Denghuaxiao

Chapter 78 Executioner

 The rain was still falling, and there was an eerie silence all around.

Liu Kun felt the cold wind penetrate through the cracks in his bones, and the old knee ailment he suffered from selling noodles at a stall began to hurt again.

He looked at the person in front of him and said in a panic and incoherently: "How is it possible? Isn't the girl dead?"

 The person in front of me only smiled slightly, and the smile was as moving as a silk painting.

 Liu Kun remembers Yatou.

Cousin Lu Qilin has two daughters and one son. Because Mrs. Lu narrowly escaped death and almost lost her life when giving birth to her little daughter, this little daughter is especially precious. Lu Rou, Lu Qian, and Mrs. Lu doted on her. Although Lu Qilin spoke harshly, he actually treated the youngest daughter with a rare indulgence.

 But the more precious it is, the harder it is to hide it. The youngest daughter of the Lu family was lost when she was nine years old. That year, Changwu County suddenly encountered an epidemic. The rest of the Lu family had just recovered from serious illness. The youngest daughter went out to fetch water one afternoon and never came back.

At that time, Liu Kun and his family had left Changwu County and arrived in the capital. They only learned of the matter when they received a letter from Lu Qilin. Lu Qilin begged him to help find someone in Shengjing. Liu Kun agreed, but felt sad in his heart. In this world, if a nine-year-old girl got lost, she would probably be sold by a passerby, so there was no chance of her being found.

After so many years, except for the Lu family who still refused to give up, everyone else believed that the Lu family’s youngest daughter had died long ago.

 Liu Kun thinks so too.

 He ​​looked at the person in front of him. Pinting was extremely beautiful, completely different from the fair, tender, arrogant and childish fat girl in his memory. However, if you look closely, you can see that there is a hint of beauty in her delicate features, and she is somewhat similar to her niece Lu Rou who died young.

Liu Kun's heart trembled when he thought of Lu Rou, and he suddenly felt guilty.

 He asked: "Are you really a little girl?"

The other person smiled faintly.

"Where have you been these past years? Your parents are looking for you everywhere, and your brother is also worried about you..." He was talking about irrelevant things, and he didn't know what he wanted to cover up with these words. As he spoke, he suddenly came back to his senses. , stopped for a moment, stared at the person opposite and said, "Did you write that letter to me?"

Why did the girl write to him?

Fan Zhenglian was mentioned in the letter. Has she already inquired about the Fan family? How much does she know about the inside story of the Taishi Mansion?

He thought with distracted eyes and shuddered involuntarily.

 Until the voice from the other side woke him up from his confusion.

“I wrote it, cousin, haven’t you already met my second brother?”

As soon as these words were spoken, there was a deathly silence around him.

After a long time, Liu Kun heard his dry voice and said with a forced smile: "Yes...I have seen that girl Rou died. He came to the capital to attend the funeral, and he came to my house to stay for a few days."

 “Just staying here?”

 “Just borrowing.”

“It’s not just that.” Lu Zhu said lightly, “You also betrayed him.”

"I didn't!" Liu Kun shouted suddenly. The tone of his voice changed in the cold rainy night, and he was startled.

He lowered his voice and spoke briefly and calmly.

"It's not me, it's him who committed a crime and is wanted by the government. Girl, I originally wanted to hide him at home, but the arrest documents were posted everywhere. The officials found my home. I have no choice. What can I do? ?”

 He said this as sincerely as if he was telling the truth.

Lu Zhen smiled, staring at him with clear eyes, as if seeing through the excuses in front of him the hidden secret in his heart.

"Really? I dare to ask my cousin, what did my second brother commit?"

“It’s...he broke into people’s houses to steal people’s property and insulted the owner’s daughter...”

Lu Zhuo nodded: "For such a big crime, my cousin harbored a fugitive, but the official did not charge you with harboring the crime, and took away my second brother alone. It's really reasonable."

Liu Kun's face turned pale and he clenched his teeth tightly. He suspected that the person in front of him already knew all the inside information, but he did not dare to reveal a word.

Lu Zhen looked at him, his eyes gradually becoming cold.

The man in front of him was timid and timid, with evasive eyes. On that familiar face, poverty and downfall had swallowed up his conscience, giving rise to desire and greed.

Father Lu Qilin is old-fashioned and strict, but his cousin Liu Kun is kind and lively. Lu Rou was quiet and quiet, and she and Lu Qian always followed Liu Kun around. Liu Kun would always pick her up and put her on his shoulders, pricking her face with thick stubble. Wang Chunzhi would also bring her a bright red candied haws when he came back from doing business at the temple fair.

 They once took shelter from the rain under the adjacent roof and ate in the same pot. To this day, the two ends of the stranger's road face each other, separated by an indelible blood feud.

 It rained non-stop at night.

Lu Zhen said calmly: "Cousin, I've been thinking..."

　　"If a living person makes a mistake, will he feel guilty? Will his conscience be disturbed? Will he toss and turn at night?"

“I have been observing for a long time and found that there is none, not at all.”

Liu Ji’s noodle shop on Queer Street is doing very well. Liu Zixian has become an official, Liu Zide is also preparing for his autumn wedding, Wang Chunzhi is getting a gold bracelet, and the Liu family is planning to move to a big house.

 Everything is good, very good, so good that it makes people jealous.

Liu Kun pursed his lips: "Girl..."

Lu Yan interrupted him: "But all the good things were obtained by stepping on the Lu family's blood. How can it not make people angry?"

 Liu Kun took a step back in fear.

“Girl, listen to me. At that time, the officials were searching for people everywhere and they came to my house. Brother Qian didn’t have time to escape..."

 Lu Zong smiled.

"Cousin, you know better than me what kind of person your second brother is. Once he finds out that he is being arrested by the police, with his unwillingness to implicate others, he will immediately distance himself from you and hide in a place where no one can find him. . But in the end, I found someone at your house."

 “What did you give him? Did you give him drugs?”

 Liu Kun's fingers twitched.

Lu Zhen paused and stared at him with cold eyes, "After the second brother was arrested, it was you who wrote a letter to Changwu County to inform the matter. My father encountered a flood on the way to Beijing and was in trouble. Wasn't it his cousin who contributed to the trouble? ?”

“You not only betrayed your second brother, you also betrayed my parents.”

Liu Kun heard a bang in his head, tripped on a black stone, and fell to the ground.

That night he handed Lu Qian over to Fan Zhenglian, but he saw the "letter" left by Lu Qian, which was the evidence that Lu Qian risked his return to get it.

 He had been timid and timid all his life, but at that moment he developed inexplicable courage and ambition. He wanted to use these things in exchange for great wealth, and use these things in a prosperous place like Shengjing to open up a splendid future of his own for the Liu family.

So he respectfully said to Fan Zhenglian in the dark room of the trial court: "Sir, although Brother Qian has been arrested, my cousin is a very stubborn person. If he finds out about this matter, there is no guarantee that trouble will not arise. Why don't we deal with it together? , to avoid endless troubles."

Fan Zhenglian raised his eyelids and looked at him: "Oh? If you have any good ideas, please tell me."

He bent his already bent back even lower: "I can write to Lu Qilin and bring him to Shengjing..."

 A crow flew away from the branch, flapping its wings and tearing the silence of the night.

Liu Kun looked at her and defended feebly: "I didn't..."

"I heard that my cousin had always wanted to buy a shop on Queer Street, but he ended up being short of a hundred taels of silver because the owner went back on his word. Shortly after my second brother was arrested, my cousin rented that shop. Shop. Coincidentally, the reward for the second brother wanted by the government is one hundred taels."

She looked at Liu Kun and said, "It turns out that my second brother's life is only worth one hundred taels of silver."

 “No, no!” Liu Kun screamed and fell to the ground exhausted for a moment.

 The guilt that he had been deliberately ignoring all this time surged forward, along with panic and fear.

"The rules of the world are decided by their superiors. Cousin, I don't expect you to stand up to the Supreme Master's Mansion, but at least you shouldn't help the evildoers."

Hearing the words "Grand Master's Mansion", Liu Kun suddenly came back to his senses. He grabbed the corner of Lu Zhuo's clothes with force, as if this made his words more convincing: "That's right, girl Zhuo, you know , Brother Qian offended the Taishi Mansion, that was the Taishi Mansion! How could we afford to offend him? They forced me, they forced me!"

"We can't afford to offend either the Qi family or the Fan family. Girl, if it were your father, he would do the same thing! When it comes to these people, we can only let them be slaughtered, right?"

"no."

Lu Zhen smiled coldly: "Isn't something happened to them now?"

 Liu Kun was stunned.

The woman in front of him looked at him: "Isn't Ke Chengxing dead?"

Liu Kun let go of his hand and fell back to the mud. He looked at Lu Yun as if he was seeing a ghost: "You, you..."

 She smiled: “I did it.”

 The rain and mist in the mountains are like smoke, and the pattering of rain and mist dims the mud in the tombs.

The woman in the cloak is dressed plainly, cold and beautiful, with a plain white silk flower on her temple like a filial piety, like a glamorous ghost crawling out of a coffin.

What did she just say? What happened to the Ke family...was her fault?

 Liu Kun's eyes were a little dazed.

 He remembered what Yatou looked like when she was a child.

There are three children in the Lu family, Lu Rou is gentle and generous, and Lu Qian is bright and smart. They both inherited the good looks from their parents and are outstanding in knowledge. Cousin Lu Qilin doesn't say it in words, but he is extremely proud in his heart. The youngest daughter is always a headache.

When she was young, Yatou was not as pretty as Lu Rou, nor was she as articulate as Lu Qian. She was round and chubby. She didn't like to study, and she often made her father angry. Lu Qilin often said that she was "rebellious". After scolding her, he secretly asked Liu Kun to deliver sweet buns to her who was forced to stand.

 As the saying goes, a child who cries gets milk. Girl Yatou is the most naughty of the three children in the Lu family, but she is also the most favored one. Liu Kun also liked to tease her at that time. The little girl's childish and round face always had a pair of smart eyes, which made people like her at first glance.

Many years have passed, and the round little girl has grown into a slim girl. If you look carefully, you can vaguely find some traces of the old days between her eyebrows, but those dark eyes no longer have the original vividness and playfulness, like a silent place. of water.

He had heard about the death of Ke Chengxing and the decline of the Ke family before. At that time, he only felt sad and did not think of anything else. But now, Girl Yatou said that she did it. Liu Kun still remembered that little girl in Changwu County. She was so frightened that she would jump far away when she saw a mouse. She cried with tears and snot...

 How could she do this?

He was thinking like this in a daze, and then listened to the woman in front of him continue to speak.

“Not only that, I was also responsible for the Fan family’s affairs.”

Liu Kun's face turned pale and he stared at her in fear.

She lowered her eyes and looked at Liu Kun as if she were looking at a dead person, "Now, it's your turn." "No...no..."

Liu Kun's mind exploded, and he subconsciously rolled and crawled towards the edge of her skirt. The rain was swaying on his face. He grabbed the corner of Lu Zhuo's skirt, his teeth were trembling, and he spoke excitedly and panicked, "Girl, Listen to your cousin, I can help you!"

Lu Zhu looked at him in surprise.

"Really!" Liu Kun said hurriedly: "Fan Zhenglian put Brother Qian in prison and found an excuse to execute him. Girl, my cousin can be your witness. I was the only one who knew all the truth at the beginning. Let's put it together. Let’s get to the bottom of Sister Rou and Brother Qian’s case, okay?” He coaxed the person in front of him, just like how he coaxed his little niece to cry after being frightened by a mouse in the Lu family many years ago.

 After a short silence, she said: "Thank you, cousin."

Liu Kun forced out an ugly smile and was about to speak when the person in front of him slowly knelt down and opened his palm towards him.

By the dim light of the lantern, Liu Kun could see clearly that there was an exquisite porcelain vase lying in the slender white palm.

His throat suddenly became tight, and he raised his head and looked at Lu Zhen: "What is this?"

  “It’s an opportunity.”

"…what chance?"

 “It’s my cousin’s chance to bear all the sins of the whole family.”

 Liu Kun froze.

Lu Chen smiled and whispered to him: "This is a bottle of poison. If my cousin drinks it, I will forgive my cousin and aunt, and forgive the three of him."

 “囈Girl…”

She still had a smile on her lips, and her face was pretty, but her eyes were as dark as clouds falling into a cold pool, without even a hint of smile.

"Cousin," she said, "I drowned Ke Chengxing, but there were rumors outside that he slipped and fell to death while drunk. The Ke family collapsed, and all the family wealth was lost in one fell swoop."

"I tampered with the Gongyuan, and the Ministry of Rites colluded with the candidates was discovered. Now Fan Zhenglian has been sent to Zhao Prison. His reputation has been ruined and his people have been dispersed."

“Look, I’ve done so many things without any punishment at all.”

She looked at Liu Kun: "I can kill them, and I can kill you too. My cousin knows that I am very smart."

Liu Kun looked at her in disbelief and murmured: "They are your cousins..."

"I know," Lu Yan rolled his eyes, "It's precisely because we are a family that I can't bear it. I gave you a chance."

 She spoke slowly, each word piercing Liu Kun's heart.

"My two cousins ​​are now in jail. They colluded to cheat in the imperial examination. Although it is not a small crime, there is no risk to their lives. How can this be possible? So I thought, I should do something. I forgot to tell you that I am now a doctor , it is easy to kill a few people without anyone noticing. Besides, the two brothers are not smart, at least it is much easier than attacking the Ke family and the Fan family. "

"I am confident enough that I can kill them without being discovered by others."

The last sentence has a cold ending, like a ghost sighing, echoing silently among the tombs.

 Liu Kun was trembling all over.

 He knew that the person in front of him was right.

Even though Liu Zixian and Liu Zide were a few years older than Yatou, in terms of mental planning, they were not as good as Lu Qian, let alone Yatou. And Wang Chunzhi, she only knows how to roll noodles and cook, but she has a loud voice but no brains or scheming. Girl Yatou was able to bring down the Ke family and Fan family, so she was obviously well prepared. In front of her, her whole family was as weak as lambs waiting to be slaughtered, with no power to resist at all.

Lu Zhen looked at him and gently raised his forearm. The medicine bottle in his palm shone with a strange luster in the night.

 “Cousin?”

He reached out to pick up the medicine bottle stiffly and looked at Lu Yu: "If I drink it, will you let them go?"

"certainly."

"you swear?"

 Lu Zhuo smiled and said nothing.

"Okay." Liu Kun uncorked the medicine bottle and took a deep look at the person in front of him: "Girl, you keep your word."

The wind and frost are cold, and the night rain is cold and silent. The cold light of the remaining lamp illuminated the nameless solitary grave in the cemetery, as if the soul of an innocent person would crawl out of the mud to seek his life at the next moment.

 In the bushes, he brought the medicine bottle close to his mouth and was about to drink it.

But at the last moment, he threw away the medicine bottle in his hand, grasped the sharp stone in his hand, and rushed towards Lu Zhuo fiercely.

 “You forced me—”

 Why?

Why did he have to be so helpless? Why should he let others slaughter him? No matter how powerful the girl is, she is only a little girl of sixteen or seventeen years old. She looks extremely weak. Just hit her with this stone and you can break her head! This mass grave is a natural place to bury corpses. No one will notice if they are buried here!

He doesn’t want to die himself. He wants to kill everyone who threatens his family. He also wants to rescue Zixian and Zide!

  Under the night, that honest face looked ferocious and ferocious. The infinite fear and madness washed away the last trace of guilt, and it became chaotic and reassembled into the face of an evil ghost.

“Girl, don’t blame your cousin. He has a whole family, so he can’t die!”

He shouted like this, waved the sharp stone in his hand, and hit the man's head hard.

This movement frightened the jackdaws that were roosting in the distance, but his hand holding the stone failed to hit the opponent's head.

At this critical moment, there was a biting suffocation feeling from his throat, as if someone was suddenly strangling his neck. He suddenly covered his neck and fell to his knees.

Lu Zhen sighed.

He covered his neck, rolled on the ground, and said in a panic: "What did you do?" As soon as he said the words, he was shocked to find that his throat was extremely itchy, as if it was being gnawed by thousands of ants in an instant.

 The other person's calm voice answered him.

“Cousin, have you read the letter I sent you? Where is the letter?”

 He scratched his throat desperately: "Burn...burned."

 “How prudent.”

She said slowly, as if to praise, "Thank you."

　　…"Destroy the evidence for me."

"Have you been poisoned?" He stared at Lu Huan in horror. An unbearable itching pain spread from his throat, as if there were insects gnawing at it. He couldn't help but want to find something to use to remove the poison inside. Dig things out.

"This is called the Oriole." Her voice was calm, as if she was explaining to him patiently. "It is rumored that many years ago, there was a singing girl in the Liang Dynasty who had a clear and graceful singing voice, which was better than that of the March warbler. Later, it made her colleagues jealous, and some people The tea she usually drank was poisoned, and when the poison took effect, she picked at her own throat, which was so rotten that it looked like a net of mud, which was horrifying to see."

　　"I painted the word "Zi Zai Ying" on the letter paper. Are you feeling itchy now?"

As if to prove her words, the stinging pain in his throat suddenly became more obvious. Liu Kun was going crazy. He used his hands to scratch his throat, but after just a few breaths, his throat was scratched until it turned red, and he With a frightened look on his face, he screamed: "Help—"

Lu Zong looked at him condescendingly and said calmly: "Some poisons make people suffer, while some poisons make people feel relieved."

 She walked up to the porcelain bottle that was thrown on the ground, bent down to pick it up, her eyes a little regretful.

 “I gave you a chance to choose, but unfortunately, you didn’t cherish it.”

 Liu Kun scratched his neck in pain.

I see.

It turns out that she had poisoned the letter paper a long time ago. If he drank the poison and committed suicide, he would not suffer the pain of being bitten. If he refused to drink, he would not be able to leave Wangchun Mountain alive.

 She never left any way for him to survive in the first place!

In despair, Liu Kun felt something swimming in his throat. He opened his eyes desperately, as if he wanted to imprint the face of the murderer in front of him deeply into his mind and take him to the **** of karma. His eyes were scattered. He said in a hoarse voice: "You are crazy...kill me, no one will testify for you. No judge will ever dare to take over the grievances of the Lu family..."

Su'er's expression suddenly changed again, and he cried and begged for mercy: "Girl...my cousin is wrong, and my cousin knows he is wrong..."

 “Save me, please save me...”

Lu Chen watched him struggling painfully on the ground with cold eyes. His intermittent sobs and moans were drowned by the autumn rain in the night. The grave was desolate and silent.

After a moment, she sighed softly. He walked to Liu Kun and squatted down, picked up the sharp stone that Liu Kun had just held in his hand in an attempt to attack her, but dropped it in the middle, and stuffed it into his hand again.

Liu Kun was looking almost crazy at this moment. Suddenly something appeared in his palm. Without thinking, he aimed it at his throat and stabbed it hard -

 The night is desolate here.

 A "hiss-" sound.

 The shouting stopped abruptly.

 Blood flowers suddenly burst out from her neck, and a cluster sprayed onto the woman's face.

She blinked slowly, and a large drop of bright red slowly dripped down her eyelashes, then down her face, and gradually smeared on the snow-white cloak.

 The man on the ground was twitching and convulsing. After a while, he exhaled his last breath and lay on his back, dead.

Lu Zhen stood up and looked at the body that was no longer moving on the ground quietly. In the lantern that fell to the ground, the fire was extinguished by the night rain, the surrounding grass was blurred, and the gloom among the tombs was like a puzzle that would never be cleared away.

She was not afraid because this might be the burial place of Lu Qian and the final resting place of the prisoners on death row.

The retribution of heaven, sooner or later, Liu Kun died here, the fate is the cause and effect, that's all.

She murmured: "No one will ever dare to take over the Lu family's case?"

 This is the advice Liu Kun gave her before he died.

Perhaps in Liu Kun's view, it was easy for the powerful and powerful people to control the lives and deaths of ordinary people, but for her, a commoner, to shake up the high-ranking officials was like a dreamer who did not overestimate her own abilities.

but…

 He is wrong.

 The woman raised her hand to wipe away the blood on her face and said calmly, "Why should others make the decision?"

“I am the judge of the Lu family’s case...”

 “Also be an executioner.”

 (End of this chapter)