A few decades ago, in Zhoujia Village near Yingzui Ridge, there was a wealthy landlord named Zhou.
This week, the rich man occupied several acres of land in his courtyard alone, and his family had countless farms and shops. When his aunt and eldest daughter went out, they would need more than a dozen sedans to carry them.
You have to say that this person is usually kind and open-minded to others, but when he is offered money, he becomes clumsy and stupid.
Just because I made an agreement with my long-term worker to start work when the rooster crows, in order to make the long-term worker at home work more, I secretly trained my own rooster to crow at what time.
When you go to work in the morning, he praises you for making the farm your home.
When you work at night, he scolds you for only knowing how to eat for free, and the farm does not support idlers.
Every time there is a natural disaster, people will go around collecting fields and collecting slaves.
Even if it is not the long-term workers, it is not very good for the tenants who farm their own land.
As soon as the New Year banquet comes to the end of the year, I sing a big show at the top of my voice!
First, he praised the tenants who paid too much in land rent and rewarded them with a few taels of silver.
Then he immediately made angry remarks and scolded the tenants who paid the least rent for being lazy and not working hard, and even threatened to take back the land of the tenant who paid the least rent and evict him.
As soon as these words came out, the tenants panicked!
I have worked hard for a year, and no matter how much I pay, I can still eat. If the land is harvested, my whole family will starve to death.
Therefore, even if some tenants really had a small harvest, in order to avoid having their land taken away, they would have to give a few percent more to the man named Zhou, euphemistically saying that the harvest was good.
In this way, Mr. Zhou only needs to select the tenants who pay the most rent every year, spend a few taels of silver, and earn dozens of times the land rent income at the end of the year.
There are so many evil deeds, and he behaves like a country squire and a wise man, and he does all disgusting things.
He, after all, fell on the door and lost the lives of his whole family.
On that day, the old rich man's mother celebrated her 80th birthday. He spent hundreds of taels of silver to raise funds and organize a temple fair to celebrate her birthday. Even the officials in the county did not know how many officials were invited.
As soon as you enter the hall, the furnishings must be luxurious, the food must be exquisite, and the comings and goings must be wealthy, but you made a mistake in inviting the theater troupe.
Rich Man Zhou only wanted to hire the Yang Opera Troupe, not the Yin Opera Troupe. After all, those actors also had to pay, and it hurt his heart to spend tens of taels of money in vain.
As for him, he thought of a bad move.
Get rid of the yin opera troupe and let the yang opera troupe sing yang opera for half the day, and then wait until there is no one to perform yin opera at night. Spend the same money to sing two operas.
When Mr. Zhou thought about this money-saving trick, he was so happy that he drank several more glasses of wine.
A slave reminded him not to forget the rules, but he responded with a slap in the face - Old naughty slave, I told you to talk too much, sir, I have killed many poor people, are you still afraid of poor people?
During the day, there is nothing to do. People from all over the world come to celebrate birthdays, and it is lively and beautiful.
But at night, when the villagers returned home and the guests dispersed, the stage stood alone in the darkness. Even if the oil lamp was lit, it looked like a wild cat with no light.
Na Danjiao wore green and black sleeves, a snow-white scarf on her head, a chain in her hand and a silver sword, and sang "Dou E's Injustice".
From time to time, a dark wind blows up on the stage, causing the stage to whimper and shake incessantly. No matter how good the performance is, the performers choke and stagger. Regardless of whether they are playing drums, banging bangs or gongs, drums and erhu, they all seem to have lost their souls and are playing badly.
Once Jiaoshan Lihong's performance was full of blood, the whistling wind turned into a ghost crying, and there were faint white shadows swaying around the stage. Although there were not many people visible, it felt like it was full of people.
There were people everywhere holding and respecting the troupe leader. Seeing this posture, they were so frightened that they quickly returned the money and left at night with the troupe.
Rich Master Zhou was so happy to see that the troupe had refunded the money for performing the underworld opera that he had saved dozens of taels. He was so happy that he forgot about everything.
The first half of the night was uneventful, but in the second half of the night, extremely unpleasant ghost cries and wolf howls could be heard throughout Zhou's house. The master and maidservants were killing each other like crazy people, and they were able to live in peace after a night of turmoil.
Some villagers who heard the noise climbed over the courtyard wall to check, and screamed in fear. When they got to the ground, yellow soup was flowing all over the ground along their trouser legs.
This matter was quickly reported to the county. As soon as the yamen officer opened the door of the house, oh~
The whole family, no matter whether they were old ladies or young masters, were all hanged neatly on the beams in front of the hall. On the contrary, the maids and slaves were fine. They were just knocked unconscious. After pouring a few bowls of cold well water, they immediately woke up. .
The county magistrate called the court to interrogate the case, and the servants all responded to the question!
It turned out that all the masters were crazy last night. They cried and complained about how miserable their lives were. They were not even allowed to listen to the drama. They cried, made trouble and hanged themselves. Anyone who stopped them would scratch and bite them. Finally, the maid The servants couldn't stop them, so all the rich men were hanged on the beams this week.
Since he was being punished for disrespecting ghosts and gods, the county magistrate had nothing to investigate. He asked his maids and slaves to draw evidence and immediately regained his freedom.
As for Mr. Zhou's vast wealth, the county magistrate was of high moral integrity and naturally kept it for Mr. Zhou for the benefit of the villagers.
Clarify the reasons and close the case.
This matter should be left in the mouth of the old man, that is, the rich man Zhou will die if he does many unjust things. It is the retribution of this world for his bad rules.
But when he asked his second uncle, Old Man Yue puffed on his pipe, looked at him with a sly look, and there was something in his words:
"If the maids were really scratched, why didn't they have any injuries on their bodies? Moreover, I heard that the reins used to kill them were the bloody ropes commonly used by yin opera actors!"
"We don't know about this. Anyway, the servants are free, the county magistrate gets the treasure, the shady actor vents his anger, and who cares how the wealthy Zhou dies?"
There is a saying that sins committed by God can be forgiven, but sins committed by oneself cannot be punished. After all the bad things that Rich Lord Zhou did, God will punish him. The people in the countryside have been suffering from Rich Zhou for a long time. After half a month of tea and dinner, no one mentioned this matter again.
If you mention it again, you will be asking the temple leader to stick to the old rules!
