Although it was said that robbers were coming, the villagers here did not look afraid. It was as if they were accustomed to robbers coming here.
There is a low rock wall on the north side of the village. Below the rock wall is the roof of a house in the village. Three young men dressed as ordinary villagers were standing on the rock wall, pointing at a villager and saying: "Quickly, bring us a ladder!"
A middle-aged lame villager reluctantly agreed, then moved a ladder to them and asked them to go down to the roof.
The three robbers walked into the village as if they were strolling down the street. No one dared to stop them from entering anyone's home.
They entered the house and found a small bag of corn, and tied it on their belts with a smile. The old woman in the room looked at it calmly, and did not stop her or cry. She seemed to be used to it.
Zhang Moyang couldn't help but sigh when he saw this scene, and said, "Let's go out and have a look."
When the three young robbers saw Song Xin and the others, they immediately surrounded them. One of the young men stared at the one-eyed old man with a playful look on his face and said, "Hey, Uncle Zhang, it turns out you fed three big fish, hehe."
The one-eyed old man looked flustered and begged: "Boy from the Zhang family, these three are all passing guests. Seeing that I played with you when you were a child, just let them go..."
"Are you from this village?" Zhang Moyang took a step forward and said.
The young man named Zhang chuckled and said, "So what? Your grandfather's name is Zhang Chengren."
Zhang Moyang couldn't help but smile when he heard the name: "Since we are all from the same village, you actually brought people to rob the elders of the same village?"
"Hahaha, it's not easy to have food these days, no matter if they are from the same village or not."
"That's right, why don't you hand over the money you have with you and let you live!" Zhang Chengren and two of his fellow robbers shouted arrogantly.
Song Xin crossed her arms and said with a smile, "Okay, come and get it."
Zhang Xiuyang took a step forward and said, "Brother Song, don't do anything, let me do it for them."
The three robbers didn't know that they were about to be in trouble. Seeing Zhang Xiuyang's weak look, they laughed arrogantly and said, "Hey, how are you going to teach us a lesson?"
Zhang Xiuyang flicked his sleeves, and a two-foot-long iron rod fell into his hand. He chuckled: "I'll teach you a lesson with this!"
Suddenly his figure flashed and he had already rushed in front of the robber.
Zhang Chengren felt his eyes blurred when a figure suddenly appeared in front of him, and he was shocked. He was about to pull out the knife, but as soon as he put his hand on the handle of the knife, his wrist was pressed by the opponent's iron rod, and he couldn't lift it. Zhang Xiuyang turned around and kicked away the two people around Zhang Chengren with a sweeping kick. Finally, he looked at the frightened Zhang Chengren with a smile, "What did you just say? How am I going to teach you a lesson?"
He felt as if a huge force was being pressed on his arm, almost crushing his bones. However, he still threatened: "If you dare to hurt me, our boss will definitely seek revenge on you... Ouch!" Before he finished speaking, Zhang Xiuyang turned the iron rod and stabbed him in the abdomen. Zhang Chengren's eyes bulged out from the pain, and he rolled to the ground holding his stomach.
Zhang Xiuyang then raised his leg and lifted Zhang Chengren into the air, then dropped a stick and hit Zhang Chengren on the buttocks.
"I'm going to teach you this!"
Zhang Chengren fell face down into the soft mud on the ground, swallowed a mouthful of mud, and a disgusting stench exploded in his mouth. At the same time, I felt as if my butt was split into four pieces, and I almost fainted from the pain. He cried and vomited mud while begging for mercy: "My hero, please spare my life. I will never dare to do it again. Uncle Zhang, Uncle Zhang, please help me beg for mercy!"
At this time, the one-eyed old man stepped forward to persuade Zhang Xiuyang and said: "This knight, please spare his life. After all, he is a child who has watched him grow up. If you kill him in front of me, I will I also feel a little uncomfortable...I always feel sorry for his father..."
Zhang Xiuyang stopped, looked at the old man and asked, "Aren't you afraid that they will come back to retaliate against you?"
The old man said: "I only have these old bones left. If they want revenge, they can take revenge. The world is so miserable now. We can live to this age and feel it is enough."
Song Xin was a little sad and walked up to Zhang Chengren and said: "For the sake of the old man, I will let you live today. If you come back to do evil again, I will kill you!"
Zhang Chengren kept begging for mercy, holding his buttocks and struggling to get up, promising: "I'm leaving now and I will never come back again."
The one-eyed old man advised: "Son, don't go back to that den of thieves, stay in the village."
Zhang Chengren said: "I came down the mountain to find our second master. If I don't go back, the first master will send people here, and you still won't survive by then!"
"You two are the second in charge? What do you look like?" Song Xin asked curiously. Zhang Chengren described the appearance of the second master of the cottage, and Song Xin secretly smiled, wasn't this the group of robbers he killed.
"By the way, have they been out for a long time?" Song Xin asked with a playful smile.
"How do you know?" Zhang Chengren was startled.
"It's okay, I just guessed."
Zhang Xiuyang saw Song Xin's expression and thought there was something in his words, so he whispered: "Brother Song, do you know this group of thieves?"
"Well, I killed them."
Zhang Xiuyang chuckled: "Then you won't tell him?"
"Isn't there another big boss? We will follow them to their lair in a moment and wipe out them easily to save them from harming others in the future."
Zhang Xiuyang secretly gave a thumbs up and said: "Good idea."
At this time, the two gangster associates who had been knocked unconscious on the ground also woke up, looking confused and not knowing what was going on.
Zhang Xiuyang cursed: "Okay, get out of here!"
Zhang Chengren glanced at Song Xin and the others hatefully, and asked his two accomplices to help him limp back.
After they were far away, Zhang Moyang said: "Brother Song, do you want to follow them to find their lair?"
Song Xin gave a thumbs up and said, "Brother Mo Yang is really awesome, he guessed my plan."
Zhang Xiuyang said: "Brother, let's take a trip and clean up the gang of thieves." They would not believe Zhang Chengren's guarantee. They just wanted to go back to report the news and come back for revenge.
When the one-eyed old man heard that they were going to find the robbers' den, his expression suddenly changed and he quickly tried to dissuade him:
"You knights, please don't go there. I heard that the mountain king is very vicious and specializes in eating young people."
Zhang Moyang smiled and consoled him: "Don't worry, old man. We'll come back as soon as we go. If he really cannibalizes people, then this scourge will be eliminated."
Zhang Chengren was supported by two friends and was walking on the mountain road. One of the accomplices asked: "Those people just now were so powerful. Who are they?"
Zhang Chengren gritted his molars and said: "It must be some noble son who ran away to become a ranger secretly. Do you think we are all easy to bully? Go back and tell the boss, and he will definitely deal with them."
"Yes, we must let them have a taste of our methods!"
"Well, if you send someone to send a letter to their house, you can blackmail them even more." Zhang Chengren said with a sneer, but then his butt hurt and a chill ran up his back. "Hey, that kid is really ruthless."
He thought that Song Xin and others were noble nobles who came out to become rangers. This kind of thing is very common in this era. Even people like Cao Cao and Yuan Shao had a chivalrous heart when they were young. But most of the time, their so-called Rangers are just a game played by a group of middle-aged and middle-aged teenagers with strong hormones, and they are not of any benefit to the people. They won't kill any real thieves. Most of the time they just harass the people or go to the manor of a dignitary to cause trouble.
After walking for several hours, they finally found a secret wooden castle in the dense forest on the top of the mountain. The scenery here was pleasant, and Yunmeng Ze could be seen to the south. The mountain road was difficult to navigate and the trees were dense, making it a good place to hide.
The largest tower in the wooden castle is the residence of the bandit leader, but the decoration here is a bit unusual. There are bronze mirrors, rouge, combs on the table, and women's clothes next to them. It is better to say that it is the boudoir of a big girl than the residence of a bandit leader.
However, Song Xin and the others did not feel excited. When their consciousness swept across the wooden castle, the scene inside made the three people's faces darken.
Zhang Chengren walked into the wooden castle gate and was stunned by the sight in front of him.
On the martial arts field in the center of the wooden castle, dozens of corpses were lying scattered. Among them was a tall, strong man with a big beard, but he was wearing women's clothes and wearing rouge. He knelt on the ground, his neck raised, and a spear penetrated his body directly from his mouth, and he was nailed to the ground alive. The hand holding the spear firmly was so stiff that he could not let go, and his movements were like performing sword-wielding acrobatics.
Weapons throughout the wooden fort were thrown all over the floor, obviously after a battle.
Zhang Chengren and his two companions plopped down on the ground. They were so frightened that they couldn't say a word. They have only been out for a few hours, what happened here?
It must be the first time for Zhang Xiuyang to see so many dead bodies. His face changed slightly and his words were trembling a little, "Brother, who did this?"
Zhang Moyang shook his head, "I don't know yet, let's go and take a look."
Then he walked directly out of the hiding place. When Zhang Chengren and the others heard the footsteps, they screamed in fright and wanted to run away, but their legs were too weak to stand up.
Zhang Moyang didn't look at them. He squatted on the ground and began to look at the corpses. He was surprised to find that some corpses were intact, with no wounds on the surface.
"The neck is broken and the body is empty." He said, touching the neck of a corpse.
"They seem to have been eaten clean from the body by something." Zhang Xiuyang said after checking.
"Come and see." Song Xin, who was not far away, seemed to have discovered something.
He broke off the head of a dead body, pointed to his ear and said, "Do you two know what this is?"
Zhang Moyang lowered his head to check, and sure enough he found something unusual in the corpse's ears, which was similar to thread, but also like the dead skin of a snake. He pinched one end and pulled gently, and was surprised to find that the head of the dead body seemed to be stuffed with a ball of thread. It took him a long time to pull it out completely. A rough estimate is that it is more than two feet long.
Song Xin walked to another dead body and found a piece of dead skin at the corner of his eye. He also pulled out a long piece of dead skin. The thinnest part is like a hair, and the thickest part is like a child's arm.
"Senior brother, have you seen this thing?"
Zhang Moyang said: "No, this should be a poisonous insect. But how did he get into these people's bodies?"
Song Xin checked them one by one and said, "Not everyone has this kind of dry skin in their body."
Zhang Moyang looked at Zhang Chengren and said, "Come here, I have something to ask you."
Zhang Chengren hadn't recovered from the shock, and he didn't even react after Zhang Moyang called him several times. Zhang Xiuyang walked over, picked up his collar, and threw it in front of Zhang Moyang.
Zhang Chengren suddenly let out a "wow" sound, knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly.
"Three grandpas, please let me go. I just can't live to earn a living, so don't kill me."
Zhang Moyang shouted coldly: "If we want to kill you, can we let you back? Let me ask you, what's going on with these people?"
"It's strange...No, grandpa, please let me go." Zhang Chengren cried so hard that he couldn't even speak clearly.
The other two robbers also knelt down and begged for mercy: "Three little grandfathers, please let us go. We will definitely return to the village and work hard in farming, and we will never be robbers again."
No matter what Song Xin and the other three asked next, they all kept saying these words, like a repeater.
Song Xin felt that he couldn't ask anything, so he was ready to send them away.
"Ugh!" Suddenly two sounds of retching came from behind Zhang Chengren.
Song Xin and others couldn't help but look over, and saw the two robbers suddenly holding their stomachs, kneeling on the ground and retching. As if he was about to vomit something, Zhang Moyang reached out to block Song Xin and Zhang Xiuyang behind him. He held a talisman in his hand and stared at the two robbers on the ground.
Zhang Chengren was also frightened by this scene and struggled to crawl towards Song Xin and the others.
