Chapter 145 A Way Out: Finding a Man

Outside of Shengzhou, war broke out.

Lu Hong wanted to show off his power and teach He Qinglan, this open "traitor," a lesson in order to intimidate the world.

But Ning Huai'an was no pushover. He commanded the Shengzhou army to fight bravely and managed to keep the Lu army outside Shengzhou, preventing the enemy from harassing the people of Shengzhou.

The sounds of cannons, explosions, shouts of battle, and the neighing of horses carried far and wide with the smoke and the cold wind.

At the same time, the Qingzhou army and the Jinzhou army fought against Sun's army three or four times in Qingzhou.

With the aid of Hu Dazhu, the Qingzhou army regained its morale and fought a back-and-forth battle with Sun Yannan, thwarting Sun Yannan's ambition to quickly defeat and annex Qingzhou.

Upon seeing this, Governor Zhao Jiashu, who was running out, also prepared to return to the state capital.

In Que Ling County, Zheng Jiming had just conquered Mao'er Mountain and hadn't even settled in when Yue Yao borrowed troops from Shengzhou and launched a counterattack, challenging the county's city gates in the middle of the night.

Zheng Jiming hurriedly roused his soldiers and sent them out to battle, but they were all cut down by the ruthless Yue Yao.

He was furious and ordered his soldiers to leave the city to fight against the Shengzhou soldiers brought by Yue Yao.

Zhang Haiping of Ziyang County first led his troops to defeat the rebel army at Xuantai Lake, and then turned his sword towards the rebel army at Langya Peak.

The defeated troops who fled from Xuantai Lake split into three groups. One of them, a force of about a hundred men led by Fang Liniang, immediately went to Langya Peak to fight Zhang Haiping to the death.

Jiang Rong accepted the defeated army, set up an ambush at the foot of Langya Peak, lured the enemy into the encirclement, and inflicted a great defeat on them.

Meanwhile, things were not idle in Ningzhou either. While Ye Hui was arranging Cao Ruheng's ascension to the throne, she also sent troops to attack Mengchuan County, which was located between Ningzhou and Maozhou.

Prefect Tao Xi was greatly shocked: What's going on? They're attacking me! He immediately sent troops to resist the Ningzhou army and wrote to Sun Yannan for help.

The people living near the battlefield were terrified, fearing they would be caught in the crossfire, so they quickly packed their belongings and fled the area.

Where to?

"War is raging everywhere now, where can we go?"

"Let's go to the southwest region. There are many mountains and few people there. If we hide deep in the mountains, we should be fine."

"feasible!"

"Grandfather, where are we going?"

"We're closer to Shengzhou from here, let's go to Shengzhou!"

"Isn't Shengzhou also at war?"

"But Shengzhou is protected by the goddess, and the people there can all have enough to eat! If we're going to die, let's die well-fed!"

"Okay!"

"No, no, we can't go north. Those people and foreign tribes on the grasslands come south from time to time."

"Yes, they often went south, but they were stopped by the Song family army on the border. Otherwise, they would have already reached the Central Plains."

"We can't go east, and we can't go north, so where should we go?"

"Let's go to Jinzhou. There's some kind of debate competition going there, lots of people are going, it'll definitely be safe!"

"Hey, did you know? Jinzhou is going to hold a debate competition, and the teacher from the county academy is taking his students to Jinzhou!"

"Is Master Wei going to Jinzhou?"

"They're all going to Jinzhou, can we go together?"

“I heard that there is a great scholar in the state who is also going to Jinzhou.”

"Jinzhou sounds nice, let's go there too."

On the official roads and mountain paths leading to Jinzhou from various places, scholars going to participate in the Yun Kingdom Debate Competition would occasionally encounter some refugees.

A student asked his servant to stop the dilapidated carriage, got out of the carriage, and struck up a conversation with several families who were resting on the path, asking them where they came from and where they were going.

The group was led by a man in his fifties, who stared warily at the student. "Where are you headed, sir?"

The student smiled and said, "I'm going to Jinzhou to reprint these books left by my ancestors into new ones."

Seeing his honesty, the leader's expression softened. "We escaped from a war zone and are looking for a place where we can survive."

The students looked at them thoughtfully. "This journey is probably very dangerous. Why don't we join the local people along the way?"

The students persuaded these families to go with them.

When refugees caught up with him, he persuaded them to go together, saying it would be safer.

After catching up with the refugees ahead, he asked to join them, and they traveled together.

This team is getting bigger and bigger.

The student chatted enthusiastically with everyone. He was kind, eloquent, knowledgeable, and erudite. He could chat with people of all ages and genders.

Everyone was happy to chat with him: where his hometown was, what the local conditions were like, what crops his family used to grow, what he had seen and heard along the way, etc.

After finishing their conversation with the students, he asked his page to grind ink for them. The page picked up his pen and wrote down the "interview content".

After finishing writing, he picked up a page of paper, raised his eyebrows smugly, and said, "I did a good job with the publicity, I wrote a good article, and I brought so many people back to Jinzhou. When Editor-in-Chief Xie is in a good mood, he might promote me to deputy editor-in-chief!"

Page: "...Young master is both brave and resourceful, he will surely achieve his goal."

"Yes, hahaha..." The student was laughing when he saw a little girl climbing a tree. His expression changed drastically. He quickly handed the article to the page and rushed towards the little girl.

He was extremely worried, but dared not shout, for fear of frightening the little girl.

The pageboy carefully caught the page filled with writing, and when he looked up, he saw his young master nimbly climbing up the tree trunk.

Just one county away, it was already within the territory of Jinzhou.

Several boys were preparing to catch fish and shrimp by hand by the river, while the girls planned to look for wild fruits in the nearby woods.

As expected of Jinzhou, it has more flowers, birds, fish, and wild animals than other places.

The adults who were chopping wild vegetables raised their voices, "Be careful, there may be wild boars in the woods."

The girls waved their hands, "Okay, okay."

They entered the woods, and a girl with a ponytail pointed excitedly ahead, "Look, jujube trees, jujube trees, jujube trees! Jujube trees that have been touched by frost!"

"Look over there, look over there, there! Persimmons!"

"Are there mushrooms in the forest in winter? I want to eat mushrooms."

"Sparrows! Sparrows! Call Da Yang and the others to catch them!"

A girl with a ponytail couldn't climb trees, so she didn't go picking wild fruit with her companions. She picked up a piece of dry firewood to use as a walking stick and walked to the side.

As she walked, she heard the sound of dripping water and decided to go and see if there were any wild houttuynia cordata.

She climbed over a hill, filled with joy.

The girls' screams caused the girls who were halfway up the tree to quickly slide down, the boys who were catching fish in the river pulled up their pants and ran to the riverbank, and the adults who were cooking put down their things.

Everyone ran towards the source of the sound.

The girl with the ponytail pointed to a man lying beside a ravine overgrown with houttuynia cordata, and asked, "Is he...is he dead?"

The man's age was indiscernible; his greyish-white clothes were stained with blood, which had already congealed.

An older man walked over, turned the injured man over, touched his neck, and breathed a sigh of relief, "He's still alive!"

Everyone: "..." Alive!

The group had no ointment and searched for a long time on the mountain but couldn't find any usable herbs. All they could do was clean the wound, bandage it with clean cloth, and then feed the injured person vegetable soup and fish soup.

The man did not wake up, but he swallowed the soup.

"Should we take him with us?" a wise man asked.

Immediately, someone hesitated, "No, we don't have a carriage, so we're going to carry him on our backs?"

"Are we just going to leave him here to die?" the girl with the ponytail asked excitedly, only to be tugged at by her father's arm.

"If he dies here, wouldn't we be committing a terrible sin?" If we didn't see him, that's one thing, but if we did see him and did nothing, wouldn't that be watching him die?

The uncle glanced at the injured man, then at the children.

He made a decision, "Take him with you, anyway, this place is very close to the county town."

Seeing that the villagers seemed to have more to say, the uncle said, "If the people of Jinzhou find out that we stood by and did not help, they might have a bad opinion of us outsiders."

After hearing this, no one said anything more and they decided to do a good deed.

The boys happily carried bamboo baskets they had just woven from bamboo strips, filled with fish and shrimp they had caught from the river.

The girls were all dressed in different ways: one was holding a rabbit, another was grabbing a pheasant's wing, one had a bunch of houttuynia cordata tied with dry grass, and another was carrying a lot of jujubes in her arms.

The women washed the dishes and tidied everything up.

The men carried everyone's luggage, along with the men they had picked up, and continued their journey towards the county town.

Jinzhou has seen a surge in visitors recently, significantly increasing the workload for the city's security team.

They increased manpower and strengthened patrols to prevent anyone from causing trouble in the city.

Therefore, whether they were migrant workers or students who came to participate in the debate, everyone was amazed at how good the public security was in Jinzhou.

They all stayed in the county town with peace of mind, going to report to the administrative office staff here and strolling around the market there, picking out things they liked.

During this stroll, I noticed that the people of Jinzhou dressed in a unique way: regardless of age or gender, they either wore clothes made of some unknown material that looked fluffy, or short tops and shorts with unusual cuts that looked puffy.

Some people curiously asked the locals in Jinzhou, who happily recommended it, saying, "This is yarn made from wool. It can be knitted into sweaters that are very warm to wear."

"The cotton-padded coat and trousers are stuffed with cotton."

"You can go to the market and see if they have cotton quilts. You can use them as blankets or mattresses. You can't be without quilts in winter!"

"There are also scarves and gloves. Adults don't need them because their skin is too thick, but they can be given to the children."

Out-of-towners, driven by curiosity, went to the clothing and quilt shops in the market. Once they started browsing, they couldn't stop. Those with money bought a lot of goods, while those without money thought they would come back to buy them when they had more money in the future.

A young woman held a towel in her left hand and fanned her burning face with her right. "I knew it! I knew it! Cotton-padded coats and sweaters will definitely sell the best! I have to tell my boss when I get back. It's all his fault for squeezing us out last week, which prevented me from coming to the market. I almost couldn't buy a towel!"

The young man accompanying them looked blank, as if he hadn't heard anything.

Just as the young woman was about to say something, she saw a group of out-of-towners talking to the city guards at the city gate, and they were also with someone who appeared to be injured. Her expression changed, she wrapped her scarf around her neck, and ran over.

"What's wrong? What happened?" the young woman asked, peeking out. "What happened? I'm a doctor!"

The city guard looked at me gently and asked, "Are you a doctor?"

The young woman nodded, her eyes fixed on the man who appeared to be injured. She walked over and reached out to feel his pulse.

The young man followed them over. "I'm Tan Hangui from the Ministry of Justice, and she's Jia Qian from the clinic. What's going on here?"

The city guards said to the leader of the outsiders, "You speak."

The uncle said, “We came from XXX. We found this man in the woods by the river in XX County. He had been slashed but was not dead, so we brought him here.”

Tan Hangui narrowed his eyes upon hearing this.