Chen Tao walked in front, Nan Huaijin and Zhu Qiu followed behind, this is the county market, when the epidemic comes down, it is a great wilderness, there are only three or two old men picking vegetables in the market, and most of the young and strong people are also hiding at home, so they can be saved.

Chen Tao had a wooden hut in which there were a dozen or so seriously ill young men and a woman.

"Senior sister, don't go in and get infected with the epidemic. Zhu Qiu was shocked, stretched out his hand and grabbed Nan Huaijin, while covering his mouth and nose.

The small wooden hut has no walls to protect it from the wind and rain, just a clearing of dry reeds supported by bamboo poles. Chen Tao took out a cloth from his arms, and there were several silver needles that glowed in the dark, and the woman had just woken up, and the silver needles were pierced on the top of her head.

"Thief sound...... Son, I'm not ...... It's not about to ...... Dead?" the woman spoke intermittently, as if with great strength she had spoken the last sentence, and as soon as she finished speaking, she began to cough violently, endlessly, as if her heart, liver, and lungs had to be coughed out before she could feel comfortable.

Nan Huaijin looked at the attentive appearance of the thief, but felt that the person in front of him suddenly had two temperaments, one was in a hurry, the sun was shining when he smiled, and the other was calm and introverted, living in his own rivers and lakes.

"Auntie, speak, take this pill, eat a lotus seed cake, and sleep well. As he spoke, a red and black square cake appeared in his hand, and the square cake made of dried lotus seed powder with red dates was handed to the woman.

At this time, every mouthful of food is not easy to obtain, Nan Huaijin suddenly thought that even the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River, where extravagance has always prevailed, are so desolate, so in the northwest, isn't the scene during the epidemic even more terrifying?

This piece of cake is, but, at this time, it can make people starve to death for a day.

"Thief, where's the porridge?" A hungry pale face leaned over and frightened Nan Huaijin, who took a step back with her mouth slightly open.

After looking closely, I saw that it was a young man, his eyes were deeply sunken, his face looked like real skin wrapped in bones, and his clothes were in tatters, like a dead corpse that could still talk and crawl.

The thief looked over, he couldn't hear it, but he could see what was in the man's mouth, shook his head and said, "There is no porridge, except for water, just some floating grass seeds." ”

The light in the man's eyes was like a flames that had been extinguished, and he was invisible, and he muttered, "It's just some floating grass seeds...... It's just floating grass seeds. ”

These people, apparently beggars and plagued people, were separated from each other by a small place, and there was a small stew, and I don't know what was simmering with the sound of thieves, but the smoke was particularly pungent.

"Thief, what are you cooking?" Nan Huaijin leaned over and asked, only Zhu Qiu didn't dare to approach, and his face was very pale, far away, and he wanted to call Nan Huaijin back.

The thief glanced at her, smiled and whispered, "Here's a good thing, meat." ”

"Meat?" Nan Huaijin covered her nose and wondered, she couldn't help but want to look inside the stewpot, and after thinking about it, she asked, "What kind of meat?"

Her pale nose was gently pinched by herself, and immediately turned red, and the thief didn't see it, but looked at the contents of the stew pot and said, "I went to the mountains two days ago to look for food, and I found this." ”

He lifted the lid, and the pungent smell suddenly dissipated, but fortunately it was a wooden shed, and there was no wall to block the wind, otherwise the smell would have been stronger.

"This is called cinnamon, also known as cinnamon, the restaurant takes its skin to enter the meat dish, the aroma is tangy, take its branches to dry, put a section of the water into the sweet and delicious, I take its old roots, boiled until rotten, eat into the stomach, fire into the body, drive away cold and dampness, protect the internal organs of the patient. Chen Tao said.

"I know cinnamon, but I remember that this cinnamon bark can't be fried for a long time when it heals diseases, your old root will be stewed, and besides, no one seems to use cinnamon root in medicine. Zhuqiu said.

Nan Huaijin looked at it, indeed, this cinnamon has been boiled and rotten, like stewed meat.

"The medicinal properties of this cinnamon are too strong, there is a fire element, people eat too much, it is easy to suffer from heat poison, the longer I stew like this, the less the five elements of fire yuan will be. The thief said.

Nan Huaijin looked at him curiously, obviously he was a well-known deaf person, but he was able to have a normal conversation with people, if others didn't know, I was afraid that they wouldn't really know about this thief, and he turned out to be a deaf person who couldn't hear the sound.

"What do you look at me, what am I doing?" The thief turned his head to look, Nan Huaijin was staring at him, obviously a teenager, covering half of his face, he felt that his eyebrows and eyes were inexplicably good-looking.

"Actually, Ben Gongzi just wants to ask you, thief, can you hear it?" Nan Huaijin covered her nose and asked, she didn't dare to ask about the poisonous smoke, and if she smelled too much, she might be deaf or something.

There was no response to this sentence, and the thief was busy pouring the medicine in his hand into a dozen bowls, and a few pieces of stewed cinnamon were poured into each bowl, and the cinnamon root floated, and the black and swarthy traces were distinct, and it looked like meat.

"After searching for a day or two, the whole mountain can not find anything to eat, the 400,000 quintals of disaster relief grain of the official family have been eaten up by the victims in Daizhou, we have always been self-sufficient in Jiangnan, and only need the county order to open a warehouse to release grain, and these people will not die of hunger. Someone in the shed said that they had obviously received the news that the relief food distributed by the official family had not reached the border of Jiangnan.

Someone picked up those large cinnamon roots and bit them, what the cinnamon roots tasted like Nan Huaijin didn't know, just looked at the appearance of so many people in this shed, she remembered that when she was a child, she begged with Qi Bo, and she was often hungry, and she didn't eat for two days in a row, which was also like this.

She remembered that Qi Bo often found an iron pot that no one wanted, picked up some bark and mountain grass, lit a fire and poured it into the water to stew, and she often heard Qi Bo mutter: "Farewell for a decade or two, it will be difficult for you to meet such a good day today, no one and I grab licorice and elm bark to eat, and when the stew is rotten, this elm bark is also very fragrant to chew." ”

The elm bark is not fragrant at all, and it can only be stewed for two or three hours to be simmered, and the so-called licorice is the most difficult thing Nan Huaijin has ever tasted to swallow.

When people are hungry, not to mention the bark of the turf tree, it is the incense ash of the dead who has eaten too much, and it can also be swallowed.

Nan Huaijin got up, looked at the thief, he still had the iron plate of Wanjianmen hanging on his waist, and actually took out a large cake from the package on his body, he swallowed his saliva, opened his mouth wide and bit it.

Nan Huaijin's eyes widened, and Zhu Qiu, who was covering his mouth and nose outside, was also surprised, and the thief looked back at the two of them, and stuffed the whole cake into his mouth in three or two bites, chewed hard, and swallowed it.

"Thief!"

Nan Huaijin stepped forward and pushed Chen Tao, Chen Tao looked at her strangely and asked, "Brother Nan, what's wrong?"

Nan Huaijin tilted her neck and looked at him strangely and said, "Thief, do you have a big cake?"

Chen Tao nodded and said, "Forty miles away is Suzhou City, where the pancakes are the most delicious, crispy and delicious, and there are shredded meat in them." ”

"But you obviously have bread, how can you make them eat this broken cinnamon? I thought you were a good person!" Nan Huaijin said angrily, she was really angry, not only did this person not cover up, but also ate this fragrant meatloaf in front of these hungry people, she gritted her silver teeth, and looked like she wanted to kill.

Chen Tao waved his hand indifferently and said: "I treat the sick and save people, I already have the grace of reinvention for them, no relatives, no reason, no reason, I am already kind to rescue, as for me to eat meatloaf, and they eat cinnamon root, is it more important than living, appetite?"

The words are not coarse, the corners of Nan Huaijin's vermilion lips under the bead veil twitched, although this thief's words were reasonable, but when he said this, Nan Huaijin could not accept it, and the two hands in his sleeves clenched into fists, wanting to hit the thief in the face in front of him.

"Takebeg, give me some silver. ”

"Silver?" Zhu Qiu looked at her suspiciously, took out his purse from his waist, and took out the silver ingots inside.

Nan Huaijin took the silver and threw it on Chen Tao, Chen Tao hurriedly caught it, and he grabbed it in his hand heavily, which was five or six taels.

"This money is for them to buy bread to eat later, so don't use it yourself. Nan Huaijin snorted coldly and said.

Chen Tao thought to himself, he wanted to say a few more words to the young man in front of him, and when the time came, he would become a good brother and drink every day.

"I know, I know, this silver is a good thing, I can buy more than ten loads of food, Yu Xuanzi, Su Lie, you and I will go to buy food tomorrow. ”

When the two of them had their stomachs full, they heard that they had money to buy food, and both of them had a light in their eyes.

"It's not a problem for Chen Mi to buy five or six more quintals, in this world, the price of rice is the same every day, stealing voices, tomorrow I will call more people and go with us." ”

Everyone kowtowed to Nan Huaijin to thank him, everyone shouted for his life-saving kindness, and the sound of kowtowing was endless, until the sound of thieves made everyone stop, and they stopped.

Nan Huaijin embarrassedly exited the shed, followed out, grabbed Nan Huaijin's hand and said: "Brother Nan, don't dislike me for being just a deaf person, I know martial arts and medicine, you and I are brothers, don't lose." ”

Nan Huaijin just smiled, straightened his waist and said: "You have been fighting for a day, you are still injured, it just so happens that I am also hungry, let's go, please have a meal for your brother." ”

The thief smiled and followed him, and Zhuqiu shook his head and followed.