But the toad's croaking did not attract the children's attention at all.
The little boy holding the rope was still dragging the croaking frog, but the frog did not jump, as if it were dead, and its body was covered with gray dust.
Although the toad may make people feel disgusted, it is a weak creature after all. Such a dragging method will torture the frog to death sooner or later.
I stood in front of the boy holding the frog, my face turned blue and my eyes were fixed on the child.
The boy stopped and looked at me timidly.
His lips moved slightly and he said, "You are blocking my way. Can you please move aside?"
I didn't get angry right away. I pointed at the frog that was already exhausted and said to the child, "Little friend, the frog is dying. Can you let it go? If you keep dragging it, you will kill it. Who knows, it might turn into a scary monster and come looking for you at night."
Maybe frightened by what I said, the little boy actually loosened the rope in his hand and ran away quickly.
The other kids were also a little afraid of me and stood far away.
I curled my lips, went to the toad, and used the knife I took out of the cloth bag to cut the hemp rope on the toad's hind legs.
Without any restraints, the toad struggled to get up from the ground, slowly retracted its legs and feet, and then used all its strength to jump into the bushes on the side.
It didn't jump very fast, but after it dived into the grass, it disappeared from my sight.
"The toad has been set free, the toad has been set free! ... "
The children standing in the distance were shouting loudly.
I turned over there and yelled, "Go away!"
Hearing my roar, the children scattered in fear.
In the distance, under the roots of a tree, a few women were chatting, and their eyes were all cast towards me. They pointed fingers at me as if I had bullied those children.
I tilted my head to look behind me and said, "Let's go and ask where Nangong Yang is."
Soon the four of us went under the big tree.
The women over there stopped talking and stared at us warily.
I faced a woman in a loose flowery dress and asked, "Sister, can I ask you something?"
The woman frowned slightly and said slowly, "What's the matter?"
I smiled and said, "I want to find Nangong Yang. Can you tell me where his home is?"
The woman didn't hesitate. She raised her hand slightly, pointed to a house in the distance and said, "Go over there! The fifth house with the stone lions at the door is Nangong Yang's family."
At this point, the woman asked me again: "Who are you? Why did you come to our Chenzhuang Village?"
I casually explained, "We are friends with Mr. Nangong Yang, so we came to take a look."
But the women opposite me obviously didn't believe what I said.
I didn’t care whether they believed it or not. I just said thank you and turned around and walked towards Nangong Yang’s house.
A few minutes later, we appeared at the door of Nangong Yang's house.
There are two small stone lions on the left and right sides of the door. The two lions have bright eyes and are carved vividly. They open their mouths wide, and a stone bead is in their mouths.
The door to the courtyard was open, and one could see a courtyard-like place inside. There was an apricot tree in the courtyard, and the apricot flowers had already bloomed at this time of year, and green fruits were produced on it.
But before we entered the yard, we heard the sound of a child crying.
Then a thirty
A man of about 60 years old walked out of the door holding a child. He had a fierce look on his face, and his thick black eyebrows were like two small swords slanting at his temples, which made his angry expression particularly clear.
I noticed that the crying child was the boy who had been leading the toad with a string.
"Master Yang, that child is the one just now!" Xu Jiayin reminded me.
I nodded without saying anything.
At this time, the child in the man's arms had already seen me.
As if he was afraid of me, he pointed his finger at me and cried to the man, "Dad, Dad, it's him! It's him... He took my frog and glared at me."
I thought to myself, oh no.
Sure enough, after hearing what the boy said, the man stared at me with a cold brow.
He slowly put the little boy on the ground, and then asked me angrily: "Who are you? Why are you bullying my son?"
I saw that something was not right, so I quickly explained, "Brother, don't misunderstand me. I didn't bully your child. What happened just now was that your child caught a toad, tied it to a string, and kept dragging it. I saw that the toad looked very pitiful and was about to die, so I went over to get the toad."
"Don't worry, I definitely didn't hurt your child! Besides, the toad's skin is poisonous, and it's dangerous for children to play with it..."
After listening to what I said, the man understood the whole story.
He frowned, lowered his head slowly, looked at the little boy hugging his thigh, and asked in a deep voice: "Xiaoyu, is this true?!"
The little boy is already five or six years old and still understands some things.
Seeing his father questioning him, he became even more frightened, but in the end he nodded.
Seeing his son nod, the man suddenly became furious.
Then, he dragged the child to the stone table in the yard, pressed the child on the stone table, took off the child's pants, and began to swing his palms, repeatedly hitting the boy's buttocks.
The little boy was crying and shouting, his face covered with sticky snot and tears.
Seeing how angry the man was, I hurried over and said, "Brother, please don't hit the child. He is still young and doesn't understand things. Besides, this is just a small matter. There is no need for you to get angry."
But the man gave me a cold look and said unhappily, "What business do I have with my children? Get out of here right now. This is my home. If you don't get out, I'll beat you up."
Look, this man is just like a mad dog, biting whoever he sees.
I gritted my teeth and felt a tightness in my chest.
The little monk Yuquan on the side saw that I looked unhappy, so he secretly tugged at my clothes and whispered to me, "Brother Yang, please restrain yourself. We are in someone else's house now. Besides, this is the Nangong Yang family we are looking for. We can't mess around, otherwise we won't be able to accomplish this matter."
I listened to Yuquan's words and ignored the man.
At this moment, a man came out from the east wing of the courtyard and shouted, "Okay, okay, stop beating the child! If you hurt my grandson, I will punish you, you bastard."
Then a middle-aged man in his fifties came out of the room while smoking a pipe.
The man listened to the middle-aged man and stopped.
At this time, there were many red slap marks on the little boy's butt.
The middle-aged man saw us and asked, "Who are you?"
"
I hurried forward and explained: "Uncle, we are here to look for someone."
"Looking for someone? ... ... Looking for whom? It seems like none of our family members know you?"
The middle-aged man stared at me suspiciously. The bowl of his pipe was extinguished by his thick palm.
I said, "Uncle, we really don't know each other, but it is true that we are here to look for someone. We are looking for Nangong Yang, so this must be Mr. Nangong Yang's home."
Nangong Yang is ninety-six years old, so it’s not an exaggeration to call him an old gentleman.
When he heard me say I was looking for Nangong Yang, the middle-aged man asked in surprise, "You want to look for my dad?"
Nangong Yang turned out to be the middle-aged man’s father. Doesn’t that mean the man just now was Nangong Yang’s grandson? Then, the little boy must be Nangong Yang’s great-grandson.
I was surprised when I thought of this. Didn't Nangong Yang go out to find a way to cure the diseases of the people in Hongxiang Village after he left? How come he is still here to marry and have children? Did Nangong Yang not like Lu Sujie at all? Or did Nangong Yang never plan to return to the cave
This is what I don’t understand.
I replied: "That's right, uncle, we are here to see Mr. Nangong Yang."
The middle-aged man asked, "Who are you?"
I don't know how to explain it. Could it be that we are Nangong Yang's friends? This is not realistic either, after all, the age difference is too big.
At this time, my master Zhang Chu, who was standing behind me, spoke to the middle-aged man, "We are from Hongxiang Village. Our ancestors were old friends with Mr. Nangong Yang. So this time we heard that Mr. Nangong Yang was here, so we came to pay him a visit."
When the middle-aged man heard us talking about our Hongxiang Village, his expression suddenly changed. He said in surprise, "It's impossible. Hongxiang Village is an empty village. No one has lived there for a long time. You are not dressed like country people. You are lying!"
"What on earth do you want to do in our house?"
For a moment, the middle-aged man stood in front of his son and grandson, staring at us coldly.
Damn it, I didn’t expect that my master Zhang Chu would lie and be found out.
Zhang Chu looked at me and shook his head helplessly.
I thought about it, looked up and said to the middle-aged man: "Uncle, there are many things that are inconvenient to tell you. But don't worry, we have no ill intentions, we just want to meet Mr. Nangong Yang. To tell you the truth, we really don't know Mr. Nangong Yang. But there is one person she knows, her name is Lv Sujie, and Lv Sujie and Mr. Nangong Yang are old acquaintances."
When I mentioned "Lv Sujie", the middle-aged man actually showed a look of surprise.
He murmured, "Lü Sujie, Lü Sujie? ... I didn't expect there really is such a person."
After a while, the middle-aged man looked up at me and said, "Okay! Since you want to see my old father, we will take you there now."
The man on the side, who was the middle-aged man's son, said to his father: "Dad, we don't know them, we can't let them into our house!"
Who knew that the middle-aged man also had a bad temper? He shouted to his son in a deep voice: "Okay! Don't worry about this matter. Since we have guests, you can take my grandson out to play first. By the way, my grandson's butt is swollen from you. Go to the village doctor to find some medicine and apply it on him... If anything happens to the child, I will punish you."
You see, there really is always someone who can defeat you.
Then, the four of us followed the middle-aged man and walked towards the west wing of the courtyard.
(to be continued)
(End of this chapter) (End of this chapter)