Siheyuan: tomb robbing? I am serious about hunting.

Chapter 930 Chapter Chapter

In a trance, he saw Lu Huaijin riding a tall horse passing by in the distance, his sable cape fluttering in the wind. On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the whole city was decorated with lights and colorful lanterns. Zhou Mingyuan curled up in the corner of the dilapidated temple, with a high fever. Outside the temple came the sound of stilt-walking gongs and drums, mixed with the laughter of children. He took out the torn "Analects" in his arms and read "A harsh government is more ferocious than a tiger" in the moonlight. Suddenly, he coughed violently, and his palms were stained with scarlet. "Mr. Zhou!" Ah Xiu's voice was crying. The girl's wedding dress was stained with mud and her hair was disheveled. "My father... is gone..." Zhou Mingyuan struggled to sit up, but his eyes went black. Ah Xiu supported him, with a strong smell of blood on her body: "I killed Commander Wang's nephew and escaped..." Suddenly, the sound of horse hooves came from outside the temple. The light of the torch shone through the window lattice, illuminating the dilapidated temple. Lu Huaijin lifted the curtain and entered, followed by a team of soldiers. "A Xiu, come back with me." The general took off his cloak and tried to put it on the girl. "Get lost!" A Xiu grabbed the stone in the corner of the temple, "You beasts!" Lu Huaijin frowned: "I'm here to save you..." "Save me?" A Xiu sneered, tears falling on her wedding dress, "What have you been doing?" She suddenly threw the stone at the "Analects" in Zhou Mingyuan's arms, "What sage books, what benevolence, righteousness and morality, they are all lies!" Zhou Mingyuan stretched out his hand to protect it, but he was a step too slow. The stone hit the book, and the word "li" was smashed into a hole. Lu Huaijin looked at the mess on the ground and was silent for a long time: "Take her away." The soldiers stepped forward to drag A Xiu, and the girl suddenly bit someone's wrist. In the chaos, Zhou Mingyuan touched the inkstone in the corner. It was left by his father, engraved with the four words "Heaven rewards hard work". He raised the inkstone and smashed it at Lu Huaijin with all his strength. The inkstone flew past the general's ear, fell on the blue brick floor, and broke into two pieces. Lu Huaijin's face suddenly changed: "Rebellion!" He drew out his sword, and the cold light reflected Zhou Mingyuan's pale face. "General!" A soldier suddenly shouted, "Urgent news from the northwest! The enemy has broken through the city!" Lu Huaijin's sword stopped in mid-air. Zhou Mingyuan looked at the general's suddenly pale face and suddenly laughed. The laughter became louder and louder, shaking the beams and pillars of the dilapidated temple. Ah Xiu also laughed, and as she laughed, tears burst out. When the spring rain came again, tender green buds emerged from the cracks in the stone slabs of Zhuque Street. In front of Zhou Mingyuan's dilapidated temple, someone put a half-roll of the torn "Analects of Confucius". The ink marks on the pages were blurred by the rain, and only the words "People are the most important, the country is second, and the king is the least important" glowed faintly in the sun. Ah Xiu and Lu Huaijin disappeared in that war-torn spring, leaving only the people in the city, who continued to look forward to justice that would come at an unknown time in the chaos of war.

The door collapsed with a bang amidst the flying wood chips. The golden rice was piled higher than a person, and the villagers were frantically putting grain into sacks. Suddenly, the sound of a gong came from afar, and torches were connected. Wang Si rushed over with a dozen guards holding knives. "Fellow villagers, guard the granary!" Chen Shi rushed forward waving a kitchen knife. The sound of the blades intersecting echoed in the night sky, and the smell of blood filled the air. A guard's knife chopped him on the shoulder, and the severe pain made his eyes black, but he gritted his teeth and swung his hand back, and the kitchen knife chopped into the opponent's thigh. In the melee, Alan suddenly screamed: "Xiao Cui!" Chen Shi looked back and saw Wang Si dragging Xiao Cui out by her hair. He rushed over desperately. Wang Si took out a short knife and stabbed, Chen Shi dodged sideways, and the kitchen knife chopped the opponent's shoulder fiercely. Wang Si screamed and fell to the ground, and Xiao Cui cried and threw herself into her father's arms. "Set fire!" Chen Shi shouted. The villagers threw torches into the granary, and the flames instantly shot up to the roof. In the flames, Wang Si's wailing and the guards' screams mixed together. Chen Shi held his daughter and looked at the burning Wang's compound. Suddenly, he felt that the whip marks on his spine were not so painful. The fire burned all night. When the first ray of sunlight dyed the sky red, twenty-seven villagers, carrying food, the elderly and children, walked towards the back mountain. Chen Shi looked back and saw that the Wang's compound had become a ruin, and thick smoke was rising to the sky. He knew that the officers and soldiers would catch up sooner or later, but at this moment, Xiao Cui in his arms was sleeping soundly, and the villagers' steps were more determined than ever. The mountain wind swept across the barren fields, blowing up Chen Shi's blood-stained clothes. In the distance, sporadic survivors were raising their heads from the scorched earth and looking in the direction of the flames. This fire ignited by a tenant will eventually burn through the darkness that shrouds this land like a prairie fire.

The rain in late autumn was cold, and the bluestone road was shining. Zhou Mingyuan huddled in a faded blue cloth gown, the Analects in his arms was wrapped in three layers of oil paper, and the inkstone in his arms hurt his ribs. He hurriedly crossed Zhuque Street on the puddled water, and saw the crooked lintel of his house from afar. His heart was about to fall to the ground, but he was startled by a loud shout and staggered. "Stop!" Five or six armored soldiers rushed out from the corner of the street, and the scabbards clattered against the bluestone. The black-faced man in the lead had a face full of flesh, and the wine gourd hanging from his waist was still dripping wine. "Where did this poor scholar come from? He has no eyes?" Zhou Mingyuan clenched the oil paper bag and bowed: "General, please forgive me, my student lives here, just..." "Live here?" The black-faced man kicked him in the knee, and Zhou Mingyuan fell to his knees, and the oil paper bag fell into the muddy water with a "pop". The man bent down to pick up the soaked book, and the yellowed pages were stained with ink. "What's so great about knowing how to read? When I was killing bandits on the city wall, you were still chewing pen tips in your mother's womb!" "Military, this is what my father left behind..." Zhou Mingyuan reached out to grab it, but the man slapped him in the face, causing a burning sensation on his cheek. The soldiers laughed, and someone picked up the inkstone and threw it around, splashing ink on Zhou Mingyuan's newly patched patch. "Do you know where this is?" The man grabbed his collar, and the smell of alcohol sprayed on his face, "West Market Military Grain Depot! All outsiders will be..." Before he finished speaking, crying and shouting suddenly came from the corner of the street. Two soldiers dragged an old man into the alley. The old man's cloth shoes fell to the ground, revealing the soles of his feet covered with calluses. "Dad!" The crisp female voice tore through the rain. The girl with a red hairband rushed over holding an oil-paper umbrella, but was stopped by another soldier. Zhou Mingyuan recognized that it was Ah Xiu from the tofu stall at the corner of the alley, who had smiled and given him two pieces of hot tofu the day before. "General, spare my life!" Ah Xiu knelt in the mud with her hair loose, "My father paid the city defense donation, he really paid it!" The black-faced man let go of Zhou Mingyuan and looked at Ah Xiu with his head tilted. The red rope around the girl's neck swayed, with a silver lock hanging from it. "Paid it?" The man grinned, lifting her chin with the tip of his knife. "Commander Wang said that each family must pay another stone of brown rice, otherwise..." Zhou Mingyuan's blood boiled, and he staggered to his feet: "General, the court has issued an order..." "The court?" The man turned around abruptly, holding the tip of the knife to his throat