Chapter 20 War
Li Zheng pushed the cart out of the city gate, returned the rope, and left. As they walked along the road, they could clearly feel the presence of eyes scanning them.
Li Zheng didn't stop and glared back at them. She couldn't let them think that they were easy to bully. Being strong would actually make her safer.
"Let's just go, as far as we can." Gu Chengze looked at the refugees with flickering eyes, and no one knew what he was thinking.
"Yeah." Li Zheng also felt bad, and there were too many people, far exceeding the number of people in Jingcheng.
"Why are there so many refugees here?" Li Zheng looked at Gu Chengze.
"Taiyuan Prefecture is close to the Central Plains and is also the only way to the south. The drought has lasted for three months. Even at the slowest speed, we should be able to arrive soon." And this is still relatively peaceful. If only...
"Don't other prefectures accept it?" Didn't Jingcheng accept it before? Why wouldn't a big city like Taiyuan Prefecture accept it?
"I would accept the words of some good officials, but I guess that's impossible in Taiyuan Prefecture."
"What? Is it a corrupt official or something?" Li Zheng was not very sensitive to this kind of politics and didn't know much about it.
"Not really. Taiyuan Prefecture is a major thoroughfare between the north and the south. Those who can serve as officials here either have a strong background or are very powerful. There must be a reason for doing this. I don't know why, but I guess this is the only way for now."
If Taiyuan Prefecture accepted the disaster victims, they would not be able to eat them. If checkpoints were set up, they could enter the city to buy grain. This would eliminate public resentment, allow those who could afford to buy grain to go south, and share the pressure. But this was only superficial. The deeper reason was that this prefect had defected to the King of Qi and wanted to secretly increase his military strength.
This prefect is quite smart. Li Zheng thought, but she didn't know how long they could last like this. Only a few people have money to buy food. If the food is eaten up, and the tree bark and roots are eaten up, and only the Guanyin soil is left to eat, the refugees will be overwhelmed by hunger, and it is not known whether they can survive.
…
At night, Li Zheng lit a fire and baked some pancakes. It was very quiet around them. Li Zheng and Gu Chengze ate in silence. Bao Ge'er saw that the atmosphere between them was strange, so he just lowered his head and ate his pancakes. After they finished eating, they heard a small sound, like the sound of leaves being stepped on.
The two of them looked at each other with a stern look in their eyes and realized that it had come.
As the sound of footsteps on leaves grew louder, figures gradually emerged: one, two, no! A group. They were the people gathered in Taiyuan Prefecture!
"What brings you here?"
Before anyone could say anything, a woman knelt down with her child, "Master, please, the child has been hungry for two days, please give him something to eat. Come on, Lin'er, come and beg the master, please give him something to eat."
Li Zheng frowned fiercely at this act of moral kidnapping. "You're supposed to beg for it, so should I give it to you? If I don't give it to you, you'll say we're heartless and will come up and rob or even kill you!" Thinking of that caravan before, looking at these people made me feel sick!
"Why should we give it to you? For no reason." Li Zheng stared at the woman with his fists clenched.
"Why? Don't you have some? What's wrong with giving us some?" The tone seemed as if it was a matter of course.
"Yeah, we saw you guys go in to buy food today. You must be hiding some of it and not wanting to give it to us."
"That's right, that's right, they look so cruel."
Are we cruel? Ha, there are more people entering the city today than just them, why do they pick on us? Aren't they a bunch of bullies who only see us as capable of doing things because we injured a child and one of us has injured a leg? I don't know how long they have been doing this, but it's definitely not the first time!
Looking at the disgusting faces of these people, Li Zheng clenched his fists tightly.
"Everyone, stop talking. We've been begging for so long and they're not willing to give us some food. Why are we still begging them?"
"That's right. If he doesn't share, we can take it ourselves."
"Yes, take it yourself."
"Come on, what else are you talking about!"
"Ah, ah, she got a knife."
Li Zheng drew out his broadsword, which looked chilling in the moonlight.
"He has a knife, so what? There are so many of us, and we are afraid of her. Besides, if we don't have food, we will starve to death sooner or later."
"Yes, go ahead."
"Go ahead."
"Gu Chengze is optimistic about Bao Ge'er."
Li Zheng picked up a big knife and kicked the person in front of her away. Unexpectedly, it not only failed to scare them, but made them want to kill her. They thought that if they didn't kill Li Zheng, they would be the ones to die.
Thinking of this, Li Zheng no longer hesitated and took a knife to chop at the people who tried to approach her, but these people approached Li Zheng in groups and she could only keep chopping forward. These people did not know martial arts, but there were too many of them for Li Zheng to deal with. But at this moment, someone hugged Li Zheng's legs from behind and dragged her, unable to move. When they saw this, they immediately picked up knives and chopped at Li Zheng. When they saw that they were about to chop at her, Li Zheng raised her arms to block, and stabbed the person who hugged her with a knife in her right hand. Her arms and body were scratched, but she also broke free from the restraints.
"Sister!" Li Zheng looked back and saw that the refugees had gone to the back and robbed the grain cart. They said to Baoger, "It must taste delicious for such a young child. Haha." She picked up the knife and chopped at Baoger.
"Brother Bao!"
At the critical moment, Gu Chengze hugged Baoger and rolled to the side, glanced at Li Zheng and rolled directly down the hillside.
Li Zheng understood, and as she picked up her knife, hatred surged. These people were actually cannibals. She'd assumed they were just refugees who'd lost their rationality, but she hadn't expected them to lose their humanity. Without hesitation, she wielded her knife and chopped them down one by one. This time, she didn't hesitate, her blade even sharper, like slicing a melon. Within moments, a whole group of them fell. Watching them fall, Li Zheng's eyelids drooped slightly, obscuring her thoughts.
He turned around and ran towards where Baoger was rolling.
…
When Gu Chengze opened his eyes and saw the spider webs on the beams, he was stunned. "You're awake." He turned around and saw Li Zheng standing in front of the bed with a basin of water.
"This is…"
"You were injured, and there happened to be a few houses where you rolled down, so I brought you here. You were poisoned, why didn't you tell me?" Li Zheng didn't know how to take a pulse, he just knew how to treat it with medicine. Moreover, when he went to see a doctor that time, the doctor only thought he was checking his legs and didn't take his pulse. So he only found out after he rolled down and spit out a mouthful of blood. No wonder he didn't say anything when the refugees besieged him, it turned out that he was poisoned.
"This poison is difficult to cure, so no one said anything." This poison was carefully selected by that person, how could it be so easy to cure.
"Don't worry, I'll give you a detoxification pill. It should be detoxifying after you try it." She fed him the best detoxification pill in the space.
Gu Chengze was stunned. Is it resolved? He moved his body again. It was true that the pain in his heart that had been there before was gone, and there was no more blockage in his body.
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