The square in the center of Beishan Town was approaching dusk.
The sun was hanging on the mountain ridge in the west, and it would not set. According to the local timekeeping method in Daxizhou, there was still about half an hour before the official start of the burning.
In fact, there is still a while, but the audience is almost full, and a large number of people watching the torture have begun to gather.
There are actually two places where the punishment is observed.
One is near the execution platform that has just been built. At this moment, there are already three floors inside and three floors outside, and even the nearby roofs are full of people.
It's close here, so you can see clearly, but the environment for torture is not good, there are too many people, and it's uncomfortable to be crowded together. This is a place for civilians to watch the excitement.
The "private seat" of the real nobles had to be where Lin Shuo was staying, on top of the wall of Beishan Castle.
Although it's a bit far away, I can still see clearly, and the surrounding scenery is good, drinks and refreshments are all available, and there are high-end companions.
Lin Shuo and Nemea were waiting here shortly after lunch.
One is to wait for the burning of people below, and the other is to wait for the companions who will watch the torture together this time.
There are several groups of companions, the first is Miao Chengyun, the envoy of the mission.
Master Miao has been busy with business at night recently, so he goes to bed late, and usually doesn't get up until dinner time.
Even more so today because it was the last two days and he had to enjoy himself.
Therefore, Mr. Miao was the closest to the top of the city wall in terms of distance, but he was the latest to come in terms of time.
The second batch of companions are Nemea's cabinet members and trusted generals.
In Daxizhou, there are five members of the cabinet of a normal principality: the religious priest, the military commander, the diplomatic palm, the interior minister, and the head of intelligence.
Among them, except for the religious priest who was appointed by the imperial temple, other cabinet members were often appointed by the more powerful earldom lords in the duchy. Joining the cabinet itself was a kind of political bargaining chip that the duke could use to win over people's hearts.
But the Duchy of Mia is not the norm at the moment. The old duke just died a year ago, and the succession procedure of the entire dukedom has not yet been completed.
Therefore, the cabinet of Nemea is mainly the same set of his own earldom. The religious priest Amphitrite was appointed by the empire. The military commander was originally Hercules and now it is Lun. Lin Shuo focused on taking care of them, because these two are masters with ninth-level combat power.
The other three cabinets are almost there. Regardless of their daily abilities, at least their cultivation base is not high, at the level of seventh or eighth rank.
There are two in the cabinet that deserve attention, and among Nemea's trusted and beloved generals, there are three more that should not be underestimated.
These three are all elite fighters in the hands of Nemea, and they are all ninth-tier professionals, and they are only one step away from the title master.
These people, strong and weak, were all added together, about twenty of them belonged to the top of the city wall, and all of them had seats, but they were located at the back, blocked by the crenels of the city wall, so they couldn't actually see the burning.
The real good location, like Lin Shuo, is not far from the edge of the city wall, and you can directly see the execution ground when you look down, except for Lin Shuo, Miao Chengyun, the two representatives of the mission, and Nie Mo Apart from Ya himself, he also belonged to the last group of guests tonight.
"County of Xilan, Earl Garcia has arrived!!!"
"Countess of Nanling, Countess Zofia has arrived!!!"
"County of Barron, Earl Enzo has arrived!!!"
"Earl of Kangshan, the Earl of Pichai is here!!!"
…
As the earls and lords of the Principality of Mia arrived one by one, Lin Shuo was actually reflecting secretly in his heart at the moment.
Children have to be born, but not too many.
This old Duke of Miya, with seventeen children in this life, no matter how big the family property is, it is not enough. This belongs to the parents who make trouble for the children.
I still have prenatal and postnatal care, and now I have four children, which is almost enough.
Otherwise, we can learn from the past. Look at this family, how messy it is right now.
The eldest sister was about to be burned to death in public, and the younger brothers and sisters were watching as a group, and then each had their own ulterior motives.
These earls, Lin Shuo had met each other a while ago, and had some exchanges.
Of course, this kind of thing is called a strong dragon can't suppress a local snake. Even if Lin Shuo is acting as the deputy envoy of the empire, he can't immediately force them to express their views.
Everyone said to think about it, but Lin Shuo didn't know how to think about it now, and they probably didn't have a good idea at the moment.
In the final analysis, it still depends on how the incident at the scene turns out. Everyone is sitting on the fence.
…
When the seats on the city wall were almost full, Miao Chengyun dragged his shoes and came up yawning.
Mr. Zhengshi was going to take a seat next to Lin Shuo. Mr. Miao said softly in Huaxia Jiangnan dialect, "Something is not right."
Miao Chengyun grew up in North America, but he is a genius in languages. He not only masters eight foreign languages, but also has a lot of southern dialects and northern dialects in China.
Of course, his Wu Nong soft language is not so authentic in the ears of Lin Shuo, a person from the south of the Yangtze River, but it is enough as a code word for the two people to communicate directly, at least other people here can't understand it.
Nemea was actually talking to his younger siblings at the moment, and wasn't paying attention to them.
Lin Shuo looked normal, and asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's not right anywhere." Miao Chengyun's face was relaxed, as if he was talking about family matters, "I asked him to withdraw at that point, but this kid hasn't withdrawn yet, it seems that he can't withdraw.
Not only was he unable to withdraw, Yang Baokun, who had gone to deliver the letter, seemed to be stuck there and would not return.
In addition, you should have detected it without me reminding you. Right now, there is a master hiding under our feet, in the darkroom of the city wall.
The spirit is concentrated and the blood is strong. We don't know who this person is, but his strength should not be inferior to you and me.
Su Dongdong had to guard the stairs of the city wall to prevent those elite fighters from killing them. The two sticks of Pang Weiser and Tang Kede could not be counted on, let alone they are now in the execution ground.
So the person right under our buttocks right now, no one is watching, I have to come in person.
That means, you alone have to deal with everyone who is currently on top of the city wall.
Then, look at the current execution ground. "
The people on the top of the city wall just now appeared one after another, and Lin Shuo's attention was all on them.
Lin Shuo didn't pay attention to what was going on in the execution ground below.
Moreover, with such a distance, the sky gradually darkened. Lin Shuo's eyesight was affected by preparing lessons under a kerosene lamp in the early years, so now it is about the same level as the average person.
Looking at the execution ground under this distance and light conditions, you can only get a rough look.
He vaguely saw that the burning pillars had been erected on the burning platform, but the firewood hadn't been piled up yet.
And just beside the stake, there was a table with a white tablecloth on it, and a candle burning in the middle of the tablecloth.
At both ends of the table, a man and a woman are sitting opposite each other and eating.
The food was not bad, excellent medium rare grain fed tomahawk steak with red wine.
Lin Shuo could smell what they were eating with his nose, but Lin Shuo couldn't see the faces of the two people clearly at the moment. He could only confirm that the woman was Artemis.
As for who that man is, it's not hard to guess.
This scene seemed very strange.
It seemed that people were going to be burned at the stake, but at this moment, the victim and the executioner had dinner together first.
"The rules in Daxizhou are still different from other places." Miao Chengyun said, "In our Huaxia, before the death row, the prisoner would have a full meal in the cell.
However, there are relatively few people who really eat it, and they generally have no appetite, so it's just a formality.
But look at the two of them at the moment, just like young couples dining in a restaurant, isn't this style of painting a bit wrong? "
Of course, Lin Shuo also realized the problem that Miao Chengyun pointed out now.
In fact, when the matter is imminent, the most feared thing is this kind of situation.
It was the situation at that time, I couldn't understand it.
If you don't understand, you can't extract effective information, and you can't make effective judgments based on on-the-spot information. If you are in a dangerous situation, you will often die without a place to die.
Today's matter is not what Lin Shuo is good at in terms of nature, and he has done his best to get here.
He has done everything he can, but so far, some original ideas have not been realized.
For example, he did not find any evidence to overturn the crime of Artemis.
The reason why he couldn't find it was that Lin Shuo had been in the modern society for a long time and was used to the existence of the modern judicial system, so he had too high a view on the legal system of the Tianlan Empire.
As a result, he later learned that there was no judicial system in the Tianlan Empire, and it was very arbitrary to convict a person.
No evidence, no jurisprudence, it all depends on the will of "God".
How did the will of "God" come from? Divination.
Cheating can be done by divination, so it is technically simple to slander a person as guilty.
The unacceptable crime of Artemis is not that her behavior was really caught by someone, but that she did not grasp the temple in advance.
Amphitrite, the priest of the Principality of Mia, slept in the same bed with Nemea, and the two of them were going to work together to deal with her. Of course, she had no chance.
Therefore, in order to overthrow Artemis' crime, there is no need to talk about evidence, just make the necessary situation and force Amphitrite to overturn the previous divination results.
Things are actually simplified, but the problem is that Lin Shuo can't understand the current situation.
Lin Shuo didn't pay attention to these so-called masters on the city wall.
Lin Shuo paid attention to the person hiding under the city wall, but he believed that Miao Chengyun could block it for him.
But he didn't understand the situation on the execution ground very clearly.
A man and a woman were eating together quietly. Is this the "beheading" Tu Liang's unique ritual before the executioner did it, or the situation over there has completely deviated from his previous assumptions.
In Lin Shuo's previous thinking, the executioner was a relatively unimportant person, nothing more than a tool for killing people. As long as he cut off the hand holding the tool, the executioner himself would not be a threat.
And just this afternoon, he learned about the unique customs of executioners here, and also learned that the executioner who executed today was Tu Liang, a well-known "decapitated" in the industry.
Then the situation is different. Tu Liang's role in this matter is actually very similar to his own group, they are all people who took over the business.
After accepting the transaction, there will be a problem, that is, the buyer and seller will have a rigid demand for the payment of remuneration.
Who is responsible for paying the remuneration, the gold master.
Who is the sponsor of Tu Liang's business, Nemea.
Therefore, as long as Wei Xingshan killed Nemea with one shot, he would definitely be retaliated by Tu Liang.
This is also the practice of the hunting gate business. If the gold owner is killed during the transaction, then as a hunter, he has to avenge the gold owner, and then hold the murderer's head to find the gold owner's heir, so that the gold owner's heir will pay the reward .
Lin Shuo and Miao Chengyun got this information, and they also took this into consideration. Miao Chengyun knew that Lin Shuo was dragged by Nemea and couldn't give orders, so he directly ordered Wei Xingshan to withdraw.
With Wei Xingshan's ability, it would not be difficult to kill Nemea with one shot, but he certainly couldn't resist the revenge of the two-word title master Tu Liang.
As a result, Wei Xingshan didn't withdraw for some unknown reason, and even Yang Baokun who went to report the letter didn't come back.
So so far, Lin Shuo's understanding of the situation is, can Yang Baokun block Tu Liang
But looking at the situation on the other side of the execution ground, it seems that something is not quite right.
What's wrong, Lin Shuo doesn't know right now.
Fortunately, soon, a gust of wind blew over, and the smell information passed into his nose, and he knew it.
So he glanced at Miao Chengyun and warned, "The man in the execution ground is not Tu Liang."
"Huh? Why?" Miao Chengyun asked directly.
"The smell of an executioner is different from that of ordinary people." Lin Shuo said, "The man on the execution ground doesn't smell like blood."
"Then who is he?"
"Who he is is not important to you, because he is out of your control." Lin Shuo said, "The person you want to watch is downstairs."
"you mean?"
"The person downstairs is Tu Liang."
…