Chapter 292 Only Forty-Seven People

In the inner hall of the magistrate's yamen, Xuanwu, Baihu, Suzaku, and Zhao Jiu were covering their heads. The four of them were sitting on chairs, with steaming tea cups in front of them, but no one had the desire to pick them up.

The sound of the yamen clerk pushing open the door broke the silence in the venue, "Several adults, after verification, it was confirmed that one of them ran away..."

"I got it." Xuanwu had a sullen face, waved the servants out, and asked, "I'm going to ask him to behead the day after tomorrow. One of them ran away today. What do you think we should do?"

He turned to look at Bai Hu, who looked uncomfortable all over. He could only say angrily: "Second brother, don't look at me. You know that I will never say a word if I can take action! The short name is: brave but not wise."

Phew.

Suzaku, who had been holding it back, couldn't help laughing, and this smile immediately attracted Xuanwu's eyes.

Sensing Xuanwu's gaze, she waved her hands repeatedly, leaned back and refused: "Xuanwu, you know, I mainly rely on him when it comes to using my brain."

Suzaku stretched out his hand and pointed at Zhao Jiu, who was covering his head.

"Don't look at me." Zhao put down his hand and asked with wide eyes: "I am a young man with a strong backing. I shouldn't like to use my brain, right?"

Phew. Suzaku couldn't suppress his smile, so he pinched himself hard. But Bai Hu was not so reserved and turned his head away from Xuanwu and laughed.

"I reiterate, I'm not kidding!" Xuanwu knocked on the table, his chubby face wavering with excitement.

"Yes, yes, yes." The three of them covered their mouths and nodded in unison.

"Crooked!" Xuanwu changed from knocking on the table to hammering on the table. He breathed a sigh of relief and said helplessly: "Sister, brother, can you talk about business first?"

Zhao coughed twice, suppressed his smile and suggested: "Let's kill them the day after tomorrow. One more and one less can't be seen. Besides, the notice didn't say how many people were to be killed in total."

Bai Hu and Suzaku couldn't help but nodded in agreement, "What a great idea!"

Looking at the two people giving thumbs up and Zhao Jiu with a proud look on his face, Xuanwu felt his energy and blood rush to the top of his head. Damn it, how can you do business well with these three empty-headed people?

He took a long breath, suppressed the desire to hit people in his heart, and asked curiously: "What if the superiors investigate? The one who ran away is a bastard! If he is allowed to run back..."

This statement caused the joyful atmosphere in the venue to pause, and Suzaku and Baihu had frozen smiles on their faces. Zhao stopped his hands in mid-air, closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then said seriously: "We have to investigate, but we can't do it blatantly. Before the matter is investigated clearly, no news of someone escaping from prison can be leaked. If asked by the superiors, he will say: He committed suicide out of fear of crime and died in jail!"

"Then..." Xuanwu asked.

Before he could ask, Zhao raised his hand to interrupt and said with a smile: "Don't worry, as long as the emperor doesn't come to check in person, I can handle it!"

Zhao Jue looked serious, and his whole body exuded an indescribable confidence. How can you not be confident? The body is just lying there in the space. At worst, you can just hand it over.

At this point, Xuanwu couldn't come up with a better solution, so he had no choice but to nod in agreement.

He said in a low voice with a stern face: "I will try my best to investigate, but what about those jailers? Kill them?"

"Fuck! I'm not a murderer!" Zhao shook his head and waved his hand: "Let me explain to them clearly that I didn't run out of the city and accidentally killed him on the way to arrest him."

Looking around the three of them, he ordered: "I have to show some real skills. Give me the portrait of that barbarian, and find a corpse with a similar body shape to me."

"Let's try to change the situation!"

…

Two days flew by. Today is the day to ask questions.

In order to allow many people to watch, the execution place was specially set up outside the city, and the execution platform was set up yesterday. Seats were set up not only for officials of all sizes in official uniforms, but also for wealthy businessmen in the city and other officials, wealthy businessmen, squires, and literati involved in the inner state.

It looks quite grand and solemn.

The Bianzhou magistrate, Tongzhi, Tongpan and officials of all sizes arrived early, and the other state officials whose official warehouses were burned also arrived early. Although the wealthy businessmen, country squires and others were a little late, they had already arrived at half time.

Only Zhao and his party of four changed into their regular clothes at the end of the day and left the city in a carriage. When they arrived at the execution site, they did not go there. Instead, Bai Hu drove the car and found a nearby high point to watch from a distance.

Just after noon, dozens of prison cars drove out of the prison, escorted by armored soldiers, and drove all the way out of the city. There were dense crowds of people on both sides, spreading out for several miles. When you looked up, everything in the dark was filled with human heads.

The crowd continued continuously and stopped only after following the execution site.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, I saw that the crowd of onlookers had already arrived, which was almost the same. The magistrate of Bianzhou nodded to the two magistrates and magistrates beside him. The magistrate stood up and walked to the stage to read out the imperial edict.

"The edict says: The barbarians burned my official warehouses and hurt my people. Their evil deeds are so outrageous that God is angry and people are resentful, and cannot be tolerated... I will execute him to death as a gift to all the people! I order the magistrate of Bianzhou, Tongzhi and Tongjian to be executed together, and all the people will be executed together." Take a look, admire this!”

After reading the imperial edict, he glanced at the silent crowd and shouted loudly: "Bring people to commit crimes!"

Forty-seven Hu men, with their hands and feet shackled, their hair disheveled and their faces covered in blood, and wearing prison uniforms, were brought to the execution platform. After the executioner knelt down, he stood behind him with a knife.

The crowd was furious, shouting, cursing and applauding one after another. Many people had blood-red eyes and screamed at the top of their lungs. Some people were talking about the crimes of the prisoners on the stage. They were noisy and made all sorts of noises.

Several pairs of eyes in the crowd stared at the stage, counting the number of prisoners on the stage with their fingers. After counting several times, they finally stopped at "forty-seven".

"Why are there only forty-seven people? Shouldn't there be forty-eight people? Did the stalker count wrong?"

"Forty-seven! The count is wrong, one person is missing!"

"Something's wrong, it must be something! The number doesn't match!"

The eyes of several people became solemn at the same time, and they all raised their heads and counted again. Some even asked the people around them, "Fellow villager, how many prisoners are there on the stage? I just happen to have an eye disease and can't see clearly!"

"Little brother, there are forty-seven prisoners on the stage, without exception, all of them are extremely evil!"

The angry voice came, and several people had their own thoughts in their hearts, but their eyes changed again and again, and there was a slight fluctuation on their seemingly calm faces.

No, the number is wrong!

The judge on the stage looked at the sky, and when he saw that the time was almost up, he turned around and nodded to the prefect. The prefect understood, stood up, cleared his throat, and shouted: "The time has come! Execute!"

The order arrow was thrown down, and the judge waved his hand and shouted: "Behead!"

The executioner's sharp sword fell, blood spurted out one after another, and the head fell to the ground like a ripe melon. The cheers from the audience were higher and higher, as if they were venting their anger.

Amid the noise, a few people gradually retreated to the edge of the crowd along the gap. But the crowd was so dense that no one could notice their movements...