For dinner, the group received flatbread from the men in black as usual. Li Shulan carefully filled a small earthenware pot with water, boiled it over the fire, and gave it to everyone to drink.
After a day's journey on horseback, the children's physical exhaustion allowed them to temporarily forget the harm caused by the Hu people.
They sat on the oilcloth, munching on their flatbreads and talking quietly.
Lin Yinan listened attentively, but as the conversation went on, the atmosphere gradually became somber.
"This pancake is so dry, it's making my teeth tired from chewing it."
"I really want my grandma to make big chicken drumsticks!"
"I wonder if my parents and sisters escaped?"
“The village is not far from the academy. The Hu people must have massacred the village before they invaded the academy.” Lin Zizhi could already tell the approximate distance between the village and the academy.
Lin Yi'an liked her uncle's older brother the most. "Then, could my uncle, aunt, and older brother and sister have already been killed by the Hu people?"
"Then what about my parents and brother...?" Lin Daoqin burst into tears.
When he cried, the three children from Linjia Village also burst into tears.
Li Shulan felt even more distressed and lowered her head to shed tears in secret.
Lin Yinan rolled her eyes. Ever since she transmigrated, she had been either saving people or comforting them.
She had no choice but to pull herself together and patiently say, "Have you noticed that the path we're walking on today has been walked before?"
Lin Yongzhi, the great-grandson of the clan chief, was the most composed among the children. He wiped his face, tears still glistening in his eyes. "Sister Anan, are you saying that my great-grandfather and family are still alive?"
Lin Yinan nodded, "Yes, I looked carefully. There are many footprints on the ground, which may belong to people from our village."
"Thank goodness, our parents are not dead!"
"Eat quickly, then get some rest. We still have a long journey ahead tomorrow. If we walk fast, we might be able to see our families soon," Li Shulan said as she poured the cooled water into her water bag.
The children stopped crying and started laughing, even enjoying the hard, dry biscuits.
Lin Yinan glanced at Lu Changqing sitting next to her, who was intently munching on his biscuit, completely ignoring their conversation.
Before going to bed, Lin Yinan placed several infrared sensors around the campsite so that she could detect any people or animals that wandered in immediately.
When camping in the wild, she dared not sleep soundly at night, constantly listening to the sounds around her, and getting up from time to time to add firewood to the fire. This was a level of alertness she had developed over many years of killing zombies.
It's been almost ten years since my parents died, and I haven't had a full night's sleep since.
The next day was another sunny day with bright sunshine.
This is good news for Lin Yinan and his group. When walking in the mountains, the worst thing is to encounter a rainy day.
Today, as usual, I spent the whole day hiking in the mountains and forests, only stopping briefly for a half-hour rest at noon.
As the sun was setting in the evening, Lin Yinan was looking for a flat place to spend the night when she discovered a group of people arguing in a basin in a low-lying area of the mountains.
The sounds of arguing drifted from afar, and judging from the noise, there were quite a few people involved.
"Anan, have we stumbled into a bandit's den?"
Li Shulan had heard years ago that there were bandits in the mountains. Could it be that she had encountered them?
"Mother, you stay here, I'll go check on things."
Lin Yinan dismounted, leaving Li Shulan to watch the children. If anything seemed amiss, she immediately turned around and left.
Not knowing whether she was friend or foe, she dared not show herself openly. She parted the bushes and looked toward the sound of arguing.
Suddenly, Lin Yinan spotted two familiar faces in the crowd.
—The original owner's grandmother and uncle.
The people surrounding them were all villagers from Linjia Village. There were more than 300 people in the basin. It seems that the villagers had all fled to the mountains before the Hu people attacked.
Seeing her return so quickly, Li Shulan asked worriedly, "Anan, are they bandits?"
"Mother, they are people from the village. I saw Grandma and Uncle."
The four children were overjoyed to hear her words.
"real?"
"I told you my parents wouldn't die!"
Lin Yinan took the reins of the two horses and emerged from the woods, whereupon sharp-eyed villagers immediately spotted them.
"Hongda, your son is back!"
Lin Hongda and Li Shi sat blankly on the ground, immersed in grief over the loss of their son, ignoring the villagers' words.
The three daughters standing beside the villagers looked up as the villagers spoke and immediately saw their younger brother sitting on a tall horse.
Before her two younger sisters could react, Lin Shuangling, the third child, stood up and ran towards Lin Changsheng.
Seeing his third sister running towards him like a madwoman, Lin Changsheng, who was on horseback, cried out in anguish, "Third sister, father! Mother!"
The fourth daughter, Lin Shuangyu, tugged at Madam Li's sleeve. "Mother, my brother has really come back!"
The couple also heard Lin Changsheng's cries and looked in the direction Lin Shuangyu pointed. They saw Lin Shuangling holding her son in her arms. Their son had returned!
The two of them scrambled to their feet and ran toward where Lin Yinan and the others were.
When the villagers heard Lin Changsheng's howling, they all turned to look, and those who saw their own children were overjoyed.
She held her child tightly, crying her heart out, and then suddenly burst into laughter, her face covered in tears and snot.
"Heaven has eyes, and has finally left an heir for our Lin family." Aunt Li released Lin Changsheng, knelt down with a thud, and kowtowed repeatedly to the sky.
Lin Yinan helped his mother carefully dismount from the horse, his uncle helped his grandmother Zhao and aunt, and his brothers and sisters ran over with the crowd.
Zhao hugged Lin Yi'an, tears streaming down her face, and said, "Grandma's dear grandson, Grandma thought she would never see you again."
"Sister-in-law." Lin Shuo and his wife Zhang Yuhua, along with several children, greeted Li Shulan and Lin Yinan.
Seeing that Li Shulan's face was pale, the observant Zhang quickly stepped forward to support her, asking, "Sister-in-law, what's wrong?"
Upon seeing her closest family members and remembering her husband who had been killed by the Hu people, Li Shulan couldn't stop crying.
"Auntie, is my mother injured?" Lin Yinan asked.
Zhang was taken aback and looked Li Shulan up and down. "Where are you hurt?"
Upon hearing that Li Shulan was injured, Zhao released Lin Yi'an, her wrinkled face filled with worry.
Li Shulan tried to speak several times, but choked up and couldn't get the words out.
Lin Yinan then said, "Everyone wanted to sneak out of the city before dawn, but the Hu people were already guarding the city walls and shooting arrows at the unarmed civilians. My mother was hit in the shoulder by an arrow, and the servants in the house were also shot to death."
"Then how did you get out?"
After Lin Yinan was shot by an arrow, the two of them went into hiding. He briefly told everyone how they followed the merchant out of the city and how they went back to save Lin Yi'an.
"That merchant was truly kind and righteous!" Zhao said, wiping away her tears.
She didn't know whether the businessman was benevolent or not, but he was definitely not an honest person, Lin Yinan thought to herself.
"Li Shulan, where is my son?"
A disheveled woman rushed up and tried to pull off Li Shulan's clothes, but Lin Yinan blocked her.
Unable to catch Li Shulan, the woman, acting like a madwoman, pointed at Li Shulan and said righteously, "Why didn't you rescue my son?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
