Chapter 55 It's all your fault
"Have you thought it through?" Ye Jingchen's voice came from behind with a chill, and the hunting knife in his palm emitted a cold light. "Have you forgotten how these people mocked you in the beginning?" His eyes swept over the crowd huddled in the cave, paused on a gray-clothed old man, and his Adam's apple rolled unnaturally.
Wu Yuetang stuck the torch into the rock wall, sparks splashing into the puddles with a sizzling sound. As she turned, the hem of her raincoat brushed against the back of Ye Jingchen's hand. She leaned close to the boy's ear, her warm breath mingling with the scent of rainwater. "I want to see if someone who's been soaked in the rain for so many days can still maintain his composure."
As she spoke, she raised her voice and shouted into the cave, "If you want to live, follow me now! If you don't obey, you will be fed to the fish!"
The cave erupted in chaos. Some stumbled to their feet, only to be held tightly by their families. Several children cried and clung to their mothers' legs, mud and water dripping down their trouser legs. Ye Jingchen's gaze remained fixed on the Ye family members in the corner—those who claimed to be his family were now gazing at the two of them with malicious resentment.
"I'll protect you." Wu Yuetang suddenly pressed his tense shoulders, the heat coming from her fingertips through the fabric. "But if they dare to run wild in my territory..."
Her unfinished words were shattered by a thunderclap, but it also caused Ye Jingchen's tense muscles to slowly relax. He clenched the darts at his waist, and under the cover of the heavy rain, a cold smile appeared at the corner of his lips that no one could notice.
The eighty or so people still left in the cave were huddled together, and the stench of decay mixed with the smell of blood hit their faces. Wu Yuetang waded through the muddy rainwater on the ground and walked to the bottom of Shandong, only then could he see the tragic situation in the cave.
There were several corpses wrapped in straw mats lying in the corner of the wall, with gray hair hanging from the gaps. They were the old people who could not survive the cold night.
"Line up by severity of injury! Women and children go first!" She unsheathed a rope and secured it to the rock protrusion on the cave wall. Ye Jingchen had already neatly secured the anchor. Ye Jingchen's hunting knife flashed coldly in the rain, precisely slicing through the broken logs blocking the cave entrance and startling a swarm of dormant, poisonous mosquitoes. As the first child was lifted onto the makeshift raft, a sudden scream erupted from the back of the crowd.
"It's all your fault!" Chen Chunhe suddenly rushed over, her nails almost digging into Wu Yuetang's face. "If you hadn't told us there was a cave on the mountainside, how could we be trapped here?"
Aunt Sun's son then shouted at the top of his voice: "Are you pretending to save people now? What were you doing before?" The foul words mixed with saliva splashed on the raincoat. The villagers who originally wanted to follow the evacuation stopped and their eyes wandered between the two sides.
Ye Jingchen pressed his dagger against Chen Chunhe's throat with a clang: "Say one more word, and I'll make you taste the effects of a mountain torrent."
His voice was colder than a rainstorm, yet it trembled slightly the moment it touched the people of the Ye family in the corner - his family members actually looked as if they didn't know him, and seemed to want to distance themselves from him so that this war had nothing to do with them.
Wu Yuetang showed impatience, and her voice was cold: "If you want to die, stay here and feed the snakes!"
She pulled the pregnant woman closest to her and stuffed her into Ye Jingchen's arms without saying a word, "If you don't want your child to be born in this damn place, just shut up!" This sentence touched everyone's soft spot, the crying gradually weakened, and the team began to move slowly.
Heavy rain washed the mountain road, and the two men ran back and forth like a tireless machine.
Ye Jingchen rushed through the mud carrying the child with a high fever on his back, while Wu Yuetang held up a thick branch to block the rocks that could roll down at any time.
By the time the last villager was dragged up to the mountaintop cave, the sky was already turning pale. Over eighty wet figures huddled against the dry rock face, but Chen Chunhe and Aunt Sun remained huddled in the shadows. Their resentful gazes were like a thorn in their flesh, burning invisible wounds on their exhausted backs.
Sparks from the bonfire crackled, distorting the figures on the rock wall. Wu Yuetang had just finished bandaging the wounded man's last wound when the old village chiefs from the three villages gathered around him, trembling.
Grandpa Wang, the head of Maiduo Village, took out a piece of food wrapped in oil paper from his pocket, his wrinkled face full of guilt: "Thanks to you, if not..."
"Wild boar meat? You actually have wild boar meat!" A sharp question suddenly pierced the warmth. Chen Chunhe dragged her exhausted body, pushing through the crowd and rushing out, her muddy fingers poking Wu Yuetang's nose. "We've been down there for six days and six nights, gnawing on tree roots and moss, and you're hiding up there enjoying the good life!" Her howl was like a fuse, and the crowd instantly boiled over.
"No wonder they brought us up here today! Turns out they wanted to take it all for themselves!"
"What kind of savior? He's just a beast who watched someone die without helping!"
Foul words and spit flew out. The veins on Wu Yuetang's hand, clutching the bandage, bulged. Before he could speak, a roar like thunder suddenly erupted from deep within the cave.
The eldest brother, Wu Qingeng, shouldered a sickle half the height of a man and pushed through the crowd, leaving sparks on the ground. "Bullshit! My younger sister and Brother Ye risked their lives to hunt the wild boar. Who are you to dictate to us?"
Second brother Wu Yongqiao picked up the axe from the corner and said, "I told you to go to the top of the mountain, but you thought it was too far! Now you've learned to confuse right and wrong?"
His roar startled the swifts outside the cave and scattered them, and a few dead leaves fell on the shoulders of the cursing villagers.
Father Wu Shoutian stabbed the ground with his welding torch, his cloudy eyes burning with anger. "Our Wu family has lived in this village for generations. When there was a disaster, we always risked our lives to save people. You are such a heartless bunch..."
Before she could finish her words, Madam Li had already grabbed a firewood stick from the stove and started to hit the nearest troublemaker. "Get out! Get out of this cave! You ungrateful bastards! You should all rot in the puddle down there!"
The most shocking incident occurred in the corner of the cave. Third brother Wu Zhiyun had emerged carrying a freshly fed hyena cub. The sleek little hyena, its long, scarlet tongue hanging out, whimpering softly from its throat.
The third brother approached with a sneer, holding the hyena in his arms: "Want to run wild? This guy hasn't had meat in a long time."
In the halo of torchlight, the faces of the rescued villagers shifted between fear and resentment. Some quietly retreated a half-step, still stiffening their necks and shouting; others stared at the weapons in the hands of the Wu siblings, their Adam's apples rolling nervously.
Ye Jingchen, who had been silent all the time, now had three darts between his fingers, and the cold light reflected the dangerous curve at the corners of his mouth.
He had been watching his so-called family, as well as Wu Yuetang's grandparents and their family. As long as they did anything out of line, the darts would fly towards their throats without mercy.
Ye Jingchen didn't know what was wrong. Ever since he saw the ugliness of human nature while fleeing from the famine, an unknown ruthlessness arose in his body, as if these behaviors were what he did often.
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