During the Daoguang years, there was a businessperson named Zhang En in Qingzhou, Shandong. He was generous and generous, and could be regarded as a great good person in ten miles and eight townships.

On this day, Zhang En and his servant rushed to the capital to buy a batch of satin. After walking for half a month, the servant suddenly gave birth to malaria and could not accompany him no matter what. However, the capital had already negotiated with the seller, so naturally it could not be delayed.

After some consideration, Zhang En gave the servant an ingot of silver and asked him to return to Qingzhou on his own after he recovered from his illness, and continue on his way alone.

So after a few days, on the Hebei border, Zhang En secretly thought: not far from the capital!

At this moment, a groom in front of him called himself Li Li and asked Zhang En if he wanted to rent horses: "The guest officer has so much luggage and is tired all the way. It is better to rent my two horses. The price is easy to say!"

Zhang En is a happy person, and he didn't bargain much, so he agreed with Li Li: the rent is two taels of silver, he pays one tael in advance, and then pays the balance after entering the capital.

Then Li Li in the back of the horse carrying luggage, Zhang En rode in front, along the way to tour the beautiful scenery, good not comfortable!

Before walking out of two miles, another person appeared in front of him.

Zhang En rode forward and found that the other party was a twelve or thirteen-year-old child. He grabbed a crow in his hand and asked Zhang En if he would like to pay five dollars for it.

Zhang En was angry and laughed, "Crows are not good birds, others can't avoid them, and you kid still want me to be taken advantage of!"

In his hesitation, he saw that the crow was flying up and down in the child's hands, and a few feathers fell off. It is estimated that if it goes on like this, it will be played to death by the bear child in a while!

Zhang En stopped the child and took out a piece of broken silver from his waist. Here, I'll give you silver.

The child took the silver and left happily. Zhang En took the crow, untied the straw rope between his feet, and threw it up. What was puzzling was that the free crow actually circled over Zhang En's head, making a few sad cries!

Behind his back, a pair of evil eyes were already staring at him.

There are rumors in the anecdote, old cries, and disaster has arrived.

Zhang En, who had been in business for many years, couldn't help but be startled: "Could there really be a disaster today?", but then he thought, is it strange for this crow to scream after being frightened? So he raised his whip and went straight to the capital.

Li Li, who was behind him, saw this and trotted all the way, lest he lose his customers.

In a blink of an eye, the setting sun fell in the west, and Zhang En came to a dense forest, but saw that the ancient trees in the forest were towering, and only a path was faintly visible, with an inexplicable gloomy look inside and out.

Jungle

If you can't reach the capital before dark, you won't be able to find a place to stay overnight in this deserted mountain! Zhang En was anxious, and he didn't care much, so he bit the bullet and set foot on the path.

Of course, he did not know that this was not the road to the capital, but a road of no return.

Suddenly, a black shadow flew from behind and hit Zhang En on the back of his head with a stick. The man obviously hit Zhang En dead, and with just that stick Zhang En fell off the horse.

Li Li, the groom who followed Zhang En, had long since disappeared.

The black shadow took off the purse on Zhang En's waist and searched all over his body. Then he dragged him to a pit in the dense forest, covered it with soil and sprinkled some grass to cover it. Hunters often set traps in this dense forest to hunt, so it was not difficult to find a ready-made pit.

Seeing that the blood around him was wiped clean, the black shadow smiled strangely and disappeared into the vast night.

Early in the morning, a small sedan chair appeared on the outskirts of the city.

County Magistrate Huang Rijia was shrewd and capable. In his spare time, he often went to the countryside to investigate public sentiment. As he closed his eyes and pondered, he suddenly heard something knocking on the roof of the sedan and asked, "What happened?"

At this time, a yamen lifted the curtain to report: "Master, there is a red-eyed crow on the top of the palanquin, no matter how little people drive it away, it just won't go!"

Could it be that this crow also wants to block the sedan chair and shout injustice? County Magistrate Huang was startled, and then got off the sedan chair to investigate.

Upon seeing this, the crow flew directly to the foot of Huang County Magistrate and let out a miserable wail, causing the listeners to be horrified. Huang County magistrate pondered and thought that there must be something wrong, and then stopped the yamen to drive away the crows and asked them to search for the whereabouts of the crows.

After circling around the crowd, the crow flew into the nearby dense forest and heard a whining sound. The group of people quickly followed the sound and entered the dense forest to find that the crow was parked on a new mound of earth. Huang County magistrate immediately felt that there was something strange under the mound, and ordered the yamen to quickly dig it up to check.

Sure enough, Zhang En's corpse and a whip were dug up under the mound. The county magistrate ordered someone to carry the corpse back to the county yamen, and then carefully identified the whip.

Afterwards, Huang County Magistrate ordered people to search around the villages near the dense forest, and soon there were clues.

There is a nearby street called Pingfeng Street. There are only a dozen households. Each family rented horses for a living. The yamen brought a few grooms to be interrogated by Huang County Magistrate.

After these people saw the whip, they all said that there was nothing special about the whip, and they didn't know who the owner was, and they didn't know Zhang En. They must be strangers passing by.

Seeing that there was no progress in the case, Huang County Magistrate didn't realize that he was upset, so he ordered someone to take these grooms into custody and went to Pingfeng Street alone to make an unannounced visit.

Huang County magistrate came to the horse market on the street, paying attention to the horse dealers coming and going from south to north. When the hustle and bustle was full of people, a horse dealer caught his attention.

A groom who went to the roadside to eat looked extremely cautious. After he tied the horse, he took a delicate leather box from the horse, then looked around warily, and then looked up at the horse that was grazing.

That's him! Huang County Magistrate immediately returned to the county yamen and ordered the groom to be arrested and interrogated.

When the groom saw Huang County Magistrate, he immediately kowtowed and shouted that he was wronged, saying that he did not kill anyone and was brought here for some reason?

County Magistrate Huang saw that he was almost noisy, so he asked him lightly: "This county magistrate has never mentioned murder case, how did you know that I was going to interrogate the murder case.

Only then did the groom realize that he was too nervous, so he had to perfunctorily say what he guessed. Huang County Magistrate asked him to take out his whip, and when he saw that it was a new whip, he asked why he had a new whip.

The groom said he had lost a whip a few days ago, so he bought a new one. Huang County Magistrate pondered for a while, then handed him the whip buried in the jungle for identification. As soon as the groom saw it, he said it was his, but he didn't know where it was lost.

At that moment, the red-eyed crow flew suddenly into the lobby and pecked at the groom. The groom was shocked, and the crow pecked his face with blood, and he danced wildly with his head in his hands.

There was a lot of discussion, and the county magistrate looked coldly at the embarrassed groom. At this time, there was a shrill scream, and the crow crashed into the stone steps of the yamen and died of exhaustion on the spot.

Huang County Magistrate was stunned and shouted: "You are bold to make trouble with the people, and the matter has not been brought out from the truth? How did you kill Zhang En, a merchant in the jungle?

The groom slumped on the ground, and then explained the ins and outs of what happened.

It turned out that the groom was the missing Li Li. He witnessed the whole process of Zhang En buying a crow, and when he saw that there was a large ingot of silver in Zhang En's money bag, he was secretly evil.

"It is estimated that there are more than 100 taels of silver. Now he is alone, and he  killed him unknowingly. Bringing this silver to do business is not as safe as sleeping in the open all day?"

Therefore, taking advantage of Zhang En's eager journey, he abandoned his horse and set up an ambush in the dense forest in advance to harm him. He thought he was unaware of gods and ghosts, but he was unexpectedly seen by the crow.

At this time, the yamen who went to Li Li's house to search for the return found Zhang En's lost money bag, and the stolen goods were all obtained. The Huang County Magistrate made a plan in court. Li Li committed murder and was sentenced to be beheaded. After reporting it to the Criminal Department, he was beheaded. The people learned the ins and outs of the case and praised Huang County Magistrate for his meticulous mind and discernment.

Everyone felt deeply that the crow was grateful for the injustice and killed himself, so they buried it next to Zhang En's cemetery and built a pavilion on one side to honor his kindness. Later generations replaced it with "Righteous Crow's Grave."

This is true: one must not do evil, and there is retribution for everything. Those who try to hide from the sky and cross the sea have gods three feet above their heads.