Chapter 022 Unlocking Backpack

She seemed very frightened, keeping her head down and following the large group like a frightened bird.

Xu Zhenying couldn't help but be shocked.

With just a quick glance, she could imagine what kind of life the girl from the Qian family lived in the Qian family.

She sighed, and a little pity arose in her heart.

But because I am too busy taking care of myself, I am too lazy to think about other people's lives.

However, in just a short while, Xu Zhenying noticed another thing. The escort they had dealt with before seemed to have been replaced in the middle of the journey.

It's also strange. The information of the escort had been confirmed when signing the contract, so why would they come outside the city to replace the person?

Xu Zhenying was a little confused, and then told Xu Degui about his discovery, but Xu Degui didn't understand either.

Xu Zhenying could only keep it to himself.

The main force began to advance southwest.

The entire team consisted of more than twenty people from the Xu family, forty or fifty people from the Fang family, and some students and minor officials implicated in the timber case. The total number of people exceeded one hundred.

There were eleven escorts in total. The leader was named Zhao. Xu Zhenying heard that the escorts all called him Zhao Bantou.

Zhao Bantou was a lean and capable man with a pair of squinty eyes. He did not look very imposing, but according to Xu Zhenying's observation, the escorts under him were quite convinced of him. It seemed that he either had real skills or had connections with the higher-ups.

The remaining ten escorts were divided into groups of two, with each group looking after approximately 20-30 prisoners.

The Xu family's journey was managed by a escort named Huang Yazi. The new escort, who had been replaced, had a cold, stern look on his face, and when Xu Degui went to take care of him, he took the money promptly but refused to even glance at him, seeming difficult to deal with.

Xu Zhenying couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.

She was not afraid of encountering escorts who were greedy for a little money, but she was afraid of encountering those who were too strict in their work. They had traveled a long way, and if they really followed the laws of the Great Zhou, no one in their family would be able to reach Qianzhou safely.

Xu Zhenying had anticipated the many difficulties along the way. The biggest challenge was physical fitness. Initially, Xu Zhenying felt somewhat confident. After all, she had been under Old Man Xu's so-called military management for so many years, and as a child, she had even gone for daily morning jogs with her friends in the military compound.

But she still greatly underestimated the difficulty of the journey.

The original owner was a girl raised in seclusion, so her physical fitness was naturally average. In addition, the aesthetic taste of women in the Great Zhou Dynasty was mainly based on gentleness and fragility, so most women were weak and fragile.

Girls in the countryside need to work and produce, so they are stronger.

All those above the landlord class took pride in raising their women to be weak and docile, because that meant they had enough food at home and could raise their women to be well-fed.

This made Xu Zhenying suffer.

She felt that she was in good physical and mental condition, but after walking for a whole morning, the team showed no sign of stopping.

Xu Zhenying felt dizzy and weak, his legs feeling like they were filled with lead and he couldn't even lift them. A dull pain began to spread from the soles of his feet, slowly extending to his thighs and waist.

Others weren't much better.

Although the Xu family had made their fortune from humble beginnings, they had largely stopped working in the fields since their second uncle passed the imperial examination and became an official. This sudden and intense amount of exercise was too much for Grandmother and the children, and even the adults would have struggled to handle.

Especially Xu Degui and Xu Huiming, both of them were wearing shackles weighing dozens of kilograms. If they continued to walk like this, they would at least shed a layer of skin if they didn't die.

Their situation is like this, and I'm sure other families are no different.

The Fang family has been a noble family since their ancestors. Not only have they not been engaged in production, they have probably not even been to the countryside many times. They probably can't even tell whether the crops planted on the ground are rice seedlings or leeks.

The remaining few families are all pampered people. In this way, almost the entire team is composed of old, weak and sick people. If they really encounter any problems, they can only be slaughtered.

Xu Zhenying couldn't help but feel worried about his future.

Fortunately, someone from the Fang family couldn't bear it anymore, and Zhao Bantou finally ordered them to rest on the spot for a while.

"Oh my God, I'm going to die—"

"I'm so tired, where's the water? Bring it to me quickly—"

"Oh my god, we've walked at least ten kilometers, right? There's still more than a thousand kilometers to go, I might as well chop off my head—"

Bursts of screams came one after another, and Xu Zhenying quickly took off the water bottle from his waist and fed Xu Degui water.

Xu Zhenying noticed that Xu Degui had difficulty lifting his right hand. She lifted the shackles slightly and saw that Xu Degui's shoulders were rubbed red and swollen by the wooden boards of the shackles.

Miao also saw it and said, "Amei, take out some clothes so I can cushion their shoulders."

Xu Meixiao let out an "ah" and pulled out a piece of clothing from the bag. Miao took it and went to look for scissors and needle and thread in the bag, but couldn't find any.

Xu Zhenying then reminded her, "Mom, just put some cloth under the board. If you want to sew, you have to remove the shackles."

When Miao heard this, she realized that this made sense, and she quickly pulled out some thin fabric, folded it into long strips, and placed them under the areas where the two men's necks were under stress.

Xu Zhenying looked at the pile of cloth thoughtfully.

Then she took off her bag and spread it out, asked Xu Meixiao to bring the needle and thread, thought for a moment, and then folded the square cloth in half and tied a knot.

She handed Xu Meixiao and Miao a few pieces of cloth and instructed, "Mother, please help me sew a strip of cloth about half the width of a finger that can support the weight."

Miao was a little confused, but she still did as she was told.

Ah Mei came over, leaned on her shoulder, and asked curiously, "What are you going to make, sister? A cloth tiger?"

"I'll make a backpack that's easier to carry."

"What's a backpack?"

"I'll show you when I'm done."

Xu Zhenying and Miao worked together. Although Miao was the daughter of an old scholar from the countryside, she had worked in the fields and learned embroidery and poetry, so her mind was naturally more active than others. Seeing Xu Zhenying folding and hemming the fabric in a few seconds, and seeing the thing taking shape, Miao already understood most of it.

"I see. These two strips of cloth can be passed through here to carry them on your shoulders. But... will this really save effort? I don't see much difference."

Xu Zhenying's hands kept moving, passing the two strips of cloth through the newly sewn straps, and a simple backpack was completed.

Xu Zhenying quickly packed all the items in, then put it on Miao's back. Miao reached out and took the bag, saying in surprise, "It's a lot lighter."

"A backpack distributes force more evenly, and the width of the fabric increases the area over which the force is applied. This naturally saves more effort than carrying a bag, and it also frees up your hands for other things."

Miao didn't understand a single word of these incomprehensible words. A strange look flashed in her eyes, and she was stunned for a few seconds before she said, "My... Ying'er is truly intelligent."

Then she lowered her head, not knowing what she was thinking. However, Xu Meixiao next to her put on her backpack as if she had discovered a new world, and even ran happily to show off to Xu Fuwei from the second room.