Water Margin: From a White-Robed Scholar to Donning the Yellow Robe

Besides farming, Zhang Cheng also herded sheep.

At dusk, he drove the sheep back.

The road into the village was a narrow path, too narrow for an army to pass through; only sheep and people with good agility could use it.

When he entered the village, the patrolling guards already recognized him and greeted him with smiles.

He greeted the patrolmen with a smile, appearing to be a kind and honest man.

When he got home, he took advantage of the fact that no one was looking and pried a crumpled piece of paper out of a sheep's ear.

There were only a few lines of small print on it, all of which were numbers.

Wang Lun called it a "code," and these numbers corresponded to the instructions given to him by Liangshan.

Although Zhang Cheng was not familiar with Wang Lun, he knew the chieftain, but the chieftain might not know him.

But he admired Wang Lun very much, especially the "code" method that Wang Lun taught them. Even if the paper fell into someone else's hands and they didn't know how to decipher it, no one would know what information it conveyed.

He pretended to be nonchalant and returned to his room, closed the doors and windows, and began to take out a book called "Wen Yuan Ying Hua" from under his pillow. This book, compiled in the early Song Dynasty, is a collection of Tang Dynasty poems.

The numbers on the paper ball are in two lines. The first line corresponds to the Tang poems in the book, with each number indicating the poem's number. The second line indicates the specific character within the poem.

He began to translate seriously.

The first number in the first line corresponds to Li Bai's poem "Ancient Ballad of the Moon". The first number in the second line is "nine". He starts counting, and the ninth character is "jade".

The second character was "兰" (lán), and he wrote it down as soon as he found a character.

The final conclusion was: "Yulan's entire family died at the hands of the three sons of the Zhu family; this can be used."

Zhang Cheng read the sentence carefully, and then burned the words by the light of the candle.

He had been in Zhu Family Village for a year, so he naturally knew who Yulan was. In fact, he knew the names of all the concubines and maids around the Zhu family father and sons, plus Luan Tingyu.

As Luan Tingyu's personal maid, Yulan was the closest to him.

Unexpectedly, her entire family died at the hands of the Zhu family.

Then Zhang Cheng knew what to do.

But that's not the most urgent matter right now; there's something else that's more urgent.

The next day, Zhu Long began leading his men to collect grain from house to house again.

His younger brother, Zhu Hu, had gone missing, but instead of being worried, he was rather pleased. This meant one less person to fight for the family fortune.

Although he was the eldest son, the Zhu family's business should rightfully belong to him.

However, Zhu Chaofeng was very satisfied with his third son, Zhu Biao, and also occasionally praised Zhu Hu.

However, he never treated his eldest son, Zhu Long, well, even though Zhu Chaofeng had said that the family business would be left to Zhu Long.

This has been a source of great distress for him.

Zhu Hu disappeared without a trace after going out. He pretended to be anxious and upset in front of his father, but was overjoyed when he returned to his room.

Early in the morning, he was in high spirits and brought people to collect grain again. Although he said he was collecting grain, he went straight to the house of the widow from yesterday.

The servants behind him all knew what Zhu Long was going to do, and they followed him with smiles.

The old man, who was over six months old that year, was kicked by Zhu Long yesterday. His health was already poor, and this kick made him even more bedridden.

Early in the morning, his widowed daughter started busying herself in the kitchen.

Suddenly, he heard her cry for help. The old man was shocked and struggled to get out of bed and out of the bedroom. He saw Zhu Long grabbing his daughter in the kitchen again.

Enraged, the old man shouted, "Zhu Long, you beast, you'll die a horrible death!"

Zhu Long turned around and cursed, "Old man, you're not dead yet."

As he turned around, the woman broke free from Zhu Long and ran into the house.

Zhu Long hurriedly chased after her and laughed, "Little lady, why are you running? Weren't we having a great time yesterday?"

The old man roared in anger, but was grabbed by several servants and beaten right at the door. Before long, the old man fell silent.

The guards were also taken aback. They reached out to check and found that the man was no longer breathing. They looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

One of them whispered, "Why don't we go and report to the master of the manor?"

Several people nodded, and two of them quickly left.

The surrounding people also noticed the commotion and gathered around to watch from a distance.

It's human nature to love watching a spectacle, and more and more people were pointing and gossiping about the few farmhands.

"They're here again."

"Pah, shameless."

Why isn't Old Man Liu moving?

"Could they have killed him?"

"Ah! What beasts! Old Liu was such a good man, yet they beat him to death."

Zhang Cheng, squeezing through the crowd, roared, "They brazenly robbed our grain, beat Old Man Liu to death, and forcibly took his daughter. Are they trying to kill us all?"

The surrounding people echoed their sentiments.

Zhang Cheng added, "Now every family only has a few days' worth of food left. I heard that Zhu Hu, who went out to buy grain, has never returned. It's possible that Zhu Family Village is doomed."

"Oh, did something happen to Zhu Hu?"

"What will we do if we run out of food?"

Zhang Cheng said, "I heard that Liangshan Marsh is distributing land and seeds to the people for free, and the soldiers are even helping the people with farming."

"Really?" Some people began to be intrigued.

"Of course it's true," Zhang Cheng said. "I have a cousin in Jeju, and he told me himself."

"Then what are we waiting for? If the Liangshan troops invade, we'll go to Liangshan with them."

"right."

"Let's all go together."

Zhang Cheng said, "In that case, this Zhu Long is going too far. Let's all go together and save Old Man Liu's daughter. When the others come, we'll all run away."

As he spoke, he lunged at the guards standing at the door.

As soon as he went, four or five men followed him and started fighting with the farmhands.

The people became excited: "Go! The Zhu Family Village is doomed, what are we afraid of?"

The people rushed over and started punching and kicking the guards.

They had long suffered oppression from the Zhu family and harbored resentment, but they still needed to rely on the Zhu family village to make a living, so they dared not speak out against it.

What they need is someone to stir up trouble, someone to ignite anger.

Zhang Cheng then led his men and rushed into the house.

Zhu Long was already agitated as he was forcing the woman to do good deeds when Zhang Cheng and his men rushed in and surrounded him. He had assumed these men were ordinary people, but little did he know they were skilled in martial arts.

Two fists can't beat four hands.

The woman recklessly rushed over and hugged Zhu Long tightly.

Seeing an opportunity, Zhang Cheng pulled out a dagger, ducked down, and plunged the dagger into Zhu Long's groin. Blood splattered everywhere, and Zhu Long let out a pig-like scream.

Zhang Cheng shouted, "Let's go!"

He and his men immediately retreated, shouting outside, "People are coming! Run!"

The people scattered in a great uproar.

When Zhu Chaofeng heard that Zhu Long had raped a woman again and that his men had killed civilians, he was furious and rushed over with Luan Tingyu in a menacing manner.

When they arrived, they saw several guards beaten half to death, and Zhu Long rolling around in the house clutching his genitals and howling in pain.

The woman, disheveled and terrified, was trembling to the side.

Zhu Chaofeng was both shocked and furious, and roared, "Who did this?"

He pointed at the trembling woman, but ultimately didn't say he would kill her. Instead, he shouted, "Take her away."

Luan Tingyu went to the door to check. The footprints were messy, the result of a group fight. The evasive eyes of the people in the distance told him that this was the result of the people's inability to endure.

Zhu Long has incurred public resentment.