That day, the autumn wind came from the east, and the melancholy clouds passed by lightly.
On the road to the east, two fast horses came. On the horses were two young men who looked to be no more than twenty years old.
Huang Donglai, of course, kept his Taoist priest attire, while Sun Yixie wore ordinary coarse clothes. At first glance, you couldn't tell what he was doing.
Now they can be regarded as people with quite a bit of experience in the martial arts world. They will definitely not be like what they were when they first came out of the martial arts world a year ago... riding a carriage and walking around in expensive-looking clothes, let alone saying "I am a martial artist."
"People" is written on his face.
That kind of thing... should be left to the disciples of high-ranking sects and those who value their "chivalrous reputation" and have the strength to do it.
"Brother Sun, Gengjia Village is ahead. I think it's getting late... How about we spend the night there tonight?" Huang Donglai has better eyesight, so he naturally saw it before Sun Yixie.
Shadow of the village ahead.
"Okay, the horses are tired at the end of the day. We have to go into the mountains early tomorrow morning. It would be better to find an inn and rest early." Sun Yixie responded.
As they talked, they approached the entrance of the village.
At this time, they did not know that this Gengjia Village was the same village where Liu Wusheng, the "Tiger Armed King", and Zou Baiqiu, the "King of Guanzhong" with one sword, stayed.
Xingxing Mountain is adjacent to Weishui River in the west and three villages in the east; and the three villages are Gengjia Village, Majiatun Village and Zhujiabu Village.
On weekdays, these three villages are the targets of the gang of bandits on the mountain, and among them, Gengjia Village is the closest to the village and has received the most intrusion.
The villagers of Gengjia Village have obviously tried to ask the government for help, but because their area is at the junction of several counties, their appeals have been "kicked" by the local yamen on the grounds that they are "not under our jurisdiction." Which side is it?
The yamen didn't even want to mobilize troops to suppress the bandits.
A few days ago, two "heroes" came to Gengjia Village. After hearing about the bandits, Liu Daxia and Zou Daxia actually offered to go up the mountain to pick the bandit's stronghold for them. The villagers were naturally excited.
It's broken.
The village chief of Gengjia Village went to Majiatun Village and Zhujiabu Village that day to talk about the matter. Then the people from the three villages pooled some money together to treat the two heroes to good food and accommodation.
Hosted them for one night.
The villagers were overjoyed: The heroes are here, and our three villages will be at peace! The heroes are here, and the sky will be clear!
But as a result, the two heroes went up the mountain early the next morning and did not come down until dark.
You have to say that they are liars...the luggage of these two people and Marco are still left in the inn, and they only accepted the food and accommodation from the villagers, but they didn't ask for any money.
So, after that night, everyone understood that these two heroes might never come back.
From that day on, the villagers in these three villages, especially the villagers in Gengjia Village, were in a state of panic and could not sleep at night.
If something like this happened, they would definitely be afraid of the bandits' revenge.
Some people even hate those two heroes in their hearts. What they say in their hearts is: these two killers of a thousand swords don't have such big heads, but they wear such big hats. They are really powerful in bragging. What are they "tiger arms"?
"King Ming", what is "one sword to suppress Guanzhong", but in the end, you really pulled him up the mountain, and you couldn't even defeat a group of bandits. Now those bandits must think that you were invited by us. In the end, don't you have to come to settle accounts with us? We
Who did you offend whom? You two lived and ate for free, and I will be buried with you when the time comes?
Otherwise, it is difficult to be a hero, but it is easy to be a thief?
Even if the hero's motives are good, as long as it brings bad results, even if it costs his own life, he will still be hated and reviled.
The human heart is like this. If you were there, you might think the same way.
"Eh? What's going on?" When Huang Donglai stepped into the village entrance, he felt something was wrong.
The sun hasn't set yet. Why is there not even a single person on the street in this village?
Looking around, the doors and windows of every household are closed, and even the merchants have not opened their doors. It looks like a ghost village.
"No way? Is this haunted?" Sun Yixie's first reaction was the same.
"Damn, in broad daylight, where are there so many ghosts?" Huang Donglai answered, "Something must have happened. The villagers are all hiding."
"What could happen?" Sun Yixie frowned again and said with a crooked mouth, "A monster?"
"Brother Sun, have you gone to the underworld and thought about everything in the underworld?" Huang Donglai couldn't help complaining, "Although we are indeed walking southwest, this is not to learn scriptures... Besides,
If you really want to learn scriptures, then you, surnamed Sun, should be the least afraid of goblins, right?"
"Tch..." Sun Yixie curled his lips, "Then what are you talking about?"
"How do I know? Just ask." Huang Dong said, already dismounting from his horse and walking forward leisurely along the road in the middle of the village.
When Sun Yixie saw this, he didn't say anything. He also got off his horse and walked forward together.
The village wasn't too big, so the two of them didn't go far before they saw the only small inn in the village. Of course, the door of the inn was closed at this time.
Bang bang bang——
"Shop, open the door. We are on our way. It's getting late and we want to stay in a hotel!" Huang Donglai is not bad at martial arts. From the moment he entered the village, he noticed pairs of eyes staring at the cracks in the windows of many houses and shops.
He was waiting for them, so now he called the door of the inn knowing that there was someone behind it, without even mentioning such nonsense as "Is there anyone there?"
However, his first words did not open the door.
Huang Donglai was not in a hurry. Anyway, he knew there was someone inside, so he kept knocking and shouting.
Finally, when he shouted for the fifth time, a voice inside replied: "There is no business today, you can leave!"
"Hey! Is there any inn that doesn't do business?" Sun Yixie immediately felt a little embarrassed when he heard this.
He was about to curse a few words when Huang Donglai stopped him with his hand and winked.
Sun Yixie understood, suppressed his anger and swallowed his words.
After a breath, Huang Donglai spoke in a friendly voice: "Hey... Storekeeper, please help me. Look, it's impossible for us to go into the mountains now, right? We have to spend the night in this village tonight."
"If you insist on not opening the store, we will have to go door to door asking for accommodation. If that doesn't work, we will have to sleep on the streets of your village."
As soon as he said this, the villagers on the street who were eavesdropping on their conversation at this moment became anxious, thinking: Shopkeeper, you should open the door, otherwise they will turn around and knock on my door again.
The shopkeeper and the waiter inside the door looked at each other, and then thought to themselves: Oh, that's fine, just let them in. Even if they are bad guys, they only came a day and a half earlier than the bandits.
So, he waved his hand and asked the clerk to open the store.
"You two, please..." The guy opened the door and greeted in a tone that sounded like a sigh.
Sun and Huang didn't mind. They took off their luggage from the horse, carried it on their backs, and immediately stepped into the store.
"Second brother, help us tie down the horse." Huang Donglai said smoothly after entering the house.
"Hey, okay..." The waiter responded feebly and walked out slowly.
"Shopkeeper, please open two upper rooms." Sun Yixie went directly to the shopkeeper who was already standing behind the counter.
"We don't have any upstairs or downstairs rooms in our store. You two can just pick any two rooms and move your luggage in." The shopkeeper's attitude was also absent-minded, with a frown on his face.
Sun and Huang exchanged glances without saying anything. They went to find a room and put away their luggage.
Not long after, they both turned back and sat down in the lobby: "Shopkeeper, please cook some dishes and bring me a pot of wine."
"The cook is not here today, so we can't cook." The shopkeeper's response was still very cold, "We do have some wine, do you want any more?"
Ordinarily, most people will definitely fall out when they encounter a store owner with such an attitude. Even if they don't curse on the street, they will still have to say something.
But Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai just didn't get angry today. When Sun Yixie heard this, he stood up with a smile: "That's it, then I can cook some food myself."
After that, he got up and went to the kitchen.
Huang Donglai was not polite and stood up. He walked around the counter while talking to himself, looked at the row of wine racks behind the counter and said, "Then I'll pick out a bottle of wine."
The shopkeeper was also stunned and thought to himself, these two guys really don't regard themselves as outsiders?
"Hey! You kid, you are the shopkeeper and I am the shopkeeper?" The shopkeeper was smiling angrily and didn't know what expression to use.
"If you're not polite to us, then we won't be polite to you either." Huang Donglai was confident and picked the most expensive bottle of wine from the wine shelf.
"Huh?" The shopkeeper looked at it and thought to himself, "This little Taoist priest is quite knowledgeable. There is only a pot of bamboo leaf green that has been stored for ten years in my small shop, which is considered the treasure of the shop. How can he pick it out?"
He didn't know that Huang Donglai's top-notch sense of smell, which he had developed from studying poisons since he was a child, could not only do such trivial matters as picking out a good bottle of wine, but he could also tell what the maker had eaten the day before by smelling feces.
While the shopkeeper was in a daze, the man who tied the horse also came in from outside the door, and happened to see Huang Donglai take the wine bottle, cups and other items from the cabinet, come to the table and sit down.
"The shopkeeper...he is..." The waiter wanted to ask the shopkeeper what was going on.
At the same moment, there was a sound of "Bah!" and the sound of cooking came from the kitchen.
"Eh? Isn't Mr. Wang not here today? Who is cooking?" the waiter asked suspiciously.
The shopkeeper didn't answer him, but just stared at Huang Dong silently for a while, and then said: "Xiao Wu, go and close the door first..."
"Uncle, what's going on here?" The guy was still confused.
"Tsk, don't ask, just lock me up if you are told." The shopkeeper urged again.
"Hmm... OK." This guy was the nephew of the shopkeeper. He was young and quite honest and obedient. He rarely talked back to his uncle, so he turned around and did as he was told.
A few minutes later, Sun Yixie walked out from the back kitchen with two plates of steaming hot dishes.
He put the dish on the table and sat down abruptly.
Huang Donglai poured two glasses of wine as he sat down: "Come on, let's have a drink first and eat slowly."
"Okay." Sun Yixie toasted to him and drank, chatting and laughing freely.
This pot of green bamboo leaves is really good. As soon as it is opened, a fragrant aroma hits the nose. After one cup, the two of them suddenly have an appetite. They both take out their chopsticks from the chopstick holder and eat happily.
The shopkeeper and the waiter hadn't eaten anything seriously today, so they looked a little hungry.
After a while, after some mental struggle, the shopkeeper finally couldn't hold it anymore. He came to their table, stood there and asked: "You two... I'm sorry for my blindness, but I don't know."