Chapter 1142 The Fifty-fourth Year of the Kangxi Reign (12)
In the spring of the 49th year of Emperor Kangxi’s reign.
In the Zhonghuang Mountain in Dancheng, Zhili Province, it was suspected that a dragon had turned over. Ninety percent of the hunters who went to the mountain to hunt died there.
After that, the news that the ‘Nuwa Stone Carving’ appeared in the Zhonghuang Mountain spread like wildfire.
At that time, there was a young man named ‘Wuerkang’, the son of the Taiming Prefecture, who gathered his friends to explore the Zhonghuang Mountain, but no one survived.
After that, Zhonghuang Mountain and the Taihang Mountains shook for several days, and all the people living under the mountain moved away.
Later, the government troops searched this place for several months, but found nothing, and returned without success.
…
In the 51st year of Emperor Kangxi’s reign.
The emperor deposed ‘Yinreng’ as the crown prince, and from then on, no more crown princes were appointed.
After Yinreng was deposed, he was imprisoned in the forbidden palace and was not allowed to meet outsiders.
In the capital, rumors spread because Yinreng was deposed as the crown prince and imprisoned. At that time, a fortune teller named Zhang claimed that the second prince Yinreng had died and was trapped in the fate of "dragon swallowing dragon".
Because of this rumor, the court searched the whole city to find the whereabouts of fortune teller Zhang, but found nothing.
…
In the 52nd year of Kangxi.
Because of the earth dragon in Taihang Mountain, Tianwang Temple moved to Jingshi Mountain in Henan.
At that time, the master of the temple led his disciples to practice in seclusion for three years. When he came out of seclusion at this time, it happened that the "Ten Thousand Eyes Li Gui" invaded Luoyang and many surrounding states. He led his disciples to fight against the Li Gui and suppressed the "Ten Thousand Eyes Li Gui" on his body, saving the lives of millions of people from being poisoned by the Li Gui.
Master Shao was seen by Kangxi and was given the title of "Du'e Zhenren".
At the end of the same year, Shao Shoushan and Taoist Su Jue became Taoist partners.
…
The 54th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi.
The Taihang Mountains shook again, the sound was heard thousands of miles away, and countless mountains collapsed.
The government troops blocked the Taihang Mountains, strictly prohibited the people from entering, and searched the mountains for several months, but left without finding anything.
…
Squeak, squeak…
Just as the sky darkened, the sound of wheels rolling over the soil was heard in the dark mountains.
Along with the sound, the voices of some women, crying or laughing, came out in waves from a deserted village under a small hill in the Taihang Mountains with the cold wind.
"Yesterday I was in a daze, thinking of the man who shot the eagle, lying sick in the boudoir, and it is admirable that he killed two birds with one stone...
I am sick, when can I open my frowning brows..."
"Who loves the elegant and noble style, and sympathizes with the frugal dressing in the current times..."
"The bright moon is in the sky, as bright as day, there is a girl sitting in the brothel, leaning against the railing and crying..."
"The sky is full of geese flying..."
The sad and crying or laughing singing sounded for a while, followed by the sound of whips hitting the flesh, which sounded in the dull night.
A man's voice was heard after the whip sounded: "Be quiet! Stop singing! I was scared to death listening to you singing in the middle of the night!"
"Hehe..."
"The master of the Wang family used to like to hear me singing "Brahma Palace" the most..."
"Who doesn't? Three years ago, I was also a famous treasure in the Eight Great Hutongs. At that time, Mr. Cui, Mr. Li, the local Qing prefect, and Zhou Hanlin in the capital were all my lovers. I still remember that Zhou Hanlin The tongue of the woman was much harder than his bottom...
As a result, she only had two months of glory and was promoted to a second-class brothel. After a few months, she was promoted to a third- or fourth-class brothel. After that, she received customers in a big thatched shed...
Now there were no Mr. Wang or Mr. Li, only cart pullers and men who worked in the fields...
Woo..."
"Sister, stop crying.
We are all going to die, why do we still want to live like we did before?
There is nothing to be sad about..."
Several women recalled the past and cried again.
The mournful cries echoed far and wide in the mountains.
On the mountain road, two men with many patches on their clothes pulled a cart with four or five "people" sitting on it. These people had messy hair, which covered their heads like a chicken coop. Their messy hair hung down like dry grass, covering their faces. Only from the dirty flowery clothes they wore could we roughly tell that they were girls.
The five women were wearing thin clothes, and the sleeves and trouser legs of some of them were torn, revealing the dry and yellow skin underneath.
On their dry and yellow skin, there were clusters of diseased lumps like bayberries, and some of the "bayberries" were branded with red marks - those red marks were left by burning the skin with red-hot iron bars.
On the left and right of the cart, there were several men wearing melon-shaped hats, each with a long braid, and neatly dressed. They were tall and had fat faces. They held sticks and whips, and when they heard the women on the cart crying and laughing, they became impatient, so they picked up whips and sticks and tortured the women on the cart.
The five women shook their bodies and tried to avoid it, but they had long lost their strength. The more they avoided, the more torture they would receive. They simply sat on the cart and let the thugs around them torture them.
After this beating, the noise on the cart finally quieted down.
The two men pulled the cart forward silently until they reached the foot of a hill. The leading thug with triangular eyes shouted, "Stop!"
The cart stopped at the foot of the hill.
The thugs waved whips and sticks again, and drove the prostitutes on the cart: "Get off, all of you!"
Several prostitutes climbed off the cart and huddled together under the wild locust tree at the foot of the hill.
It was already winter.
It was very cold.
But they were all wearing thin clothes, shivering and shivering in the cold wind.
The leading thug looked at several prostitutes, asked them to raise their heads, and lifted the hair covering their faces so that he could identify the faces of these women. They either have scars from syphilis caused by burning chopsticks, or they are covered with sores, and even their faces are ruined. If they are sent to a big thatched shed, no one will patronize them.
The reason why the leader of the thugs had to identify them was to prevent the wild-minded girls in the prostitute village from pretending to be these useless old prostitutes and taking the opportunity to escape.
These women, who are said to be old prostitutes, are actually no more than twenty-five years old.
Mostly in their early twenties.
In his early twenties, his body was already tormented by illness and rapidly decayed into a dying state.
“You guys go back to the mountains later and don’t show yourself outside anymore!
If someone sees you outside - I don't need to say more about the result, right? "The thug leader looked at the prostitutes gloomily and sneered, "Miss Liu in Rouge Alley, Cui Baoer in Baishun Alley, Zhen Huakui in Stone Alley... They are not as lucky as you. The 'boss' sent them all away with a thin-skinned coffin for each person and a small coffin for each person...
The corpses were all taken away for marriage!
Now I am sending you to the Taihang Mountains to accumulate some merit for myself.
But you have to be obedient. You can't run out of the mountain and let the "boss" find out that you are still alive. He will have to recover the money for those thin-skinned coffins from me. I don't know how much money I have, but you yourself don't have it. Live!
Do you understand? ! "
The five prostitutes each nodded.
“Okay, then you go to the mountains.
I'm watching you here, and when you go far away, we'll go again! "The leader of the thugs sneered a few times and pouted at a subordinate next to him, "Give them a red lantern! "
The subordinate immediately dropped the red lantern tied with paper on the ground.
A prostitute leaned over and picked up the red lantern.
The red firelight reflected the sinister faces of several thugs.
Several prostitutes laughed miserably, and followed the prostitute holding the red lantern, wandering past the wild locust trees and walking towards the Taihang Mountains.
In fact, how are these people accumulating virtue for themselves?
If their desolate bodies were to go into the mountains where the earth dragon had just turned over, they would die soon.
Even the corpses were scrambled for, and the prostitutes who could marry their own families were also well-known courtesans... The reason why these people could still breathe and wait to die in the mountains was because they had been there before. Not so popular as to be an oiran.
Several thugs stood at the foot of the mountain, watching a red lantern in the dark sky swaying into the mountains.
They waited for a while longer, until the light of the lantern disappeared completely, and then turned around, still letting the two turtle slaves in ragged clothes pull the cart and turn back along the original route.
Under the dark sky, the thug leader's curse resounded: "Fuck him!
It’s so dark!
We won’t do this kind of work anymore, and we only have a few cents to keep these dying people alive, but we have to take the risk of traveling in the dark to drive them into the mountains!
Later we will stop in the deserted village ahead and spend the night there.
After tonight, we will rush back during the day tomorrow..."
"Okay, Master!"
"It's all up to you!"
“Hmph, listen to me, so you can have more food.
Your share of money will be indispensable later! "
"hey-hey……"
"Master, you are so generous!"