Chen's eldest daughter-in-law said, "Don't be impulsive. If a fight breaks out, people will get hurt. There are many enemies over there. Let's throw a smoke bomb in to knock them out before we deal with them!"
Chen Lao Er's wife ran over, lit the tobacco cake in her hand, and threw it over.
Anyone who ran out of the smoke range was immediately beaten to death by the village chief's wife.
When the children saw the adults coming, they all started crying.
Zhou looked at Daya and said, "Don't bring people to cause trouble next time. Don't you run back to call the adults first when something happens?"
Daya: "I understand."
If she had to choose again, she would still choose to stay.
Even when the children were beaten and bruised, and scolded by the adults, they still refused to accept it and said aggrievedly, "We want to stay and protect our things."
"Yes, we can't just stand by and watch them steal our things and beat our people!"
After the smoke cleared, the village chief's wife ordered someone to tie up the enemy's hands and feet. Just then, the women from the gathering team brought over a lot of straw ropes.
"These damned bastards, I'll cut them all into a thousand pieces later!" a woman said through gritted teeth.
Everyone gasped when they saw the two boys lying in pools of blood, covered in blood. One had lost an arm, and the other had lost a leg.
An old woman trembled and said, "Quickly, check if he's still breathing!"
Dr. Zhao rushed over and checked with two fingers. "He's still breathing! Hurry, find his arm and leg. The injury was just sustained, so we can still set the bone. Hurry!"
"Quickly clear a space, second brother, and get all the medicine ready."
They found everyone from Anping Village, but none of them escaped injury. The elderly were either beaten until their heads bled or kicked until they suffered internal injuries, and some even had their hands and feet broken.
All of them were injured and unconscious; none of them were conscious. Fortunately, they were still breathing.
Dazhuang said, "Grandma Village Chief, they've all been tied up. There are over two hundred of them, all men."
Several women, carrying hoes and sickles, slashed at the bound man, not caring that blood splattered all over their faces.
No one stopped them, because their family members were among the injured.
The refugees who rushed over to watch couldn't help but step back three meters when they saw such a bloody scene.
When the grandmother of the two boys saw her two grandsons beaten like this, she was so angry that her lungs were about to explode. She snatched an axe that a villager had brought and began slicing the enemy's head off like a melon, one slice after another.
The onlookers were once again frightened by the fierceness of the Anping village women and retreated ten meters.
A clan elder from the Bai family stepped forward and said, "Retrieve all the fallen weapons."
Then he glanced at the group of unconscious refugees who were tied up, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes. These were all ruthless people; none of them could be spared!
Dazhuang led a group of people to check the area where they had previously found wet mud.
A large pit had been dug over there, and there wasn't much soil around it. He guessed that some of the soil was probably mixed with moist grass roots, and that people had taken it away along with the soil before they could sort it out.
Dazhuang jumped into the pit and looked at the soil at the bottom. It was indeed wet soil, but not very moist. However, they would definitely continue to dig and try.
So he shouted up, "Two more people down, let's keep digging!"
When the village chief arrived, the women were still going crazy. After seeing their miserable state, the village chief took a deep breath and said, "Pull them all away."
An old woman inside said in a sarcastic tone, "Why pull them apart? If the village chief thinks it's too bloody, why don't we come and burn them all down? We'll make sure they're completely burned and won't bother you."
The villagers shouted angrily, "Yes, burn them! Burn them!"
The village chief ignored the troublemakers and walked towards the edge of the pit. He saw the soil that had just been brought up, rubbed it between his fingers, and then said, "Send someone to inform the team to move over here to rest."
The village chief's wife didn't stop the villagers from making a scene. If she weren't the old man's wife, she would have led people to fight against him long ago.
After the team moved here, the water-finding team also returned, but they still couldn't find a water source, so they had no choice but to pin their hopes on the wet mud pit.
The village chief was pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back when suddenly a man rushed over.
The village chief asked, "How's it going? Have you managed to meet them?"
The man wiped his sweat and said, "We've made contact, but they want to check the goods first."
Village chief: "Alright, take them to see it."
Although the village chief wanted to get rid of the thieves who were tied up, he knew it wasn't a good idea. So he suggested selling the thieves to slave traders for money, food, and water, and the other two village chiefs agreed.
Subsequently, each of the three villages held a general meeting, with each household sending a representative. After discussion, most of them agreed to the suggestion.
The village chief also sent people out to inquire and find the slave leader.
On the road to escape famine, human trafficking was inevitable, which is why people dared not travel alone and had to travel with others. If they were separated from their group, they would not only be robbed, but also captured and enslaved, forced to work in mines or quarries. Women who were captured suffered even worse fates.
He understood these intricacies, so finding slave traders was easy for him.
This was the first time he had ever done something like this—human trafficking. He never expected it to come to this. The road ahead is going to be tough.
After a while, the man returned. "They've all taken a liking to them and want us to name a price."
After discussing it for a while, the three village chiefs finally set the price at eight taels of silver each.
The man went out and quickly returned. "They accepted the price and asked us to wait a while; they'll bring the silver over later."
The three village chiefs looked at each other, wondering if they had offered too low a price to agree so readily.
They didn't understand the market price of slaves; they had never bought or even seen them.
Two hundred thieves survived; the other ten were killed by the crazed woman.
The three village chiefs discussed it again and asked the man to pass on a message to the slave traders: they wanted 1,000 taels of silver in cash, and the remaining 600 taels would be converted into food and water.
When the slave traders heard that they wanted to exchange for some food and water, they were heartbroken, but they agreed. After all, they were reluctant to give up the slaves at such a low price.
After the goods were settled, the three village chiefs were dumbfounded when they saw the food that had been brought back: a sack of wheat bran, a sack of dried wild vegetables, a sack of rice bran, and only half a can of water.
The village chief of Dashan Village looked up and said, "Why is there so little food and water? They paid six hundred taels of silver for it, and they only got this little. Could they be playing a trick on them?"
The team leader frowned and said, "They said that's how grain prices are now, not to mention water. You can't buy it even if you have money. Six hundred taels of silver can only buy this much. Money is practically worthless these days."
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