"Little sister, have some food. Grandma Zhao added dried meat to today's wild vegetable porridge. It's delicious. Your wound will heal faster if you eat your fill." It was Chunni's voice.
This morning, dried meat was added to the wild vegetable porridge. Perhaps it was because Grandma Zhao felt sorry for her, but Lin Yinan's bowl had a lot of dried meat in it.
Lin Xiaomei is so young, and with her broken hand and no medicine available, she might not be able to pull through by just toughing it out.
Lin Yinan finished the rice in her bowl in a few bites.
Lin Xiaomei cried for an unknown amount of time, her voice hoarse from the intense pain, and she kept patting the stretcher with her good hand.
"It hurts! It hurts so much! Sister, I don't want to live anymore! It's killing me!"
Lin Chunni quickly pressed her down, trying hard to hold back her tears. Sister Anan said that her face was covered in medicine and couldn't get wet.
She pleaded, her voice trembling with tears, "Little sister, please don't do this! I won't let you die!"
Lin Yinan lifted the curtain and went in, holding a painkiller injection and a small porcelain bottle in her hand.
Lin Chunni's eyes lit up with joy, as if she had seen a savior.
"Sister Anan, come quickly and come see my little sister! She's in so much pain!"
Lin Xiaomei's face was pale, and large beads of sweat appeared on her forehead from the pain. She reached out her hand to Lin Yinan and sobbed, "Sister Yinan, it hurts! It hurts so much!"
Lin Yinan stepped forward, took out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and comforted her gently, "Don't be afraid, I'll give you an acupuncture, and it will stop hurting right away."
Lin Xiaomei suddenly felt a bite on her lower back, like an ant, and flinched.
"Don't move! It'll be fine in a bit."
A moment later, Lin Yinan put away the needle and, using her sleeve to conceal it, placed the used painkiller into her spatial storage.
She helped Lin Xiaomei straighten her clothes and handed Lin Chunni a small porcelain bottle.
He instructed, "If she starts to feel pain around dinner time, give her one pill of the medicine inside. Starting tomorrow, give her one pill in the morning and one pill in the evening."
Lin Chunni shook the bottle and found that there were only a few pills left. "What if we finish them all?"
"There's a ten-day supply inside. Once she finishes it, she'll have to bear it on her own. But by then, she won't be in as much pain."
"Okay! I've got it. Thank you, Sister Anan." Lin Chunni thanked her sincerely, then carefully put the small porcelain bottle into her bosom.
After Lin Yinan went out, she squatted down and looked at her younger sister who was gradually calming down.
"Little sister, how are you feeling?"
Lin Xiaomei turned her head, her face still pale, "Sister, I don't think I'm in so much pain anymore."
Lin Chunni quickly picked up the bowl, "While it doesn't hurt anymore, let me feed you."
"Yes, I need to get better soon."
Stepping out of the tent, Lin Yinan saw Chunni's mother silently wiping away tears with her sleeve, with two boys standing beside her.
"Anan, thank you!" Chunni's mother bowed to her excitedly.
Lin Yinan quickly turned to the side and changed the subject, "Auntie, hurry up and pack your things, we need to get going soon."
As soon as the sun came out, all the snow that fell yesterday melted.
The roads are very difficult to travel after the snow melts. They are muddy and the cart wheels often get stuck in the mud, requiring a lot of effort to push them out.
The procession was large, with many people and carts, so the pace of travel was very slow.
Corpses frozen to death were frequently found on the official road. They died in various ways, including men, women, the elderly, and children. They were all thinly dressed, and some were even naked. It was unclear whether they had taken off their clothes themselves due to hallucinations from the cold or if they had been stripped of their clothes by others.
Passing refugees would go up and search through the bodies, trying to find something useful.
The team marched for five days straight, with the temperature rising each day.
The corpses by the roadside were gradually rotting, covered with greenbottle flies of all sizes. Maggots were wriggling beneath the blackened, swollen skin, and dark red liquid was constantly oozing out, emitting a foul stench.
They dared not stop to rest during the day, only finding a place far from the main road to stay at night.
Lin Yinan asked her family to bring out a cloth to cover her face, covering her mouth and nose.
She herself wore a mask inside and a veil outside.
Looking back, Lin Yinan noticed that none of the villagers or the many bodyguards were wearing masks, and then caught up with Lin Yiheng in two steps.
“Brother, the corpses by the roadside are exposed to the scorching sun every day. People who smell the rotting odor will either get sick or contract the plague. Go and talk to Doctor Lin and the Yun family and tell them to cover their faces with cloth so they can get infected with the corpse poison.”
Without saying a word, Lin Yiheng immediately went to tell the clan leader and the Yun brothers.
When they stopped to rest at night, the village chief struck a gong to remind everyone not to take off their cloths while traveling during the day and to boil water before drinking it.
When this group of several hundred people, all with their faces covered, once again walked onto the official road, they attracted the attention of countless refugees.
Some clever people quietly went forward to inquire and learned that this could prevent them from contracting the disease, so everyone followed suit.
The caravan traveled for another two days, but was blocked by a large group of refugees ahead.
As a precaution, the Yun brothers had the group stop and rest in a sparsely populated open area, and sent several guards to scout the area.
Yun Er and Yun Qi returned quickly. Upon hearing the seriousness of the matter, the Yun brothers summoned all the men of Linjia Village to discuss it.
Lin Yinan followed behind Lin Yiheng, listening in.
Yun Mo recognized her at a glance through the crowd. During this period of travel and rest, he had been carrying a cloth, and Miss Lin had been staying in the camp and not coming out. He had not seen her for several days.
Yunye noticed him staring blankly, then coughed lightly twice, making a fist at his lips.
Yun Mo snapped out of his reverie, glanced at everyone, and slowly began to speak, “Ahead lies the only route south—the Lingbei River. Due to the warmer weather, the melting ice and snow caused the river to swell, destroying the bridge and blocking the most important road south, which is why so many refugees have gathered here.”
"Is there no other way?" The clan chief frowned, his face filled with sorrow.
After pondering for a moment, Yun Qi said, "Then we need to go upstream and downstream to see if we can bypass it."
After thinking it over carefully, Yun Mo said to Yun Ye, "Second Brother, you stay at the camp. I will personally lead a group to look for it."
Finally, Lin Yinan followed Lin Yiheng and the others to Lingbei River.
Looking at the rushing river, Lin Yinan's heart sank completely.
The river is wide and the current is rapid. Even if they had boats, their team had too many people, horses, and carts full of supplies, so they simply couldn't cross it.
More and more refugees gathered by the river. Gazing at the churning waters, some broke down completely, kneeling on the riverbank and wailing. Others, filled with despair, leaped into the churning water.
Unable to bear watching any longer, Yunmo decided to walk upstream along the riverbank.
"Young master, are you going to the southern lands?" a voice rang out behind the group.
Lin Yinan turned around and was startled by the person in front of her. She subconsciously tugged at her clothes.
The person in front of me was short and stocky, with a belly that looked like he was seven months pregnant. He was so fat that he had no neck, and he had a fat head and big ears, a face full of fat, and his eyes were just slits. I wondered where this person had come from. How could he have grown so fat after fleeing for so long?
He was surrounded by five or six guards, as well as several servants.
Without anyone protecting him, he's just a walking piece of fat meat!
Seeing that everyone had stopped, the man continued, "I know a road that leads south."
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