Chapter 20

Yao Chunnuan and Luo Suyi had just decided where to rest for the night when Xiao Jieming arrived with a large handful of clams and snails, which he had found by turning over a rock near the water source.

At present, the two women and Xiao Jieming are in a semi-partnership.

For dinner, they would never choose to eat dry food, as long as the situation allowed. If they had dry food for breakfast and lunch, and then had dry food for dinner, they would be sick.

Xiao Jieming was quite skilled at preparing food, always finding local ingredients that would suit the prisoners well and adding them to the menu. Unfortunately, he knew nothing about cooking, so he often asked them to help him cook, using half of the ingredients as payment, and she and Luo Suyi took advantage of the situation.

She didn't plan on eating the snails; they were full of parasites, and she didn't even have a decent pan to properly cook them. But if she didn't, they could, though they wouldn't be very tasty without some chili peppers. There were some chili peppers in the old house, but she didn't dare use them.

She couldn't use chili peppers, but she did pick up a few bunches of Sichuan peppercorns along the way, which could serve as a substitute. She also found a few pieces of wild ginger, which would be enough to remove the fishy smell. She also noticed some perilla in the grass nearby; she could pick some and add it in, which would probably improve the taste.

Yao Chunnuan immediately began assigning tasks. Luo Suyi went to collect firewood. She was familiar with this task and did it quickly and efficiently, often finding enough for a night's fire. Xiao Jieming dealt with the tails of the stone snails. Without pliers, he could only find a flat, sharp stone to smash them off.

After Luo Suyi picked up the firewood, he went to take care of his urgent needs. Just as he turned around to leave the woods, he was blocked by two prisoners.

"From now on, you have to give us one of the two bamboo tubes of cooling tea you get every day. Do you understand?"

The person who was speaking was called Liu Da. He and his brother Liu Er were brothers. They were prisoners escorted by Gao Xiong in the third team. They were also very arrogant among the prisoners in the third team.

Although the argument between Wei Qiuyu and Yao Chunnuan just now ended with Yao Chunnuan turning the tables on her and forcing the two sisters-in-law to give up a bowl of summer-cooling tea,

It still brought about a bad influence, mainly because the living environment of the prisoners in Teams 2 and 3 was too bad. This incident seemed to have triggered some kind of trigger, making people feel uneasy.

They'd long noticed that Yao Chunnuan personally filled two bamboo tubes of cooling tea for prisoners Xiao Jieming and Luo Suyi every day, and Tian Qigang turned a blind eye. As the saying goes, pick the weak ones. Of those who were given the cooling tea, they didn't dare mess with the officials: nor did they dare mess with the Wang and Han families: Yao Chunnuan was the one who made the cooling dishes, so even if they were used properly, they couldn't touch her; Xiao Jieming, who was in the same team as them, was a shady person and not easy to mess with; and finally, only Luo Suyi, the weak woman, was easy to deal with.

Luo Suyi gave them a cold look.

Even without saying anything, the two of them could understand from her look that the other party was dismissive of their request.

"dream!"

"You bitch, if you don't accept my toast, you'll have to drink for me!" The two men looked at each other and separated to surround her.

…

When Yao Chunnuan and the others heard the noise and gathered around, this was the scene they saw.

Luo Suyi pounced on a male prisoner, the two restraining each other, but her teeth were firmly biting the male prisoner's neck. Behind her, another male prisoner, with his hands shackled, hit her head repeatedly.

The bitten male prisoner groaned in pain.

Luo Suyi's eyes were deep and persistent. Even though her head was constantly being hit, she did not let go, as if she was unaware of the pain.

Yao Chunnuan noticed blood flowing from Luo Suyi's head. She then realized that despite the commotion, the release officers from Teams Two and Three hadn't arrived in time to intervene. She immediately squatted down, picked up a stone weighing over three pounds, and walked towards the male prisoner behind Luo Suyi.

Seeing her cold, murderous expression, the prisoners in Team Three were startled. Some of the prisoners who were on good terms with the Liu brothers saw Yao Chunnuan raising her hand to smash the stone on Liu Da's head, and immediately stepped forward to grab Liu Da's arm and try to drag him away. Unexpectedly, Xiao Jieming, who arrived shortly after, stopped them and said, "Why are you in such a hurry to leave?"

The prisoners beside him were speechless. Why didn't he see them in such a hurry to leave? Well, there was no need to worry now. Because in that instant, the stone in Yao Chunnuan's hand slammed down on Liu Da's head.

All I heard was a sharp howl that echoed through the air.

Liu Da felt that his head was hit hard by a hard object, and warm liquid slowly flowed down. He touched it with his hand and found that it was indeed blood. He turned around and glared fiercely at Yao Chunnuan behind him. Perhaps because of his big movement, he felt dizzy.

This scene made the onlookers silent. Most of the women from the Wang and Han families looked at Yao Chunnuan with a hint of fear in their eyes.

Yao Chunnuan didn't move. She didn't regret what she had done just now. This ruthlessness was cultivated when she was bullied at school.

These days, the bullies are afraid of the desperate. If the other party doesn't think about the consequences, but you keep worrying about it, you are bound to be at a disadvantage.

Facing these desperate criminals, she couldn't reveal her bottom line, or even have one. She had to let these people know that when they stared into the abyss, the abyss also stared back at them.

Xiao Jieming also pulled away the prisoner who had wanted to help before and came to her side.

Just when the situation was at a stalemate, the escorting officers finally showed up.

"What's wrong? Are you guys going to rebel?!"

The police are always the last to arrive, and so are the escort officers.

Yao Chunnuan lowered her eyes, and she knew that as long as no one was killed, the escorting officers would not care about the appropriate fights among the prisoners.

At this time, although Yao Chunnuan and Liu Da were confronting each other, at least they were not fighting. However, Luo Suyi was still biting Liu Er tightly.

The officers from the second and third teams rushed forward, but they couldn't pull Luo Suyi away. Seeing that Liu Er under her mouth was about to faint from the pain, they were about to knock Luo Suyi unconscious, but Yao Chunnuan stepped forward to stop them.

"Brother Cha, let me do it."

The officers naturally would not object, because they had seen this kind of situation many times. Even if they knocked Luo Suyi unconscious, she might not let go.

Yao Chunnuan stepped forward, squatted opposite Luo Suyi, grabbed her shoulders with both hands, and looked straight into her eyes, "Luo Suyi, open your mouth!"

As Yao Chunnuan's voice rang out, the image fell into her eyes, and Luo Suyi's pupils gradually focused.

Yao Chunnuan reached out and took her hand, "Be good, let go, it's okay now."

As expected, she slowly opened her mouth obediently.

The escort officer from Team 3 quickly snatched the bitten male prisoner out.

I saw that the wound on Liu Er's neck was very deep and bleeding profusely. Half a bottle of hemostatic powder was sprinkled on it before the bleeding could be stopped. Probably because of the pain, Liu Er kept howling.

Both Liu Da and Liu Er saw blood this time. They are really in trouble. These two guys are quite shameless. They directly cried and begged Gao Daxiong, the leader of the third team, to take charge.

Gao Daxiong was fed up with them. He was calling the shots, but what were he calling the shots for? One of them had bullied Team Two's Luo Suyi and gotten counterattacked, while another had been directly beaten by Team One's Yao Chunnuan. If he were to call the shots for them, wouldn't he have to ask Tian Qigang and Zhang Heimian for an explanation? What a shrewd plan! He wanted to use Liu Datou's injury to ask Tian Qigang for some favors, but since Liu Da and Liu Er were not in the right, it was a strange thing to ask for! Besides, in a fight between prisoners, as long as no one was killed, injuries were injuries, and it was just bad luck. It was a common practice.

So Gao Daxiong said nothing and just had the two guys dragged back to Team Three's territory.

By the time Wang Lang returned with his mother on his back, the dispute was over. He felt an inexplicable sense of regret for not being able to show up in time. But he had no other choice. In a previous life, his mother had broken her leg in this very rocky camp, and later developed chronic rheumatism, suffering greatly from it. So, he was extra vigilant today, unable to rush to the scene of the dispute immediately.

Yao Chunnuan discovered that Team Three really didn't care about the lives of the Liu brothers. She hadn't realized that these two were troublemakers, stirring up trouble within the team and making it difficult for Gao Daxiong and his team to manage them. Even if it hadn't been for what happened today, Gao Daxiong would have found a reason to mess with them.

All three teams of prisoners participated in the fight: Yao Chunnuan from Team One, Luo Suyi and Xiao Jieming from Team Two, and the Liu brothers from Team Three. Strangely, Yao Chunnuan, Luo Suyi, and Xiao Jieming were not punished.

This scene shocked everyone in the Wang and Han families, and it also gave them a direct understanding of what it meant to be a desperate criminal. Here, if you get beaten, you get beaten, and there's no room for reasoning.

Yao Chunnuan helped Luo Suyi back to their resting place. The wound on her head was deeply cut by Liu Da's wooden shackles, and the wound had to be cleaned before medicine could be applied. Fortunately, the bleeding had gradually stopped by then.

She asked Russell to lie down and rest first, and then she prepared a pottery pot to boil water. She asked Xiao Jieming to help watch the fire, and then she went to Tian Qigang and asked them to borrow a large basin.

Yao Chunnuan did not take advantage of her current need to ask for precious medicine from them. She just wanted to borrow a basin of water, and Tian Qigang and the others did not make things difficult for her, so they lent it to her.

Along the way, she heard many people discussing what had just happened, but as soon as they saw her, they all shut up. However, what these people said was enough for her to understand something.

"How dare Liu Da and Liu Er provoke Luo Suyi, that female Rakshasa?"

"I don't think they know how powerful she is, do they?"

From the discussions of the prisoners in Team 2, Yao Chunnuan finally learned about Luo Suyi's criminal history.

It turns out that she also had a miserable life. After her father died, she followed her mother to remarry. The man's surname was Fang. She was only five years old when she remarried.

After she followed the Fang family to the house, she never had a good day. At just five years old, she was already responsible for everything: collecting grass for the pigs, gathering firewood, washing dishes, washing clothes, and vegetables, sweeping the floor, and feeding the chickens. She rose before dawn to work, working until dusk, when she could finally rest in the woodshed. Every day, only after the Fang family had finished their meals could she eat their leftovers. She was always dressed in thin, ragged clothes, and her bedding was always a stiff, threadbare quilt that wouldn't warm her.

Her mother was powerless to do anything about it and could only ask her to be patient in private, saying that the Fang family at least provided her with a place to stay and food to eat, and that everything would be fine when she grew up and got married.

But ten years passed like this. During these ten years, her mother gave birth to four daughters in succession. Tragically, her sisters were either drowned in toilets or thrown into the mountains. The worst fate was to be given away. Finally, her mother's health failed, and she died in the winter when Luo Suyi was fourteen.

Seeing that she was fifteen years old, Luo Suyi had finally grown up to the age her mother had said would bring her good fortune if she got married. Unfortunately, the Fang family was not a decent family and did not marry her off. Instead, they told others that she was their child bride, and after she came of age at fifteen, the Fang family's only child forced her to consummate the marriage.

She did not wait for the day of liberation, but continued to serve the Fang family like a cow and a horse. In addition, she had to endure her husband's beatings from time to time.

Not long afterward, she became pregnant. Perhaps the saying, "Either explode in silence or perish in silence," truly rings true. Her child was miscarried amidst her husband's beatings, and she, too, went mad. After a period of daze, one night, taking advantage of the Fang family's unguarded sleep, she wielded a machete and dispatched the entire Fang family of four to hell. The sinful Mrs. Fang, the deaf-mute Old Man Fang, her heartless stepfather, and her brutal and incompetent husband.

This case shocked the local area. After she killed four members of the Fang family, she did not hide or escape. When the police came to arrest her, they easily captured her.

After hearing this, Yao Chunnuan was somewhat puzzled. Logically speaking, in such a horrific case, Luo Suyi, as the murderer, should be beheaded. She didn't mean to say that the four members of the Fang family were innocent and that they were not worthy of being called human beings! Rather, in cases like this, officials generally consider the impact of public opinion and will directly execute the murderer.

Perhaps the official who judged the case was a good official with strong empathy? I can't figure it out, but Luo Suyi was indeed sentenced to exile rather than beheading, and Yao Chunnuan would rather see this result.

Recently, she had noticed a number of old scars on Luo Suyi's body. Some of the scars resembled burns, uneven and extensive. One could imagine how severe her injuries had been. In this era of backward medical care, surviving such extensive burns and scalds, when the other party couldn't diligently seek medical treatment or medication, was truly a stroke of luck. All of this was sufficient evidence of the evil deeds of her stepfather's family.

After Yao Chunnuan cleaned the basin, she poured the boiled water into it and let it dry. Then she hurried to make dinner. No matter what happened, she still had to eat. On the road of exile, saving her life was the most important thing, nothing else.

"Bring over the food you were allocated tonight." Yao Chunnuan said to Xiao Jieming.

Xiao Jieming first raised his eyebrows, then responded with a smile, "Okay." It's not easy.

Seeing him happily going back to get food, Yao Chunnuan cooked bamboo tube porridge while blanching stone snails.

At first, whenever they camped outdoors, Xiao Jieming would always find some wild game like fish, shrimp, crab, loach, and eel. He would always say he would give them some of the leftovers, but he never mentioned sharing the meal. He would simply choose to rest next to them, eating his dry food and the wild game he had cooked, and watching them eat with eager eyes.

What does his expression look like? That’s right, it’s like he’s watching a food show.

Later, Yao Chunnuan asked him to use half of the food as payment and let her help prepare the ingredients. He agreed without hesitation.

Yao Chunnuan had never been as forthcoming as she had been with Luo Suyi in agreeing to let him join her, and he hadn't mentioned it either. Now it seemed like he was undoubtedly a scheming boy.

Xiao Jieming took the hard multi-grain steamed bun he was given tonight with a bit of embarrassment, "Ahem, it's a bit shabby."

"It's okay." After taking them, Yao Chunnuan placed them on clean leaves. She planned to stew the snails like stewing geese in an iron pot, and then dip the multi-grain steamed buns in water and stick them on the edge. It will surely be delicious.

Tian Qigang had a reputation for not mistreating prisoners while escorting them, and relatives willing to take care of them would work hard to transfer them to his care. With this foundation, the prisoners in Team One received the best food, while Teams Two and Three fared far worse. It wasn't surprising that he only received dry rations for dinner; thankfully, he regularly replenished their meals, ensuring their quality didn't decline too much.

"Will the three of us live together from now on?" Xiao Jieming asked softly.

"yes."

These were all decisions she made after careful consideration, including the decision to attack Liu Da directly just now.

She knew that she was very strong. It was not enough for a person to just be useful. If he did not protect his minions, he would be eaten up sooner or later.

Why didn't the Liu brothers threaten the Wang and Han families? Isn't it because they have more people and more power?

In this world, one cannot stand alone, so it is necessary to form appropriate alliances or even a team.

In her previous life, her professional skills were not top-notch in the department, but her comprehensive abilities were the strongest. The core cohesion of the team she formed and led was very strong, and both sides helped and complemented each other, delivering beautiful report cards.

Wei Qiuyu, her former rival, had connections and a strong background, and her professional abilities were even superior. After all, she had more to worry about, so her mind wasn't as pure, and she couldn't focus as much energy on improving her professional skills. But she ultimately prevailed, and it wasn't just her own strength.

Luo Suyi had always been a competent person throughout their partnership, willing to do all the dirty work. Most importantly, she was the leader of the two, and he almost always obeyed her decisions. He never complained or caused trouble, so it was entirely possible to cultivate her into a loyal subordinate.

While the clam porridge and perilla stewed snails were still unfinished, Yao Chunnuan quickly used cooled boiled water to clean Luo Suyi's wound. After the boiled water ran out, she finally used hydrogen peroxide to clean her wound. Using boiled water to clean the wound was just a cover-up.

After cleaning the wound, Yao Chunnuan applied wound medicine and bandaged it.

Xiao Jieming watched the fire and looked back from time to time. Seeing her so attentive, he felt very satisfied. He thought, as one of his companions, if he was injured, she would take care of him in the same way, right?

Tonight's incident prompted Yao Chunnuan, Xiao Jieming, and Luo Suyi to formally form an alliance. For some prisoners, this was also very unsettling.

The women from the Wang and Han families thought that she was ruthless and not to be trifled with.

The men saw more and understood the big picture from the small details. From all along, it can be seen that Yao Chunnuan is ambitious, capable, and daring. What is most incredible is that she is also loyal and righteous!

It didn't matter what outsiders thought, at least her teammates saw it that way. Most women would be terrified in this situation, but she had the nerve to just grab a slate and slash the man's head.

This is already a leader's trait, something many men can't match. If given another opportunity, she might become famous and successful. What no one expected was that such a personality would appear in a woman like Yao Chunnuan!