Zhao Xinghua and Liang Hanba found a mountain col and hid the two war horses, while the black panther roamed around to keep guard.

Zhao Xinghua began to undress one by one, and changed into a pair of cotton clothes and pants found by a farmer who had no one at home at the foot of the mountain. The sabers, hats, and other weapons were all left, except for a fanged dagger tied to the calf. He messed up his hair again, picked up the clods of soil on the ground and rubbed them on his face and neck a few times, and covered his fingernails with black mud, looking like a fleeing victim.

"Lao Liang, you stay here and be responsible for answering. If we don't come back in three days, you should withdraw from this mountainous area first, go back to Pingshi Town and wait for me, and don't take unnecessary risks. ”

"Don't worry, I know it."

Zhao Xinghua walked out of the col and found a stone cliff, grabbed the raised position with both hands, and slowly climbed up. The fault of this stone cliff is not very high, only more than 20 meters, and when he climbed to the top of the cliff, the clothes in front of him were already scraped and tattered, and the cuffs became strips, and then he rolled down the hillside again.

After tossing all this, the tattered Zhao Xinghua came to the mountain road, bowed his head and walked up the road.

After walking for half a day, I saw a forest and faintly heard the sound of someone talking inside, guessing that I was about to meet those bandits, so I walked inside.

Inside the forest was an old man and a child, each carrying a bamboo basket behind them, picking up dead branches and some fruits like pine towers on the ground.

"Fellow, do you have anything to eat?"

Zhao Xinghua asked in a trembling voice, starting the Nth performance of his career.

The old man and the young looked at Zhao Xinghua, who was dressed in tattered cotton clothes like a beggar, and their eyes showed a very strange expression.

Zhao Xinghua looked at them like this, and when they didn't have anything to eat, he changed the topic again.

"What kind of place is this, fellow?"

"This is Niu Choling, where are you from?"

"From Umeda Town, there are manibals everywhere, and I've been walking here for more than half a month."

Zhao Xinghua tried his best to pretend to be pitiful.

"But why are you wearing my father's clothes?"

The little boy asked the strange question in his mind.

"Huh?!"

Zhao Xinghua didn't expect to meet the owner, and the cotton clothes he found were obviously the ordinary public models worn on the construction site.

"How did a good cotton coat come into this? The dress was numbered, and Wata's father was a miner in the nearby tungsten mine when he was alive. ”

Zhao Xinghua's face was red at this time, and he wished that he would immediately become a miner, dig a crack in the ground and escape, it was really embarrassing! No wonder the expressions of the two were so strange just now.

"That, that......"

Zhao Xinghua didn't know how to continue to explain, the matter was too bizarre.

"Are you Fan San's man?"

"It's not."

"And what are you doing here?"

The little boy continued to ask him curious questions.

"A friend of mine was snatched away by them, and I want to find them."

"Hey, the baby's mother was also snatched away by them."

", these bandits! Can you tell me about them? ”

When Zhao Xinghua heard that these bandits had robbed women, he couldn't help but feel a little more murderous in his heart.

"Do you want to save people single-handedly? Forget it, if they were captured, we might be able to live a little longer, if it weren't for Bao'er's mother who often asked the people on the mountain to bring us some food, maybe we would have starved to death. ”

Zhao Xinghua didn't expect that there was no resentment in the old man's tone.

He didn't know that survival in the last days was in the first place, because he had abilities beyond ordinary people, so he never struggled to survive, and even hunger and cold had to be expressed through makeup. Abraham Maslow said that human needs are divided into four levels: food needs, safety needs, emotional needs, and the need for respect. The first thing is to make ends meet, and food is the most important human need. When the food problem is basically solved, other emotional factors will be considered.

Of course, the factor of dignity should also consider the degree of civilization and environment of the society, which is the political correctness of "not being fed by the mouth" or "the humiliation of Han Xin's crotch" This is an unanswered debate, if a person at the bottom of the slave society wants to maintain dignity is also very unrealistic, for ordinary people, life is the beginning of everything, and any human activity must be guaranteed to be carried out under the condition that people are alive, and when human beings cannot be satisfied with survival, they will not consider a higher level of morality. Therefore, Guan Zhong once said, "Cang Liao knows etiquette and knows honor and disgrace when he has enough food and clothing."

However, the old man also did not have any good feelings for those bandits, but they were used to living in this state.

"Those people lived in the general's village in the northeast of Qitianling, which was once a military camp to resist foreign invasion in ancient times, and later became the base camp of bandits in successive dynasties, and the government has never successfully captured it. In 1934, more than 200 wounded and sick people left behind by the Central Red Army during the Long March passed through southern Hunan to form the South Hunan Red Army Detachment, which later became the Red Guerrilla Brigade on the Hunan and Guangdong borders. ”

"Fellow, I am the major captain of the special service team of the Sui City Garrison Command in Guangdong Province, and one of my little soldiers was plundered by bandits on this mountain today, and I want to rescue her."

Zhao Xinghua saw that the old man's tone had a good impression of the Red Army, and hurriedly changed his identity from a refugee to a major officer.

"Oh, you're still from the official family, so why are you the only one?"

"The others have a mission to go back, and I will stay in charge of rescuing my comrades."

Zhao Xinghua miscalculated this time, the old man just had a good impression of the Red Army, and he was not interested in Zhao Xinghua's identity as a captain, if he was asked to choose sides on both sides, he would even be biased towards more bandits, after all, it was those bandits who killed all the maniacs in the village. Although there was a robbery of people and food later, it did not completely cut off their way of life, and the natural hometown feeling in their bones was closer.

"There were about a few hundred bandits in the village, first some of the water elders (hooligans) from nearby villages and towns, and then local young people into the gang. I don't know exactly how many there are. ”

"Nacheng, thank you for being old, and don't tell others about what you met me. I'm going to find my comrades. ”

Zhao Xinghua saw that he couldn't ask for too much useful information from this old man, so he was about to turn around and leave.

"If you meet Boa's mother, tell her how much I miss her?"

The little boy pleaded.

"Okay, what's her name?"

"Forget it, her name is Song Hongying, if you really see it, tell her that Bao'er is very good, the old man is also healthy, and we can live in this world."

The old man interrupted the child's continued conversation.

Zhao Xinghua asked about the general direction again, and continued to walk over there.

Even in the winter season, some edible fruits can still be found in the woods, originally the Qitianling area rarely fell below zero in winter, the most recent heavy snowfall was in 2008, especially the current solar storm outbreak stage, the global weather is warming, the plants on the Qitianling are still evergreen even in winter, and the wild fruits still hang on the branches to continue to grow.

The old and young continue to look deep into the woods for food, and here, as in most parts of China, the large wild animals on the mountains before the end of the world are almost extinct, and the ecological environment of Mangshan and Dayao Mountain has not been maintained, after all, there are not many places called "XX National Forest Park", and there will be fewer and fewer protected primeval forests as they extend northward.

When humanity is deprived of external threats, its worst enemies become its own kind.