Chapter 94: Settling the Disaster Victims – They really survived!

Li Tie gave a low shout and looked impatiently at the Xu family, "Whether Xu Wenze acknowledges you or not depends on his own decision. It's not easy for you to have survived until now, so don't think too much about it and get some rest."

You're not the only ones with mouths, so shut up already.

Li Tiechong said to the villagers around him, "Have you finished your work in the fields? Don't let watching the excitement delay your business. Everyone, go home."

After saying that, he selected a few people to stay and take care of the disaster victims.

Li Tie glanced at the few young children in the group of disaster victims and felt a pang of pity. He asked Li Jing to build a fire in the open space and, out of the disaster victims' sight, took out ten catties of wolf bones with meat on them from his spatial storage and stewed a pot of meat and bone soup to help them replenish their strength.

From beginning to end, Li Tie never said he would take them back to the cave.

Lei Shan had been prevented from making any moves by the Fang and Xu families, and now that he saw Lei Yan and Lu Qing leaving with the others and ignoring them completely, he became anxious.

"Lei Yan! You stop right there! Do you think my brother is dead? We're still here, where are you going?! Hurry up and bring us food!"

Zhao was terrified after the earthquake and was unwilling to let him leave so easily. She looked at Lu Qing and said sternly, "Lu Qing! Did you whisper in Lei Yan's ear and make him treat us like this? How could you be so heartless, you poisonous woman!"

Lei Shan continued his tirade, "I told you long ago that this woman is no good, but you insisted on clinging to her, treating your own brother like this for an outsider. If you ask me, you should have divorced her as soon as possible—"

Before he could finish speaking, a bolt of lightning suddenly struck him with a 'boom' less than a meter in front of him.

An invisible current surged from the ground into his body, causing Lei Shan to tremble violently, his angry face filled with terror and pain.

Aaaaaah!

Zhao screamed in fright: "Ah—!"

"May he be struck by lightning!"

The surrounding disaster victims were so frightened that they scrambled to hide in the distance, their eyes filled with shock and fear as they looked at Lei Shan.

Lei Dabao, who had been listless and lacking energy, was also frightened by the adults' continuous noise and burst into tears.

The villagers of Yunlu Village were initially startled, but they quickly recovered and subtly glanced at Lei Yan.

Looking at Lei Shan, who was numb from the electric shock and unable to speak, Lei Yan suppressed his anger and said, "Lu Qing is the person I want to spend my life with, she is my closest person, and it's none of your business to talk nonsense about her!"

"I've already said everything I needed to before the catastrophe. You all ignored my advice, and you've brought this situation upon yourselves. If you want to survive, find your own supplies, and don't even think about messing with me!"

"If you dare say another bad word about my wife, the next lightning strike might just land on your heads!"

After making his statement, Lei Yan grabbed Lu Qing's hand, who hadn't uttered a word, and left without looking back.

Lei Shan, who was still unable to move, and Zhao Shi, who was terrified, stared wide-eyed at their backs, their faces full of surprise and uncertainty.

What did he mean by that?

Could it be that the lightning strike just now was related to him?

The villagers of Yunlu Village exchanged knowing glances and then left one after another.

Li Tie glanced at Lei Yan and his wife as they walked away, then at Lei Shan, glanced down at the communicator on his wrist, and rubbed his forehead in exasperation.

-

In a forest deep in the mountains.

'Beep beep beep'

Lu Xuan, who was focused on cutting the newly discovered honeycomb, heard the communication notification, glanced down at the name displayed on the communicator, a meaningful smile appeared on his lips, and he quickly looked up again to continue his work.

The viewers, who were secretly licking the beehive, were puzzled: "Why isn't the streamer answering the phone? Maybe something's happened in the village."

Lu Xuan said without changing his expression, "I haven't received any news from home, so it shouldn't be anything urgent. The villagers aren't three-year-olds; they should try to solve problems on their own."

[Didn't you say yourself that the village chief should contact you if anything happened?]

Lu Xuan said nonchalantly, "Then just pretend I accidentally muted it and didn't hear it."

Audience: ...

Lu Xuan cut off the last piece of the honeycomb and said meaningfully, "Mountains crumble when you rely on them, and people run away when you rely on others. People only learn to be self-reliant when they have no one to rely on."

Audience: ...

That sounds reasonable, but it's just not answering the phone; it doesn't change the fact that your behavior is despicable!

Lu Xuancai didn't care about what the audience thought. He acted as if the communication had never come in, cut off the beehive, and continued to look for the next resource.

...

Inside the big cave.

Li Tie pressed the communicator twice and shook his head at the villagers who were sitting around.

"Perhaps he's busy and didn't hear the call, he just hasn't answered. Oh well, we can't rely on Lu Xuan for everything, let's figure something out ourselves first."

He looked at the people present.

Besides Tofu Liu, the Wei family, Lei Yan and Lu Qing, the other families who had come down the mountain to look for their daughter, as well as Old Master Zhang, Wu Cheng, Ge Yuan, and other influential people in the village, were all present.

Since the survivors who went into the mountains happened to be from nearby villages, Li Tie specifically asked around about the married daughters of the villages.

Apart from Lao Zhao's daughter, the others said they hadn't noticed. The children from the other families either died in the earthquake or died from heatstroke on the way to the mountains.

Completely despondent, Zhou Yunshan and the others looked ashen-faced and aged several years.

Seeing that they weren't in the mood to speak, Li Tie turned to the others and said, "Tell me your thoughts. What should we do about the people from Wangshan Village and the other villages?"

"What can we do about it?"

Aunt Liu couldn't wait to speak up: "Just take care of yourselves. What do they have to do with our village? Do you think we'll support them for nothing? Nobody's food comes from thin air. How can we use it to feed outsiders?"

The others nodded in agreement.

That doesn't make sense.

Li Tie looked at Xu Wenze, the son-in-law of the Wei family, and asked, "What are you thinking? What about your uncle and the others...?"

This child is one of the few in Wangshan Village who has received an education, but he has none of the arrogance of a scholar. On the contrary, he is kind and gentle.

Before the disaster, he was called by the Wei family and his mother-in-law asked him to stay, so he stayed. After the disaster, he went up the mountain with them. Although he didn't join the hunting team because he was not as strong as the other young men, he did his best to help the Wei family with their work. He was a good boy.

However, it was precisely because of her mild-mannered personality that she was tricked by Xu's eldest uncle and left with nothing.

If they latch onto me again this time, I'm afraid I'll be bullied to death.

With his delicate features, Xu Wenze pursed his lips into a straight line.

He said softly, "Back then, after my uncle took away the family property left by my parents, if it weren't for my mother-in-law and the Wei family taking me in, I might have starved to death long ago. Now I just want to live a good life with Qiaoqiao and be filial to my mother-in-law. I don't want to have anything to do with the Xu family anymore."

Wei Dayong, the eldest brother of the Wei family, patted his frail brother-in-law on the shoulder, a satisfied smile on his face. "Well done!"

If this kid were to bring up filial piety at this point and insist on taking in Uncle Xu, he could only advise his younger sister to find a better one later, and let their mother drive him away so they could go back to tormenting each other with the Xu family.

Li Tie nodded. "Since you've made up your mind, Yunlu Village will never let outsiders bully our own people."

Xu Wenze breathed a sigh of relief and gratefully bowed to Li Tie, "Thank you, Village Chief."

Aside from Xu Wenze, the attitudes of the Liu and Lu families are self-evident; everyone knows the answer.

Ge Yuan said frankly, "We really don't have any relationship with those people, but now that we've run into them, it's probably impossible to just ignore them completely."

"If we eat and drink well every day while watching them starve to death, it's hard to guarantee that people won't do something crazy when they're about to lose everything."

This means they have an additional hidden danger that could erupt at any time.

In some ways, they are even more fearsome than the wild beasts in the mountains.

Old Master Zhang frowned and said, "But it's not right to drive them away, after all, this mountain is not our territory."

They can't drive them away, but they can't completely ignore them either.

However, it's not really the right thing to do to take on everything.

Think about those people's attitude today. They've barely helped us and they're already trying to get on our good side. They're being too eager. We won't be able to shake them off later.

After the initial joy of meeting an old friend in a foreign land, everyone couldn't help but feel resistant.

After a moment's thought, Wu Cheng suggested, "There aren't many wild mushrooms left to collect in the mountains, but there are still plenty of small wild animals. You can also catch fish near the waterfall. As long as they don't slack off, they won't starve."

"We don't need to do too much. Just provide them with a small amount of food from public supplies to help them get through the first few days, and that will be enough."

"If all else fails, we can consider hiring honest people among them to help with the work in the fields, and giving them some food as payment."

When the others heard this, they thought it was a good idea.

Providing assistance using public resources doesn't require them to spend their own money, so there's no question of loss.

Even with dry ice and cold drinks, working in this weather is still not an easy task.

If they could exchange a small amount of food for help with weeding and other chores, they would certainly be happy to have an easier job.

The Liu family disliked the Fang family, but they didn't take their anger out on the other surviving victims, nor did they say anything against it.

"What about accommodation arrangements?"

Someone asked, "We're not really going to let them live with us, are we? There's no room in the big cave."

Even the few empty spaces at the beginning were filled with supplies that couldn't fit in them. Even the two small caves that Lu Xuan had mentioned, which were a little distance away from here, were filled to the brim with supplies that were not frequently used.

Li Tie pondered for a moment: "Isn't there a cave to the west of the waterfall? We can let them stay there. It'll be just right for more than thirty people to squeeze in."

The cave is where hunting teams would rest and escape the sun when they passed by. It's close to the water source but far enough away from them that they can keep a safe distance and each go their own way.

The others discussed it in hushed tones for a moment and decided that this was the only way.

Although the cave would be unusable for the hunting team once those people occupied it, it was still better than bringing the people back to the big cave.

After discussion, they decided to distribute three catties of coarse grain, two catties of fruits such as apples and pears that could fill the stomach, one small bamboo shoot, and two catties of wolf meat and bones to each of the disaster victims.

Each person receives about ten catties of rations, totaling three hundred and twenty catties.

The village is now quite well-supplied with public resources, so they can afford to contribute this small amount.

The main reason is that after providing help, they won't feel guilty.

After taking stock of the supplies, Li Tie quickly led a few people to settle the group of disaster victims from Leishan in a cave on the west side of the mountain.

When the supplies were distributed, most of the disaster victims were so moved that they kept thanking the people and some even burst into tears.

Only the Fang family, the Xu family, and Lei Shan kept asking about the Liu family/Wei family/Lei Yan, and why they hadn't come.

Li Tiesan dismissed them with a few words, briefly explained the situation in the nearby mountains, and then left with his men.

After the people from Yunlu Village left, the disaster victims found places in the caves in twos and threes to use as beds, and they all breathed a sigh of relief, showing their joy at surviving the disaster.

They really survived!

There are shady caves here, and not far away there is said to be a waterfall with a good water supply. The mountains are rich in resources, so they will no longer have to worry about starving to death.

The disaster victims carefully hid the food they had just received, and their hearts, which had gradually become numb and desperate after losing loved ones in the earthquake, finally began to stir again.

Following their recent custom, the group gathered some firewood and lit a fire at the entrance of the cave to ward off wild animals.

As they leaned against the cool cave walls to relieve the heat, they recalled the information they had learned from the villagers of Yunlu Village.

"Do you think what the people in Yunlu Village are saying is true? Such a huge earthquake and not a single one of them died?"