You swear to Mazu that you are not lying!
Time goes back five days.
Over there, a courier set out from Fujian and urgently sent intelligence to the capital.
Here, Princess Wanshou and others hurried to the riverside where there was no water.
They originally thought that what they would see would be a confrontation between the Jinyiwei and the villagers. Both sides were afraid to make a move and dared not to move against each other.
As a result...
a voice floated in the wind——
"Are you telling the truth?!"
The strange middle-aged man was panting and obviously very angry.
Then, he was answered by a familiar clear voice. Because the voice was too clear, it was difficult to distinguish the gender. Once the red veil was covered, no one knew that the bride was a man.
Xu Yanmiao was wearing a wedding dress, kneeling on a bamboo mat, surrounded by flowers, plants, fruits, pig heads, whole sheep, etc. He spoke with a particularly sincere tone: "Of course it's true! I'm about to be sent to the river god. The river god told me in a dream that night - his wife. Your big fat boy is really the child of your wife and someone else. Don't you think about it? You two can't get black even if you are exposed to the sun. How can you give birth to a black charcoal?"
To be honest, the middle-aged man is now quite black charcoal - black with anger. There are bulging blue veins in the black, and the whole person looks like a buffalo that has just finished working, with white air puffing out from under his nose.
Xu Yanmiao poured oil on the flames: "Brother, I'm dying, so I'm here to give you some advice - life has to go on. Think about it, although the child is not yours, the wife is yours! Besides, other people's children call you daddy..."
The middle-aged man turned around suddenly and roared: "Bitch! I'm going to beat you to death!" He was about to hit a burly peasant woman in the wedding procession with his fist as big as a child.
Several people stopped him.
"Daniu! Calm down!"
"Daniu! You don't even know if it's true! You're hurt and you still want to call a doctor!"
"Who knows if this little whore made it up!"
Xu Yanmiao said excitedly: "That's right! It's the one who cursed you as 'little whore'! He has your wife's handkerchief in his pocket! The handkerchief is made of the leftover scraps of your clothes! If you don't believe me, you can turn it over! See if the fabric is the same!"
The charcoal butcher who was holding the middle-aged man subconsciously withdrew his hand.
Xu Yanmiao was clearly wearing a veil, but she seemed to have X-ray vision: "He feels guilty! You all saw it! He feels guilty!"
On the bamboo mat where the river god married his wife, there was a bamboo pole supporting a banner. The middle-aged man picked up the bamboo pole and started beating the charcoal butcher on the head. This time no one could stop him.
Instead, the village chief was standing nearby and was anxious: "Danniu! Don't be fooled by that whore! She is making you angry! Even if your wife is climbing over the wall, you should just be patient! Now is the inauspicious time..."
Xu Yanmiao glanced at the gossip system and said, "Oh," "You are indeed more tolerant than him! He is a green-haired turtle, and you are willing to take the child's surname!"
The silly blacksmith next to him subconsciously thought, "Take the child's surname? Don't he and his child have the same surname?"
"But the child is not his! It's his who hooked up with a maid from a wealthy family! The maid fell in love with a scholar before, and she was pregnant with the scholar's child. The scholar had to take the imperial examination and had no money, and the maid had no money either, so he asked your village chief if he wanted his wife!"
- Husband and wife, it has been around since ancient times.
"Your village chief knew that the maid was pregnant with the scholar's child, but he thought that the scholar had abandoned the maid and happily took her and the child home, and gave the money to the maid, who then used the money to help the scholar take the exam. Oh, I'm getting off topic. In order to please the maid, your village chief went directly to the government office to change his surname, just like what I said, to the child's surname."
Villagers: "Oh~~~~"
The village chief was silent for a moment, his face first red, then green, and finally black: "You gossiping bitch! I'll kill you--" He
was about to rush towards Xu Yanmiao.
The villagers were busy trying to stop the village chief.
——This is the bride of the river god, she can't be killed!
Xu Yanmiao picked up a fruit from the mat, wiped it with his sleeve and ate it, saying as he ate it: "Don't be angry, don't be angry, let me tell you a happy story, the scholar didn't go to the exam, he went to the casino, he gambled away all his money some time ago, two fingers on his right hand were chopped off by the casino, before he learns to write with his left hand, he probably won't be able to take the exam anymore."
The village chief was stunned.
The village chief was overjoyed.
Xu Yanmiao: "But it seems that he lost your half-life savings in gambling."
Village chief: "..."
Village chief: "Ahhhhhhhh! Let me go! Let me go!"
Not far away.
Princess Wanshou: “…”
Minister of Justice: “…”
Chief of Justice: “…”
Secretary of War: “…”
Jinyiwei and other soldiers: “…”
Minister of Justice: “…” If
they had come later, Xu Yanmiao would have angered those people to death without bloodshed.
Princess Wanshou’s face, which she tried to keep calm, almost cracked: “Xu Lang asked that woman to pass on a message, saying that he would delay time, and I thought it was a comforting word…” So what
they said was the truth?
Liang Rui paused for a moment and said, “Save them.”
Lian Hang actually wanted to say: The people you are talking about saving, are they Xu Lang or the villagers?
＊
Xu Lang was very happy to see them, and took off his hood: "You are finally here!"
The soldiers quickly controlled the villagers who were in chaos, and Princess Wanshou silently handed water to Xu Yanmiao.
Xu Yanmiao smiled and said, "Thank you for your mercy, Your Highness."
He removed the heavy makeup on his face - to be honest, the makeup in ancient times was indeed not as good as modern ones. If it were modern times, he would not dare to remove it like this. The rouge in ancient times can be easily wiped off with water.
The prefect of Xinghua was shocked: "Who are you! Where is the prostitute I prepared!"
Xu Yanmiao turned around with a smile: "She was picked up by a certain official."
The prefect of Xinghua showed sarcasm in his eyes: "Why, you want to say that I was also cuckolded?"
"That's not the case."
[Your gossips are not limited to cuckoldry, but at that time cuckoldry was more likely to provoke your anger and make you lose your temper. ]
[I have something more powerful here. ]
Princess Wanshou and others: "..."
Although they knew they should do business now, but for Xu Yanmiao to claim that it was something powerful...
cough cough.
The Xinghua prefect actually did something like a living sacrifice, it was right for him to be angry, even if he died of anger, he deserved it!
＊
After Xu Yanmiao said "That's not the case", in the face of Xinghua prefect's "Let's see what you can say" expression, she said in a brisk voice: "You may not know, this person particularly admires scholars, and admires you the most. He thinks you are well-educated, efficient, and very resolute and courageous..."
"Huh? Didn't you want to make him angry? How did it become praising him?"
The military department's secretary had a lot of doubts on his face: "Is it to praise before suppressing?"
Xinghua prefect also thought so. He was fully prepared in his heart, but he couldn't help but laugh: a boy who is still wet behind the ears, he is immature in doing things, if you want to make people angry, you have to catch them off guard. It takes so long to make someone angry, and the other party is ready to face this matter, how can you make him angry?
Xu Yanmiao: "So, he especially wants to be close to you, the closer the better."
Xu Yanmiao: "So, every time you finish sleeping with a prostitute, a famous prostitute, or a young boy, as soon as you leave, he will immediately spend double or triple the price to book her, and deliberately ask her not to take a shower, just to feel your aura at a distance and make himself a talented man."
Xu Yanmiao: "So, this time he thought that Qingji was your new love, so he wanted to... Huh? What are you vomiting? There's nothing you can do. If you have sex with her and don't redeem her, there will definitely be others who will come to you."
"Tsk——"
"Tsk——"
The prefect of Xinghua really wanted to spit at Xu Yanmiao. How could this be the same? The next day, a new guest came to visit, and he was not allowed to take a bath while the breath was still there. How could it be the same?
"Gah!"
The prefect of Xinghua scratched the ground and vomited violently.
After vomiting, he clenched his teeth and took a deep breath: "Who is it! Which official is it! Tell me! How do you know about this!"
"A lot of people know about it." Xu Yanmiao lied with his eyes closed: "I visited the homes of the people and asked them about their disaster relief matters. I learned about this while chatting with them. Maybe you are the only one who doesn't know?" The
prefect of Xinghua breathed rapidly, his chest rose and fell violently, and his fingers dug into the dry and cracked soil on the ground.
"As for which gentleman... why do you know this? He didn't break the law. I know you like to be clean. Even the bride presented to the river god is a carefully selected virgin prostitute. But no matter how clean you are, you can't retaliate against someone!"
The Xinghua prefect's face flushed. Others felt that he was just angry, but it seemed to be more serious...
"Oh, by the way, it's almost time for dinner. Are you hungry?" Xu Yanmiao took a cake from the mat and handed it to him: "This kind of wild vegetable cake is what you like, right? Eat it quickly, you won't be able to eat this kind of thing in the future..."
"Wow--"
Xu Yanmiao reacted quickly and withdrew his hand. The blood that the Xinghua prefect vomited directly spilled onto the yellow earth.
The clerk of the Ministry of War: "Tsk tsk..."
Sure enough, the blush just now was not only anger, but more of a rush of blood. In other words, Xu Lang was so angry that he vomited blood.
Xu Yanmiao put the cake back on the table and smiled: "If you are not hungry, let's talk about the criminal fact that you privately incited the villagers to use human sacrifices."
"When did I commit a crime?"
The prefect of Xinghua wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said in a hoarse voice: "The court issued an edict to prohibit human sacrifices in obscene temples in Sichuan, Jinghu, Lingnan and other prefectures and counties. Fujian is located in Lingnan, and worshiping river gods is an obscene temple, but... when did I use human sacrifices?"
Xu Yanmiao stared at the prefect of Xinghua and frowned.
The prefect raised the corner of his lip slightly: "I did want the river god to marry, but I didn't think of killing the bride. I just held a wedding ceremony and made a sculpture of the bride and placed it in the temple to serve the river god. I only committed the crime of witchcraft... I am so ashamed, so ashamed."
[Liar!]
Xu Yanmiao stared at the Xinghua prefect expressionlessly.
The other party tried hard to control his expression, but there was still a little bit of pride on his face.
He dared to do it, and he must have left a way out for himself. Even if it really rained in the future, he could report it to ask for credit, and he could also say that it was a female corpse, not a living person.
And the villagers... they are not stupid, they will definitely not admit that they planned to make a human sacrifice!
The offender of this crime is sentenced to death, but if he surrenders, he can be reduced in legal terms-the Xinghua prefect is not afraid that these Beijing officials will use this to induce the villagers to confess.
He saw that the good-looking young man really walked up to the villagers and said something like: "Making a human sacrifice is a capital crime, but if you turn yourself in, you are an accomplice, and you attempted to injure someone, you only need to serve a 'full sentence', which means three years of hard labor in a county hundreds of miles away."
And the villagers naturally said: "We didn't want to make a human sacrifice, we just wanted to build a statue!"
The Xinghua prefect almost tried to suppress his smile.
Naive.
As long as you insist that you didn't do it, you are not guilty, why bother to admit to a reduced sentence?
Liang Rui lowered his eyes and frowned tightly.
From the development of the incident to the Xinghua prefect's refusal to admit his guilt, he has been thinking about how to break the deadlock. However, after thinking about it, he felt that he could only use the lowest method, and asked for the imperial sword to forcibly kill.
But... it is hard to convince the people.
Should he let them go? Or should he be sentenced for bribery?
It was possible, but he would still feel a little sullen.
Liang Rui and the others were thinking hard and were at a loss when Xu Yanmo spoke again.
He said as if he was chatting casually, "The drought has a great impact on the waterways, right? Although Tingzhou is located in the mountains of western Fujian and is not near the sea, it is near the Ting River - there are many Mazu temples here, right? You often work as boatmen, transporting goods from Tingzhou to Chaozhou. Those 500 miles are full of dangerous beaches and rough waves... You must have worshipped Mazu a lot."
The villagers didn't know why he said this, but just nodded subconsciously, "Indeed..."
Xu Yanmiao stared at them and suddenly said, "If you insist that you have no intention of making human sacrifices to the river god--"
"Then swear to Mazu! Swear that you didn't do it!"
The villagers were immediately stunned.
Xu Yanmiao raised her voice: "As long as you swear in front of Mazu that you have never committed human sacrifice, the case will end here! Think it over, Mazu is listening!"
Villagers: "..."
"...Actually, we did it."
The expression on the face of the village chief changed again and again. He stamped his feet, sighed, took out a cloth bag from his chest and threw it to the Xinghua prefect: "I'll give you your money back!"
The other villagers took out the money bags and threw them back to the Xinghua prefect at almost the same time.
The Xinghua prefect, who was not a native resident of Tingzhou, Fujian, was not engaged in navigation work and had no faith, was simply confused: "How can you-"
How can you be so childish! Didn't I just ask you to swear an oath! Are you admitting your guilt? !
The village chief felt guilty and his voice was weaker, but the persistence in his words could still be heard: "We Tingzhou people cannot lie to our grandmother."
"..."
The Xinghua prefect moved his lips, as if he wanted to say something. His cheeks turned red for a while, and he spat out blood again -
the shortcut to promotion and the way out he had painstakingly thought about for a long time! It was broken just like that? !
It was broken so casually? !