Lianyi deliberately lowered her voice when speaking, looked in the direction of the bedroom, motioned Song Dachuan to come closer, then took out a package from her arms and handed it to him.

Song Dachuan did not suspect anything, as he thought his daughter had found something edible on the mountain and had left it for him. However, he realized something was wrong because the thing was very heavy. When he opened the small package and saw the gold bars inside, he immediately gasped.

Song Dachuan quickly wrapped the gold bar again, stuffed it back into Lianyi's hand, and said in a trembling voice:

"Hide quickly!"

Lianyi found it funny, but still stuffed the bag of gold bars back into her arms as she was told.

Song Dachuan drank all the water in the bamboo cup, then he calmed down his pounding heart and whispered:

"Lianyi, where did you find this?"

"Wankou Mountain."

"Have you gone deep into Wankou Mountain?"

"Well, there was basically nothing edible outside, so I reached inside. The dandelion salad you ate at night was dug out by me from the inner area. The bag of gold was buried under that bunch of dandelions.

Fortunately, there was no one around me at the time. When I dug up the hard object, I thought it was a stone. But when I opened it, I saw it was gold. I didn't say anything and put it under the basket and brought it back.

Dad, with this gold, we will be confident enough, and when we get to Huangzhou, we will be able to settle down completely."

Lianyi immediately told Song Dachuan the story she had prepared long ago.

At this time, Song Dachuan was also very excited. After hearing his daughter's words, he felt more confident about this journey to escape famine.

"Don't tell your mother about this for now. She can't keep it to herself. It's not that I don't trust the Yue family, but after all, there are so many people and so many thoughts. It's hard to guarantee that someone won't leak the fact that we have gold, which will bring disaster to us."

Song Dachuan still trusts his daughter very much.

"Dad, you are right, that's why I deliberately avoided Mom to tell you this.

As the saying goes, wealth should not be exposed. With this gold, we will definitely live a better life, and we will have the confidence to support my younger brother's education in the future. So, we will not use it on the way to escape the famine. I will also hide the gold in different places to ensure that if there is any problem, it will not be taken away all at once."

Ripple immediately added.

"Well, you are careful, I trust you to do this!"

With the gold bars as a foundation, Song Dachuan felt much more confident and his previous depression was gone.

"Dad, while you have a wound on your face, wear this and go to Songjia Village tomorrow. The excuse is ready. You can say that you used the remaining money in your family to buy half a bag of brown rice mixed with sand, which was robbed by the disaster victims. Now you have no rice to cook, so you can only ask your grandparents for help."

Ripple whispered.

After listening to his daughter's words, Song Dachuan knew that it would be appropriate to go tomorrow, and he also wanted to see to what extent his parents and brothers could do.

Seeing the change in Song Dachuan's expression, Lianyi immediately comforted him:

"Dad, a loving father can only make his son filial. You have done well enough. No one can say a word against you. Some things cannot be forced, so don't be too persistent. You still have mother, me and my younger brother. We are the people closest to you."

"Dad knows!"

After hearing what his daughter said, Song Dachuan felt much relieved and went to bed early.

At dawn the next day, Song Dachuan went to Songjia Village with a bruised face, and Hui Niang took Lianyi and Huzi to their parents' home. When someone asked her on the way, Lianyi answered first:

"Yesterday my father took the remaining copper coins at home to the county to buy food, but before he even reached Wangshan Town, the food was robbed by the disaster victims. My family was out of rice, so my father went to Songjia Village to borrow food from my grandparents early in the morning.

The three of us wanted to go to my grandparents' house to get some food. Mom and I can stand to starve, but Huzi can't. He has just built up a good body, so what if something bad happens to him?"

Hui Niang also cooperated with her eyes turning red. The clever guy Hu Zi just nestled in Lian Yi's arms without saying a word, looking weak.

"Ah! Every family is the same."

The family of the person asking the question was in the same situation, but at least they still had some surplus food, so they could hold out for a while. They also knew that Song Dachuan's family was implicated by his younger brother last winter, and they emptied their family assets to help their parents and brothers, so they couldn't hold on so quickly.

After the two sides hurriedly said goodbye, Hui Niang and her family of three went to Lao Zhang's house.

The atmosphere in Old Zhang's home was also a bit depressing. Old Zhang, for a rare occasion, called together all the dozen or so members of his family, even his grandchildren. He then told them about the current situation, including the news that the eldest and youngest had inquired about in the county yesterday, and asked everyone to decide whether to leave or stay.

Everyone looked at Zhang Zhong and Zhang Shi, whose cheeks were bruised and swollen after a night of sleep. They all looked unhappy, especially Liu, who was pregnant. She clung to Zhang Shi, as if she felt safe only in this way.

Lianyi took a quick glance and knew that her aunt-in-law was about to give birth, and it would probably happen in the next few days. She didn't say much, thinking that everyone must have known the situation.

"What do you think?"

"Dad, we all listen to you. We'll do whatever you say."

Zhang Cheng spoke first.

He is the third child in the family. Just like his name, he is an honest man. He does whatever his parents say and never complains. It's just that his wife, Chen, is smart, but as a daughter-in-law, it is not easy for her to have a say in such an important choice.

"The situation has not reached its worst point yet. If we leave first, we will have fewer chances of encountering disaster victims on the road. If we wait until a large number of disaster victims appear, I am afraid we will have to leave even if we don't want to."

Zhang Zhongshi speaks the truth.

"But our family is traveling alone. If we encounter a large group of people, we still won't be able to protect ourselves!"

As the second child in the family, Zhang Jun was also highly valued by Old Zhang, and what he said was the truth and he was not blindly opposed.

"So we have to be well prepared. If we can follow the main group, we should follow it. If we can't keep up, we should try to take some safe paths."

Zhang Shi said immediately.

"We have many men in our family. As long as we don't encounter those who have lost their minds, we should be able to handle it."

Old Zhang glanced at the descendants present and said.

Old Mrs. Zhang was really fertile. After giving birth to Hui Niang as her first child, she gave birth to four boys afterwards. It was really a case of blooming before bearing fruit.

After the four sons got married, they were not far behind in having sons. The eldest, Zhang Zhong, had two sons and one daughter. The second, Zhang Jun, had two sons. The third, Zhang Cheng, had one son and one daughter. The fourth, Zhang Shi, had a wife who was about to give birth.

Hui Niang married into the Song family because old Mr. Song valued the Zhang family's ability to give birth to sons, so he inevitably favored Zhang Hui Niang more. This made old Mrs. Song very disliked this daughter-in-law, especially since Hui Niang's first child was a daughter. This gave old Mrs. Song room to maneuver, and he began to torture this daughter-in-law by saying that she could not give birth to a son.

Fortunately, Hui Niang finally got pregnant, and this time it was twins. However, Mrs. Song deliberately played tricks on her and made Hui Niang wash clothes in the middle of winter, causing her to fall and give birth prematurely, which led to a series of events that followed.