Chapter 27 A Group of Teenagers

◎Jinjiang exclusive◎

That evening, the team stopped at a valley. As usual, Zhou Jin's family found a place to camp not far from the yamen runners. The mother and her children were busy making a fire and cooking porridge when they saw Bai coming over with a thin boy.

The mother and her two sons all thought that the Bai family came to borrow grain. They had also heard about the miserable fate of the Zhou family's direct branch in recent days.

Ever since Lord Zhou was sentenced to death, Song Yayi could no longer understand the meaning of the higher-ups' decision, and he no longer dared to care for the Zhou family's direct descendants. When the people from the side branches saw that Song Yayi didn't care anymore, they no longer cared about them!

The people of the side branches had long been dissatisfied with the direct branch for causing their exile. At this time, they could no longer suppress their hatred for the direct branch. Gradually, they would beat or scold the direct branch members whenever they saw them. Within a few days, under the instigation of a few leaders, they started to rob all the food and supplies of the direct branch.

In the exile group, the number of children from the side branches was almost twice that of the children from the main branch. Therefore, the children from the main branch could do nothing when they were robbed and beaten. They could only keep their heads down and live on the little bread and porridge that the officials gave them.

Unfortunately, the descendants of the direct branch were used to a life of luxury and were delicate and could not endure great hardship. Within a month, most of them died of starvation or disease.

The second son of Lord Zhou and his family, as well as Zhou Zelin's wife, died of illness on the road a few days ago. However, in just seven or eight days, only Zhou Zelin and his sons are left in Lord Zhou's mansion.

Bai's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were grateful for the care that Lord Zhou had given to their family over the years, and had been taking care of Zhou Zelin and his sons these days. Bai did come here to borrow grain, but not for herself, but for Zhou Zelin's family. The boy she brought was none other than Zhou Zelin's second son, Zhou Luo.

"Brother Luo, how come you've become so thin? A Ying doesn't even recognize you."

As soon as Mrs. Bai explained her purpose, and before Mrs. Zheng and the others could say anything, little Zhou Ying at the side pulled Zhou Luo next to Mrs. Bai and started crying.

Some time ago, Zhou Jin's family followed Zhou Ge Lao's family. Because they knew each other at home, Zhou Luo always came to play with Zhou Jin and his family.

But Zhou Jin and his sister were not interested in this little fat boy who was about the same age as them but mentally immature and ignorant of the sufferings of the world. They were too lazy to deal with him. On the contrary, Zhou Li and Zhou Ying got along well with him. Especially Zhou Ying, she had a good impression of Brother Luo who often secretly gave her white flour buns.

During this period, Zhou Luo experienced a series of events: his grandfather was sentenced to death, his father and brother became seriously ill, his mother passed away, and his second uncle's family died of illness one after another. Not only did he lose weight, but his body and mind were also severely damaged. During this period, he was also accustomed to the indifference and contempt of people around him. He was no longer the carefree little fat boy who was held in his grandfather's arms and protected.

Originally, he had no hope that his aunt would bring him to Zhou Jin's house for help, but when he saw Zhou Ying and Zhou Li's concerned looks in front of him, he felt inexplicably warm and some hope arose in his heart.

"Alas! Sister-in-law, if I hadn't really had no other choice, I wouldn't have come to you for help. But now, there are only three of us left in my uncle's family: my eldest uncle, Po'er, and Luo'er, father and son. My eldest uncle and Po'er are both seriously ill. They are barely able to survive on just a few bran cakes, and it seems they are about to die..."

Both Bai's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are widows. If it weren't for Lord Zhou who took care of their family all these years and treated Bai's son as his own grandson, they would have been unable to make ends meet. Therefore, Bai really felt sorry for the Zhou brothers, whom she had raised since childhood.

But the abilities of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were limited, and the food was also snatched away by the side branches. They had no other way except to pick some wild vegetables to feed Zhou Zelin and his son.

Now, it seemed that Zhou Jin's family was the only one in the exile group who could provide food and they could borrow it, so Bai Shi gritted her teeth and brought Zhou Luo to find them.

"Sister-in-law, please stop talking. Not only do I have to borrow your food just to save my two children, but I also have to borrow it just to save my two children.

But we don’t have much food at home now. Besides what we eat ourselves, I have also lent out a lot of it. Now I can only give you two pounds of oil-tea noodles and three pounds of brown rice…”

Zheng thought about the large amount of rice and flour she had lent out during this period, and felt a little distressed, but when she saw Zhou Luo's face, which had become much thinner, she couldn't help but speak generously.

"That's a lot! Thank you so much, sister-in-law!" Bai thought that it would be good enough to borrow a pound and a half of rice and flour this time, but she didn't expect Zheng to give her so much at once. She hurriedly pulled Zhou Luo to thank Zheng.

Unexpectedly, after Zhou Luo thanked Zheng, he knelt down in front of Zhou Jin, kowtowed three times, and said in one breath:

"The book says it's better to teach someone how to fish than to give him fish. Brother Jin, please teach me the skills of hunting and fishing. I heard from my father that it's still a month's journey from here to Liaodong. I want my father and brother to survive!"

After saying this, he could no longer hold back and lay on the ground sobbing. If his father and elder brother also died, he would be the only one left.

"Brother, please help Brother Luo! Brother Luo is a very good person!" Zhou Li took the lead in pleading for Zhou Luo.

"Yes, brother, Brother Luo is so pitiful!" Zhou Ying also shook Zhou Jin's arm with tears in her eyes.

Zhou Jin was forced to agree simply because of Zhou Ying's tears.

"Okay, you can learn from me, but whether you can learn it or not, and whether you can support your father and brother depends entirely on you. I can't guarantee it."

"Okay! Okay! Thank you very much, brother!" Zhou Luo was so excited that he bowed down again in a hurry.

So, the next day, when Zhou Jin went to find food again, a follower followed him. On the third day, another follower followed him.

Compared to Zhou Luo, this follower felt more at ease following Zhou Jin because he paid tuition to learn from him.

This person was Zhou Dai, the eldest son of Zhou Zesheng. After Zhou Zesheng saw Zhou Luo learning fishing and hunting with Zhou Jin, he came over that night and forced a goldfish on Zhou Jin, asking him to bring his son along when he taught Zhou Luo.

Zhou Jin knew that Zhou Zesheng's family was not doing well at the moment, so he didn't want to accept it. However, Zhou Zesheng saw through his thoughts and whispered to him:

"Don't worry, nephew. Although those grandsons robbed my house, they only stole food and some loose change. The bulk of the money was already hidden by my father. So, uncle is not short of money, but food..."

Zhou Jin thought to himself, you don't lack money, but I do. For the sake of this yellow croaker, Zhou Jin got another apprentice.

So, in the next few days, when we arrived at the campsite, we could see the three teenagers busying around the campsite, setting traps in the surrounding grass, fishing in the pond, climbing up trees to take bird eggs, covering their heads to dig out beehives, and even catching grasshoppers, cicadas, field mice, and snakes. In short, they caught everything edible. Gradually, the three teenagers became four, five, six, and a group.

There were eighteen young men in this group, all of whom were about the same age. The oldest was less than fourteen years old, and the youngest was Zhou Luo, twelve years old. None of them had shackles on their feet.

Except for Zhou Luo and Zhou Dai, all the other teenagers were not valued by their families, including those from both the direct and side branches. Because they often did not have enough to eat, they had to go out to find food for themselves. At first, they just watched Zhou Jin and the others catch whatever they wanted. Later, when they saw that Zhou Jin did not chase them away, they simply followed the three shamelessly and followed Zhou Luo and the others to call Zhou Jin "chief".

Zhou Luo and Zhou Dai were very upset about this, especially Zhou Dai, because he was the only one who paid the tuition. Later, Zhou Jin stipulated that anyone who came later,

If you want to follow him, you must hand over all the prey you catch to him, and he will distribute it. Every time Zhou Jin distributes the prey, he will give more to Zhou Luo and Zhou Dai. Only then will the two of them have no objections. The teenagers are young and don't understand the grudges and hatreds between the direct and side branches. They quickly became familiar with each other and called each other brothers.

Ever since these young men learned hunting from Zhou Jin, they've never been hungry again. Even though the food they eat is all sorts of weird, as long as they can eat it and won't starve to death, who cares about what they eat? Even Zhou Luo, the once pampered one, can peel a snake without blushing, let alone others.

Therefore, this group of young people were very grateful to Zhou Jin, and gradually they all followed Zhou Jin's lead and regarded Zhou Jin as their leader.

At the same time, Zhou Yu was not idle either, because she discovered that there was an old man in the exile team who knew medicine!

Some time ago, typhoid fever and colds were seriously contagious in the exile team, and many people died of the disease, but many people also recovered. Zhou Yu later heard from her mother that those people took water boiled with wild onion whites taught by an old widower in the tribe, which made them sweat and they recovered.

Later, some people in the team who had diarrhea or bruises went to see the old man, and he cured them all with simple herbal medicine.

Zhou Jin was worried that the medical skills he learned in his previous life could not be put to use in this world. When he heard about such a person, he naturally could not let him go. He hurried over and followed the old man to show his courtesy.

However, the old man was somewhat patriarchal, and despite Zhou Yu's best efforts, he was unwilling to pass on his medical skills to a girl. Zhou Yu had no choice but to come back and bring five kilograms of brown rice, and the old man immediately agreed.

Because of Song Yayi's special care, although Zhou Jin no longer had the opportunity to go out with the officials, every time the officials went out to buy things, they would always bring back some brown rice and brown flour for Zhou Jin's family, so the Zhou family never lacked food.

Of course, the price of these brown rice and brown flour was much higher than the market price, and Zhou Jin could not let Song Yayi's men work in vain, so he gave a lot of benefits to the Yayi who brought things to their family every time. As a result, Zhou Jin's remaining one hundred taels of silver were spent a lot.

In her previous life, Zhou Yu applied to a medical university and majored in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Although she only studied for one year before the end of the world, she knew almost everything about Chinese medicine and pharmacology because she had been learning from her grandfather who was a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner all his life. She also knew a lot about Western medicine theory, but she lacked practice.

She learned medical skills from the old man just to make sure her medical skills had a source. She couldn't just create medical skills out of thin air. But she didn't think the old man had anything to teach her.

After studying for a few days, Zhou Yu found that the old man was quite capable and his medical skills were no less than his grandfather's.

The old man was also amazed at Zhou Yu's medical talent, and lamented that such a genius had to be a girl. It was such a waste of talent!

Zhou Yu got angry whenever he saw the look of disgust on his face towards girls. Naturally, he couldn't tell him that he had cheated, and he couldn't help but retort every time.

So the two of them admired each other but also disliked each other, one taught the other, and became a pair of rival master and apprentice.

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