Shangyu Chen keenly noticed the anomaly between the three of them, but wisely did not point it out. He walked to the front and sat down, looked around at everyone, and said, "Okay, everyone, please sit down."
"Thank you, Your Majesty the Crown Prince."
After everyone saluted, everyone took their seats except Master Sun, who was left outside timidly.
The two officers and soldiers lit the candles in the room and exited the door.
"Old man, can you tell me now, what exactly happened?"
Shangyu Chen's voice has its own warmth, and those who hear it will always let go of their guard involuntarily.
The old woman's eyes always show hatred involuntarily when facing people from the government, even now, and her skin color will turn darker every time.
"Old man, does your skin color change with your emotions?"
Not only Yang Huanzhi, who spoke out, discovered the clues, but the others also had their thoughts.
The old woman fell to her knees again. Shang Yuchen motioned to Yang Huanzhi to help her up, but she pushed his hand away.
"Your Highness, the old woman's name is Tao Yu. She lost her husband in her early years. The only son in the family, Tao Qingran, was burned to ashes by a government fire a few days ago."
As she spoke, her skin color gradually turned icy blue, and her trembling, withered hands reached towards her clothes.
When Jin Lian saw this, he immediately pressed his thumb against the hilt of the sword, but saw that the old woman named Tao Yu just took out a stack of square brown handkerchiefs with a bulge in the middle, as if it was wrapping something.
She spread the veil on the ground and carefully and slowly opened it. It turned out to be some burned straw. The burnt straw could no longer be seen in its original state, but the smell it wafted was similar to the smell they smelled before entering Liting Town.
It arrived exactly the same.
Everyone thought that the deceased who suffered from strange diseases would turn into scarecrows after death. Su Zhen said more than once that they were not dead.
Yuzhu covered her mouth and nose and looked away.
Tao Yu's voice was filled with tears as she continued, "Your Highness, the old woman is not crazy. On the night my son died, seven days ago, the government officials took his body to the back mountain and burned it. But the old woman just
A son, he was very obedient! Very filial! But he died of the plague, and according to government rules, his body would be burned.
That night, the old woman wanted to go to the mountain to retrieve my son's ashes.
But...but...when I got to the mountain, I found that Magistrate Gouguantao had burned a bunch of scarecrows!
Later, the villagers went to the back mountain and found that the place where the corpses were originally stored was filled with scarecrows. The corpses of our relatives...our children...all the people they claimed to have died of the plague had disappeared.
No trace. Nothing left but ashes."
Then, Tao Yu burst into tears.
Yang Huanzhi knelt down, took out his handkerchief and wiped her cheek, "Mother-in-law, you heard Brother Su say that people with strange diseases turned into scarecrows before they died. There was no surprise on your face except hatred.
How...how did you know that they were burned alive?"
"I saw it with my own eyes! We saw it with our own eyes! My child was burned to death by the government officials!" Tao Yu cried bitterly and hit the arm of Yang Huanzhi who was squatting beside her.
Suddenly, with tears on her face, she stood up from the ground. She pointed at Su Zhen and said, "That's him! It's him who sneaked into Nanzhuang Village two days ago! Your Highness, it was he who forced the old woman to take him up the mountain! We saw with our own eyes at that time, those
The scarecrow kept rolling as it was being burned, as if it could not withstand the pain of being burned by fire!"
Everyone looked at Su Zhen in confusion. The latter looked up calmly and said, "Yes, I don't have to suppress bandits or kill evil officials. I arrived two days earlier than you. What she said is true."
"Zhen'er? Did you see the scarecrow move with your own eyes?" Shangyu Chen asked.
"Well, I have checked and all corpses will turn into scarecrows within twelve hours after death."
"Are they bewitched?"
Su Zhen ignored Chu Moxuan's blazing gaze, and looked at Master Sun with a playful evil smile. "Actually, I am also quite curious. There are only more than 30,000 people in Jiangdu, but in just a few days, it has spread to the entire Jiangdu.
Nearly 40% of the people have been infected. However, despite such a terrifying spread, it has not endangered Chujiangdu... Master Sun, Luo Qi's laws clearly state that it is a capital crime to make false reports or conceal reports of disasters!"
Upon hearing this, Master Sun quickly knelt down and said, "Su Shaoqing! That's absolutely not the case!"
"Oh? That's not it? What is that?"
"Our Lords had reported this matter before, but later received an order from the Jiangdu Prefecture. In order to strictly control the strange disease, when the imperial court sent people to rescue, the matter must be kept secret. It was the time when the flood was at its worst.
At that time, I thought that if the news spread, it would definitely cause people to panic even more. The strange disease simply did not spread out of Jiangdu, so everyone concealed it..."
Master Sun's voice became lower and lower as he spoke, and he did not even dare to raise his head to look at them.
Shangyu Chen cursed angrily, "Nonsense! What a nonsense! Do you still take the lives of the people seriously? You don't even find out what disease they are suffering from and whether they still have a chance of survival! How dare you act so rashly?
Burn everyone! Do you want to massacre the entire Jiangdu?!"
Master Sun put his hands on the ground and kept kowtowing, "Your Highness! You can't believe what Grandma Tao said! We have never seen those corpses move after they turned into scarecrows! At first, she spread the news everywhere, and Su Shaoqing must have
It was only after hearing about this that I found her!
Your Highness the Crown Prince is aware of this! It had never happened before that time! It has never happened since! Otherwise, wouldn’t it be a disregard for human life? We, Your Excellency, are good officials, so how could we allow this to happen!"
Shang Yuchen had been listening to Master Sun talking in his ears about how good Magistrate Tao was, and Tang Yinchen had been retorting incessantly, which made their ears almost numb.
"Since there are already clues, why are you still continuing to burn before I bring people here?"
"Your Highness, it's true that the corpse will turn into a scarecrow! But the officials of the Yamen have been on guard for three days under the orders of Your Excellency, and they have never seen any scarecrow move at all!"
The expression on Master Sun's face didn't look like he was faking it. It seemed as if they, like Monk Zhang Er, were confused and confused.
"Brother Su, are you dazzled? How are you sure they are still alive?"
Yang Huanzhi's doubt seemed to Su Zhen to be normal. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn't believe it.
"Ordinary people judge whether a person is still alive, just by testing the pulse, breathing and heartbeat. But those so-called corpses turned into scarecrows are different. They just broke away from their original form and survived in another form. You burn them
If they die, their living souls will become dead souls. If they cannot enter the underworld, they cannot be reincarnated. They have no choice but to wander around..."
Jin Lian's scalp went numb when he heard this, and he said in disbelief, "Su Shaoqing, are you crazy? What are you talking about?"