Du Wu seemed to be humiliated and said, "You can rest assured."
As he spoke, he put the knife on the prisoner's neck.
"Brother..." the prisoner said pleadingly, "Although the elder brother didn't do a good job, he still..." He didn't say any more.
His head had already rolled to the ground, and he immediately ate a handful of mud before closing his mouth.
No one noticed how Du Wu beheaded the man. The knife in his hand suddenly sank into the prisoner's neck, slid to the bottom, and the head and body were separated.
The executioner was stunned and looked at the broken neck with blood spurting out in amazement.
"What else?" Du Wu asked breathlessly.
The remaining thirty or so prisoners were all dragged to the execution ground and knelt in a row.
Du Wu's actions are described as "raising the knife and falling with the hand", which is exactly what happened.
The knife in his hand slid across the neck of each prisoner, and their heads rolled down silently. Pillars of blood spurted out, and the execution ground turned into a pool of blood in an instant.
Du Wu finished beheading more than thirty people without feeling tired at all. He took the reward from the prison officer and went home happily.
What he didn't realize at the time was that he had embarked on a path of no return.
"No one wants to buy my meat anymore," he told the tutor, "They don't want to buy meat cut with a beheading knife... My father scolded me, why do I do beheadings? It's just a sin, and it also ruins the family business. , so I was kicked out of the house...but dad’s business was still very poor. After a big rage, dad fell ill and passed away soon after.”
As he spoke, Du Wu choked up and his tears dripped into the wine glass.
The tutor sympathized with him for a while, but he was more concerned about one thing: "You can't go back on the past, and there's no point in being sad... But, Brother Du, what I'm curious about is, how can one behead someone so neatly?"
Du Wu drank the wine in one gulp and said: "I have been cutting meat since elementary school. I know very well how to cut meat without damaging the blade. I have to feel the texture of the meat. The knife can cut the meat without using force." Just cut and open, the knife will follow the lines, and the meat will cut open all by itself without any effort."
The private school teacher blurted out: "Isn't this the butcher's job?"
"What... untie the cow?"
"It's said in Zhuangzi that the cook cut off all the meat from a live cow, and the cow didn't even notice."
"Is there such a person?" Du Wu said uninterestedly.
"But it's easy to cut meat, so what if you cut into the neck bones?"
"The neck bones are connected piece by piece," Du Wu said. "As long as you pick at the junction of the bones, the neck bones will naturally separate."
The private school teacher was greatly amazed and kept urging him to drink and praise him.
But the private school teacher couldn't help but wonder. Du Wu said it was so magical, but when he saw him beheading someone at Caishikou that day, he raised his sword and chopped it off with all his strength. It was not as weird as what he said.
He saw that Du Wu's hands were shaking slightly and some of the wine in the cup spilled, and he understood something in his heart.
※※※
The private school teacher woke up early in the morning and found that his wife was not around.
He drank very late last night and was afraid that his wife would complain again. Fortunately, his wife had already gone to bed.
He was also worried that his wife would ridicule him when she got up early, which was what he wanted to escape even more.
He was a little confused when he found that his wife was gone.
He got out of bed, walked around to the kitchen, and saw his wife boiling water. There was a hen lying on the floor, his feet tied with ropes, his eyes moving around uneasily, and his mouth grunting and complaining.
"Want to kill the chicken?" he asked.
His wife ignored him and was busy with her own business.
"Are there any guests?" He asked again without giving up.
"You forgot, it's your old classmate, the one who is an official."
The private school teacher knocked himself on the head, and he remembered.
In fact, he is not an official, but an old classmate who is a petty official. In the eyes of his wife, he is always much better than him.
While sharpening the knife, my wife said, "If you treat me well, I might find an official position for you."
His mind was still stuck in the haze of the morning. Unknowingly, he left his old classmates behind. He only heard the sound of sharpening knives in his ears and saw only the innocent eyes of the hens.
"Is the knife sharp?"
"It will be sharp after sharpening." The wife poured some cold water on the whetstone and sharpened it repeatedly.
"Is it hard to kill a chicken?" He licked his upper lip.
"How many chickens have you eaten? I'm here to ask if it's difficult to kill them."
His wife moved the knife into the morning light and watched with satisfaction as the blade glowed with a gleam of light.
"let me."
"What?"
His wife looked at him in disbelief.
"I'll try."
"Stop joking, you can't do anything right."
His wife turned back with a sneer.
Then she turned around and looked at him again, her eyes very confused.
He rarely saw his husband with such a serious and determined expression.
So she handed the knife to her husband.
The tutor's expression became more determined, and he felt his heartbeat gradually strengthen in his chest.
His right hand unconsciously clenched the handle of the knife and walked towards the hen step by step.
The hen became even more uneasy. It cooed more and more, and its wings kept struggling.
His wife asked him worriedly: "Have you ever killed a chicken?"
He didn't answer, he concentrated on half-kneeling, and clasped the chicken's neck with his left hand. The hen flapped its wings vigorously, twisted its neck and squawked wildly.
"Wait, that's not it..." his wife called.
He raised the kitchen knife high.
"To catch the wings..." He struggled to drop the knife.
In an instant, his whole body felt like an electric shock, and his mind suddenly went blank and became extremely clear and transparent.
He could feel the knife sinking into the chicken's neck, violently splitting the neck bones. He heard the crisp cracking sound of bones in his ears, and the knife got stuck on the floor.
He felt cool all over his body, and the excitement was twitching in his bones, and he was still unfinished.
Suddenly, he felt his hands were empty and the chicken was taken away.
"You really can't do it well!" his wife yelled angrily. The beheaded chicken was still flapping its wings desperately. His wife finally caught the wings, then lifted the chicken's feet with one hand and hung the chicken upside down to let the blood flow out as quickly as possible. , "Just cut off the chicken's neck. Why chop it off?"
He looked at his wife blankly, and the chicken blood on his fingertips quickly lost its temperature.
"Just cut your neck and let it bleed!"
The wife said no more. After seeing that the blood was almost gone, she put the chicken in a wooden basin, poured in boiling water, and easily stripped the chicken feathers clean in a few strokes.
He stepped out of the kitchen, feeling very satisfied.
That kind of excitement has been faintly echoing in the body.
His fingers, his back, and his face kept recalling the pleasure of the moment when his neck broke.
He couldn't forget it, and he wanted to try again.
He didn't go to the pub that night. He hid the knife on his body and walked around on the street where there were few people.
The residual feeling on my fingers is still fresh in my memory.
Under the dim moonlight, he saw an old dog, walking bumpily and panting loudly.
The tutor hesitated for a while before taking out the knife, turning it half a circle with the back of the knife facing down.
He stepped forward, and the old dog immediately noticed that he was coming. Just as he was about to roar, the teacher struck him with all his strength, and the old dog immediately fell to the ground with its head split open.
The old dog was dying on the ground, and his body was still moving slightly.
The tutor turned the blade back and put the dog in the correct posture. After playing with it for a long time, he was still not satisfied.
He saw a big stone on the street, so he dragged the old dog over and placed its head on the big stone, letting its limbs hang down.
"This is what it looks like..."
He muttered, imagining the prisoner being beheaded.
The tutor looked around again to make sure no one had seen him, then took a deep breath and raised the kitchen knife.
※※※
Some people say that the executioner always stares at people's necks, which makes people feel uncomfortable.
But the private school teacher felt that executioners would not stare at people's necks all the time. They were already tired of watching, and they were already annoying enough, so why would they do such annoying actions again.
Only beginners like him would have this problem.
So whenever he came to the tavern and Du Wu didn't come, he would take the opportunity to look at other people's necks while putting the wine glass to his lips.
He saw that some people were thick and had meaty necks, and some were thinner, with visible neck bones. He wondered how the executioner would adjust the cutting position when he struck.
While he was thinking wildly, he noticed three kinds of necks coming through the door.
Oh no, it's three people.
Three types of necks.
The one who stood out was a Taoist priest, who seemed to be around forty years old. He was quite thin and wore an old Taoist robe. The collar of the Taoist robe covered part of his neck. It was not clear whether he could be beheaded or not.
There was also an old man with a slight hunchback, holding on to a green bamboo pole, with his entire neck sticking out of his collar. He was similar to a prisoner waiting to be executed. His neck was thin and his neck bones were clearly embossed.
