After the people from Chuiliu Village set off with the opera troupe, they rushed for more than 20 miles in a row. Half of them wanted to go back to Ninghaizhou to get in touch with the Military Control Commission and then go home for the New Year; the other half wanted to take the food back quickly, so there was no delay on the way.

As noon approached, the sky suddenly became gloomy. After a while, the snowflakes like velvet and floss fell. After only one meal, the distant mountains and mountains became a dazzling white world of ice and snow, and the road ahead became vague.

Everyone on the troupe on the carriage was trembling with the cold. Everyone rushed for a long time and was tired. Seeing that the snow was too heavy, the headmaster had to let the leader take everyone to a gentle slope west of the post road, where there was an abandoned temple.

This is a three-entry courtyard. The main hall in the front yard was burned to white ground by a fire. The mountain gate had collapsed and even the sign was gone. Fortunately, there was a large opening in the west wall, so everyone drove a carriage into the courtyard. The villagers of Huillu Village also pushed a wheelbarrow in.

Yang Ertang, Li Dachun and others walked around the ruined main hall and came to the empty backyard. They saw that except for the rooms in the west wing, only one corner collapsed, the row of houses in the east wing had broken rafters and broken eaves, with snow coverings about an inch thick. The whistling north wind echoed all over the yard, like howling ghosts and wolves. If it weren't for the large crowds of them, it would have made people feel in their hearts.

Li Dachun turned around and saw a well in front of the dilapidated east wing room. The black wellhead was particularly conspicuous in the snow. He rushed all the way all the way in the morning, and he almost finished drinking the water in his gourd, so he thought to get some water. Unexpectedly, he had just taken two steps, but there was ice on the ground, but it was covered by snow. He slipped and went to a horse party!

Puchi, Yang Ertang and others were all happy. Just as they were about to speak, the row of straw curtains in the wing room to the west moved, and more than a dozen beggars with disheveled hair came out. The people were wearing ragged clothes and swollen clothes, and they were still holding dog sticks in their hands, showing a look of alertness.

"What are you doing?"

Yang Ertang and others were startled, but they didn't expect that there was someone living here. The male Dan named Cui Cui whispered in a low voice: "Hey~~ I'm so stupid."

It's not a good thing to say in front of the beggar that they are dirty, so Yang Ertang hurriedly said, "I'm sorry, we are passing by. It's too snowy to avoid it."

The beggars didn't move. After a moment, they heard a person fucking a hoarse voice: "Why are you just sticking in a silly way when you go into the house and cook the fire!"

Yang Ertang looked at the sound of his speech and saw that the man was wearing an old sheepskin robe with oil stains and twisted rubbings, wearing a pair of dirty coarse cloth boots under his feet. A worn felt hat was pressed very low, and only half of his dirty bearded face was seen.

When the beggars heard this, they turned around and entered the house. Seeing this, Yang Ertang had to call Li Dachun and others back to the front yard and talk about the situation to everyone in the opera troupe.

When everyone heard that someone had occupied the backyard, they were stunned. In the end, they had to come to the ruins of the main hall, which was charred by fireworks, cleared out a piece of open space, and used the flagpole in the opera troupe and the sticks in the hands of the people in the weeping village to support a large piece of oil cloth, and finally barely rested.

But it is not enough to just hide from snow. You have to make firewood. It is best to cook a pot of hot water to help everyone get rid of the cold and eat dry food. Li Dachun volunteered and took the two of them to the collapsed east wing room of the backyard to look for wood. Yang Ertang was unwilling to stay in the cold tent. Thinking that there must be hay in the beggars' house, he decided to go and use the hay as a fire-driven object.

He came to the backyard and patted the window ridge of the west wing that blocked the straw curtains. After a while, the hoarse voice sounded again: "What are you doing?"

"Brother, do you have hay in your house? I'll make a handful of it and light it up."

He waited for a while and heard a storm sound from the room, as if someone was walking around, and then the voice said, "Come in and get it."

"Thank you!"

Yang Ertang lifted the straw curtain and entered the house. A stream of heat mixed with sweat and feet came to his face. The light in the room was very dark. He came in from the white snow and could hardly see anything. After calming down, he looked again. Okay, the two wing rooms were actually open. More than a dozen men were lying on the floor against the west wall. A fire was lit on the ground. A black kettle burned by smoke was hanging on the shelf and whispered, and the spout was steaming. On the earthen kang at the north end, the man in a sheepskin robe was squinting at him.

This man didn't wear a hat now, with a slightly thin round face, big eyes, a collapsed nose, and a beard with a stubborn hair. His face looked dirty, and it was hard to tell whether it was mud or smoked.

Before coming to this opera troupe, Yang Ertang had been with other opera troupes for more than ten years, and countless people from all walks of life saw him. At this moment, he felt that something was wrong with the flower buds in front of him, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong for a while.

The guy on the kang said hoarsely: "It's going to be the Chinese New Year, what are the people of this group of young people doing?"

Yang Ertang smiled and said, "What else can I do? Let's make a living with the opera troupe."

At this time, a beggar on the floor suddenly felt energetic and asked, "Young can sing opera? Let me listen to it a few words."

"I'm just a errand, but I'm so good at running errands." Yang Ertang said and smiled. The beggars saw that this guy had lost his front teeth, so the look of expectation dimmed again, lowering their heads and ignoring him.

Yang Ertang said again: "Hey, when I passed by the county town a few days ago, I heard that the yamen was feeding porridge and food. Why don't you go?"

"If the government can believe the words, the old sows can climb trees." A hoarse voice cursed, put his hand in his arms and groped for a while, caught a flea, threw it into the fire under the kang, and made a "pop". Then he spread the floor and said, "San'er, take out the hay from your bed and take it to make a fire. It's not easy to go out."

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content behind! Yang Ertang blinked, took the hay handed over, put it in his arms, bowed and said thank you, and turned away from the house. He walked out of the yard quickly, then became a meteor, almost slipping several times. When he came to the tarpaulin tent, he grabbed the troupe's headmaster and whispered a few words in the puzzled eyes.

The troupe leader was stunned for a moment after hearing this, and looked at Yang Ertang and said, "Nen Mu saw it wrong?"

Yang Ertang said anxiously: "It's absolutely impossible to be wrong! I've been running around the world for more than ten years, and I still have this little bit of vision!"

The headmaster pondered for a moment, turned his head to the people who were hiding from the snow in the tent and said, "Now listen to me, don't talk to everyone!"

Although everyone felt strange, they still calmed down. As the troupe's headmaster began to explain softly, everyone's face became increasingly ugly. After a stick of incense, everyone came out of the tent, and the carriage was tidying up, and the bustling place turned into a cold place again.

Li Dachun and the two of them finally found a few dry rafters from the ruins. When they returned to the front yard, they were stunned. The tent he had set up had been removed, and everyone was packing things in the wind and snow to load the car. It seemed that they were going to get on the road immediately.

He walked to the carriage with the wood and said fatly: "So come?"

A man from the same village came over and whispered: "Dachun, don't be so angry, I'll tell you..."

After a while, Li Dachun stared at her eyes and said in surprise: "Nen said they are old melon thieves?"

"It's true!"

"Mom, why are you running away? Do you want to do them!"

"Too tender! What are we doing? Hundreds of people are waiting for us to transport food back!"

Well, Li Dachun sighed helplessly and had to set off quietly with everyone.

The group of people went up the post road and walked seven or eight miles away. The male dan named Cuicui asked Yang Ertang curiously: "Ertang, how did Nen know that the group of flower boys are old melon thieves?"

Yang Ertang proudly said, "I want to hide it from my eyes, but I'm still tender!"

"Second cousin, let me tell you, and I will also gain insight."

"Yes, I won't say it even if I hold it!"

"Hey~~How do you, a man, pinch people!" Yang Ertang avoided Cui Cui's "claws", and then told everyone around him what he saw in the house, and then explained: "I have been in the world for so many years. If I catch fleas, they will eat them as meat. That person will be thrown into the fire. I saw something wrong. There is no such a flower in the world."

"When I was following my master to run around the world, I heard from him that there was a group of old thieves on the ground in Shandong that love to dress up flowers the most. They wore ragged clothes, at least in groups of three or five, with one or two more people. They usually stayed in empty temples, empty kilns, and straw sheds beside the road. When it was at dusk, if they met one or two tourists alone, they would be murdered. They either killed them with a knife or strangled them with a rope, then stripped off the clothes of the victims, changed into the ragged clothes they were wearing, and threw some baskets next to the corpse, beat dog sticks, bowls and chopsticks, etc., pretending to be killed. The government often thought that such things were someone seeking revenge, and the idle people could not find out at all."

Everyone was shocked when they heard this, thinking that there was such a vicious person. At this time, the troupe leader who was sitting in the car and huddled with Cui Cui to keep warm, said, "I have heard the familiar yamen runners talk about this old thief being so cruel! In addition to what the second hall said, there is another way to pretend to be a merchant and go on a trip. If you target a single traveler with wealth, you will let a thief stay with him, and you will be very familiar with the relationship and call a lobbyist in the industry. If there are two tourists, you will arrange two thiefs as lobbyists..."

Everyone was listening with their ears pricked and heard it with great enthusiasm. The troupe leader suddenly stopped talking, and turned to the people who were marching in the snow, saying loudly: "Everyone is working hard. It seems that they will not be able to reach the city in the future. Let's bear to walk ten miles more and go to the village ten miles south of the city for a night."

"Okay!"

"Teacher, you haven't finished talking yet! What else?" Everyone was curious when they heard this, and kept walking, and they didn't care about their hard work for a while.

"In addition to lobbyists, there is also a group of accomplices called the Beat Gang. The beat Gang thieves will go to find the land to dig holes in advance. The lobbyists will induce the passengers to get up early the next day and wait for the land to dig holes, so you will be unprepared..."

The troupe boss said, and suddenly he hugged Cui Cui from behind, which scared the other party and couldn't help but scream. The troupe boss said at this time: "The lobbyist will pull out the rope from the sleeves and tie it from behind..."

Although it was cold, Cuicui's face turned red and she lowered her head in shame. At this time, everyone around her pursed their lips and laughed. The snow on her hat and shoulders fell down. She thought to herself that the boss was really bad and she took advantage of her in front of everyone.

The troupe boss had enough to eat tofu, then let go of Cuicui's hand, put it in his sleeve with satisfaction, and continued: "They call this online. Walk more than ten steps on their backs, and no matter how strong you are, you will die. When you arrive at the pre-drawn pit, you are afraid that people will not die, so you have to deflate. Use a knife to look at your stomach. Alas!"

At this time someone asked, "What?"

The active interface said: "Then you throw the person into a pit and then bury him! Who can find the people in the wilderness? These thousands of swords are killed!"

Everyone was silent after hearing this, and the more they thought about it, the more they became, the more they became. If they still stayed in the ruined temple to hide from the snow, they might have to encounter an unexpected accident at night. Although there were many of them, most of them were timid and honest people. If they really encountered an old thief with weapons, there were not many who dared to resist. So they looked at Yang Ertang with gratitude, thanks to this person's carefulness.

"Dachun, I feel so young that I can't afford to pay for my second cousin."

"Huh?" Li Dachunxin said what's going on? Just say it, why did you get me involved?

"Yes, I think Erhuai is right. Dachun, Neng shouldn't have hit someone."

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! "..." Li Dachun's nose was about to smoke. He rolled his eyes and decided to ignore it.

After that, the group walked for two hours. When the snow became smaller, they finally arrived at a village ten miles south of Ninghaizhou to stay in. The North Haijun set up a checkpoint here. When they saw the performance team going to the countryside coming back, they all greeted him with a smile and spoke very kindly. Although the people in Huillu Village did not dare to talk to the same as the troupe, they looked very curious.

Yang Ertang found the platoon leader in charge of the checkout and told the other party about the group of flowers he met in the ruined temple. The platoon leader looked solemn. In the past month, there have been many cases of missing merchants in Ninghaizhou and Haiyang counties in the south. After receiving a report from his family, the Military Control Commission also sent someone to investigate, but there was no clue.

The army's mission is to fight wars and they are not good at investigating cases. In addition, the constables and yamen runners in the Qing Dynasty were all unemployed at home. The matter was summarized to Lu Shoushan and Li Bi, and they were also very impressed. In desperation, they sent a telegram to Beihai Town a few days ago, asking the General Security Police Administration to send some experienced people to come. In addition to investigating the case, they also formed a public security police system in the four counties.

The problem is that the Chinese New Year is about to celebrate, and the security police will not rush to arrive. The platoon leader at the checkpoint recorded all Yang Ertang's report on paper, and then sent his subordinates to the Ninghai Prefecture Military Control Commission overnight.

Early the next morning, two platoons of troops came from Ninghaizhou, all riding horses, looking murderous. Two former Qing constables in casual clothes were accompanied by. They first asked the platoon leader of the checkpoint, and then asked him to find Yang Ertang and the troupe leader, and compared the map to find out the location of the ruined temple. Then they rushed south with a whip.
Chapter completed!