Chapter 131
131 Refugees
Zhou Jia thought about it and could only do so. The refugees were all hungry and had tasted the sweetness of robbery. Who knew what they would do?
“Okay. Go get Uncle Chen to build a wall. I’ll take some men to cut wood down the mountain.”
The two of them went out and split up. Li Yu went to Chen Yaohui’s house to tell him the news and asked him to build a wall.
Chen Yaohui frowned and said, “Xiaoyu, we can only do as you say. I’ll bring people to build the wall now.”
Chen Yaohui went out with a frown. After Li Yu returned home, she went to the workshop and said to the woman from Hu Village, “If the days are not peaceful, the workshop will have to stop working. I’ll settle the salary into food for you. Take the home! When you go back, it’s best if Patriarch Hu closes up the village. Otherwise, I really don’t know what will happen.”
The women and girls in Hu Village were stunned when they heard that. Hu Gui’s wife, Madam He, exclaimed, “Miss, are those people really coming?”
Li Yu nodded. “Pack up. I’ll get Ruyi to prepare food for you before sending you back. You have to eat sparingly when you get home. You should be able to eat ripe wheat in spring.”
Madam He nodded. “Miss, we’ll remember. Thank you. We’ll pack up and go back.”
Li Yu calculated their wages and asked Ruyi to exchange them for food before sending them back to Hu Village.
Zhou Jia brought people to the mountains to cut wood and send it back to the village. Chen Yaohui brought everyone to build walls at a few holes in the village.
Carpenter Chen and his men connected the wooden rods and boards and used iron nails to make simple wooden doors. They prepared to set them up at the village entrance.
Min County, which was still more than ten days away from Tongzhou City, was already besieged by the mob. When the news reached Tongzhou City, Tongzhou City closed its gates and only allowed people to go out. The people were in a panic, and the refugees outside Tongzhou City became bolder. A group of people gathered at the city gate and waved their fists at the city and shouted, “Let us in! Let us in!”
One of the men rushed forward and snatched the spear from the city guard’s hand. He pierced his chest with it. The others rushed forward.
“Are you trying to rebel? If you barge in again, we will kill without mercy,” one of the officers shouted.
“Let us in.” The refugees still rushed into the city without care. The officials waved their weapons and stabbed the man at the front in the chest. After killing a few people in succession, the refugees retreated.
Ji Xiang and Zhao Cai brought Li Qing out of the city before the city gate closed. When they arrived outside the city, they realized that the refugees outside Tongzhou City were looking at them like hungry wolves. Ji Xiang took out a machete and held it in his hand. He shouted at Li Qing, “Ah Qing, sit tight.”
When the refugees saw their mule cart coming out of the city, they rushed up. However, when they saw that Ji Xiang was holding a machete in his hand, they did not dare to climb into the cart. They surrounded the mule cart and begged, “Brother, do me a favor and give us something to eat.”
Two men grabbed the handle of the cart and started crawling towards it. Zhao Cai waved its whip and drove the mule away. The mule let go of its four hooves and dashed. Zhao Cai whipped the man who was holding the left handle of the cart. The man let go of the handle in pain and fell down.
The man on the right held onto the cart tightly and refused to let go. Ji Xiang raised the machete and placed it in his hand. He shouted, “Let go quickly. Otherwise, don’t blame me for being too ruthless.”
Seeing Ji Xiang holding the machete with a murderous expression, the man let go resentfully and rolled twice on the ground with the cart. He lay on the ground and watched helplessly as the cart drive away.
The two of them got up and returned to the fire. They said to a tall man with thick eyebrows and a long scar on his face, “Brother Yang, we can’t get anything to eat now. We don’t dare to fight those people openly outside the city. Let’s just walk further away and look for food in a more remote town.”
Brother Yang tightened the grass rope on his body and sniffed. “Alright, let’s go!”
The group gathered dozens of disaster victims. There were more than a hundred of them in total. They walked towards the villages and towns around Tongzhou City with clubs and machetes.
When it was dark, they arrived at Sanming Town and knocked on the door of an inn. The innkeeper replied loudly from inside, “Guest, go elsewhere and take a look. My house has run out of food.”
Before he could finish his sentence, he heard the sound of a door being slammed open. In the blink of an eye, the door was knocked open. The innkeeper saw a group of people in ragged clothes rushing into the inn. Just as he was about to reprimand them, someone rushed up and knocked him on the head. He fell to the ground and died.
Like vicious wolves, the group picked up whatever was by the stove and ate it.
Brother Yang led his men towards the guest room in the inn. He turned his head and said to a man, “Yang Cheng, bring your men to that house. Yang Yong and I will go to this house.”
“Alright! Brother Yang.” Yang Cheng carried a wooden stick and brought the two of them into the house to collect it.
Yang Cheng took out two old cotton robes from the cabinet and put them on. He kept muttering, “He’s so damn poor he doesn’t have anything good.”
Brother Yang brought Yang Yong to the boss’s house and found a few taels of silver and a few thick clothes. He threw them to Yang Yong and said, “Take them and wear them to warm up.”
The others got the food from the inn and said to Brother Yang, “Brother Yang, it’s starting to snow outside. Can we stay here tonight?”
Brother Yang glared at him. “Rest my ass. Hurry up and eat. We’ll rob a rich family while it’s dark.”
Yang Cheng’s eyes lit up and he chuckled. “That’s a good idea. We can always find a rich family and get some money to spend.”
The group of people left the inn after eating and drinking. They looked around the town with shifty eyes. When they found a house with high walls and green tiles,Brother Yang’s eyes lit up.
He pointed at the door and said softly to a thin man beside him, “Yang Chun, go and pry open the door.”
Yang Chun nodded and took out a thin-bladed knife. He reached into the door and slowly fiddled with it. The latch slowly opened and a group of people entered.
The complicated footsteps alarmed the half-awake gatekeeper. He opened the door and saw a group of people in tattered clothes barging in. He shouted, “Someone, come quickly!”
With a puff, the door was knocked to the ground by Yang Cheng.
Someone in the residence was woken up and rang a gong. A servant rushed out with a knife and stick. Brother Yang rushed up with a machete and shouted with red eyes, “Kill, kill, kill these men.”
As he shouted, the machete in his hand mercilessly slashed at a servant. These servants were no match for these vicious refugees. In a short while, they were either dead or injured. Brother Yang pointed at those people covered in blood and sneered, “In for a penny, in for a pound. Kill them all.”
An injured servant begged for mercy with a trembling voice, “Sir, the master is resting inside! We’re also guarding the house. Please spare us!”
A group of people had long turned into evil spirits after being tortured by their long lives of ridicule and homelessness. They could not hear the servants begging for mercy at all.
The servant who begged for mercy was stabbed to death by Brother Yang without hesitation. The others held their knives and killed the remaining servants without even blinking.
Brother Yang and the others, who had turned red-eyed from killing, raised their weapons and rushed into the house. Regardless of whether they were men, women, old, or young, they killed anyone they saw. The group of people quickly massacred the residence.