Chapter 41 Kidnapper
Ascend to the hall.

The gavel banged.

Mighty voices came from both sides, and the yamen runners shouted weakly.

The county magistrate, dressed in official uniform, sat in the hall, looking at the people below with a stern expression.

"Bring the prisoner up," the county magistrate said, and several people dragged a fool up. The man had chapped lips and his tongue was sticking out of his mouth. He barked in a hoarse voice, looking around like a dog.

Compared to yesterday, the acrobat looked much more haggard.

Li Daoxuan watched him from the side and felt that he deserved it. When the kidnappers were being cruel, did they ever think about the feelings of those children?

"Bring the evidence up," the county magistrate said again. Then the bailiffs came in carrying cages and a few boxes.

Putting it in front of the people, the county magistrate looked at the dog first, then at the performer, and then asked, "Do you admit your guilt?"

"I don't know, sir, what crime have we committed?"

"Please understand, sir."

Several accomplices denied it repeatedly, knelt down and begged for mercy, and shouted that they were innocent.

The county magistrate did not listen to what they said, and slammed the gavel and shouted, "Silence."

He then had the dog released and brought to the front of the hall. He looked at the dog and asked with a smile, "I heard that this dog can talk. Now let me ask you, can you talk?"

"I can speak, I can talk," said the dog quickly.

"Since you can speak human language, let me ask you, are you a human or a dog?" the county magistrate asked again.

The dog hesitated a little when he heard this, stretched out his paw and scratched his head and replied: "If I can speak human language, I am a human, but they say I am a dog. I don't know whether I am a human or a dog."

"They said you were a dog, so you are a dog? Why are you with them?" The county magistrate's voice was a little sharp, and he seemed to understand something. He stared at the three people kneeling on the ground, his eyes full of scrutiny.

"I don't remember either." The dog said blankly. "They said if I didn't go with them, I would have nothing to eat and would be hungry. So I went with them."

The county magistrate asked the dog what the others did on a daily basis, and the dog shook his head and said he didn't know.

"It only comes out when it's time to play. It usually stays in the box."

"Do you recognize these?" The county magistrate asked someone to open the box, which contained some wooden men with broken limbs and the skins of several old men.

The human skins were freshly pickled and dried for a long time. If it weren't for the eyes, mouth and nose, they would look just like pig skin.

Li Daoxuan felt sick when he saw this scene. He had never expected to see such a scene today. This was the first time in his life.

Holding back the churning in his stomach, Li Daoxuan continued listening.

The county magistrate pointed at the human skin in the box and angrily asked the remaining three people: "What is this? Tell the truth!"

"Sir, there is no need to be honest with each other. It was all done by that man. It has nothing to do with us." "Yes, it was all done by him."

Several people tried to distance themselves from the matter and put the blame on the mad man. Watching everything with cold eyes, Li Daoxuan moved his fingers, and the man who was still barking like a dog suddenly woke up.

The man only felt his throat dry and painful, and when he looked up, he saw unfamiliar scenes all around him.

"Where is this?" the man asked, and the county magistrate's face lit up. He called the yamen runners to come forward and pin him to the ground.

"You beast, your deeds have been exposed, why don't you confess the truth?" Without waiting for his accomplice to remind him, he placed the dog and the human skin in front of the man. The acrobat's mind buzzed when he saw this, and he understood his situation. Just as he was about to argue, he heard the county magistrate want to beat him with a stick.

The bailiff took off the man's trousers, held down his head and feet, and before the acrobat could react, he brought down a heavy stick.

Li Daoxuan watched the heavy stick hitting people, and he understood why fifty hits of the stick in ancient times could kill people. No one could withstand the impact of a 10-jin wooden stick as thick as an arm hitting the buttocks. Ten hits would be fine, but few people could withstand more than fifty hits.

The acrobats could not bear such torture and after howling for a long time they shouted that they wanted to confess.

The county magistrate just stopped the man and pointed at the dog and asked, "Is it a human or a dog?"

"It's a human, it's a human. It's a child that we kidnapped." The acrobat explained the origin of the dog. They kidnapped the child from Yangzhou and used some crooked tricks to turn him into a dog so that they could perform for money.

After asking the question, the county magistrate looked at the other people. Seeing that the acrobat had confessed, they also told their own stories.

It turned out that this group of people traveled between Jiangsu and Zhejiang all year round, doing some kidnapping and trafficking. The kidnapped girls were sent to brothels if they were good-looking. Those with poor looks were sold to wealthy families as slaves. If no one wanted them, they were thrown into the mountains as child brides.

As for the kidnapped boys, the good-looking ones were sold to good brothels. The ugly ones were sold as slaves. If there was no one left, they would be turned into beggars and human dogs. They would use these children to make money in every possible way.

The county magistrate asked about the whereabouts of these children, and several of them said that being a slave or a prostitute was still okay. But those who became beggars and human dogs would not live long. Ordinary human dogs would die within three or four years, and when they died, they would be sold to butchers as dogs. As for the children of beggars, their lives were even shorter. If they could not get money, they would be beaten by them, and very few of them could survive to adulthood.

"If they grow up and have the strength to resist, we young ones will naturally not be willing... Besides, if we grow up, we will get less money. Most people are unwilling to give money to these big beggars..."

Several human traffickers spoke, and there was even some confidence in their tone that came from experience. But when Li Daoxuan heard this, he wished that these people would be cut into pieces and executed. Listen to what they said, are they human words?
Just because the children cannot earn money when they grow up, and cannot arouse people's sympathy, so they are kept from growing up forever. Compared with these children, kidnappers are the number one devil in the world.

The yamen runners in the hall were all furious when they heard this, and the people outside the hall were already in an uproar. They all shouted to kill the kidnapper, and the noise was unbearable.

"Silence!" The county magistrate slammed the gavel and asked about the human skin in the box.

The kidnapper knew that he was going to die soon, so he just told us everything: "These skins are from living old people over 90 years old, and they are extremely hard to get anywhere. We feed the old people drugs to make them unconscious, peel off the skin alive, and then dry it and grind it into powder, then add some drugs, and just sprinkle it on a person to make that person crazy, and their soul will be at our disposal. We have been looking for this skin for many years, and finally found an elderly man's house and bought it from him."

"Who sold them?!" The county magistrate was shocked. He didn't expect that someone would sell his 90-year-old parents to kidnappers and skin them just for money.

The kidnappers confessed the truth and the matter was finally settled.

The county magistrate escorted the kidnappers to the downtown area of ​​Dongyang Town and executed them with a hammer. As for the dog, it could not explain its origins and did not know where it had gone, so the county magistrate let it go.

Li Daoxuan was walking on the way back when he suddenly thought of the old man's skin. The county magistrate didn't seem to say how to deal with it, and the secret method of refining medicine that the kidnapper mentioned was not difficult to find. If...

He didn't dare to think further, he just felt that the county magistrate was not the right person.

(End of this chapter)