Leng Yi spent half a day and studied it carefully. Then he called sisters Yin Jiu and Cheng Luojie to the study room and said: "Starting tomorrow, the county will spend a few days to cover the main villages under the jurisdiction of Yinling County.

Let's go around and understand the people's situation. Please arrange how to protect the county. This is a private visit in this county. We will not bring anyone from the yamen, nor our wives. You can't follow too many guards, so as not to disturb the people. Moreover, I

There are too few people here, Madam, so I'm worried."

Yin Jiu discussed with sisters Cheng Luojie and decided that Yin Jiu, Cheng Luojie and Liumen female detective Li Fen would be the guards. Cheng Luo'an, Zheng Yan and Wei all stayed behind to protect Zhuo Qiaoniang, the wife of the county magistrate.

Leng Yi only told Mr. Dong that he was going out for a private visit, but did not say where he was going. He asked him to handle official duties at home. He said goodbye to Zhuo Qiaoniang, took three guards, and set off on a cold and windy morning.

The Bianshi Village they were going to was very far away and couldn't be reached on foot in a day. It was all rugged mountain roads and it was impossible to ride a horse, so they had to walk all the way.

The four people pretended to be a family visiting relatives. Leng Yi was naturally the male protagonist, Cheng Luojie pretended to be the wife, Li Fen was the girl, and Yin Jiu was the old servant. The clothes were also very ordinary, that is, ordinary people in the countryside with a little money.

Middle peasant dress.

At noon, they arrived at Hongsong Village.

This village is named after a thick red pine at the entrance of the village. It is located halfway up the mountain, and people live in scattered houses, one in the east and one in the west. They met a child at the entrance of the village, with bare feet and a backpack on his back in the winter.

He bundled firewood that was bigger than him and came down from the mountain.

Leng Yi stepped forward and cupped his hands: "Brother, may I ask where Luo Kuwa's family is?"

The child glanced at them warily, pointed to a farmhouse at the bottom of the village, and went straight into the village without saying anything.

"Thank you!" Leng Yi said loudly behind him. Before coming, Leng Yi had memorized the basic information of the people on the list. The family named Luo Kuwa wanted to sell two children in Yinling.

The four of them came to the farmhouse pointed out by the child. In fact, this could no longer be called a farmhouse. It was just a shack made of pine bark and branches. It was covered with thatch. There was no yard. There were a few large stones at the door. The firewood door was closed, but

, through the gap between the branches, you can see several figures shaking inside.

Leng Yi said loudly: "Excuse me, is there anyone in the house?"

After a moment, the chai door opened with a creak, and a thin middle-aged man poked his head out, glanced at them, and said, "What are you doing?"

Leng Yi took two steps forward, cupped his hands and said, "We are on our way to visit relatives. When we passed by, we were thirsty and wanted to ask for some water. We will pay for it. Okay?"

The man looked at them carefully for a few more times. It was difficult for ordinary people to see the county magistrate, so he naturally didn't recognize him. He said "Wait!" and closed the firewood door. After a while, he came out again, carrying a broken earthen pot in one hand.

, filled with steaming water, and holding an earthen bowl in the other hand, came over, placed it in front of them, and said: "Drink it, just put it on the ground after you finish it." After that, he turned around and went back.

Leng Yi hurriedly said: "How much is it? Brother."

"No money!" the man said in an angry voice without looking back.

Leng Yi sighed in his heart that he was selling his children to the point where he would not even accept money from passers-by for drinking water. How kind-hearted he was. He said hurriedly: "Brother, we still want to rest at your house, okay? My wife is leaving.

I’m tired. Thank you.”

The man stopped and looked back. Cheng Luojie deliberately looked exhausted, leaning on Leng Yi's shoulder and looking at him pitifully.

The man said: "Come in!"

Leng Yi and Cheng Luojie hurriedly took the water jars and earthen bowls and followed them into the shack, while Yin Jiu and Li Fen stayed outside the shack to keep watch.

In the house, there was an earthen stove at the entrance, with half a pot of hot water boiling in it. Beside the earthen stove, squatting was a woman, picking weeds. Some of her hair was already white, and she only looked up when they came in.

After taking a quick look, he lowered his head again and continued picking wild vegetables.

Near the corner of the room, two little boys, about five or six years old, were sitting, holding earthen bowls with half a bowl of wild vegetable soup in their hands, looking at him with dark eyes. A sixty-seven-year-old boy stood against the wall.

A thin girl aged 20 years old, wearing very thin clothes, holding her shoulders with her hands, shivering. Next to her, there was a large bunk on the ground, with two old couples lying on it. The old woman had gray hair, huddled in the thin

The quilt was full of patches and turned white after washing. The old man leaned against the pillars of the room and looked at them with dull eyes.

Cheng Luojie turned around, glanced at Leng Yi, and nuzzled at the two little boys and girls. Leng Yi understood that these three children were sent to Yinling by the family to be sold, but they were not sold.

Originally, this Yinling County was a place of exile, and most of them were poor families. Rich families could not use so many servants, so it was normal that they could not be sold.

The middle-aged man brought two short wooden stakes over, placed them in front of the earthen stove, and said, "Sit down."

Leng Yi and Cheng Luojie sat down on the wooden pile and stretched out their hands to warm themselves in front of the earth stove. Cheng Luojie held Leng Yi's arm with both hands and leaned half of her body on him, looking weak and weak. Leng Yi

I smelled the faint feminine fragrance on her body and smiled. This woman really knew how to use the opportunity to further develop her beauty trap.

Leng Yi looked up and saw a small faded statue of the Kitchen God on a wooden board above the earthen stove. He looked at the woman picking wild vegetables and said, "Today is the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month. It's the day to send the stove. Why don't you prepare some candies?"

Do you want to give me a hand?"

The woman looked up at him with a blank look on her face, then lowered her head and continued picking wild vegetables.

The man squatted on the ground, his sleeves rolled up, and he didn't say a word.

Leng Yi glanced at Cheng Luojie, who was leaning against him, and said to the skinny man: "Your family is really miserable. You are already old and you still eat wild vegetables. By the way, I have a family in Yinling County.

Friends, the list of relief funds before this year has been reported, and your family can’t open the door. There should be relief, right? When the relief comes, you can celebrate the New Year.”

The man snorted heavily in his nostrils: "What a hell! In what year will we be there? The relief has already saved Zhu Dahu, the village chief's relative! Can it be our turn?"

In fact, Leng Yi had already known from the list that there was no such Luo Kuwa family. He asked deliberately because he wanted to know why there was no such family. He immediately said in surprise: "Relatives in the village? Are they as poor as you?"

"Poor? If you hear his nickname Zhu Dahu, you will know how poor he is!"

"Does the village chief have any relatives named Zhu Dahu?"

"Yes! Drinking wine, eating meat and playing with women." The man spat bitterly in the direction of Zhu Dahu's house, "All Zhu Dahu's are poor. There are no poor people in the world!"

Leng Yi nodded, then sighed and said, "How come your family is like this? Don't you have any farmland?"

"Farming? You can't afford the rent if you start farming!" This sentence aroused the man's thoughts.

After some conversation, Leng Yi found out that the Luo Kuwa family was renting land from a landlord whose nickname was Zhu Dahu, whose real name was Zhu Peng. Like their family, most of the people in the village were tenants of the Zhu Peng family.

The rent was very heavy, and he was the only one working in the family. His parents were old and suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and they couldn't even take care of themselves. When my wife went up the mountain to collect firewood, she fell from a cliff, broke one leg and couldn't get off the ground. It turned out that

They have five children. When my wife was injured in a fall, she sold an older daughter to be a child bride to raise money for medicine. The old mother was sick again, so she had no choice but to sell another son. Now she still has two daughters.

The two sons, only five or six years old, could not do much to help except open their mouths and wait for food.

Although their family was in dire straits, they had never received a penny of relief from the court, and they did not dare to go to the government office to complain because there had been complaints in the village before. As a result, Zhu Peng took back his family's farmland and fabricated charges of theft.

, broke both legs of that man. No one dared to complain anymore.

Because Leng Yi and the others were passers-by, Luo Kuwa was so filled with bitterness that she dared to pour it out.

Leng Yi and Cheng Luojie said goodbye and went to several children's sellers. The situation was similar.
Chapter completed!