Chapter 159 - 155: Return to the Village _1

Translator: 549690339

Two hours later, Wen Fu and several villagers returned empty-handed, not only failing to find the horses and mules but also unable to locate the pigs and cows the Jiang Family villagers had taken to the forest.

The old man Jiang sighed, but quickly stopped dwelling on it.

As long as the people survived, that was all that mattered. The rest were just material things that could be bought with money in the future.

It was not until evening that everyone in the cave was rescued.

Jiang Village’s inhabitants gradually returned to the village.

Uncle Jiang knew that his younger brother’s family also would return to the village, he sighs with regret, teary-eyed, saying goodbye to his younger brother.

But upon entering the village, they found the entire village had been burned down and there wasn’t a single intact house.

The villagers sat by the ruins sobbing heavily. Some started criticizing Jiang Sanlang’s family.

“If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have suffered this disaster.”

“Exactly! Our village was fine before they came—now it’s all gone!”

Jiang Jiu couldn’t stand it any longer, he angrily said, “Enough! Have you gone to see the neighboring village? Or maybe visit a village further away. Did any of them escape casualties like we did? If it wasn’t for my brother who came to alert us at night, you would have died in your house! You should be grateful instead of mourning.”

“Hmph! Bunch of ingrates!” Uncle Jiang huffed coldly, “My nephew shouldn’t have saved any of you!”

Jiang Dahu sighed, “Enough, enough, stop crying. We still have our lives, and our belongings are intact. We should quickly figure out how to build houses. It’s getting colder each day. What’s the point of blaming others here?”

“Build houses? What if the bandits come again?”

“Yeah, if the bandits come, wouldn’t we have been busy for nothing?”

Jiang Dahu glared at them: “So you think crying here will stop the bandits?”

Uncle Jiang rolled his eyes: “Build or not build, it’s up to you. The weather is getting colder. If you want to live like mole-rats and dig holes when the time comes, that might also save you trouble when bandits return.”

All the villagers:

Now, let’s talk about Clan Leader Chen and Elder Jiang’s group.

Wang Dashan came back with news.

“The bandits have all gone towards the county town!”

Wang Dashan took a drink of the water handed by Jiang Cheng, and said, “I saw it with my own eyes. There are a lot of people, about a thousand, holding the Beast Fangs Flag, and they had mules, big carts. It was a vast crowd.”

Elder Jiang frowned: “They’re heading to the county town? Are they planning to attack it?”

Clan Leader Chen also looked serious, “No wonder they raided all the villages first. They wanted to stock up on food and fodder before laying siege to the city.”

“This is bad. My eldest son, my second son, they haven’t returned yet. I don’t know whether they’ve been captured.” The more Elder Jiang thought about it, the more afraid he became.

Clan Leader Chen: “Let’s not speculate. We should hurry back to the village. If Sanlang and the others come back and don’t see anyone, they will definitely return to the village. We can’t stay here for long.”

“Alright, let’s go back to the village first.”

Everyone picked up their belongings, quilts and remaining food, and hurried after Elder Jiang’s family towards Chen Village.

It’s a twenty-mile journey from Jiang Village to Chen Village. But that’s along the official road, if walking through small trails, it would certainly be more.

It was completely dark now and they could only move forward with two torches to illuminate the path. One at the front and one at the back.

The entire procession was silent. Even Wen Tian who was being carried by a villager whom Lin family had bribed with a bracelet, didn’t utter a word.

Whenever they encountered a village on the way, they would bypass it from a distance, even extinguishing their torches, marching head down, with large and small steps.

Finally, they reached Chen Village in the middle of the night.

From a distance, the village was pitch-black, and there wasn’t even a dog barking.

Clan Leader Chen found Elder Jiang to discuss, “We can’t go into the village at this time. We need to send someone to explore first.”

Elder Jiang nodded, “Alright! How about we first go to the South Slope? It’s far from the village and there’s a bamboo forest. If there are no bandits, we can stay at my place.”

“Alright, let’s do that,” Clan Leader Chen immediately nodded in agreement.

On a chilly autumn night, sleeping in the open air would not do. Many people didn’t even have bedding. If they were to freeze all night, they would surely fall ill. It would be much better to have a place that could shelter them from the wind and rain.

So, Wang Dashan and a fellow villager dashed into the darkness to check whether there were any bandits on the South Slope.

Less than an hour later, they returned, reluctantly informing old man Jiang, “There are no bandits on the South Slope, but your house has been burnt down.”

Old man Jiang froze, his heart aching as though it was bleeding. “Everything’s burnt?”

Wang Dashan nodded, “The house of Jiang San-shu is intact, with only the kitchen burnt down. The main building hasn’t suffered much damage.”

Upon hearing this, Chunniang heaved a sigh of relief.

Old man Jiang paused for a moment, then said, “Let’s head to South Slope quickly.” It was now the middle of the night; in another couple of hours dawn would break.

“Alright, let’s get going.” The Clan Leader Chen led the group, his mind troubled.

If even the Jiang family’s home on the South Slope had been burnt down, what about his own? It was indeed an undeserved disaster.

The group of people quickly arrived at the Jiang family’s home on the South Slope.

Under the moonlight, the once neat and tidy tile-roofed house was now severely damaged.

Only Jiang San-lang’s house was alright. Although the kitchen had been burnt, just a corner of the three tile-roofed rooms was destroyed. There shouldn’t be any big problem as long as they patched it up and replaced a few tiles.

Chunniang rushed in first and saw the house in complete disarray. There were smouldering heaps of ashes, burn marks, and ragged discarded clothing on the floor. The clay beds were also littered with debris, as though many people had slept on them.

Scattered everywhere were leftover bones and food residues, even on the beds.

But what distressed Chunniang the most was that all the household furniture and belongings had disappeared.

However, the floor tile under which silver was buried at a corner of the room was untouched. This brought Chunniang a mix of joy and concern, but now was not the right time to dig it up and check.

The group found a broom in the courtyard and swept the clay beds clean. They laid out the bedding they had brought with them. The aged mothers, sisters-in-law, and the two nieces were allowed to sleep first, while Chunniang herself, her daughter, and two sons squeezed next to them.

They would discuss everything the next day as they had been on the road for most of the night and were exhausted.

The other room was also full of women and children. Lady Wen, her daughter, nanny, and several other women squeezed onto Yingbao’s bed.

The men, on the other hand, made do by sleeping on the floor of the living room until dawn.

By the time Yingbao woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. In her courtyard, there were two big iron pots with rice porridge boiling in each.

Old Grandpa and Clan Leader Chen were sitting under the eaves, listening to Wang Dashan’s report on the situation in the village.

“There are no bandits in the village, but many homes have also been burnt down.”

“Did anyone return to the village?” Clan Leader Chen asked.

Wang Dashan: “A few households have returned and are tidying up their homes.”

Clan Leader Chen stroked his beard and asked again, “Has my family’s house been burnt too?”

“Not really, but several of Great Uncle’s houses have been burnt.”

Madame Dashan stuck her head out of the window and asked, “Dashan, what about our house?”

Wang Dashan: “It’s also been burnt down.”

Madame Dashan’s brows furrowed, but she wasn’t too distressed, because they had built a house at South Slope. Although it was only a frame so far, all their purchased bricks, tiles, and wood were neatly stacked at South Slope.

Since their village houses were burnt, they decided not to return there. They would instead stay here in their half-constructed houses. Once their husbands came home, they would put a roof on, and the houses would be ready to live in.

Li Dayong and Li Eryong also shared the same thought because they too had built houses on the South Slope, though they hadn’t been able to put up the roofs yet.

When the rumors of bandits first showed up, their blind old father insisted on not becoming a burden to his children and grandchildren. He had them take him to South Slope, and since then he had been living alone in their unroofed house, surviving on the dry food and water his son had left him.

Early in the morning, Li Dao and Li He went to their unroofed house to check on their grandfather and found, surprisingly, that the blind old man hadn’t been killed by the bandits. His food supply hadn’t even diminished.

Not only had it not diminished, but there was also an extra small bag of rice.

According to the blind old man, a person had given him a bag of food and told him to stay alive.