Ouyang Zhenyu followed the supervisor out.
The sun hadn't risen yet, but it was already light from this position.
Even through the fog, you can see everything around you clearly.
Just then, I saw four or five people come out from next door.
They were all women, both young and old.
However, three of them were elderly people in their sixties, and two of them were the only young women among the little girls.
He looked so thin he looked like a ghost. Ouyang Zhenyu turned his head and met the other person's gaze.
Ouyang Zhenyu guessed that this must be Xiuzhi.
Xiuzhi held tightly to two little girls who were about seven or eight years old.
Ouyang Zhenyu guessed that the two girls were Xiuzhi's children. One of the girls was seven or eight years old, and the other was only five or six years old.
The two exchanged a glance, then subtly looked away.
Xiuzhi was overwhelmed with emotion; she hadn't expected the young man next to her to be so capable.
Even after being captured, he still managed to hide food on his person.
He was a little stunned when he received those six cookies yesterday, especially since he had heard that these cookies were very filling.
I've never seen it before.
Last night, six people each ate half a cookie.
Ouyang Zhenyu was unaware that there were three elderly women living in Xiuzhi's cave.
One was Xiuzhi's biological mother, another was Xiuzhi's mother-in-law, and the third was her great-aunt.
The two little girls are Xiuzhi's two daughters.
Men and women are detained separately here, and the reason why their family was brought together is because there were too many people from their family who were arrested. It's as if all three families were wiped out.
It was her husband, father-in-law, and grandfather who risked their lives to protect her and her children.
Otherwise, from the very beginning, Xiuzhi would probably have been dragged out and offered to that so-called Brother Shan.
She saved herself by sacrificing her husband's life.
Regardless, Xiuzhi gritted her teeth and thought to herself that she would protect her family and take good care of her daughter.
Otherwise, she would be letting her man down, since he was genuinely acting out of compassion.
Everyone who gets caught here is initially very courageous and tries to escape again and again.
But that would only lead to people losing their lives.
Everyone who's just been captured goes through this ordeal; nobody wants to stay here, but in the end, everyone accepts their fate.
She truly gave away her knife out of compassion, but she regretted it immediately afterward, as she had kept the fruit knife for self-defense.
If Brother Shan had any ulterior motives towards her, she was determined to die together with him.
Now that this knife has been given to a stranger, it means that the last safeguard between him, his children, and the elderly is completely gone.
She felt extremely regretful yesterday when the man surnamed Jiang didn't return the knife to her.
But when Xiuzhi heard the value of the six cookies in her hand, she no longer regretted it.
These six cookies will allow them to live a few more days; they certainly cannot die.
Their lives were bought with their husbands' lives.
A husband is not only her husband, but also the father of her children and the son of her mother.
These people have no reason to die; they should live well.
That's how you honor the dead.
If their lives had always been stagnant, with no one able to see a way out and only able to work numbly every day.
If one day they collapse or fall ill, death awaits them.
No one thought about escaping, because there was no way out; this place was like a den of demons.
Even if Xiuzhi had such thoughts, they had long been worn away by time. She had been here for three months and had never seen anyone escape.
Even if I had such thoughts at the beginning, they gradually faded away because I couldn't escape them.
But now this new young man has suddenly rekindled hope in her heart.
What if someone could help them escape? She didn't believe the young man would give up hope so quickly.
Perhaps someone can change all this; that young man can hide more by hiding six cookies.
Ouyang Zhenyu was led by the overseer to the front of a cave.
There were three or four adult men gathered here, all of them young and strong laborers. However, unlike Ouyang Zhenyu, the other three were thin and bony, and their bodies were covered with whip marks.
The expressions on the three people's faces were extremely numb, a numbness that was chilling to behold.
It was as if there were no expectations, only the waiting for death to arrive.
The foreman looked at the four men and couldn't help but sneer.
“The four of you are the only strong laborers we have here. Starting tomorrow, there will be five of you.”
From now on, we need to speed up the excavation of this cave and open it up as an experimental site as soon as possible.
I'm telling you, this cave must be dug out within ten days.
"If any of you dare to slack off, I'll kill you if you don't finish your task."
The man lashed out with his whip, the lash striking all four men hard.
Ouyang Zhenyu felt a sharp pain in his back.
This was the first time he had ever been whipped.
The foreman pointed to the cave.
"What are you standing there for? Hurry up and go inside, grab your tools and get to work."
I'm telling you, I'll be guarding outside the cave. Anyone who dares to slack off will be killed.
The whip lashed out again, and the others hurriedly grabbed their tools.
Ouyang Zhenyu looked at the tools over there; they were basically just picks, shovels, hoes, plus baskets and wheelbarrows.
He grabbed a pickaxe and went straight into the cave.
There's no reason for him to be beaten. Even if he were to fight back, he couldn't possibly defeat so many people by himself, especially since the other side had guns.
Ouyang Zhenyu bent down and entered the cave, only to find that the cave had actually been excavated for some time, but the progress was rather slow.
It looks like they only dug a space about the size of five or six people.
The space is quite cramped, and even swinging a pickaxe carries some risk; one wrong move and you could scrape the roof.
This place will obviously take more time to excavate, with just four people?
The other three people also came in looking disheveled, carrying their tools, but their expressions were completely blank.
The three people came to the stone wall and began to work.
As soon as Ouyang Zhenyu struck with his pickaxe, a rock fell down. The others glanced at Ouyang Zhenyu.
A man in his thirties said weakly,
"Brother, you're new here. Save your energy."
Even if the four of us talked for ten days straight, we still couldn't dig out this hole.
Do you know how big they're going to dig?
This hole needs to be at least 1,000 square meters in size. Look how small this place is now.
Even if the four of us risked our lives, we still couldn't dig it out.
"Aren't you afraid that you'll really kill us in four days?"
The man gave a bitter laugh.
"Isn't dying and living the same now?"
We're always hungry, we only get one meal a day, and that meal consists of just two cornbread buns. How long do you think we can survive?
It's hard to say whether we'll even survive ten days.
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