The rice was cooked by Li Hu, and his cooking skills are pretty good.
Gu Qingying drank a bowl of porridge, ate a roasted rabbit leg, and went directly to the bed in the corner to lie down.
The next day, before dawn, Gu Qingying got up.
Probably in order to avoid suspicion, Li Hu and the others moved stones and sticks into the cave last night and specially made a partition so that Lu Qingying could have a relatively private space.
Li Hu cooked another pot of gruel, put some minced wild vegetable leaves in it, and added a little salt. It tasted good.
Gu Qingying drank two large bowls and warned: "You must pay attention to safety and don't be brave when encountering danger. Just escape and save your life is important. Whether the mission can be completed is not important."
Li Hu smiled honestly and said: "Don't worry, Miss, we know what's going on."
After finishing her meal, Gu Qingying disappeared into the woods.
After making sure that no one was around, Gu Qingying entered the space directly and came out again, already dressed as a man.
Compared with the camouflage technology of this era, Gu Qingying thought she could do it better than anyone else.
At least, no one would tell that she is a woman at a glance.
She took out the map and carefully determined the direction. She was going to visit a bandit's village called Dazhaizi.
Qingchuan County is sparsely populated, with a vast territory and sparsely populated areas.
She climbed two mountains in succession and spent more than two hours before she saw a village.
It was approaching noon, and looking from a distance, the village was very quiet with smoke coming from the cooking pots.
By a rough count, there should be more than a dozen households in this village.
She lowered her head and glanced at the stained clothes and her messy bun. She didn't tidy up her hair, but pretended to limp into the village.
When we arrived, we sent people from Yinmen to investigate, because most of the bandits along the way were villagers from nearby villages.
Therefore, any village you see here cannot be taken lightly. Maybe this village is the lair of those bandits.
Gu Qingying quickly walked to the entrance of the village, sorted out the baggage on her shoulders, and knocked on the door of the first house after entering the village.
I turned around and scanned the surrounding houses. They were all thatched and mud-walled houses. Just looking at the conditions of the village, I knew that the lives of the people here were very poor.
Because there are more mountains, the land that can be cultivated becomes scarce. The people here rely on the mountains to survive. They use their hard-working hands to live in this harsh environment.
I roughly calculated that it would take about three hours to walk from here to the town where I lived before, and we would have to cross mountains and rivers.
The low earthen wall allowed Gu Qingying to see the scene in the yard while standing outside.
A slightly plump woman wearing coarse linen clothes and a pockmarked face came out.
The woman passed the courtyard wall and glanced at Gu Qingying warily. She did not step forward to open the door but asked through the courtyard wall: "Who are you looking for?"
Gu Qingying said in a low voice: "I was a scholar who went to the imperial city to take the exam. I was robbed by bandits and fled here in panic. I want to beg for a bowl of water."
When the woman heard the word "bandit", she frowned visibly.
Across the courtyard wall, Gu Qingying did not miss the obvious change in the woman's expression.
I couldn't help but wonder, could this be the village of bandits?
Doubt is doubtful, and all these require evidence.
The woman hesitated for a moment and then said, "Wait a minute, I'll bring you some water."
Lu Qingying wanted to look around again, but when she turned around, she saw an elderly woman staring at her in the yard diagonally across the street.
Those eyes were curious and hostile?
Soon the woman brought water out of the house, but she still didn't open the door. The courtyard wall was only about half a person's height. She raised her hand and handed the bowl to Gu Qingying and said, "After you drink the water, hurry up and leave!"
Gu Qingying originally wanted to do a whole show, so after drinking water, she found an excuse to go to the village for a walk.
As soon as the bowl was brought to her mouth, she smelled a faint medicinal smell in the bowl.
The smell of the medicine was not very strong, but she could still smell it.
Mongolian sweat medicine!
Gu Qingying quickly identified what kind of medicine the smell in the bowl belonged to, and sneered in her heart, knowing that there was something wrong with this village.
He deliberately raised his sleeves and actually took the opportunity to pour water into the space.
She wanted to see what this woman wanted to do.
Gu Qingying handed the bowl to the woman and said, "Thank you, eldest sister, for the water."
The woman took the bowl and said slowly: "It's getting late. My man is not at home and I won't leave you to rest. But there is a temple in the woods outside the village. You can stay there for one night and come back early tomorrow morning."
Let’s go!”
Gu Qingying pretended to be grateful and limped towards the woods at the entrance of the village.
The Tu Tu Temple that the woman mentioned is easy to find. There is only one temple and it is not very big.
In the center of the house there is a statue of the Earth God, and in the corner there is a pile of straw. It is easy to tell that the straw has been slept on.
After Gu Qingying made sure that there was no one around, she began to check the surroundings.
The woman seemed very skilled in administering the drug, obviously an experienced hand.
The woman must have encountered something similar, more than once, and the woman calling her to come to the Chenghuang Temple to rest was obviously intentional.
After turning over the straw, she actually saw a pool of black blood.
At this moment, she heard footsteps in the distance, quickly arranged the straw, and fell asleep against the wall.
The pockmarked woman breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Gu Qingying lying in the corner.
He said to an old woman next to him: "I need to be more agile this time. Last time, the knife was too blunt. It took me a long time to kill him, and the blood even splashed all over me."
Gu Qingying did not dare to move and could only judge how many people were coming by the sound of footsteps.
Five people should have come.
And all five of them were women, why did she judge so? Because none of the five walked very fast, and the five of them were obviously headed by the pockmarked woman.
The old woman's voice was a bit cold: "This kid is also in bad luck. He ran around and ended up in our village. He doesn't know what Zhao Jiang and the others do. How could he let someone run away!"
I heard Zhao Jiang’s name.
Gu Qingying was shocked, her luck could not be so good!
They actually happened to arrive at Zhao Jiang's village. I was still worried about how to find Zhao Jiang before, but now, a solution has been brought to their doorstep!
The pockmarked woman glared at the old woman and said displeased in her heart: "My man has to take care of so many things every day, and he will not rob someone like this who is alone. I think this scholar has a fellow traveler."
Gu Qingying sneered in her heart, no wonder!
She said that the pockmarked woman was so skillful in administering medicine, so she turned out to be Zhao Jiang's wife.
A harsh voice came: "Let's think about how to kill this kid! I suggest that he be tied up directly and buried in a hole to avoid bloodshed and bad luck."
Two opposing voices came one after another: "I don't agree."
"I don't agree either!"
The old woman had already walked in front of Gu Qingying.
Pity said: "It would be troublesome to tie and bury it, but it would be quicker to just kill it. What a pity. The ones with thin skin and tender flesh will die."
After saying that, he raised the knife in his hand and was about to drop it.