Chapter 94: Settling the Victims
Li Tie growled, looking impatiently at the Xu family. "Whether Xu Wenzhe wants to recognize you or not depends on his own decision. It's not easy for you to survive until now. Don't overthink it for now. Get some rest."
You are not the only ones with mouths, so please shut up soon.
Li Tiechong called out to the surrounding villagers, "Have you finished your work in the fields? Don't let the excitement get in the way of your work. Everyone, go home."
After saying that, he asked a few people to stay behind to take care of the disaster victims.
Li Tie glanced at the few young children in the group of disaster victims and felt a little sorry for them. He asked Li Jing to build a fire in the open space. At an angle that the disaster victims could not see, he took out ten pounds of wolf bones with meat from the space and stewed a pot of meat and bone soup to replenish their physical strength.
From beginning to end, Li Tie never said he would take them back to the cave.
Lei Shan had not had a chance to show his abilities because of the disturbance caused by the Fang and Xu families. Now, seeing that Lei Yan and Lu Qing were also about to leave with the others and had no intention of paying any attention to them, he could not help but get anxious.
"Lei Yan! Stop right there! Do you think I, your big brother, am dead? We're still here, where are you going? Hurry up and bring us some food!"
Zhao had been terrified since the earthquake and wouldn't let him go like that. She looked at Lu Qing and sternly said, "Lu Qing! Did you whisper in Lei Yan's ear to make him treat us like this? How could you be so cruel, you vicious woman!"
Lei Shan continued to curse, "I told you long ago that this woman was not a good person, but you insisted on hanging yourself on a tree. You treated your own brother like this for an outsider. If it were me, I would divorce her as soon as possible--"
Before he could utter the word "了", a bolt of lightning suddenly landed less than a meter in front of him.
An invisible electric current rushed to him from the ground, causing Lei Shan's whole body to tremble violently, and his angry face was filled with fear and pain.
Ahhhhhh!
Zhao screamed in fear: "Ah——!"
"God bless you!"
The disaster victims around were so scared that they rolled and crawled away to hide, looking at Leishan with shock and fear.
Lei Dabao, who had been listless and listless, was frightened by the adults' continuous noise and burst into tears.
The villagers of Yunlu Village were also frightened at first, but they quickly came to their senses and looked at Lei Yan inconspicuously.
Lei Yan looked at Lei Shan, who was speechless and numb from the electric shock, and suppressed his anger and said, "Lu Qing is the person I want to spend my whole life with. She is the person closest to me. It is not your turn to say anything!"
"I've said everything I should have before the disaster. You didn't listen to me, and you've brought this upon yourself. If you want to survive, find some supplies on your own, don't try to take advantage of me!"
"If you dare to say anything bad about my wife again, the next thunderbolt might fall directly on your heads!"
After saying that, Lei Yan took Lu Qing's hand, who was silent, and left without looking back.
Only Lei Shan, who was still unable to move, and the frightened Zhao were left staring at their backs with wide eyes, their faces full of surprise and confusion.
What does he mean by this?
Could it be that the lightning strike just now had something to do with him?
The people in Yunlu Village exchanged glances with each other tacitly and left one after another.
Li Tie looked at the Lei Yan couple who were walking away, then looked at Lei Shan, lowered his head to glance at the communicator on his wrist, and rubbed his forehead with a headache.
-
In a forest deep in the mountains.
'Drip drip drip'
Lu Xuan, who was concentrating on cutting the newly discovered honeycomb, heard the communication reminder. He lowered his eyes to look at the name displayed on the communicator. An intriguing smile appeared at the corner of his lips, and he quickly raised his head again to continue what he was doing.
The audience who were secretly licking the honeycomb were puzzled: [Why didn't the host answer the call? Maybe there was some trouble in the village.]
Lu Xuan remained calm and said, "I haven't received any news from home, so it shouldn't be an emergency. The villagers are not three-year-old kids, so it's time to try to solve the problem themselves."
Didn't you tell the village chief to contact you if anything happened?
Lu Xuan said nonchalantly, "Then just assume that I accidentally muted my phone and didn't hear it."
Audience: ...
Lu Xuan cut off the last piece of the honeycomb and said meaningfully, "If you rely on the mountain, the mountain will fall; if you rely on people, they will run away. Only when there is no one to rely on will people learn to be self-reliant."
Audience: ...
It sounds reasonable, but just not answering the phone cannot cover up the fact that your behavior is very stupid!
Lu Xuan didn't care about the audience's thoughts. He just pretended that the communication had never come in. After cutting down the honeycomb, he continued to look for the next resource.
…
Inside the big cave.
Li Tie pressed the communicator twice and shook his head at the villagers sitting around.
"Maybe he was busy and didn't hear the voice, so he didn't answer. Forget it, we can't always rely on Lu Xuan for everything, let's find a way ourselves first."
He looked at the people present.
In addition to Tofu Liu, the Wei family, and Lei Yan and Lu Qing, several families who had previously come down the mountain to try to find their daughters, as well as Grandpa Zhang, Wu Cheng, Ge Yuan and other influential people in the village were all there.
Since the people who entered the mountain were survivors from a nearby village, Li Tie specifically asked someone about the situation of the married girls in the village.
Except for Lao Zhao's daughter, no one else said they noticed. The children of several other families either died in the earthquake or died of heatstroke on the way into the mountains.
Zhou Yunshan and others, who had completely lost hope, looked pale and several years older.
Li Tie saw that they were not in the mood to speak, so he turned to the others and said, "Tell us what you think. What should we do with the people in Wangshan Village and the other villages?"
"What can I do about this?"
Aunt Liu spoke impatiently, "Just take care of yourself. What relationship do they have with our village? Do they expect us to support them for free? No one's food comes from the wind, so how can we use it to support outsiders?"
The others nodded in agreement.
That really doesn't make sense.
Li Tie looked at Xu Wenzhe, the son-in-law of the Wei family. "What do you think? Your uncle and the others..."
This child is one of the few educated children in Wangshan Village, but he does not have the slightest scholarly air of arrogance. Instead, he has a kind and gentle personality.
Before the disaster, he was called by the Wei family and his mother-in-law asked him to stay, so he stayed. After the disaster, he went up the mountain with them. Although he did not join the hunting team because he was not as strong as other young men, he did not hesitate to help the Wei family when it was time to work. He was a good boy.
However, it was precisely because of his overly gentle character that he was tricked out of the house by Uncle Xu.
If I get blamed again this time, I'm afraid I'll be bullied to death.
Xu Wenzhe, who has a handsome face, pursed his lips into a straight line.
He said softly, "If my mother-in-law and the Wei family hadn't taken me in after my uncle took away my parents' property, I would have starved to death. Now I just want to live a good life with Qiaoqiao and be filial to my mother-in-law. I don't want to have anything to do with the Xu family anymore."
Wei Dayong, the eldest brother of the Wei family, patted his frail brother-in-law on the shoulder with a satisfied smile on his face, "Well done!"
If this kid talked to him about filial piety at this time and insisted on taking in Uncle Xu, he could only persuade his younger sister to find a better one in the future and let his mother drive the man away and torture the Xu family.
Li Tie nodded. "Since you have made up your mind, we in Yunlu Village will never let outsiders bully our people."
Xu Wenzhe breathed a sigh of relief and bowed to Li Tie gratefully. "Thank you, Village Chief."
Apart from Xu Wenzhe, there is no need to ask about the attitudes of the Liu and Lu families, as everyone knows the answer.
Ge Yuan said pertinently, "We really don't have any relationship with those people, but now that we've met, it's unlikely we can completely ignore them."
"If we eat delicious food every day while watching them starve to death, it's hard to guarantee that people won't do something crazy when they are about to lose everything."
For them, this means there is an additional hidden danger that may erupt at any time.
In a sense, they are even more frightening than the beasts in the mountains.
Old Master Zhang frowned and said, "But it's not right to drive them away. After all, this mountain is not our territory."
We can't drive them away, but we can't completely ignore them either.
But it’s not the right thing to take on all the responsibility.
Think about the attitude of those people today. They are already thinking of sticking to me before I even help them. They are so proactive that I won’t be able to get rid of them in the future.
Thinking of this, after the initial joy of "meeting an old friend in a foreign land", everyone couldn't help but feel a resistance in their hearts.
Wu Cheng thought for a moment and suggested, "There aren't many wild mushrooms to gather in the mountains anymore, but there are still plenty of small game. We can also get fish at the waterfall. As long as they don't slack off, they won't starve to death."
"We don't need to do too much. Just give them a small amount of food from public supplies to help them get through the first few days."
"If that doesn't work out, we can also consider hiring some honest people to help with farm work and give them some food as compensation."
When others heard this, they thought it was a good idea.
Providing assistance with public resources does not require them to pay out of their own pockets, so there is naturally no question of loss.
In this weather, even with dry ice and cold drinks, work is still not an easy task.
If they could trade a little less food for someone to help them weed, they would certainly be happy to have an easier time.
The Liu family was annoyed by the Fang family, but they did not vent their anger on the other surviving victims, nor did they say anything against it.
"What about the accommodation arrangements?"
Someone asked, "We're not really going to let them live with us, are we? There's no room in the cave."
Even though there was some vacant space at the beginning, it was filled with supplies that could not be stored. Even the two small caves that Lu Xuan mentioned at the beginning, which were a little distance away from here, were filled with seldom-used supplies.
Li Tie pondered for a moment, "Isn't there a cave to the west of the waterfall? We can let them stay there. It's just enough to accommodate more than 30 people."
The hunting team usually goes into the cave to rest and hide from the sun when they pass by. It is close to the water source, but far enough away from them that they can keep a distance and be safe.
The others discussed it in low voices for a moment and decided that this was the only way.
Although the hunting team can no longer use the cave now that it is occupied by those people, it is still better than bringing people back to the big cave.
After discussion, they finally decided to distribute three pounds of coarse grains, two pounds of relatively filling fruits such as apples and pears to each of the victims, a small bamboo shoot, and two pounds of wolf meat and wolf bones.
Each person gets about ten kilograms of rations, for a total of three hundred and twenty kilograms.
The village now has abundant public resources, so they can still afford such a small amount of things.
The main thing is that after providing help, they will not feel guilty about it.
After counting the supplies, Li Tie quickly took a few people to send the victims of Leishan to the cave in the west for resettlement.
When the supplies were distributed, most of the victims were so moved that they kept expressing their gratitude and even burst into tears.
Only the Fang family, the Xu family, Lei Shan and others kept asking about the Liu family/Wei family/Lei Yan, asking why they didn't come.
Li Tie sent the people away with just a few words, and then briefly told them about the situation in the nearby mountains before taking them away.
After the people from Yunlu Village left, the victims found a place in the cave in groups of three or four to use as their beds. They all breathed a sigh of relief, showing their joy at surviving the disaster.
They really survived!
There are shady caves here, and there is said to be a waterfall with plenty of water not far away. The mountains are rich in resources, so they don’t have to worry about starving to death in the future.
The victims carefully hid the food they had just been given. Their hearts, which had become numb and desperate after losing their loved ones one after another after the earthquake, finally became lively again.
According to recent habits, a group of people collected some firewood and lit a fire at the entrance of the cave to guard against wild beasts.
They leaned against the cool cave wall to relieve the heat in their bodies, while recalling the information they learned from the villagers of Yunlu Village.
"Tell me, are the people in Yunlu Village telling the truth? Did they really not lose anyone in such a massive earthquake?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
