Songling County is very mountainous. If you want to get to Huaide County, you still have to walk a long mountain road after going south over Nangang, where man-eating tigers once lived.
Qi Jingzhi carried a long knife and luggage on his back and walked briskly on the mountain road. He was looking forward to this trip to the county, especially the legendary Demon Suppressing Lieutenant's Office.
Speaking of which, this was the young man's first trip away from home. Fortunately, he had Jiao Yulang as his guide. He talked and laughed along the way without feeling bored at all.
The two of them were not in a hurry. They were a little late when they left. They saw that the sun was setting in the west, but they had no way to go to the village or a store, so they simply found a dilapidated courtyard next to the mountain road to stay.
The yard is not big, one and a half of the three tile-roofed houses collapsed, and only the east room looks intact.
There was air leakage on the west and south sides of the main room. There were two door panels across the ground at the base of the north wall. The door panels were covered with a layer of hay, as if someone had slept there not long ago.
The door leading to the east room was ajar, and there was nothing inside except an earthen kang covered with broken straw mats, and there was a faint musty smell wafting out.
Jiao Yulang had stayed here on the way here, and knowing that his brother Qi had never left the county, he introduced him: "I heard someone said that there are ancestral graves of a wealthy family in the forest on the hillside behind the house, and they built this house specifically. I sent servants to take care of it here. When my family came back to worship their ancestors, they also lived here. Later, it was abandoned for some reason. People passing by could not catch up with the hostel, so they stayed here to deal with it."
Qi Jingzhi nodded and saw that the hay on the door was still clean, so he was too lazy to sleep on the cool bed in the east room.
He randomly chose a door panel and sat down, took out steamed buns and dried meat from his bag, and started eating and drinking with the water in his bag.
Jiao Yulang also followed suit. Both of them had some cultivation skills, good teeth and appetite, and they also ate deliciously.
While eating and drinking, there was the sound of footsteps outside, and someone entered the courtyard again.
Qi Jingzhi looked up and saw that the people coming were a man and a woman, about twenty years old, both dressed as village men and women.
The woman had a bare face, clothed in cloth and wavy skirt, and was very neatly groomed. She was half a step behind the man when walking, and she held the man's clothes with one hand, making her appear extremely intimate.
The two of them obviously didn't expect that there would be anyone in this dilapidated yard with no smoke, and they immediately stopped.
The young man looked honest and honest. When he saw the long knife on Qi Jingzhi's back, he quickly took a step sideways to protect the woman behind him.
On the contrary, the woman was more courageous. She showed her head from behind the man. Her face was fair and her eyebrows were somewhat delicate.
She pushed the man gently and said with a smile: "It's all my fault for my slow walking. My husband and I were left together on this mountain road. It was dark and difficult to walk, so we had to rest first. Fortunately, we were not far from home. My parents-in-law If you wait impatiently, you will probably send your brothers-in-law to greet you. You two are so young, how dare you go out on a long trip or take a mountain road without an adult to take you with you? "
"We brothers have a hard life. Our parents passed away early, so we can't take care of ourselves!"
Qi Jingzhi swallowed the dried meat in his mouth and gave the other party a harmless smile: "Earlier, a tiger attack in Nangang in the county blocked the trade route. We were trapped at home and all the money we saved was gone. Now. Now I heard that the tiger problem had subsided, so I plucked up the courage to come out and go to my uncle's house in the county to beg for food."
When saying this, the young man deliberately did not use the Mandarin he learned from Master Meng, but instead used the local accent of Songling County.
Jiao Yulang on the side reluctantly listened to the general idea, turned to look at Qi's brother, his eyes were complicated, and he hesitated to speak.
After asking and answering questions, the two sides finally came to a conclusion. Believe it or not, the atmosphere in the courtyard finally became much more relaxed.
The woman took her man and entered the main room in an open manner, with a bit of sympathy on her face: "It's hard for you two brothers. You are from Songling County, right? I heard that the tiger is very evil, and you are still from the county. Did they send someone here to get rid of it?"
"No, they ate more than a dozen people just for cannibalism! The hunters would rather be punished than go to Nangang to hunt. The big families were so anxious that they asked Mr. Xiong County to offer a reward of one hundred taels. ! In the end, it’s not someone sent by the county, but a man from the capital on business, his surname is Dong, and he is some sort of envoy from Jinyun, the Five Clouds Division.”
When the woman saw that Qi Jingzhi spoke clearly and his accent was indeed from Songling County, her expression became more relaxed.
She stood on tiptoes and whispered something into her man's ear, and then said loudly: "You talk to the two little brothers here, I'll be back soon."
Qi Jingzhi and Jiao Yulang were both people with good hearing and vision. They knew that the woman wanted to go to the toilet, so they just pretended that they were deaf.
The young man was obviously hesitant, but he also knew that his wife wanted him to look at the two boys living in the main room, so he nodded.
The woman handed the small bundle she was carrying to the man, looked around, then walked around the north wall to the back of the house.
As soon as she left, the hall fell into silence.
The man put his luggage on the kang in the east room, checked the door carefully, and then stood upright at the door. When he saw Qi Jingzhi and Jiao Yulang looking over, he smiled innocently at them.
Seeing this, Jiao Yulang curled his lips, looked away, lowered his head and continued to compete with the dried meat in his hand.
Qi Jingzhi was very talkative: "Brother, are you bringing your sister-in-law back from your parents' home?"
The man was stunned for a moment, then nodded, and the smile on his face became a little brighter, but he still didn't speak.
In just a moment, the woman came back, holding a bundle of hay from nowhere in her hand, and also carrying a wooden stick.
She nodded slightly to Qi Jingzhi and Jiao Yulang, turned around and walked towards the east room.
Seeing the young man blocking the door, the woman didn't say anything. She only raised her head and glanced at her man silently.
The man was obviously a little dazed and hurriedly got out of the way.
The woman then went into the house minding her own business, and got on the earthen bed with hay in her arms.
The young man turned to look at his wife working on the kang, but her feet were nailed to the spot and she had no intention of going in to help.
Qi Jingzhi watched the whole process and frowned unconsciously.
Just now, he clearly saw a flash of panic and fear on the young man's face.
As the thought flashed, the young man suddenly smiled and said with sincerity in his native accent: "Brother, I have homemade dried meat here, do you want to try it?"
Jiao Yulang raised his head suddenly, glanced at Qi Jingzhi in surprise, and then turned to the young man, with doubt and scrutiny in his eyes.
When we go out and meet by chance, we always eat what we have. Whether you are inviting someone to eat or eating someone else's food, it is a taboo.
Unexpectedly, the young man only hesitated briefly before walking up to Qi Jingzhi, squatting down with his back to the door of the east room, and took a piece of dried meat with both hands.
He didn't eat, but just put the dried meat in his hand and rubbed it. After a while, he whispered: "I don't know why, but I suddenly felt a little scared."
Just when Qi Jingzhi was about to speak, he suddenly raised his head and said with a smile, "Sister-in-law, do you want to eat something too?"
At some point, the woman was already leaning against the door. She shook her head when she heard this and just stared at her man's back silently.
Now even Jiao Yulang could see something was wrong and calmly nudged Qi's brother with his elbow.
Qi Jingzhi nodded imperceptibly, smiled at the man and said, "Brother, my sister-in-law is calling you!"
The young man's face showed palpitations, but he had no choice but to stand up and enter the house almost against the door frame on the other side of the woman.
The woman nodded silently to Qi Jingzhi again, then stretched out her hand to close the door, and pushed the door against the door with a wooden stick when she heard the noise.
The next moment, Qi Jingzhi stood up suddenly, raised his hand and grasped the handle of Jianren Shou's knife behind his back.
But before he could take any further action, he heard a bang and the door of the east room exploded!
A black shadow landed on all fours, rushed out of the house like a whirlwind, jumped over Jiao Yulang's head without stopping, and knocked a big hole in the north wall.
Immediately afterwards, an extremely tall old man in brown clothes with white beard and hair chased out of the east room. With a slight step, he also jumped out of the hole in the wall.
The disgraced Jiao Yulang climbed up from the door panel and looked into the east room, only to find that there was no one inside.
While he was stunned, the little boy felt a heavy tap on his shoulder, and Qi Jingzhi's quiet voice came to his ears: "Let's go out and take a look!"
