Traveling through ancient times to escape famine, the prince led me to rebel

Chapter 249: Dust on the face, frost on the temples

The face is dusty, and the temples are like frost.

Luo Xiaoran never thought that the day of reuniting with Uncle Li would unfold in the way it does now.

Although only one year had passed, Uncle Li's hair and beard had turned a lot greyer, and he actually looked ten years older.

He was wearing a relatively clean and tidy gray-blue cloth shirt. The left sleeve was empty and tied into a knot at the end. When he turned around to look at Luo Xiaoran, the sleeve knot swung in the air and rotated for a circle, causing the entire sleeve to sway continuously.

Luo Xiaoran herself had been running around for nearly a day and a night without a drop of water, so her lips were chapped and her eyes were swollen. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she looked dusty and dirty.

She was wearing the same lavender cross-collared skirt that she had worn yesterday when attending Zhang Xiuqiao's wedding. It was now torn by the branches and thorns on Hulu Mountain. The blood on her face had been cleaned off before entering the city, but there was still a faint trace of blood on her clothes.

"Cai Cai, we were fleeing famine when we separated. How come a year has passed and you seem to be still fleeing famine?" Uncle Li's old face smiled like a chrysanthemum, and his cloudy eyes finally brightened up.

"Uncle Li, I haven't seen you for a year. How come you have become a one-armed hero?" Luo Xiaoran's voice was a little hoarse. She wanted to laugh back, but she lost interest when she stared at Uncle Li's empty sleeves.

What Uncle Li lost was his left arm, which was injured when he tried to save her outside Qingzhou City.

She really wanted to ask Uncle Li how his arm was lost, but there was no time. Every second she delayed would mean the children would be in danger.

Taking her eyes away from Uncle Li's sleeves, Luo Xiaoran turned to look at Chen Ji, and her dry lips slowly opened:

“Your Highness, Prince of Yan, the magistrate of Fuyuan County, An Luhai, ordered the evil Taoist to cut open the hearts of young boys and girls to make elixirs. He captured a dozen little beggars from Po Wa Lane and also captured my two younger brothers and locked them up in a shabby house three miles away from Hulu Temple.

Last night, these children escaped from the broken house and have been lost in Hulu Mountain for a night. Their lives are unknown. I beg you to dispatch troops to search the mountain and rescue those children."

……

"Sir, everyone in Hulu Temple is dead!" The subordinate who was sent to get the resurrection pill reported to An Luhai tremblingly.

"what!"

The vertical lines between An Luhai's eyebrows deepened. He slapped the handle of the armchair, suspecting that he had heard it wrongly.

"Sir, I went up the mountain to get the elixir today just like the previous two days. However, I found the gate of Hulu Temple was open. Except for Li Zhong, all the bodies were lying inside and outside the house. I went to the broken house to check and found a pool of blood inside. All the beggars were gone.

It looks like Li Zhong killed the others and then rescued the little beggars."

"impossible! "

An Luhai shook his head. Li Chong definitely didn't have the guts to do that!

"Take two people with you now and burn down the Hulu Temple, the dilapidated house and the bodies together. Don't leave any clues behind. Send all the rest of you out to look for these little beggars. Find them alive or dead!"

"Yes!"

……

Hulu Mountain is high and densely forested. There is only one passable mountain road, which is very difficult to find. Only people who are familiar with the terrain of Hulu Mountain know how to walk on it. Otherwise, you can only use a big knife to cut thorns and branches to open up a path.

Zhao Xiaobing, Niu Dan and his group wandered around in the mountains for a long time last night because they were not familiar with the road conditions and did not get out.

It was too cold in the mountains at night, and the knockout drugs had more or less taken effect, so for safety reasons, we could only find a sheltered place and take a nap.

At daybreak, the children got up with hungry stomachs. They originally wanted to hurry down the mountain, but after walking for an hour they still couldn't get out. Some of the children were already facing emotional breakdown.

"This mountain is too high. Will we never be able to get out?" Zhaodi asked in a crying voice.