Muzhou.

Jin Yuanwu walked through the city, inquiring about Xia Yurong's whereabouts, but after taking a turn in Muzhou City, he found that this city was extremely lonely and lonely compared to Hui'an Mansion, and it was rare to see smiles on the faces of pedestrians on the street.

This is the suffering of war, he thought.

Although the buildings in the city were not greatly damaged, the expressions on the faces of these people lingered on him, and the expression of sadness in the numbness stung him.

If Hui'an Mansion is defeated, will it be the same? Do your loved ones have the same expressions?

Jin Yuanwu didn't want to know the answer, he wanted to avoid this kind of thing, although he wouldn't lead troops, he could still do it when a soldier charged. At this moment, he swept away his confusion and established his goal again.

After many inquiries, he finally found Xia Yurong in a small courtyard.

"Coo-goo, goo-goo." Xia Yurong was wearing an apron and feeding chickens in the yard, and her look was far less glamorous than at the beginning.

Jin Yuanwu stood at the door like this, quietly watching her working figure, only to feel that her heart was extraordinarily peaceful.

Suddenly, Xia Yurong noticed that there was someone by the door out of the corner of her eye, turned her head to look, and after seeing Jin Yuanwu's face, she screamed, ran into the house quickly, and closed the door tightly.

"Miss Xia, what's wrong with you?" Jin Yuanwu was surprised.

"Brother Wu, you wait for me." Xia Yurong's voice came from the house.

At this time, an old man came out of another room, he looked at Jin Yuanwu for a long time, and asked, "You are Jin Yuanwu?" ”

This old man is Xia Yurong's grandfather, the former Muzhou Sima Guo Zheng, and when the family was released, they learned Jin Yuanwu's name from a sergeant.

"Hello uncle, I'm Jin Yuanwu."

The old man had a smile on his face and said, "Young man, I heard Yurong say that you are a lieutenant in Hui'an Mansion, but is there such a thing?" ”

"Yes, but there have been changes since then, and my current position is a partial general." Jin Yuanwu replied truthfully.

"General?"

"This is an official position established by our Hui'an Mansion."

"Oh." The old man nodded and said with a smile: "I heard that Marshal Lu Jieshuai of Hui'an Mansion is recruiting talents?" If so? ”

"It is true."

"Okay, the old man knows." The old man was silent for a long time, patted Jin Yuanwu on the shoulder, and said lightly: "The old man has returned to the house, so I won't disturb you two." ”

Jin Yuanwu looked at the old man's back, knowing that he had said so much to himself, in fact, he hoped that he would recommend him as an official in Hui'an Mansion. But he didn't know much about the old man, so he didn't dare to recommend it at will, so he didn't respond, and the old man left disappointed.

It didn't take long for Xia Yurong to leave the house, his face was carefully dressed, and he looked much more energetic.

"Brother Wu, you've finally come to me." Xia Yurong lowered his head and said.

"I'm sorry to make you suffer." Jin Yuanwu said softly.

"If you can save me, I won't complain about anything." Xia Yurong's face flushed.

Jin Yuanwu grabbed her shoulders with his hand and whispered, "Yurong, I want to take you to Hui'an Mansion, are you willing?" ”

"You... Why did you take me to Hui'an Mansion? Xia Yurong lowered his head even more.

"I want you to be my wife." Jin Yuanwu said solemnly.

Xia Yurong turned his back to him violently, and said in a voice like a mosquito: "You didn't lie to me, did you?" ”

Xia Yurong's shoulders trembled, and after a long time, she turned around and said with a smile: "Brother Wu, I am willing to be your wife." ”

Jin Yuanwu immediately hugged her.

After a long time, the two slowly separated, and Xia Yurong said softly: "Then what about my family?" As you can see, my father and grandfather have lost their positions, and our family has become like this now. ”

"How do you live here, the house you used to live in?" Jin Yuanwu asked.

"It was confiscated by the government." Xia Yurong said in a low voice.

Jin Yuanwu sighed secretly, the government affairs of Muzhou were in charge of Ji Yan, that old man was a well-known iron-masked man, he had always been official, it was useless for anyone to look for him, and he didn't know how many people he had offended for this, but he didn't care.

Thinking of this, he said softly: "I will take them all to Hui'an Mansion to take care of, don't worry." ”

"It won't bother you, will it?"

"No, it won't."

Xia Yurong was overjoyed, and said with a red face: "Then it's up to you." ”

"By the way, what about Brother Luo?" Jin Yuanwu suddenly asked.

"He's gone." Xia Yurong said softly, although Luo Xiaobei was very good to her, she only regarded the other party as her brother and refused several confessions from the other party, so Luo Xiaobei had to leave gloomily.

Jin Yuanwu nodded and said no more.

He hired a few carriages for Xia Yurong's family, and after moving the things, the carriages left the West Gate and headed for Hui'an Mansion. Before leaving, Jin Yuanwu glanced at Muzhou City again, and secretly swore in his heart that he would never let Hui'an City become like this.

When he arrived at Hui'an Mansion, Jin Yuanwu took Xia Yurong's family to live in the house he had bought a long time ago, although it was not particularly big, it was much better than Xia Yurong's family's courtyard in Muzhou City.

In addition to Xia Yurong's parents, their family also has his grandfather's family, Jin Yuanwu didn't plan to let Xia Yurong's grandfather's family live with him, he rented another house to settle them temporarily.

After that, he did not want to continue to ask for leave to rest, and immediately returned to the barracks and began to work.

There is no war at the moment, the Third Army barracks outside the city are recruiting new recruits, and the top commander of the Third Army where he is located is Meng Xiao, because Ma Kongming was transferred to the Fifth Army, he is now the second highest military rank.

As soon as he returned to the barracks, he heard a report from his subordinates that the Jiedu Mansion had issued a new order, requiring the Third Army to organize 2,000 recruits to transport 50,000 stone of military rations to Chizhou.

Jin Yuanwu frowned and asked, "What's going on?" Why are we sending food to Chizhou City? ”

The sergeant said with a smile: "I heard that there is not enough food in Chizhou, and there is a famine, so I sent someone to borrow food, but Lu Jieshuai did not agree, and only let us exchange things for it, so they made a deal with us, and exchanged a large number of military supplies and two thousand war horses for 100,000 stone of grain to us." ”

Jin Yuanwu's heart moved after hearing this, he knew that Lu Jieshuai had been expanding the army recently, but military supplies and equipment such as weapons, armor and military uniforms were very insufficient, and he didn't expect that Chizhou would take the initiative to send it over, which was really a good deal.

He felt that this matter was very important, so he took the initiative to apply for this errand, personally selected 2,000 recruits, and escorted the grain cart to Chizhou.

When the grain army was at the boundary of Hui'an Prefecture, it was naturally unimpeded, but after arriving at the boundary of Chizhou, Jin Yuanwu noticed that there were many mountain bandit spies on the road, and they stood on the far slope of the mountain and looked this way.

Jin Yuanwu, who has been walking darts all year round, knows that these people are the ones in charge of keeping an eye on the mountain bandits, and they will judge which ones are fat sheep and which ones are iron plates that cannot be provoked.

The two thousand officers and troops led by Jin Yuanwu were naturally ironclad, and none of the bandits dared to make up their minds, so he was able to enter Chizhou City smoothly.

After entering the city, Jin Yuanwu was taken aback again, the famine in Chizhou was even worse than he imagined, this city gave him a worse feeling than Muzhou City, it was full of death, and women and old people lying on the ground could be seen everywhere on the streets, and they didn't know whether they were dead or alive.

Jin Yuanwu retracted his sympathetic gaze, and silently went to the yamen of the Jiedu envoy, he couldn't help these people, and it was useless to see more.

At that moment, he suddenly noticed a young man lying on the ground on the side of the road.

"Give me five steamed buns!" Jin Yuanwu commanded his subordinates.

He couldn't help the woman and the old man, because he only helped for a while, not for a lifetime, but this young man was different, and he still had hope.

Walking to the young man's side, Jin Yuanwu found that the young man was terrifyingly thin, and his whole body seemed to be skinny, but fortunately he was still alive.

Jin Yuanwu put the steamed bun next to the young man, turned around and left.

However, after only a few steps, he suddenly heard a voice of "thank you" behind him, and he glanced back and saw the young man looking at him with a pair of clear eyes.

Jin Yuanwu nodded at him and returned to the group.

When he was about to let the team move on, one of his generals said, "General, I'm afraid that the steamed bun you gave to that young man will be snatched away." ”

Jin Yuanwu turned his head and found that the young man was slowly walking into the distance, and several men were sneakily following him, obviously with the idea of grabbing food.

"You take a few people with you, and come back when he's done eating." Jin Yuanwu commanded.

"Yes." The general took the order and left.

On the other side, the young man was holding a steamed bun in his arms, slowly moving forward, he seemed to have no strength in his body, and he walked slower and slower, so the few people behind him also followed slowly, and they were ready to find a place with fewer people to start again, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble.

However, after turning a corner, they suddenly found that the boy was gone, and they were also surprised by several officers sent by Jin Yuanwu to protect the boy.

They now hurriedly came out and chased away the men, then searched everywhere and finally found a dog hole in one of the walls.

The dog hole was too small for an adult to get through, and by the time the sergeants got to the other side of the wall, the boy had long since disappeared without a trace.

Only then did the officer leader realize that the boy had always known that someone was following him, so he deliberately walked very slowly, and used the dog hole to escape after bringing them here.

After the boy got out of the dog hole, he first found an oiled paper bag in a garbage dump in the city, and then left Chizhou City and went to the suburbs.

Halfway through, he was so hungry that he really didn't have the strength, so he tore off half of the steamed bun and ate it. After that, he sped up on his way and finally came to an abandoned earth temple.

There were two women in the temple, one was quite old, in his thirties, and the other was only about ten years old, a little girl.

The older woman was lying unconscious on a pile of straw, while the little girl was lying next to her, resting her head on her chest and moving from time to time.

Hearing footsteps outside the house, the little girl quickly sat up, her eyes fixed on the door, like a frightened rabbit, until she saw the young man's figure.

"Xiaoyue, I'm coming back from taking the medicine, Aunt Xue's illness will be cured soon!" The boy smiled.

"Really? Will Mom Really Be Okay? The little girl said dumbfounded.

"If you take the medicine, you'll be fine, my brother won't lie to Xiaoyue." The boy said firmly.