Zhu Xian: Learn from the Great Ying Immortal and rebuild the Trinity School

Chapter 17: No Gentleman
We met by chance, but it turned out to be a connection of destiny.

At the ferry, the boatman rowed the oars, cutting through the waves and carrying Xu Zhiqiu towards the other side.

On the shore, the old man holding the baby girl waved at him, then staggered away.

Xu Zhiqiu put on a set of coarse linen clothes given to him by Zhou Yixian.
Although it was worn out, it was much better than the rags he had worn before.

In addition, Zhou Yixian also gave him ten taels of silver.

Of course it's not given for free.
As a condition, he asked for Xu Zhiqiu's skill of making dough figurines.

Xu Zhiqiu didn't care.
Just give it.

With the money, he bought a new pair of shoes for traveling, and then bought some dry food and water as travel expenses.

Then, we set off for Minzhou.

……

Minzhou is so large that it covers an area of ​​thousands of miles.

It was once fertile land with beautiful scenery everywhere.

However, that is the past.

It's as if the people of this state have angered the heavens.
In just a few years,
Floods, banditry, locusts and droughts ravaged this land one after another.

The once rich and fertile land has been turned into a barren land where almost no food can grow.

……

Xu Zhiqiu had been traveling on the official road in Minzhou for two months.

The post stations and pass passes we passed along the way were all dilapidated and deserted, with basically no human habitation within a hundred miles.

Occasionally, you would see starving people dying on the roadside, and there would often be groups of wild dogs with green eyes guarding them.

As soon as the starving person died, they rushed over and surrounded his corpse to eat it.

He greatly underestimated Zhou Yixian's warning.

So that till now,

I lost almost thirty pounds.

The reason why he didn't starve to death on the way was simply because of luck - vicious dogs eat dead people, and he had eaten wild dogs.

……

The heat has dried up the corners of my lips.
The hazy sun was shaking, as if the heaven and earth were spinning along with it.

Xu Zhiqiu endured the dizziness and found a dry tree to temporarily shelter under.

He put his walking stick beside him and felt around in his bosom for a while.
After a long while, he took out a thumb-sized dry biscuit.

"Crack!"

My teeth hurt.
He bit it with great effort, letting the dry and hard biscuit cut his throat.

I held it in one hand, afraid of losing even the slightest bit of residue.

He finally swallowed it down, choking and grimacing.

"Master Sanyi, I am not going to leave you here this time, am I? Hey..."

It's a good thing he can still laugh.

The high temperature made his brain foggy and more and more unrealistic fantasies appeared in his mind.

such as:

"It would be great if I could have a cold beer right now..."

He had long forgotten the taste of the drink from his previous life.

"what?"

Suddenly he raised his eyes and looked into the distance.

"That is……"

In the hazy summer air, a wisp of smoke is rising.

There is actually a family here?

…………

"Sister-in-law, I'm not a bad person, can you give me a bowl of water to drink?"

Outside the fenced courtyard, Xu Zhiqiu bowed to the host.

The woman was leaning against the door, sewing clothes with needle and thread.

Hearing this, he looked up, revealing a tanned face.

She stared at Xu Zhiqiu for a long time with a dull look in her eyes, revealing her sparse gums:

"Then come in and sit down."

Then he stood up and shouted towards the west wing:
"Someone is coming!"

Xu Zhiqiu was invited into the house.

The furnishings of this farmhouse were shabby, and there was a half-drawn curtain in the kitchen.

The big pot was burning, and white smoke was billowing.

There is a fishy smell.

The woman asked him to sit down and went to the kitchen. After a while, she came out with a bowl of water.

"Thank you, sister-in-law."

He took the bowl of water and was about to drink it, but when he moved his eyes he saw a few drops of oil floating on the water.

"..."

He didn't do anything and just drank it down in one gulp.

"Where are you from, young man?" the woman asked from the side.

"From the south."

Just one person?
"Yes."

"That's a good feeling!"

She smiled and said:

"I'm cooking in my pot. Please sit down and I'll serve you a bowl."

"Sister-in-law."

Xu Zhiqiu grabbed her arm.
The woman was startled.
She couldn't help but turn her head to look at her husband and son who were blocking the door.

Xu Zhiqiu also looked over.

The man was in his forties, and the younger one was about the same age as Xu Zhiqiu, also around fifteen or sixteen.

They all had sparse eyebrows, bloodshot eyes, and were grinning at him with their toothless mouths. Xu Zhiqiu lowered his head and was silent for a few seconds, then asked:

"I am just a refugee, can you give me a way to survive?"

"How can that be possible? It's not easy to meet a living person in this weather, and besides..."

Saliva dripped from the gaps between the woman's sparse teeth, and she laughed non-stop:

"Your meat is so tender when you chew it, young man!"

As he spoke, he took out the scissors hidden in his sleeve.

The father and son at the door also took out their axes.

A family of three slowly approached him.

The book says: Red eyes, sparse eyebrows, sparse teeth, and black tendons are signs of a cannibal.

"Ugh……"

Xu Zhiqiu closed his eyes and said nothing more.

This year,
This kind of thing,

Not surprising at all.

The screen changes.
Two of the three members of the family died in the blink of an eye.

Only the head of the family was left, lying in a pool of blood, seriously injured and shaking like a quail.

"Don't! Don't kill me!"

He was spitting out dark pink blood foam, and there was a large dent in his chest.

But he didn't seem to realize that he was fatally wounded, and he was still trying to shake his tongue:

"This area has suffered disasters year after year. The government has been talking about disaster relief every year, but it's all in vain. The land can't grow food, and people can't survive..."

"We dug grass roots and ate tree bark. Later, when there was no tree bark left, we fished maggots out of the dry toilets... Finally, we had no choice but to eat our parents! Our daughters! Our neighbors! Our passers-by! We didn't want to eat them either..."

He changed the subject and became hysterical:

"If we don't eat humans, our whole family will starve to death!"

"If we don't eat people, our family will be eaten by others!"

"It is this world that forces us to become ghosts. What can I do?!"

He tried to use his reasoning to convince the murderous "Yaksha" in front of him.

Xu Zhiqiu sighed:

"You misunderstood. I didn't intend to judge you."

It’s not easy to live these days.

There was a great famine and people were cannibalizing each other.

A person who is extremely hungry is no longer a human being.

Creatures that cannot be defined as human beings naturally cannot be judged by human moral standards.

What else could he blame?

However, since you have done it, you have to admit it and bear the corresponding consequences.

It’s not like Xu Zhiqiu didn’t give them a chance.

He looked at the man's dead wife and son, and then looked at himself who was about to die.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing for a family to be together?

The ghosts in the underworld are better than the people in chaos.

Then he took up his knife and went forward.

"Go on your journey with peace of mind."

…………

Send that family on their way.

Xu Zhiqiu lifted the curtain and came to the kitchen.

In the hazy white fog, a stove was burning brightly.

There was a crack in the lid of the pot on the stove, and steam was overflowing from the edge.

The fishy smell...or rather the meaty aroma, came from this pot.

Xu Zhiqiu hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath, and opened the lid of the pot.

Inside was a large pot of soup.

The milky white soup was boiling, a circle of oil foam accumulated on the edge of the pot, and a few wild vegetable leaves occasionally turned out.

And what is bubbling in the boiling soup, chopped into different sizes and shapes... is meat.

Xu Zhiqiu pursed his lips, with some sadness in his eyes.

Look at the structure.
There should be more than one person in the pot.

My stomach is churning, I can’t say I feel sick... or I feel thirsty.

He realized his danger and rushed out of the room and came to the west wing.

Pushing open the door, I saw human bones scattered all over the ground.

However, the most eye-catching thing was a corpse that had been dried by the wind for so long that it had become bacon.

He looks like a man, with an elegantly combed bun and slender hands and feet. He should be a scholar or a juren.

Now he has been stripped naked and hung on the beam, as skinny as a piece of firewood.

His eye sockets were sunken and his mouth was twisted back in pain.

There was a light blue purse wrapped around her wrist, with a striking word "An" embroidered in red on the front.

Xu Zhiqiu untied it.
Turning to the back, I found a line of small words embroidered on it:

"There are sedges on the hills, and taro trees in the marshes. I haven't seen a gentleman yet, and I am worried as if I were drunk."

I recited this poem aloud in a low voice, savoring its meaning.

It sounds like a token of parting given by a wife hoping her husband will return soon.

Then, whose husband and whose father is this?

He felt extremely bitter in his heart, looked out the window, and muttered to himself:
"It seems that the world here is not much better..."

He really didn't have the strength to dig a hole to bury these people, so he just started a fire and burned everything.

In the interior scene, another stone tablet rises.

(End of this chapter)