Chapter 65: The Story I Told Was Difficult to Hear

Mo Ran chuckled again before continuing, "Once upon a time, there was a little child."

Chu Wanning, eyes closed, "If it's not cows eating grass, why are they children?"

"Just hear me out." Mo Ran said with a smile, "Once upon a time there was a child who was very poor. He had no parents and worked as a child labourer in a landlord's house, washing dishes, cleaning clothes and going out to herd cattle. The landlord gave him three cakes a day, and the boy was content to have his belly full."

"One day, as usual, he went out to graze his cattle. On the way he met a vicious dog that bit the cow's leg, for which the boy was, not surprisingly, beaten up by the landlord. After he had been beaten, the landlord told him to go and kill the dog to take his anger out. Otherwise he would not give the boy any bread."

"The boy was so frightened that he had to bring the dog back as he had been told, but when he got home, the landowner discovered that the dog that had bitten his own cattle was actually the county lord's beloved dog."

Chu Wanning opened his eyes, "What to do then"

"The dog was the magistrate's favourite. If the magistrate had known about it, he would not have taken it lightly. So the landlord got angrier and angrier, and still didn't give the boy any cakes, and threatened to send him away if the magistrate came to his door."

Chu Wanning: "What a mess, no sense at all, I won't listen to it."

"There is no reasoning in a lot of things." Mo Ran laughed, "It was just a matter of who had more money, who had a stronger fist, and who had a bigger official. The next day, the county magistrate did come looking for someone. The boy was given up. Because he was so young, the magistrate was too embarrassed to lock him up, so he beat him severely with ten sticks and then let him go."

Chu Wanning asked, "The boy got out and ran away, didn't he?"

Mo Ran said, "Ha ha, there was no escape, the boy went back to the landowner's house, recovered and continued to herd cattle for them. He still gets three cakes a day to eat."

"Isn't he angry?"

"He doesn't get angry as long as he's well fed." Mo Ran says, "A beating is a beating, and when it's over, it's over. It went on like that for more than a decade, and then the cowherd boy grew up. The same age as him was the landlord's son. One day the landlord's family had some distinguished guests, and when the landlord's son saw that one of them had a particularly beautiful onyx snuff bottle with him, he liked it so much that he stole it."

"The snuff bottle was an ancestral heirloom and very valuable. The guest was alarmed and looked all over the house for his things. When the landlord's son saw that he could not hide it, he slipped the snuff bottle into the hands of the cowherd boy and told him that if he dared to tell the truth, he would never feed him again and let him starve to death alive."

"" Chu Wanning heard this, is already speechless to the extreme, said Mo Ran although since childhood exile, lost orphaned, but at least is in the music house grew up, mother is also the music house of the steward sisters, life is not happy, but also not miserable, how to make up such a gloomy and gray story.

Mo Ran tells the story with great interest: "The snuff bottle was soon found, and the cowherd boy had to confess in order to eat, and another beating was waiting for him. This time, they beat him so badly that he couldn't get out of bed for three days. The landlord's son escaped and secretly gave the cowherd boy a steamed bun with pork in it. Because he had never tasted such a delicacy, he kept saying to the landlord's son, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, while holding the bun."

"I don't want to hear it." Chu Wanning was really pissed off this time, "How can you stop hating a bun and not be thankful?"

"No." Mo Ran blinked innocently, "You're not listening carefully."

"Why am I not listening carefully?"

Mo Ran said with a straight face, "That's a steamed bun with pancetta in it."

Chu Wanning :""

"Haha, look at your face, you don't get it, that boy usually only gets one or two pieces of fatty meat on New Year's Eve. He would have thought that he would never know what five-flower sandwich meat tasted like in his life until he died, so of course he had to thank someone."

Seeing that his junior brother was choked speechless, Mo Ran smiled brightly and continued, "Anyway, this matter, it's over. He continued to take his three cakes and go about his day-to-day life. One day"

Chu Wanning now understands Mo Ran's approach to storytelling. Whenever "someday" comes along, it's not good.

As it happened, Mo Ran said, "One day the landlord's son was in trouble again."

"This time, he molested a girl from the neighbourhood at the mill, just in time for the unlucky cowherd boy to stumble upon him."

Chu Wanning: "Couldn't the kid be taking the rap again?"

"Oops." Mo Ran laughed, "That's it, congratulations, you can tell stories too."

"I'm going to bed."

"Come on, it'll be over soon." Mo Ran said, "This is the first time I've ever told a story to anyone, so please do me a favour."

Chu Wanning :""

"This time it was the cowherd boy who had to take the blame. The girl was so humiliated that she killed herself by touching the wall. But the cowherd boy was not stupid. He could not take the life of the landlord's son." Mo Ran says, "When he didn't want to, the landlord's son locked him and the dead girl in the mill and went to the police."

"This cowherd boy was so bad that he killed the magistrate's dog for no reason when he was a child, then he stole a customer's snuff bottle, and this time he actually raped a citizen's daughter, so naturally he was guilty of the unpardonable. No one was willing to listen to his defence, and he was arrested with the stolen goods."

Chu Wanning's eyes widened: "And then what?"

"He then spent several months in prison, and in the autumn was sentenced to death and sent to Xingtai on the outskirts of the city to be hanged. He was following the execution procession through the field monasteries when he suddenly saw someone killing a cow not far away. He saw at once that the cow, the same one he had let go as a child, was old and had little strength to get off the ground. But an old cow has to eat grass too, and how could the landowner want to keep it if it only ate grass and did nothing. It had ploughed the ground for them all its life, and in the end, they were going to kill it and eat its flesh."

Mo Ran was not sad to hear such a cruel story and laughed, "But the cowherd boy grew up riding on the back of a cow, he whispered a lot to it, fed it grass, hugged its neck and cried when he was aggrieved, he treated it as his only family in the world."

"So he knelt down and asked the cellmaster to let himself go and say goodbye to the old bull. But the jailer, naturally, did not believe that a man and a beast could have any affection for each other, and thought he was being slippery and did not grant permission."

"And then what?"

"Then then the cowherd boy was hanged. The cows were killed too. Hot blood was spilled, the watchers dispersed cold, and the landowners had a beef dinner that night, but it was a bit too old and always stuffed. They ate a bit, didn't like it, and poured it all out."

Chu Wanning :""

Mo Ran rolled over and looked at him with a smirk, "Finished. Was it good?"

Chu Wanning said, "Roll." "I cried the first time I made it up to myself, you're so hard-hearted you don't even shed a tear."

"It's you who speaks so poorly."

Mo Ran laughed twice, took his little brother by the shoulders and stroked his hair, "That can't be helped, that's all your brother is good at. All right, story's over, let's go to bed."

Chu Wanning didn't say anything, but after a long time, he suddenly asked, "Mo Ran."

"Call the elder brother."

"Why do you tell the cows to eat grass?"

"For men, like cattle, have to eat, and in order to eat, they have to do many things, and if one day they can't do any more, no one will care that you are alive."

Chu Wanning is silent again.

The courtyard was filled with the small sounds of people taking refuge, and occasionally one or two ominous ghostly whistles came from beyond the boundary.

" Mo Ran ."

"Oops, don't know any better than to call me senior."

Chu Wanning ignores him and instead asks, "Is there really this child?"

"No." Mo Ran was quiet for a moment and then suddenly smiled, with a beautiful pear-shaped smile. He rubbed the little one into his arms and said gently, "Of course I made it up to fool you. Be a good boy and go to sleep."

But before long, a noise could be heard in the courtyard.

Someone shouted angrily, "Looking for the gongzi looking for the gongzi The gongzi is busy, how can he have the time to care about your business Clear that corpse out for me Do you know that those with blue spots on their bodies are going to start a corpse Do you want to get us killed?"

The sound was like a thunderclap in the darkness of the night, and at the sound of the word "corpse", everyone exploded, and all those who had fallen asleep sat up with a start, looking towards the noise.

Mo Ran held his little brother back, took a look and frowned and whispered, "Well it's the guy from noon"

On his knees, being scolded, was the young man named Xiaoman at noon. He was still wearing the same strong clothes he had worn during the day, but his spirit was completely different.

The nails of the corpse had grown so much that it was a precursor to a corpse, and when the others saw it, they stepped back. The steward of the Imperial Household was rebuking him in a stern voice.

"Your father was a fellow soldier of mine, and it is hard for me too when he is killed. But how could it be that it was you who called out for hunger last night before he ran out to find you food to eat, you tired your father to death and now you want to tire us"

Xiaoman fell to her knees, her hair dishevelled and her eyes red: "No, no, I'm not my father, daddy. Please, let me see the Prince, he has a way to keep my father's body from rising, I want to bury him properly, please don't don't dismember him."

When he said the word "dismemberment", he was already choked up. His face was buried in his palm, and his lips were trembling, "I beg you, please let me wait for my son to return."

"It's almost midnight, the Duke is outside, how can he possibly care about you You know that ordinary corpses can still be purified, but your father's blue spots and nails have mutated, how can he possibly still last until the Duke returns"

"No can do, Uncle Liu please, I'll be a cow for you, I, I'll find a way I can repay you later, please, don't touch my dad please I beg you"

Seeing him pleading like this, the middle-aged man in charge let out a long sigh and his eyes were red, but still he said, "Alas, do you know that you are killing us all?" Come on, men.

"No no no."

But it was too late, no one would help him. It was clear to everyone that if this corpse was kept, it would inevitably rise as a foul spirit at the hour of the Son.

Xiaoman's adoptive father's body was forcibly dragged away and dismembered outside. Xiaoman was restrained by several men, left and right, bloodied and filthy, with a continuous animal-like howl coming from his mouth, and was eventually taken away, half dragged, half carried.

After this storm, there was some small talk in the courtyard, and calm gradually returned.

Chu Wanning, however, did not fall asleep, his head bowed in contemplation.

Mo Ran looked sideways at the young master and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"This man lost a dear relative and did such a foolish thing. His adoptive father's body was taken from him, so he could not help but resent others. I have a not so sure suspicion, I wonder if Lin'an failed to move the city because it was him."

Mo Ran hit the knuckles and said, "That's what I thought."

Chu Wanning shook his head, "But it's too early to make any judgements, so keep an eye on him."