After the dirty child came out of the bath, he was indeed much cleaner, but his skin was dark, his eyes were sunken, and his cheekbones were high. He was wearing the same gray cloth clothes that Xingxing had worn before, which were loose and baggy. The child was about the same height as Xingxing. When asked, it was learned that the child was already ten years old, but he was not growing tall because he was always hungry.
"Eat first, we'll talk after you're full." Zhu Changge handed him a wooden bowl filled with thick, rich meat porridge.
Dirty Baby hadn't eaten for days. He gulped down the meat porridge in his bowl in a few bites. Zhu Lin and the others had only taken a sip, but Dirty Baby's bowl was empty. He was staring longingly at the pot, still wanting to eat.
Zhu Changge served him another bowl. In the end, the dirty boy drank three bowls of meat porridge, two flatbreads, and two steamed buns, until his stomach was bulging. Finally, he vomited everything he had eaten with a loud "waah!"
The dirty child was heartbroken. After recovering and stopping vomiting, he picked up what he had just vomited and put it back into his mouth without thinking.
Watching him swallow a mouthful of vomit mixed with dirt, Zhu Changge suppressed her nausea and immediately stopped him, saying, "Don't eat this. I still have some flatbread here. Just drink it with hot water."
The dirty doll paused, staring painfully at the vomit on the ground. Zhu Changge, afraid that the doll might pick it up and eat it again if she wasn't careful, quickly kicked a few handfuls of dirt to cover it up.
"Yue!" Zhu Qingruo couldn't hold it in and almost vomited. She stood up with a livid face and shouted, "If you dare to pick up this filthy thing and eat it again, I'll beat you to death, you believe me?"
The dirty child huddled up in fear, staring at Zhu Qingruo with terrified eyes, as if he were looking at some monstrous beast. This sight only made Zhu Qingruo angrier.
"Alright, don't argue with a child. This kid has been hungry for too long. He ate too much just now, and his stomach couldn't take it, so he threw up. Don't feed him too much now, and he won't throw up." Zhu Changge grabbed her junior sister and tried to calm her down.
Xingxing stared in disbelief for a long while before she came to her senses. She took a deep breath and took out two exquisite pastries from her small cloth bag. These pastries were brought from the palace. The Empress had the imperial kitchen make a lot for her to take with her, in case she was hungry on the way.
"You can only eat two pieces of this pastry. You can't eat too many, your stomach can't handle it." Xingxing smacked her lips, stuffed the pastry into the dirty child's hand, and then didn't say anything more. Her little face was serious as if she was thinking about something.
After the child finished eating and stopped vomiting, Zhu Changge asked gently, "What's your name? Are you from this village? Can you tell us what happened here?"
Dirty Boy stared at Zhu Changge's gentle and beautiful face, momentarily stunned. Then, as if realizing something, he suddenly showed an expression of extreme terror, even clutching his head and screaming, his voice unusually shrill and piercing.
"What happened to him?" Xingxing gripped Zhu Lin's arm tightly in terror. Although she didn't know what had happened, she could sense the fear in the boy's heart. Something terrible must have happened to this boy.
Zhu Lin was startled by the stargazing. Her peach blossom eyes suddenly darkened, and she quickly stepped to the dirty child's side, knocking him unconscious with a karate chop.
"It's getting late, let's ask again tomorrow. Senior brothers and sisters, please rest now," the young man in white said casually.
"You all go to sleep. I dozed off in the carriage during the day, but I'm not sleepy yet. If this child wakes up, I'll keep an eye on him." Zhu Changge looked at the dirty child, her expression gloomy.
Is she really that scary? The child looked at her as if he had seen the most terrifying female ghost in the world. She was certain that she had never seen this dirty child before, let alone harmed him.
After a period of intense analysis, Zhu Changge's eyes lit up. She realized that the dirty child must have been frightened by some woman. Besides the snow disaster, something else must have happened in the village, and it was done by a woman.
"Senior sister, what did you discover?" Zhu Qingruo suddenly leaned over and asked.
Zhu Changge glanced at her, "Why aren't you asleep yet?"
Zhu Qingruo smiled and said softly, "I also took a nap during the day, so I'm not sleepy yet. Senior sister, can you tell me what you've discovered?"
Although it was just her personal analysis, Zhu Changge felt that her speculation was pretty close to the truth, so she told Zhu Qingruo.
“If Senior Sister’s guess is correct, that woman must have a high level of martial arts skills, just like us. Otherwise, how could she survive in this chaotic world? She would have been eaten by the refugees herself first, so how could she have the ability to harm others?” Zhu Qingruo said with certainty.
The next day, after Zhu Lin and his group finished breakfast, the dirty child finally woke up. Zhu Changge thought the dirty child would wake up in the middle of the night, but unexpectedly, he slept until the sun was high in the sky.
Alright, no rush to ask questions. Zhu Changge served the dirty child a bowl of porridge. "Eat up, have a pancake with it. Don't eat too much, or you'll throw up again."
After the dirty child finished eating, the group did not rush on their way, but patiently tried to get information out of him.
The dirty boy hesitated for a long time before speaking. His voice was hoarse and somewhat shrill, as if his throat was damaged. "My name is Li Tianlin. I'm from Lijia Village. Our village was hit by a snowstorm before the Lunar New Year. Many houses collapsed and many people died. The blizzard suddenly started at night, and everyone was sleeping soundly..."
The snowstorm killed many people, including those buried, frozen to death, and starved to death. However, none of these deaths were as chilling and terrifying as what happened later.
Upon hearing this, Zhu Lin immediately covered Xingxing's ears to stop her from listening. The others also looked grave and remained unsettled for a long time.
“My parents had five children. They were killed when their house collapsed during the snowstorm. My older brother and sister were killed trying to save their younger siblings. I was the only one who survived by hiding under a collapsed wall. When you came, those people had already left two days ago. They took all the children in the village away…” Li Tianlin trembled as he thought about the scene. His eyes were empty and filled with deep fear.
Zhu Chumo lowered his eyes and said, "I'll do a divination, and then I'll chase after them."
After learning the whole story, they didn't wait until tomorrow. They ate lunch in the afternoon and set off, speeding up their pursuit according to the route Zhu Chumo had calculated.
"Those villains must have been harming the children of the disaster victims along the way. How can there be such evil people in the world? When will we catch up with them? We have to stop them from continuing to do evil." Although Xingxing didn't hear the most terrifying part, she roughly knew that there was such a special group of people doing all sorts of evil things.
“Those people keep walking and stopping, stopping whenever they see a village. We’ll catch up in another day,” Zhu Chumo said confidently.
Li Tianlin was trembling all over, still reeling from the shock. He kept muttering to himself, "My little brother is only eight months old, and my little sister is only three. Those people will definitely not let them go. What should I do? I can't save them."
Zhu Changge and Zhu Qingruo dared not ride in the same carriage as Li Tianlin, for fear of provoking him further. Zhu Chumo and Zhu Yueran listened to Li Tianlin's ramblings with blank expressions, their ears ringing.
Zhu Yueran stood up and said, "I'd better go get the carriage." He'd rather brave the cold wind than listen to the little boy's mutterings anymore.
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