Seeing so many people with bloodied heads, the Yunnan medicine doctor who arrived at the village didn't even have time to rest. He had more than a dozen apprentices, young and old, treat the wounds together. These apprentices included a few young people from the village itself, as well as those who had joined from various villages along the way.
He was in charge of the more seriously injured patients. Several of them had been hit in the head and suffered concussions. Some even had their arms and legs broken, which shows how ruthless these people were.
After seeing that his villagers had all been properly bandaged, Village Chief Zheng then looked at the more than 1,000 people who had just entered the village. There were men and women among them, and each of them had a pile of luggage next to them. Even the cows were covered with things.
Upon seeing the cow, he immediately thought of the livestock in his own village and quickly called over the villager who had already been bandaged up, "Ah Xiang, go check on how our village's cattle and horses are doing now?"
"Brother Zheng, do you still remember me?" Grandpa Gao walked up to Village Chief Zheng and looked at him with a smile.
"Who are you? You look familiar, but I can't quite place you right now." Zheng Yuan frowned and thought for a long time but still couldn't remember.
"Gao Daniu, do you remember him?" Grandpa Gao said the name he hadn't used in a long time.
"You must be Da Niu, who used to work in our village, right?" Gao Yuan didn't recognize him, but an old lady standing next to him did.
"It's me, Accountant Liu still remembers me!" Gao Daniu had already recognized the old lady who spoke to him. She used to be the village accountant. He remembered that when he quit his job to go back to take care of his sick father, Accountant Liu paid him an extra month's salary. Although it was a rule set by the village, he was still very grateful to these people.
“I remember, how could I not remember? You worked here for almost ten years back then. You were the one who stayed the longest. We all said you were the most hardworking. I never imagined that such a young and strong man back then would now have a full head of white hair.” Grandma Liu thought he looked familiar at first, but she immediately remembered him when he said his name.
Upon hearing this, Village Chief Zheng also remembered, "Look at my memory, I didn't recognize you at first glance."
"It's not your fault. You face so many people coming and going every day, it's impossible for you to remember everyone. It's already good that you have some impression of me. Besides, I'm old, it's normal that I can't recognize you." Grandpa Gao wasn't too bothered that Village Chief Zheng didn't recognize him. He himself had looked at the crowd for a long time before daring to come up and acknowledge him.
"Are these villagers from your village? But I remember you lived not far away, around here, right?" As soon as Village Chief Zheng met the people, he remembered many things, wondering why Gao Daniu and Si Cheng had come together.
Grandpa Gao briefly recounted how he met them, and mentioned that he had now joined Pinghe Village and would be moving there with his whole family.
“You really made a good choice. Things will be different now. It would be very difficult for just a few dozen of you to survive. Villages like theirs have armed forces and doctors; they are the best place to go.” Seeing so many energetic young people, Old Mrs. Liu could imagine that these villages would definitely be better off than other places in the future.
At this moment, the young man named A Xiang came over and told Village Chief Zheng that there was no problem with the village's livestock, except for the few dogs that had been beaten to death; the rest were all properly kept in their pens.
After all that work, it was already dark. By then, the village had tallied up how many people were seriously injured and how many were slightly injured. Fortunately, the people wanted to keep the villagers around to work for them, so they didn't kill them.
"Mr. Si, everyone has worked so hard for so long, would you like to have something to eat first?" Village Chief Zheng saw everyone busy tidying up and felt that he should at least provide them with a meal.
"Village Chief Zheng, you can just call me Sicheng. As for the food, don't bother with it, they've already started preparing it." Sicheng pointed to the entrance of their village, where there was a stove every short distance, and everyone was gathered there busily working.
"You've helped us so much, how could I possibly cook for you?" Village Chief Zheng was genuinely embarrassed. He had been so worried about the villagers' injuries that he had completely forgotten about such an important matter.
“There are so many of us, and we’re used to cooking like this. You should take care of the village affairs first.”
Seeing that things had already come to this, Village Chief Zheng felt relieved, thinking about the purpose of their visit, and that there would be opportunities to repay the favor in the future.
“We just questioned them separately in our village. These people were originally thugs from the city, but they were driven out by a gang a while ago. I don’t know where they found out, but there’s still a salt well here that hasn’t collapsed, so they wanted to occupy our village to develop their power. It’s also our fault that some people in our village are not strong-willed and thought of taking crooked paths, which is why they succeeded.” Village Chief Zheng said, then looked at Si Cheng and the others with gratitude. “Fortunately, we met you this time. Otherwise, I think we would have bowed down to them sooner or later to save the lives of our villagers.”
"Then you'd better step up your defenses in the future. Villages like yours that hold important resources will definitely become highly sought-after in everyone's eyes." Si Cheng didn't want to communicate with those bandits in the future, but the premise was that their Salt Village had to be able to stand firm.
“What you say makes sense, but our village only has so many people. If we encounter a large gang next time, I really don’t know if we can resist them.” Village Chief Zheng said helplessly. At this moment, they were undoubtedly like a little child carrying a gold ingot on the road.
"Where are your original troops?"
“After the ice storm, someone came to our area to do some statistics, but for some reason, no one has come back since. Our village was thinking of going to inquire about it sometime, but then all these things happened.”
"If you can find them and have them guarding the area, then I believe no one in this vicinity will dare to make a move." Si Cheng could only hope that they could find a good backer, otherwise it would be really unlikely that these unarmed villagers could defend this place.
"If all else fails, you can integrate the villages around here. Once everyone has common interests, the problem shouldn't be too big." Yunqi handed Sicheng a glass of water. After a day of traveling, the water in the glass had long been gone. She quickly brought him a glass of water that had just been boiled and cooled down.
"But most of our area is salt-producing villages, will they come over?" Village Chief Zheng hadn't really thought about this question.
"I just heard people in our village saying that there used to be three salt wells, but now only one remains, right?"
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