From Chief to Ball

Where he grabbed the sand just now, a black and swollen hand was exposed. It seemed that he could barely touch the yellow sand, but he died in the sand in the end.

Squatting helplessly on the ground, he has killed people, beheaded them, and killed women and children. He has seen hundreds of dead and wounded on the battlefield, but he has never killed a carpenter. Two months ago, he handed himself a carpenter's hammer people.

What he yelled to the woods was true, he didn't kill these people, he just caught them with the clan when they resisted, and he stretched out his hand to catch a man when he fled to the grass river That's it, that's all, but these people are still dead.

The outstretched hand seemed to mock him again, so at the moment when the heavy rain fell, Muma jumped up, picked up a stone and smashed it hard on that arm, as if wanting to bury something, while shouting frantically: "You were the ones who did it first...you were the ones who resisted...I'm not wrong..."

After shouting for a while, he wiped the rainwater from his eyes, and finally poured a gourd of wine, which is now quite expensive, beside that hand, stuck a wooden stick, and returned home in a daze.

After the rain, there is a rainbow, which is as beautiful as ever, just as many people followed Chen Jian up the stone mountain near Xiacheng when Xiacheng was still barren a long time ago, and looked at the villages below the mountain stretching hopefully under the rainbow.

It’s just that no one wants to see the rainbow nowadays. Mu Ma wanders the desolate streets of Xiacheng, feeling like a lamb that has lost its leader. The wind turns, east and west.

Under the rainbow, several people are digging a pit, with some logs and ropes piled up next to them.

"Hanging?"

"Yeah, haven't you heard? When the people in your workshop rebelled, the people in another workshop also rebelled. The leader is not the worker, but the person with our surname... It's terrible, he won't help People with my own surname actually help these people and resist with them..."

The person who dug the pit was still muttering, numbly looked at the high-quality lambskin on the person, cursed secretly, and suddenly punched the person in the face.

The person next to him rushed over and shouted, "Are you crazy?"

"Yes, I'm crazy! You're all crazy!"

"Tie him up! Keep him sober!"

"Forget it, it's all our own people. Go home, Muma, go home."

Muma gritted her teeth, was pulled away by several people, took a few steps back, did not struggle anymore, and stared blankly at the erected gallows.

In the evening, the leaders of several clans gathered everyone and escorted the bound people to the bottom of the gallows.

Numa's ears were buzzing, he didn't hear everything clearly, only heard some words that made him feel more comfortable, intermittently.

"...he betrayed the clan, spoke for the outsiders, and rebelled against the clan with the outsiders, trying to rob us of our food. There is nothing more sacred and closer than the blood relationship between clans, and there is nothing closer than this Important, the temporary chaos will soon pass, and next year we can live better... He turned his back on the blood in his veins, betrayed all blood relatives, nothing is a greater sin than this... So, through the clan deliberations, and sentenced him to hang..."

The rope was put around the man's neck, and before it was pulled tight, he suddenly shouted: "Betrayal? Land farming cattle... Hang me, traitor... When Jixia returns, gallows will still be erected in this place, but you are the ones to be hanged... Maggots!"

A person in charge of execution next to him slammed the man's teeth with a copper sword, the rope was pulled tight, his body struggled violently, snot and tears flowed out, and his purple-black, swollen tongue kept moving towards him. Outstretched, his hands seemed to want to hold the noose, but finally failed.

The gallows hung in the city for several days to warn that the interests of the clan are noble and cannot be betrayed, and there is nothing closer than the blood in the veins.

This is right, there is no mistake at all, and the above reasons can be completely fulfilled. Based on this, Xinxia City was born under this gallows. With its own ideas and consciousness, it finally got rid of the previous The heavy shackles of indoctrination.Everything is free and looks absolutely equal. Everything is based on personal efforts, and there are no rules. The only crime is to betray the clan. As long as you don't betray the clan, you won't be hanged.

The bottom of the entire city is in a heavy alternation every day. Maybe when I wake up in the morning, I still feel that the previous Xiacheng is very good, but in the evening, looking at the trembling slaves, I feel that the current Xiacheng The city is fine.

Maybe the chaos is only temporary, maybe it will be fine next year, no matter how bad it is that I still have land, salt is free, and there is no tax, it will not be worse than before.

Maybe the chaos is forever, maybe it will be the same next year.Even if I have land, what about the iron farm tools?

It's just that no one has given them another explanation.The people in Xiacheng who could explain all this were divided into three parts. One part went to Yucheng with Chen Jian, one part fled to the fief of Langpi, and the other part was in the city. The middle class, at least understand what they want, and stand in the position of leaving the city to see that everything is right and there is nothing wrong with it. There is always a standard for judging right and wrong. Never expect right in the eyes of slaves and masters. Same with wrong.

Knowing what you want is necessary to be a leader, and more people who don't know what they want can only live like this day by day.

Although it is chaotic, life must go on, just for the possibility of "maybe it will be fine next year", it is worth living hard, at least there is one possibility, what is more important than this?

But to live, there will always be all kinds of misfortunes. Sometimes it has nothing to do with life and death or even is far away, but it is still unbearable misfortune.

One night in September, after days without a dead body, everything seemed to be on track.

After dinner, the children fell asleep, and Muma was lying on the warm sackcloth quilt filled with wheat straw. The wife put the youngest child to sleep, and quietly touched Muma's body with her hand, and lowered it little by little. groping.

It's part of life, but it hasn't been there since May.The wife tried very hard to do something, but in the end it was in vain, still soft.

"tired?"

"Ah."

He wanted to hide the past. When his wife gave birth to the youngest child in March, he was full of vitality like a male dog before. He was in the prime of life, and the patience from pregnancy to the birth of the child once made him irritable.

In May and June, he had six or seven hundred acres of land and a few slaves. At that time, every day after the child fell asleep, he would always do what a man should do.

But ever since that burial, ever since he saw that hand, and then saw the hanging in the center of the city, his heart felt as if he had been pierced by thorns, telling himself over and over again that everything had nothing to do with him, Even if I didn't do anything, those people would still die, but I couldn't convince myself, until one day I realized that I was suppressing so much that I couldn't even fulfill the obligations of a man.

The woman just heard about the outside world and has been taking care of the child at home. Some bloody hearings will not be the same as what she saw with her own eyes.

The woman thought, at this time, I can't say more, I can only encourage, pretending not to care and jokingly said: "Last year, you were like a male dog. You were still working in the field, and now you are tired. At that time... "

But I never thought that such a simple sentence ignited numb anger. It was the first time a woman saw a man get angry, and she tore off the quilt and shouted angrily: "Last year! Last year! That was last year! Everything has changed now! What? Everything has changed! Even I have become like a castrated dog, I just can’t get hard anymore, I also want to go back to last year, but I can’t go back! I started the fight in the mill, and I was the first to eat what the workshop workers wanted Fight them with sticks, and now they're all dead! All dead!"

"The slaves I bought were originally public slaves, and I also bought public land. I didn't buy a former Chinese, nor did I treat them as slaves. I didn't even grab the land of a new Chinese to farm cattle! I have One's own right and wrong, never surpassed."

"I don't want to kill my own people, I just want to make our family live better. Those people have approached me. As long as I stand on their side, I can get more land and cheap salt. After all, I am numb. I still have some fame, but I don't. Because I think the salt is disgusting, I just want to live normally. When those people hanged, I punched them, but what else could I do? "

"I'm not the leader of the clan, nor a child of Jixia's school. I'm just the youngest person in Xia City. I just want to be a good person, but now I'm like a stray dog. This is the price of being a good person!"

"Some people supported their resistance and were sent to the gallows. Some people killed Xinxia people and plundered the land and cattle, but what about me? I didn't do anything!"

"I'm just an ordinary person, I won't bully them, but I won't go to the gallows for them, I'm just for my women and children... I'm just the youngest person from Xiacheng!"

He kicked open the door angrily, and walked out half naked. The woman hurriedly chased after him and called Numa's name, but only saw a figure going away in the darkness. The woman chased it out naked, and finally squatted in front of the house. , ignoring the coldness of the clear dew outside, weeping.

Chapter 77 The painting back then

A few days later, the quarrel of that day and night had long since passed. Mu Ma and a few others were outside collecting hay for the winter. They were far away from the city and might not be able to go back at night.

At night, several people quietly found Muma.

"Have you heard? Another person was hanged the day before yesterday."

"What's the reason this time?"

"Who knows."

After chatting for a while, someone whispered, "I can't bear this kind of life anymore, this is not Xiacheng, Xiacheng shouldn't be like this."

"Then what can we do? Who can stand with us now? Slaves? They want us to die. Xinguo people? They look at us like a dog sees a cat. They won't trust us. What about Ji Xia? ? I don't know if I will live or die..."

"If only Jixia was here, she would always tell us what to do. We are all lost now."

After a long time, someone finally whispered: "Let's go. One day Jixia will come back, do you really believe that Jixia will die in Dongyi? Once he comes back, these people will definitely let us be recruited. In the city, it's hard to say what those people will do if you don't go. If you go...against Jixia...do you think these people can win the fight? What crime is it to fight against the leader?"

"Where?"

"The fief over the wolf skin will go to the west to mow the grass five days later. Let's take the women and children and escape."

"Will they blame us? After all, we violated Jixia's rules back then."