Chapter 77 The fugitive beggar was caught by the villagers and taken away...
The beggar was grabbed and driven away by the villagers, but when he revealed that the county officials were conscripting men for service and would soon bring them here, the villagers didn't quite believe him.
The village has already paid the military service fees this year, how could they possibly be arrested here? Besides, the village head didn't even come to inform us of such a big matter.
So nobody will believe it.
Apart from Lin Qing'an and his group.
The news Lin Qing'an heard from A Meng was exactly the same as what the beggar had said. Just as he was wondering why a beggar had suddenly entered the village, Chen Gengnian took the initiative to explain.
"I asked Uncle Hu for help."
Lin Qing'an was shocked, only then remembering that Chen Gengnian had spoken to Uncle Hu alone before leaving that day.
"So that's what you were talking about with Uncle Hu that day?"
Chen Gengnian nodded, "At the time, I just told Uncle Hu to find a way to notify the village if there was any big commotion, but I didn't expect the big commotion to come so quickly."
“They don’t believe us, what do we do now?” Lin Qingan asked.
Chen Gengnian shook his head. There was no other way. Informing them was already more than enough.
"or..."
"Impossible."
Before Lin Qing'an could finish speaking, Chen Gengnian, as if he had foreseen it, voiced his denial.
“Most of them won’t be willing to leave, and even if they were willing to come up the mountain with us, we wouldn’t be able to control their hearts.” Chen Gengnian looked at the villagers below and said in a deep voice, “Linjia Village is like a pile of loose sand, impossible to grasp.”
He knew that what he was doing was selfish, but he wouldn't gamble with the lives of his family members; he couldn't afford to.
After discussing it with his family, Chen Gengnian, as the head of the family, proposed going up the mountain. He thought that this matter would be somewhat hindered by the two pampered siblings, but unexpectedly, the first to agree were Mo Xing and Yang Ruo.
On the contrary, Wang Tingting and her daughter hesitated.
Lin Qing'an and the others understood the two men's feelings, so they wrote a letter to A Meng to inform the village head and ask him to come to the village to walk together.
After handing the letter to the village head, A Meng flew to Jinyun Hotel.
When he returned, he brought back only a letter and a person.
When a slender figure knocked on the courtyard gate, Chen Gengnian and Lin Qingan realized that the village head was not among the returning people.
Lin Qingan and Chen Gengnian were not surprised to see the person in front of them.
Lin Qing'an stepped aside and said to the person outside the door, "Come in."
The person outside didn't move. Instead, they knelt down with a thud and whispered, "Brother, brother-in-law, thank you so much for saving my life..."
The little girl's voice was choked and a little hoarse. Lin Qing'an sighed deeply, went over and helped her up. He looked at her face and smiled, saying, "You've gained some weight. You look even better with a fuller face."
As he spoke, he raised his hand to brush the raindrops off her cloak, and pulled her into the courtyard, saying, "Pan'er, let's not dwell on the past. I hope you can start anew."
Lin Pan'er nodded, tears streaming down her face.
Upon entering the house, Lin Yanfeng, Lin Jing, and the others were all shocked to see Lin Pan'er.
When Wang Tingting saw that her father was not among the visitors, she got up and was about to go out to look for him, but before she could go out, Chen Gengnian called her back.
He then handed her the letter that Ah Meng had brought back, saying, "This is a letter that Uncle Village Head brought back. Take a look at it first."
After reading the letter, Wang Tingting cried uncontrollably. Seeing this, Aunt Wang didn't ask any more questions and just kept comforting her daughter.
Over the years, she had come to know her husband's stubborn nature; from the moment they left home, she knew they might never see each other again.
Now that her last glimmer of hope has been shattered, she has no choice but to grit her teeth and keep going. She is not alone; she must carry her daughter through this journey so that when they meet again, neither of them can be missing!
Later that evening, after some discussion, Chen Yuetao went to talk to someone she usually got along well with, trying to persuade him to change his mind, while Chen Gengnian went to see the village chief.
Ultimately, they couldn't bear to abandon the entire village; after all, those were precious human lives.
When Chen Gengnian met the village chief, he didn't beat around the bush and went straight to the point, telling him what he had heard. The village chief was silent for a few seconds, still somewhat incredulous.
"Ah Nian, are you telling the truth?"
When Chen Gengnian heard the village chief ask this question, he knew that the village chief did not believe him. He frowned and said, "Village chief, I also heard it secondhand. Although this matter is not yet certain, I personally think you should inform everyone to avoid it. Otherwise, it will be too late to run away when the time comes."
The village chief hesitated for a moment, then sighed a few times before speaking: "It's not that I don't want to notify them, but even if I did, what could I do? Every family has its members, young and old. I don't think anyone would want to be displaced just to avoid this."
Seeing the village chief's resolute expression, Chen Gengnian knew that his trip to persuade him was in vain. He got up to leave, but the village chief stopped him in time.
"A-Nian, where is your family moving to?"
"I don't know, but let's move out first."
Chen Gengnian did not tell the village chief his true intentions. Before leaving, he tried to persuade him one last time. Seeing that his expression was indeed very serious, the village chief reluctantly nodded and said that he would inform everyone again tomorrow to see what everyone thought.
The village chief was usually a decent person, so Chen Gengnian said to him earnestly, "Village chief, you should have a better understanding of the current situation than I do. If we are captured and sent to the front line, we may never be able to come back. It's not that we are afraid of dying, it's that the world is too chaotic. Those who are actually receiving military pay are cowards, while we civilians are just scapegoats captured by them."
Having said all that, Chen Gengnian didn't care whether he would listen or not. Good words are useless against a damned devil; he had done all he could.
When Chen Yuetao returned in the evening, she finally brought back some good news: several families were willing to move with her, while others were unwilling no matter what.
So after discussing it, Chen Gengnian and the others decided to get up early tomorrow and make two trips to move some things into the mountains, since it would be difficult for Lin Qing'an to find out about the situation with too many strangers.
After everything was decided, everyone went to bed early, hoping to get up early the next day.
The people of Linjia Village said they didn't believe what had happened in the past hundred days, but they couldn't sleep because they kept thinking about it, especially the families that Chen Yuetao had visited.
After the New Year, the lanterns in every household were extinguished, and at night, the village returned to its pitch-black state. In recent years, despite the ongoing wars outside, the neighboring villages were particularly safe, so no defenses were set up.
While everyone was asleep, Lin A's dog at the village entrance suddenly started barking incessantly, and soon all the dogs in the village joined in.
Lin Yongxin was woken up by his wife's kick and got up to check. As soon as he opened the door, he was startled by the torches at the village entrance that were as bright as day. Before he could even wonder what was going on, the deafening sound of horses' hooves rushed over.
Lin Yongxin was suddenly so frightened that his face turned pale and his legs trembled. He used all his strength to close the courtyard gate and stumbled and shouted as he ran into the house.
"Heaven-sent mother... bandits... bandits are coming..."
The trembling shout was instantly drowned out by a rough shout.
"Brothers, take everything useful!"
By the time Zhou Caixia heard the sound of horses' hooves, the sound of howling wolves had already entered the village. Before everyone could react, the door had already been violently kicked open.
Immediately, heart-wrenching cries and pleas for mercy echoed throughout the night sky.
Just as Lin Qing'an was sound asleep nestled in Chen Gengnian's arms, A Meng burst in.
"Wake up! The bandits have broken in!"
Chen Gengnian sat up with a jolt, "What?"
Lin Qingan was also frightened and got up as well.
All I could hear were cries and cheers...
"So many bandits are looting the village..." Even Ah Meng, who was usually the calmest, was a little flustered.
The two grabbed whatever clothes were around them and rushed out. As they went out, they saw Mo Xing and Yang Ruo heading towards their room, each of them holding a sword.
There was no time to think about where the two men's swords came from, nor to think about why they were running towards their door. The most important thing now was to deal with the situation and escape.
Chen Gengnian quickly came up with a plan and said to the brother and sister, "Yangruo, you stay here, Moxing and I will go down and take a look."
Everyone inside the house was startled by the commotion in the village and ran out. When Chen Gengnian saw the light on in the house, he quickly shouted, "Quickly turn off the light, just leave one on."
The people who had just turned on the lights quickly blew them out.
Chen Gengnian calmed down and said to Lin Qing'an, "Qing, you and Yang Ruo lead everyone up the mountain quickly, we'll come later."
"Okay!" Lin Qing'an had no objections and took out several flashlights he had prepared earlier from his treasure bag and distributed them to everyone. Then he led the group up the mountain.
At this moment, Lin Jing and Liu Yiyi also ran up, panting. Chen Gengnian arranged for the two of them to go into the mountains with everyone, but Lin Jing wanted to stay. Just as Chen Gengnian saw her about to speak, he stopped her and said forcefully, "Jing, protecting your family is also your responsibility."
After hearing this, Lin Jing didn't say anything more and went into the mountain with everyone.
After seeing that everyone's figures were blocked by the trees, Chen Gengnian and Mo Xing ran down the mountain.
Chen Gengnian went down with the intention of driving away the bandits, but his thoughts changed when he saw the countless groups of people.
The two of them couldn't handle this group, so they had no choice but to fight them off while leading those who could escape up the mountain.
He and Mo Xing acted as a support for these fleeing villagers.
Very few people actually listened to Chen Gengnian and rushed up the mountain; most of them scattered and did not follow the route Chen Gengnian had given them.
When Lin Qing'an returned, he only met a few people. He told A Meng to lead those people further into the mountains, while he himself continued to meet the people who came later at his doorstep.
The village was brightly lit by torches, and only after Chen Gengnian saw that most of the villagers at the end of the village had been evacuated did he pick up a handy stick and head towards the front of the village to rescue more people.
A few steps further, they saw a group of people robbing Wang Shu's house. Wu Xiangmei's wailing and crying were heartbreaking. Chen Gengnian would never stand idly by and watch her die. He went up and fought with two bandits who were carrying grain sacks and were about to smash them over Wu Xiangmei's head.
He had only kicked once when Mo Xing, who was standing next to him, swiftly kicked both of them to the ground in a few leaps.
Only then did Chen Gengnian realize just how good this person's kung fu was.
It wasn't until after several more fights that Chen Gengnian realized that Mo Xing seemed to have been by his side the whole time, intentionally or unintentionally protecting him.
While resisting, Chen Gengnian said, "Moxing, don't worry about me. You're good at martial arts, go save other people."
"Okay!" Mo Xing agreed verbally, but still just hovered around Chen Gengnian.
Chen Gengnian had no interest in discussing these matters further and focused solely on fighting the enemy.
After a fight, Chen Gengnian discovered that the bandits, apart from robbing grain and oil, had not seriously injured anyone, and many villagers no longer ran away or resisted, but instead hid in one place and let them rob them.
Just as Chen Gengnian breathed a sigh of relief, even more intense fighting sounds came from the village entrance.
Chen Gengnian and Mo Xing exchanged a glance, just then they heard someone shout, "The soldiers are here! Everyone, run!"
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