Chapter 5 festival

There was a little rain, and the sky was gray. On this night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the meaning of Mid-Autumn Festival has been lost in X City. Everything is a little hazy, everything seems lonely. At the turning point of the street corner, the hearts of everyone in the city seem to be blurred and lifeless due to the rain. There are still sparse sounds of gongs and drums in merchant shops in the city, intermittent firecrackers in people's courtyards, flutes and flutes in Linhe Building, and laughter in every house.These sounds mixed into one in the drizzle and cold wind, with a melancholy festive mood, and when they floated near a fence, they were already weak and indistinct, and it was impossible to distinguish where they came from.

The rain is still falling.Because of the silence near the wall, the rain seems to be heavier. Inside the walls is the prison that the residents of X City have long called "the Garden".In the past few years, there was still a habit in the local area. When a living person was put in a wooden cage to stand dead in public, eight wooden cages were placed in front of the garden gate.There is an elegant title for watching people standing dead, which is "Guanhua".The cage itself seems to be a vase, so the people of X City called this place "garden".Now this garden has been in name only for many years. Most of the countrymen who were captured and wanted to be killed were stripped of their clothes and taken out of the city to be beheaded. Gradually, no one understood the meaning of this title.

There are about a hundred prisoners in the garden, and they are mixed together like chickens.Most of these stupid things captured from various cases in various villages are so honest, so thin, and came to this place in a daze, crowded together in one place to pass the destined days.Some are waiting for the fine at home, some are waiting for the death sentence announced by the yamen. They pulled them out, and each of them lay down on the rough stone corridor, took off their pants, and exposed a dirty buttocks, which were subjected to twenty or thirty boards.After the beating, he got up and kowtowed to the bearded man on the seat as a thank you, and went back to the original place to wait.

The prison first divided the entire courtyard into four parts, and each part was separated by fences made of large wooden pillars.Prisoners can move around during the day, but at night, when the warden enters the cell for roll call, the prisoners line up and stand in line. Shackles and handshakes of different weights, the most important thing is to add shackles to people at that time, and then lock the iron lock to a metal ring that can move up and down next to the wooden fence post, and the rest will return to the predetermined grass As soon as it is rolled away, the matter is over, and the warden and jailer go away.After that, it is time for old criminals to deal with new criminals and use various punishments to extort money.This kind of ethos has been cultivated over the years.Later, one day suddenly, after the warden entered the prison, many countrymen tied up the warden and beat him severely, and some prisoners escaped.Therefore, there is a reformation in this prison.The courtyard was re-separated with iron bars, and a section of open space was left for the patio in the courtyard. Except for the morning roll call, each prisoner can go to the courtyard once a day, and all other prisoners are in the courtyard in the rest of the season. Live in the number and separate from each other.The open space in the courtyard is reserved for the warden to come and go when he enters the prison, and the warden is less dangerous.The new reform brought about a new order. After the iron gates were completed, the prisoners were renumbered by name, and the prison food was distributed by name again. In addition, a new rule was adopted, that is, when something minor happened, To be scourged by name.Because the new prison management method is a little different, the prison guards can still visit the prison in the middle of the night, and the private execution of old prisoners has also disappeared along with the old system.

When the new prison rules were first implemented, every prisoner should line up in the corridor for roll call every morning, and then file and file to the hair room one by one to go to the prison, and then return to their respective numbers.Most of the prisoners are peasants from the countryside and are not used to this, so they always squeeze and push each other, looking at each other and smiling at their companions, and those who have shackles have to be untied temporarily, so they find it very novel and interesting.After a while, it becomes quite natural. This prison is also like other prisons in other places. A batch is released, a batch is killed, and a batch of newcomers will be added immediately.Everyone was locked up in this place without doing anything. Every day, except for the special old prisoners who could get some straw sandals, the rest of the people did nothing. They just watched the sunlight in the courtyard pass by, and the light and dark alternately dismissed every wandering person. Come and pass away its endless days.

All the detainees use fate as an explanation for this innocent disaster.Who was brought to interrogation, who was beaten, who was released, who Gong Xifa Cai was taken to be beheaded, others didn't seem to care very much, it was very natural. There are newcomers every day, and this kind of people can understand it at a glance. As usual, the clothes are cleaner, and the expression is flustered and anxious. When they hear the mention, they are at a loss. He bowed his head and didn't say a word. He missed those relatives and all the animals at home. When he thought of something uncomfortable, he cried quietly. Trembling, and walked over to climb the iron bar and stared at it stupidly.After a little longer in prison, people become stupid, almost like animals, without such sharp nerves.

Although the right of veterans to execute their sentences freely is completely lost due to the reform of the system, but after all, because they are veterans, they can buy wine and meat in prison, and live a leisurely life. This is always the kind of person who mediates when there are small quarrels in prison. The old prisoners and the prisoners in the city often drink and make troubles and beat each other. Whenever such incidents happen, the new country prisoners are terrified and lie down against the wall at a distance, hoping that they will not be hit by mistake. come around.As a result, the jailer came in and asked who was making the noise. As usual, those who were noisy refused to tell, and those who were not noisy dared not tell. So the jailer whipped each person once or twice, which was regarded as the treatment everyone deserved.

Because the custom of celebrating festivals still exists in X City, in this kind of place, the prisoners also get some festival benefits as usual.Everyone put the piece of fat meat from the top on the brown rice ball, and after eating it whole, everyone can see the evening rain scene in the sky, hear the sounds of the market in the distance, and wait for the prison officer to collect it. Seal roll call. When they arrived, the number collector came. Because of the festival, the prison officers hadn't had enough reunion wine, so they checked carelessly, ordered a few words as usual, and left.

Around the second watch, some people curled up in a ball and fell asleep in the straw. Some people were still silently thinking about the festival at home outside the garden. Some people suddenly became noisy for some unknown reason.At first, each of them occupied a corner and insulted each other in the dark, and then the conversation became more and more chaotic, one threw a straw sandal over, and the other threw something else over.Later, one of the two got up and rushed over to argue, and the two immediately started fighting in the shadows. Only the blunt sound of meat colliding with flesh, of fists colliding with other objects, of logs, bottles, woks, and other throwing sounds.The knuckles made noises, gasps, insults, and the silent struggle similar to that of beasts when they gnash their teeth, continued, and I don't know when it will come to an end.Obviously, there are also some people here who drank a lot of strong soju for this festival, got drunk with soju, and the same thing happened in other worlds.

When two drunken prisoners were fighting in a corner, no one beside them spoke for a while.I only heard a person rolling his tongue, panting and insulting: "×Your mother, you think I'm sorry for you. What are women? What are women?..." It seems that this person is being suppressed at the bottom , The story is still being said, but because of being suppressed and punched by someone's mouth, the words later become ambiguous. In another dark corner, an elderly person shouted: "Siping, Siping, don't kill anyone, sober up!" Someone else said, "Just kill one. If you kill one, the other one will kill you, and the place will be quiet."

Someone else said: "The chief in charge is coming soon, each forty boards, today is the festival, we can't take this kind of reward for you!" Others said other things about other things, and seemed to pay no attention to the beatings around them. Most of the people who talked were people who stayed in the corner of the house and had no alcohol.Drinking in prison has class status. After a while, only a blunt sound was heard, a person yelled half a word, followed by the sound of a wooden mallet used for beating sandals, falling far away on the iron bars by the wall and falling into the yard.Then all was suddenly silent. One of the two was knocked unconscious. Then I heard someone struggling and cursing vaguely: "×Your mother, you think I'm sorry for you. What are women? Don't you believe it if you ask you to hold your throat, you bastard, all of a sudden! Just believe it. You bastard. ...Get out of the way, you bastard. " It was still the voice of the tongue-rolling drunk talking.The drunk man named Siping was still on top of him at this time, but because he had been knocked out by the hammer, the drunk man under him pushed and struggled for a while, but he still couldn't get up. Cursing all kinds of ugly and vulgar words, he became dazed and fell asleep with his face pressed against the damp and moldy brick floor. Be quiet for a while. Many people in the darkness spoke again.Everyone deduces. "Killed one. The lower one killed the upper one." "Siping can't be beaten to death. If he was beaten to death, he would have been tortured by splints in the hall and died." "One fainted, the other fell asleep." "Bastard! If you call a bastard all the time, you are a bastard yourself!" "The one who puts soju on the butt of a cigarette is really a bastard!" "Let's put it lightly, the owner of the hotel, Yama, is here." There were hissing sounds everywhere, and notifications were being delivered everywhere. Some prisoners took advantage of the faint light of the oil lamp hanging on the corridor in the courtyard, and squatted on the ground to play crosswords. They all got the news from this notice, and each of them lay down in the haystack on the ground where they were originally occupied, pretending to be sleeping peacefully, and asked the steward to light a lamp outside the door, and randomly touched them with a long pole. The clump in the two haystacks, see if it's still there.The person in charge was doing everything as usual, swearing a lot of ugly words as usual, and listening to these ugly words at the same time, so the man looked at the oil lamps on the corridor, checked the locks and keys on the iron doors, and left again with his leather boots sticking out. Hades really came. A six-foot-tall man with big eyebrows, big eyes, a square face, bald head, a thick beard and a thick chin, with a flashlight and a long iron staff in his hand, staggered over. , another old man carried a mast lantern, seemed to have had a drink, and seemed to be staggering as he walked.Although the bearer of the lantern opened the door first, he walked a little behind when he reached the inner passage, because according to the rules, the king of Hades should walk in front. This man opened a wine shop outside, and let the lower class near the west city get drunk on his soju with straw cigarette butts, and also let the soju be smuggled from some people into the prison skillfully, so it happened. Made a little fortune.According to the local customs in ××, all the positions of officials can be bought with money. This man has been in prison for a while and received some flogging for himself, so he bought a position as a prison supervisor.After this man became an official, he would come to this place to inspect every time he drank a lot of the liquor he brewed. He took advantage of the drunkenness to strictly perform his duties, and whipped any one of them at will.Sometimes some small dangerous things are found, or a rusty knife, or an iron bar, or a slightly larger nail, and when the owner of this object cannot be traced, each person will be beaten twenty times , then resentfully took that little thing and walked away. This man's behavior seems to be just taking the child of a kind of pain he suffered many years ago. The people of X City focus on revenge, and he is on all the prisoners to get back the little pain he endured many years ago. When Hades came, everyone pretended to be asleep.There are fake snores everywhere, everyone hoping they can get away with a disaster. The man raised the flashlight, shot it everywhere, stretched the iron bar over the iron fence, and poked it a few times into a haystack. When he was poked slightly, the man smiled and poked hard again. one time. "Damn it, you're not sleeping, you're not sleeping. You're pretending to be asleep, and you're thinking about your home, the moon, and the wine. You're a robber, and you're thinking about how you used to strip people in the mountains ...Don't think about these things, tomorrow I have to cut off your head, swirl your big dreaming head into the field, and let the wild boar eat you!" The countryman huddled in the grass did not understand what he meant at all, but he buried his nose deeply in the grass in fright and dared not let out his breath. Although he poked twice with the iron bar, and struck twice on the buttocks and ridges, he still remained silent.The difficulty was over, because the iron rod went to the second man again. The second one was scolded for "throwing his head into the field" and was beaten twice again. Going on in this order, it seems that everyone will inevitably suffer twice. Everyone knows that Hades must have had two extra glasses of wine today, because if he didn't drink two extra glasses of wine, the inspection would not be so harsh.Those who hadn't been beaten or insulted lightly moved their sleeping positions, tried their best to shrink back to the wall, hid their heads against the wall, and turned their buttocks to the side where the iron bar touched, preparing to be poked and beaten. By the fifth time, the two intoxicated people who had beaten each other for a while before and were now unconsciously stacked in a pile were discovered by Hades. Yan Wang took a flashlight and poked the iron bar on the man above. "Dog x. What are you doing on top of others? You are not a dog, you are a pig. I know you guys are fighting, I hear loud noises.When you saw me coming, you didn't have time to leave, so you pretended to be drunk and sleeping, shit, you pretended well. " one two three four…… While counting the numbers indiscriminately, this man passed through the iron bar door and beat the unconscious prisoner hard on it. When he reached forty, he counted again from one, two, three, four. go down. After playing for a while, there was still no sound. The rest of the people knew that they would never wake up, but no one dared to make a sound. The old jailer who came with the King of Hades raised the lamp high to see if he couldn't wake up. He felt that it was meaningless to continue beating him like this, so he said, "Boss, he is drunk. Today is a holiday. He must Get drunk, forget it." Hades snatched the lamp from the old jailer's hand, and took a detailed look at the old jailer's face. "What are you guys talking about? Do you think I don't know? Do you think I don't understand the gift they gave you? Well, today is the holiday, and since I'm drunk, two more hits won't hurt, another ten hits, stay Let’s talk about fifty tomorrow.” One, two, three, four hit ten times.No, another one, two, three, four hits ten times. Just when the sixth one was poked, the old jailer spoke again. "Boss, don't beat them anymore, you're tired too, let's settle the score tomorrow." "Tomorrow's account, tomorrow's account, and tomorrow's double account!" As he spoke, Hades snatched the lamp from the old jailer's hand and shone on the old jailer's face for a while, as if he wanted to know whether the speaker was this person.Humming in his mouth, he still poked and hit the sixth prisoner heavily, and then left the iron fence, stood in the middle of the corridor, and loudly cursed the name of an old prisoner who had been hanged for many years . Hades left, only to hear the sound of the prison door being locked outside, and the sound of swearing loudly outside for unknown reasons, but soon everything calmed down and there was no sound. In the dark, there were voices scolding mothers, voices laughing out of joy after escaping such a disaster, and voices imitating the tone of the previous prison guards, saying, "Damn it, it was cut with a knife and twisted with a rope." , Damn it..." Someone cooed and laughed like a ghost. Someone hissed and said. "Damn it, you go to heaven, your poisonous soju will send you to heaven one day!" In the distance, a shot rang out somewhere, followed by two shots. Everyone is asleep.Everyone knows that the shochu has knocked down the prison officer, and today there will be no more beatings. In the middle of the night, someone climbed up and went to the corner of the fence to pee, and fell down next to two overlapping drunks, and touched the noses of the two, both of which were cold and had no heat.The man didn't dare to urinate anymore, so he hurried back and curled up in his grass nest, thinking that someone would use the door panel to carry him out tomorrow morning, and he would have to be carried twice in total.This is a countryman who has just arrived in the garden and does not understand the rules of the garden. Those who died in prison should be dragged out of the hole in the wall. Everything in the city fell asleep, except for this one person, huddled up in the grass, thinking of the dead beside him, listening to the howling of wolves outside the city. There are many wolves in X city, because of the large number of deaths of children, killing people in the yamen every day, the food for the wolves is never as scarce as the food for the poor.