Chapter 188 Crazy
"The butcher from Sanli Village?"
"Yes, three days ago we were out hunting and encountered their family being besieged by wolves. We helped them, but Butcher Zheng lost an arm, and their daughter seemed to be... crazy."
It was not until this moment that Sang Luo knew that the butcher's surname was Zheng, but it didn't matter at all. What she heard was the butcher Zheng's daughter. Was she crazy?
Sang Luo just stood there in a daze.
She only knew of the daughter of Zheng the butcher, a plump white woman who strode over to buy the magical tofu when she first sold it. When she met her for the second time, she called her "Tofu Lady" and heard that she wanted to buy some meat, so she took her to her own butcher stall and asked her father to take care of her.
She loves to eat and laugh, and when she laughs, there are two dimples on her face. She has a very ordinary name, Da Niu, but she is very much loved by her family. The butcher couple will not forget their married daughter even when buying a piece of tofu.
She murmured to Chen Lie: "How could this happen?"
A bonfire was lit inside the cave at the entrance, and the gloomy expression on Sang Luo's face was clearly visible.
"Do you know the daughter of Zheng the Butcher?"
Sang Luo nodded: "We've met each other a few times. He's a very enthusiastic person."
When Shen Lie heard that she recognized him, he couldn't bear to say the rest of the words, but when he saw Sang Luo looking at him, he thought for a while and then said, "Zheng's daughter is already married. Her husband's family lives well in the village. They were reluctant to leave their crops and land, so they didn't flee at the beginning. Later, the whole family moved to the county town. We don't know what happened exactly, but we heard that a child over two years old died."
The word "the child is gone" can lead to so many things that can be imagined. Sang Luo and Zhou Cunzheng, who was at night at the time, were speechless for a moment.
Chen Lie couldn't bear to say it, so he skipped over it and said, "Zheng the butcher's family reacted a little faster. When a large number of garrisons arrived, they packed up their things and hid in the nearby mountains. But when they rushed to persuade their daughter and in-laws to leave, it was too late. They watched as they were taken into the city under the watchful eyes of the soldiers."
"What happened next?" Zhou Cunzheng couldn't help but ask, "How did Zheng the Butcher's daughter come out?"
Chen Lie said, "Zheng the Butcher's family was worried about the daughter of the Zheng family, so they didn't leave far away. They hid in the nearby mountains. When they realized that something was wrong in the city, they waited for a long time but the people inside could not come out. Zheng the Butcher cruelly pretended to be a refugee and joined the bandits."
"I brought my daughter out, but I lost an arm."
Zhou Cunzheng also lowered his head.
Compared with other families in Shili Village, their family was better off and could buy more meat. They were quite familiar with Zheng the butcher and even the eldest daughter of the Zheng family was raised by him.
Now one of them had a broken arm and the other had gone mad, and they were both speechless for a moment.
Chen Lie looked at Sang Luo and said, "A Luo, the daughter of the Zheng family was protecting her nephew from the wolf's mouth. Two pieces of flesh were torn off her arm. She was fine at first, but today we heard that she had a high fever. We had a lot of fever-reducing medicine at home. Do you think you can send two doses over?"
Shen Lie hesitated for a moment when he said this. He didn't know how long they would have to hide in the mountains. Medicines were actually very precious things, and they could save lives at critical moments. However, because they were worried that other families in the village couldn't afford medicines, they had sold ginseng and furs, and had a lot of money, so they prepared a lot more, especially more antipyretic medicines.
The children in the village are tough and everyone pays special attention to them. Except for the time when Aning had a serious internal heat and had to boil a prescription for it, he used some golden wound medicine, but nothing else was done. He and Zheng the Butcher were not acquainted, let alone Zheng's daughter, but it was a human life after all.
Sang Luo nodded without thinking: "Okay, let me go, I'll go get the medicine."
As he said this, he tied the rope that he had just untied back around his body.
Zhou Cun was listening to Chen Lie and Sang Luo talking about giving two doses of medicine. He thought for a moment and said, "Give my family one dose too. I've watched the child grow up. I won't go down. Please go get your aunt for it, Luo."
Sang Luo responded, tied the rope, asked Chen Lie to hold it steady, and then went down carefully.
After getting the medicine from home, they went to Zhou's house. When Zhou's wife heard about what happened in Zheng the butcher's family, her lips trembled. She was stunned for a moment before nodding repeatedly. She went in with an oil lamp to look for the herbs. After she found them, she remembered that she could not read at all, so she hurriedly called Sang Luo in to help her see which medicines could reduce fever.
After Sang Luo left, the two daughters-in-law of the Zhou family asked her about it, and she murmured, "Why did she go crazy?"
When Zhou's eldest daughter-in-law heard that a two-year-old child had passed away, she covered her chest in shock.
She was also a mother, with a child who was over two years old. She didn't dare to think about how the child was gone, which would drive a mother crazy. She just clenched her clothes tightly and felt she couldn't breathe for a while.
The second daughter-in-law of the Zhou family's lips were trembling and she couldn't speak.
…
Sang Luo couldn't fall asleep for a long time that night, and she was lost in thought with her eyes closed.
She had been silent for so long that Chen Lie thought she had fallen asleep, so he quietly blew out the oil lamp in the cave wall.
Listening to Chen Lie lying down on the small couch beside him, Sang Luo really wanted to ask when the Dagan Dynasty would fall and when the new dynasty would rise. But thinking that this was not something they could control, she lost interest and gave up.
The next time I saw Zheng Da Nv was the next day when I delivered medicine to the Zheng family.
For the safety of the whole family, the Zheng family banded together to protect themselves. After being rescued by Shen Lie and his friends, they became neighbors with Zhou Laizi's family at Shen Lie's suggestion.
And they did not choose a cave in the nearby mountain, but directly fenced off a piece of land at the edge of the forest opposite Zhoujia Mountain. Now there are two simple sheds inside, and the family is building a simple wooden house.
As for water, there was a small spring in the mountain behind their house. Zheng and his sons used several bamboo tubes to dig through it and draw water from the mountain to their home. They plugged the bamboo tubes when not in use and opened them when in use. In this way, they lived next to the Zhou family.
When Sang Luo and Shen Lie went there, Zheng the butcher and his wife still recognized her and called her Tofu Lady. Zheng Da Niu, who was lying in the shed, was already delirious from the fever. In fact, if Sang Luo had not recognized Zheng the butcher and his wife, she would not have recognized Zheng Da Niu even if they had met.
She has lost too much weight and her facial features have changed a lot.
After all, they were not that familiar with each other, so she did not say much. She handed the three prescriptions to Zheng the butcher's wife and said, "This is the antipyretic medicine given by our family and Zhou Cunzheng in our village. We don't have much at home, so we can only get three prescriptions. Auntie, give it to the eldest sister first."
When Zheng the butcher's wife heard that it was a fever-reducing drug, she burst into tears and bent her knees to kneel on the ground. Sang Luo was so scared that she hurriedly pulled her back and said, "Aunt, you can't do this. I'm young and I don't deserve your kneeling."
“How can I refuse the favor of saving my life?” As he said this, he was about to kneel down again. Sang Luo quickly moved aside and held him back.
Seeing that Sang Luo was in a bit of a mess, Zheng's daughter-in-law came over to help support her mother-in-law, and thanked Sang Luo with red eyes.
The sister-in-law saved her son. Although she was unconscious and treated her son as her own, she actually blocked the wolf that pounced on her with her body.
Sang Luo delivered the medicine and did not stay any longer. She said goodbye to Zheng the butcher and his family and followed Chen Lie back to Zhou's house. She took Xu Wenqing, Zhou Erlang, Lu Sanlang and Zhou Laizi's eldest son who were waiting there with her and went out.
Now, only the eldest son of the Zhou family has gone out. As for Zhou Laizi and Zhou Erlang, they stay here. One is to help the Zheng family build a house and a stone wall, and the other is to protect their wives and children at home.
When passing by Zheng's house, Zheng the butcher hurried out and asked Chen Lie if he could take care of their family once the wooden house was built.
Since he had brought the people here, he had actually made them half-allies, not to mention it was also a matter of strengthening himself. Naturally, Chen Lie would not refuse. He agreed that if he came to take care of the Zhou family, he would bring their family along as well.
…
Sang Luo had not been out for seven or eight days and found that there were obviously more people in the inner area. It was not that she saw many people face to face, but that there were fewer wild fruits to pick in the mountains. Many of the fruit trees they had discovered before had already picked the ripe fruits, and the less ripe ones were still left on the trees. If they went there again now, there would only be the trees left.
It was obvious that someone had been here.
But there was nothing that could be done about it. Sang Luo was not anxious because the fruits on the branches were gone, but there was actually a lot of food hidden in the mountains, such as the yam that could be dug up in more than 20 days, the wild ginger that had just been dug up in a bamboo forest, and the stone ear that was growing in the cracks of the stone wall in front of her.
Xu Wenqing and his gang really felt that they couldn't find anything in the place where they went, but Sang Luo could find something to eat.
It was fine if it was just wild ginger, they just didn't recognize it, but at least they knew there was such a thing as ginger. Could this black thing on the stone wall be edible?
However, since Sangluo said they were edible, everyone didn't doubt it and started picking them.
With Sang Luo's ability and Chen Lie, they have learned some skills in the past year following Chen Lie and Chen Dashan. As long as Chen Lie is careful and avoids the big guys who are difficult to deal with, they can explore the places that the people who have just entered the inner circle dare not explore. So the heart that was just raised for a while soon relaxed again.
…
Outside the mountains, there was another group of people who did not have such ability.
Not far from the cave where Manager Xu and his family used to store grain, two strange-looking men were sneaking back from outside, pushing aside a bush and slipping into the cave.
If you were closer, you would find that it was not their fault that they looked strange, because half of their hair was burnt. Not only them, but there was also an old man and a woman in a similar situation. A little girl even had her head wrapped in cloth. The whole family looked extremely miserable.
As soon as the two brothers entered the cave, the woman asked anxiously, "How is it, did you find food?"
The brothers loosened their hands, leaving only a small bundle of ferns and wild onions.
The older one said, "Dad, this area has been searched by so many people that we can't find anything edible. This is the only thing we recognize."
The younger boy said, "Let's go further in. We have run out of food. If we continue hiding in this cave, even if we don't get caught by bandits, we'll probably just have to eat leaves."
If Manager Xu, Chen Lie, and Sang Luo were not concerned about which one was present at this moment, they would definitely recognize that the two brothers who were talking were not others, but the waiters of Dongfulou, the Dong Ge'er brothers.
Not only was the hair of this family burned, but even the clothes they wore were obviously ill-fitting, as if they had come from nowhere.
The old man hesitated: "If we go into the mountains, how can we deal with the wild animals?"
Dong Ge'er said, "We can't just wait here forever. How do we know if we don't try? We can walk as far as we can. We have to go to a place where there is food."
His eldest brother pursed his lips and said, "Dad, let's go inside. This place is too close to the outside. Not only do we have to guard against bandits, but we also have to guard against whether that great general outside will come to arrest people in the future. Let's look around on the way to see if there are any people with similar situations to ours, but not the vicious ones. Let's go inside together."
During these three months, the family had really had enough of hiding and were scared of it.
Be it officials or bandits, no one really takes the lives of these people seriously.
The old man looked at the handful of fern and wild onion in his wife's hand, and finally made up his mind: "Okay, let's get some food to build up our strength, and we'll leave right away."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
