(15)
Cities and towns are a collection of countless hearts. If everyone's will is used as fuel, then the town will become a bonfire of people's will. This bonfire has a personality and fantasy, and it will recognize, destroy, and retain something on its own.
Stories and legends that are widely circulated in many places will suddenly disappear in other places; an extremely ordinary mountain may be able to distinguish ignorance from civilization; being in a paradise that is so pure and innocent may be experiencing the most primitive of destruction.
In Cangzhou City, a campaign of "killing gods and destroying Buddhas" had already been launched secretly. They ranged from government servants to peddlers and pawns. Their attitudes toward Taiping Road or wandering monks were obviously more hostile.
They work openly and secretly. When the government officials faced Taiping Road and asked about the whereabouts of the fugitives Murong Yan and Bai Feng, they tried their best to deal with it; the traffickers and lackeys would no longer give out intact and clean food to the monks who were asking for alms.
Secretly, they tried every means to confuse Taiping Road: such as adding laxatives to their meals and laying rats on their beds. These small tricks were just a prelude; they guided them to the paths where bandits were entrenched, and even secretly bribed various people. It may not be so strange that road bandits join forces to strangle the Taoist priests on Taiping Road.
It can be seen that the anger of the world is not a temporary fire. Now it only takes a gust of east wind to multiply that spark into a prairie fire.
Although Taipingdao is not a mob, with the blessing of masters from various strange sects, small bandits are not worth mentioning to them. But in fact, it did cause a lot of obstacles to their follow-up investigation, which greatly slowed down their progress.
However, just a hundred miles away in Hongye Town, there was another completely different magical scene.
When they went north to Yuyi Town, Bai Feng and Murong Yan stayed one night in this aloof town. The town is built in the deep forest and is very remote. It was the time of autumn and summer, and the mountains and fields were covered with red maple leaves. My friends were all around, either chatting or enjoying the moment of tranquility.
Now that we are approaching the end of autumn, the red leaves on the maple trees have almost fallen off, and the bleak autumn wind blows by our ears from time to time, as if telling the deep feelings and beauty of the past. The branches extending in all directions make this piece of Lingshan Qishui beautiful and tall. There are no signs of bark peeling, insect infestation or disease. It is believed that new buds will grow in the coming year. Some people who have passed away will never come back.
The so-called things are different and people are different, nothing more than this.
The pair of Beizhen heroes traveled all night until noon the next day, and then they found a lake and rested there for a while. Bai Feng found a small hill and climbed it alone. Through the jungle on the other side, he looked at Hongye Town not far away to confirm the direction.
"Yan'er, there's only a short distance to go, hurry up and get ready to disguise yourself!" The young swordsman grabbed a maple tree trunk and shouted, "Who knows, someone may rush out of the woods at any time. If the bad guys are allowed to Once you recognize the appearance, things will be in trouble.”
"I know, come down quickly!" Murong Yan was sitting in front of the lakeside, washing her veil and leather mask, looking melancholy, and looking at the forest in the distance.
After a while, the young swordsman walked down the hill from nowhere and returned to the horse. He groomed the horse and led the horse to replenish water and food. During this period, he passed by Murong Yan several times and naturally felt her sadness.
Bai Feng fed the horse and tied it to the tree trunk. Then she finally walked to the other party as if she was fully prepared and murmured: "If nothing had happened to Miss E, I wonder what kind of life she would be living now."
"Maybe he's hiding with us every day, right?" After saying that, Murong Yan turned back to the camp and wanted to use the newly raised bonfire to dry the disguise props.
These profound words made Bai Feng deeply moved. He looked at his reflection in the lake and was about to reflect on the mistakes he had made and review his actions and opinions. Unexpectedly, at this time, there was a sudden sound coming from the woods on the other side. The sound of running for one's life after a fight.
Bai Feng took a closer look and saw a poor woman in simple clothes holding the baby in her arms, running desperately towards the other side. At the same time, she did not forget to shout to the surroundings in a hoarse voice: "Help! Anyone can come and save me." My child! You can’t let others take it away..."
Groups of men followed closely, chasing along the lake. Some people threw rocks, some shouted "bitch women", and some used the flying stone rope commonly used when catching wild animals. After several attempts, they finally entangled the woman's feet and forced her to fall to the ground.
"Yan'er!" The young swordsman seemed to be thinking only of his "ugly wife" who was not ready to see the world. He walked quickly to Murong Yan and immediately led her to hide behind a big tree or rock, intending to wait and see what would happen.
In order to protect the baby in her arms, the woman curled up into a ball and acted as a human shield to resist the fierce pursuit of several men. Her clothes were torn, but she didn't care; her face was beaten with bruises and bruises, and she looked like she was no longer able to resist. However, she seemed to rely solely on instinct and still did not forget to protect her children. Her voice trembled and she said: " Don’t… don’t hand over the child…”
Before she finished speaking, one of the men kicked her in the stomach again, then spat and scolded: "How could you not hand over the child that the Immortal likes?"
"Madam, please hand over the child. When we are all immortal, we will have as many children as we want!" Another man echoed, looking even more ignorant, despicable and nasty than the previous man.
"You...do you still have humanity?" The woman tried her best to finish this sentence, then she passed out with her eyes open.
Seeing this, her husband hurriedly asked his brothers to come up and pry open her hands that were protecting the child, but they couldn't be pried open. Since it couldn't be broken apart, someone suggested using a butcher's knife to chop the handle open. The person who suggested it happened to be the butcher in the town.
"Is it as difficult to chop off these hands as it is to slaughter a pig?" He was just joking, and he immediately took out a butcher knife from his waist. This was a butcher knife that would only be swung at the weaker ones.
"Ah!" After a scream, everyone looked at the butcher and said in surprise: "You...your hands!"
The hand holding the butcher knife fell to the ground, and blood flowed out: "My hand, my hand!" The butcher's sad expression was twisted like rotten bark, which was disgusting.
"Stop it, don't blame me for being ruthless!" At this moment, a harsh sarcastic voice came from behind the butcher, cold and full of murderous intent.
It turned out that Bai Feng had already sneaked from the jungle on the roadside behind this group of people who were even more hateful than ordinary gangsters. Just before the butcher swung his knife, he decisively drew his sword out of its sheath and chopped off one of his hands.
"Who...who is this?"
"No... I don't recognize him... He looks like a powerful person."
"Sir, this is a matter between our husband and wife. You are an outsider, why don't you interfere?"
Before the group of people could finish their last words, Bai Feng grabbed the woman's husband and threw him to the ground, raised his sword and pierced his mouth, which was still full of tongue just now, and said unswervingly: "If not Someone stopped me, you were all dead just now."
When the rest of the people saw that the leader was forced to cry, he became incontinent and peed all over his pants. However, after a moment, the gangsters apologized one after another and ran away.
