Chapter 189 Leaving the Clan
Qiyang County was trapped in the abyss for three months. Despite the massacre and fire before the bandits left, some people were lucky enough to escape. Some of them were lucky enough, some had some skills, or some, like Dong Ge'er's family, managed to hide until the end and rushed out of the sea of fire by chance.
At this time, these people swarmed together and almost all of them rushed into the mountains around Qiyang.
The inner circle that Chen Lie and Chen Dashan could reach with their men in six days was an extremely long and thrilling journey for most people.
If you don't have enough ability, it's not easy to find someone to go with you, because you can't be sure that the person you're with won't hit you from behind at a critical moment. If you meet strangers on the road, you have to work together and you have to be careful. Just like now, Dong Ge'er and his group of 40 or 50 people, who just joined two days ago, had a problem.
They said they were following because the other side had too many people and they didn't dare to join them. They didn't look like bad people and wanted to borrow some courage, so they followed behind not too far away. When there were obviously bad people, they would get closer to the team in front, and then keep a distance when it was safe.
Probably because they thought they posed no threat, and they also felt that it would help to strengthen their own momentum. If they encountered those bandits, having more people would save them some trouble. And seeing that they were usually quite sensible, they tacitly agreed to let them follow them.
The team suddenly became chaotic. It only took a moment for a wolf to appear in front of them and for two children to be knocked down by the wolf in the other direction.
Screaming, confusion, cries of pain, howling. In this sudden chaos, there was a group of forty or fifty people. They looked like relatives of a clan. The young and strong protected their clansmen, but a pack of wolves rushed into the crowd. In times of crisis, how could they recognize their relatives and clansmen? They grabbed one and pushed him out to block the deadly wolves.
Dong Ge'er and his two brothers were only frightened for a moment, but they quickly came to their senses. While dealing with the wolf running towards them, they also had to carefully protect the women in the family and guard against their companions doing the same to them.
At times like this, people who already have no trust in each other dare not test human nature.
No one knew how many wolves were in the pack, but in the chaos they always felt that the beasts were powerful and extremely ferocious. They could not care about anything else and it was already extremely difficult for them to just keep themselves and their families alive.
Another group of people came into the melee. In such a situation, with dozens of people holding back the wolves, the best option would be to leave immediately while the chaos was going on. However, the strange thing was that the group of people only paused for a moment, and then more than a dozen young and strong men rushed over to help kill the wolves.
When Dong Ge'er saw it from the corner of his eye, the father and his two sons were surrounding a wolf. He was subconsciously excited, but he couldn't pay much attention to it. This sudden attack launched by the wolf pack made people tremble with fear. Every moment that passed was infinitely magnified and stretched, but in fact, they only fought for half a quarter of an hour.
Thinking that it was because more than a dozen young and strong men had been added for no reason, they thought they could not defeat the enemy. So the leader wolf howled, and the wolves all turned around, tucked their tails between their legs and fled into the woods.
Dongger's father's legs were shaking. He turned to look at his wife and daughter. He saw that they were just frightened and looked unhappy, but no one was hurt. He breathed a sigh of relief.
The two families here breathed a sigh of relief, but the tribe over there, who had just fought wolves together, were now in a standoff.
The person who was pushed out was a young daughter-in-law. She was barely saved by her husband and did not die. However, she was thrown down by the push. The wolf was hit by her and scratched her face with its claws while she was dodging. The woman covered her face with her hands and gasped in pain. The man pulled her hands down. There was a shocking blood on her left face. There were three bloody wolf claw marks, one was very shallow, and the other two had scratched the skin and flesh open. The flesh and blood looked extremely horrible.
Tears were streaming down the young daughter-in-law's eyes. She didn't know how much of it was from the pain, how much from the fear of escaping death, and how much from crying because her face was ruined. She was crying, and the child beside her was crying too. The woman who was supporting her daughter-in-law had shaking hands, and suddenly she picked up a hatchet that someone had thrown aside in the chaos and started chopping at a middle-aged man.
The men fled, and the tribesmen screamed and shouted in anger.
"Third brother's wife! Put down the knife!" The voice came from the patriarch with a long beard in a particularly loud and majestic voice.
The woman turned a deaf ear to him and just chased after the middle-aged man, hacking and cursing as she hacked him: "Gan Laowu, you beast, you pushed my daughter-in-law to block the wolf! You bullied us because there was no one in the third room! How could you have the heart to do this! Why don't you just die? I'll hack you to death!"
Gan Laowu was still running. The young wife's husband looked at his wife's bloody face, turned around, drew his bow and arrow, aimed at the running person, and shouted again: "Mom, don't chase!"
The woman just stopped and turned to look at him. The man had already released the arrow in his hand. He shot one arrow and then nocked another one.
Two arrows were shot one after another, and amid the exclamations of the tribesmen, one arrow hit Gan Laowu's right leg and the other arrow hit Gan Laowu's right hand.
The young man pulled out the third arrow and looked at Gan Laowu who was howling after being shot, his hands shaking slightly.
The people from the fifth branch of the Gan family were already howling, the clan members were also shocked, and then a group of elders were furious.
The young wife, who was still covering her face with her hands, did not react for a moment, but her tears fell even more fiercely: "Erlang."
She grabbed the man's arm and pushed it down, shaking her head at Gan Erlang.
The woman who had been chasing Gan Laowu and hacking at him came to her senses and immediately defended her son: "Why, Gan Laowu is allowed to use my daughter-in-law's life to protect him from wolves, but my Erlang is not allowed to vent his anger on his wife? If he doesn't vent his anger, he's not a man!"
The Gan clan leader was so angry that his eyes turned black: "That's his fifth uncle!"
"Uncle Wu, what's wrong? Is this what an uncle does? Using seniority to pressure others? What if Gan Laowu pushed your granddaughter-in-law? So you won't pursue it?"
When she said this, she glared at Gan Laowu angrily: "Your wife and daughter-in-law were there at that time. Why did you pull my daughter-in-law when you were so smooth?"
"My Erlang was at the front protecting everyone, and you were standing behind and treating his wife like this?"
Most of the people in the clan kept silent, and the others, mostly those of the same generation as the woman or her elders, said that they could not attack the elders even if they were caught. If there was a problem with the fifth child, it would be handled by the clan.
Gan Erlang's shaking hands calmed down and stopped shaking. He just sneered, "I really can't afford to stay in such a family. If I rush to the front one day, I don't know who will harm my mother, wife and children behind me."
Two of the dozen or so young men who had helped earlier came out and walked to Gan Erlang's side: "Second Brother Gan."
Gan Erlang finally had the heart to look at the newcomer and said, "Brother Feng, thank you for your help just now."
The young man surnamed Feng was none other than the brothers of Feng Liuniang, the second wife of the Lu family. It just so happened that the Feng family was also heading inwards to avoid the bandits in the mountains. They had come here after many detours. When they saw a pack of wolves and people fighting, they would not have intervened. However, Feng Dalang and Feng Erlang recognized an acquaintance.
That was Shi Dalang's brother-in-law, Gan Erlang, who had followed Chen Lie into the mountains to learn hunting like the two brothers many years ago.
They were originally from two different villages and had never met each other before, but because they learned hunting together with Chen Lie, they became acquainted and had been getting along for a while. It would be a bit unreasonable for them to just sit back and do nothing. Besides, there were less than twenty wolves in the pack, and there were twenty or thirty young and strong men over there. If they helped a little more, they would not be unable to deal with them. So they left enough people to protect their own family members, called a group of cousins, and rushed over to help.
Seeing that Gan Erlang's family was obviously bullied by their clansmen, the two brothers stood up, which was also an invisible way to give Gan Erlang some support.
Feng Dalang shook his head and said, "It's nothing."
He looked at the elders of the Gan family again and asked Gan Erlang cryptically, "Brother Gan, do you need any help?"
Gan Erlang looked at his clansmen, then at his wife whose face was already red and swollen, then at his mother and young daughter, and then turned his gaze to the Feng clan. After a pause, he said, "Brother Feng, are you heading to the inner circle?"
Feng Dalang nodded: "It's too chaotic outside. We don't dare to leave to hunt. Let's go back inside to take shelter."
Gan Erlang heard that they were also planning to go to the inner circle, so he said, "I wonder if you can take my family with you, me, my mother, my wife and my daughter."
Feng Dalang was not surprised by this, and did not agree immediately. He said, "I will go back and tell my grandfather and uncles."
The Gan clan leader and Gan Erlang's uncles were already angry and shouted "Erlang" one after another.
Gan Erlang pretended not to hear anything and bowed to Feng Dalang, "Thank you for helping me to talk to Xiang Yier. I think you have seen what happened just now. In this situation, my family dare not go with the tribe members anymore. I am afraid that I can't protect my mother, wife and daughter by myself. Brother Feng knows that I have learned some archery and hunting furs. I have made some progress in the past year. I will not hold your tribe back."
How could Feng Dalang not know that they had learned the art together? He nodded and said, "Wait a moment, Brother Gan."
No matter how the Gan clan leader and Gan Erlang's uncles tried to dissuade them, whether by force or kindness, they were determined to leave. Even Gan Erlang's mother said nothing about her son's behavior of almost asking to leave the clan on his own initiative.
Leaving the family is a huge matter at this time, but a family is a family, and only those who are willing to protect them are called a family. They used her son in front and dared to drag her daughter-in-law to pay with her life in the back, but no one said a fair word. It is better not to stay in such a family.
The Feng family didn't care what the Gan family thought of them. They actually watched and heard what happened here. Of course, the most important thing was that Feng Dalang also said that Gan Erlang went to Shili Village with the two Feng brothers to learn skills.
The younger generation of the Feng family now all have a bow and arrow, and they have learned hunting a lot. But how could one have too many good hunters?
Of course not!
Besides, this was a matter of helping others, so Feng Dalang's grandfather and several uncles agreed immediately.
Before Feng Dalang approached Gan Erlang and nodded to him, Gan Erlang had already pulled his mother, wife and daughter, picked up their family's things and turned around to leave. Even though the old patriarch scolded him from behind, saying that if they dared to leave today, they would be betraying their ancestors, he did not turn back.
The eldest son of the fifth room cursed angrily: "Without him, we can't survive?"
Gan Laowu cried out in pain, still angry at this moment, and said, "I don't want my ancestors' stuff!"
He gasped in pain, but did not forget to defend himself: "I just pulled it unintentionally because I was frightened. You even wanted to shoot your own uncle! Bastard! Bastard! What should I do with this arrow? It hurts so much!"
He stopped howling only after the old chief yelled at him to shut up. However, not many people in the tribe wanted to watch. Most of them looked gloomy, especially when they thought about the time when they first entered the mountains and encountered a pack of wolves. Gan Erlang had knocked down several wolves with bamboo arrows. Although they didn't know why the bamboo arrows were so powerful that time, those who had scolded Gan Erlang before felt a little regretful when they saw him leave like that. It was too late to make amends now.
Dongger's family watched this scene without saying a word. They carried the clothes, bedding, hoes, axes and other belongings they had stolen from several empty villages nearby, and hurriedly tried to catch up with the Feng family's team. As soon as they left, the family that escaped from the county with whom they temporarily formed a team also hurriedly followed.
The Gan clan members’ faces turned even darker.
The Feng family members glanced at Dong Ge'er and his group. Feng Dalang asked in a low voice who was the one behind Gan Erlang. Gan Erlang said he didn't know who that person was, but he had been following them for two or three days and was relatively well behaved, helping when needed. So the Feng family members didn't say anything and let them follow as long as they didn't get too close.
Feng Erlang had already found a few herbs from the roadside. He poured some water from a bamboo tube, rinsed them, and handed them to Gan Erlang, saying, "Brother Gan, this is the hemostatic medicine that Chen Lie taught us. Crush it and apply it to my sister-in-law's wound."
Gan Erlang originally wanted to look for this medicine as well, but Feng Erlang was one step faster than him. He hurriedly thanked him and took it. His mother had already found a palm-sized stone mortar at home and pounded the medicine with a wooden pestle and applied it to her daughter-in-law.
In the Feng family's team, there were young and strong team leaders in the front and back, and now there was one more person, Gan Erlang, among the people at the back, and among the old and young women and children in the middle of the team, there were three people, the Gan family's mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and grandparents and grandchildren.
There were more than ten people at the end of the team.
The Gan family came after them, wanting to follow but not having the face to do so. They hesitated for a moment, and after some discussion, they helped Gan Laowu pull out the two bamboo arrows from his body, and actually walked in a slightly different direction from the Feng family.
At this time, more than ten days had passed since Chen Lie last took Sang Luo out of the valley. Because she could always find some food, everyone relied on her a lot. Sang Luo could also stay there by herself. The valley was well managed by Chen An and Chen Ning. Except for the time when she went back to deliver something, she had not returned to the valley since then.
Chen Lie and Chen Dashan took turns to lead people out of Lie. She only went with Chen Lie on that trip, and she spent the rest of her time managing the family outside the mountain.
Not only Sangluo was doing this, but several families outside the mountain were doing the same. Although they didn't have a wooden wall, they grew vegetables with a bamboo fence, built a compost pit, and even built a chicken coop or rabbit coop near the cave. They would raise the occasional rabbits they caught alive. At first glance, these six families looked no different from Zhou Laizi and his group and the residents who were currently living in the mountains.
Today it is Chen Lie's turn to lead the team, and Sang Luo has also come out to move around. They don't dare to go too far away from the village outside the village now. If they can still find food in the inner area, they will try their best to rush back. Therefore, they will no longer explore in the direction of Zhou's family, because they have already walked too far. Instead, they will meet at a node between Zhou's family and the village outside the village, and walk in any direction that they have not explored before.
It was just an ordinary day. No one, be it Chen Lie, Sang Luo, or Shi Dalang who followed them, had expected that they were about to turn back. They were just thinking of going to the stream to clean up the hunted prey and there would be such a big surprise.
Just imagine, when Feng Da and Feng Er saw Chen Lie, who was actually a few years younger than them, they were so excited as if they had met their own brother. When Gan Erlang saw Shi Dalang, it was like he really saw his own brother-in-law.
The Feng brothers excitedly called Chen Lie, and Gan Erlang happily called his brother-in-law. Just when they were about to recognize each other, Dong Ge'er, who was a little behind the old Feng family, was so excited that he was not tall and strong, but he rushed forward so fast, his voice was so loud, and his emotions were so full: "Madam Sang! Madam Sang!"
The excited voice and the scene of jumping and leaping forward stunned dozens of people in the Feng family. They all looked sideways, even Feng Da, Feng Er and Gan Erlang were stunned.
No, who is this?
Chen Lie was even more dumbfounded, who called A Luo?
Sang Luo looked in the direction of the voice and saw a man with ill-fitting clothes and a hairstyle more unique than that of the Beggars' Sect members running towards her. From a distance, he pushed his strange, messy hair to the sides as he ran, revealing a face that could barely be recognized: "I, I, Dong Ge'er! Dong Ge'er from Dongfulou!"
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