Chapter 2
"Uphold... uphold righteousness..."
"Auntie, Auntie is going out to take a look."
The dark, heavy eyes made Shu Wanxiu's heart race. After speaking, she fled the house in a panic until her back hit the earthen wall, where she felt safe behind her. Only then did she calm her heart and slowly stop the cold sweat.
Shu Wanxiu had never known before that even young children could suffer from hysteria.
When they first fled to Fangyuan County, these disaster victims were not allowed to enter the city. However, after fleeing famine for so long, everyone had reached a dead end and had no strength left to go any further.
Some people said that rather than starve to death, they should work together to break down the city gates and rush into the city to steal food.
Some people said that they couldn't win the robbery this way, and that if they caused any disturbance before even entering the city, they would be killed by the soldiers guarding the city.
Then someone took the lead and led them all to kneel down a few dozen feet away from the county town gate, begging the people or the government in the town to have some compassion and give them some relief grain.
Shu Wanxiu and her nephew knelt down along with the crowd, but her heart was filled with despair.
Having passed through so many prefectures and counties on the road, which one would open its city gates to take them in? They thought that escaping home would give them a way to survive, but they never expected... It would have been better to dig a pit in the field at home and crawl into it when they were about to die than to have their parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law die on the way, and the whole family be buried in different places after they die.
Unexpectedly, when she cried out in anguish while watching her nephew lying on the ground, barely clinging to life, she found hope.
The city gates opened, and a wealthy merchant, showing compassion, had his servants set up two sheds at the city gates to distribute porridge.
She instantly came back to life, bit her wrist, and fed her blood to Shu Shouyi to prolong his life.
After that, they survived for some time on the free porridge they received each day.
Later, the government received a document from the imperial court, which instructed them to settle the refugees and to send doctors from the city to provide medical care.
Since the death of her brother and sister-in-law, Shu Wanxiu could occasionally sense that Shu Shouyi was somewhat mentally confused. Many times he would not respond when called, and he would often look at empty places and mutter something unintelligible.
Since there was a doctor offering free consultations, she naturally went to great lengths to get the doctor to examine her nephew.
Unexpectedly, after a diagnosis, the doctor said that Shu Shouyi was suffering from hysteria.
This disease is called hysteria to put it nicely, but to put it bluntly... it's madness.
At that moment, Shu Wanxiu felt as if she had been struck by lightning.
After regaining her senses, she kept the news a secret, not even telling her closest relatives.
Whenever someone curiously asks about the medicine while I'm decocting it, I always pretend to be calm and say that it's a prescription for treating deficiency of both the heart and spleen.
Fearing that others might notice something amiss when talking to Shu Shouyi, she could only hold him in her arms every day. They had finally managed to get the government to register them as citizens, and now that they were villagers of Wupai Village, the most important thing was to get her nephew cured as soon as possible.
It was getting late, and Shu Shouyi needed to take his medicine twice a day; he simply couldn't stop.
They are family members connected by blood; their fear is only temporary.
After calming down, Shu Wanxiu worried that her nephew would run out on his own, so she poked her head into the house and beckoned the child out.
"Come on, let's go with your aunt to another room."
Before pushing open the door, Shu Wanxiu kept praying in her heart, hoping to find something useful, whether it was farm tools, cooking utensils, wooden buckets, or water tanks, she hoped it wouldn't be empty again.
But she was really disappointed.
If the room we saw before was the bedroom, then this one was the main room. Apart from a rickety bench and a dark bamboo basket hanging on the wall, there was nothing else inside.
She walked around the front and back of the house again. There was an outhouse at the back of the house. On the other side of the main room was a half-collapsed shed with a double-pot earthen stove underneath, which was also half-collapsed.
The two burners were empty, with no pots placed on them. Instead, a dusty gourd ladle sat upside down next to the stove.
Shu Wanxiu was not willing to give up. How could she brew the medicine without even an earthenware pot?
She pondered for a moment and remembered that on the way there, Village Chief Pang had mentioned that the former owner of this thatched house was his eighth great-uncle.
Since she's an elderly person, she must sometimes have some health problems, right? Surely she doesn't never take medicine?
If you're taking medicine, how can you not have a medicine pot for decocting it?
It's perfectly normal for people to take away items like water tanks and wooden buckets after a house becomes ownerless.
But medicine pots are not something that ordinary people would carry. Healthy people would feel that carrying a medicine pot home would bring bad luck.
Shu Wanxiu squatted down and searched carefully. After a lot of effort, she finally found it in the stove.
She said to Shu Shouyi with a wry smile, "It's really not easy. After so many years of neglect, we still managed to find three complete items."
First, there's the bamboo basket hanging on the wall in the main room; second, there's the gourd ladle on the stove; and third, there's this well-hidden, intact jar.
We have the pot for decocting the medicine, but other problems urgently need to be solved.
After walking half a day through the mountains, you should at least have a meal for dinner, right? Even if it's just a simple porridge made with a small handful of rice.
As darkness fell, Shu Wanxiu hurriedly led Shu Shouyi to gather firewood near the house. She had to put down the grain sacks she was carrying, tied the openings with long-stemmed wild grass, and placed them on the wooden bed in the bedroom, where one leg had collapsed.
The sun hasn't come out since it rained this morning, and the fallen leaves and branches in the forest are still damp.
The aunt and niece had no other choice but to gather some leaves and branches to start a fire. As they gathered, Shu Wanxiu remembered that they had no kindling, and the chances of igniting wet firewood by rubbing it together were too slim. She figured they would have to go down the mountain to borrow two flints later.
Once the firewood was ready, she carried it all to the stove and put it down. Then, holding the earthenware pot she had found, she grabbed Shu Shouyi's hand and hurried down the mountain.
There is no well on the mountain, so they have to go down the mountain to get water. Before they went up the mountain, Village Chief Pang had taught them where to get water.
She planned to go down to the stream to wash the earthenware pot clean and fetch a pot of water to boil the medicine. In addition, she planned to ask for directions to the village chief Pang's house to borrow a cooking pot and flint and other items.
Although they said they were traveling at breakneck speed, things weren't actually that smooth.
Having only walked this mountain path once before, I needed to be careful not to get lost. The ground was slippery, and the smooth surface washed clean by the rain was the most difficult to walk on; a slight misstep could lead to a fall.
Shu Wanxiu held Shu Shouyi's hand tightly and walked on places with gravel, weeds, or soft soil.
Halfway down the mountain, she broke out in a light sweat. Suddenly, Shu Shouyi slowed down, listened intently in the direction of the foot of the mountain, then tugged at Shu Wanxiu's hand and stamped his foot, saying, "Auntie, there's someone there."
Shu Wanxiu thought he was hallucinating and didn't take it to heart. "It's already half dark, why would anyone go up the mountain?"
"Is Shouyi tired? Does Auntie want to carry him for a bit?"
Although Shu Wanxiu was exhausted and her legs were weak, she still remembered the scene of her brother and sister-in-law entrusting their child to her before they died.
Some of the food they brought with them during their escape from famine was stolen along the way, and the remaining food, which the family of six managed to eat, only lasted until halfway through their journey.
They gnawed on tree bark, ate grass, and when they came across populated areas, the family knelt down and kowtowed to others to beg for food.
When the food was almost gone, Shu Wanxiu's parents began to eat dirt on their backs, leaving more food for them.
Gradually, the two old people's bellies grew bigger, and they were both bloated and thirsty. When they passed by a river, the two old people could not resist their thirst, so they lay down by the river and drank the water by the handful until they could no longer walk and collapsed in the river.
Although they were quickly rescued and brought ashore, the two elderly people died that night from abdominal pain.
After burying their parents, Shu Wanxiu's elder brother led the remaining four family members on their journey with the clan.
My brother is a good brother, and my sister-in-law is the best sister-in-law in the world.
They took over as heads of the family. Although the chances of begging for food along the way were still slim, her elder brother and sister-in-law kept a close watch on her, not only forbidding her from eating dirt, but also always giving her the most precious food.
Without their care and love, Shu Wanxiu would have starved to death long ago.
Her brother and sister-in-law had given their lives for hers, and she would never forget the promise she made. No matter how hard or tiring the rest of her life was, she would take good care of Shu Shouyi and preserve the only bloodline her brother and sister-in-law left in the world.
Shu Shouyi shook his head and took a step to the side, hiding behind Shu Wanxiu.
At this moment, Shu Wanxiu finally heard some sounds.
...
After leaving the Wang family, Pang Zhishan hurried home.
It was past the usual time for dinner when his wife, Chen Sanhe, saw him return. She quickly sent her daughter-in-law to bring the food that was warming on the stove to the table, while she herself came out to greet him and ask how things were going.
"Settling them in is easy; there are only two aunts and nieces, and Uncle Ba's house is spacious enough. But there's nothing in the house on the mountain, so we need to get some things and send them up there as soon as possible."
On the way, Pang Zhishan had already thought about what to bring from home to help the two of them. So after sitting down at the dinner table, he told his wife and son what to pack.
After hearing this, Chen Sanhe felt that her husband hadn't asked them to prepare much, so she asked, "How much luggage did they bring with them?"
After his daughter-in-law set out the food, Pang Zhishan hurriedly picked up his rice bowl and shoveled a mouthful of rice into his mouth. Only then did he reach for the slices of white melon on the plate with his chopsticks. After swallowing the rice in his mouth, he said, "A bag of relief grain distributed by the government and two broken ceramic bowls."
"...That's it?"
"What else could it be? Two pitiful girls. They're called aunt and niece, but the aunt is just an unmarried girl leading a four-year-old boy. They're both skinny and thin. They would have been pawned long ago on the way to exchange for money or food."
They also talked about how the whole family had fled the famine, and in the end only the two children were left, which made Chen Sanhe sigh deeply.
"How could it be such a terrible sight?"
Pang Zhishan ate his rice in large mouthfuls and didn't have time to talk. The couple's eldest son, Pang Qingshui, said from the side, "Didn't Xun's son also come here a few years ago as a refugee? I remember that his father went to the county town to bring him back. His parents didn't make it on the way, leaving him to raise his younger sister alone. He didn't have much wealth or possessions and only brought a bow into the village."
As Pang Qingshui spoke, he seemed to realize something: "It is clear that fleeing famine is a truly tragic thing. Not to mention how much suffering and hardship one endures on the road, families are often torn apart as one flees."
Chen Sanhe felt increasingly uneasy listening to this. He sighed, pulled his son aside, and said, "Let's not talk about it anymore. Listen to your father, let's pack our things."
Halfway there, he turned back and asked, "Have the aunt and niece had dinner yet?"
No, of course not.
Following Pang Zhishan's instructions, the Pang family packed their belongings and hurried up the mountain.
The Pang family was actually quite lively today. In the afternoon, neighboring families came over to visit, all waiting for Pang Zhishan to return and inquire about how the disaster victims should be resettled.
The group didn't disperse until the Pang family lit a fire to prepare their evening meal.
Nowadays, the Pang family has encountered many villagers asking questions along the way. Pang Zhishan gives a brief explanation, and some people, after hearing about the situation, spontaneously come out and go up the mountain with them.
It started as a few people, but grew to more than a dozen. Although it was getting late, it didn't matter; having many people gave them courage. By the time they passed the Wang family's house, the line had become quite long.
Even without Pang Zhishan shouting, Wang Jincai had already heard the commotion of such a large group appearing. He came out of the house on his own initiative, picked up the two bundles of firewood placed at the door, and joined them to set off.
The group was led by Pang Zhishan, while the others chatted away. They were still quite a distance from the thatched hut halfway up the mountain when Pang Zhishan suddenly stopped, looked ahead, and asked, "What are you doing outside?"
Everyone's gaze shifted forward.
It was just before dark, and the path leading up the mountain was lined with shrubs and wild grasses. They were not very lush at this time of year, and many of the grasses had already withered.
Two people, one tall and one short, stood side by side by the roadside. The smaller one hid behind the larger one, only revealing a large head and half of a thin, bony body.
The older one was dressed in a loose linen outfit, and even in the dim light, several tattered patches were visible, suggesting they hadn't had time to rest. Both of them had messy hair, like withered grass, making it difficult to discern their features.
Shu Wanxiu also saw everyone. Seeing so many people, she felt a little timid, but she had to take a deep breath and, under everyone's scrutiny, muster up the courage to answer Pang Lizhang's question, "I originally wanted to go down the mountain to borrow some utensils from your house."
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