"From now on, we'll use Longting County as our base. Third Brother, go spread the word and recruit heroes and refugees to bolster our ranks. I've figured out that in this world, begging for survival isn't as satisfying as forcing the wealthy to give you money and food with a sword!"
"Boss Huang, what should we do if the government really sends troops to suppress us?" Some men did not dare to think so and raised their own questions.
Boss Huang sneered, "Do you think the imperial court is still the same imperial court? Now that there's no emperor in the capital, would they still care about Longting County, right under the emperor's feet? The nobles and ministers in the court have all fled, and the foreign cavalry is about to break through the pass. Why would they care about the lives of us civilians? Otherwise, we wouldn't be here today!"
"Think about the parents, wives and daughters who died of starvation while fleeing famine along the way, and then look at those corrupt officials who are fattened up with food. Why are those people so high and mighty, with no worries about food and clothing, while we, the obedient common people, are exploited by them? Whoever doesn't give us a way to survive, we will send him to death!" Boss Huang stood up and smashed the wine bowl when he was angry.
The other brothers followed his example, standing up and smashing their wine bowls, determined to go down this road with him until the end.
"Third brother, tomorrow you will take people to clear out the nearby villages. Those who are willing to surrender will be spared, and those who refuse to surrender and fight back will have their entire family killed!" Boss Huang ordered.
"Yes, Boss Huang!"
When the meeting was over and the crowd left, the subordinate asked the third brother, "Third brother, what Boss Huang meant by surrender must have a certain meaning. What is the degree of surrender, and what is not surrender?"
The third brother laughed heartily and patted his brother on the shoulder: "It's simple. Those who are willing to give food and their wives and daughters are called surrendered. Those who are unwilling to give are called unsubmissive. Just kill them and they will be cleared away."
"So that's how it is!"
"It's a good thing those wealthy people got away so quickly, otherwise we could have made another fortune. Tsk tsk, what a shame, such a shame! We'll have to rely on looting the surrounding villages to make up for what we've lost. Gather brothers, let's set off now!"
"good!"
Shuanzi has been uneasy ever since the village chief and Lin Rui's family left. He tossed and turned in bed at night and couldn't fall asleep. He had to get up from time to time to see what was happening outside to see if there were any mobs coming to Linjia Village to cause trouble.
Whenever I couldn't sleep, I would pee a lot and had to go out several times. Their outhouse was not built in the yard, but a small outhouse was built in the southeast corner of the field behind the house.
Although it was already pitch black at night, the shadow of the toilet could still be seen in the dim moonlight. Shuanzi walked into the toilet with one step deep and one step shallow and untied his belt.
"Help! There's a thief!"
A scream pierced the quiet night sky of Linjia Village. As if a chain reaction had started, screams began to rise one after another, waking many people from their sleep.
Shuanzi hurried out of the house, fastening his belt as he ran, but saw that the village was lit up like daylight by torches. Countless villagers who were still talking and laughing during the day were hacked to death by bandits with knives, and even children of a few years old were not spared. The newly married woman of Heihu's family was pinned to the ground and bullied by those beasts, and Heihu's body, which had been chopped into a bloody gourd, was lying not far from the woman.
At this moment, Shuanzi thought he was dazzled or having a nightmare. He rubbed his eyes desperately, but the nightmarish scene in front of him did not disappear.
He stumbled towards home, but before he got close to the door, he saw three or four bandits with machetes chasing a villager towards him.
He was in a field with no shelter. Seeing it getting closer and closer, he was so anxious that he didn't know what to do. He looked around and simply gritted his teeth and lay down under the staggered ridge to cover his body.
"Don't kill me, don't kill me!"
"I don't need to kill you, but tell me why your village has the least food!"
"The village chief and his family left early this morning, dragging their families with them. Before leaving, they exchanged all their paddy fields and wasteland with the villagers for food. They almost used up most of our family's food reserves. Heroes, we really have no food left. Please be kind and let us go!"
"Leaving? Where did you go?"
"I only knew to go to the deep mountains. Lin Rui from the village said that the capital would soon be occupied by foreigners, and they would not let our nearby villages go. There would be rivers of blood. The most important thing is to escape as soon as possible. What a pity, I didn't listen!"
It's no use regretting it now. These beasts burned, killed and looted as soon as they entered the village. His parents, wife and children all became their victims. Now, let alone revenge, he himself might not be able to escape death.
If I had listened to the village chief and Lin Rui earlier and fled with them, my family would be fine now!
But it’s too late to say anything now, too late!
The family was intact just a second ago, but now he is the only one left dead!
Thinking of this, he was filled with grief: "I will fight you!"
How could he be a match for these four or five gangsters? As soon as he made a move, he was immediately pricked like a hedgehog.
Shuanzi lay in the field holding his breath, not daring to move. After the evildoers had left for a long time, he carefully touched the spot where the villager had been killed: "Second Uncle, Second Uncle, wake up!"
There was still some warmth in his body, but he was already dead beyond death.
"Dad, Mom!" Shuanzi was extremely anxious at this time. When he looked up, he saw the raging fire. His home was surrounded by a raging fire, and the orange flames fiercely engulfed the familiar earthen house.
His tears immediately flowed, and he didn't care about the danger of being discovered. He stumbled towards home: "Dad! Mom!"
Shuanzi tried in vain to beat the raging fire with his clothes, but even though his clothes were on fire, the fire did not diminish at all. He hurriedly took off his burning coat, threw it on the ground, stepped on it to put it out, and then put it on hastily.
He wanted to run to the village to find someone to put out the fire, but then he realized that their entire village had been set on fire by that group of evil criminals. When he walked to the village road that was connected by many paths, he saw corpses everywhere and the road was stained red with blood.
The familiar people have turned into corpses, including men, women, young and old, and everyone is gone. The entire Linjia Village is really gone.
Every house was set on fire. The fire was so huge that he stood alone in the raging fire and lost his mind.
All the villagers were killed, and he was the only one who survived.
If he had not gone to the toilet, he would have become a corpse in the village, burned to ashes by the fire.
"Dad, Mom." Shuan Zizhen shouted blankly, but the only response he got was the crackling sound of the village being burned by fire.
He slapped himself hard. He was incompetent and couldn't even collect the bodies of his parents. He ran to the road outside the village in a daze, kowtowed three times towards the village engulfed in fire, and then left the village without looking back, running towards the road where Lin Rui and others disappeared.
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