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Hunger isn't something everyone experiences, and it's not as simple as people think. When you're hungry, just go find something to eat and fill your stomach. That's what everyone did at first, but as the weather got hotter, even grass roots and tree bark became hard to find. Guanyin soil became the new favorite, but there was only so much of it, and it was divided up by the crowd.
But after winter came, no one could find anything to eat. Young children and elderly people died one after another, and people had to start looking for another way to make a living.
"Gousheng, where are you going, Gousheng, come back, Gousheng~~~~~" An old lady with a pale face, curly gray hair and bound feet stood at the entrance of the village and kept shouting. Not far in front of her, a man of medium build, also hungry and pale face, heard the voice, turned around and knelt down suddenly.
He put his head on the ground and cried out, "Mom, please stay home and come back when I get some food."
Then, he stood up and left without looking back, leaving only his elderly mother standing at the village entrance, constantly saying, "Come back, come back, we have been divided for a lifetime and cannot leave."
This kind of thing happened every day. Xiao Li would sometimes stand on the high ground behind the mountain with a telescope with a missing corner and look down, "Another one."
Another person taking risks for food.
With food no longer available in the countryside, people living in the urban-rural fringe, unable to feed themselves, began to think of moving to the city. They figured that even in hard times, the city would provide monthly relief food, and there would always be people, restaurants, and shops to rely on. So, with this in mind, hungry people began flocking to the city, wandering the streets all day long.
At mealtime, they would follow those who looked good, follow them into other people's homes, and when they saw the food on the table, they would suddenly pounce on it, spit on the food, and before others could react, they would grab the food and run away. This is commonly known as burglary.
Dirty, blackened faces were running around the streets holding the stolen food. Some carefully hid the food somewhere, while others simply grabbed the bowl and stuffed it into their mouths with their hands. The corners of their mouths were covered with rice crumbs. After eating, they would stick out their tongues and keep tapping the bottom of the bowl, looking around with dark eyes, which still revealed a hungry look.
After finishing his meal, he would throw his bowl down and point his finger forward, yelling, "Fuck your grandma's leg! I spent so much effort to make this meal, and it's cold! Damn it!"
Hunger makes originally kind and simple people lose their original appearance and their humanity.
The countryside and the city were in chaos in an instant, with robbery and crime everywhere, but what could they do?
There is no way! Because there are starving people like this in every city, they are everywhere, and the police can't do anything about them, and the government can't do anything about them.
Because this hunger is not the hunger of one person, but the hunger of thousands of people, it is the hunger of a whole country.
Sang Gousheng, a farmer from Sangjia Village in Huai County, was an honest man. If his family hadn't been completely broke, he wouldn't have left the place where he grew up to make a living.
Yes, in Sang Gousheng’s heart, he was out there to make a living.
He hid beside the grocery store with the people who came out of the village, waiting anxiously. Fortunately, he was lucky. After a while, they really waited for a well-dressed old lady leading a rosy-cheeked child towards the grocery store.
"Looking at the two of them, they should be from well-off families. Gousheng will wait for you to go."
Sang Gousheng was a little nervous as it was the first time he did such a thing. He kept reminding himself in his heart, it’s okay, look how well-grown the other person’s child is, a family that can raise such a child must not be short of these things!
The child the old lady was leading was about seven or eight years old. He was wearing clean clothes and looked fair and clean, which formed a sharp contrast with his own child. When Sang Gousheng thought of his own child's swollen body, pale and frightening face without a trace of blood, and his stomach was swollen because of eating alfalfa roots and Guanyin soil that could not be defecate, his eyes turned red.
The old lady led the child into the grocery store. She took out a small handkerchief from her pocket and opened it layer by layer to reveal the small coins inside. Then she pointed to the white-skin pastries in the store and asked the clerk to weigh some for her.
The old man and the child had no idea that all their actions were seen by the people hiding outside. Sang Gousheng and the others were very happy. White snacks were good. Although they couldn't satisfy their hunger, they could give the children a taste. And with the colorful money, they could buy a lot of things to take home.
They got rich, they got lucky this time.
So, when the old lady and her friend walked out the door with the five-dollar snacks weighed by the waiter, a skinny, dark-faced man snatched the things from her arms. Sang Gousheng took the things and ran away. After he ran away, the remaining people surrounded the old lady and the child, saying, "Old lady, we won't hurt you. Just give us the money if you know what's best for you."
The old lady was so frightened that she was shaking all over. She stood in front of the child and pointed at those people and cursed: "You, you are not human beings. You even don't let us old people and children go!"
But she was old and experienced, having experienced the hardships of war and hunger in her youth, so she quickly calmed down. "I just spent all my money on snacks, and now I have no money left. I'm afraid you will be disappointed if you want money."
A lot of people had gathered around, and Sang Gousheng's fellow villagers didn't seem to be afraid at all. They blatantly said to the crowd, "Old lady, you are kidding me. We all saw it just now. You still have money? Give it all over or I will kill you."
The people around have become accustomed to the current chaos. They have also been robbed before, and have also stolen things when they had no other choice. When they first saw someone stealing things, they even surrounded the old lady and persuaded her, "You'd better take it out quickly. If you don't hide your good things at home, it will be strange if they don't get robbed."
"Exactly. Hurry up and give it to them. These people really dare to kill people. I heard that in some places, people are so hungry that they even eat people. Look at your grandson, he's so white and tender, he's so delicious."
The old lady was so angry that she was shaking. She could only take out the handkerchief wrapped with money from her bosom, threw it on the ground, and took her grandson's hand to leave. But before she took two steps, she was called back. Those people stripped the child's clothes without any reason. After stripping off the boy's coat, they let the two go. "Okay, you can go."
She glanced back at him, then tremblingly led her grandson away until they reached a deserted alley. The little boy, Qin Yuji, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly said, "Grandma, I was wrong. I shouldn't have asked for white-skinned pastries."
"It has nothing to do with you." Old Lady Qin stroked Qin Yuji's drooping head and said gently, "Even if you didn't want snacks today, we wouldn't have left the county safely. It's not your fault, it's just that the world has changed."
Old Mrs. Qin brought Qin Yuji all the way back to Huai County from H City. They originally wanted to return to their hometown to live a peaceful life, but they didn't expect that as soon as they got off the train, their belongings were robbed by a group of people. Now she doesn't ask for anything else, just wants to take her grandson back to Longgang Village safely and live in seclusion.
The old man and the child had no money left. Old Mrs. Qin still had bound feet, and her feet would hurt if she walked too much. The two of them did not walk fast. When they were hungry on the road, they would ask for food from others. They would find some alfalfa roots on the road and chew them in their mouths. The journey was only two or three hours by car, but the two of them walked for five days. During these five days, Qin Yuji became a little beggar, and her fair and clean appearance was no longer there, but her eyes were more determined than before.
When they finally returned to Longgang Village, the two were not welcomed by the people. The villagers of Longgang Village had always been hostile to the Qin family. When they saw the two of them returning to the village when they were hungry, their eyes changed, just like a hungry wolf seeing fat meat.
That evening, the newly renovated brick and tiled house was robbed. Taking advantage of the chaos, a group of thieves broke into the Qin family's home and turned the yard, which Old Lady Qin had just tidied, upside down, taking everything in the house that could be moved. The Qin family watched as the group of people rushed in and out, stealing their belongings as if they didn't exist. Old Lady Qin was so angry at the sight of those once familiar faces that she trembled all over. She grabbed Qin Yuji, who was about to rush over to fight, and shook her head. The two of them just watched as they emptied their yard.
The yard was destroyed and everything in the house was emptied. After everyone left, Qin Yuji looked at her grandmother with a puzzled look on her face, "Why did you let them take our things? I can stop them!"
"Yuji, we still have to live in this village. We can't offend them. If they want to move, let them move. We can earn those things back when you grow up. Now there are only us, an old man and a young child in our family, so it's better to keep a low profile."
What Old Lady Qin didn't say was that she was afraid that the two would resist and be beaten to death by them. Qin Yuji was the only child left in the Qin family. If something happened to Qin Yuji again, she would not be able to survive.
"Isn't this our hometown? Grandpa said that the people here are very nice. My dad and I come back here every year. We even paid for them to build a pond dam. But why do they treat us like this?" Qin Yuji was still young. He didn't understand why the people who used to smile at him so warmly were so scary now.
Old Lady Qin stroked his back to soothe him, and said gently, "Because we used to have it so good. Your grandfather was a well-known landlord in the surrounding villages, and the villagers were all our farmhands and slaves. Later, when the New China was established, the landlord slave system was abolished, and the peasants became the masters. But they resented our family because of this, thinking we were the bad guys who enslaved them."
"Your father grew up here. We all cherish the good things here. We always feel like this is our roots and we'll always come back no matter where we go. So even though we've come back every year in recent years and even helped them, they don't remember our kindness. In their minds, this is what we should do because we have money and we once enslaved them."
"We used to be rich and lived better than them. This was our biggest mistake, and it was their original sin to bully us."
Qin Yuji actually didn’t quite understand what his grandmother said, but he still kept it in mind, because one day he would figure it out.
The little boy had a lot of experience and didn't quite understand the love, hate, and family matters between adults. The next day, Qin Yuji started running around the village again. Because their family had no food, he wanted to go to the mountains to find some, but he was not familiar with the environment there, so he decided to go to the village to find a few kids who he used to play with.
Following the direction he remembered, he found the home of his former best friend Shuanzi. From a distance, he saw a man sitting on the stone in front of Shuanzi's house. In the morning sunlight, the man looked like a transparent glass ball. His head was bigger and whiter than that of an ordinary person, and his body was very thin. The whole person gave people the feeling of a match stick, weird and scary.
At first, Qin Yuji didn't know who that person was. Although she was a little scared, she still slowly approached the other person. When she got closer, she found that the man looked a bit like Shuanzi, but not like Shuanzi, because the other person's face was swollen, and there was no trace of blood, which was pale and scary. His skin was like a transparent cocoon, and it felt wet. He didn't have much meat on his body, but his belly was as bulging as a pregnant woman.
"Shuan...Shuanzi?" Qin Yuji called out uncertainly. After the other party nodded, she asked in surprise, "Shuanzi, what happened to you? How did you become like this?"
Shuanzi touched his face weakly, looking at Qin Yuji with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "I'm hungry. My family has no food or salt. I didn't realize I was in this state. My stomach is like this because I ate too much Guanyin soil and couldn't defecate. Qin Yuji, I'm so hungry now. Do you have any food at home? Can you give me a little, just a little, just a little bit?"
Qin Yuji made a bitter face and sighed, "My house was emptied out by the villagers yesterday. We have no food left. I came to you today because I want you to go up the mountain with me to find food."
"Your family is out of food too." Shuanzi sat there and looked at the other person calmly. After a while, he suddenly said, "Qin Yuji, you are lying. How could your family be out of food? Your family is so rich! Are you afraid that I will eat too much and that's why you don't give me any? Don't worry, I eat very little. Just give me a little, okay?"
Shuanzi stumbled to his feet and tried to grab his hand. Qin Yuji looked at the mad man and retreated in fear. "I didn't lie to you. We are best friends. How could I lie to you? My family really has no food and we are bankrupt."
"Hahaha, you said you were my best friend, then why didn't you give me a little bit of food? Who is your best friend? You are not my friend." Shuanzi spoke incoherently, his eyes fixed on Qin Yuji. He dragged his two legs like firewood sticks and slowly moved forward. He looked at Qin Yuji who was still normal and said, "Tell me, is your meat delicious? Since we are good friends, let me have a bite, okay?"
"You're crazy!" Qin Yuji was so scared that he ran away. Not long after he ran, he heard a thud behind him, as if someone fell to the ground. He turned around and saw Shuanzi fell to the ground with his hand stretched out towards him. He looked at him gloomily and slowly closed his eyes.
Shuanzi died. The fall caused the young child to never open his eyes again.
"It's all his fault! He's the one who killed our Shuanzi!" Shuanzi's parents seemed to have set their sights on Qin Yuji. No matter what he said, the other party kept pestering him and even sat in their yard and refused to leave.
"Grandma, it wasn't me. Shuanzi wanted to eat me and I ran away because I was scared. I don't know why he fell and died." Qin Yuji could never forget the look Shuanzi gave him before he died. It was as if he really wanted to eat him alive, which made people shudder when they thought about it.
"Grandma knows." In fact, everyone knew that Shuanzi was obviously starved to death. Shuanzi's parents just wanted to use this incident to blame the Qin family. The Qin family is rich and who wouldn't want to rely on them? In their opinion, as long as they rely on the other party, they will not starve. But they don't know that the Qin family is actually worse than them.
Just like Qin Yujie said, the Qin family went bankrupt. The Qin family’s business was huge, but no matter how big the business was, it could not compete with the country.
Qin Xiangrong blocked many people's financial paths in the business world, and his father-in-law also had many political enemies. During the famine, people were in chaos, and someone took the opportunity to report Qin Xiangrong's father-in-law. As soon as the report came out, Qin Xiangrong's father-in-law fell, and Qin Xiangrong, the capitalist, fell as well. All his property was nationalized, and Qin Xiangrong also had some business dealings with foreign countries. In the end, Qin Xiangrong and his wife were shot for treason.
Qin Xiangrong's father-in-law used all his connections when he finally fell from power, and only then did he save his grandson and in-laws. However, the old man of the Qin family was in poor health to begin with, and he fell ill and passed away after hearing the news that his son and daughter-in-law were shot. Before leaving, he took Mrs. Qin's hand and asked them to go back to their hometown to hide. The grandfather and grandson then returned to Longgang Village.
However, life in Longgang Village was not as good as they had imagined. It was even more terrifying than those strangers in H City.
Shuanzi's parents sat in Qin's house for a whole day. They couldn't sit still any longer and left with gloomy faces. When Shuanzi's mother left, she looked at Qin Yuji viciously. Qin Yuji couldn't help but shudder with hair standing on end. She always felt that the way she looked at herself was somewhat similar to the way Shuanzi looked at herself when he died.
Old Lady Qin had obviously seen it too, and she felt like something was going to happen. She pulled out a letter from her bosom and handed it to Qin Yuji, "This is something your father gave me. He said it was for your Uncle Xiao. I thought if we were living well in the village, I wouldn't have given it to him. I didn't expect everyone in the village to go crazy now."
"Yuji, you are now the only hope of our Qin family. Grandma is giving you this letter. Tomorrow you will take it to your Uncle Xiao. After reading the letter, if he agrees, you can stay with them and be the child husband of their daughter. If he doesn't agree, then come back. Grandma will sell everything she has to raise you."
Qin Yuji's face wrinkled as if she was hurt. "Tong...Tong Yangfu? Grandma doesn't want me anymore? Why did you send me to Uncle Xiao's house to be a child husband? I don't want to leave. I don't want to go to Uncle Xiao's house either."
"Grandma didn't abandon you, she was just taking precautions. If grandma is gone, you have to take good care of yourself, okay?"
Old Mrs. Qin was very reluctant to send her only son to someone else's family as a child adoptive husband. When she saw the letter from her son, she originally wanted to tear it up, but then she thought about it and kept the letter for some reason. However, considering the current situation in the village, she was very glad that she did not destroy the letter at that time, because she seemed unable to take good care of her grandson.
Qin Yuji had just been persuaded by her grandmother and reluctantly folded the letter and put it in her small pocket when a group of villagers holding torches came to the door. Everyone looked at Qin Yuji with a strange look in their eyes. Old Mrs. Qin even saw a glimmer of hope in their eyes.
Her heart skipped a beat. She stood in front of Qin Yuji and said to the old man at the front of the village, "Why are you here so late?"
The elderly woman in front was white-haired and short, but her clothes and spirits were much better than those of the villagers behind her. She was a renowned centenarian in Longgang Village and a well-known fortune-teller in the surrounding villages. Although the country was eliminating the "Four Olds" and people were less daring than before, they still believed in the shamanic shamanism in private. This was why, while many people were starving, she still looked so well-fed.
The witch spoke slowly, "It's been a while since God sent rain, so a few days ago the village decided to hold a sacrificial ceremony. To pray for rain, we're going to send a pair of young boys and girls to the Dragon King. We hope that after receiving them, the Dragon King will say a few good words to God and bring rain to our village."
The sacrificial rain-praying ceremony is completely different from the rain-praying ceremony that Xiaonuo participated in at that time. The sacrificial activity is not a joke. It requires offering sacrifices, usually boys and girls.
In the past, such activities were held in many places. Except for the boys and girls being sacrificed and their parents who would be sad, everyone else would watch with excitement, praying to God to bless the coming year with a smooth and fruitful harvest.
This ignorant superstitious behavior gradually disappeared after the founding of the New China. Old Mrs. Qin did not expect that she would still hear such a ridiculous thing after so many years, and that it even targeted her grandson.
Old Mrs. Qin pretended not to understand and stood in front of Qin Yuji with a forced smile. Her back felt cold and wet. Seeing the situation tonight, she was really afraid that she would not be able to protect her grandson today.
The people holding torches in the yard began to shout, "The Dragon King has set his sights on your grandson this time. This is your honor! Hand Qin Yuji over!"
"Hurry up, if you don't come out on your own, don't blame us for being rude!"
"Since this is something that makes you feel very honored, why don't you use your own children?" Qin Yuji popped his head out from behind his grandmother and shouted loudly.
The people who were shouting just now were speechless in an instant. Even though everyone was starving now, they had no intention of selling the boy. After all, that was the root of their family and no one was willing to give it up.
When the witch first suggested offering sacrifices to pray for rain, everyone remained silent. It was easy to find a girl, but no one was willing to offer a boy, so the matter was put aside. Today, when Shuanzi's mother said that the boy from the Qin family could be used as a sacrifice, everyone agreed, and that's how tonight's drama came about.
Old Lady Qin also spoke to the witch: "Old sister, our Qin family only has this one child, he is my lifeblood, you are trying to kill me by doing this!"
"No matter what you say, we must take Qin Yuji away today!"
Old Lady Qin took a step forward, her face filled with determination: "Then today you will all step over my dead body!"
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