But natural disasters are never a joke. It was hurtling down at top speed. Everyone was panicking. Many people were unwilling to abandon their belongings and wanted to take some things with them. But at such a critical moment, such behavior was suicidal. A strong middle-aged man grabbed another person and dragged him away, saying, "Are you out of your mind! At a time like this, you're still thinking about those things. You might have the life to take them, but you won't have the life to enjoy them!"
The man was forced to leave, but his eyes kept lingering on his room, filled with reluctance. "These things are what I've saved up for most of my life! How can I let them go? How can I let them go? I've worked hard all my life for these things, and now I can't even take them with me! It's better to kill me!"
The man roared with all his might, and the villagers evacuated to a safe area. They watched as the flints fell straight onto the village, like rain, dense and numerous. They couldn't see the situation in the village, but judging from the speed and quantity of the flints, things certainly weren't going well.
At that time, the village at the foot of Taiping Mountain was just a wild village. Later, because of Taiping Mountain, it was called Taiping Village. Everyone believed that the two names echoed each other, and that the word "Taiping" (Peace) was the beginning of a nightmare, the origin of everyone's fear...
The people of Taiping Village stood in a dense crowd by the roadside. Many were still asleep, their clothes disheveled. They had hastily put on an outer garment and gone out, now standing in the autumn wind, shivering. From time to time, sobs could be heard from the crowd, and some people were making heart-wrenching vows and praying to the gods.
"This natural disaster is truly unreasonable! We did nothing wrong, yet the person who brought this disaster upon us is utterly wicked and should be sent to the deepest hell so that he can experience the true horrors of hell!"
"My life's work! All my hard work! Now it's all gone! Why? God, can you please have mercy on us? Life was already hard enough, and now this has happened! How am I supposed to go on living? My son was only two years old, and it's all been burned. He has nothing to eat and will starve to death this year!"
"Bah! Why did this firestone fall? I'll definitely find out the truth and make that person pay! Natural disaster, natural disaster, you make it sound so nice, but it's all man-made! Now we're starving!"
"If only time could turn back, how wonderful that would be. Time should have stopped just before this happened..."
...
The grumbling continued, and at this moment, almost everyone was in a bad mood. A little boy stood awkwardly to the side, watching everyone's ferocious expressions. He twisted his hands together, at a loss for what to do.
He was different from the other children. He didn't cry or make a fuss. He was not even as tall as an adult's leg, but he was unusually calm. His eyes were like a pool of stagnant water as he looked at the village and his surroundings.
After a long while, when the firestones stopped falling from the sky, they returned to the village, which was indeed completely destroyed. Following their memories, they tried to find the location of their original house in these destroyed places, hoping to see if anything was left behind that could give them a little more hope of survival.
A burly man approached a large firestone, but before he could even touch anything, he was inexplicably repelled by a barrier and even remained suspended in the air for a while. Everyone's eyes involuntarily turned to look in that direction. The burly man fell to the ground, his eyes closed, showing no sign of getting up. Only then did everyone realize that something was wrong.
They walked forward in twos and threes. The first person to reach the strong man touched him with his foot, saying, "Hey, Zhu'er! Wake up!"
The only response he received was the bloodstains left at the corner of Zhu'er's mouth. Seeing someone die, no one dared to make a move. Zhu'er had a child, the little boy who had been standing calmly to the side. At this moment, he was squeezed on the outermost edge of the crowd and could not see what his father looked like. He could only wait for everyone to have seen enough and make room for him so that he could catch a glimpse of what was inside.
But his face remained calm, showing no sign of anything unusual. "This child is hopeless. Even after his own father died, he still has this expression. He's a freak, an ungrateful wretch!"
"What should we do now? It seems we can't stay here any longer, and we can't touch these things either, as they might become the next Zhu'er." The person who was the first to come into contact with Zhu'er spoke up. Everyone was reluctant to give up what they could still keep, but now the situation was clear: if she was unwilling to give up those things, what she would ultimately have to give up was their lives.
For a moment, no one moved. Everyone was clinging to a sliver of hope, thinking that this was just one example and that perhaps others wouldn't be like this. But they didn't want to try it themselves, so they were all waiting for the second person who dared to confront these things.
This person didn't come, and they resigned themselves to going up the mountain. No one cared about Zhu'er's child; no one wanted to raise an ungrateful child around them.
There are plenty of supplies on the mountain, so they never dared to come up before. Abundant supplies also meant a lot of danger, so most of the time they would choose to hunt on the outskirts. But this time, with the whole village here, they had nothing to fear. They wanted to rebuild their home deep in the forest.
Because this forest was spared from natural disasters, and as the saying goes, everything in the world is interconnected and mutually restraining, they felt that there must be some treasure on this mountain since it had not been attacked. So they chose this place, firstly to find its secrets, and secondly to seek refuge.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, a group of about a hundred people stood in front of a cave. The cave was pitch black inside. One of them suggested, "Why don't we settle down here for now? Building houses isn't urgent. The important thing is that so many of us need to eat."
What the man said made sense, but he made a fatal mistake by linking everyone's interests together. The meaning behind his words was all too clear. Fortunately, at first no one was willing to break off relations and say they would only eat their own food, so they resigned themselves to following the man on the hunt. The women then rested and cleaned in the cave.
Unbeknownst to everyone, there was a child who wasn't among them. It was the same boy they had called cold-blooded and heartless. He had short legs, and no one wanted to take him with them. He walked at the back of the group and couldn't keep up with their pace at all. Gradually, he completely lost sight of the people in front of him.
He stood there, pursing his lips, gritting his teeth, and continued climbing upwards, neither crying nor making a fuss, which was quite heartbreaking to see.
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