On the morning of the winter solstice, Ling Ruting, the owner of Pugu Pharmacy Shop, got up and washed up as usual, put three sticks of high incense in front of the statue of the pharmacist, told his buddies to look after the shop, and carried his two-year-old son Tonghui to the street.
Today is the Winter Solstice "Warm Congee Festival" in Pugu City, and the streets are bustling with people. Ling Ruting took her son to the first floor of De to have a bowl of warm congee, and then strolled to the stall where a monkey player was playing. The monkey player was about 40 years old, short in stature and skinny, as if he hadn't eaten for a few days, and the monkeys in his hands were so hungry that his eyes turned green.
After watching the monkey for a while, Ling Ruting was anxious, so she put her son Tonghui on the threshold of a small shop and hurried into the toilet. Who knew that when he came out, he found his son gone. Ling Ruting was shocked and hurriedly looked around. All of a sudden, he found that his son was being held by the monkey and was teasing him with a gourd.
"Tonghui." Ling Ruting quickly snatched his son and glared at the monkey. The monkey smiled awkwardly: "Ling Gongzi is rich and will be rich in the future."
Ling Ruting saw that the monkey player was laughing and full of evil. He said coldly, "A child is expensive or cheap to see his good fortune." After saying that, he quickly hugged his son and walked away, walked to the street corner and turned his head sharply, and saw the monkey player staring at him with strange eyes, watching Ling Ruting's back get cold...
One day, three years later, Ling Ruting was in the hospital for treatment when a friend rushed in and shouted, "Master, it's not good, my son has been stolen." Ling Ruting was so angry that he almost fainted. He staggered into the backyard, only to see Tonghui's bed empty, and there were obvious traces of someone climbing on the backyard wall. "My God, my son!" Then Mrs Ling, who came, screamed and fainted.
After more than a month, the county yamen's police searched the boundaries of hundreds of miles, but there was no news of Tonghui at all. Mrs. Ling was eager and could not afford to be sick. Ling Ruting was also very anxious for the first few days, running to the county yamen all day to urge the police to catch the thieves. But it didn't take long for him to calm down, not only did he sit in the hall as usual for medical treatment, but he also went to the first floor of De to drink porridge elegantly every day. After Mrs Ling found out, she scolded him: "Old man, are you stupid? Our son is lost!"
Who expected Ling Ruting to chuckle, seeing that there was no one left or right, leaned into his wife's ear and said, "I'm not stupid, our son is not lost, it is the son of Hu Laosan in the east of the city." Mrs. Ling touched her husband's forehead: "Are you confused by the fever?" Ling Ruting quietly told her a secret: after she gave birth to Tonghui, he asked a fortune teller to give Tonghui a hexagram. The master said that there would be a disaster when Tonghui was five years old, and the only way to save her was to give Tonghui away, change her name, and wait until she escaped the disaster at the age of five, and then ask for her son back. Ling Ruting was afraid that his wife would not agree, so he secretly found Hu Laosan, a poor blacksmith in the east of the city, hidden from his wife. At that time, Hu Laosan's wife happened to be in labor and gave birth to a son. Ling Ruting gave Hu Laosan 300 taels of silver and dropped the son of Tonghui and Hu Laosan.
"What? You said the child we raised for five years is Hu Laosan's?" Mrs. Ling opened her mouth wide. Ling Ruting nodded proudly and said, sure enough, the fake Tonghui was stolen when she was five years old, which just fulfilled the words of the fortune teller. "I went to see our Tonghui, and he is still in good condition at Hu's house."
Mrs. Ling said worriedly, "What if Hu Laosan knows that we lost his son and he doesn't return our Tonghui?" Ling Ruting snorted coldly, "At most, give him more money. If he doesn't return it, I will sue him!"
When Hu Laosan heard that their son was lost, he was so angry that he jumped three feet high and pointed at the Ling family and cursed, "Unless I get my son back, I don't want to go back to Ling Tonghui." Ling Ruting said that he didn't listen, and in a fit of anger, he sued Hu Laosan for the county yamen. Within half a day, the lawsuit between the Ling and Hu families became known to everyone. The county magistrate's surname is Ma, and he has never encountered such a ridiculous case in half his life.
The crowd outside the county yamen was crowded with people who came to watch the fun. Ma County Magistrate ascended to the hall and asked Ling Hu's family what they wanted, but Ling Ruting said first, "As long as Hu Laosan returns my son, you can pay as much as you want." Hu Laosan jumped and scolded: "Bullshit! Your Ling family lost my son, and you want to get your own child back, which is simply delusional." The two didn't agree, and they actually fought in court. Ma County Magistrate asked the yamen to separate the two, and his brows wrinkled into pimples: "Retreat from the court. Three days later, the trial." After saying that, he left, and the people also laughed and discussed and scattered, saying that there was a good show to watch, and even Ma County Magistrate couldn't stop it, and the case was hung.
But he said that after Hu Laosan went home angrily, he closed the courtyard door and told his wife to cook vegetables and iron wine. After three glasses of wine, Hu Laosan hugged his son and took a sip: "You are a good baby of father, my own son is lost, and you will be my own son in the future." After the food and wine were full, Hu Laosan fell asleep, Hu Laosan's wife hugged Ling Tonghui and hummed for a long time. At three o'clock, the child fell asleep, and she mended clothes under the lamp.
Soon, Hu Laosan's wife seemed to hear a chicken flapping in the yard. She thought a weasel was dragging the chicken, so she took a wooden stick and went to the chicken nest. Unexpectedly, before she could stand still, she saw a monkey grab an old hen and jump over the courtyard wall. Hu Laosan's wife was startled, and when she calmed down and chased out, there would be no more monkeys. She scolded him and went back to the house. Just as she was about to tell Hu Laosan this strange thing, she found that Comrade Ling, who had just fallen asleep, was gone.
At this time, a black shadow outside the village was running with the child in his arms. Under the moon and stars, the black shadow looked at the child in his arms and couldn't help laughing: "Ling Tonghui, Ling Tonghui, your father wanted to avoid trouble for you, but he didn't expect it to fall into my hands in the end. I stole a fake for the first time, but this time it was real." Before the black shadow could finish laughing, he heard a "clatter" sound under his feet, and suddenly fell into a pit. The black shadow didn't scream well, and was about to jump out. A big net was already over his head, making him a strong net. Soon, there were more than a dozen yamen around, led by Ma County Magistrate and Ling Ruting. Ling Ruting tore off the black shadow mask, and it was the monkey who wanted to take Tonghui away three years ago. " Tell me, where did you hide my child! "Ling Ruting shouted.
The monkey player's face was like ashes, and he brought everyone to a dilapidated temple dozens of miles away. Inside the temple, the stolen fake Tonghui was soaking in a large hot urn. "Son!" Ling Ruting quickly took the child out and tried to breathe, but fortunately he was still breathing. Ling Ruzheng said angrily, "I have no grievances with you, why did you steal my child?" The monkey player did not answer, but asked, "I can tell you, but before I ask, how did you know that I was going to steal the children of Hu Laosan's family?"
The county magistrate next to him smiled, "You've been tricked. In fact, the string you stole for the first time is the real Ling Tonghui. The master fortune-telling, the exchange of sons with the Hu family, and the lawsuit between the Hu Ling family are all just plans set up by Boss Ling, in order to make you think that the Ling Tonghui you stole is fake and lure you to steal again."
The monkey player was dumbfounded. Ling Ruting told him: "After my son was lost, I was very anxious at first. When I calmed down, I felt that this matter was not simple. First, I felt that Tonghui was not like being kidnapped, because after the kidnapper stole the child, he would write letters to blackmail money. But I didn't receive the blackmail letter; second, there should be no revenge. I, Ling Ruting, have done good deeds all my life and accumulated virtue. I have never offended anyone, and if I take revenge, I can come to me directly. What's the use of stealing a child? Third, the person who steals the child is not like a kidnapper. Tonghui has been ill with both eyes since childhood. With poor eyesight, no kidnapper will go to great lengths to kidnap a half-blind child to sell. Since the person who stole the child doesn't want money, revenge, or profit, he can only do it for the child himself, and there must be something useful about Tonghui. So I pretended to file a lawsuit with Hu Laosan to make you think you stole a fake child and had to steal it again, and we were waiting to catch the turtle in the urn. "
"Oh, I'm exhausted. I didn't expect you to be smarter than me, Liu!" The monkey player sighed. He said that when he was young, he was also a lang zhong. Once he went into the mountains to collect herbs, he found a small cave. He climbed down the cave to the end, and inside it was a mountain depression more than ten feet in size. The flat ground was covered with exotic flowers and plants, and there was a strange Ganoderma lucidum grass, which turned out to be "Hanzang Guanyin" recorded in medical books. This kind of Ganoderma lucidum has unique medicinal properties. After taking it, the old man's white hair turns black, his teeth fall and he is reborn. The young man can live longer, and the dying person can also live longer by three years. He was overjoyed, thinking that this Ganoderma lucidum grass could be exchanged for hundreds of millions of gold and high-ranking officials in the world, but unfortunately Guanyin was not yet mature, so he made a mark outside the cave and decided to pick it again in a year.
The monkey player sighed and said, "It's a pity that after a year, the cave collapsed, leaving only a one-foot-sized passage. Humans can't climb in at all. Moreover, the cave stones are like steel, and the axe can't be chiseled, and the steel brake can't be inserted. I had to train a group of monkeys to help me pick medicine. Unfortunately, animals are animals, and no matter how hard I tried, none of them could pluck the half-cut Guanyin for me. Later, I got a secret book called'Shrinking Bone ', which said that if I could find a child born in the year of a rat in the first lunar month and teach him to practice Shrinking Bone, he would shrink the bone like a monkey and climb into the cave to pluck half of Guanyin."
Ling Ruting suddenly realized that his Tonghui was born in the year of Rat, and he was born when he was confining. The monkey player said that he had been looking for many years, stealing dozens of children to teach them to practice bone shrinking magic skills, but unfortunately they all failed in the end. They all died in that small cave. Three years ago, he happened to know that Ling Tonghui was also his target. He had always wanted to steal it, but unfortunately, the Ling family's big family was very guarded, and there was no chance until recently. It was only recently that he heard rumors from ordinary people that the child he stole was fake, and the real Ling Tonghui had long been transferred to the Hu family, so he went to the Hu family to steal the child, but he did not expect that there was a big net waiting for him.
"Is there really half of Guanyin in the world?" Ling Ruting and the county magistrate Ma didn't believe it, so they asked the monkey player to take them to the small cave. They saw dozens of dead bones of young children scattered outside the cave, all of which were forced by the monkey player to enter the cave to pick up half of Guanyin. Stuck alive in the narrow cave. "Sin!" Ling Ruting thought for a while, and suddenly asked the monkey player, Is that half of Guanyin a three-leaf flower petal with a bright red root, which smells strange from a distance?
The monkey player asked in surprise, "How do you know?" Ling Ruting stomped his feet and scolded, "You fool, that's not half of Guanyin!" He told the monkey player that the real half of Guanyin has four leaf petals, purple-red roots, and a fragrant smell. And there is a kind of grass similar to half of Guanyin, three-leaf flowers, big vat roots, and an unpleasant smell. In fact, it is called "Life-threatening ," which is highly poisonous. After people eat it, it bleeds from seven orifices, wears through their intestines, and is more poisonous than arsenic! "What?" The monkey player stayed for a long time, and suddenly laughed wildly, "God, I spent half my life working hard. It killed dozens of people. I actually just wanted to get a poisonous weed, God's will trick people!" After saying this, he suddenly broke free of the yamen's shackles and crashed into the cliff. He saw blood splashing and died immediately.
Ma County Magistrate sighed, "It's not God who played tricks on you, it's your own inner demons who played tricks on you." Everyone sighed.
The night after things subsided, a black shadow climbed over the mountain and quietly came outside the small cave. The black shadow stuffed a pile of gunpowder into entrance of the cave, lit the fuse, and quickly descended the mountain. Soon there was an earth-shaking noise, and the cave was immediately sealed by the collapsed boulder. The black shadow looked at the trembling earth behind him and said with regret, "I lied to you, it was indeed an unparalleled half of Guanyin. If you don't destroy it, I don't know how many people will die for it in the future. What kind of rare treasure is just a poisonous weed for greedy people who are troubled by demons in their hearts."
As the shadow spoke, he slowly took off the mask. It was Ling Ruting, the owner of Pugu Pharmacy.