kvmb Chapter 316 Restarting
Chapter 316 Restarting
After his relatives died one after another, Zhou Maowen thought he could let go and live the rest of his life in peace.
However, things went against his wishes. Every late night, he still couldn't sleep. As soon as he closed his eyes, those lingering painful memories came flooding back like a tide.
The bowl of water his mother brought him, the pointing and gossiping of the villagers, the pain of being whipped with a cane, the long nights kneeling in the main hall, his stepmother's harsh sneer, the red plum blossom on his wife's embroidered handkerchief...
These painful memories tore at his nerves and eventually pushed him into the abyss.
In order to vent the hatred and pain in his heart, he began to abuse himself.
The moment the sharp blade cut through his skin, he surprisingly found a twisted pleasure in the sound of flesh and blood separating.
At first, the short-lived pleasure from self-harm could numb his nerves, but over time, the pleasure from self-harm gradually failed to satisfy him, and he began to fall into pain again.
Until one day, a little maid from the embroidery room at home accidentally bumped into his arms. Looking at the maid's delicate and slender fingers on his wrist, a crazy idea suddenly emerged in his mind.
If you use a sharp knife to slowly cut open such delicate skin, letting the bright red blood soak into the snow-white wrist, what a breathtaking sight it would be.
After that, a secret room appeared in Zhou Maowen's study, and the Zhou family lost a few beautiful maids.
The newly built secret room was filled with a disgusting smell of blood all day long.
However, the devil's hunger is endless. After killing four little maids, Zhou Maowen began to look for new targets.
This time, he set his eyes on the beautiful young lady who came in and out of his father-in-law's embroidery workshop.
It was because of this that he picked up the embroidered handkerchief of the young lady of the Zhao family, which led to the young lady's death.
After Zhou Maowen finished speaking, the county government office fell into a dead silence. Both the officials in the court and the onlookers gasped.
Everyone looked at Zhou Maowen, who was kneeling on the ground with a strange smile on his face, and they couldn't help but feel creepy. Even Lord Liang, who had settled several murder cases, felt a little numb on his scalp.
Lord Liang sighed inwardly: "This man's childhood was indeed pitiful, but how could he take the sins committed by Zhou's father and mother, Liu, and Wu, out on an innocent woman? What crime had the four maids in the Zhou mansion committed? And how innocent was the Zhao family's wife?"
Thinking this way, he also asked this question.
But Zhou Maowen said nothing after hearing this, but just raised a sneer on his lips, without any regret in his eyes.
Wu died of illness, Zhou's father and Liu fell to the bottom of the cliff, and he personally tortured and killed four maids and Miss Zhao. Zhou Maowen was responsible for eight lives. His crimes were too numerous to list and his methods were appalling.
Faced with irrefutable evidence, Lord Liang pronounced the verdict in court: the criminal Zhou Maowen killed eight people for no reason, and his behavior was extremely cruel. He was sentenced to fifty lashes of the cane and imprisoned in death row, to be executed in the autumn.
In the room of the inn, Lin Shuhua stroked the edge of the teacup with her fingertips and remained silent for a long time.
"How can there be such a vicious person in this world? Eight lives have been lost..."
Qinghe murmured softly. She touched the goose bumps on her arms. Her face was pale, obviously frightened by Zhou Maowen's evil deeds.
Lin Shuyue put down the teacup and sighed softly, "Human nature is complex. Some people achieve nirvana in suffering, while others sink into depravity and then develop evil thoughts, turning from victims into perpetrators. Zhou Maowen is the latter."
It's just a pity for those innocent women who lost their lives.
"Well, now that the murderer has been brought to justice, the incident is over. Don't dwell on it too much. Pack up your things and leave tomorrow."
The next day, the master and his two servants checked out early in the morning and boarded the carriage to continue their journey north.
After the carriage left the city, the number of caravans encountered along the way gradually increased.
The July sun was extremely scorching. Like other caravans, they stopped every hour to find a shady place to give the horses water and let them catch their breath.
We walked and stopped along the way, and in a blink of an eye, we had been traveling for half a month and entered the territory of Suzhou.
Lin Shuyue discovered that the further north they went, the more ferocious the people became, and the more mountain roads there were. Sometimes they would walk for most of the day without seeing a village. If they hadn't seen northbound caravans from time to time, they would have thought they had taken the wrong road.
At noon that day, when the carriage arrived at an open area next to a stream, they decided to stop to rest and have lunch. There were two other groups of people who had the same idea as them.
Parked on their left was a large caravan with hundreds of people, occupying most of the plain.
The caravan was fully staffed. In addition to the cook, accountant, armed guards, etc., there was also a doctor carrying a medicine box.
The leader was a big man with a beard. He directed the grooms to drive the mule carts loaded with goods to a shady place. The others sat on the ground around the team and took a rest, while the cooks in the team took out their tools and started working.
The other team consisted of about 20 to 30 people, with a mixed demographic, young and old, and looked like a team composed of several vendors.
In this kind of weather, the dry food you bring will not last for a few days, so when the caravan passes through a town, they will replenish some fresh rice and flour.
Qingzhi and Qinghe started working as soon as they got out of the car. They divided the work and cooperated with each other. One went to the nearby woods to collect firewood, and the other quickly built a simple stove with a few stones.
When Qingzhi came back with firewood, Qinghe had already washed the pots and added water to the pot, and was just waiting to light the fire to boil water and cook the noodles.
"Young master, look." Qingzhi put down the firewood and ran over with a handful of wild vegetables.
Lin Shuyue leaned forward to take a look and saw that it was purslane. She immediately asked happily, "Where did you dig this? Take me to see it. We can dig up more and blanch it in boiling water later. Then add some salt, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil and mix it. It will be so fragrant."
Qingzhi thought of the smell and swallowed unconsciously, pointing to the forest: "Sir, it's over there. There's a large patch there. Let's go dig it up."
The two of them were talking quite loudly, and many people on the ground heard their conversation. They just looked over here, glanced at them, and then looked away without interest.
Some people who wanted to move saw that their companions did not move, so they had to give up and rest.
When Qinghe came back with a handful of wild vegetables, she had already cooked the noodles and added some meat sauce to them.
Of course, this meat sauce was taken out by Lin Shuyue from the space, otherwise it would have gone bad long ago.
Qinghe took the wild vegetables and continued to work. After a while, a large plate of fragrant wild vegetables was ready.
The master, his servants and his two companions each finished a large bowl of noodles with mixed wild vegetables, and they ate so much that beads of sweat appeared on the tips of their noses.
The men sitting not far from them couldn't help swallowing their saliva when they saw the three of them eating so happily, and suddenly felt that the meat porridge in their bowls was no longer delicious.
After eating and drinking their fill and taking a short rest for a quarter of an hour, the two caravans nearby began to pack up and prepare to continue their journey.