Chapter 20 The third fire

In the twenty-eighth year of the Republic of China, on June 20th, early summer had just entered, but there was a chill in the mansion of the provincial capital. The governor, Ma Chengyong, who was known as the king of the Southwest, was sitting in the study and gnawed on the meat that had just been taken out of the cellar. Iced watermelon is extremely pleasant. On the northeast side, the national government army fought fiercely with the Japanese, but Ma Chengyong was not affected by the war in the southwest corner.A few months ago, the national government sent an urgent telegram asking Ma Chengyong to send troops to join the war. After thinking about it, Ma Chengyong finally decided to send several disobedient companies to the front line.Unexpectedly, these companies won consecutive victories in the front line, so the national government sent a telegram to commend Ma Chengyong, and also sent a bronzing commendation order, which saved him a lot of face.Ma Chengyong was thinking about whether to send two more direct-line troops to the front line, but he was a bit reluctant. It would be a pity to lose these direct-line troops if he lost the battle.

After eating the last piece of watermelon, Ma Chengyong was still not satisfied, so he called out to the servant girl to bring in some more iced watermelons.But he called a few times, but no one answered. Ma Chengyong stood up, walked to the door of the study, and opened the door inward.When he saw the situation in front of him, he couldn't help but gasped. Outside the study, the servant girl leaned over on the floor of the corridor, her eyes were closed tightly, her back was still being pushed slightly, she probably fainted. Ma Chengyong looked up to the end of the corridor again, only to see two guards also fell on the ground.

"There's an assassin?!" Ma Chengyong was startled, and subconsciously reached his waist with his fingers, ready to take out his beloved Browning pistol. Before long, a black shadow suddenly floated in front of him, and a short man with long hair appeared in front of him. "Who are you?" Ma Chengyong asked in horror. This short man was wearing a thick Chinese tunic suit, with long hair and a square face, but his eyes were extremely small, like mung beans.He looked directly at Ma Chengyong without saying a word.And Ma Chengyong also saw a long sword with a strange shape in the hands of this short man.

"Marshal Ma, I have no malice. If I wanted to kill you, I would have killed you long ago." The short man said slowly with a strange accent. The seventh day of July is the day when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet on the magpie bridge. According to the old rules of previous years, after dinner, men, women and children in Xiling County all carry lanterns to the Xiling River outside the county to set off Kongming lanterns. Around the time of the intersection of Xu Hai, people who were looking up at the sky lanterns rising, saw a ball of burning fire, flashing orange light, passing quickly above their heads, and most of the sky was dyed red like blood. .In the blink of an eye, the fireball roared across the Xiling Mountain outside the county seat, and then fell towards the east.Immediately afterwards, a mass of flames rose from behind Xiling Mountain, but no one heard the sound of the explosion.

Someone exclaimed: "The other side of the mountain is Xiuxi Town, the fireball has fallen into Xiuxi Town!" Another old man babbled: "It's not good, the skyfire counterattacks, something big is going to happen!" This year, there have been many major events.I heard that the situation in the Northeast is critical, and the army of the Nationalist Government is fighting fiercely with the Japanese invaders, but the tragic battle is too far away from Xiling County in the southwest corner of Pian'an, so no one cares at all—no matter how hard the front is, It won't come to us, everyone thinks so.

After half a bag of cigarettes, the originally bright crescent moon suddenly dimmed, and thick clouds piled up in the sky instantly.Then, there were bean-sized raindrops, and when the raindrops fell on the people's heads, they realized that the rainwater was as black as ink, and those new clothes specially put on for the Qixi Festival were all dirty. Shouts and curses suddenly came one after another by the Xiling River. As the raindrops became denser, the people who put up the Kongming lanterns scattered and went home. There are also people who understand the truth and feel that the sky is different, so they run wildly towards the county yamen—although it has been the 28th year of the Republic of China, Xiling people still like to call the county government the county yamen, and the county magistrate Hu Jinqiang as the county yamen. County grandfather.

It's an old habit, and it can't be changed in a while. However, that night, Hu Jinqiang did not stay in the county yamen, and no one in the yamen knew where he had gone. That night, the county magistrate Hu Jinqiang stayed in the bedroom on the third floor of the Xiuqiu Building in Xiuxi Town, smoking cigarettes with great enjoyment. The Hydrangea Building is not a messy brothel, but the boudoir of the county magistrate Hu's third concubine Yuwan.The Hydrangea Building has three floors, the first floor is the living room, the second floor is the living room, and the third floor has only one hut with a bamboo reclining chair inside.

Yuwan, eighteen years old, is a beauty from Xiuxi, one in ten thousand.Xiling County governs five towns and eighteen townships, and each town produces special products, and Xiuxi Town produces beauties.Yuwan is neither fat nor thin, she is glamorous and charming, even if she puts on a little powder and dazzles her eyebrows, she will emit a compelling dazzling light, which makes it difficult to open her eyes. Yuwan's father was one of the largest households in Xiuxi Town in the past. He opened two rice and grain stores and a medicine shop. Next to the window on the third floor of the second floor, I dropped the hydrangea and chose my husband-in-law.Young men of appropriate age in nearby villages and towns have been looking forward to Yuwan's eighteenth birthday.

Unexpectedly, one summer two years ago, unidentified thieves suddenly sneaked into Yuwan's mansion, beheaded the whole family, took away all the money, and set fire to it.The fire burned for two full days and two nights, and in the end there was only a pile of scorched earth, and dozens of charred corpses were buried under the scorched earth.Although the county government sent a security team leader to investigate the case for several months, they still haven't found reliable clues to arrest the thieves. Fortunately, on the day when the incident happened, Yuwan was invited to a certain handkerchief dealer's house to study the new stitching method of Su embroidery, so she escaped unharmed and did not turn into a charred corpse in the Miemen massacre.

After the incident, Yuwan's father's friend Hu Jinqiang, the magistrate of the county, rushed to Xiuxi Town to adopt Yuwan.However, after only two years of adoption, County Magistrate Hu made Yuwan, who was twenty years younger than him, his third concubine. On the occasion of her wedding, Yuwan said that she would often go back to Xiuxi Town to pay respects to her family, so County Magistrate Hu simply built a three-story hydrangea building on the scorched earth of Yuwan's family mansion. Although he is in Xiling County, he is the one and only emperor of the land, but in name he is also under the jurisdiction of Ma Chengyong, the commander-in-chief of the provincial capital.In recent months, Marshal Ma has suddenly increased his jurisdiction, and ordered that the tobacco and soil trade be stopped within the jurisdiction.But county magistrate Hu's good thing is those few puffs of cigarettes, so he simply let Yuwan stay in the Xiuqiu Building in Xiuxi Town, and he rushed from the county town to the Xiuqiu Building every three days or so.

Visiting the newly married third concubine is just a cover. Hu Jinqiang's real purpose is to avoid Marshal Ma's eyes and ears and hide in the Hydrangea Building to smoke cigarettes. Let’s talk about the night of Tianhuo’s counterattack. When the incident happened, Hu Jinqiang was lying on the bamboo bed, lying on the long tobacco rod, and the bubbles happened to be deflated.He raised his hand weakly, and said to Yu Wan who was serving him, "Go and light me a cigarette." Yuwan nodded, picked up the iron plate on which the cigarette bubbles were placed, and walked to the window. She has always thought that when County Magistrate Hu smoked dirt, the smell of the smoke was very unpleasant, so when changing the pods, she would go to the window to get a breath.Just as she took out the needle, picked out the smoke bubbles, and before she had time to light the match, a blinding light suddenly burst out from the mountain not far away. Surprised, Yuwan's fingers trembled, and the iron plate in her hand fell to the ground with a "bang". Lying down with his eyes closed, Magistrate Hu, hearing the sound of the iron plate falling to the ground, opened his eyes suddenly, looked at the smoke bubbles falling on the ground, and couldn't help crying out distressedly: "What are you doing? I don't know how much smoke there is. Is it expensive?" Before he finished speaking, he heard the sound of "shua shua" breaking through the air.In an instant, a cloud of light poured into the bedroom from the window, and according to the light, Yu Wan lay down lightly on the floor, covering her face with her hands, screaming in pain, her body still throbbing. roll. Hu Jinqiang took a closer look and saw that there were grains of coke-like sand following the light pouring into the bedroom from the window of the Hydrangea Building just now.The sand fell on the bedroom floor, and steam was still steaming.He walked to the window, knelt down and touched the sand on the floor, and immediately retracted his fingers like a needle prick—the sand that poured into the window was like boiled soybeans, and it was terribly hot. Such hot sand poured into the window, how could Yu Wan who was standing by the window not be harmed by it? Hu Jinqiang turned his head to look at Yuwan again, only to see that large and small pustules had appeared on her face.Obviously, it was burned by the scalding sand.Under the pustule, bright red blood is surging. Looking at the fine and dense pustules on Yuwan's face, Hu Jinqiang first felt a chill, and then he just felt sick.