Bright Spring

At this time, a middle-aged woman who was kneeling on the ground wearing sackcloth and mourning could not bear it, and immediately burst into tears.

A group of people walked into the yard, came to the mourning hall, bowed and saluted, and then the host arranged two tables of seats in the yard, and everyone took their seats.The yard was full of smog, including smoke from burning joss sticks and paper money, as well as soot such as straws and other soot from the cooks building stoves outside to cook food.

The people and guests around have been looking at this side all the time, and people seem to be discussing where the master's relatives and friends are officials.Coupled with the continuous chattering of Taoist priests, the place is full of noise.

Zhu Gaoxu saw the people at the nearby table looking at him, so he simply turned around and asked, "Who died in this family?"

"Don't your lord know?" A man in gray cloth asked.

Zhu Gaoxu said, "We are just passing by."

The grey-haired man said, "It's miserable for a white-haired man to give away a black-haired man. The one who died was the eldest son of the head of the family. He was in his 40s. He was still working in the fields all day yesterday. When it was dark, he went to the lake to wash the mud. drowned."

Zhu Gaoxu sighed, "It's really tragic."

At this time, the crying in the mourning hall suddenly increased, and a woman's voice began to read while crying.What she read was much easier to understand than the Taoist scriptures, so Zhu Gaoxu listened carefully.

The woman cried heart-rendingly, and her words were very moving.It probably tells about the tragic forty years of the deceased. He started working when he was young, and he didn’t have a good day. He gave the rations to his younger brothers and sisters evenly when he was young.Poor thing, he worked hard all day before he died, and he didn't have a good meal.

They were all in plain language, and Zhu Gaoxu felt that even the Tatar Asari understood, because her expression looked very depressed.The Binzhou official who accompanied him at the same table looked terrified, as if he thought it might not be a good thing for the Holy Majesty to see the local people in such misery.

"For thousands of years, most people have lived like this. It was like this in the past, and it will not end easily in the future." Zhu Gaoxu looked at the Binzhou officials calmly and said.

At this time, I suddenly thought of Hu Wei's political ideas, and felt that Hu Wei's ideal of being an official was actually full of humanistic sincerity.

Chapter 934 Locking the Resentful Soul

The crying voices in the hall stopped for a while, Zhu Gaoxu said a few more words to the man in the gray short coat at the next table, and asked if there was anyone surnamed Tang nearby.The man responded immediately, saying that to the west there is a place called Xiguan, next to the lake, where many people with the surname Tang lived.

Zhu Gaoxu suddenly became interested, and asked directly if he knew there was a woman named Tang Sai'er.The man didn't know, but he still kindly suggested that there was a matchmaker in Xiguan who knew a lot of young girls, so he could ask the matchmaker; it was better to ask her than to ask Lizheng, because Lizheng mostly only knew men in his jurisdiction.

Duan Xuehen seemed to be a little curious about Zhu Gaoxu asking for a woman with a name and surname, so she turned her head and glanced at him, but she didn't say anything.After the villagers served food one after another, Duan Xuehen ate it first, and then put it in the bowl in front of Zhu Gaoxu.

After lunch, Zhu Gaoxu asked Hou Hai to bid farewell to the master's family, and then left here with a dozen people, following the west road.

The lake was soon seen. Zhu Gaoxu looked around the lake for a while, and then ordered scouts to find someone nearby to ask where the "Xiguan" was.

At this moment, I saw a group of people walking towards the lake on a dirt road.Among them was a Taoist priest wearing Taoist robes and holding a wooden sword, and several others were wearing black cloth scarves on their arms.

Zhu Gaoxu sat on the horseback, wanting to see what they were doing.

When those people saw Zhu Gaoxu and others, they bowed down to worship from a distance, because there were people in official uniforms in the team.Then a man with a long face came towards this side, and the other people continued to walk towards the lake.

When the long-faced man came up, he knelt and kowtowed to Hou Hai in the red robe, and Binzhou Wupin Tongzhi in the green robe, saying "My lord".This is the appellation habit left by the Yuan Dynasty, and it is still used today.The long-faced man is Li Zheng here, also surnamed Tang.

Hou Hai asked him, "Where is Xiguan?"

Lizheng replied respectfully: "The area around here is called Xiguan for several miles."

Regarding Zhu Gaoxu's concerns, no matter whether it is reasonable or not, Hou Hai is very concerned, he immediately asked: "Do you know there is a girl named Tang Sai'er?"

Lizheng thought for a while and said, "The villain will ask for you right away." After he finished speaking, he got up, bowed again and left in a hurry.

Li Zheng, who relies on the government to eat, has a very submissive attitude. On the contrary, those people who don't pay much attention to the government, most of them don't know much about etiquette.The villagers who arrived at the lake put down their things without making a sound.

Suddenly, an old man with gray hair and beard grabbed a handful of something and threw it at the lake. There was a sound of "sand" water in the lake like raindrops.The old man threw small objects repeatedly, and it took a while before he stopped.

Then several people hurriedly lit a fishing net and sprinkled ashes into the water again.Then the Taoist priest came up, holding a wooden sword, lighting the talisman paper, and chanting words there.

Zhu Gaoxu watched for a long time, but didn't understand what they were doing.

When the villagers packed up their things and were about to leave, Zhu Gaoxu jumped off his horse and walked up.Zhu Gaoxu didn't reveal his identity, so he was still polite to these villagers, and asked, "What are you all doing just now?"

The Taoist bent down and said, "Lock the resentful soul."

"Oh?" Zhu Gaoxu made a sound.

The Taoist explained: "The place where the elder son of the master fell into the water yesterday is here; and in the same place, a woman was drowned the year before last. Before the woman died well, her resentful soul was trapped in the water and could not be reincarnated in the underworld. In order to reincarnate, one has to be dragged into the water. Last year the woman went to the underworld, and now the resentful soul of the eldest son is here again, and the next time the victim will be a woman again.

To prevent the wraith from continuing to harm the surrounding villagers, it must be locked.Throw iron filings and ore into the water, drive them into the bottom of the water without turning over, and then tie them with fishing nets.If the pindao locks it with a talisman, the resentful soul can't move and can no longer harm the world.Since then, this place will no longer drown people. "

Zhu Gaoxu nodded thoughtfully.

Duan Xuehen's voice suddenly said: "Can the resentful soul trapped at the bottom of the water still be reincarnated?"

The Taoist said: "Of course not, it will only be trapped here forever."

Then the old man who threw the iron filings sighed.

The Taoist hurriedly said again: "This is the old father of the deceased. The poor Taoist will only practice the law with the consent of the master's family. Farewell."

A group of people then bent down to pay tribute, and went back along the dirt road together.

Zhu Gaoxu watched their backs, and then turned his head to look at Fafa's water.Duan Xuehen's voice said from behind: "Why do you have to do it? Let him continue to drag people into the water, and everyone can be reincarnated in the future. The life of the villagers is so hard, it is better to die early and be reborn early."

"It makes sense." Zhu Gaoxu turned around and said.

After hearing Duan Xuehen's words, the eye-catching Asari was also in a daze.However, these superstitions obviously did not only exist in the villages of the Ming Dynasty, but also in the grasslands. After all, people are very imaginative.

Zhu Gaoxu saw Duan Xuehen's depression again, so he said nicely: "Not to mention whether there are ghosts, even if there is such a thing, something beyond the knowledge of the world, it must not be that simple. It’s all self-deception, you don’t have to pay too much attention to it. The important thing is not the ghost, but the human heart.”

Duan Xuehen shook his head and said, "I don't understand why the deceased's father is willing to do such things."

Zhu Gaoxu couldn't answer for a while.

On the contrary, Hou Hai said: "De concubine Mingjian, yin and yang are different. They are father and son when they live, but they are not when they die. What's more, they call them 'eldest sons', not sons. Obviously, the old man has more than one son."

Duan Xue hated to ignore Hou Hai, and fell silent sullenly.

Zhu Gaoxu understood her thoughts very well.The main reason was that when we were about to eat lunch earlier, a woman in the mourning hall cried out to the deceased, saying that the life of the deceased was very miserable and boring, and Duan Xuehen also heard it.The whole life of this drowned villager was poor and troubled since he was a child. He worked hard all his life in farming and serving corvee. Then he drowned, which may be regarded as his relief.

The misery and suffering in the world really have no bottom line.

Even if Duan Xuehen had been an assassin, it seemed that she couldn't bear it. She was not a cold-blooded and heartless person.Maybe women tend to be soft-hearted, but Duan Xuehen was born in the noble family of the Mu family. Even her adoptive mother Duan Yang is paranoid and at least a member of the Duan family in Dali. Maybe she really doesn't know much about this other kind of suffering.

Of course, Zhu Gaoxu didn't believe that a rural Taoist priest could have any spells.Therefore, the dead man who was later trapped in the water was nothing more than the imagination of the living man, who believed that death was the end.

A group of people rode slowly by the lake and waited for a long time.

Lizheng, surnamed Tang, finally returned. Lizheng approached and knelt down to Hou Hai who was wearing a red robe, and said, "My lord, there is indeed a young lady named Tang Sai'er in Xiguan, she is the only daughter in the family, and she is fifteen years old. It's a pity that Before her father went out, he made her betrothed to the third son of the Lin family in the neighboring village."

Zhu Gaoxu was suddenly a little surprised. He didn't think there was a great chance of finding Tang Sai'er in advance. Unexpectedly, the place he chose to station in Binzhou this time happened to be not far away.Moreover, the daughters of ordinary people generally do not have names. He originally thought that Tang Saier might have changed her name after becoming the leader of the rebel army; but now it seems that Tang Saier may have been called this name since she was a child.

Li was talking to Hou Hai, so Zhu Gaoxu didn't say anything.

Lizheng in the countryside will deal with the local county magistrate, so he is more knowledgeable than ordinary villagers.He should know that people in red official uniforms are high-ranking officials, and those in blue official uniforms are middle and low-level officials. In fact, even a clerk wearing a green round collar can subdue a Li Zheng.And Zhu Gaoxu was wearing an ordinary military uniform, so it was impossible for him to know the emperor. He should think that Zhu Gaoxu was the son of a high-ranking official. In comparison, he recognized Hou Hai, a bureaucrat.

Hou Hai said: "Lead the way, let's go and have a look."