During the Jingde period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a merchant named Sun De in Liaodong, who traveled south and north to make a living by collecting mountain goods. On this day, Sun De left home and came to a place called Baijia Village with the silver, he had been on the road for several days in a row, and at the moment people were sleepy and tired, so he walked into an inn to prepare to eat something and rest well, and then went into the mountains to buy mountain goods when he was full of spirit.
A long time ago, he heard that the donkey soup here in Baijia Village is famous and delicious, he has long wanted to taste it, but unfortunately he has not had the opportunity, today he came here to naturally let him taste it, so he walked into the inn and asked the shopkeeper for a big bowl of donkey broth, plus a pot of old wine. The donkey broth was brought up to Sun De to see that it really deserved its name, this soup broth was distinct, the meat was rotten but not greasy, the soup was white like milk, the fragrance was tangy, just smelling the taste was salivating.
Just when Sun Degang picked up the chopsticks and planned to feast, he suddenly heard a terrible donkey cry from the direction of the backyard, and the cries were one after another, each more desolate and miserable than the other, which made people worry about their hearts and lungs, and then looked at the donkey broth in the bowl and suddenly lost their appetite. Sun De thought for a moment, put down the dishes and chopsticks, turned around and walked to the backyard to find out, and when he came to the backyard, he saw that there was a fierce butcher in a clearing in the yard with a sharp knife in one hand and a thick arm between the neck of the donkey, and was about to kill the donkey with a knife.
The donkey struggled with tears in his eyes, and his four hooves kept kicking and hitting the ground, splashing clouds of dust and mud. Sun De couldn't help but step forward and stare at the donkey on the ground to look left and right, the donkey seemed to know that he had met a savior, opened his mouth and screamed even more miserably, staring at Sun De with teary eyes as if to say: "Please save my life!
Sun De couldn't see that the donkey was brutally killed in front of him, so he blurted out just when the butcher was about to use the knife: "Be merciful under the knife!" The butcher was slightly stunned when he heard this, and stopped the movement in his hand. When he turned his head to look at Sun De, it was like looking at a monster. Sun De had already ignored the others, and hurriedly rushed to the butcher and grabbed the hand holding the knife, and said, "Don't kill it!"
As soon as these words came out, the butcher was immediately amused, and said: "You are really funny, our inn is pointing to selling donkey meat soup to make money, if you don't kill donkeys, where will the donkey meat come from to make soup? Without donkey broth to sell, our inn can only close its doors!" Sun De frowned, and thought to himself: The butcher is right, people kill donkeys to make money to make money to support their families, and they can't stop trading because of their own words! After thinking for a while, I saw him grit his teeth and take out the money bag from his arms and throw it to the butcher, saying: " This donkey may be related to me, I can't bear to see it killed by you in front of me, and the money in the money bag should be enough to buy this donkey, so you can sell it to me, what do you think?"
The butcher picked up the money bag and checked it, it was heavy, and the silver in it was enough to buy two donkeys, the butcher put down the sharp knife in his hand with a smile on his face, handed the donkey to Sun De, and muttered to himself: "This man is a fool, but it would be good if he could meet such a fool every day." As he spoke, he put the heavy money bag into his arms, as if he was afraid that Sun De would regret it.
After making such a fuss, Sun De was not in the mood to continue to stay here and drink donkey broth, and now the money from collecting mountain goods was used by him to buy a donkey on impulse, and if the mountain goods could not be collected, he could only lead the donkey back home. Since then, the donkey has become Sunde's close companion, and the two have been inseparable.
A month later, Sun De came to Baijia Village again with the silver, still ready to find a place to eat something to rest, the last time he didn't have the opportunity to drink donkey broth, he was going to have a feast today, but when he came to the previous inn, he was surprised to find that the inn had already become a ruin, leaving only some wreckage and burnt wood to stay in place, there was still a smell of burning in the air, looking at the ruins in front of Sun De was a little trance for a while.
At this moment, a neighbor came over and greeted: "This guest officer, you must be a frequent visitor to this inn! You don't know that just a month ago, the gang of bandits on Qinglang Mountain suddenly entered Baijia Village and robbed several restaurants and inns in a row.
The innkeeper relied on his strength because he was unwilling to be robbed of his hard-earned silver, so he took his men and the cook to fight with the gang of outlaws, and the result can be imagined, the shopkeeper and the man were all killed by the bandits, and before leaving, the thieves burned the inn clean, and even the guests who lived in the store were implicated.
To say that the shopkeeper is really, it is really not worth it to take several lives for something outside his body. ”
Sun De was immediately shocked when he heard this, and after careful inquiry, he learned that after rescuing the donkey from the butcher that day, he left the inn early without even eating, and if he chose to continue to stay in the inn to eat and drink, he might have become the ghost of the gang of bandits like everyone else at this moment.
Sun De looked at the donkey with emotion and muttered to himself: I didn't expect that I saved the donkey, and I also saved myself. Thinking of this, Sun De unconsciously brushed the mane of the donkey to thank it for saving his life, and when Sun De was still in his trance, the donkey actually turned around and ran back.
Seeing this, Sun De hurriedly chased after him, only to see the donkey leaning over his huge head and rubbing against him, as if to please him, and then actually began to run back again. After tossing like this several times, Sun De couldn't help muttering in his heart: "Usually this donkey is very obedient, what's wrong with today?
But what he didn't expect was that the donkey actually carried him all the way home. When I got home, it was getting late, and at this moment, Sun De's daughter-in-law Zhao was dressing up in front of the bronze mirror, and she looked a little flustered when she saw Sun De suddenly come back, and hurriedly asked: "Xianggong, why did you come back so quickly when you went out to buy mountain goods this time!"
Sun De joked: "Of course it's because I miss you!"
Zhao glared at him angrily, and said with a little complaint: "How can a husband always think about the love of his children and daughters when he puts his career first! ”
Sun De felt that what his daughter-in-law said made sense, so he nodded again and again and said, "Madam is right, I will rest at home for one night today, and I will leave early tomorrow morning." Lady, you see it's not early now, let's rest early!" Unexpectedly, Zhao was still angry with him, saying that he would not share the same bed with him, so Sun De had no choice but to go to the side room to sleep.
Besides, the old donkey, I thought that the donkey would be able to live in peace after returning home, but today I don't know what happened, it actually refused to leave Sun De half a step, as long as Sun De left, it would scream at the top of its throat.
Sun De didn't think much about it, but thought that it might be because he went to Baijia Village and reminded him of the terrible scene when he was almost slaughtered. Anyway, today's daughter-in-law is not allowed to go to bed, so he sits in the livestock shed with the donkey, this day back and forth is really tired, unconsciously Sun De sat next to him and fell asleep in a daze.
I don't know how long it took, but in his sleep he always felt that someone was constantly pulling his clothes, and when he woke up, he saw that it was a donkey holding his sleeve in his mouth. Just as Sun De was surprised, he suddenly saw a black shadow coming out of his daughter-in-law's room, and he was still holding a bright sharp knife in his hand, and then the black shadow did not leave but crept to the side room, gently pushed open the door and flashed in sideways.
Sun De secretly screamed in his heart that it was not good for the thief to enter the house, but after thinking about it, he felt that the man was not like a thief, there was nothing valuable in the side room, all the miscellaneous items that were not used at home were piled up, what was he going to do there? At this moment, he didn't care whether the other party was a thief or not, he picked up a shovel from the livestock shed and went lightly to the window of the side room, intending to find out.
Because the room was too dark, I saw the black shadow cautiously groping forward, when he came to the bed, he actually stopped and whispered to the bed: "Brother Sun De is really sorry, today I will let you die to understand, save yourself from being a ghost in the future and still haunt me! As he spoke, the black shadow slowly raised his sharp knife and stabbed it frantically into the bed. After stabbing several times in a row, he felt that something was not right, turned around and just wanted to run at this moment Sun De broke into the door, saying that it was too late and that was fast, and before the black shadow could react to what was going on, Sun De raised the shovel and slapped it fiercely, only to hear the sound of "pop", and the black shadow fell to the ground motionless with his head in his arms.
Sun De slowly moved his steps and stepped forward to take a look through the moonlight, and was immediately stunned, because the person who wanted to take his life turned out to be his neighbor Zhang Hu.
It turned out that Sun De often needed to buy mountain goods outside, as short as ten days and a half months, and as long as it might take several months to go home. Tonight was originally the day when the adulterer and adulteress made an appointment to get together during the day, who would have thought that Sun De actually killed a horse pistol and directly destroyed the good deeds of the two, Zhao was angry and drove Sun De to the side room to rest, and then asked the adulterer Zhang Hu to kill him at night, because when Sun De came back, no one saw it at night, and then she could throw the corpse into the wilderness and fake it as the illusion of being killed by the thieves when collecting mountain goods, so that she could naturally get all of Sun De's family property, and then after a period of time, she could get together with the adulterer Zhengdaguang。
I never thought that Sun Defu had a great life to escape the disaster of killing again, and the next morning he escorted Zhang Hu and Zhao to the government to hand over to the county magistrate to deal with, Zhao because of the murder of his husband with an adulterer, according to the law of the dynasty was sentenced to Ling Chi, Zhang Hu and a married woman fornication, attempted murder, was sentenced to palace punishment, and was sent thousands of miles.
After experiencing this, Sun De was very grateful to the donkey: if the donkey hadn't had to go home halfway, he might not have discovered the secret of Zhao and Zhang Hu until he died.
After this incident, Sun De did not want to stay in this sad place, so he sold his property and decided to take the donkey to travel all over the world, and live with the donkey for the rest of his life, after all, the donkey will not betray him, and he is a hundred times stronger than the cruel woman.
On this day, Sun De and the donkey came to a big mountain in Jingzhou, where the mountains are majestic and reach up to the sky. Even if Sun De just passed by at the foot of the mountain, he felt a little frightened, at this moment, a whistle suddenly sounded in the mountain forest, and then he saw a large group of fierce mountain bandits rushing out with knives and guns, and surrounded Sun De and the donkeys without saying a word.
Before Sun De could open his mouth to beg for mercy, he saw several thieves come forward and search his whole body without saying a word, but only a dozen taels of silver were found, and those thieves were naturally not happy to harvest so little.
Sun De was already so frightened that his legs were weak, his eyes were closed, and he thought: It's over, it looks like I'm afraid to explain here, these people are all robbers who kill people without blinking, and today is more auspicious. Just when Sun De was resigned to his fate and waiting for death, one of the thieves who seemed to be the leader suddenly said: "There is still a shortage of cattle on the mountain, so I think this man should take him up the mountain." ”
Sun De was also surprised and happy in his heart, happy that his little life was temporarily saved, and surprised that he was forced to be a thief as a good citizen. There was no way, the knife was put on his neck, and even if he was very unhappy, he could only follow the bandit up the mountain at this moment.
The gang of thieves escorted Sun De and the donkey over a large mountain and came to a cottage deep in the dense forest, only to see a burly man with a full beard walking towards everyone. The beard was as strong as an ox, and the bare muscles on his body looked like hills, full of strength and might.
When the bandit at the head saw the beard, he hurriedly stepped forward and hugged his fists and said, "Big brother, I caught a donkey seller today, but unfortunately I didn't find a few taels of silver on my body, only such a donkey." I thought that we were short of a livestock on the mountain, so I took him back. ”
The bearded man, who was called the eldest brother by the thieves, was the king of the mountain in this cottage, nicknamed the black bear, and I saw him circling around the donkey and nodded to the man, "Okay! lead him to the barn first, if he dares to be dishonest or try to escape, he will be killed directly, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble!" The man nodded again and again.
After Sun De was taken to the barn but did not see his beloved donkey inside, a bad thought suddenly rose in his heart, just when he was nervous, he suddenly heard a very familiar sound, Sun De can be very sure that it is his donkey, but it is a heart-rending wail, the same as the sorrowful sound when he was waiting to be slaughtered in the Baijia Village Inn.
Sun De shouted, and immediately ran in the direction of the donkey's bark, and the thieves who were in charge of guarding him wanted to stop him, but at this time, Sun De couldn't care about the others and overthrew the bandits to the ground! Soon, Sun De saw several bandits with a clear division of labor, hugging their legs, hugging their necks, and holding knives, and looking at it like they were about to kill their donkeys.
Sun De shouted: "You can't kill donkeys......"
The bandits who were in charge of killing the donkey were stunned for a moment, and Sun De took the opportunity to rush forward and snatch the knife from the thief's hand, and then held the knife in both hands to protect the donkey behind him. The black bear king didn't know where to come from, just look at the figure flashed and came to Sun De's face, before Sun De could react, he saw the black bear raise his leg and kick the steel knife in Sun De's hand directly, followed by a few consecutive legs, each kick was firmly kicked in Sun De's chest, only to see his whole person fly out upside down and fall heavily on the ground and couldn't move, the black bear stepped forward and stepped on Sun De's head with his foot, and scolded viciously: "Lao Tzu wants to eat donkey meat today, you dare to stop it? I see you don't know how many eyes the prince of Ma opens, and he is impatient, right?" ”
Sun De spat out a mouthful of blood, endured the pain and shouted: "Lao Tzu just doesn't want to live, if you dare to kill my donkey, unless you kill me first!"
The black bear never dreamed that there would be someone in this world who was so stupid as to give up his life for the sake of an animal, he raised his foot and let go of Sun De's head and asked curiously: "I am curious, why do you want to save this donkey at the cost of your own life?
At this time, Sun De had nothing to hide, so he told the story of himself and the donkey in a fifteen-ten way, and when it came to emotion, his voice was a little choked: how he saved the donkey from his inn in Baijia Village, and he also escaped the bloody disaster twice because of this donkey......
Sunde's story evokes memories buried deep in the black bear's heart. In fact, before he became a bandit, he was also a farmer facing the loess with his back to the sky, and his family originally raised a donkey. When he was thirteen years old, he led a donkey to play outside, but accidentally fell into a cliff, and the donkey, as if he had a spirit, actually returned home alone to find his father, and only then did he save him.
It was precisely because of this incident that his father and mother felt that his life was given by the donkey, so they gave him the nickname "Donkey". Later, because of the war, the people are not living, his father and mother have also died, desperate he went up the mountain to become a bandit, so many years have passed the black bear has long forgotten the nickname "donkey", today I heard Sun De say this, and suddenly evoked a lot of good childhood memories.
The black bear fell into deep thought, and after a long time he suddenly waved his hand and said to several of his men, "Let the donkey go." After several thieves let go of the donkey, the black bear stepped forward to help Sun De, who was lying on the ground, and said, "Take your donkey down the mountain!"
Sun De rescued the donkey from the bandits, and once again escaped because of the donkey.
Half a month later, suddenly a few officials found Sun De and said respectfully: "I am the official of the Jingzhou prefect, and our prefect wants to see you!"
It turned out that after Sun De left the cottage, the black bear suddenly discovered because of a donkey's conscience, and the kindness buried in the bottom of his heart was completely released, and now he is not even willing to kill a donkey, how can he continue to do the business of killing people and overstepping goods? Since he can't kill people, what kind of bandit and robber are he? So the black bear discussed with several brothers, and finally decided to accept the government's edict to abandon evil and follow good to be a new man.
In this way, the problem of bandits, which had plagued the government for many years, was solved at once, and it didn't cost a single soldier, so the prefect was very happy to be praised by the imperial court. Through the black bear's story, he knew that this matter originated from Sun De, so he found Sun De to plan to reward him well, and at the same time wanted to see the magical donkey with his own eyes.
But after the prefect looked at the donkey carefully, he couldn't help muttering, "Isn't it just an ordinary donkey!"