The child's voice was followed by a tearing sound, and at the same time an adult's voice scolded: "You little rabbit, do you still want to eat food if you don't eat human flesh?" Keep you for the sake of the two of you, who have fine skin and tender meat, and when there is no food, you can kill and eat, and what is the use of you if you want to eat food and keep it, I will slaughter you now. ”

Zhang Chu understood that he had encountered a robber, and turned around and wanted to run, but he felt that the child's cry was very pitiful. Waving his hand to signal He Jin not to make a sound, Zhang Chu approached the courtyard wall, picked up the wall and secretly watched inside. I saw three men with knives in the courtyard, one of them was holding the hair of a teenager in one hand and holding the knife to the child's neck, and the other two were also holding knives in their hands to force several men, women and children tied together with ropes back to the base of the wall. Fortunately, they all turned their faces to the other side and didn't find Zhang Chu. The pot stove in the grass shed in the courtyard was burning, and the smell of meat came from it.

Zhang Chu came down from the wall and called He Jin aside and said, "There are three thieves in the courtyard, they all have knives, you can make some noise to lure one out in a while." If one comes out I'll strangle him with a rope, and it's better to kill one without making a sound, and then it's easy to do. If it's two, you run. ”

"Let's run." He Jin said uneasily.

"I want to save the kid." Zhang Chu said softly.

Ho Kim said no more.

Zhang Chu handed the stick to He Jin and told him to stand two feet away from the courtyard gate with the stick. Zhang Chu took out the rope that strangled the wolf and hid it next to the door against the courtyard wall. He Jin picked up a few small stones from the ground and gently smashed them on the courtyard door, the thief heard the movement, one of the thieves came over and opened the courtyard door and looked out, and saw He Jin standing there with a stick, seeing that He Jin was only one person and sick, the thief walked out with a knife, Zhang Chu saw the opportunity to put the rope around the thief's neck from behind and then turned around and carried the thief on his back, the thief's legs were off the ground and kept kicking, struggling. I want to shout that my neck is strangled and I can't make a sound. After a while, the thief's body softened, and the knife in his hand fell to the ground. Zhang Chu loosened the rope, picked up the knife from the ground, and stabbed the thief in the body.

The two thieves in the courtyard heard an abnormal noise outside, rushed to the door to look, and saw that there were only two people outside the door, Zhang Chu and He Jin, and they no longer hesitated to rush out of the door together. Zhang Chu took a knife to cut, but was held by the thief who came out first with a knife in his hand, another thief slashed at Zhang Chu's head with a knife, Zhang Chu was shocked, and fell to the ground to avoid this knife, seeing Zhang Chu fall to the ground The two thieves were overjoyed, and they came over together to raise the knife to kill Zhang Chu, at this time, He Jin shouted at the two thieves regardless of holding the wooden stick, the thief hurriedly raised the knife to block the wooden stick, Zhang Chu, who fell to the ground, seized this rare opportunity to swing the knife to the calf of the two thieves, and the knife hit the calf of one of the thieves, The injured thief shouted in pain, the two thieves hurriedly retreated, Zhang Chu jumped up from the ground, and at the same time grabbed a handful of soil from the ground and threw it into the face of the uninjured thief, the thief covered his face with his hands, Zhang Chu's knife had been cut, and the thief was cut together with his hand and the leader, Zhang Chu did not stop pulling back the knife and slashing at the thief's neck. At this time, the thief who was cut to the leg saw Zhang Chu bravely, dragged the injured leg and turned around and wanted to run, Zhang Chu chased after the knife and slashed it in the back and slashed to the ground. At this time, Zhang Chucai gasped for breath with a knife and pestle, feeling very afraid in his heart, life and death were only between breaths. He Jin next to him was already frightened by Zhang Chu's courage just now, Zhang Chu hurriedly called him over, because the thief who was cut in the back was not dead, he was struggling on the ground, and Zhang Chu didn't have the courage to go up and make up for him again. The two tied up the wounded thief with strips of rags. Look at the two thieves who had been stabbed in the neck and the two thieves who had been strangled by a rope and stabbed before, and who were already dead and could not die again. Zhang Chu put away the thief's knife, carried it behind his back, and handed it to He Jin. The two entered the courtyard to inspect the inside. The people in the courtyard heard the sound of fighting outside and were looking out, and when they saw the two men walking in with bloody knives, they were frightened and hid under the wall. Zhang Chu saw that there were four adult men in the courtyard, two boys of seven or eight years old, and two girls of fifteen or sixteen years old, all of whom were tied with ropes and their arms together.

Zhang Chu asked, "Who are you?" ”

One of the men in his forties replied, "We are villagers in this neighborhood, and we have been plundered by these robbers, and I hope the master will save us." ”

Zhang Chu asked He Jin to let go of the older man and called him to the room to inquire about the situation alone. He untied one of the seven or eight-year-old boys and took him to the house to inquire about the situation in detail, and finally figured out the current situation.

Now the village where they are located is called Jinshantun, and the man in his forties who replied is called Yang Jinjun is a blacksmith, and the two men in their twenties are Yang Biao and Yang Liu, the sons of Yang Blacksmith, and the three of them make a living by striking iron in Yang Village, which is not far from here, that is, the village where Zhang Chu just walked, yesterday the thieves robbed their village, killed people when they saw them, and robbed them when they saw things, just because the father and son knew how to make iron, the thieves robbed their shop, and let the three of them carry the tools and materials for striking iron. Prepare to escort the three of them back to the mountain to build knives and guns for the thieves, and the father and son will not be killed. And the rest of the village, along with the wife of the blacksmith Yang, were killed by the thieves. The thieves robbed this Jinshantun again today, and the other people are all from this Jinshantun, the adult man's surname is Wu, called Wu Guo, he is a carpenter who was left by the thieves to prepare to build a cottage, the two girls were left by the leader of the thieves, and the two boys were used to make jerky when there is no food. Everyone else in the village was killed. There were originally more than 20 thieves, but since the two villages that were robbed were not big and did not grab much food, the thieves left these three thieves to escort Yang Blacksmith to transport the looted things back to the thieves' den. The other thieves went east to rob another, larger village. The thieves who stayed behind were reluctant to give them food to eat, so they boiled the meat of the killed people and gave them to eat, and when the two children refused to eat and cried, they were heard by Zhang Chu and them, so they killed the thieves.

At this time, Zhang Chu thought that the slashed thief was still outside the courtyard, so he asked He Jin and Yang Blacksmith to carry him in. When several people saw the thief, they wanted to kill him immediately to take revenge, Zhang Chu quickly stopped them, and there were still questions to ask the thief.

At first, the thieves were quite tough, knowing that they would inevitably die if they fell into the hands of the villagers. Zhang Chu asked him nothing, but he didn't say anything. Zhang Chu smiled and put his foot on his slashed leg, stepped lightly, and immediately cold sweat broke out from the thief's head, and the thief had no choice but to tell everything he knew.

It turned out that their group of thieves was gathered together by the exiles who had fled the famine. There are only 30 or so people in number, and the bandit at the head is called Banbianyun, and they can't beat a big village with few people, so they can only attack a village with few people. A few days ago, they just found a place to stay, that is, there is a valley not far from here, there is a small basin in the valley, there is only one village in it, called Chaoyang Village, there are more than 40 households in the village, there is a stream flowing from the side of the village, and the entrance into the valley is a slender road, on one side is a high mountain peak and the other side is a deep stream washed out by the stream, the road next to the mountain stream can be carried by cars and horses, if the wall is built on the road, it will become easy to defend and difficult to attack. Banbianyun fell in love with this place, and suddenly attacked the village with thieves, the people in the village were defenseless, and most of them were killed and injured, and the others were arrested, Banbianyun was afraid of leaking the news, so he directly ordered to kill all the people who were caught, and the thieves occupied the village, although they grabbed the food, in order to settle down for a long time, Banbianyun decided to leave the second master and the other four thieves to take care of the house, and Banbianyun himself took more than 20 thieves to the bottom of the mountain to grab food. Banbian Yun was ruthless, killing all the people in the village every time he went to a village, and then set fire to the village, saying that it was for the sake of prestige, and he was ready to extort food and property from other villages in the future. Now Banbianyun has led people to the village to the east to rob, and he will not be able to return to the valley until tomorrow at the earliest. After asking about the situation, Zhang Chu gave a knife to Blacksmith Yang, and then went to check what the thieves had stolen.

The things that the thieves wanted to bring back were some iron tools and some sundries, and even the iron pots of the villagers' houses were collected together. But there wasn't much food. And he found a few taels of silver and some copper coins from the dead thief, and there was nothing else to use.

At this time, the father and son of the blacksmith Yang came back covered in blood and returned the knife to Zhang Chu, and the thief went where he should go.

Zhang Chu came to the courtyard and asked He Jin to distribute the dry food found from the thief to everyone, and everyone quickly ate up the dry food and looked at Zhang Chu there. Zhang Chu had no choice but to say: "I don't have anything to eat, you all leave, maybe you can still find something to eat." A few of them didn't move.

Blacksmith Yang said: "All the people in our village have been killed, there is nowhere to stay, and now it is easy to be robbed by others and even eaten by others when they are alone." Master Wang, take us with you. ”

They saw Zhang Chu killing the two thieves in an instant outside the courtyard just now, and felt that following Zhang Chu would have more survival guarantees. Although the other people are from this near the mountain, their belongings have been looted, their families have been killed, and they have no support, and they all want to go with Zhang Chu.

Zhang Chu asked, "Is there a place to eat around here?" ”

Carpenter Wu replied: "Shaanxi has been hit by drought for many years, and the poor people have no surplus food, so there are people in the village who go out to flee the famine. The older rich people, though they had a surplus, were very stingy and refused to give relief to the poor, and all of them built high walls around the village, built forts, and did not open the village gates at all when they saw the homeless people, and did not let them enter the village. ”

Zhang Chu looked at this group of men, women and children, and was also very worried in his heart, now human life is like a mustard, if you don't find food, I don't know when these people will be starved and lie on the side of the road, or even become food for others. Let's go together and figure it out.

Zhang Chu looked around helplessly, and when he saw the body of the thief who was killed, Zhang Chu suddenly had a bold idea, didn't the thief have food, instead of being robbed by others, it was better to rob others, so that he could live longer, of course, Zhang Chu couldn't rob the poor people, and the people had nothing to rob, and he couldn't grab the rich man's fort. But now there is an opportunity in front of us, there are only five thieves in the thieves' lair, so you can always grab it. According to the interrogation just now, there are only five thieves in Chaoyang Village, and the cottage has not been built. And Zhang Chu They have six adult men, through today's fight with the thieves, Zhang Chu found that because of his good nutrition and exercise in school, his physical fitness is stronger than these thieves, and today he killed three thieves in a row to give Zhang Chu confidence, it is better to gamble than to die.