After the immortal disappeared

Surrounded by mountains, the green lake is like a mirror.

The rain that had been pouring for two days had stopped, and Xianling Village was about to wake up from the morning mist.

Zhu got up before dawn, and the man next to her was snoring loudly.

It was quiet all around, and she took the bucket to the lake to fetch water. Xianling Lake is also calm today. Among the wild grasses on the shore, mountain peach grass shyly blooms with small pink and white flowers. White mist lingers between the water and the sky, making the lake scenery look like a fairyland.

Zhu was in a daze for a while, until a series of bubbles appeared on the surface of the nearby lake. Then she grabbed the bucket and staggered back.

If other village women were here, they would probably laugh at her because she was too weak and the barrel was only eight points full.

Passing by the Xianling Temple, she occasionally glanced inside and then stopped.

The Xianling Temple is the most exquisite building in the entire Xianling Village, with white walls and green tiles. The brick walls are neatly built, and the tiles are specially brought in from outside. They shine brightly after being washed by the rain.

At any time, there are only two tablets in the Xianling Temple. But now she saw that one of the tablets was broken.

It was broken into two parts, the upper part and the lower part, and the upper part fell on the altar table.

Maybe some kid was playing a prank. Mrs. Zhu didn't get close to take a closer look, but left with the bucket.

When she got home, she quickly started boiling water, kneading dough for pancakes, and then went to the pen behind the house to feed the chickens and pigs.

Then the two children woke up.

The dolls are still young, one is two years old and the other is four years old. She has to do all the dressing, shoes and washing.

As soon as the child cried, the parents-in-law woke up, rubbed their eyes and came out, asking her to hurry up and get food.

She brought salted fish pickles, pancakes and multi-grain porridge to the table, then brought a basin of warm water into the back room to wake the man up: "It's dawn, dad said the last crop of wheat will be harvested today."

The man grunted twice, very unhappy, and waited for more than a quarter of an hour before getting up.

After they were sent away, Mrs. Zhu took a breath and sat down against the door.

Her mother-in-law came over and threw two pieces of clothing to her: "Don't be lazy, mend them."

The children were playing nearby, and while she was mending the second piece of clothing, there was a sudden noise in the village.

Mrs. Zhu ignored her, but not long after, four or five people came to the door and dragged her away without explanation.

The mother-in-law was frightened and ran after her. Several villagers threw her daughter-in-law in front of the Xianling Temple. The village chief, with a pale face, pointed to the tablet in the temple and asked her, "Did you do it?"

"What?" Zhu was confused, "I didn't do anything."

"Did you fold it? The tablet was still in good condition last night."

"It has nothing to do with me." Zhu protested, "Maybe it was a child in the village who did it."

"Lao Qi."

As soon as the village chief shouted, a thin man stood up next to him: "This morning, I only saw Mrs. Zhu walking in front of the temple."

Zhu said coldly: "You are here too, maybe you are alone."

Lao Qi slapped her in the face.

The village chief said: "When your boss comes back, we want justice."

After that, the two villagers imprisoned her in the ancestral hall.

Her mother-in-law scolded her for causing trouble outside and left quickly.

That evening, when the farmers who went out to farm came back, there was actually a caravan accompanying them.

There were about thirty or forty people in this caravan, driving ten large vehicles. Children in the village came up to ask for candy, but the other party spread their hands and found none.

The village chief came forward to greet him, and the other leader raised his hand and handed out several ingots and ten taels of silver: "We want to stay here tonight and set off early tomorrow morning."

This man was tall and powerful, with a rough voice. Mrs. Zhu looked at him through the square tiles in the ancestral hall, always feeling that he didn't match the silk clothes he was wearing.

The village chief was also murmuring in his heart, but he felt relieved when he saw Dayin. If the other party has money, what else can they covet?

So the caravan settled down and dispersed to stay in various houses.

When outsiders are around, it is not convenient for the village chief to deal with the matter of the ancestral hall. As the saying goes, family scandals should not be made public.

The caravan captain asked him: "I thought the place where Emperor Gaozu raised his troops would be very prosperous."

"Those who go out will never come back." The village chief sighed, "They are all white-eyed wolves!"

"This place is nice and peaceful; there are so many people, which is beyond my expectation." There are two hundred people in other villages, but this Xianling Village has more than three hundred people and the place is big. The captain smiled and said, "On the way here, I saw that the wheat fields have been harvested. You guys have worked really hard today. Are you all back?"

"Yes, we can plant rice in two days." The village chief came to his senses slowly. How did these outsiders know that they were working extra hard today? "How do you..."

The caravan captain suddenly whistled, one long and two short.

In the quiet little village, this whistle is especially loud.

The village chief sensed something was wrong and shouted "Here comes someone", but as soon as he said the word, the caravan captain knocked him out.

Then there were screams and wailings everywhere in the village.

The young and strong men in the village picked up their weapons to resist. Unexpectedly, 200 people suddenly emerged from the surrounding trees and surrounded them. The other party threatened the old and the weak again, and the men put down their farm tools.

Within a quarter of an hour, the commotion stopped.

All the men, women, and children in the village were driven to the open space in front of the village ancestral hall with their bare hands. Two to three hundred people around them watched eagerly, all of them holding weapons and glaring eyes.

The villagers in Xianling finally realized that they had mistakenly welcomed the gangster into the village as the God of Wealth.

The captain of the caravan was about to speak when a red-tailed peregrine falcon suddenly flew down from the sky and landed on his shoulder, speaking humanly: "There are officers and soldiers coming from the southwest, three to four hundred people, fifteen miles away."

The gangsters were shocked, but the villagers were overjoyed.

The officers and soldiers are here, can they be saved?

One of the gangsters said: "General, the pursuers are coming!"

"If we are pursuing soldiers, how come they are coming from the southwest?" The captain frowned and asked Red-tailed Peregrine Falcon, "Are you sure those are officers and soldiers?"

"They are officers and soldiers, but their uniforms are different from those of the officers and soldiers we fought at Woling Pass. They have green armor on their shoulders." Red-tailed Peregrine Falcon added, "By the way, there are women in that team!"

The captain looked calm and even laughed: "How come the pursuers are bringing women with them?"

His subordinates were still worried: "They are coming here, what should I do?"

The captain sneered: "They have people, and we also have people. What are we afraid of? We can't let them do bad things. Find someone to report to the town first."

A confidant came up and whispered a few words, and he nodded: "This is a good idea."

Then he ordered the villagers:

"If there are no children under the age of eleven at home, please come out."

Everyone hesitated and did not dare to step forward.

The captain smiled and said: "Those who don't come out will be unlucky."

So the villagers came out in large numbers.

The captain asked these people to walk to the water's edge, then raised his knife and chopped off the head of the nearest person.

"Kill them all!"

The villagers screamed and some resisted.

But there are women, children, the elderly and the weak in the team, so where can we find a strong opponent like a wolf and a tiger?

It was a one-sided massacre.

When the last person's cry for help stopped, the lake was dyed red with blood.

There are more than a hundred corpses lying in various directions.