Chapter 61 The Little Koi Buys Out All the Steamed Bun Shops in the City
The fleet docked at a pier ten miles outside Yunmeng County.
The area is located at a higher elevation and was fortunate enough to escape the flood, but it has become a huge refugee camp.
Everywhere I looked, there were families of disaster victims, their faces pale and emaciated.
They built makeshift shacks out of rags and rotten wood, their eyes vacant, huddled together numbly.
Within Mu Yu's "Eye of Fortune," this place was shrouded in an impenetrable gray mist.
In some places, black threads, symbolizing death, have even begun to drift out.
Her face turned pale instantly.
This was far more terrifying than the black hemp rope she had seen in the cold palace.
She sniffed hard with her little nose, but what she smelled was no longer the sweet fragrance of osmanthus cake, nor the pleasant scent of soapberry on her father.
Instead, it was a bitter taste that made her heart ache.
"Father..."
Her little hands gripped Mu Fang's armor tightly.
"The people here... are all crying."
Holding his daughter, Mu Fang looked at the tragic scene before him, and even the iron-willed general's eyes reddened.
He had fought on the battlefield for many years and seen mountains of corpses and seas of blood, but he had never seen such a large-scale, living hell on earth.
Chu Chongjin stood at the bow of the ship, his face icy cold.
"What about the local officials?"
He asked a minor official who had come to meet him.
The clerk's legs trembled with fear, and he stammered, "Your Highness... the magistrate... he... he's organizing... organizing a rescue effort in the city..."
"Rescue?"
Chu Chongjin sneered and pointed at the tens of thousands of starving disaster victims on the dock.
"Is this the relief effort he organized? Where are the soup kitchens? Where are the medicines? Where is the first batch of disaster relief funds allocated by the imperial court?"
The minor official was sweating profusely and unable to speak.
Xiao Beichen couldn't stand it any longer. He dismounted and grabbed a refugee who still seemed to have some strength.
"Fellow villagers, hasn't the government given you any food?"
The disaster victim looked at him with cloudy eyes, shook his head, and had chapped lips.
"Sir... for two days they gave out rice porridge so thin you could see your reflection in it... and then... that was it..."
"They said there wasn't enough food... so they told us to wait a little longer..."
Another woman, holding a child who was so thin he was just skin and bones, cried, "My child has had a fever for days, and he hasn't even been able to get a sip of hot water, let alone any medicine... Sir, please, save my child..."
Cries and pleas filled the air.
The disaster victims seemed to see this as a lifeline and flocked towards the fleet.
The Xuanjia soldiers immediately formed a human wall to prevent a stampede.
Hearing the heart-wrenching cries around her, Mu Yu's small body trembled uncontrollably in Mu Fang's arms.
She suddenly remembered something.
"Father, my little bundle!"
She called out urgently.
Mu Fang was stunned for a moment, then immediately ordered his guards to bring over Mu Yu's bulging bundle embroidered with little koi fish.
These are snacks that Princess Jianing and Qin Zheng gave me before I left, as well as medicinal candies specially made by Xie Zhiwei.
Mu Yu untied the entire bundle and poured out all its contents.
Candy, dried meat, small toys... were scattered all over the ground.
She ignored those things and instead took out something shiny from her small purse.
Those were golden melon seeds bestowed upon her by her grandfather, the emperor, and gold leaves that she had secretly "borrowed" from her father's study.
This is all her "secret stash of money".
She stuffed the large handful of gold into Xiao Beichen's hand.
"Brother Beichen!"
She tilted her small face up, her tone more serious than ever before.
"Go quickly! Use these to buy steamed buns! Buy lots and lots of steamed buns!"
"It should be white, soft, and filling!"
Xiao Beichen looked at the heavy gold in his hand, then at the anxious little baby. The tall, 1.8-meter-tall young general felt a lump in his throat and almost burst into tears.
"good!"
He nodded emphatically, without asking a single question.
"I'll go right away!"
He took two personal guards with him and immediately rode his horse toward the market in the county town where business was still possible.
Chu Chongjin watched this scene with a complex expression in his eyes.
He knew that this small amount of steamed buns was a drop in the ocean for tens of thousands of disaster victims.
But he did not stop it.
Because he saw that when Mu Yu made this decision, the faint seven-colored halo around her seemed to brighten a little.
This little koi is fulfilling its "auspicious" duty in the most direct and pure way.
Xiao Beichen returned very soon.
He was followed by more than a dozen carts, piled high with steaming white steamed buns.
He bought up almost all the grain stores' stock in the city.
"The steamed buns are here!"
A loud shout rekindled the light in the eyes of the numb disaster victims.
"Line up! Everyone line up!"
The Xuanjia soldiers quickly maintained order and guided the disaster victims into several long lines.
Mu Yu struggled to get down from Mu Fang's arms.
Wearing that ridiculous pink armor and blindfolded, she was helped by Yan Ziche to a large wooden barrel.
The wooden bucket was filled with steaming hot steamed buns.
"I'll send it."
She said.
Mu Fang wanted to refuse, but seeing his daughter's tense little face, he finally nodded and stood behind her.
The first person to receive a steamed bun was a little boy who was about the same height as Mu Yu, but he was even thinner and smaller than Mu Yu, and his whole body was dirty.
He stretched out his small, dark hand and looked timidly at Mu Yu.
Mu Yu groped around and picked up a large, soft steamed bun, then accurately stuffed it into his hand.
"Here you go, eat up, it'll give you energy."
The little boy looked at the steamed bun in his hand, then at the beautiful little girl he couldn't see, and burst into tears, wolfing down the bun as he cried.
Mu Yu continued posting.
She couldn't see the other person's face, but she could "smell" everyone's scent.
Some people are covered in the gray of despair, some in the pale black of illness, and some in the deathly white of hunger.
She would whisper a sentence after handing out each steamed bun.
"Grandpa, you must get well soon."
"Little sister, don't cry. You won't be sad anymore after eating some sweet cake... no, I mean, some steamed bun."
"Big brother, the light around you is almost gone, you need to eat more!"
Her voice was soft and gentle, yet it flowed like a warm current into the hearts of everyone who received the steamed buns.
What they received seemed to be more than just a steamed bun; it was a glimmer of hope.
Chu Chongjin stood not far away, watching quietly.
In Mu Yu's sea of consciousness, her small pond of good fortune, which had been losing its fortune and its water level dropping due to the disaster in the south, suddenly stopped losing its fortune.
Moreover, as she distributed more and more steamed buns, golden spring water began to slowly seep back from the bottom of the pond, drop by drop.
Although slow, it is real growth!
So this is what it feels like to "do good deeds".
It's even more delightful than eating a thousand pieces of sweet cake!
The steamed buns rose very quickly.
Many people have not yet received theirs.
But no one complained, and no one looted.
Those who received a steamed bun would share half with the person next to them.
Seeing this scene, Chu Chongjin turned around and coldly spoke to the trembling clerk.
"Take me to the county government office."
"I want to ask the magistrate of Yunmeng County personally: are the people of the Great Chu Kingdom only worthy of his few bowls of rice soup so thin you can see your reflection in it!"
The official's legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com