In an instant, everyone panicked and kept asking, "What do we do?"

Some people were crying and wailing, wiping away tears in the rain: "God, why am I so unlucky..."

Suddenly, a chorus of wails filled the air.

Finally, Lin Jinyue said with a headache, "Don't cry, don't cry, we still have a way to survive."

She looked at these people. Although they were usually noisy and had even argued about the allocation of the carts this morning, they were not bad people. Moreover, they had shared hardships in the cave some time ago, and each of them would rather go hungry themselves than not stuff eggs into her arms.

Lin Jinyue definitely needs to find a way to ensure everyone's safety.

Lin Jinyue then said, “Let’s divide the work and cooperate. The village chief will assign tasks. No one should say that anyone is taking advantage of anyone else. Only by working together can we support each other and make it to Lingnan alive. If anyone is in trouble, we should help them if we can. With crossbows, we can go hunting in the deep mountains and not be afraid of starving. Moreover, the south is rich in produce. If we endure for another ten days or so, after we pass Yangzhou, we can go to the mountains to pick fruit and not go hungry.”

"The people around us now are our future support. There are only about fifty of us. With so few people and no travel permits, it will be difficult to settle down in the south. If there are even fewer of us, it will become increasingly difficult as we go on."

"Given Prince Jing's brutality, I suspect that besides refugees, there are also many bandits and rebels. When the fighting breaks out, no one will care whether you are an innocent civilian or not..."

Everyone turned pale; they had absolutely no doubt about what Lin Jinyue had said.

Lin Jinyue comforted her, "Don't worry, there's still a way."

Lin Jinyue revealed her plan.

At night, young people were asked to keep watch, and everyone contributed some food for them. During the day, the carts were no longer used to carry food, but instead carried the people on night watch.

There's no need to argue about these carts anymore.

Lin Jinyue: "If someone is on night watch, we will be much safer. If we really can't handle it, we can shout for help. At least we won't be caught off guard by wild beasts or soldiers coming up the mountain."

After discussing it for a while, the fear on everyone's faces eased. They even started discussing which boy from their own family would take the night watch, and they said that they definitely couldn't let anyone get hurt.

Their faces, which had been ashen, were now filled with renewed fighting spirit.

At this moment, no one questioned Lin Jinyue, even though she was only eight years old and had already become the backbone of this group.

Seeing that their expressions had softened, Lin Jinyue continued, "We decided to go to Lingnan because we read in a book that Lingnan is rich in resources, and as long as the miasma can be eliminated, everyone can become wealthy and live a better life than before."

She said all this because she was worried that the group would lose their motivation on the road, just like how company bosses in her past life would make empty promises to their employees.

Seeing everyone's enthusiasm, Lin Jinyue immediately and efficiently made a plan.

Excluding Lin Youliang's family, there are now a total of eight households with fifty-five people.

The eight households consist of Lin Jinyue's family of four, four other families with the same surname Lin, the village chief Lin Youcai's family of nine, the third uncle's family of eight, and two other families with the surname Lin, with three and seven people respectively, but they are slightly more distantly related and did not visit each other during festivals before fleeing the famine.

The remaining three households belong to other surnames. The Wang and Chen families each have seven people, all of whom are young adults and children. The elderly did not survive the journey. The last household is the Liu butcher's family. The Liu butcher's family moved to Linjia Village a few years ago. The village is xenophobic. Not to mention the two families who moved here a few years ago, even the Wang and Chen families who have lived in the village for decades are not liked by the village chief.

However, Lin Jinyue's plan this time included all of their non-family members.

For example, the Liu Butcher's family often went hunting in the mountains, and all three sons were skilled with bows and arrows and quite accurate. Lin Jinyue then gave each of them a crossbow bolt.

Although crossbow bolts are unreliable, they can still help solve some problems.

At the same time, three able-bodied young men were arranged to stay on duty every night to keep watch, so that if anyone fell asleep at night, they would be safe.

Seeing that Lin Jinyue had made the arrangements, Lin Youcai said to everyone, "Let's all rest tonight. When the rain gets lighter, we can go and pick some things around here, and then we'll continue our journey tomorrow."

Lin Youliang's family was unhappy: "Then everyone else has something to do, that's not fair, are they not planning to include us?"

Lin Youcai fell silent.

The other villagers disapproved of their family.

"Why would we bring your family along? We already agreed that we wouldn't bring your family. You're always thinking about being lazy and taking advantage of others. How can we trust you with this?"

Lin Youliang dared not speak, and kept glaring at his two daughters-in-law.

Their family used to be lazy and opportunistic, but that was before. Everything they got was divided equally, so naturally they would slack off whenever they could. This time, Lin Laosan's arrangement excluded their family, and the villagers didn't trust them anymore. If they got anything good in the future, their family would definitely not get a share.

Thinking of this, Lin Youliang felt uneasy and almost hated the third branch of the family, but he dared not show it.

*

After all that commotion, the villagers either rested or worked; no one was idle.

There were far fewer disputes.

The sky cleared up by evening, but it was still pitch black, so no one dared to travel. Three strong young men were left to keep watch while the others went to sleep.

With someone keeping watch, everyone slept much more soundly.

Before going to bed, Lin Shucheng secretly slipped each of the three of them two fried dough twists to tide them over when they got too hungry that night. He also said some words of encouragement: "I can tell you're all quite capable, so I only dared to entrust the first night's watch to you."

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