Seeing this, Lin Rui hurriedly explained, "Old man, you misunderstood. I'm not a hunter. I was originally a porter from Huangmo Pass, accompanying my young general to deliver a betrothal gift to the eldest daughter of Yishu Pass. However, the two places couldn't reach an agreement on the terms, and the Marquis of Xinyang became enraged and wanted to kill us here. In my exhaustion, I got separated from the group and ended up here by accident."
The village chief carefully observed Lin Rui's attire and health before nodding his head in agreement. "It should be so. In Yishu Pass, apart from the children of officials, it's impossible to raise someone as fleshy as you."
This was indeed true. The men and women in the cave were so hungry that they were skin and bones. This scene reminded Lin Rui of what he had seen on the road of fleeing famine. He had never expected that such a common sight would occur in such troubled times.
Because Lin Rui came from Huangmo Pass, he was treated well by everyone, although the best thing they could offer was wild vegetable soup with a few grains of rice. There were really only a few grains of rice, the kind that could be counted.
She should be the village chief's daughter-in-law or something like that. She placed the bowl of wild vegetable soup in front of Lin Rui with trembling hands, staring at the soup with a look of eagerness.
When Lin Rui was about to refuse, the village chief waved his hand and asked his daughter-in-law to leave.
Pulling Lin Rui aside, he asked, "How is Huang Moguan now?"
Lin Rui said truthfully, "There are still quite a few disaster victims entrenched. Factories are being built across Huangmo Pass to promote trade, and countless homeless and landless disaster victims are being employed in the factories. A monthly wage of one or two taels of silver is enough to ensure a family has enough to eat. For those who haven't been assigned to the factories yet, the Xing Family Army will provide relief food to prevent them from starving to death."
The village chief looked longingly and said, "Great, great! We also lived like this when General Xing was here."
Lin Rui looked at the village chief curiously: "Then why didn't you people evacuate with the Xing family army when they couldn't hold Yishu Pass and Xiding Pass due to food shortages?"
The village chief burst into tears, pounding his chest with one hand. "I regret it so much every time I mention this. The old general clearly said that the Xing family army would do their utmost to support those who were willing to leave with him. But we have been rooted in this land for generations and have our own farmland. How could we bear to leave? We're betting that the foreigners won't kill us all."
"Although we had a hard time under the oppression of the foreigners, our suffering only began after Xinyang Hou's men drove the foreigners away!"
Lin Rui listened carefully to the old village chief's words: "The Marquis of Xinyang is, after all, a vassal of the imperial court, and you are also the people of the imperial court. He won't oppress you more than the foreigners, right?"
The old village chief burst into tears. "The foreigners exploited us, just to get food and labor from us. But the Xinyang Marquis's men entered Yishu Pass and not only demanded money and food, but also ate the next year's seeds, leaving the people with nothing to grow. Every household is starving. To avoid starvation, they have started selling their children. The price of food in the city has skyrocketed, and the lives of our children and wives are worth less than the price of food."
The old village chief wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeve and continued, "Many people starved to death. Scoundrels began to appear, first in the village. Men, women, and children kept disappearing. Later we learned that they were all taken to the meat market and killed to sell their meat."
"Those beasts treated us like animals, killing us all for meat! What's despicable is that the Xinyang Marquis actually acknowledged the legitimacy of the meat market, emboldening the wicked and turning us defenseless civilians into cattle and sheep for their slaughter."
The old village chief became more and more angry as he spoke, and slammed the table loudly.
Lin Rui thought of the two people he encountered in the woods who were catching Han Bao: "So those who can catch people are called hunters?"
The old village chief nodded. "Yes, they capture people everywhere and sell them to the meat market to earn money to survive. Killing and eating people has become their normal life. This hellish world has forced people to become neither human nor ghost!"
"Was Hanbao's mother also captured?" Lin Rui asked. After thinking carefully, it didn't fit with their behavior of hiding in the cave. If Hanbao's mother was really captured by hunters from here, everyone in the cave should have escaped long ago.
The old village chief sighed: "Alas, Hanbao is also a pitiful man. If anyone is to blame, it's all his incompetent father!"
"Stupid guy has a father?"
"Yes, my father was a gambler! He lost all his money gambling, and fearing his hands would be chopped off, he tricked his wife out and sold her to the butcher market!"
Lin Rui's eyes widened as he listened. "Fuck!" he asked. "How could he be so heartless and conscienceless? He could even sell his own wife!"
No wonder when his cousin fell in love with a boyfriend who loved gambling, his aunt and uncle threatened to commit suicide to force them to break up. When his cousin disagreed, they directly and resolutely broke off the relationship and would rather leave their family fortune of tens of millions to charity than give it to this unfilial daughter.
Later, my cousin was blinded by love and insisted on being with her gambling boyfriend. My uncle and aunt also broke off their relationship as promised, leaving them to their own devices.
Less than half a year later, my cousin returned home with bruises all over her body. They were all beaten by her gambling boyfriend. The reason was that her boyfriend asked her to help go home and borrow money, but she was too embarrassed to go back. Seeing that she was so useless, her boyfriend started to abuse her once, twice, and the most serious time was when her arm was broken and she was sent to the hospital.
At that time, the man finally woke up my cousin's love brain. She looked at her domestic violence boyfriend who was kneeling beside the bed and repenting with an expressionless face, then calmly called the police, checked her injuries, and sent a message to my uncle.
Then my uncle quickly hired a lawyer to have the gambler put in jail. As long as he was a gambler, he was basically involved in pornography and various illegal activities, and there was a lot of evidence of his crimes.
From then on, my cousin sealed her heart and no longer believed in love. With the help of my uncle and aunt, she married and had children with a family of equal status, and lived a rich and peaceful life.
Girls, you must keep your eyes open. Don’t cheat people out of money! The fool’s father sold his wife for gambling, so there’s no guarantee that he won’t sell his own child next.
Whenever Lin Rui thought of the fool holding the bloody skeleton that had been gouged out, his heart felt like it was being hit by a heavy hammer, making him feel extremely uncomfortable.
"Village chief, Han Bao's father is a black sheep. He sold his wife today, will sell his son tomorrow, and may sell the location of the village the day after tomorrow. Catch everyone who finds the meat market!" Lin Rui had no doubt that a person who had lost everything would do anything.
"There's no chance. He drank too much on the way back to the village and froze to death on the road. When he was found, his body was frozen solid. The villagers used his body to trade for some winter clothes at the meat market. They'll get through this winter and by next spring, there's a better chance the children will survive."
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