Records of the Cattle and Horses of Chang'an

The sound of bamboo boards hitting clothes is far less pleasant than the sound of bamboo boards hitting flesh directly. The former is a bit dull, while the latter is crisp.

This blow hit Lai Da's left chest from top to bottom, and the skin and flesh were directly torn apart. The specially soaked bamboo board was very smooth. In the process of retracting it, the blood drops that were accidentally stained were thrown to the ground.

Lai Da kept gasping and screaming in pain. After a while, his face turned pale, beads of sweat kept coming out, and his teeth chattered like a mouse stealing food.

Lai Lao Niang almost fainted. Her son was hurt, and her heart was in pain. She wished she could take his place: "Da Lang! Da Lang! Does it hurt? How is it?"

Lai Da obviously had no way to answer her. His chest felt cold, painful, and hot. He had no idea how to describe the feeling.

"It won't hurt much." Wang Leisheng kindly answered for him: "This is just the beginning. It will hurt when it gets wet with salt water."

When Lai Da heard that he was going to be beaten with salt water, he felt a tingling sensation in his crotch, and then a warm current flowed out, flowing all the way down along the seam of his pants, dripping, and soon a large pool of water was formed on the ground: "Shangguan, Shangguan, please spare me, I shouldn't have stopped you from robbing... No, no, it's about taking, taking the meat, I'm not going to live or die, I don't want the money anymore, please spare me!"

No matter how much Lai Lao Niang hated to part with the money, seeing her son was about to be tortured to death, how could she dare to hold on to it and refused to let go? She kept saying, "Yes, yes, we don't want the money. Shangguan, please spare him. My Dalang has been thinner than others since he was a child. He can't bear this torture. Shangguan, if you want to hit him, hit me! I am an old woman, I have lived enough! Please!"

Wang Leisheng ignored them and waited for Cui Bianxu to speak while holding the bamboo board. The latter raised his hand to indicate that it was almost time. Then he stepped back and stood behind Cui Bianxu, still holding the bamboo board in his hand and sticking it on the ground.

"Since you ask so much, it's not impossible."

Compared to Wang Leisheng, Cui Bianxu's expression was much gentler. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he said with a half-smile: "The silver money is given to you, so it is naturally yours. I brought you here because I have something else to ask you..."

"W-what's the matter? If my superior asks, I will never dare to hide anything." After being hit three times, Lai Da felt that his memory was now terrifyingly strong. He even remembered clearly the incident of stealing food from his neighbor's house when he was five years old!

"Where does the meat in your house come from?" When Cui Bian said this, his eyes were fixed on Lai Laonian's face, and he did not give any to Lai Da.

Since Jiang Shangxian said that someone saw Lai Laonian carrying a basket of meat home, then Lai Da certainly didn't know as much as Lai Laonian, and he was beaten just to show Lai Laonian.

Lai Da was slightly stunned when he heard this. He couldn't understand why he would ask where his meat came from and why he would hit himself? Could he not tell him?

"Shangguan, that meat was picked up by my mother. Could it be that my mother picked up something she shouldn't have picked up?"

After being beaten, although he was in pain, his mind was still very active. He began to wonder if his mother had picked up some important person's meat? Had someone reported it to the police?

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel a little resentful. Why did his mother pick up other people's things for no reason? Now, he got beaten up for nothing. He completely forgot that when he saw the meat, his eyes lit up and he wanted to eat it raw.

Lai's mother, whose face was covered with tears and wrinkles, was also shocked, and then felt guilty. She told her family that the meat was picked up, but in fact it was not all picked up.

She lowered her head, not daring to look Cui Bianxu in the eye, and mumbled, "I just picked it up."

The guilt she showed was so obvious that Wang Leisheng could tell she was hiding something. He walked up to Lai Da and raised his hand to hit him with the bamboo stick again. Lai Da was so frightened that his eyes almost popped out of his head and he screamed miserably, "Mother, just tell me! Where did you come from?! Are you going to watch your son get beaten to death?!"

Lai Lao Niang never thought that they would attack her again just because of what she did. She quickly raised her head and begged for mercy: "I'll tell you, I'll tell you, Shangguan, please don't hit me anymore. My son can't stand this, this..."

As she spoke, she couldn't help but burst into tears again. Tears and snot all flowed together and hung on the raised bead of her upper lip, dangling and about to flow into her mouth at any moment. Her loose skin trembled for a long time before she could barely speak: "The first day of the new year, on the first day of the new year, according to the rules, the neighbors have to sit down together. My family is poor, and we can only eat meat a few times a year. In previous years, we always made some radishes and cabbages to entertain the neighbors. When they came and saw the dishes, they would at most take a bite as a token of appreciation and then leave. Then they turned around and gossiped about my family. Bah! Shameless things! Counting generations ago, who hasn't been poor? You just take advantage of my son because he is too weak to do heavy work! When my grandson grows up..."

As she was talking, she went off topic and complained indignantly about the neighbors who looked down on her and looked down on poor neighbors like them. Hearing her cursing, Wang Leisheng took a few steps forward and hit Lai Da with the bamboo stick again, making him scream.

Old Lady Lai was so frightened that she trembled all over, her face drooping as she opened her throat to wail again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wang Leisheng about to raise his hand again, and quickly stopped herself. This time, she didn't dare to ramble on. "Da Lang is very concerned about his reputation, and he gets upset when people always say that. I hardened my heart and took some money to go out early in the morning to buy some offal to cook. Although it's cheap, it's still meat, right? I left home early on the first day of the new year. There was no one outside at the time, and the butcher stall outside Yong'anfang was also closed. I had no choice but to go to Xishi."

"Tell me more specifically, when did you go to the West Market? From which market square and which gate did you go?"

"Yes, it was at the beginning of the Mao hour on New Year's Day. I came out of the east gate of Yong'anfang and saw that the butcher stall hadn't opened yet, so I headed from the east gate towards the West Market, hoping I'd run into another butcher stall along the way so I wouldn't have to go to the West Market." (There was no curfew during the New Year holidays.)

It was cold and the ground was slippery. She was old, so she could walk less. She didn't want to walk so much to the west city to buy some fish. "In the end, the meat stall at the east gate of Yanfufang was not open. I felt a little regretful. I was afraid it was too early and no one had come out to do business yet."

Of course, she was more afraid that there would be no meat stall today. During the Chinese New Year, many merchants would choose not to do business and have a good New Year. If she couldn't buy any meat, she was afraid that Dalang would have a gloomy face again during the Chinese New Year.

She continued walking forward thinking this. "Who would have thought that before I even passed Yanfufang, I saw from a distance a man carrying a large basket coming out of the road between Yanfu and Chongxianfang. It was still dark, and the sudden appearance of a man really scared me."