In the mountains, the group of people disguised as innkeepers and waiters were suddenly drenched by a downpour. They couldn't find a place to take shelter. They knew that once the rain stopped, the fire at the inn would be extinguished.

There were no villages or even a dilapidated temple in the area. The torrential rain pounded on them, causing them pain all over. They knew that being soaked like this would kill them, so they decided to return to the inn to take shelter from the rain and, while they were at it, kill the Zhou family members who hadn't been burned to death.

"Boom!" Just as the group took a few steps toward the inn, a thick bolt of lightning suddenly struck down from the sky, snapping an ancient tree in half and causing it to fall, accurately knocking three of them to the ground.

"Ah!" The three of them only had time to scream once before they fell silent.

Only two people disguised as waiters remained, their faces filled with terror as they looked at the three men whose eyes had been glared wide open by the ancient tree, their eyes wide open in death. The two men's teeth began to chatter.

"What should we do? Should we go back to the inn?" one of them asked, trembling.

The other person was also quite frightened, but spoke relatively clearly, "What else can we do? There's nowhere to shelter from the rain except the inn. If we don't go back, we'll all die from the rain. We might as well go back."

So the two of them looked at each other through the storm and darkness, and then groped their way, stumbling and staggering towards the inn by memory. The rain was so heavy that the road was soon flooded, and it was muddy and slippery.

Without noticing, the person behind him tripped over something and fell forward. He instinctively grabbed the person in front of him, but the person in front seemed to know his intention and tried to avoid him. However, the person behind him was too fast and grabbed him.

The two of them fell down together, tumbling to the side.

With a loud bang, the two died, their eyes wide open.

It turned out that the two of them had hit their heads on a large rock and died from the fall.

The Zhou family spent a peaceful night at the inn. When dawn broke, the eldest son of the Zhou family and his three female guards finally couldn't stay awake any longer and closed their eyes for a short rest. At this time, the Fu brothers were all awake, and Zhao Guihua was also awake.

"Sanfu and Sifu, you two come with me to the kitchen to cook. Dafu and Wufu, stay in the room to take care of Erfu and Xingxing." Sifu is strong and can hold off danger if they encounter any problems downstairs. Sanfu is quick-witted and can react quickly if something happens, so I asked the two of them to come along.

But when they came downstairs, they found that Zhou Dafu had followed them down as well. "Dafu, why aren't you listening to me?"

“Mom, I’m worried about you. Dad and Tangguo are upstairs, they’ll be fine. It’s more dangerous for you to come down and cook. I can’t rest easy if I don’t come down and keep an eye on things.” Zhou Dafu held a knife in his hand, his expression very serious.

Everyone followed her down, and Zhao Guihua didn't let him go back. She took her three sons into the kitchen and brought down flour to make pancakes.

"Mom, here's rice, wheat flour, and black flour. Let's use this to make some dry rations. Make a lot, and we can take the rest with us," Zhou Sanfu said, opening several jars in the kitchen with a look of delight.

"Won't there be a problem?" So much had happened along the way, it was no wonder she was suspicious.

“There shouldn’t be any problem. We ate the food at the restaurant last night and nothing happened. If those people didn’t put poison in the food, they shouldn’t have put poison in the vat either,” Zhou Sanfu analyzed.

"The man disguised as the shopkeeper said that the innkeeper and waiter were killed by them. It seems that they have only recently taken over the inn. Judging from their hasty arson last night, their purpose was to kill our family. They didn't care about the hundred or so catties of grain in the kitchen, otherwise they would have moved it away long ago."

After hearing this, Zhao Guihua felt a tightness in her chest. "I feel sorry for the shopkeeper and the waiter. They lost their lives because of us. How can these wicked people be so inhuman? They just took away human lives like that."

“We are victims too. We almost lost our lives several times. Those bad people are determined to harm people. It’s not something we can stop them,” Zhou Sanfu knew his mother was starting to get stuck on her thoughts, so he quickly tried to comfort her. “We should hurry up and cook, then leave here. Saving our lives is the most important thing.”

Zhao Guihua thought about her family's situation and had no more pity for others. She needed to eat well to have the strength to fight the bad guys. Cooking was the priority. After eating, she would run away.

In the end, Zhao Guihua used the flour from the kitchen to make many flatbreads, which were to be prepared as dry rations for the journey. Then she washed the rice and soaked it in water for half an hour.

Once all the pancakes were pasted up, I stir-fried all the soaked rice until it was fragrant and golden brown before taking it out of the pan. After it cooled down, I packed it up to take away. The stir-fried rice can be eaten directly as a snack; it's filling and satisfying.

After frying the rice, she started cooking meat porridge. Several pieces of cured meat were hanging from the beam in the kitchen. Zhao Guihua took one, cut it off to cook the porridge, and packed the rest to take away.

Quietly, she woke up to the scent. As she got up, Xiao Xiao beside her also opened her eyes. The two looked at each other, and the latter asked with her lips, "Where are you going?"

"I'll go take a walk around the area and see if those guys from last night are still lying in ambush nearby," Jingjing replied quietly.

"Be careful, don't be reckless, run if you can't win," Xiao Xiao advised.

She nodded quietly. "Thank you, I understand."

So when Zhao Guihua and her three children brought breakfast upstairs, they didn't see Jingjing. Zhou Laoda was still asleep, Tangguo was still asleep, and only Xiaoxiao was awake.

Where is Jingjing?

The Zhou family didn't have as many rules as wealthy families; everyone was very casual. Xiao Xiao walked over and sat down at the table, smiling as she said, "She's gone to check out the surrounding area; she'll be back soon."

"Then let's not wait for her, let's eat first. There's plenty of flatbread and fried rice, eat as much as you want." There were thirty catties of white flour in the kitchen, all of which were used to make flatbread, and forty catties of rice were also fried. Only fifty catties of black flour remained untouched.

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