Looking at Song Xiaoyu's bruised and swollen face, Qin Xiaoniang suppressed her laughter and dared not utter a sound.
Li Qiang's wife breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Didn't they chase after us? What are you carrying on your back?"
Song Xiaoyu impatiently threw off a tattered sack from her body and said dejectedly, "Look, it's all dry biscuits they don't want to eat. Although we don't have much money, it's enough to buy some food to solve our basic needs. But now they've given us this stuff. If it weren't for Nianjie's mother secretly taking out some seeds, we wouldn't have gotten anything today!"
Song He'er realized the crux of the problem and stepped forward to ask, "Third Uncle, did those soldiers recognize the copper coins from Xizhou? Didn't they suspect anything?"
Song Xiaoyu sneered, "How could they not recognize them? Which place around here haven't they done business with? It's outrageous! I'll definitely take this to the capital when I get the chance! Let's see how arrogant they can be then."
"Third Uncle, we can't even leave Xinzhou now, let alone go to the capital. It would be good enough if we could just live a good life."
Zhang Xiue glared at him and chimed in, "That's right, what nonsense are you talking about? Instead of wasting time, why don't you hurry up and think of a solution? How are we going to live? We've never seen such a godforsaken place before. The imperial court is too ruthless!"
After a long silence, Qin Xiaoniang finally spoke: "Since the soldiers haven't come after us, let's continue on our way, lest they come back to their senses and cause us trouble."
Zhang Xiue laughed happily, "Don't worry, when I was stealing, they were only focused on beating Song Xiaoyu and didn't even notice how much I took."
"Pfft~ Let's hurry up and go."
After saying that, Zhang Xiu'e and Song Xiaoyu each ate a piece of lotus root, then helped everyone pack up their things and continued walking towards a better area...
Wang San's child was the most obedient, never crying or fussing along the way, eating whatever the adults ate. The only problem was that they hadn't found his father yet. If Wang San and his group hadn't been stopped in the snowy mountains, they should be in Xinzhou by now...
"Mother, look at the ground, there are many footprints, which means many people have walked here..."
Qin Xiaoniang nodded, "What kind of people could there be? They're just those wanted criminals exiled by the imperial court. If there are too many people ahead, it's not necessarily a good thing. There will inevitably be some unreasonable people who come and steal your food."
Song Xiaoyu frowned, looked around, then bent down and touched the mud that had been trampled into the ground.
"It's still soft, which means those people also passed through here in the last day or two. Maybe... it was the general and his men. When we learned that new people had come in, we went in this direction to find you."
"Third Uncle, when did you and the General arrive in Xinzhou?"
After thinking for a while, Song Chengyu replied, "It was about fifteen days ago. How can you address your own father like that? No matter what, he is your elder and your blood relative. Don't lose your sense of propriety."
"I have no father. From now on, I only have my stepmother and younger brother. That heartless father of mine is dead in my heart..."
Upon hearing this, Song Xiaoyu could only shake her head helplessly and remain silent.
The group walked a little further when they suddenly heard a commotion ahead, which seemed to include the cries of children and women.
"What's happened now? Let's take a detour to avoid any further trouble," Li Qiang's wife suddenly said.
Song Xiaoyu looked ahead and directly rejected Li Qiang's wife's suggestion.
There are no houses around here, so what paths could there be? We can only walk like this.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Xiue simply suggested that they stop walking, "Let's find a clean place to sit down and wait until there's no more noise ahead before we go closer, to avoid getting into more trouble."
Upon hearing this, Song Xiaoyu rolled her eyes and retorted, "That's just a woman's perspective. What do you mean by 'waiting here'? Don't those people have legs or eyes? Can't they come over on their own? Or can't they see that there are people here? Don't hide when something happens."
Song He'er felt that what he said made some sense. This place was far from any village or shop, and they were trapped within a radius of several hundred miles anyway. If they wanted to hide, where could they go?
“Third Aunt, this kind of place is where prisoners often stay. You can imagine what kind of grievances those people have suffered on the way. When they get here, they are naturally extremely arrogant and fearless. If she insists on causing trouble for us, we can only resist. No one will stand up for us! So the more we hide, the more rampant they become. It's better to face them one-on-one.”
Qin Xiaoniang strongly supported her daughter's statement. After all, she had had enough of living a life of hiding on the road and did not want to live that kind of life of hiding in Xinzhou.
"I see the noise is getting louder and louder, so let's just keep going. As the saying goes, we'll meet force with force and water with earth. We're penniless and only have half a life left, so what's there to be afraid of!"
Upon hearing this, Zhang Xiue patted her chest with renewed vigor, "Alright, let's go over and see if some shameless bastard is bullying people again!"
After saying this, the group carefully protected the child and continued walking forward...
The environment ahead was indeed much better than when we first came in. There were some trees growing around, but these were different from the trees we had seen before. They were mostly small-leaved trees, which looked a bit like pines and cypresses, but they were not pines and cypresses. If we were extremely hungry, we could not eat these leaves to fill our stomachs.
If you walk further ahead, you will see two groups of people arguing.
The men on the aggressive side were mostly men, each one like a jackal or tiger, as if they wanted to devour the woman and child lying on the ground.
"Give it to me or not? If you don't, I'll devour you alive right here today!"
The woman on the ground cried and shouted, "Bah! You heartless bunch! You don't even spare children! Even if I die, I will go to the underworld and sue you, so that you will never be reincarnated!"
No sooner had she finished speaking than the man slapped her across the face, so hard that she couldn't even stand up.
The people around were all elderly, and even if they wanted to help, they couldn't, so they could only offer words of advice and persuasion.
But those fierce men, without thinking twice, pushed those people aside and reached out to pull the woman into their arms.
Zhang Xiu'e was so angry that her lungs ached, thinking that the man had lustful intentions and wanted to humiliate women in public.
"Third Aunt, something's wrong! This man is trying to snatch the child..."
"What? Kidnapping?"
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