Chapter 55 - 055 - Losing Face

"Sister Liu is talking to two female disaster victims. One is wearing a floral jacket, holding a little girl about five years old in her arms. Although the girl is frail, she is quite good-looking, with fair skin, unlike the other victims around who are as dark as charcoal.

The other woman is in her early twenties, wearing a blue jacket. She looks attractive, but she walks in a weak and limp manner, her body always tilting from side to side, which looks very awkward. It doesn’t seem like she’s just tired; it’s more like being naturally boneless.

Gu Jinli frowned as he observed, glancing at the woman in the blue jacket, then looked away.

Qin San Lang, who was walking at the back of their group, saw Gu Jinli sizing up Sister Liu and came over to her, whispering, "Those two women are not disaster victims; they are in cahoots with Sister Liu. They are likely pretending to chat to attract other victims into conversation."

Gu Jinli recalled the information Qin San Lang had gathered last night. Including Sister Liu, there were exactly three women in that group, and since the woman in the blue jacket walked so weakly, she must, like Sister Liu, have come from a brothel.

Qin San Lang was worried that they would be harmed by Sister Liu’s group and quietly pointed them out to Gu Jinli while staying close to her.

These people were not clustered together but scattered among the disaster victims, even pretending not to know each other.

Gu Jinli memorized the appearance of these people and said to Qin San Lang, "Brother Qin, thank you. I’ve remembered them."

Gu Jin’an and Gu Jinxiu were also identifying the people pointed out by Qin San Lang, and both thanked him: "Thank you, San Lang; we remember them too."

Qin San Lang, the same age as them, all fourteen, but a few months younger than them, so they didn’t call him ’Brother Qin’ but ’San Lang.’

Qin San Lang nodded and slowed down his pace, falling to the back of the line again.

Gu Jinli gripped Gu Jinxiu’s hand tightly and continued walking forward with Elder Qin, keeping an eye on Sister Liu’s group to avoid their schemes.

However, Sister Liu’s group was clever, just making their way without causing any trouble.

They had set off before dawn, walking for over three hours. By noon, they finally reached the boundary of Yuchang Prefecture.

The number of disaster victims at the boundary was even greater. At a glance, all were lugging bundles, carrying loads, families in tow - roughly estimated, at least in the tens of thousands.

’Sister, were you also driven out by Yuchang Prefecture?’ Sister Liu, leading a boy, ran into the midst of the refugees to strike up a conversation.

These victims, having never stayed in the broken temple, didn’t know Sister Liu’s character. Seeing her with a boy and with a woman carrying a girl alongside, lowered their guard and said, ’Yes, Yuchang Prefecture won’t keep us, and we’d be beaten to death by the soldiers if we didn’t leave.’

The victims were very dissatisfied with Magistrate of Yuchang Prefecture driving people away, and hearing someone initiate the conversation, they immediately gathered around, cursing the Magistrate: ’Master Magistrate is heartless. We fled hardships all the way to Yuchang Prefecture, suffered so much, and barely stabilized for a few days, yet he couldn’t accommodate us and ordered to drive us away.’

’I heard it’s because Yuchang Prefecture is running low on water and food. They’re afraid that if we stay too long, we’ll consume all of Yuchang Prefecture’s food and drink all its water. For the people of Yuchang Prefecture, Master Magistrate had no choice but to drive us away.’

’Pah!’ A disaster victim spat, cursing, ’Master Magistrate is not for the people of Yuchang Prefecture at all. Clearly, he’s afraid that our numbers are too large, fearing a rebellion. To safeguard his own achievements, he drove us out.’

That victim gritted his teeth and said fiercely, ’These dog officials who don’t do their duty, they’ve angered me. Really, we should rebel and show them!’

Hearing this, Sister Liu cried out, ’Exactly, they’re driving us to a dead end.’

The woman holding the little girl, dressed in a floral padded jacket, also started to cry.

Perhaps their crying was too pitiful, many of the disaster victims spoke out to comfort them, and in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Sister Liu became familiar with these newly met disaster victims.

Gu Jinli thought to himself: May these disaster victims fend for themselves and not end up being sold by Sister Liu and help her count the money.

Elder Qin saw Sister Liu and her group mingling among the disaster victims and chatting with them, and pretended not to see, continuing to lead several families forward, entering the jurisdiction of Tongshan Prefecture.

The famine situation in Tongshan Prefecture was slightly better than in Yuchang Prefecture; they could find water along the way, no longer needed to worry about drinking water, nor spend money to buy water.

But now the weather was cold, many wild vegetables, wild tubers, trees, including roots, were killed by frost in the ground, and animals also hid and did not come out, the food they could find was becoming less and less.

Fortunately, the few families still had stored food, and the three from Qin family were skilled hunters, able to find snake and rat holes, catching snakes and mountain rats, so the families were not starved excessively.

The situation of other disaster victims was mixed, those with stored food could last, those without stored food could only drink water to stave off hunger.

There were also many disaster victims who became ill from the cold and could no longer continue on the road.

Sister Liu and her group took the opportunity to distribute food and cold-resistant clothes, assisting several families with daughters.

These families were very grateful to them, some of them simply gave their daughters to Sister Liu’s group, just so their own daughters could have food to eat and a cotton garment to wear, so as not to starve or freeze to death.

The Sister Liu’s group was not indiscriminate in accepting any girls; they only took those who were pretty and meek, they did not want the overly outspoken ones, fearing the girls would make trouble if they found out the truth.

Thus being selective, they took in about a dozen young girls in their teens.

Besides the girls, they also took in a few able-bodied men to watch over these girls.

Elder Qin and the others saw what Sister Liu’s group was doing but did not interfere. There were too many filthy deeds encountered along the way, they could not possibly intervene in all, being able to protect themselves was already good enough.

The disaster victims faintly knew what Sister Liu’s group was after in saving these girls. After all, in a famine year, food was precious, and without purpose, they wouldn’t have distributed food for rescue, but they kept quiet about it, as fleeing a famine was difficult, and everyone didn’t want to cause trouble for themselves.

Moreover, since those girls were given to Sister Liu’s group by their parents, other disaster victims were even less likely to intervene.

If Sister Liu’s group had always exchanged food for people, it would have been better, but when they passed through five counties and were about to reach the prefectural city of Tongshan Prefecture, many disaster victims’ daughters disappeared, and along with those girls, Sister Liu’s group also vanished.

"These heartless beasts, they kidnapped my daughter, my daughter!" The disaster victims who lost their daughters cried and cursed, but it was too late to say anything now, Sister Liu’s group had long disappeared without a trace.

The Zhou and Lin families were extremely relieved; after learning the true nature of Sister Liu’s group from San Lang, they had been vigilant all the way, keeping their daughters close and not letting them go out to search for food or water, thus preventing any mishaps.

Following their relief, they breathed a sigh of relief; regardless of the fate of those kidnapped girls, Sister Liu’s group leaving was a good thing for them.

However, they underestimated the greed of Sister Liu’s group; just when everyone thought they had left, in the middle of the night, Sister Liu’s group came back.