Xu Ke helped Master Yuanren on the horse, and he led the horse and walked. The two of them walked while talking...

At this time, a rising sun had risen from the hills in the east. This morning sun, as big as a disc, squirted out, constantly emitting dazzling light to the surroundings. This dazzling light traveled through the infinite sky and shone on the vast earth, and also covered the winding and undulating mountains and fields with a colorful golden light. The hills and courtyards in the distance seemed so quiet and peaceful under the cover of this golden light...

If it weren't for personal experience, who could have imagined that this peaceful and quiet mansion was a "slaughtering mansion" that "eat people without spitting bones" before...

How many innocent victims are living in vain here? How many beautiful creatures are being poisoned here? Rather than saying that this is a manor on earth, it is better to say that it is a hell of misery?

If Xu Ke hadn't missed the imperial envoy's ceremonial guard and had been staying here by chance, I wonder how many lives would have been ruined in this hellish "slaughterhouse"!...

The monk Yuanren seemed very unfamiliar with this big talk. Xu Ke was patient and listened to him for a long time, and finally knew why Yuanren was trapped in this "slaughterhouse"...

It turned out that Master Yuanren was not from Ganguo, but from the Sang Kingdom in the east. Yuanren had become a monk since childhood and practiced Mahayana Buddhism in Hiei Mountain in Sang Kingdom. One night, Yuanren dreamed that an old monk walked to his bedside with a smile on his face. He reached out to caress Yuanren's head and said kindly: "I am your master. I have a few volumes of Tantric Buddhism to teach you. In the future, you can go to Qinglong Temple to find me..." After Yuanren woke up, he asked about the location of Qinglong Temple. Later, a man who had been on a mission to Ganguo told Yuanren that Qinglong Temple was located in Chang'an, the capital of Ganguo. It is an ancient temple famous in Ganguo.

After Yuanren learned about this, he stayed up late at night and wanted to go to Ganguo to practice Tantric Buddhism with the monks in his dreams. Hard work pays off. After two years of preparation, Yuanren finally found an opportunity to follow a team of cross-sea merchant ships from Sang Kingdom, crossed the ocean, crossed the turbulent sea, and came to the south of Ganguo.

Yuanren broke up after going ashore at Quanzhou Prefecture, Bamin Road, and went north alone. He begged for alms, slept in the open air, and suffered all kinds of hardships until he had been patrolling for more than half a year before he arrived at Xuchang Prefecture, Huaiyang Road. Unexpectedly, he missed Sutou last night. He wanted to go to the village like Xu Ke, but he wanted to stay in the village for a night, but after just after eating soup, he fell asleep. When he woke up, he was hung on the beam of the house, cut his toes and bleeding...

After hearing this, Xu Ke couldn't help but smile and said, "Master Yuanren, your luck is really bad! You and I went in the village one after another, I just had a sleepy nightmare, but you were stabbed with a knife and bleeding..."

Yuanren immediately closed his hands and worshiped in the air, sighing slowly: "Amitabha, when I was hanging on the beam of the house, I kept praying, praying for my Buddha to be merciful, bless me to escape from the village and return to my hometown... The donor appeared in the room at this time to save me from the sea of ​​suffering. My Buddha is merciful, good, good!... This is all blessed by the great compassionate Medicine Buddha!"

Xu Ke smiled again and said, "As the master said, all reasons have cause and effect. I accidentally entered this 'selves' village' last night, but it was your Buddha who sent it specially..."

Yuanren said seriously: "There is a structure, and everything is a fate. The donor is walking in the middle of the night, and he cannot stay in the shop, so he insists on visiting this village. In the dark, it is all guided by the heaven... I see the donor's treasures solemn appearance, clouds, water and eyes, and harmonious manners. He is a living Bodhisattva..."

Youdao said, "Without wearing a thousand clothes, don't wear good words!" The complimentary words of this Taoist monk made Xu Ke feel gloomy in his heart. Xu Ke shook his head repeatedly, and couldn't help laughing:

"The master was joking. I was just a vulgar man from the mountains and fields. By chance, I was able to enter the court. Now I am just a minor official who is in the last grade. He is driven by people every day and is exhausted from running around all the time. It is enough to be able to barely make a stable meal in the public hall. How can I be praised by the master..."

Unexpectedly, Master Yuanren stubbornly insisted that Xu Ke was the "reincarnation of a living Bodhisattva", and also said many words such as "the spiritual platform is already possessed", "the sages and wonders are all roots", and "the hidden accumulation of Buddha nature" that made Xu Ke seem to understand. Xu Ke had no intention of arguing with him, so he changed the subject and asked him what plans he had in the future.

Yuanren said, "Since I have made great wishes, I will never look back until I am Chang'an in this life!"

Xu Ke said: "The journey to Chang'an is very long. There are many strong people along the way. The master is alone and his feet are damaged. How can he still be in danger of going north?"

Yuanren said frankly: "It's okay, I am protected by the Buddha and sincerely, and I will definitely get what I want!"

...

The two of them walked slowly for two hours before they arrived at the city of Xuchang. Xu Ke carried a black iron lion card with him, dressed in a blue dress, so he could walk freely. He only waved the lion card, and he was already scaring the soldiers guarding the city and Shi Changlian to bow...

Xu Ke led Yuanren into Xuchang City with great swagger. He saw that the street market was empty, the doors of every household were closed, there were not many pedestrians, and there were even fewer vendors, which was thousands of miles away from the prosperous scene of the capital Chang'an...

Xu Ke finally found a medical shop and asked the doctor to bandage Yuanren's feet slightly and put some medicines to cure and stop bleeding. After the two of them took two bowls of vegetarian noodles in a noodle restaurant, Xu Ke wanted to go south to find the imperial envoy of the King of Wei, and then he had to break up with Yuanren. Before leaving, Xu Ke took out all the more than 20 taels of silver in his bag and handed it over to Yuanren. Unexpectedly, Yuanren refused to accept it, and he said:

"The world is a sea of ​​suffering. Monks who practice outside have to go through suffering and chew sweet artistic conception through all kinds of asceticism. The word "suffering" is very common for monks! If you can realize the joy of suffering, you can achieve the true result... The donor's silver is not only useless to me, but also like a poison that harms the mind..."

In desperation, Xu Ke had to find an inn for Yuanren and asked him to rest for two days before he could go north after his foot injury was healed. He called the shopkeeper, learned the former black iron lion method of the Book Fairy, and secretly took out the black iron lion card, which was really intimidating. He just said that Yuanren was a monk of the world and ordered the shopkeeper to take good care of him. However, Xu Ke was no longer the same as before. Now Xu Baihu was a court official who was "falsely replaced". After he finished his order, he took out five taels of silver from his backpack and handed it to the shopkeeper. However, the shopkeeper heard that Xu Ke was the Shangguan of the Qingyiwei, so how could he dare to ask for his silver? Seeing that the other party was always "resisting and not accepting", Xu Ke was also happy to be "beauty of adulthood"...

Xu Ke was thinking about the imperial envoy's headquarters in his heart, so he was unwilling to delay. After a few instructions with Yuanren, he left the inn, rode his horse, and ran south from Xuchang City...

Master Yuanren just rested in the inn for one day. The next day after dawn, he saw that his feet were no longer injuring, so he set out north.

After that, he went through a lot of hardships and walked with his feet for more than a month before he arrived in Chang'an. When Yuanren found Qinglong Temple, the elder Master Yizhen in the temple had been waiting for a long time. Yuanren stepped forward to worship and saw that Master Yizhen had kind-hearted eyes, which was the old monk who met him in his dream three years ago.

Afterwards, Yuanren lived in Qinglong Temple, worshipped Yizhen as his teacher, and studied the methods of the exoteric and esoteric teachings from him. It was not until twelve years later that Master Yizhen passed away, Yuanren traveled east with the scroll and returned to the Kingdom of Sang, and spread the teachings of the exoteric and esoteric teachings throughout the country of Sang Kingdom. Yuanren also became a master of a generation and a monk who was enlightened...

Yuanren's experience will not be described for the time being. Besides, Xu Ke, after he drove out of the south gate of Xuchang, suddenly remembered the "human market" that Mr. Zhu mentioned. He inquired all the way and searched all the way. After only a half-time riding, the rumored "human market" was already in front of him...

Xu Ke led his horse into this "people market". Before he could enter, he could smell a fishy and moldy smell from afar. Xu Ke couldn't help but frown tightly, and saw that there were dirty and messy mats, broken wooden boards, broken cotton felts, and the like lying on it was full of yellow and thin people, mostly those with yellow faces and thin bones, mostly victims who escaped from the surrounding villages. The so-called "people market" is nothing more than an empty field made of low earth walls and gravels on all sides. Some shacks were built with wooden poles and rags along the low walls, and there were also victims lying in the inside. These refugees were lying in a stiff manner, emitting a stench, and they didn't know whether they were dead or alive...

In this "people market" in Xuchang Mansion, which is hundreds of feet wide, there are now hundreds of escaped victims, and there is a smell of death and rotten everywhere. Some victims who are still able to walk have a broken pot with a few pieces of gravel and cook there. They don’t know what "food" they are cooking in the pot. After a while, someone impatiently took out a ball of black things from the pot and ate it there. The pedestrians coming and going all covered their noses, came and left in a hurry...

Xu Ke walked to the middle of this "people market" and saw four long rows of chopping boards. Behind each row of chopping boards, a burly man with a face full of flesh. Xu Ke looked at the chopping board again, but there were all kinds of long and short sharp knives, including large saw-bone machetes, short cow-eared sharp knives, and small bone-cleared thin knives... All kinds of sharp knives were available. On the row of chopping boards in the center, there was a pile of red meat next to the sharp knives...

At this time, a sharp-mouthed bald man had already rushed to Xu Ke's face and asked with a smile: "This young master is the first time he has come to the market?"

The so-called "human teeth" are like those "house teeth" and "ship teeth", and they are all doing business by middlemen. These people are wandering around the "human market" every day. When they meet "good goods", they buy them at a low price and sell them to the rich families in the city at a high price. Now, this bald man named Xia Ke is coming with a tall horse, thinking that this young young man must have wanted to buy a maid and concubine, so he hurried over to greet him.

"What kind of meat is piled on this chopping board?" Xu Ke asked with a frown.

"It's all 'chicken'!" the man replied.

"Chicken?...How can there be such a scarlet and blood-red 'chicken'?!" Xu Ke asked again.

"Young Master really doesn't know... Is the 'chicken' in this city... human flesh?" the bald man responded with a smile.

"Really even human flesh is sold?" Xu Ke asked in surprise. His heart was like frost passing by. Although he had all kinds of doubts before, he was still angry and uncomfortable at the pile of human flesh that was still dripping with blood at this moment...

"Well!... It's not human flesh, is it really chicken? If you want to buy chicken, there is one or two chicken in the vegetable market in Xuchang City. Now, one or two chickens have been sold for 16 cents! If you want to buy a whole chicken and go back to make soup, you will probably have one or two silver coins to go out. How can the 'chicken' be here be cheap? It only costs four cents one or two taels. By the end of the You hour, you can still get a discount. Two copper coins are enough..." The bald man sighed and said.

"This...where did these human flesh come from? Do those four butchers dare to slaughter people openly?" Xu Ke couldn't help but ask angrily.

"This is not!... They dare not... The four butchers were originally slaughtered pigs in Xuchang City. But in the current famine, where are there live pigs slaughtered for them?... There are many people who are dying. Seeing that they are about to starve to death, they would rather sell their bodies to the butchers to exchange some money to make the family live for a while..." The bald man said these miserable and helpless things, and couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. After a pause, he said again:

"There is a widow in my village called Xu Erjie. In order to prevent her mother-in-law from starving to death, she sold herself to Zhang butcher Zhang. She was thirty years old and looked beautiful, and she only had two bags of brown rice. According to the rules of the city, this person can be arranged for three days. If no one cares about it within three days, on the fourth day, she would have to use a knife to cut it into pieces and sell it... I wanted to buy Xu Erjie, but when the butcher opened his mouth, he asked me for three taels of silver. Where did I raise so much money!... It was also a pity that Xu Erjie was lucky. On the fourth day, when Zhang butcher Zhang was about to use a knife, he hit a tea dealer in the south and bought her four taels of silver..."

Xu Ke looked around and saw seven or eight dying people lying on the side of the chopping boards in the center of the city. They were all pale and thin. They were obviously hungry for a long time. He pointed at the people lying on the ground and asked:

"If no one buys these people around the butcher, they will be chopped up and sold separately by the butcher?"

The bald man hurriedly said, "The four butchers are also human, and their hearts are full of flesh. Whenever they are cut off, they will pour anesthetics into the slaughter, which will make the slaughtered lose consciousness first and then cut off... You see, these people are already starved like this. Even if they don't die under the butcher's knife, they will not live for a few days..."

Xu Ke said: "According to this, these people are voluntarily dying, and they can't blame those butchers?"

The bald man said, "Isn't it! They all escaped from dozens or even hundreds of miles away from around them. They ran to this city. They originally wanted to sell themselves to rich families as slaves... But now there are too many victims... If it weren't for young and beautiful women or thick men, rich families wouldn't look down on you!... In the end, instead of starving to death, it would be better to sell them to butchers and exchange them for some copper coins or coarse grains, at least they could make their families live for a few more days..."

"Didn't the court send food for disaster relief? The government did not come to take care of it? In fact, the people here wanted to feed on human flesh?!" Xu Ke asked again.

"The court? The government?... In the eyes of those officials, the lives of us ordinary people are not as good as pigs and dogs!...Young Master, don't say that those who were slaughtered have a hard life. In fact, those who eat their meat are also sad!...If it weren't for the killing world, they really couldn't buy food. Who would have wanted to buy human flesh to eat?..." The bald man couldn't help but replied sadly. He heard his tone, he must have bought some "chicken meat" in this market.

Xu Ke glanced away, but saw that the "chicken" waiting to be slaughtered by the butchers were mostly old and weak men and women. If no one cares about them within three days, they would be chopped by a knife and axe, chopped off bones, and become the meat of the chopping board, and sold at a price... Look at the people around the market, lying alone beside the low wall, under the shack, and the hundreds of refugees on the broken board, if there is no help, they will inevitably be unable to escape the same fate... The human body, which is born under the essence of heaven and earth, is so scary under the disaster! And all of these are voluntary. Whether it is a butcher or a person who buys meat, is wrong?

It’s just a strange thing that this high-ranking God can’t even bring down a trace of rain. Could it be that in the eyes of those gods who are scattered with clouds and rain, human life is really like a pig or a dog?

...
Chapter completed!