The old woman continued her verbal attack, cursing their ancestors for eighteen generations. Old Man Chen led his men to move the supplies that the bandits had unloaded earlier; these would be divided equally later. The remaining four cartloads of supplies would be taken by whoever managed to grab them.
The bandits were feeling incredibly stifled under the cart. Finally, their leader couldn't take it anymore and gave everyone a signal to charge!
The bandits immediately rushed out with their knives. Half of them were knocked down by the stones, but the other half still managed to charge forward.
The Zhou family had been watching this area for a while. When they saw the bandits about to crawl out of the cart, they all ran towards the exit. After running over the stone wall, they hid behind it and guarded the exit.
The exit they left was small; if bandits came out, they would stab them with stone spears.
Who would be so foolish as to blindly follow bandits wielding broadswords?
Before the bandits who rushed out could catch up with the group, they were attacked by stones thrown down.
The people above the valley continued to throw stones, and the bandits were forced to hide under the cart again. Now they only had about thirty people left.
Seeing that the bandits had hidden back under the cart, the people on the mountain gave a hand signal to those below.
When Zhou and his group saw this, they went back inside and returned to the same spot, continuing their verbal sparring.
"You bastard, come on, hit me!"
With a loud "boom."
A cart, piled high with stones, finally collapsed under the weight of another stone, crushing the bandits below.
Zhou and his group were taken aback for a moment, then quickly retreated. What was the point of all the talk? They continued smashing stones.
The bandits knew things were going badly; the cart would collapse sooner or later, so they had no choice but to rush out again despite the risks.
Several bandits rushed to the breach and were about to run out when suddenly, more than a dozen stone spears pierced through them, and one of the bandits in front was instantly stabbed through the heart.
Bai Yu seized the opportunity and fired an arrow at the leader, hitting the bullseye instantly.
The bandit leader stared wide-eyed at the arrow lodged in his chest, then collapsed in despair.
There were only a dozen or so bandits left inside. Zhou and his men held back and continued to act stealthily, hoping to take them down without losing a single soldier. The group was to set off the day after tomorrow, and no one wanted to get hurt.
The Zhou family and their men just kept at it, and in the end, the remaining bandits were either knocked down by stones or crushed by carts.
After Old Man Chen and the others went in and finished off the people still breathing under the cart, they collected all the large knives from the ground. They were definitely going to take all these weapons back with them.
Then they started looting supplies, starting with the supplies on the vehicles.
Because the stones were pressing down on the ground, everyone had to move the stones first, and then they all tried to grab them.
Aunt Wang moved a stone aside, pulled out a bundle from inside, stuffed it into her bamboo basket, and then continued to grab things.
Suddenly, he saw a broken pottery jar and said regretfully, "It's such a pity that such a perfectly good pottery jar has been smashed like this."
Old Man Chen and his men moved the stones off a cart, snatched all the bundles on top, and were overjoyed to find farm tools underneath. They quickly grabbed them.
The village chief's wife, along with several of her daughters-in-law, surrounded a cart and snatched a few bolts of hemp cloth. Whatever they saw, they stuffed it into their own baskets first.
The kids in the group knew they wouldn't get anything by fighting the adults for supplies on the cart, so they turned their attention to the bandits, taking their clothes and shoes, hoping to find something good on them.
The supplies on the vehicle were quickly divided up, and when everyone came to their senses, they found that there was nothing left to search the person lying on the ground.
Then they dismantled the cart as well. They took the cart's boards and wheels back and modified them to make another wheelbarrow.
From now on, they will have to travel along mountain roads. The mountain roads are narrow, and handcarts such as four-wheeled vehicles and two-wheeled vehicles cannot travel at all, but wheelbarrows can be pushed along, and it is also convenient to carry supplies in wheelbarrows.
Seeing that even the village chief's wife had managed to grab two wheels while she had only managed one, Zhou sighed, "If only there were more vehicles."
Old Man Chen looked at the sky and said, "Let's hurry back!"
Several young men stayed behind, and after the woman and the others left, they stripped the pants off the group of people on the ground, leaving them with nothing.
There are still so many people in the team who don't have clothes to wear. If they wear grass skirts and take them back, they can definitely exchange them for some food.
When Zhou and his group were halfway there, it got dark. At that moment, the people sent by the team to meet them arrived.
The people who were there to help were very envious of the fact that they had managed to seize so many supplies and that no one had been injured.
Old Man Chen and his men distributed one broadsword to each family first, and kept the rest for later, to be handed over when they returned to their resting place.
With a hundred broadswords for self-defense, the group felt more confident and dared to light torches when walking at night.
Back at their rest area, everyone unpacked and carefully placed the supplies they had managed to grab, each person overjoyed as if unwrapping a gift.
Er Ya and the others were starving. They went to the team to get food and then shared it with everyone to fill their stomachs.
Their family had already eaten lunch. Apart from the sugarcane that Xiao Bao had, they wouldn't be sharing any more food. They were still hungry, so they could only eat the food distributed by the team and some food they found in the afternoon.
The team had good food today, including mutton soup, but they didn't get much. The Chen family and their group only got two big bowls because they had handed in a lot of things.
The children shared the mutton soup, then lit a fire and chopped up the edible food they had found that afternoon and put it in to cook.
Zhou gave each person a sugarcane and a bundle of sugarcane roots. The adults ate the sugarcane roots raw, while the children ate half of it raw and cooked the other half.
Although they still have mutton, donkey meat, and beef, they won't eat as much as they want until they've stored up more food.
Xiao Bao suddenly shouted, "Mom, I want to eat sugarcane."
Chen Xiaohua: "Okay, wait a minute, Mom will peel it for you."
Xiao Bao's hands are still immobile, so the sugarcane can only be cut into small pieces and fed to him.
Chen Nong, Zhou Kai, and Daya also wanted to eat, so Chen Xiaohua shaved a few more.
Just then, a little girl came over.
"Aunt Zhou, I have a pound of beans here. Can I trade them for fifteen sugarcanes?"
Zhou: "No, we can only exchange for ten."
Girl: "Alright then!"
The beans were only discovered after his family opened the package. His grandmother wanted to keep them for their own consumption, his grandfather wanted to trade them for mutton with the Zhou family, and the children in the family were all clamoring to trade them for sugarcane.
It was impossible to trade these beans for mutton, so in the end, they were used to trade for sugarcane.
The girl continued, "Aunt Zhou, could you give me three bundles of sugarcane roots?"
Zhou said unhappily, "Do you think your beans are so precious that you want to exchange them for so many!"
The girl persisted, "Then give me a bundle, Aunt Liu, just one bundle."
Zhou said impatiently, "Alright, I'll just send one more bundle."
The girl said happily, "Thank you!"
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