"Success!" Shen Yanshan said excitedly.
When the wall rose, Qi Yanxuan cut the rope connecting the horse and the carriage, and put it into the space while no one was paying attention while others were busy escaping.
"Well! Let's go now! It will be a bad ending if more soldiers come after us." As he said that, he jumped onto the horse.
Shen Yanshan and Shen Yanqing also got on their horses immediately. Shen Yanshan rode alone, and after Shen Yanqing got on the horse, he put his hands around Qi Yanxuan and grabbed the reins. The three of them and their horses quickly caught up with the people in front.
…
The county magistrate and constables not far away looked at the wall rising from the ground, their jaws almost dropping in shock.
The soldiers who caught up with them tightened their reins and looked at the wall that suddenly appeared across the road in disbelief. They tried to destroy the wall with weapons, but the wall was too thick. It took them a long time to poke a few big holes in the earth wall, but they found that the crowd had already run away, so they had to turn back and walk towards the county magistrate's team.
Because the county magistrate and the constable were both in their regular uniforms, the leader of the soldiers didn't recognize them. He simply turned around and said to his soldiers, "Take all the men here back!"
When the constables saw that the other party was about to attack, although they didn't understand what was going on, they quickly drew their swords and blocked the county magistrate.
When the county magistrate saw the tense scene, he immediately spoke out to stop it: "I am the county magistrate of Qingzhou City." Then he took out the official seal from his pocket.
Seeing that it was an official, the leader of the soldiers immediately asked his men to put down their weapons and gestured for him to come in. "Since you are an official, please make your own way. I have official business to attend to, so I will excuse you!"
As he said this, he galloped away with his soldiers.
…
In the mountains.
Everyone looked behind them and found that the soldiers had not caught up with them. They couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
"I finally escaped. It was so scary. I almost got drafted. If I had been captured, I would have had a hard time coming back alive!" A man said, panting with lingering fear.
The people nearby echoed, "That's right! This is all thanks to the team ahead. Otherwise, we would have foolishly walked towards the city gate and wouldn't have been able to escape!"
…
As soon as the people from Kaoshan Village went up the mountain, they saw Shen Yanqing and the other two leading horses in front of them, and hurried towards them.
The three of them rode their horses to the mountain before them. As soon as they arrived at the mountain, Qi Yanxuan took out the food and loaded it onto the horse, which was led by the Shen family father and son.
Now that everyone is here and no one is injured, the village chief can breathe a sigh of relief.
"Everyone's here, let's go! I feel uneasy staying here!"
"We've run so far, those officers and soldiers can't catch up for the time being! There's a flat place ahead, let's go there to rest!" Qi Yanxuan naturally knew that those soldiers had already gone back, and seeing that everyone was panting, he had to speak to reassure everyone.
"good!"
A quarter of an hour later, everyone came to a flat piece of dry grass. It was autumn now, and many leaves had turned yellow. Occasionally, a breeze blew, carrying pieces of dead leaves flying in the air, like dead leaf butterflies dancing in the wind, which was magnificent.
But Qi Yanxuan was probably the only one who was still in the mood to appreciate this beautiful scenery. The others all had sad faces. It was already difficult enough to escape the famine, and now they were facing conscription. They didn't know what the road ahead would be like.
The sun was at its highest point and it was time for lunch. After running such a long distance, everyone's stomachs were growling with hunger and they didn't have the energy to think about much else. However, no one dared to light a fire and cook, for fear that the officers and soldiers on the city wall would see the smoke and chase after them. They could only chew the food dry.
Chewing food dry was really choking. Fortunately, Qi Yanxuan had taught them how to collect water, otherwise everyone would have had another problem.
After an incense stick of time, everyone rested again.
Village Chief: "Where are we going now?"
Chen Kui said: "If we keep going south, we will eventually get out of the forest. Besides, we don't know what it's like outside. Maybe we can find some food in the forest."
The group began to travel through the forest. The forest here was not as difficult to walk through as the dense forest before. The trees along the way were as thick as bowls, and the thickest were only as thick as buckets. Although it was on the mountain, the road was still easy to walk on, and even a cart could be pushed through, which greatly reduced the burden of everyone's journey.
When the sun was about to set, everyone was preparing to look for a place to stay when they heard a woman's painful groans and a man's panicked cries in the distance.
"Ah! It hurts! Husband, I can't take it anymore, my stomach hurts so much!"
A pregnant woman was holding her belly and could not stand on her legs. She was supported by the man next to her and did not fall to the ground.
The woman's belly looked like she was about to give birth. The man looked at his pale wife, whose face was covered with layers of cold sweat due to the pain, and felt heartbroken.
"Madam! Sit down and rest for a while. We are so far away, those people won't catch up with us!"
The man carefully helped his wife sit on the ground. Because her belly was too big, the woman couldn't sit down directly, so she could only lean against the man.
But the woman's complexion did not improve after sitting down to rest. Instead, it became paler and paler, and her lips were bitten tightly because of the pain.
After a while, the woman noticed that her body was a little wet. She reached out and touched it, and found that her amniotic fluid had broken.
"Husband! I'm about to give birth, what should I do?" The woman's panicked crying was heard.
Giving birth is already like having one foot in the gates of hell for a woman, and on top of that, she suffered a miscarriage from running for her life. Now they were in the wilderness, without anyone to turn to, let alone a midwife.
The man had obviously thought of this, but even though the color had drained from his face, he still comforted his wife in his arms, "It's okay! It will be okay!"
"Help! Help! My wife is about to give birth, is there anyone who can help me?"
The man shouted at the top of his lungs, his cries for help echoing everywhere, hoping someone could hear him. Although he knew the chances were slim, he couldn't deliver a baby, so he could only hope that other people who had escaped were nearby, hoping that there might be a midwife or a doctor among them.
"Someone come! Someone help me save my wife! She's about to give birth!"
"Don't be afraid, my lady. Someone will definitely hear it, for sure!"
While shouting, the man did not forget to comfort his wife who was screaming in his arms, but he was also comforting himself. He was also very scared, afraid that no one was nearby, but fortunately, the team led by Qi Yanxuan heard it.
"Who's calling for help?"
"It seems like someone is going to give birth. How can anyone give birth in this remote place? Is this a ghost?"
"That shouldn't be the case. Ghosts don't give birth to children. I'm afraid they fled to the mountains like us."
"Should we go and have a look?"
"Go ahead! If you don't care about other things, then forget it. But giving birth without a doctor will result in two deaths."
The villagers of Kaoshan Village discussed it together and finally decided to go and take a look.
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