Chapter 42: Unrest
A Da knocked on the fifth house in the village before someone finally opened the door. It was an old lady.
The old lady was holding an oil lamp in her hand, and when she saw the knife on Ada's waist, she trembled with fear.
Ah Da deliberately lowered his voice to make it sound gentler, "Don't worry, old man, we are not bad people. My daughter is passing by here, can you lend us a room? We will pay."
Girl? The old lady looked behind Ah Da and saw the master and the servant. Both of them were holding lanterns in their hands and shining them on their faces, making their faces clear.
This guest is quite polite and deliberately shows his face so that people can see it clearly. This is the behavior of a gentleman.
The old lady breathed a sigh of relief.
The broken wooden door of her house was leaky and could be kicked open by an adult at will, but these people knocked on the door politely. It seemed that they were not bad people. There was no need for bad people to make such trouble.
The other person has a big knife on him, so you can just rob him openly. There's no need to be nice and ask for a place to stay.
"The east room is empty. If you don't mind, you can stay in the east room."
Ah Da handed over a piece of silver and said, "Old man, this is the money for the room you rent, please accept it."
The old lady took a look at the silver coins and waved her hand to refuse. "It's just a place to stay for one night. This shabby house in the mountain village is not worth much."
There was a cry of a child in the room, probably awakened by the noise of the door opening.
The old lady went back to the house and took the child out. She wanted to say something but hesitated. Finally, she reminded him, "Our Niujia Village is not peaceful. Guests should be alert. If you find something wrong, it is important to escape in time."
The "unrest" the old lady was talking about was referring to ghosts? Or bandits? Or some bad guy nearby?
Lin Qianqian discovered that the old lady and the child in her arms were both very thin, the kind that came from lack of nutrition, or at least the kind that seemed like they hadn't eaten for three days.
Since the old lady was unwilling to accept the money, she asked Hongdou to take out two bags of snacks from the carriage, one bag of peach cakes and one bag of pea yellow cakes, both of which were chewable by both the elderly and children.
"Old man, even if you don't take money, you must accept the food."
The little girl in the old lady's arms looked about three years old. She was crying, but when she smelled the fragrance of peach cakes, she sniffed and murmured, "I'm hungry."
The old lady took the snack and expressed gratitude, "Thank you very much, benefactor. Thank you very much, benefactor. I will go and boil some hot water for you."
"No, we can just burn it ourselves."
At this time, the little girl's stomach began to growl.
The old lady looked embarrassed and quickly opened the peach cake and fed it to the child.
Lin Qianqian: "Is there any difficulty, old man?"
"I, I don't have any problems."
The old lady didn't say much because she didn't want to trouble the guests.
The kind-hearted girl is just passing by, so just leave safely.
There is no point in saying so much. Looking at the guests' appearance, there are only a few of them. Even if the guests are kind enough to help, it is like hitting a rock with an egg against hundreds of bandits.
The kind guest was harmed in vain.
The old lady didn't say much, and Lin Qianqian didn't want to force her to speak.
~
Niujia Village was indeed not peaceful. Over twenty masked men suddenly came in the middle of the night and headed straight for the yard where Lin Qianqian lived.
In order to protect her granddaughter, the old lady did not sleep every night and only dared to take a nap during the day, because the bandits usually came at night.
In the silent night, the slightest movement will be magnified countless times.
When the old lady heard the noise outside, she immediately hid her granddaughter under the bed and shouted, "The bandits are coming, run!"
She ran out while shouting, hoping that the kind person who gave her food could escape in time.
In the moonlight, the shining broadsword chopped straight towards the old lady's neck.
There was no fear in the old lady's eyes before she died. Anyway, at her age, the earth had already buried her up to her neck. It didn't matter whether she died early or late. It would be good for her to go to the underworld and reunite with her son earlier. It was just a pity for her little granddaughter.
It would be better if my granddaughter died early, so that she would not be kidnapped by bandits and suffer humiliation when she grows up.
When the blade was less than three fingers away from the old lady, Lin Qianqian blocked it with her sword.
With a clang of metal collision, the big knife in the black-clothed man's hand was shaken off and fell to the ground.
Lin Qianqian jumped up from the ground, stabbed the thief's heart with her sword, and killed the man in black in front of her with one sword.
The old lady saw the little girl dancing with a long sword vigorously, her body moving back and forth, which was dazzling.
In addition, the people brought by the girl were also very skilled and quickly killed most of the twenty or so masked men, leaving only two alive.
Lin Qianqian smiled and said, "Old man, it's still early, you should sleep a little longer."
The old lady looked at the smile on Lin Qianqian's face and felt deeply moved.
This girl's smile makes people feel indescribably comfortable.
The old lady was illiterate and couldn't think of any better words. She just felt that it was like spring, with wild grass sprouting from the soil and flowers trying hard to bloom, and suddenly hope arose in the old lady's heart.
This girl and her group were able to kill more than twenty bandits without anyone getting hurt. Maybe they can really help Niujia Village.
The old lady fell to her knees in front of Lin Qianqian and was immediately helped up by a pair of warm hands.
"My last name is Niu. Our Niu Village is really miserable..."
Old Mrs. Niu told the tragic story of Niu Village.
It turned out that Mrs. Niu's son was killed by bandits, and her daughter-in-law was kidnapped by bandits. After paying taxes to the government in the autumn harvest, the rest of the grain was also kidnapped by bandits.
The whole village has started eating the wild grass that the poultry eats.
"Didn't you report it to the police?"
Old Lady Niu choked up and said, "It's useless to report to the government. The government office faces south. Don't come in whether you have money or not. You can't get into the government office of Tong County without money to clear the way. I heard that the official in Wu County next door is a good person, but it's a pity that Wu County is 70 or 80 miles away from our village, it's too far."
"The girl must be from a prominent family. Can you help call more people to help? If the bandits are wiped out, the girl will be allowed to leave the imperial temple. Next year, when our village harvests grain, we will build a temple for the girl and offer sacrifices to her every day."
Lin Qianqian: “No, no, no.”
The temples only worship dead people, and it would be too ostentatious for her, a living person, to build a temple there.
Lin Qianqian deliberately used a relaxed tone to comfort Old Lady Niu: "Old lady, you should have told me earlier that there would definitely be rewards for suppressing bandits. We love to earn rewards the most."
Of course, it would be great if the bandit’s head could be used to exchange for the Jiang family’s freedom.
I heard from Old Lady Niu that there were at least six or seven hundred bandits in the mountains. If we calculated the rate of ten heads in exchange for one person's freedom, all the members of the Jiang family could be freed.
Spending some time here will not affect your trip.
Now that we have encountered them, we naturally have to help these villagers.
She brought a lot of people this time, including Ada, Hongdou, Zhao Xiaoliu and three others.
Zhao Xiaoliu and the other two are all masters.
Before Si Xuan escorted the grain and fodder out of Beijing, he left Zhao Xiaoliu and the other two to her, on the grounds that he would protect her closely to repay her for saving his life.
Speaking of which, I have never seen anyone more grateful than Si Xuan.
A lot of good things would be sent to her every day. Even though he had gone to escort the grain and was not in the capital, he still arranged people in advance to deliver things to Jiang's house every day to repay her for saving his life.
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