My house was confiscated and I was exiled. I emptied the emperor's warehouse and fled.

"Help! Is there anyone?"

At the end of the intestinal trail, a weak voice came faintly, hoarse as if there was a lot of sand in the throat.

Qingxuan immediately appeared from the darkness and said, "Master, I humbly go and have a look."

Qin Junyi nodded, put on a black mask, and looked at Su Yunwan: "Shall we go together?"

"Okay." Su Yunwan was wary.

The elderly and children are the most vulnerable groups. When the Dog Emperor's people saw that the young assassin failed in his mission, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't send an old assassin here.

The group of people walked about a hundred meters along the trail. After turning a corner, they found the source of the sound.

It was an uncompleted tomb. The tomb protruded dozens of centimeters from the ground and was not sealed. The sound came from the entrance of the hole.

"Crock grave." Qin Junyi's expression changed slightly.

Su Yunwan was puzzled: "What is an earthen jar grave?"

"This is a folk custom in which old people are buried alive, also called [-]-year-old graves. In poor families, when the old people reach their [-]s, they will move to a tomb in the shape of a clay pot that has not yet been built, and their family members will bring them food. Every time a meal was delivered, an adobe brick would be brought and laid on until the top of the tomb was closed.”

"But didn't Zhou rule the world with filial piety? How could such a contradictory custom exist?" Su Yunwan's big eyes were full of surprise.

"In the beginning, in order to reduce the burden on the family's heirs, the elderly voluntarily entered the grave, and gradually it became a custom. If a person reaches the age of 60 and is unable to do physical work and becomes a burden, but still stays at home, he will be disliked by his son and daughter-in-law. and the pointing fingers of fellow villagers. It has been passed down to this day that no matter whether you are willing or not, being sent to the mountain is an inevitable fate."

"There is no escape?" Su Yunwan was very aware of human beings' desire to survive. Perhaps she had to obey due to internal and external pressure at first.

But when it comes to life and death, human reason will be replaced by nature and degenerate into like other animals, doing whatever it takes to survive.

"Of course, but their ending will not be good." Qin Junyi explained what he knew.

As more and more adobe bricks are built above the head, the opening of the earthen jar tomb becomes smaller and smaller, and the instinctive desire to survive will make people desperate to escape.

People in the tomb will go crazy and use their hands as shovels to dig into the soil.

Some people dug out footholds on the wall and tried to climb up. It’s just that their old bodies lacked food supplements, and they lacked physical strength and endurance. Even if they could persist, the shape of the earthen jar made it impossible for them to reach the hole. Not only was their effort in vain, but they could easily break their legs.

Some people dug at the ground, ignoring their fingernails and covering their hands with blood. They spread the dirt under their feet and slowly climbed out of the hole.

However, even if I escape from the Crock Grave, I still don’t know where to go.

If you stay in the mountains, there are many ferocious beasts and poisonous things in the wild mountains, and you will definitely not be able to survive. If you go down the mountain and return to the village, your family will definitely not accept you, and you will be ridiculed by the villagers.

Apart from going home, the elderly have no other place to go.

But once they show up, they will be beaten, tied up, thrown into the grave again, the entrance of the cave will be sealed immediately, and they will be buried alive.

"The imperial court has regulations that those with elderly people at home can be exempted from hard labor. But as far as I know, this policy has not been implemented at all. At least in the northwest, and in the places where I drove Beidi out of the country from Kyoto, no government has implemented it. "

After Qin Junyi finished speaking, he let go of Su Yunwan's hand and said, "Wanwan, it's dirty and smelly over there. You wait for me here."

He walked to the grave and looked into the hole.

On the grave floor, a man was curled up with a hemp rope, his body was dirty, and the color of his clothes could not be seen at all. There was a piece of cloth next to his head, which he seemed to have spit out after sealing it.

The man had fallen into a semi-conscious state and only instinctively shouted "Help".

Qin Junyi narrowed his eyes and asked Qingxuan to bring him up, "Pay attention to safety."

After the experience of the little assassin the day before, Qin Junyi became slightly wary of the stranger at the bottom of the cave.

"Yes." Qingxuan opened the bricks and carried them in. Then he took the person inside out of the hole and put him on the ground, and cut off the hemp rope on his body.

The man's hair was all white and scattered messily around his body, and his gray face was shrouded in a cold and deathly aura. However, judging from his face, he was about 50 years old and did not look like someone over [-] years old.

Perhaps sensing someone, or perhaps being stimulated by light, the man's eyes suddenly opened, blood red and turbid, facing Su Yunwan's gaze.

Su Yunwan's fingers hanging by her side moved slightly, but she saw the man immediately shifted his gaze to Qin Junyi and Qing Xuan, his chapped lips trembling: "Thank you two... for helping me."

"Feed him some water." After Qin Junyi finished speaking, Qingxuan took out the water bag he carried with him, pinched the man's chin and fed him a few mouthfuls.

The man was extremely thirsty and swallowed a few mouthfuls, wanting to drink more. However, Qingxuan knew that a dehydrated person should not drink a large amount of water at one time, so he stood up and put away the water bag.

Qin Junyi handed him the mountain fruits he had just collected, and the man stuffed them all into his mouth.

After replenishing the food and water, the man casually folded a branch, tied up the white hair in front of his body, and stared directly at Qin Junyi: "Old man was killed by others, if you can help me reunite with my clansmen, , I am willing to lead hundreds of people from the whole clan to do the work of dogs and horses for the young master."

Qin Junyi and Su Yunwan looked at each other, and then said, "I would like to hear the details."

"The old man's surname is Jiang, and his name is Jiang Hongman. He is a villager in Dahongshan. He has five sons and three daughters, and his family is relatively well-off. But a sudden disaster destroyed everything. Then the epidemic started, and in order to escape, I The tribesmen were called on to leave the area. The night before I fled, I drank the tea handed to me by my second son, fell asleep, and woke up again, in this tomb."

Qin Junyi glanced at the traces around him that did not look like fresh digging, and said calmly: "You mean, your second son dug an earthen jar grave overnight?"

"The old man didn't know. He was knocked unconscious at the time. But after he woke up and thought about it carefully, he should have had a premeditated plan." Jiang Hongman said.

"Just a month ago, Lao Chan's eldest son accidentally broke his back and was paralyzed in bed. He was unable to serve as the successor to Li Zheng's position. According to the order of seniority, it was Lao Chan's second son's turn to take over.

But since then, Lao Cheng's second son has been arrogant, obsessed with power, and treated the villagers under his rule as subordinates. The old man came up with the idea of ​​​​letting his third son, who had better conduct, take over. However, before the old man could express his feelings to the government, an earth dragon turned over, and the eldest son of the old man was unable to escape due to limited mobility. "

At the end of the sentence, Jiang Hongman covered his face with his hands and sobbed softly.

The pain of a white-haired person sending a black-haired person away is difficult to understand unless you are personally aware of it.

Su Yunwan looked at the old man and basically ruled out the possibility of an assassin.

It is not difficult to investigate the authenticity of a well-known Li Zheng. If the other party is really a member of the Dog Emperor, it can only be a hidden stake in his early years, and this possibility is very slim.

If what he said is true, this should be a story about a son who was crazy for power and wanted to force his father to go up the mountain to the earthen jar grave. However, the earthquake brought this day forward.