Before crossing the Pheasant River, the midday sun was shining on the ground, but it could not make people feel the slightest warmth. More than a hundred corpse vultures gathered in the sky, circling, and the darkness was overwhelming. They seemed to have predicted in advance that they would not be able to survive.
After a while, you can enjoy a sumptuous meal of human flesh.
Under the cold sun, the crowd formed an irregular circle in the open space. This was a temporary execution ground, and the person who was being pushed to the gallows by the jailer was a young woman with a pale face.
The man's thin body was trembling with fear, but no sound could come out of his throat.
The so-called gallows was nothing more than a solitary banyan tree at the entrance of the town. Two tall executioners supported the prisoner on one side and stood on a thin wooden stake under the tree. The wooden stake could only accommodate enough space.
The sole of the foot was smaller than that of an adult, so the woman had to stand on tiptoes and tense her body in a strange posture to temporarily prevent herself from falling off the wooden stake.
The executioner put a thick hemp rope around the woman's neck. The other end of the hemp rope was wrapped around a thick branch more than two feet high above the head. The new buds on the branch were green and dripping.
It will blossom and bear fruit in a few months, full of vitality, but it has no sympathy for the life that is about to wither and dissipate beneath it.
Several corpses still retaining body heat were hung under several nearby branches. There were one or two prisoners who were not yet dead, and their toes would occasionally twitch violently, making people shudder.
At present, in the open space in front of the banyan tree, many citizens of Zhihedu Town who came to watch the execution were gathered. They were blocked by soldiers with knives from the execution ground, but they all stretched their necks, wanting to take a look at the officials talking about it from a distance.
What does a "pirate" look like?
"Please, don't kill my mother!"
Suddenly, several hoarse children's voices came from the crowd, causing quite a commotion. The ones making the noise were two children, one boy and one girl, who looked to be no more than seven or eight years old. Under the tree
The hanging woman immediately recognized the familiar voice, raised her head with difficulty, and with tears streaming down her face, she finally squeezed out the words "Unjust" from her throat in a hoarse voice.
However, the Tingwei sitting in front of the case remained unmoved and waved his hand to signal for immediate execution. Upon receiving the order, the executioner kicked over the thin wooden stake that the woman was standing on. The rope immediately strangled the prisoner's throat, deeply
embedded under her flesh.
The woman's face quickly turned red, and the veins on her forehead bulged out. Her hands and feet, which were bound together, kicked and beat like crazy in the air, and her whole body looked like a fish that had just been caught on the water.
The fish was twisting hard in the air, but it couldn't use any strength at all.
After a while, a pink blood foam appeared at the corner of the woman's mouth, as if her throat bones were finally completely crushed by the rope. Her body gradually calmed down, her eyes stared helplessly forward, and her red eyes rolled down.
Two lines of bloody tears.
"Mother! My mother is not a bad person, why do you want to kill my mother!"
The two children got under the armpits of the soldiers who were maintaining order around the execution ground. They cried loudly and rushed towards the banyan tree. However, they were stopped by several executioners and were pushed to the ground.
"Didn't the convict woman say she has no children? Why did these two brats call her mother?" Ting Wei raised his eyebrows and raised his chin to signal to the executioner, "Since we are fellow pirates, let's do it together.
No future troubles ever!"
"Oh, how can you be so cruel! It's just two children!"
"Yes, these prisoners seem to be honest and dutiful people, so how could they be accomplices of pirates?"
There were some vague comments among the spectators outside the execution ground, and they seemed to think that the scene in front of them was too cruel. When the two children were sent to the gallows crying, many people lowered their heads, and some even Tears fell on the spot.
"After a prisoner is hanged, his body must be exposed here for seven days to let the world know the consequences of being with the pirates! If anyone speaks rudely and disrupts the execution ground again, he will be guilty of the same crime as the pirates! Take the next one!"
The commotion soon reached the ears of Tingwei, causing him to start shouting angrily on the spot, which frightened the chattering crowd into silence immediately. Tingwei waved his hand, and the jailers quickly started from the temporary structure again. An old woman was dragged out of the prisoner's cage, and she was brought before the superior officer by pushing and shoving her.
Lieutenant Ting snorted heavily, looked up at the prisoner and asked sternly:
"Then, it's your turn to tell me where the pirates in the village have been hidden by you?"
"Sir, the common people are really unjust. Our village has been struggling to survive at the foot of the hill for more than ten years and is isolated from the world. We only hope to live in peace. How could we know the law and break the law and deliberately let those two people who killed a thousand swords go free?" The kid ran away!"
This old woman was the witch who had made things difficult for Jiang Yan and Ning Yue. It turned out that although the Ye State cavalry general fell off his horse and was seriously injured, the horse still knew the way back to the camp and actually dragged its owner all the way back to Pheasant. Hedu came. Upon seeing this, the new Lieutenant Xiaoqi, who was responsible for patrolling this area, immediately led his troops into the mountain to search. However, he only found one person from the team who entered the mountain with the general. He was pinned down by a war horse at the entrance of the village and suffocated to death. The rest There is no trace of anyone else.
In anger, the captain ordered his men to capture all the living people hiding in the nearby forest and bring them back to Zhihedu. All of them, men, women, old and young, were identified as fellow pirates, handcuffed and shackled, and imprisoned. Out of the cage.
The witch knelt on the ground and kept pleading, her voice becoming more shrill and harsh because of fear. But Wei Ting did not listen to her excuse at all and frowned tightly:
"Bold and cunning woman! You didn't let me go. Could it be that I let her go?"
"Sir, I have absolutely no intention of doing this—"
"The hunter's body lying at the entrance of the village is from your village! And those who were hanged just now are his neighbors, wife and children, right?"
The witch woman didn't know what the other person meant by asking, but she didn't dare to lie and nodded timidly.
"Then let me ask you, if it is true as you said, that the Orion has never protected the pirates, let alone used weapons against them, then why did the cavalry that went to the village to investigate kill them on the spot? Besides, what do you think? , how could two mere children, without help from anyone else, escape unharmed after seriously injuring the leading cavalryman and killing the second one?!"
"It must have been that witch! She had cast a spell in the village before, causing great chaos and chaos!"
"It's nonsense! Are you really too old and confused to forget that the secret art of witchcraft has long been banned by the Great Law, and countless books related to it have been burned hundreds of years ago. Those who are familiar with this art, They were rounded up by various countries and tortured to death. No one was left alive! How could it happen that a witch proficient in witchcraft appeared in your humble village? Or maybe it was not the witch who knew how to do it. Spell, but one of you?!"
Wei Ting was frothing at the mouth, and it seemed that he would be blamed on the villagers no matter what today. Seeing this, the witch woman completely lost her last bit of courage to beg for mercy, and collapsed on the ground and burst into tears.
"You idiot! What are you trying to achieve by shielding the pirates so willingly? Since you are not afraid of death, then I will help you all!"
Wei Ting had no patience to ask any more questions, and immediately stood up and ordered the executioner to take the old woman to the tree and hang her there. However, before he could finish his words, a strong and powerful hand pressed his shoulders from behind, forcing him back to his seat.
.
"Sir Tingwei, please wait a moment. I have something else to ask this old woman."
"General, why are you here? If you have anything to say, just ask!"
As soon as Tingwei turned around, he immediately put a smile on his face. Standing behind him was a burly general with a beard. Tingwei heard that this man was originally a general in the naval division.
He suffered a defeat in the previous battle and was temporarily demoted to this place as the owl cavalry captain. The missing cavalry this time was directly under his command, and he quickly reminded himself not to offend the other party easily.
The visitor did not say much to the Tingwei, and turned to the trembling old woman kneeling on the ground and asked:
"Old woman, this general can order you to be released together with the rest of the villagers now, but before that, you must answer a few questions from me."
"Is it inappropriate for General Luo to do this? I have signed a military order this time. I would rather kill him by mistake than place him by mistake!" Lieutenant Ting came up from behind and reminded him in a low voice.
The visitor glanced at the other person with a sharp look, and was so frightened that Wei Ting did not dare to say anything more: "I said yes. Don't interrupt!"
Then he turned to the old woman again and asked further:
"I just want to know, general, if the Orion you are talking about is really a pirate, does he always carry something unusual with him? For example - an old and yellowed map?"
The old woman was eager to survive and immediately tried to remember. After a while, she finally said in a trembling voice: "I have never seen Maps before, but he has a short knife that he wears with him. In all his life, I have never seen a knife.
The workmanship is more exquisite than jewelry.”
"Oh? What kind of knife is that?"
"Exquisitely exquisite! The sheath of the knife is engraved with many strange patterns and is inlaid with countless gems. But it seems that You Orion doesn't care much about it. He gave the knife to the kid as soon as he came to the village."
"Did you give the knife to the child? What happened to the two children who escaped?"
"The demon girl is a red-haired girl, and she looks pretty. But the boy has a fierce look on his face, with black eyes like a barbarian, and he is frowning all day long - oh, by the way, in the middle of his right eyebrow, there is
A very long scar."
"Are you sure you remember correctly?"
"Absolutely not. That kid has lived in the village for more than a month. There is no way I can remember it wrong."
Listening to the old woman's description, the captain suddenly narrowed his eyes, as if he had remembered something. After a moment of silence, he stopped asking questions, but pressed a long iron sword hanging on his waist with his left hand, and turned around.
Then I wanted to go back to camp.
As the hand pressing on Wei Ting's shoulder was removed, he finally had the opportunity to stand up again and hurriedly asked loudly at his back:
"General Luo, can these villagers be released?"
"Let go? You and I have signed a military order this time. We would rather kill by mistake than release by mistake! There is no need for further trials. They will all be hanged and no one will be left alive!"
The captain surnamed Luo said these words without looking back, which immediately caused the sound of wailing everywhere in the execution ground. The whimpering wind that gradually blew also seemed like countless lonely ghosts grinning ferociously in the air, hoping.
Let the new dead join their ranks as soon as possible.