At dawn, Huo Weilou suddenly opened his eyes when he listened intently for a moment, then turned his eyes to the person lying on the couch. The sky was faintly bright, and the window framed with gray and blue light also reflected a blurred outline. She was a person with a very regular sleeping appearance, lying flat all night and was not moving. At this moment, the breath was still long and she slept very heavily.

Huo Weilou leaned over and pulled her robe towards her, stood up quietly and walked out of the door. The attendants outside the door were resting in the wing room, and were talking to two yamen servants. When they saw Huo Weilou coming out, several of them hurriedly stepped forward to salute.

Huo Weilou went out of the door and stood under the eaves: "What happened?"

The Yamane said, "Mr. Marquis, it was the captain who asked the villain to come over and say that Grandma Zhang's son was hiding near the Wu family last night. He was taken by the villain at dawn. The captain wanted to reassure Miss Bo."

Huo Weilou stared at, "He is hiding near the Wu family?"

Ya almost nodded, "Yes, he wanted to take the child away, but as a result, there were many people around us around the yard and traces were found."

"How was Sun Zhao's trial?" Huo Weilou asked again.

"A few people are hard-working, especially Grandma Zhang, who wants to die. However, the second brother of the Zhang family seems to be able to speak. Although the Wu family admitted their guilt neatly, they do not want to say anything in detail, nor do they want to prove that other corpses are hiding. There is also a one-armed old man who fainted before he could ask for it because he was old."

The sky is indigo, with clouds stacked with clouds and bright lights hidden behind it. Early morning is approaching, Huo Weilou raised his eyes and looked at it, "I will go over and take a look later, and continue to examine it."

The yamen responded, turned around and went out to report.

The mountain breeze in the morning was cool and refreshing. Huo Weilou felt a little tired and was blown by the mountain breeze. He stood for a while and turned back to the main room. Before he could get close, he heard a rustling sound inside.

He pushed the door open and saw Bo Ruoyou sitting up. She held his robe, sleepy eyes, looking for something in the room at a loss. When he entered the door, her eyes lit up, "What's wrong?"

Huo Weilou unconsciously bent his lips, "The Yama Maleman came to report that Grandma Zhang's son was wandering near the Wu family and wanted to take the child away, but the Yama Maleman found the trace and took it away. He also said that several people were hard-working, and only the second son of the Zhang family admitted it a little."

Bo Ruoyou rubbed his eyes and was pulling away from her sleepiness bit by bit. She rarely looked so confused. Huo Weilou felt so excited when he looked at it. He raised his hand to brush the hair scattered on her face, "There is nothing else, you can sleep for a while."

Bo Ruoyou shook his head, and then he woke up completely, and then looked at Huo Weilou again, "Has the Marquis not slept last night?"

"I've been here all the time." Huo Weilou looked at her.

Bo Ruoyou felt his heart beating again, and looked at the robe covered with his body, and hurriedly asked to stay, "I won't sleep anymore, let's take a break. I want to go over and take a look. If someone admits it, I'm afraid I'll have to take a look."

She put on her shoes and handed her robe to Huo Weilou. Huo Weilou took it, as if she had expected that she would not rest when she woke up, "Then let's go over and take a look."

He wore a robe and blouse, Bo Ruoyou tied his hair up again, and the two of them came to the Wu family.

As soon as he arrived near the Wu family, he saw that there were many yamen outside the yard. He was going to search for people in the mountains, but Zhang Dalang actually fell into the trap, which saved them from trouble. When Huo Weilou arrived, all the yamen came forward to salute.

Wu Xiang received the letter in the courtyard and came out first. It was already bright and Wu Xiang, who had been with him for several days, was obviously tired. He bowed and said, "The second son of the Zhang family is recruiting him, and the lord is being tried. Is the marquis going to listen?"

Huo Weilou nodded, and a few people walked into the main hall. Now all the Wu family houses were used, Grandma Zhang and others were locked up separately, while Sun Zhao was inspecting people in the left wing, while the door was closed, and the voices of Sun Zhao and Zhang's younger brother came out of the inside.

Wu Xiang wanted to report to Sun Zhao, but Huo Weilou raised his hand to stop him and whispered: "Just listen here."

After the Taoist sect, Sun Zhao sneered, "If there were any treatments in the past, why would you seal your village? You think it is unfair, but if you are asked to come out and contaminate more people, how can you explain it then?"

"That's your business! The government is incompetent, but we want to let our lives be ruined in vain. Why? There are not so many people in our village who are sick, but the government actually sent all the sick people to our village. I was only seventeen or eighteen years old at that time, and my brother is not yet twenty years old. We are obviously not sick, so why are you locked up?"

Sun Zhao calmed down and said, "This is a natural disaster, and it cannot be changed by manpower. When you chose your village, it was because the patients in your village were concentrated and the terrain was also standing on the mountain. It was nothing if you had resentment in your heart. Later, you survived by your ability in the past six months. It was a good thing to save your life, but since you survived, why don't you survive well and do evil things instead?"

Zhang Jia Erlang seemed to have been touched by the pain, and his voice trembled: "You people have never experienced those purgatory days. How can you blame us shamelessly? At the beginning, there were all patients in the village. Those who were not sick were infected later. We were afraid, so we ran up the mountain and ran all the time. After half a year in the cave, there were many people going up the mountain at first, but later those who got sick got sick and starved to death. In the end, even flying insects and animals on the mountain were gone."

At this point, Zhang Jia Erlang also laughed sinisterly, "Sir, I must not guess how we survived."

Bo Ruoyou looked confused outside the room, and turned to look at Huo Weilou but saw him looking at him with a clear look. He seemed to have guessed what the Zhang family Erlang was going to say.

"My brother and I survived by eating my cousin's human flesh." He laughed strangely again, "Because she was not killed by the plague, she was injured on the mountain, and there was no medicine to stop bleeding, and she was weak, so she just ate that way. She was originally the unfamiliar wife of my brother, but later, in order to survive, we brothers had to survive by eating her flesh."

"Two months, our last two months depend on people who died one by one, eating their flesh and drinking their blood to survive. Most of them are relatives and friends of our tribe. If it weren't for the plague, we would either be brothers for the rest of our lives or get married. But who would have thought that they would eventually become our rations for survival."

He laughed dryly, "My lord, even my relatives and friends are not willing to waste anything else. What is the life of others? We finally survived, but do you know how difficult it is for us to live? Because at that time, if people knew that we had escaped from Guzhang Village, they would go to report to the official. After reporting to the official, they would escort us back, and it would be a death to go back!"

"We escaped from the village by leaning on the path on the cliff because we really couldn't survive on the mountain. When we walked off the cliff, there were still people who were unable to survive and died. The hatred in our hearts was finally survived. The Wu family... No, it was the Gu family's sister and Gu family's aunt. They were both sick but not dead and were disabled. The Gu family's cousin cut off their own hands in order to survive. Each of us wanted to live. If we could survive well after we went down the mountain, how could we do such a dead hand?"

"We dare not escape elsewhere, climbing mountains and wading all the way, just want to go to a remote place and hiding to survive. At that time, we accidentally crashed into this place. They were sick and could not see the clues in front of people. They came into the village to find food, but they never expected that they were still seen by the villagers. They looked at us like monsters, and said they wanted to report to the officials. Oh, how could we let them report to the officials--"

"This place is remote, and there are only ten families in the village. Seeing that their attitude is so clear, we thought about it and felt that even if we escape from this place and go to the next place, we were penniless and could not really live in the forest like savages. Since this is the case, why don't we turn this village into our original home?"

"After all, our original home was destroyed by you!"

Zhang Jiaerlang was panting, and his tone was astonishing as he recalled the old things, but he was righteous and unfeeling, and was shockingly cold and numb.

Wu Xiang said in a foreigner: "That village is called Guzhang Village because there were Gu and Zhang families in the village. Later, they arrived here and changed the surname Zhang and Wu. After so many years, I am afraid that they will not get used to their original surnames."

Sun Zhao was probably shocked by what he said, and paused for a moment before continuing: "So, have you killed the entire village and then used the people in the village to pay tribute to your water god?"

"Water God..." Zhang Jia Erlang finally had a hint of hesitation, "That plague is the punishment given to us by the Water God. The old people in our village believed in these things, but we younger generations didn't care. Later, the Water God wanted to punish us with heavenly punishment. We crawled out of the pile of dead people. Even if we occupied this place, we would not dare to be careless. Just so there were many people in this village, and they all killed them, so that the Water God could protect us."

At the end of the conversation, his tone was already chilling, and Sun Zhao asked again: "How many people in the village were killed by you? Except for the corpses in the Black Water Pool, where were the bodies of others buried by you?"

Zhang Erlang was very calm, "buried behind Aunt Zhang's house."

Wu Xiang frowned and heard Zhang Erlang continue: "There is a pine forest behind their house. The tree that was planted after burying the bones. Because the pool is too small, it is impossible to accommodate so many people. Planting trees is the safest."

Wu Xiang saw that pine forest when he helped Grandma Zhang repair the house! Wu Xiang widened his eyes and immediately went out to call Hou Yang, "You took the rest of the people to the pine forest behind Grandma Zhang's house and started digging now, and bought a lot of corpses underneath."

Hou Yang's expression tightened and he hurriedly went to summon people.

In the room, Sun Zhao asked again: "Zhang... Zhang Yu's father is Zhang Heqing, right? The baby you worshipped in Luohe this time is his biological daughter?"

Zhang Erlang became more calm when he heard this, "Yes, water is the yin, and it is more useful to use girls to pay tribute."

Sun Zhao couldn't help but say coldly: "That's his biological daughter, and his daughter was suffocated to death, what about his wife?"

"Diet, they have decided this matter long ago. If it is a baby boy, it will be left behind. If it is a baby girl, it will go to worship the gods. His wife didn't know that when she was going to take the baby girl away that day, her wife started to make trouble. She didn't think about what to do to her. She died after giving birth without caring about her blood collapse." Zhang Erlang's voice was not as if she was talking about the death of a mother and daughter, but as if she was saying that today was a good weather.

"Who sent the baby to the side of the Luo River after he died? Where was her mother buried?"

"Even Qinghe, no one here likes to leave the village. He is the only one who walks outside. His wife is also a foreigner. She has been here for a long time and is a stupid and kind-hearted person, so she has not found anything wrong. After her death, she seems to be buried in the pine forest behind the Zhang family."

Sun Zhao had a dark face, "Apart from these, have you harmed other people? Have you never harmed other babies in the past few years? Have you never harmed other people to worship God?"

"No, there were many people who killed back then, and we also knew that it was a murder. But after so many years, we became more and more uneasy. We were afraid that things would happen again every day. Moreover, they were sick and became more and more sick. They had no way to seek medical treatment, so they wanted to ask the God of Water. Aunt Zhang had also been sick, and her legs were almost disabled."

Zhang Erlang answered readily. When he spoke these things, his voice was silent and silenced, as if it was ordinary.

At this point, Sun Zhao learned a lot and said, "How many people did you kill back then do you still remember? How many people did you succeed in the village? How many people did you kill?"

"How many people can't remember it, no one can keep it anyway, how can we succeed... First, a family found that we were unknown, and looked like people who had been wandering for a long time, so they asked us to explain the way we came from, otherwise we would go to report to the official, and we would deal with their family first. Later, when we went back to discuss, we felt that it would be better to do it all the time. Anyway, there was a murder case, and when the government came, we were afraid that we would be targeted. At that time, most of the women's families were hidden in the forest. The five of us figured out what each family had done at night. I couldn't remember it even if I killed a few people. Anyway, the quick knife cut the mess and did not give them a chance to escape."

Zhang Erlang's concise explanation, his voice stopped rising and falling. When Bo Ruoyou listened outside the house, he thought of the knife marks he had seen in the empty room, and he seemed to think of the despair and fear of the family sleeping peacefully that day but being broken into and killed by bandits.

Sun Zhao asked a few more details, and Zhang Erlang explained them one by one. After a while, Sun Zhao walked out of the house and saw Huo Weilou and Bo Ruoyou coming. He went forward to salute and asked, "How long has the Marquis been here?"

"It's a moment." Huo Weilou looked into the wing room, "I heard most of what I said inside. After the review came here, the matter of that year would be clear. When the people who went to Qinshui County came back, they could determine the identity of the deceased."

Sun Zhao nodded, "Yes, the most important thing now is to find the bones of other people."

Wu Xiang hurriedly said, "I have ordered someone to dig it out soon."

Sun Zhao sighed, "It's extremely vicious, really extremely vicious. Although the plague was a disaster back then, these people were really lawless. They stayed up all night last night and didn't ask a few questions. This morning, this person suddenly thought about it and was willing to speak. He hadn't seen such a tragedy in many years."

This case is equivalent to slaughtering the entire village. In addition, it has not even let go of his own flesh and blood to sacrifice the gods, which makes people even more frightened. Sun Zhao accompanied Huo Weilou for a while before going to interrogate the others, but the other people still have difficulty prying open their mouths.

Seeing that there was no other question after a while, Bo Ruoyou asked Zhang Yu where he was. The Yamani took her to the back room, and Huo Weilou also followed her.

Here is a narrow place, and it is piled with useless furniture. When the door was opened, Zhang Yu sat on a dusty rattan chair. He heard the sound and looked over with expectation. When he saw that it was Bo Ruoyou, his body shrank back and tears were even more fierce, but he was still holding the boat that Bo Ruoyou had broken for him in his hand.

The paper was rough, and it had been deformed after being held by him for a long time, but he still held it tightly. Huo Weilou stood at the door, Bo Ruoyou entered the door, and she walked to Zhang Yu and sighed, "Don't be afraid, your mother-in-law and father did bad things, but it has nothing to do with you. No matter how you deal with them, the government will set you up a place."

Zhang Yu was crying and fear arose on his face. Bo Ruoyou did not comfort him this time, but said harshly: "Don't believe what your mother-in-law taught you. There is no punishment in the world to punish you. Only if you do something wrong will you be punished. Now you can't tell them clearly. You will definitely know that you should do more right things."

Zhang Yu was still a child and had no good education. He didn't understand this. Bo Ruoyou took out a scarf and put it in his palm, then got up and walked out. The door opened and closed, and Zhang Yu's sob inside was even louder. Bo Ruoyou sighed and was worried. When he came out, he asked, "Where would such a child be placed?"

Huo Weilou thought for a moment, "There was a small temple in the Xiangguo Temple outside the city. There were mostly orphans without fathers orphans. They should be treated as little novice monks. If they are old, they can return to secular life if they don't want to enter the Buddhist path."

Bo Ruoyou was relieved. Seeing Huo Weilou looking at him with deep eyes, he said, "Do you know that I once had a younger brother?"

Of course, Huo Weilou knew that the child died prematurely, but he looked ordinary and signaled Bo Ruoyou to continue. Bo Ruoyou said as he walked, "I am only one year younger than me, named Lan Zhou, but I passed away unexpectedly. At that time, I was still young at that time, and later I was sick. I couldn't remember many things clearly. I only remember that every time he cried, I would fold a paper boat for him and he stopped crying."

"So you're particularly pitying to the children."

Bo Ruoyou pulled the corner of his lips, "Maybe, I can't remember what he looks like anymore, so when he sees a similar age, he always feels that if he reaches this age, he might be like this."

The two of them turned out from the back porch, and there was no one around. Huo Weilou held her hands and held them heavily.

He quickly let go, but this time it made Bo Ruoyou's heart dissipate. She said, "My father, mother and younger brother died by accident. I am the only one left in our three rooms. Therefore, they once said that my fate was so fierce that they died."

Huo Weilou held his hand back with his release. He stopped and looked at her, "The person who said this is both stupid and vicious. You don't have to take this sentence to heart."

Bo Ruoyou blinked, "Aren't the Marquis afraid?"

Huo Weilou smiled, "No one in this world dares to compete with me for his life."

When Bo Ruoyou mentioned this, although she expected that Huo Weilou would not mind, she knew that many people in the world believed this. Until Huo Weilou said that she had a tough life, her nervousness disappeared.

When he walked to the main hall, he saw that the sky was high and the clouds were clear. At this time, Yang ran in from outside the courtyard and said, "Mr. Marquis, the captain, indeed, he dug up bones in the pine forest. From outside, we dug up a female corpse that had never become a bone."

Wu Xiang said: "It's Zhang Yu's mother. Zhang Er has already called him. Let's go and see you."

When Bo Ruoyou heard that the bones and corpses were found, he knew that he was going to work, so he went to the pine forest. Seeing this, Huo Weilou wanted to accompany him. Bo Ruoyou paused at his feet and asked him, "When will the Marquis return to Beijing?"

Huo Weilou pulled his lips and said, "Go back to Beijing in the afternoon."

Bo Ruoyou thought for a moment and didn't say anything else. Wu Xiang waited for Bo Ruoyou in front and asked her mysteriously: "Xiao Bo, what's the matter for the Marquis coming here? Why did I just see that the Marquis have been with you, Xiao Bo, and I have never seen any other private matters."

Bo Ruoyou's cheeks heated up, "I don't know, headmaster, we have to go back to Beijing soon after the test."

Wu Xiang responded, without even having to look at it, and went straight to the pine forest behind the Zhang family.

When I arrived in the pine forest, I saw more than twenty yamen workers working together. They had already dug out pits of all sizes from the pine forest. Someone was growing up and cutting trees. The female corpse that Hou Yang mentioned was on the outermost periphery.

There were just a dozen new pine trees planted there, all of which were waist-length. At this moment, the middle one was pulled out. A simple coffin was exposed in the pit dug by the yamen. The lid of the coffin was opened. Before he could walk in front of him, Bo Ruoyou smelled a rotten smell. When he walked to the edge of the pit, he saw the female corpse in the coffin at a glance.

Bo Ruoyou said: "You have to move the body out."

The yamen were ready to go, and carried the body out of the inside with a chill look on his face and placed it on the flat ground aside. Bo Ruoyou took his hands and rolled up his sleeves, covered his face with a scarf and a squatted down for the autopsy.

Huo Weilou stood by and watched, watching her busy as an outsider for the first time.

The deceased died for many days, and the worst was serious. He died after giving birth, and the trauma was even more rotten. Bo Ruoyou had heard Zhang Jia Erlang's confession, so he naturally determined the cause of death first. When the others around him continued to dig soil and search for bones, she checked it carefully in this remote corner. After two incense sticks, Bo Ruoyou stood up straight.

Wu Xiang strode from a distance, "Xiao Bo, how about it?"

Bo Ruoyou said seriously: "Zhang Er did not lie, she did die of blood collapse."

Wu Xiang stared at him, "Fortunately, he was not murdered to death, but he still had a little conscience. He just felt sorry for her and could not save her daughter. He also gave her life here."
Chapter completed!