The wooden door of the ancestral hall was pushed open,
The Revolutionary Army filed in.
The widow's face was haggard,
She was so old that she didn't dare to enter the solemn wooden door carved with the portrait of the ancestors. Zong Zheng kept saying to the Revolutionary Army, "This is the place of the ancestors. Women can't go in … They will be punished by the heavens …"
Lin Daiyu stepped in. She stood inside the door,
She turned around and smiled.
There was no beating from the heavens or lightning.
The widow was stunned. Then, she was pulled in by her only son. The young man was close to the Revolutionary Army and had long suspected his father's death,
He couldn't wait to find an answer. The young man was hot-blooded,
Even if he was afraid of this place where the ancestors lived in peace,
He was still full of righteous indignation and bravery.
Zong Zheng was dumbfounded. The farmers behind him also had some complaints about the women entering the ancestral hall.
But since the two women had already crossed the threshold, the Revolutionary Army also bent their swords,
The swords were also clear,
They glanced sideways at Zong Zheng's dumbfounded look in front of the real swords and spears,
So the previous complaints turned into a burst of laughter. The farmers followed behind the Revolutionary Army and poured into the ancestral hall, which was usually not open to ordinary people.
In the main hall of the ancestral hall, there was a wooden idol sitting upright,
It was the ancestors of the Yan family for countless generations,
The wooden idol was covered in golden powder, covering its face under a dark curtain. There was an everlasting lamp burning under it,
And a good candle burning. In front of it were two bloodstained futons.
Zong Zheng and Zong Xiangzheng, who rushed over later, shouted, "Don't be rude to the ancestors!", "You are too rude!"
Zhang Yilang lifted the curtain of the idol and stuck his head out to take a look. Then, he shook his head at the leaders of the Revolutionary Army and Blue Silk, Qi Lirong and Lin Daiyu. He indicated that there was no secret passage or secret room behind them.
Zong Zheng's face was full of anger. "Why are you insulting the ancestors for no reason!" He turned his head and called the young man, "Yan Ji,
How many times have I said it?
Your father Lin Nan owes the family the rent for the ancestral hall field,
He escaped on his own. Why don't you believe me?! Normally, you would follow your crazy mother around the village and search the hills, saying that you were looking for your father's burial ground. You spread rumors that we killed your father. Seeing that we were from the same clan, we let bygones be bygones. You ingrate! Now you even brought people to search the ancestral hall. How can you face your ancestors?! "
Yan Ji was the only son of Yan Nan, who had been missing for three years. He was only sixteen years old this year. When he heard what was said, he was so angry that his whole body trembled. He suddenly stepped forward and said, "You're slandering me! My father has never stepped out of Yan Village! You threatened my father, saying that my family had been in arrears with the rent, and it was all because of you that you didn't take back the ancestral hall's land. If you don't fork out the money to repair the ancestral hall this time, then drive my family out. From now on, I won't be allowed to have the surname Yan. I won't be able to live in the old houses in the village, and I won't be able to plant the ancestral hall. "
When he said this, he had already clenched his fists tightly and was almost shouting out, "That day, my family sold everything and finally managed to gather the money you said to repair the ancestral hall. We were able to keep the ancestral hall's land. My family didn't have money to buy a grain of rice for three days. We were so hungry that we fainted. You didn't allow the villagers to help us. My father was afraid that my mother and I would starve to death, so he had no choice but to go to the ancestral hall to borrow half a bag of red potatoes. After that, he never came back! "
Many farmers with the surname Yan crowded in the courtyard of the ancestral hall heard Yan Ji's agitated and loud voice.
Everyone knew this.
The Yan Village was a gathering place, and almost every family was related to each other.
There was a small mountain around, but in the village on the mountain lived the original Zongzi's biggest backer — Master Yan. That Yan Village was equivalent to a private manor.
Apart from that, it was all plains. It was almost impossible for anyone to leave the Yan Family Village without anyone noticing.
Many people present saw Yan Nan quietly walking to the ancestral hall with their own eyes. And no one saw Yan Nan after that.
Most of the people in Yan Village had private guesses, not to mention that there was more than one farmer whose family was indirectly ruined by the clan. It was just that the Zongzi, Zongzheng, and others couldn't guarantee that they didn't make a living from the ancestral hall's land, so they never said these guesses openly.
In the midst of the chaos, Zhang Yilang was overjoyed and shouted, "Mr. Lin, Brother Qi, I found it!"
He touched a pair of particularly majestic eyeballs of the statue — these eyeballs were black and lively. When he looked down, it was particularly intimidating. It made people feel that the statue was looking at them.
Zhang Yilang touched it and knew that it was because of the lively eyeballs — they turned out to be two iron balls embedded in the wood. He pressed down.
With a bang, there was a sound of something slowly opening behind the puppet in the ancestral hall.
Zhang Yilang poked his head out and looked, "Dungeon! I knew it. Many ghosts play this trick when they repair the ancestral hall. "
In the ancestral hall and the courtyard, there was a sudden stupefied silence. It was so quiet that even a needle could be heard.
Zongzheng saw that the situation was not good and wanted to escape, but he was stopped by the militia. "Where do you want to go?"
Yan Ji and his mother were so excited that they couldn't care less about the ancestor's idol. The widow screamed and ran to the dungeon, followed by Yan Ji.
The militia stopped them, took a torch, pushed down the idol who was in the way, and carefully shone it into the darkness of the dungeon steps.
Because they were too shocked, even when the idol was pushed to the ground and the gold powder on his body fell, no one cared. The farmers who followed in all craned their necks to look into the dungeon. The discussion didn't stop.
One of the militia soldiers led Yan Ji down cautiously. Lin Daiyu stood at the entrance of the dungeon and smelled the rotten smell inside.
After a while, there was a heart-wrenching cry of Yan Ji, "Dad —!"
Yan Nan, who had been missing for three years, was found in the dungeon of the Yan family's ancestral hall.
Even though he was already rotten beyond recognition, and most of his body was only left with bones. However, his emaciated widow and his young only son recognized their husband and father at a glance.
In the dungeon, there was a large amount of gold, silver and jewels in the same room as Yan Nan's bones.
At that time, when the boxes were carried out, they were glistening yellow, and the faces of the people present were all yellow.
Zongzheng explained, "I don't know, I don't know." However, he was still tied up by the angry farmers and his brother, Zongzi, and brought to the stone platform that the militia usually built to "reason" with the villagers.
Below the platform, Qi Lirong smiled at Lin Daiyu. "Miss Lin, why did you ask us to investigate Yan Nan's matter?"
Lin Daiyu said, "Little Zhang inspired me. This matter of the clan is not something we can solve alone. "
Therefore, she went to the newly built village government office and looked through the newly investigated villagers' records. She found that everyone actually had complaints about the clan, but they did not dare to speak out. Among them, the one who had the most complaints about the ancestral hall was Yan Ji's family, who had lost their head.
Yan Ji's family were all fierce and straightforward people. They were never willing to compromise with the actions of Zongzi, Zongzheng and the others. Just like that, their family lost their land step by step. In the end, they were forced to the point where they could only rent the most inferior ancestral hall land.
Zongzi and the others saw the "bumpkin" Yan Nan as a thorn in their side.
It was just that they lived together and everyone was related to each other, so it was not good to kill them openly.
When Yan Nan went missing, their family already had suspicions, but they did not have any evidence. They could not risk universal condemnation and break into a "sacred place" like the ancestral hall.
Yan Ji tried to climb over the wall several times, but he was caught by the heavily guarded ancestral hall. It was not easy for the villagers to plead for mercy. He was beaten several times before he was released.
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