On the official road outside Huaxi Village, crowds of people were walking towards Jiangling Mansion in clusters. Old and young, with their families in tow, some were pushing carts, some were driving animals, and most were carrying large and small parcels.
People wearing raincoats were walking hard on the slippery stone road. There were also some drivers and cyclists walking slowly forward among the crowd. Crying and yelling could be heard on the road.
At this time, a carriage coming in the opposite direction slowly stopped next to two people who were kneeling under a grass hut on the roadside. The carriage was very delicate, with a spring-blooming peach blossom painted on both sides. A woman with heavy makeup got out of the carriage.
, in his forties, with a medium build, and a small mole on his forehead that stands out slightly. The other person is a sturdy man wearing a double-breasted gauze jacket. The open skirt reveals a thick bush of chest hair. Look again.
The expression on his face made people shudder. One of the two people kneeling on the roadside was an old man in his sixties and the other was a girl of 12 or 13 years old. After getting off the car, the big man didn't care that his big car blocked the people on the other side.
The driver walked straight to the two people on the side of the road and said fiercely to the old man: "Old man Li, are you ready with the money? We'll take the little girl away right away."
The old man said to the woman behind the strong man with runny nose and tears: "Sister Liu, please do me a favor. Can you send Xiaoyu to a good man's house to be a slave?"
"Can you care?" The strong man immediately went to grab the girl next to the old man.
"You can't send Xiaoyu to the brothel." The old man and the strong man started fighting, but he was no match for the big man. He screamed and was kicked to the ground by the strong man. He saw that
We need to drag Xiaojuan onto the carriage.
"Stop!" Qi Zhou, whose horse was blocked by the carriage, shouted, "Why are you robbing a girl?"
After staying one night in the post house yesterday, Qi Zhou and his wife continued on their way today, planning to stay in Jiangling Mansion in the evening. However, the Guangling River burst in Nanmen County a few days ago, and the two neighboring counties also suffered disaster. It has been rainy this summer.
The floods continued with ferocious force, destroying and inundating countless houses and crops. Countless people were missing and drowned. The homeless survivors had no choice but to go to the state capital along the official road to beg for help. Qi Zhou and the two were wrapped up.
I had been walking among the crowd for five hours. It was almost dusk, but I was still more than forty miles away from the state capital. It happened that someone was bullying me.
"Little brother, repaying debts is a matter of course, so please don't meddle in this nosy matter." The middle-aged woman said softly to Qi Zhou.
"Uncle, how much money do you owe them?" He Qizhou asked, helping the old man who fell to the ground.
The middle-aged woman rushed to say: "Forty taels, but now it is seventy taels with principal and interest."
"There is nothing I can do. The white-haired man gives the black-haired man the money he borrowed. I don't want to hurt my poor granddaughter." The old man cried, and the girl next to him also cried loudly.
During this day, He Qizhou saw too many suffering people along the way. He had already given away nearly half of the two hundred taels of silver he had around him. He originally decided to keep the remaining money and go to the capital to take the exam no matter what, but he met this poor couple again.
When he was hesitating, Lin Chuan bumped into He Qizhou's shoulder and said softly: "I still have some left with me, so I should be able to save some."
"Bring me the IOU," He Qizhou took out a fifty-tael silver note and twenty-tael pieces of silver.
The middle-aged woman smiled sweetly, took Qi Zhou's silver coins, took out a stack of paper from her arms, took out a piece and handed it to Qi Zhou, saying: "This young master is really generous. Good people will be rewarded."
After finishing, he walked back to the carriage without looking back.
The old man kowtowed to Qi Zhou desperately and asked him to take the girl away with him. He said that he was homeless now and could not feed the child. He Qizhou blushed. Of course, he could not bring a little girl with him.
When they could take out another ten taels of silver, they handed it to the old man and left in a hurry. The two of them walked slowly for a few more miles. Seeing that they had nowhere to stay for the night, they couldn't help but worry secretly. They only heard someone shouting in front that the city gate of the state capital was closed at night.
Everyone followed me to Yuantong Temple in the suburbs to stay temporarily, and we will start our journey tomorrow. Looking at the queue of thousands of people in front and behind, He Qizhou said to Lin Chuan, "That's all we can do, let's go to the temple and spend one night first."
Walking to the head of Huaxi Village, a stone path beside the official road slopes upwards, leading to a hill. The famous Yuantong Temple in Jiangling Prefecture is located on the mountain. In the pavilion at the fork of the road, there is a man and a horse standing in the pavilion, as if
There were two large bags of heavy objects hanging on the horse. When he saw the fleeing pedestrians, he pointed out the way to the temple and distributed about one or two pieces of silver to each person based on his head. The man was tall, in his thirties, with a beard.
, a hoarse voice was shouting loudly: "Fleeing people, don't rush today. Spend the night at Yuantong Temple. The wealthy people in Nanmen County and Qidong County are kindhearted. They will give you one tael per person. Don't miss it." There are two others.
The young man helped him distribute the silver coins. The two people carrying luggage must be good Samaritans in the fleeing team.
"Wood, how much money do you have left? I only have a dozen taels." He Qizhou asked Lin Chuan.
"Thirty-eight taels, and two copper coins." Lin Chuan replied.
"We seem to have become victims of the disaster. Let's go and get the money. If you don't get it, you won't get it." After saying that, he and Lin Chuan led the horse and lined up behind the queue of victims to get the relief money. Waiting for the two of them to line up.
By that time, the two queues for relief were already more than a hundred paces long. After a while, hundreds of people lined up behind them. There were constant shouts and curses in the queue, mostly scolding those who jumped in line. In about a quarter of an hour,
There were only three or four people left in front of them. Qi Zhou thought to himself that he could survive for more than ten days by saving a few taels of silver. When he got to the provincial capital or the capital, he still had to think of ways to make some money. As he was thinking about it, he suddenly heard
There was a "pop", followed by a scream, and a thin young man wearing a hat and black clothes was seen covering the back of his hands, grinning and moaning in pain, a small piece of silver fell to the ground, holding
The bearded man with a riding whip said calmly, "You took it half an hour ago, get out of here!" The man looked horrified and turned around reluctantly and walked towards the temple on the hill.
What an amazing eye, He Qizhou thought to himself. After half an hour, he had passed thousands of people, and yet he still remembered the appearance of an ordinary person. Listening carefully to his breathing and pulse, it was obvious that he was a practitioner. He Qizhou had a natural physique.
He is strong and has keen senses. Long-term hard training in listening to the wind in the waterfall not only did not damage his hearing, but also made He Qizhou's hearing unusually sharp. His visual perception and reaction ability even far exceeded that of Lin Chuan, who had already opened the three meridians.
Therefore, it also helped him to defeat Lin Chuan and Yang Shan who were skilled in using internal strength with only their physical strength. When He Qizhou led his horse forward to collect the money, the young man who gave him the silver gave him a square piece of brand new broken silver, about one tael or so.
, obviously cut out from large silver ingots after they were melted into long strips. When Lin Chuan, who was lined up behind Qi Zhou, was also about to receive the silver, he only heard the bearded man watching from the side say: "Wait a minute." After that, he started to talk carefully.
After sizing up Lin Tuesday, he murmured: "It's a good horse, but it's a pity that it's a little old." At this time, Qi Zhou and Lin Chuan had been running for a whole day, covered in mud, and their raincoats were full of water.
They were attached to their bodies, but they still had the energy and energy they had when they set out. In addition, the two of them had lost a lot of money in the day. They both had grim expressions on their faces and looked more like disaster victims than disaster victims. Qi Zhou's big yellow horse had its head tilted to the side.
It is short, its belly is big and round, and it is a bit droopy. Its four legs are quite strong, but there are thick long hairs from the calf to the horse's hooves, which are full of mud. On the contrary, the mane on the horse's neck is missing.
, there are only a few strands of fine hair hanging sparsely on the nape of the neck, no different from the hair of a bald man. The big yellow horse lazily followed behind Qi Zhou. There was no trace of a horse? And so was Lin Chuan's bay-red horse worth more than ten taels of silver.
Ordinary places couldn't be any more ordinary. He Qizhou was wondering, but Lin Chuan, who was waiting in line behind Qi Zhou to receive relief, suddenly turned red, thinking that the identity of the disaster victim had been revealed.
The continuous pauses made the people behind them a little dissatisfied. The people further behind were worried about the silver shining, and screamed one after another. The bearded man woke up, waved his hand to signal the young man who handed out the silver to continue, and then smiled at Qi Zhou
He said: "Maybe I will wait for you to help me someday."
"Okay, as long as I have money." He Qizhou bowed his hand to the man and hurriedly led Lin Chuan, who had just received the hot money, towards Yuantong Temple.
It is nearly three miles from the official road to Yuantong Temple located in the middle of the mountain. Fortunately, Yuantong Temple is very prosperous and the mountain road is quite wide. Not to mention two horses side by side, even two carriages side by side are more than enough. He Qizhou and Lin Chuan followed
The crowd chatted word by word.
"Mumu, who do you think the disaster relief guy is?"
"A kind-hearted person with money." Lin Chuan replied.
"Good intentions are good intentions, but if you have money, that may not be the case."
"How can I see it?"
"Hmph, the material of his robe is quite good, but it has turned white after being washed, and the cowhide boots have been worn for a long time and have turned black." He Qizhou said as he raised the piece of broken silver forward.
He threw it up high, took two steps to catch it, and continued: "Look at this silver, it was clearly cut hastily after being hammered in the past two days. The edges and corners on the four sides are tingling when you touch it. I doubt that it came from the right way."
Oh, but there’s no name written on the money, it’s ours if it’s given to us.”
Lin Chuan said: "Well, it's possible. I think that person seems to have good skills. It would be better to rob a dog official like Shangzhi County. Hey, young master, do you see if someone planted a grass tag in the pavilion in front of you on the left?"
"I've seen it before, and I passed by a few sign-ins just now, but we are really out of money. If we use it again, we will really have to go home."