From a refugee to a martial artist

Chapter 2: The World is Difficult
After the old man's death, the disaster victims here became even more numb, and for a while the open space outside the city was extremely quiet.

Manager Yang was very proud. He took out a small bronze mirror to look at himself, then looked at Liu Dabao.

"Are you going to sell it?" Manager Yang did not hide it.

Liu Dabao was timid. He looked at the dead old man on the ground, then at Manager Yang. When he saw that Manager Yang was impatient, he quickly knelt down and said bitterly, "Sell, sell, sell! I'm willing to sell anything as long as I can stay alive!"

Manager Yang smiled and looked at the refugees, then stepped forward to inspect them. It was obvious that one ditch was not enough, so he wanted to select the best and find a few more.

The elderly were all skipped, and only the handsome young men were seen. However, most of the disaster victims were so thin that they could barely get a general idea.

Manager Yang took a look around, picked out a few more, and then came to Meng Yuan.

"The bones look okay, but it's too dirty to tell whether it's beautiful or ugly." Manager Yang put his hands in his sleeves and said, "Grab a handful of snow and rub your face. Let me take a look."

"Not for sale." Meng Yuan replied directly.

"Bah! You're so hypocritical. You won't even be able to find a place to sell it when you want to!" Manager Yang spat on the ground, gathered seven or eight young men, said a few words to the detectives, and then hurried away in a car.

The constables no longer cared about it and went back to the porridge shed to warm themselves by the fire, pretending nothing had happened.

The world was silent, with only the occasional sobbing of a child adding to the loneliness and desolation.

Meng Yuan grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed his face. Then he came to the old man, knelt on one knee, felt his breath, and touched his neck. It was obvious that he was dead.

Just when I was thinking about whether I could find a yamen runner to provide me with a place to stay, I heard someone make a "pooh" sound.

Meng Yuan looked up and saw a woman in a tattered flowered jacket leaning against the wall at the entrance of the alley, spitting out melon seed shells.

The woman had an ordinary appearance and dark circles under her eyes. She glanced at the carriage driving into the city gate and said unhappily, "It's already a bad year, and it's fine for bitches to steal other bitches' business, but now men are also stealing bitches' business! What kind of world is this! Bah!"

Obviously, this woman was not a disaster victim, but probably a prostitute in the alley. However, she was not very knowledgeable. Those who liked the Rabbit God would not go to the alley to have fun, so the claim that she was stealing business was not true.

"Sister." Meng Yuan sat on the snow. When he saw the woman looking at him, he asked, "May I ask if you have any old mats that you don't need?"

The woman smiled when she heard that, and while cracking melon seeds, she said, "What's the use of a mat in this snowy weather? There's hot water in my sister's room to warm us up." As she spoke, she even blinked her eyes. Unfortunately, she was not good-looking and did not know how to dress up. She did not look flirtatious, but rather funny.

"When a person dies and is buried in the ground, even if there is no coffin, at least there is a mat to wrap the body and cover the face." Meng Yuan lowered his head and pleaded.

When the woman heard this, she saw that the boy was wearing ragged and bloated clothes, had chilblains on his hands, and looked haggard. She asked, "Who is he to you?"

"I don't know him. They are all poor people who are fleeing. He died for a fair word, we can't just leave him alone." Meng Yuan replied.

The woman pouted and turned back to the alley, spitting out melon seed shells. "You want something from me? Haven't you heard that bitches are heartless?"

Meng Yuan was not discouraged. He took a deep breath and found a few constables who were warming themselves by the fire under the porridge shed.

"Sir." After bowing, Meng Yuan said, "Manager Yang just killed someone. May I ask how to deal with him?"

"What's the matter?" A bearded constable looked Meng Yuan up and down, his hand on the knife at his waist, and asked defensively: "You want justice?"

"I dare not." Meng Yuan arched his hands full of chilblains and said, "It's just that it's freezing cold, and it's so chaotic here. I'm afraid the victims will gather more and more. If the dead are not taken care of, there might be an epidemic. It's okay for some victims to die, but you are here on official business, and it will inevitably disturb your peace. So I came to ask you if there are any mass graves or charity cemeteries nearby so that I can drag them there and take care of them."

"You are a good guy. There is a mass grave half a mile to the southwest!" The constable saw that he was a good guy and spoke logically, so he loosened his hand holding the knife. "I really have no strength. Please give me another bowl of porridge." Meng Yuan made a small request.

"The porridge is gone!" The constable glanced at Meng Yuan, touched his money bag, and said impatiently: "It's enough for you to find someone else to help, go!" He threw out a dozen copper coins, looked at another constable, and said: "What do the higher-ups say? What should we do with the disaster victims? I'm here to provide disaster relief, not only do I not get any money, I still have to pay out more!"

The copper coins were scattered on the ground. Meng Yuan bent down and picked them up one by one. Then he bowed and returned to the corpse.

"What a mess this world is." Old Man Jiang also came over. He seemed to want to say something, but he just said, "I'll give you a hand."

"Okay." Meng Yuan grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed the blood off the dead man's face, revealing a weathered old face.

"Here!" At this moment, the woman who had returned earlier came again, holding a torn mat under her arm and a pancake in one hand, and then threw them both in front of Meng Yuan.

Meng Yuan quickly took the mat and covered the dead body with it. He then put the cake in his pocket and said gratefully, "Sister, thank you for your kindness. I will definitely repay you one day."

"Alright, alright, you're still showing gratitude and giving back! You men are only telling the truth when you tremble that moment!" The woman waved her hands, and started to crack melon seeds again, smiling, "If you really have a conscience, when you're settled in the future, you can come to Jixiang Lane to have sex with me a few times every month, that would be better than anything else! Remember, my name is Sister Hua, don't have sex with the wrong person!"

Meng Yuan thanked him again and again, broke the cake in half and gave one to Old Man Jiang, who then gave half to his granddaughter.

The three of them ate voraciously and grabbed a handful of snow to soothe their throats.

Meng Yuan didn't dare to wait too long, fearing that the corpse would become stiff and difficult to move, so he quickly wrapped it in a mat and carried it with Old Man Jiang to the mass grave.

The two men had been cold and hungry for a long time and were out of energy. It took them an hour to cover half a mile.

It was snowing heavily and the ground was frozen solid. There was no tool to dig the ground, so Meng Yuan simply dug out a piece of snow, put the man down, and covered the man with rubble, treating it as a grave.

Times are tough, and this is all we can do.

When we returned to the city gate, we saw that there seemed to be more refugees.

"Let's go eat something first." Seeing that Mr. Jiang's granddaughter could no longer walk, Meng Yuan suggested.

"I have no money." said Mr. Jiang.

Meng Yuan reached out, took out a handful of copper coins, and said with a smile: "This is the reward from the official. It's our reward for moving the corpse."

Without waiting for Old Man Jiang to speak, Meng Yuan glanced at the several alleys under the city wall, avoided Jixiang Lane, and walked in.

Food was expensive in the disaster years, so he asked several stalls and finally chose a hot tofu stall. It cost six cents a bowl, so Meng Yuan ordered two large bowls and one small bowl.

After paying the money, the stall owner picked up the bowl, opened the lid of the pot, scooped out two large pieces of tofu, scraped some salt from the salt brick, scooped a large spoonful of chive sauce, drizzled two drops of sesame oil, and finally added a spoonful of hot soup.

The tofu is piping hot and the chive sauce is spicy. When the two are mixed together, having a bowl of it on a cold winter day is truly delicious.

He ate up all the food in the bowl, and the coldness was immediately driven away. Steam came out of Meng Yuan's head, and he felt warm from the inside out. He finally came back to life.

This meal was comfortable, but I didn’t know where the next one would come from. I had to find a way to survive.

(End of this chapter)