flstandardbreds Chapter 136 Entering the Mountain
Chapter 136 Entering the Mountain
Xiao Laofu shook his head helplessly, and waited until he came in before saying, "Listen to your fourth brother Xiao when you go into the mountains. Don't rush forward on your own. There are people at home waiting for you to come back!"
"I know, Grandpa." Erzhuzi shrank his neck guiltily. Seeing Xiao Li, he immediately walked to his side. He even deliberately avoided Grandpa and whispered in Xiao Li's ear, "Fourth Brother Xiao, when are we leaving?"
"Is everyone here?" Xiao Li didn't get involved in the grandfather and grandson's questions, but only talked about business.
"Not yet, it will be soon!" Erzhuzi shook his head, "There are only a few people left. I'll go wait outside now. I'll tell Fourth Brother Xiao when everyone is here."
As Erzhuzi was about to walk back, Xiao Li stood up and said, "I'll go with you."
"That's great. We can leave right away once everyone is here." Erzhuzi looked impatient.
Last time, he was injured by those refugees. This time, he must take revenge! He must also arrest all those people and send them to the authorities! He must not let them continue to cause trouble in the village!
"Yeah." Young people have a strong desire for revenge. Xiao Li is well aware of this. He also had a strong desire for revenge when he was young.
If those people had not been frightened by his beating, and if his cheap brother had not warned them from behind, those people would not have bothered him later, and would have respectfully called him "Fourth Young Master Xiao" when they met him.
When the two of them walked outside the ancestral hall, there were still two people missing. After waiting for another cup of tea, the two people finally arrived.
Xiao Li asked Er Zhuzi to count the number of people again. After confirming that everyone was present, he said, "Is there anyone here who is familiar with the situation in the mountains?"
"I'm a hunter. I want to go into the mountains to take a look. Do you want me to lead the way?" The man who spoke was strong and sturdy, with a blackened bow and arrow on his back and a hideous scar on the right side of his face.
Er Zhuzi was afraid that he didn't recognize him, so he whispered in his ear, "Fourth Brother Xiao, this is Yang Quan, he's ten years older than us, and of the same generation as my father. People in the village call him Yang the Hunter or Scar, but I usually call him Uncle Scar."
Xiao Li patted his shoulder to show that he understood, then nodded to Yang Quan, "Uncle Scar, please lead the way. If there is any danger, just let me know. You don't need to lead the way."
"It's no big deal. I'm very familiar with this mountain road." Yang Quan looked fierce, but his tone was very cheerful, and he seemed easy to talk to. "If there's danger, I'll just lead the charge. I dare say there's no one here who can fight better than me."
"Uncle Scar, you are so loud. How do you know that you are the best fighter?" Erzhuzi was not convinced.
Not only him, but many other young people also showed expressions of dissatisfaction.
"That's right, Hunter Yang. If you want to say that, you should ask everyone if they agree with you, right?"
"I don't know about others, but I refuse to accept it. Hunter Yang, when we get back from the mountains, let's have a fight and find out, okay?"
"That's right, everyone will have a fight then."
Under normal circumstances, Yang Quan would not bother to pay attention to them, but after hearing them say that they had just returned from the mountains, he couldn't help but feel a little frivolous for a moment.
"Sure!" Yang Quan laughed heartily. "I'm just afraid that even if you little bastards take turns attacking me, you still won't be able to defeat me. That would be a huge embarrassment. You might not even be able to find the girl or boy you like when you propose marriage, right? If that happens, don't blame me. You asked for it!"
Going back and being able to fight means peace and security. Although they are numerous and powerful, when facing those daring refugees, they are also worried that something might happen to them and drag down their families.
This agreement was like everyone's tacit expectation, hoping that everyone would go into the mountains safely and return to the village safely. Therefore, when they heard Yang Quan say this, no one was angry.
"If we lose, we lose. We are not the kind of shameless people who can blame others for losing."
"That's right, and Yang Hunter, how can you be so sure that the girl or boy I like will look down on me if I lose? What if I lose and she feels even more sorry for me? Maybe she'll agree to marry me?"
"That's what I'm saying! Hunter Yang, just because your own wife doesn't care about you, you think other people's wives don't care about them either!"
"Hahaha……"
When they heard someone say that Yang Quan's wife didn't care about him, everyone burst into laughter, and even Yang Quan himself laughed good-naturedly.
As everyone knows, Yang the hunter from Yangliu Village married the daughter of a butcher. The woman inherited her father's skills and was very efficient in butchering pigs.
Those who can be butchers are basically strong and sturdy. Although Yang the Hunter's wife is not that exaggerated, she is not much better either. Compared with the aunts and uncles who work in the fields in the village, she is indeed a bit strong. However, if compared with Yang the Hunter, there is still a big gap.
If it were just that, it would be fine, but Yang the Hunter's wife also has a loud voice. When she curses loudly, half of the village can hear her voice.
Because Hunter Yang couldn't help but run into the mountains every now and then, the villagers had often heard his wife scolding him.
Sometimes when it was time to eat, everyone would bring out the food and listen to his wife scolding him while eating.
Xiao Li didn't join in their conversation. He picked up a wooden stick the size of a seven or eight-year-old child's arm, then called out to everyone, "Let's go into the mountains."
"Yes, let's go into the mountains!"
"Let's go, I'm going to beat the living crap out of those refugees, and then send them to the authorities!"
"Together! I thought so too!"
"I think you're just talking nonsense. Everyone thinks the same way!"
……
Yang Quan took the lead, followed closely by Xiao Li, Erzhuzi and some young people behind him, and those who were a little older and more mature were arranged at the end.
At the beginning, everyone was still in the mood to chat, but as time passed, the mountains turned from barren to lush, and the calls of wild beasts could be heard all around, everyone stopped talking.
On the way, only Yang Quan would occasionally tell them where there might be danger and ask them not to go there. Then, Xiao Li would ask Erzhuzi to count the number of people every two quarters of an hour to prevent anyone from falling behind.
More than two hours later...
When Yang Quan stopped, he raised his hand to signal everyone to stop first, then frowned and looked around, "This place is different from the last time I came here, and..."
As he looked around, Xiao Li added what he hadn't finished, "Someone must have lived here before, but the grass has grown here again, so it's hard to tell."
"It's those refugees!" Erzhuzi subconsciously lowered his voice, "Have they moved to another place?"
"I guess they have moved to a new place." Xiao Li released his mental power, but did not find anyone else around except them.
After retracting his mental power, he activated his wood-type ability to communicate with the surrounding trees, trying to find any trace of the refugees. Unfortunately, he found nothing either, proving that they had not appeared nearby in the past two days.
After observing the surroundings, Yang Quan said, "They should have been here before. I don't know if it was recently or a long time ago."
The other party was a hunter with rich experience. Compared with Xiao Li, who was young and looked like a scholar, everyone obviously valued his judgment more.
After hearing the other party say that refugees had appeared here, everyone began to look around.
"Aren't we too late? They've moved away, and I don't know where to find them now."
"They definitely can't escape. There's nothing to eat in the mountains, so they definitely won't go deep into the mountains. If we search for a while longer, won't we be able to find them?"
"If we can't find it today, we can just come back tomorrow. There's not much work for us to do lately anyway."
"No matter how long the search takes, as long as we can catch those refugees, that's all that matters."
"That's right!"
Who among those who can appear here doesn't have parents and elders at home? Who doesn't have brothers and sisters? Who doesn't have a wife, children, and grandparents? Even if you don't have a wife and children now, you will always have them in the future.
The famine will not last forever, and they cannot stay at home forever. Their wives, children and the elderly will definitely have to stay at home, and they cannot protect them all the time.
If these refugees broke into the village and caused trouble at that time, trying to rob the girls and boys in the village, and their wives and children, they might not know and would not be able to rush back, and the only outcome waiting for them would be the destruction of their families.
Rather than regretting it after something happens, they would rather work harder and be more tired now, so that at least they don’t have to live in fear every day in the future.
Yang Quan and everyone else had the same idea, but he didn't know why he subconsciously looked at Xiao Li, "Xiao Si, what do you think we should do now?"
"Divide into groups of twenty, and disperse in three directions to search. If you find any trace of the refugees, send someone back to report.
If they discover your whereabouts, first ensure your own safety, run while shouting for help, and others who hear the sound will rush in that direction until everyone gathers together, and then you can fight back.
While ensuring your own safety, I also hope that everyone can pay attention to the people around them when escaping, and try not to let anyone fall behind, so as to avoid anything irreversible.
Is everything clear?"
He was the person arranged by Xiao Laofu. Even though everyone was a little skeptical about how much experience a scholar like him could have, after listening to the method he gave, everyone thought about it and felt that they could not find a better way, so they all nodded seriously.
Yang Quan was the first to speak up. "Then how about we arrange the number of people? I'll lead one group, and who will take the remaining two groups?"
"Erzhuzi leads the group one way and I'll lead the group another way." Xiao Li naturally continued, "Erzhuzi leads the group in the direction with the road, Uncle Daosha continues forward, and I'll lead the group in the direction with no road nearby.
After half an hour, if no trace of human beings is found, Erzhuzi and the people in my direction will go to meet up with Uncle Scar, and then continue to go into the mountains.
If you find any traces of refugees, do as I just said, and shout for help as loudly as possible so that your voice can be heard louder and farther."
"Okay." Yang Quan thought about it and realized that he was leaving the road where he was least likely to encounter refugees to Erzhuzi, and letting him take the road he was familiar with, and then he took the road that was the most difficult to walk on and the easiest to hide people.
"Me? I'll lead the way?" Erzhuzi hadn't expected to be assigned such an important task. He couldn't help but get excited. "Don't worry, Fourth Brother Xiao, I will definitely get it done and protect the others!"
Others didn't hesitate to tear him down.
"Erzhuzi, you're so small and you still want to protect us? I think it's more like we are protecting you!"
"That's right, the two of you combined are not enough for me to fight, and you still want to protect me?"
"Xiao Si, don't listen to his nonsense. We don't need his protection. We're happy enough that he can protect himself."
"You were badly injured last time, Erzhuzi. Don't rush up like that again this time. You heard what Xiao Si said. We should run away when there are fewer of us. We can catch him together when everyone is here."
Although what everyone said was a bit unpleasant, Erzhuzi knew that they were all doing it for his own good, so he just glared at them as if to say, "I misjudged you."
"Okay, you better remember this, but don't give me the chance to protect you!"
"Don't worry, it won't be."
"Even if I ask my wife to protect me, it's not your turn to protect me, so you can rest assured."
"..." Erzhuzi really didn't want to talk. He was just talking to each other, why was he bringing up his wife? Did he look down on him or did he look down on him for not having a wife?
Seeing that the young man was not nervous at all, Yang Quan shook his head helplessly and couldn't help but sigh in his heart: It's better to be young!
Xiao Li did not waste any time. While they were arguing, he quickly divided the people into three teams.
Most of the young people were assigned to their own teams, and three or four were assigned to Yang Quan's team. As for Erzhuzi's team, all of them were over 28 years old and had already started a family and a career.
By the time Erzhuzi finished arguing and realized it, there was no chance to refuse.
Looking at the people who were basically his uncles, he looked at Xiao Li stiffly, trying to say something to switch teams with Xiao Li.
Xiao Li had met so many people that he didn't even have to guess what he was thinking; he could tell just by looking at him.
Before Erzhuzi could speak, he gave the order, "Let's go, don't forget half an hour."
"Okay, those who are traveling with me can set off now." Yang Quan was a rough man himself, and he didn't care about the young people's little tricks at all. He nodded when he heard it, called his people and left.
Before Erzhuzi could say anything, a cousin who was familiar with him put his arm around his shoulders and led him away. "Let's go, let's go too. Let's find those people quickly so we can live a peaceful life from now on."
"Brother Xiao Si, let's go!" Erzhuzi struggled to turn his head and look at Xiao Li. Seeing him waving at him, he withdrew his gaze with despair.
I originally wanted to be someone who protects others, but now...
Looking at his uncles, all of whom were taller and stronger than him, he sighed with a gloomy face.
It would be fine if he didn't hold them back, but he still wanted to protect them? He felt that he was really overthinking it.