Tan Yankai, the mayor of Jingcheng City, is fifty-three years old this year. For an official of his level, this is the prime of his life.
Tan Yankai came from a well-known family and was a native of Chuzhou. His grandfather once served as the left minister of the official department of the Great China Dynasty, and his father was even more remarkable. He was the number one scholar in the Mingguang Dynasty of the Great China Dynasty and served successively as the censor of Yizhou and Liang Dynasty. He served as the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces and as the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, and was awarded the title of Minister of the Ministry of War. He was one of the several famous ministers in the late Great China Dynasty.
Tan Yankai inherited his family education at an early age and was very talented since he was a child. He had a reputation for talent when he was young. He took the Boy's Examination at the age of 18 and was awarded the Scholarship, and at the age of 22 he was awarded the Juren Examination. Unfortunately, on his way to Beijing to take the exam, Dahua However, the Celestial Empire collapsed overnight, so he ultimately failed to pass the Jinshi examination.
According to people close to Tan Yankai, Mayor Tan still regrets this incident.
If the Great China Dynasty had not overthrown, perhaps Tan Yankai's achievements in his official career might even surpass those of his grandfather and father.
Of course, being able to become the mayor of Jingcheng, the largest city in the hinterland of Central China, at the age of over 50, Tan Yankai's current achievements are by no means low.
However, Tan Yankai was able to become the mayor of Jingcheng, although it was due to the connections left by his family, his own abilities were equally excellent, and his experience in the first half of his life was legendary.
After the fall of the Great China Empire, Tan Yankai, who was deeply hit, was depressed for a period of time. It took a few years for him to regain his strength. However, he dismissed the official position offered by the Chuzhou Governor who wanted to befriend the Tan family and ran away alone. He went to the south to join the army and joined the New Army, which was in a critical situation at that time.
I have to say that Tan Yankai has a very good vision, because not long after he joined the New Army, the New Army began to rise strongly. When Tan Yankai followed the New Army back to Jingcheng, he was already the commander of a main division in the New Army. .
After the New Army captured Jingcheng, because of the Tan family's prestige and status in Jingcheng, and because of Tan Yankai's own talent and learning ability, the then commander-in-chief of the Northern Expeditionary Army's Central Route stayed on purpose to preside over the aftermath.
So Tan Yankai transferred from the army to politics. After the victory of the New Army's Northern Expedition, he was naturally appointed as the mayor of Jingcheng.
Since then, Tan Yankai has been in charge of Jingcheng for more than ten years, and his political reputation has always been very good. Although he cannot be praised by everyone, he has generally never had any complaints from the public. Even the rather picky Xu Pingxi has nothing to do with the mayor of Jingcheng. Opinion.
You must know that since Xipingxi became the governor-general of Chuxiang, he has successively driven away five or six senior officials of Chuzhou, but he has never thought of touching Tan Yankai, the mayor of Jingcheng.
In today's Dahua country, this is already a very difficult thing.
In addition to his outstanding ability, Tan Yankai is also extremely diligent. Unlike his son who plays songs every night and refuses to go home until dawn, Tan Yankai works until late at night almost every day.
On this day, as usual, after handling various government affairs, Tan Yankai returned to the mansion at about 11 o'clock in the night. The maid waiting for him immediately brought up the warm lotus seed and tremella soup, which Tan Yankai eats every day. late night snack.
After supper, Tan Yankai came to his study. His wife went to bed early, so if he came home after nine o'clock, Tan Yankai would not go to the bedroom, but would sleep directly in the study.
Entering the study, Tan Yankai turned on the light, and the next moment, he saw a man in black with a black scarf on his face, sitting behind his usual desk.
"Somebody come!"
Tan Yankai shouted for the guards without even thinking about it.
At the same time, he quickly rushed to the bookcase next to him and quickly opened a hidden compartment on the bookshelf.
Although he has been out of the military for many years, he was once a soldier who actually went on the battlefield. At this time, he was not Tan Yankai, but he was calm in the face of danger, and even though he is older now, his movements are still vigorous.
But after he opened the secret compartment, he found that it was empty.
Tan Yankai's expression changed slightly.
"Is this what you're looking for?"
The man in black sitting behind the desk threw a Boloni pistol on the desk and said this to Tan Yankai calmly.
The voice of the man in black was hoarse and low. I don't know if it was born like this or because his face was covered with a black cloth.
While speaking, the man in black took out a piece of white paper from a pile of white paper on the desk and folded the white paper in half.
Tan Yankai glanced at the pistol on the desk and asked sharply:
"Who are you? What do you want to do when you sneak into my house!"
Tan Yankai was still quite calm at this time, and the loud shouting at this time was not only to delay time, but also to attract the guards and servants in the mansion.
The man in black didn't say anything, nor did he stop Tan Yankai from shouting deliberately. He just buried his head in folding the white paper in his hand.
Ten seconds later, it was still quiet outside the study door, and there was no sound of Tan Yankai's expectant footsteps.
When no one came for so long, Tan Yankai finally realized something was wrong, and then he immediately turned around and ran out of the study.
The man in black raised his hand, and saw Tan Yankai flying upside down and landing on his own large walnut desk. His whole body seemed to be suppressed by something invisible, and he could no longer move. No more.
At this moment, Tan Yankai's face finally showed an expression of fear.
Because he finally knew who he had met.
At this time, the man in black finally folded the white paper with his fingers dexterously flipping.
What he folded out was a paper swallow.
The man in black picked up the paper swallow and waved it in front of Tan Yankai's eyes.
"I am Yanzi."
Under the black mask, a low and hoarse voice came out again.
Tan Yankai was suddenly startled.
Of course he knows who "Swallow" is. In Jingcheng today, the reputation of the word "Swallow" is even louder than the name of Warlord Xu Pingxi.
"Why...are you looking for me..."
Tan Yankai asked with a slightly trembling voice:
"I, Tan Yankai, consider myself to be an upright official. Although I cannot say that I have benefited anyone, I am conscientious in my work and have never done anything untoward!"
As he spoke, Tan Yankai's voice gradually became louder, seeming a little angry and unwilling.
The man in black stared into his eyes and said indifferently:
"Tan Yankai, have you really never done anything wrong?"
"Sixteen years ago, at the foot of Luojia Mountain, didn't you feel guilty?"
The last words of the man in black made Tan Yankai's face turn extremely pale, and his body began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Who...are you?"
At this time, Tan Yankai seemed extremely frightened, as if the secret he had hidden for many years was suddenly revealed.
"Who am I? I should let you see who I am, otherwise even if I kill you, how can I feel happy in my heart!"
The man in black murmured as if to himself, then slowly took off the black scarf covering his face with his other hand, revealing his face in front of Tan Yankai.
As a result, Tan Yankai's complexion turned from snow-white to deathly gray.
"...It's you, it's you...you are Yanzi..."
Tan Yankai first noticed something incredible. The muscles on his face were all distorted irregularly and trembling.
"Do you know why I came to see you today?"
"Swallow" continued.
He pulled the desk calendar over on the desk, placed it in front of Tan Yankai's eyes, and pointed at the date displayed on the desk calendar.
The date on the desk calendar turned to the page of April 14th.
This was done by Tan Yankai himself this morning.
"Have you forgotten what day today is?"
Tan Yankai looked at the date, his eyes slowly showed a sudden look, and then his eyes became more frightened.
"Do you want to come now? It seems that you have never felt guilty in these years."
There was a little more mockery in the man in black's tone.
"Yes, today is the memorial day of those thirty thousand people, so I chose to kill you today."
"You can't kill me! I know that you people are all bound by heaven's rules. You can't kill me, a mortal!"
Tan Yankai shouted hysterically.
"Haha, you know so much about our affairs. It seems that he really regarded you as a friend and that's why he told you so many things. Maybe this is why you dared to be so unscrupulous sixteen years ago. Just do it for a reason!”
"But for me, what other rules are there?"
While speaking, "Swallow" stretched out his hand, used the wings of the swallow in his hand to gently slide across Tan Yankai's throat, and cut open Tan Yankai's throat.
Tan Yankai's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, flashing with despair and regret, and then dissipated. The corners of his mouth were horribly distorted, and blood gushes from his throat, instantly turning the paper swallow red.
"Swallow" watched the thick blood flowing from Tan Yankai's throat, onto the walnut desk table, and dripping onto the thick wool carpet.
On the red carpet, there is a deeper dark red.
"Even if you pour all the water from East Lake, you can't wash away the blood of Luojia Mountain."
"Besides, over the years, in order to maintain your reputation, you have done less dirty things! How can you not say it without regrets?"
"Swallow" Dandan sneered and placed the blood-stained paper swallow on Tan Yankai's twisted face.
Then he took out a camera, pointed it at Tan Yankai's face and took a few photos.
Then he let out a burst of laughter that seemed to be extremely joyful and comfortable, stood up, opened the window of the study, and flew into the night outside the window.
…
Shuguan made himself a new bed.
His original bed had collapsed under his own weight when Zhou Tiangong broke through yesterday, so he had to make a new one.
After living with the old cripple for eighteen years, he has inherited most of the old cripple's skillful hands, so there is no problem in building a bed.
He cut a tree on the cliff and made a single bed in just one afternoon. After all, in addition to his dexterity, he also possesses extraordinary strength.
After making the wooden bed, it was already evening. In order not to make the floor at night, Shu Guan didn't even have time to eat the dinner sent by the little Taoist priest Xuancheng, so he directly asked the bed frame to help him go into his bedroom and start assembling it.
While assembling the new bed, Shu Guan discovered a secret in the room where he had lived for almost two years.
What I want to mention here is that the half-story building where Shu Guan lives used to belong to senior brother Zhai Tianci who died in the war sixteen years ago. When Shu Guan moved in, there were animals, tables, chairs, beds, and all kinds of furniture inside. It was all available. Shu Guan had no requirements for these things, so he just used the things left by Senior Brother Zhai, and they haven't even been moved in the past two years.
But when he was assembling the new bed, he discovered that where the bed was originally placed, on the wall blocked by the original bedposts, there was a hidden cabinet.
Because Shu Guan had never touched the bed before, and the secret cabinet was not hidden with a spiritual magic circle, he never noticed anything unusual. It was not until today when he was installing the new bed that he discovered a wooden board on the wall. It can be moved.
And when the wooden board was removed, there was a hidden cabinet about half a foot high.
And since Brother Zhai did not set up a hidden magic circle, it seems that the secret cabinet was not originally used to hide anything particularly important and hidden, but maybe just for the convenience of retrieval.
In the dark cabinet, there was only a book with yellowed pages.
There is also a longevity lock made of gold and a jade pendant.
Shu Guan first picked up the longevity lock and the jade pendant and looked at them, and then he was very sure that they were just normal accessories for women and children, and not a magic weapon for practitioners.
Then he picked up the yellowed paper book and flipped through it casually. However, this was not a secret book of Taoist skills, but just some notes describing daily things.
...Senior Brother Zhai is an extraordinary person, he actually writes a diary...
Shu Guan praised in his heart, then put the jade pendant and longevity lock aside first, and began to concentrate on assembling his new bed.
It took Hua more than an hour to put the entire wooden bed together, put on a new bedding, and went to have dinner again. It was already around nine o'clock in the evening.
Originally Shu Guan was going to start practicing the second turn of the Nine Turns Pure Yang Kung and start concentrating the acupoints in his body, but then he saw the yellowed paper again.
After thinking for a while, Shu Guan decided to give himself a day off today.
So he picked up the notebook left by Senior Brother Zhai, lay on the bed, and began to read through it carefully.
Then it was enough to see the dawn of the next day, and then I finished reading a thick book of notes left by Senior Brother Zhai.
There is nothing particularly secret or important in the entire notebook, but if there were such secret records, I'm afraid Senior Brother Zhai would not leave this notebook so casually.
In fact, this notebook cannot be said to be a real diary, because the time span from the earliest record to the last record is very large, which lasts for thirty or forty years, starting from the time when Zhai Tianci was not practicing, until he fought against On the eve of death, the records were intermittent. Sometimes there was no one for several years, and sometimes there were five or six in one day.
As for the things recorded, most of them are some emotional insights. This notebook is more like a medium for Zhai Tianci to talk to himself.
So after reading the entire notebook, although I didn't see the secrets of the practice world that Shu Guan initially hoped to see, I did learn a lot about the character of Senior Brother Zhai who I had heard of for a long time but had never met. understanding.
Senior Brother Zhai turns out to be a very "vulgar" person.
The vulgarity here is not the vulgarity of the philistine, but that Zhai Tianci is a person who has too much worldly world and mundane things in his heart.
He would be brooding over the injustices he witnessed or heard about in the world and would have sleepless nights, so he would write down his feelings in this notebook.
In this notebook, what he complained about most was that the heavenly rules were too strict.
"Since you are already extraordinary, why should you be restrained like this?"
This is a sentence written by Zhai Tianci in his notes. The handwriting of that sentence can be seen clearly on the back of the paper, showing the excitement and anger of Zhai Tianci at that time. As for the reason for writing this sentence, it is because that day, the Northern Expedition began. The vanguard of the army arrived outside Jingcheng.
In short, Senior Brother Zhai Tianci is such a person who has been practicing for decades and is still so passionate and a little naive.
That's why in the end he was quickly involved in the war between the old and new warlords sixteen years ago.
I'm sad that my master once said that Senior Brother Zhai is actually more suitable to go to the academy instead of entering their Good Self View.
As for the last entry in Zhai Tianci's notebook, there are only a few words.
"I never thought he would do such a despicable thing. Zhai was blind and mistakenly mistook a villain for a gentleman. I regret not listening to Uncle Qi's advice. Today's battle is all about death!"
Between the words, there seemed to be great anger and a determination to never return.
The entire notebook ends here.
Shu looked at the date written on the last note, and it was clearly: April 13, the seventeenth year of the Republic of China.
Shu Guan didn't know who the "him" in Senior Brother Zhai's last note was, and what he had done to make Senior Brother Zhai so angry, and it seemed to be related to Senior Uncle Qi.
...During the battle in Jingcheng, Master Qi seemed to have not gone crazy yet...
Shu Guan thought this, then slowly closed the notebook, and turned his eyes to the longevity lock and the jade pendant.
In Senior Brother Zhai's notes, these two things were mentioned, in the penultimate note.
The longevity lock was a gift to his one-year-old daughter, and the jade pendant was a gift to his wife.
Shu Guan was not surprised at all that Senior Brother Zhai suddenly got married and had a daughter after practicing for decades.
Because Senior Brother Zhai is such a casual and unrestrained person who doesn't want to be restrained, he also recorded his experience of meeting and getting married to that woman in his notes.
Those records reminded Shu Guan of the incident between himself and Rong Miao, and he was quite moved.
I wonder what happened to Senior Brother Zhai's wife and daughter now. He only found out about this after reading Senior Brother Zhai's notes today.
By the way, why not ask Senior Brother Mu? He should know that the two things left by Senior Brother Zhai must be returned to his family.
Shu Guan raised his head and looked at the sky outside the window. It was already bright.
So he got up and walked out of half the building to find Mu Yao.
