"Quick! The kitchen!"
"The cellar! Find the cellar!"
"Pry open the boxes and cabinets!"
However, the expected abundance of grain and meat did not materialize.
"That's strange! There's nothing in the kitchen except a few broken bowls! The rice jar is so empty you could run a mouse in it!"
Wu Lao Er ran out of a kitchen with a gloomy look on his face.
"Me too! The closet is empty! The chests are empty! There are only a few tattered clothes!" a complaint came from another room.
"Where are their valuables? Their jewelry? Weren't they supposed to be rolling in money?"
Everyone stared at the empty room, their faces full of confusion.
Many people rushed into the seemingly nice room, ransacked it, only to find some junk and empty bottles and jars, and left disappointed.
These places looked as if they had been ransacked; they were eerily clean.
Only a few scattered corners of the rooms yielded a few worn-out coarse cloth clothes, or one or two empty burlap sacks.
"Damn it! These poor bastards! They look all respectable, but they have nothing at home!" someone couldn't help but curse out.
During the search, the children crying and running around the village, searching for their parents, became a jarring background noise.
"Waaah... Father! Mother!"
"Mother...where are you?!" The cries were heart-wrenching.
What's even more infuriating is that some of the older children, seeing the people from Liushutun ransacking their homes, pointed at them and yelled, "Fat sheep! You bunch of fat sheep, get out of here!"
"You fat sheep who steals! Get out!"
"Get lost! You fat sheep!"
The words "fat sheep" pierced the ears of the people of Liushutun like needles! The humiliation and fear of last night instantly surged back to their heads!
"You little brat! Who are you calling names?!" A man raised his hand in anger, ready to rush over and punch the man!
"You little bastard! You deserve a beating!" Liu Dazhuang's eyes also turned red.
"Enough!" the village chief shouted sternly, his face ashen. "Find the thing right now!"
The man abruptly stopped, his chest heaving violently. He looked at the children, whose eyes gleamed with resentment like those of wolf cubs, and spat out a curse: "Pah! Kids raised by human traffickers! They're no good either!" He ignored them, turned around, and roughly kicked open another door to continue his search.
Suppressing their anger, the group avoided the crying and shouting children and sped up the search.
But the feeling of disappointment grew stronger.
The search lasted for about half an hour.
...
The meager harvest piled up in the courtyard in front of the ancestral hall was like a bucket of cold water poured over the heads of the people of Liushutun.
"That's...that's all?!" Jiang Fu had just woken up, his face still deathly pale. Looking at the three bags of millet and one bag of flour, his eyes turned red. "I was almost poisoned to death! My wife was almost sold! And this is all I got in return?!"
Wang also woke up, leaning weakly against the wall, her eyes filled with resentment as she stared at the room where the prisoners were locked. "Not enough! Absolutely not enough! They must have hidden something good!"
"Exactly! I almost lost my life, and this is all I get?" Jiang Shou's voice was hoarse, filled with lingering fear and anger.
Disappointment quickly turned into unvented anger!
"If you can't take it, then destroy it!" Jiang Shou grabbed an axe he had found in Wengjia Village and roared with bloodshot eyes, "We can't let these beasts get away with this! Smash it! Smash it all! Leave them with nothing!"
"Yes! Smash it!"
"The pot is smashed! The bowl is broken! Everything I couldn't take with me is destroyed!"
"Cut down the door and window frames! Let them sleep in the open!"
Anger ignited like wildfire!
Several men, seething with anger, grabbed the sticks and axes at hand and charged toward the nearby houses like madmen!
"Clang! Crack!" The earthenware jar was smashed to pieces!
"Crash!" Pots and pans were swept to the ground!
"Bang! Bang!" The axe slammed down on the door frame and window lattice! Wood chips flew everywhere!
The furniture was overturned and kicked to pieces!
Like a group of vengeful destroyers, they unleashed the fear, humiliation, and near-death rage accumulated the previous night onto everything in sight that they could destroy!
"Stop smashing! Save your energy for the journey!" the village chief tried to stop them.
"Let them smash it!" Old Wang said angrily. "Think about how they've treated us! This junk, it'll only feel better if we smash it!"
Looking at the houses and courtyards that had been ravaged, and listening to the terrified screams of the prisoners and the even louder cries of the children, the others in Liushutun remained silent, and no one tried to stop them.
This meager gain could not extinguish the fear and anger of almost being drugged and sold.
The destruction lasted less than fifteen minutes.
After venting, there is a deeper exhaustion and an urgent need to escape.
"Enough! That's enough!" The village chief shouted, looking at the mess. "Pack your things! Get out of here now!"
Without lingering any longer, the crowd quickly tied up their meager share of grain and surged toward the village entrance without looking back.
The heavy wooden door was pushed open again.
Fresh air rushed in from outside.
Everyone took a deep breath in unison, and then slowly exhaled, as if to expel all the remaining blood and bad luck from their lungs!
The sunlight was blinding, yet it brought a real sense of surviving a catastrophe.
"It's out... it's really out..." Liu Dazhuang muttered under his breath, his voice trembling almost imperceptibly.
"Hurry up, hurry up!" Aunt Zhao urged, her steps unsteady yet swift.
The group had not gone far out of the village when, from the hellish place behind them, a heart-wrenching, desperate wail and scream suddenly erupted, a hundred times more shrill than the cries of a child at dawn!
The sounds of adults' despairing wails and children's terrified screams echoed through the wilderness, sending chills down one's spine!
"Grain! The grain is gone!"
"The pots and pans are all smashed! We're not going to make it!"
"Ninth Brother! He died such a tragic death—!"
"God! Open your eyes—!"
The people of Liushutun quickened their pace!
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