A row of people knelt on the ground, crying bitterly and kowtowed to the bandits.
"Please, gentlemen, please spare our lives! It's not easy for us to struggle to get here..."
"Master, please! Let us go!"
“Please let us go…”
"ah--"
The bandits stepped forward and kicked the refugees in the front row to the ground. Their faces were ferocious and their hearts were cruel. “Stop talking nonsense. We just want money or food! Give it to you and you can leave!”
Someone yelled, “We have no money!”
Who doesn't flee because they're short of money and food? Do they become refugees simply because they have nothing better to do?
The bandit narrowed his eyes, held the knife to his chest, and started to act arrogantly, "If you don't have money, don't cross the road! Wait for death here!"
Dozens of refugees were filled with resentment and cursed in low voices, but they did not dare to let the bandits on the opposite side hear them.
The Fang family was among the refugees, trembling in fear.
Wu hugged her little daughter and son, tears streaming down her face, her voice trembling, "Boss, how about we pay the toll?"
Fang the butcher's face turned pale, and he gritted his teeth and said, "They are bandits! They are taking advantage of the situation to rob us. They want 10 taels of silver per person. Do you have money?"
Wu opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Fang the Butcher. "If we give them the money now, what if they ask us for an entrance fee when we get to the next city? Will you still want to go there then? Besides, when we find a good place to settle down, how can we do that without paying?"
Fang Lu also agreed with her father's words. She took her mother's hand and whispered to her. After all, she was still a little girl, her face pale with fear, but she was more clear-headed than her mother.
Wu looked at the fierce bandits, their swords waving in their hands, and felt fear in her heart, but she also knew that the man was right. She had no choice but to lower her head and sob.
The people around them are just like them, with little financial resources. It is a great achievement that they can survive until now, but they cannot survive without money.
Everyone's eyes were filled with confusion. They didn't know where the end would be, or where the weather would be good. They only knew that if they were away from the suffering of their hometown, they might still have hope of survival.
Now this glimmer of hope has been snatched away by the bandits.
This place is deserted, with no village in front and no shop behind. Being stuck here really makes people feel caught in a dilemma.
There was a family wearing tattered linen and straw sandals, but they were able to take out 50 taels of silver from their pockets with trembling hands.
The man in charge carefully handed the money to the bandits and begged them to let him go.
The bandits counted the money, found no problem, and let the man go.
The family ran quickly through this road without daring to look back, for fear that the bandits would go back on their word.
The man with the mole on his chin grinned at the others and said, "Did you see that? I'll say it again, 10 taels of silver or two pancakes per person. Pay up and you can leave!"
"Don't you want to find a good place to settle down quickly? If you do, what does this little money mean?"
"If you stay here any longer, you'll die of sun or starvation. Wouldn't that be even more unprofitable?"
Some families with few people were eager to go after hearing this. Yes, wouldn't it be better to live a good life if they passed away earlier?
He looked around, feeling itchy inside and greedy again. "Or, you can also exchange family members. For example, one person stays and two people go. Let's make it clear first, we only want children and young women..."
The bandits laughed heartily, and their eyes towards the refugees became even more malicious and unscrupulous.
The people who had heard this were secretly delighted, thinking that as long as they persuaded the elderly and disabled in their families, they could pass through in exchange and reduce the burden. However, they had not expected that they would only want children and young women. Their faces turned gloomy again.
The bandits were indeed not easy to fool.
The sun was blazing in the sky, burning the earth, and everyone was still in a stalemate in the tense atmosphere.
The bandits were sweating profusely, but they didn't dare to take off their clothes for fear of dying from the sun.
They looked at the hesitant refugees, their limited patience already draining away. "I'll give you another quarter of an hour. If you don't want to leave, just walk back to your disaster-stricken hometown!"
Wu didn't want to go back. They'd survived countless dangers along the way, their soles rubbed bloody to get here. She shuddered at the mere thought of those murderous gazes.
She ignored the man's attempts to stop her and began rummaging through boxes and drawers looking for money. "I don't care what happens in the future. We have to survive now, right? If we can't even survive now, what else do we want to do in the future?"
Many refugees are like this, wanting to dig out the coffin to exchange for another chance.
The poor man dragged his wife and children to the bandits, wanting to take him and his son with him...
Amidst the clamor, the sound of the mule cart's wheels seemed less prominent.
Jiang Yue and the other man drove up to the bandits and were only ten steps away.
The man raised his chin, and the black mole became more obvious in the sunlight, with a tuft of hair on it, which was really an eye-catching sight.
"Do you want money or food?"
Jiang Yue showed a sneer under the mask and snorted, "I won't give you anything."
The tone was muffled, but it was still recognizable as a woman's voice.
The bandits surrounded them with ferocious looks. How dare anyone challenge them?
The man with the black mole narrowed his eyes, looked back and forth at the two men, and smiled at his brothers, "This is the person we met in the woods more than ten days ago."
He turned around, his eyes flashing with an obscene light, and said, "So it's a young lady. No wonder she refused to stay and rest with us that night..."
There was a hint of teasing in his voice, and before he finished speaking, Jiang Nian had already unsheathed his knife and walked towards the man.
Under the scorching sun, the blade reflected light, and a blood mark appeared on the neck of the man with the mole.
He opened his eyes wide and covered his neck with his hands in disbelief, but he couldn't stop the blood from gushing out and fell to the ground in an instant.
With a "bang", the bandit leader fell face down, and the bandits around him were stunned.
I don't understand why the boss fell down after just a blink of an eye.
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