart fluttering and overjoyed. Xu Ke shook his head again and again, and couldn't help laughing:

"The master laughed, he was just a layman in the mountains, and he was able to enter the court by chance, and now he is just a low-class official who lives at the bottom, driven by people every day, and is tired all the time, and it is enough to barely mix a stable meal in the public gate, how can he dare to be the master's false praise......"

Unexpectedly, Master Yuanren stubbornly insisted that Xu Ke was the "reincarnation of the living Bodhisattva", and also said many things that made Xu Ke seem to understand whether he understood or not, such as "the spiritual platform has been possessed", "the holy essence is all rooted", and "the potential of Buddha nature". Xu Ke didn't want to argue with him, so he diverted the topic and asked him what his future plans were.

Yuanren said: "The poor monk has made a grand wish, and if he does not come to Chang'an in this life, he will never look back!"

Xu Ke said: "This is to Chang'an, the road is very long, there are many strong people along the way, the master is alone, and his feet have been injured, how can he still make a risk to go north?"

Yuanren said calmly: "It's okay, the poor monk has the blessing of the Buddha, and if he is sincere, he will be able to get what he wants!"

......

The two walked slowly for two hours, and then arrived at the foot of Xuchang City. Xu Ke carries the Black Iron Lion card with him, and he is dressed in green clothes, so he can travel unhindered. He only waved the lion card, and he had already bluffed the few soldiers and commanders who defended the city one after another......

Xu Ke swaggered and led Yuanren into Xuchang City. I saw that the market was empty, the doors of every house were closed, there were not many pedestrians, and the vendors were even more scarce, which was thousands of miles away from the prosperous scene of Chang'an, the capital......

Xu Ke finally found a medical shop and asked Lang Zhong to bandage Yuanren's feet and prepare some medicine to treat injuries and stop bleeding. After the two ate two bowls of somen noodles in a noodle restaurant, Xu Ke went south to find the king of Wei's Qin cha Xingyuan, and then he had to break up with Yuanren. Before parting, Xu Ke took out more than 20 taels of silver in his bag and handed them to Yuanren. But Yuanren insisted on not accepting it, and he said:

"The human world is a sea of suffering, and when a monk cultivates outside, he has to go through suffering, and chew out the sweet artistic conception in all kinds of asceticism. The word 'enduring hardship' is very common for monks! If one can realize the joy of suffering, one can achieve positive results...... To the poor monks, these silver taels are not only useless, but also tantamount to poison that harms the mind......"

Xu Ke had no choice but to find an inn for Yuanren and let him rest for two days first, and then go north after his foot injury was healed. He called the shopkeeper over, and learned the extortion method of the book fairy in the past, and secretly took out the black iron lion card, which really frightened him, but said that Yuanren was a high-ranking monk in the world, and asked the shopkeeper to take care of Yunyun. However, Xu Ke is no longer what it used to be, and today's Xu Baihu is a court official who is "like a fake". After he finished ordering, he took out five taels of broken silver from his backpack and handed it to the shopkeeper, but the shopkeeper heard that Xu Ke was the official of Tsing Yiwei, how could he dare to ask for his silver taels. Xu Ke saw that the other party was always "insisting on not accepting", so he was also happy to enjoy the "beauty of adults......

Xu Ke thought of Qincha's line in his heart, so he didn't want to delay, and after a few words of advice to Yuanren, he left the inn, rode on a horse, and ran south out of Xuchang City......

Master Yuanren only rested in the inn for a day, and after dawn the next day, he saw that his feet were all right, so he set off for the north.

After that, he went through a lot of hardships, staggered on his feet, and walked straight for more than a month before arriving in Chang'an. When Yuanren found the Qinglong Temple, the elder of the temple, Master Yizhen, had been waiting for a long time. Yuanren stepped forward to pay homage and saw that Master Yizhen was kind and kind-eyed, and it was the old monk who met him in his dream three years ago.

After that, Yuanren lived in the Qinglong Temple, worshiped Yizhen as his teacher, and learned from him the methods of the two teachings of Sutra and Esoteric Buddhism. It was not until 12 years later that Master Yizhen passed away, and Yuanren Fang took the scroll to the east and returned to the Sang Kingdom, spreading the Sutra and Esoteric teachings throughout the Sang Kingdom. Yuanren also became a generation of grandmasters and enlightened monks......

This Yuanren's experience is not expressed for the time being, and this Xu Ke, since he left the south gate of Xuchang, suddenly remembered the matter of the "human market" that the housekeeper said. He inquired all the way, searched all the way, and only rode for half a moment, and the rumored "human market" was already in front of his eyes......

Xu Ke led the horse into this "human market", and before the people entered, they already smelled a smell of fishy and mildew. Xu Ke couldn't help frowning tightly, only to see that it was a mess, full of broken mats, broken wooden boards, broken cotton felt, etc., lying on top of it, all of them were people with yellow faces and thin muscles, and most of them were victims who fled from the surrounding ten miles and eight towns. The so-called "human market" is nothing more than an empty field surrounded by low earth walls and rubble blocks, and some shacks built with wooden poles and rags along the low walls, which are also full of victims, these refugees lie there stiffly in their clothes, and they smell all over their bodies, and they do not know whether they are dead or alive......

In this "people's market" in Xuchang Mansion, which is hundreds of zhang wide, it is now filled with hundreds of fleeing victims, and there is a smell of death and rancid smell everywhere. Some of the people who were still able to walk around set up a broken pot with a few pieces of rubble to boil there, and they did not know what kind of "food" was boiling in the pot, but after a while, someone impatiently took out a black mass from the pot and gnawed there. Pedestrians who come and go also cover their noses, come in a hurry, and leave in a hurry......

Xu Ke walked to the middle of this "human market", only to see that there were four long rows of boards, and behind each row of boards, there was a big man with a horizontal face. Xu Ke looked at the board again, but there were all kinds of long and short sharp knives, including large saw bone machetes, short ox ear sharp knives, and small boning thin knives...... All kinds of sharp knives are readily available. In the center of the row, there is a pile of red meat next to the sharp knife......

At this time, a sharp-mouthed bald man had already rushed to Xu Ke's side, and asked with a smile, "This son-in-law, is it the first time to come to the market?"

The so-called "human teeth" are like those "house teeth" and "boat teeth", which are all middlemen's business. These people wander around the "human market" every day, and when they encounter "good goods", they buy them at low prices and sell them at high prices to those rich people in the city. Now this bald man saw Xu Ke coming with a tall horse, thinking that this young boy must want to buy a maid and concubine, so he hurriedly came over to greet him.

"What kind of meat is piled up on this board?" Xu Ke asked with a frown.

"It's all 'chicken'!" replied the man.

"Chicken?...... How can there be such a scarlet 'chicken'?!" Xu Ke asked again.

"Childe really doesn't know...... The 'chicken' in this man's city is ...... Human flesh?" the balding man replied with a smile.

"Do you really even sell human flesh?!" Xu Ke asked in surprise. His heart was like a frost crossing, although he had all kinds of doubts before, but at this moment, he was really angry and uncomfortable for a while in front of the pile of human flesh that was still dripping with blood......

"Ahem...... It's not human meat, it's really chicken! If you want to buy chicken, you can buy chicken in the vegetable market in Xuchang City. Now, one or two chickens have been sold for 16 yuan! If you want to buy a whole chicken and go back to make soup, I am afraid that you will have to pay a tael of silver. How can there be a cheap 'chicken' here, only four cents a tael, and when you arrive at the end of the market, you can also get a discount, two copper plates are enough......" The bald man sighed and said.

"This ...... Where did all these flesh come from?Did those four butchers dare to openly slaughter people?" Xu Ke couldn't help but ask angrily.

"It's not ...... They will not dare to break the law...... The four butchers were originally killed pigs in Xuchang City. But in these years of famine, where are there still live pigs for them to slaughter?...... However, there are many people who are about to die, and seeing that they are also starving to death, they would rather sell their bodies to butchers in exchange for some money so that the old and young in the family can live for a while......" The bald man couldn't help but feel a little sad when he talked about these miserable and helpless things. After a pause, he added:

"There is a widow in my village named Xu Erjie, in order to prevent her mother-in-law from starving to death, she sold herself to Zhang Butcher, who took pity on her thirty-year-old appearance and only got two bags of brown rice. According to the rules of the city, this whole person can be arranged for three days, and if no one cares about it within three days, on the fourth day, he will have to use a knife to chop up and sell it...... I wanted to buy Second Sister Xu, but as soon as the butcher opened his mouth, he asked me for three taels of silver, where did I raise this lot of silver...... It was also thanks to her second sister Xu's good luck that on the fourth day, when Zhang Butcher was about to use the knife, a merchant selling tea came to the south and bought her for four taels of silver......"

Xu Ke looked around, and saw that on the side of the row of boards in the center of the city, there were seven or eight dying people lying or sitting, all of them were pale and emaciated, obviously hungry for a long time, so he pointed to those who were lying on the ground and asked:

"If no one buys the whole of these people around the butcher, they will all be chopped up alive by those butchers and sold?"

The bald man hurriedly said: "Those four butchers are also human beings, and their hearts are full of flesh, and every time they are knifed, they will pour a kind of anesthetic to make the slaughtered person lose consciousness first, and then the knife...... You see these people are already starving like this, and even if they don't die under the butcher's knife, they won't live for a few days......"

Xu Ke said: "According to this, these people are all willing to die, and they can't complain about those butchers?"

The bald man said, "Isn't it? They are all refugees who fled from dozens or even hundreds of miles away, and they came to this city with the intention of selling themselves to rich people as slaves...... But in this world, there are too many victims...... If you weren't a young and good-looking woman or a stout man, the rich wouldn't look down on you...... In the end, instead of starving to death, it is better to sell it to a butcher and exchange it for some copper coins or coarse grain, at least so that the family can live for a few more days......"

"Didn't the imperial court send food for disaster relief? Why didn't the government take care of it? Why did the people here want to feed on human flesh?" Xu Ke asked again.

"The Imperial Court, the Official Mansion?...... In the eyes of those who are in power, the lives of us ordinary people are not as good as pigs and dogs...... Gongzi Mo said that the lives of those who were slaughtered were bitter, in fact, the people who ate their flesh were also bitter in their hearts...... If it weren't for this world, there would be no way to buy food, who would want to buy human flesh to eat?......" The bald man couldn't help but reply gloomily. Listening to his tone, he must have bought some "chicken" in this person's market in desperation.

Xu Ke's eyes swept away, but he saw that most of the "chickens" to be slaughtered around the butcher were old and frail men and women. If these people are left unattended for three days, they will be cut with knives and axes, deboned and chopped up, reduced to the flesh of a board, and sold at a bargain...... Looking at the hundreds of refugees lying on the side of the low wall, under the shacks, and on the broken boards around this human city, if there is no relief, they will inevitably escape the same fate...... The human body conceived by the essence of heaven and earth has been so cheap under the catastrophe! And all these things are voluntary, whether it is a butcher or a person who buys meat, which one is wrong?

It's strange that this high heaven can't even drop a trace of rain, is it true that in the eyes of those gods who travel clouds and rain, human life is really like pigs and dogs?

......

Xu Ke was thinking about it when he suddenly heard a woman's shout from in front of him: "Don't touch me!"