On the way to the west, Wan Jinlan and Xiao Feng learned from the mouths of the exiles that the King of Guangling was captured by King Su, as well as the rumors that the emperor was not the son of the first emperor and not the queen mother's own son, and that he had won the throne improperly.

Most of the homeless people are hungry and thin, and the clothes they wear in the cold winter are not covering.

Like Wan Jinlan and Xiao Feng, who wore thick cheeks and two taels of flesh, they were all robbed, and if they weren't good at martial arts, they would also be drowned in the sea of people and robbed.

All the way to the west, there were more and more displaced people, and some of them were sick.

The towns along the route will not accept displaced people, and will send troops to expel them, so that the epidemic will spread into the city.

The homeless people have nowhere to go, and many of them die on the road in the winter.

At this time, Wan Jinlan and Xiao Feng were blocked by two hungry half-grown children on the loess road.

"Please, save my mother."

The two children knelt in front of them, crying with a handful of snot and tears, with frostbite on their hands and faces, wearing tattered straw sandals, and their black toes were not only swollen, but also festering and bleeding pus.

In the withered grass in front of him, there was a thin black man with a pale face and closed his eyes and was silent.

As for the children's mother, she was lying on the sidelines.

Wan Jinlan and Xiao Feng were covered with a veil on their faces.

This is not the first time the two have met, but before that, the children's father was still alive.

It was also because they gave the two children dry cakes that they were seen by other homeless people, and the two were almost robbed.

"Please, take my two children with me in the future, and they will make you cows, horses, slaves, and maids, as long as you give you stuttering."

The woman's face was flushed purple, her thin cheekbones bulged, her eyes were sunken, and her eyes were filled with supplication and hope.

Two children wept and wiped their tears.

Xiao Feng sighed: "There is a doctor in the village and town behind, I'll go and invite someone." ”

Wan Jinlan didn't speak, she felt that this doctor might not be able to invite him.

If it is an epidemic, asking for a doctor is equivalent to harming people's lives, and doctors are also afraid of death.

The two children wept and kowtowed, "Thank you, benefactor." ”

Xiao Feng rode back, while Wan Jinlan sat on the stone beside him, took out three cakes from his baggage, handed them to the little girl, and let the three of them share the food.

"When you're done eating, find a place to dig a pit, bury your father, and let him be buried in the ground."

Wan Jinlan felt that her heart was much harder, although she sympathized with the two children who had lost their father and were displaced, she could calmly look at the corpses whose bodies were already cold.

The child's mother was reluctant to eat it and wanted to leave the cake for the two children.

Wan Jinlan said: "You eat, I still have it, if you don't have it, you won't be able to see what kind of life the two of them will live in the future." ”

"Your own children, of course, you have to watch them grow up by yourself."

Along the way, those who starved to death, died of illness, and froze to death, in Wan Jinlan's view, not being able to eat food is the most important thing, and minor illnesses can drag people to death, and major illnesses can drag people to death.

Seeing the mother and son eating cakes and drinking cold water with tears in their eyes, Wan Jinlan looked away.

She thought she was very unlucky, she lived a golden and noble life since she was a child, and after getting married, she was unlucky and went into exile all the way, but compared with these homeless people, she seems to be lucky.

There was a sound of talking from the other side of the yellow earth, and Wan Jinlan looked up to see that it was a group of ragged homeless people who were supporting each other and walking towards this side.

Wan Jinlan said: "Hurry up and swallow the cake." ”

The two children's eyes widened, and they couldn't care less about tears, and swallowed the cake in a few bites, and the children's mother did the same, gobbling and chewing.

Wan Jinlan held the long knife in his hand, propped it on the ground, and looked sharply at this group of homeless people.

When the homeless people saw her look of "I drove this road", they were frightened by the red birthmark on her face, and walked to the dead grass on the side of the road to avoid her.

Wan Jinlan also had to be like this, she would rather be a bully than be robbed.

Although I haven't seen people eat people with my own eyes along the way, I have heard of it.

"Auntie, Uncle Zhang is dead?"

Feng Guihua, the mother of two children, looked up at the crowd and saw Li Dazhuang, a former villager in the same village.

"Da Zhuang, where is your father?" Feng Guihua looked around and didn't see Li Dazhuang's father.

Li Dazhuang stopped, "My father went to the glacier to catch fish and fell and froze to death, and my mother died of illness on the road." ”

"Auntie, do you want to come with me? We went to the border city, and heard that the border city is now being recruited, and when we enter the barracks, we will have a place to stay and food. ”

Li Dazhuang's numb eyes showed hope. Although they had hope, they knew that because of their illness, they might not even want to be soldiers.

Wan Jinlan observed this group of homeless people, and found that there were old and young, not all of them were young and middle-aged, and when Li Dazhuang invited the women and children who seemed to be not lightly ill to go to the border city together, a group of people did not speak out against disliking the three of them as a burden.

Wan Jinlan nodded secretly in his heart, a person's character is most evident when adversity is at a low point.

Feng Guihua glanced at Wan Jinlan and asked, "Benefactor, where are you going?" ”

Immediately, Li Dazhuang heard the birthmark brother dressed in men's clothes say the woman's voice.

"Follow me in the future, and I will take care of your food and lodging, and then you will listen to my dispatch, and if you will, come to my side."

Li Dazhuang and the others looked at her.

Wan Jinlan stood up on the stone with a knife in his hand and looked at everyone.

Li Dazhuang was the first to speak out: "You little lady, what can you do in the future, what do you need us to do?" ”

Wan Jinlan raised her eyebrows: "I can keep you fed, clothed and warm, and live well, as for what to do in the future, settle down and talk about it later." ”

Wan Jinlan took out all the cakes in the baggage and distributed one to everyone.

The cakes here in Liangzhou are dry and hard, and they are very thick, and they are very laborious to chew, but they are very easy to store.

Wan Jinlan himself also chewed a dry cake with water.

This group of displaced people is headed by Li Dazhuang.

Li Dazhuang finished chewing a cake and asked, "Where do we settle down at night?" ”

Wan Jinlan said: "First help Xiaohua and Tie Niu help them bury people, and wait for my husband to bring the doctor back and show you all." ”

Wan Jinlan took the lead in digging the pit, and Li Dazhuang and several young men also came to help.

When the person was buried, when Xiaohua Brother Tie Niu knelt in front of the grave and cried, Xiao Feng really brought a doctor.

The doctor in the cloth robe covered his mouth and nose tightly, a middle-aged man in his forties, asked about Feng Guihua's situation and looked at it from a distance, then frowned and said: "I prescribed medicine, but with your current conditions, you can only resign yourself to fate." ”

The doctor didn't say what the illness was, but Xiao Feng explained, if it was cold, there was no need to say it to cause panic.

The doctor didn't have close contact with Feng Guihua at all, and he could roughly determine the symptoms after asking about the symptoms.

"I'm bothering you to show them too, and the consultation fee is twice as much."

Xiao Feng was able to invite people, and it also cost ten taels of silver.

Ten taels of silver can be used for the expenses of ordinary people for three or five years, which is already a lot.

Doctor Li Fugui saw that this group of people looked quite healthy in addition to being extremely thin, and he also diagnosed it carefully for the sake of silver.

(End of chapter)