"Brother, please wait!"
Yan Xiwen called out from a distance, and Li Erniu stopped and turned to look at them.
This accent belongs to a foreigner. Some foreigners came here before and said many nice things, but now they have all disappeared without a trace.
But these people did not deceive the villagers. Perhaps they saw that the village was too poor and there was nothing they could do to deceive people.
I don’t know what this group of people are doing?
But these people are also amazing. Izumo Mountain is so high and the mountain road is so difficult to walk on, but they can tell at a glance that it is not just a pile of mud poles. They can actually walk in from outside the mountain.
Li Erniu shook his head, thinking that these people were probably just bored.
Yan Xiwen came up to Li Erniu, bowed, and said with a smile, "Excuse me, bro, what's your name?"
Sure enough, this person must be either a scholar or the master of a wealthy family. What's your surname?
"It doesn't matter what your surname is. Just call me Li Erniu. You guys..." Li Erniu looked up at the sky. The setting sun had already shone through the clouds. It would be dark in less than half an hour.
"What are you doing here in this shabby place? You can't go back tonight! Don't leave at night. There are many black bears and wolves here... You are guests from afar, but it's not that we are inhospitable, but we really don't have anything to treat you."
Yan Xiwen quickly said, "Brother Li, if you could provide us with a shelter from the wind, that would be great. We carry a lot of luggage on our shoulders, including cooking utensils and sleeping bags."
Li Erniu raised his eyebrows. Rich people are just different. Could it be that they came to this shabby place to take advantage of some young people?
"I have to tell you, this place is called Xiashan Village, and I am the village chief. Xiashan Village has a population of seventy-two, and every one of them is dizzy with hunger."
"You can stay here overnight, but remember not to show off your wealth. I can't guarantee that some starving villagers won't come and rob you all in the middle of the night!"
"In this desolate and barren land, if they see your money, they'll chop you up and throw you away. It won't be long before not even a bone remains. Besides, even if you've been away for a long time and your family has reported the case to the government, the officials won't come to this barren and barren land!"
Yan Xiwen laughed. Li Erniu was indeed an honest man. His warning was reasonable.
"How could Xiashan Village be so poor? To the point where people can't even afford to eat and are resorting to murder for money?"
"hehe,"
Li Erniu walked forward, and Yan Xiwen and others followed behind him.
"It's not just Xiashan Village that's this poor. We're under the jurisdiction of Huangtang Town, which is under the jurisdiction of Qianshan County... You came in from outside, and you didn't even ask around?"
"What are you asking?"
"It seems you're a scholar who's oblivious to the world outside. Qianshan County is poor, and the six towns under its jurisdiction are even poorer! And among these six towns, our Huangtang Town is the poorest."
"There are six villages in Huangtang Town... I won't say that to my second brother, but everyone is about the same level of poverty."
Yan Xiwen certainly knew about it, but he didn't expect the situation to be worse than he realized.
Li Erniu, walking ahead, didn't notice that Yan Xiwen's face had darkened. He added, "Of course, we're used to poverty here. We've been poor for generations. It was just like the Fan Kingdom back then. We had hoped that once Great Xia destroyed Fan Kingdom, our lives would improve a bit..."
He shook his head: "All crows are black. No matter who becomes emperor, they will be the same!"
Zhang Qishan’s eyes narrowed. This ignorant villager actually dared to wrongly accuse the current emperor!
Yan Xiwen waved his hand, stopping Zhang Qishan from drawing his gun.
"Brother Li, I'm afraid you don't understand the current emperor's policies."
"Don't you understand? What do I, a farmer, need to know? I just need to have enough food to eat three times a day and enough clothes to keep warm in winter."
"The emperor is so high, it's none of our business as commoners. As long as our lives can be better, we will naturally respect him. But if my life is almost gone... should I still speak well of the emperor?"
“…You’re right!”
Yan Xiwen did not argue with Li Erniu, because their current situation was not caused by their own laziness, but by the officials of Daxia.
As an emperor, in the eyes of the people, those officials were appointed by the emperor, and what those officials did was of course assigned by the emperor.
The common people have a hard time, and they will curse those incompetent officials. At the same time, they will probably speak out their displeasure towards the emperor without restraint.
Li Erniu seemed to think that it was pointless to complain to this scholar, so he changed the subject: "Where are you from?"
"Ah, we come from... Jinling."
Li Erniu was silent for a moment. He didn't know where Jinling was.
"Where you are in that place... can you even get enough to eat? I'm talking about the farmers, not the wealthy people like you."
"Yes, the farmers in our area can no longer say they have enough to eat. Now they have meat on their tables every day and wear seasonal clothes."
Li Erniu suddenly stopped and Yan Xiwen almost bumped into his back.
He turned to look at Yan Xiwen, his eyes full of suspicion: "You...you didn't lie to me? Can you eat meat every day?"
"Why would I lie to you? This is true! I've traveled to many places in Daxia, but it seems only these two Yueshan roads... the lives of the common people are more difficult."
Li Erniu didn't care about other people's hard times. He suddenly asked, "May I ask your name?"
He used a respectful title and became more reserved, with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
"No need to mention your surname Yan, just call me...Brother Yan."
"Ah, this," Li Erniu rubbed his hands. "Then I'd like to ask for your help. Brother Yan, you must be a person of status. Do you have any way to get us, I mean, all 72 people in our village, to that place you just mentioned, Jinling?"
"We're even willing to be your slaves!"
"We don't want meat every day, just enough to have a full meal! We don't even want seasonal clothes; coarse linen clothes can last for ten years!"
Yan Xiwen fell silent. They were so eager to escape from this place, which showed how much they hated it in their hearts!
No one is willing to leave his hometown.
Except there's really no way out.
Li Erniu was extremely nervous at the moment. If the noble man in front of him could agree, he swore that he would serve as a slave to this noble man for the rest of his life, no, even for his descendants.
Because the next period will be a time of shortage of food, if we can’t hunt enough prey, we will really starve to death!
"Like this," Yan Xiwen certainly didn't agree outright. He was no longer the ignorant boy he once was.
"Let's stay at your place today. Take me with you to explore more often these days. If this place really...really has no hope, then I will definitely find a way for you!"
"Thank you, Brother Yan. My home is right in front of you. Don't be disgusted. It's just a shelter from the wind and rain."
Li Erniu brought Yan Xiwen and the others to his courtyard. A woman's voice rang out from inside, "Master, we only have three days' worth of food left. Those rice seeds you hid... people can't even survive, so what's the point of keeping them?"
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