I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

When she looked, she was startled. There was a dense layer of locusts crawling outside her carriage, and it seemed like there was more than one layer, with layers upon layers. Zhao Ningning was so afraid of trying them that she almost had a phobia.

Looking towards the edge of the field of vision, the carriage next to us looks the same.

Many locusts also crawled on their mules and horses. They were bitten and kept pacing back and forth, lashing their tails at the bites.

Zhao Ningning returned to the carriage and told them what she had seen.

"Don't say that. Normally I would tell you that locusts can't bite through the carriages. But this is a natural disaster, so I can't guarantee that," Ning's mother replied.

The group began to worry about the train carriage.

The chilling gnawing sound continued for an hour. After an hour, the noise outside subsided. Zhao Ningning "looked around" and saw that only a few dozen locusts remained on the roof of the carriage, still huddled together and gnawing. It seemed that the locusts outside had retreated.

"There are far fewer locusts outside," Zhao Ningning said. "Let's wait a little longer before going out."

After a while, the village head banged a gong outside, and Zhao Ningning and her family of four finally got out of the carriage.

Ning's father was heartbroken when he saw him leave.

After the carriages were completed, he specially painted them several times, making them a deep reddish-brown.

Besides the wood varnish, he also applied several layers of transparent waterproof paint from the construction waste that Zhao Ningning had collected. Now, with locusts biting at it here and there, it's been completely mottled.

Ning's mother went to check on the two livestock. Their heads were wrapped up, and while their heads were fine, their bodies were bleeding from all over from being bitten by locusts.

Fortunately, the wounds are not large, but they look like there are quite a few.

Ning's mother asked Zhao Ningning for a bottle of alcohol, poured it into a small basin, and used a cloth to soak it to disinfect the two livestock.

The extent of the damage suffered by villagers varied.

Some of the better-off families managed to save their food because they had made preparations the day before; at most, they were just frightened.

Some people, unaware of the need to cover themselves or reacting in time, were bitten several times by locusts before hastily wrapping themselves up.

Some of them were fine on their own, but there was nothing left but the food... because yesterday the village headman felt he was making a mountain out of a molehill. After they scooped out the food, they just tied the bags up and threw them on the cart. When the locusts came, they smelled the aroma of the food and swarmed over, tearing the bags apart.

The locusts devoured all the grain.

That's how the locusts ate a bag of grain from Old Zhao's family.

When the locusts came, the Zhao family was only concerned with themselves and didn't bother to pack the grain. By the time they discovered it, the bags were covered with locusts and bulging, and they didn't know whether the contents were locusts or grain.

Despite his fear and nausea, Zhao Laoda shook the bag, and a handful of grain fell to the ground along with a large bag of locusts, giving him quite a fright.

The situation was similar to that of Old Zhao's family; all the other families hadn't protected their grain properly, and the locusts had chewed through the bags and eaten it.

After this incident, the already limited food supplies in the village became even more insufficient.

Once they reached the bottom of the main road, the village headman finally had time to take stock of the villagers' losses.

Sitting on the ground, the village head sighed. Fortunately, if they could hold on for two more days, they would reach the prefectural city. Once they reached the prefectural city, they could survive no matter what.

At noon, no one dared to take out their grain to cook. They carefully took out the dry food they had prepared earlier, nibbled on it, hid it away, and ate it all in one go.

In the afternoon, the group continued their journey.

Every now and then, a few locusts would crash into the vehicle, so the people in the group no longer dared to let their guard down and all hid the little food they had left.

Even when we were resting at night, many locusts still fell into the fire with a crackling sound.

The same was true in Wang Xiaohua's campfire.

The small fire is so powerful that if a locust flies by, its wings will instantly catch fire, and it will fall into the fire. Soon, a fragrant aroma of burning will waft from the fire.

"It smells so good, Mom!" Wang Xiaohua sniffed around the fire. "Can we take it out and eat it?"

Wang Yan hesitated for a moment. When she was a child, her family was poor, and she and the other children in the village would catch insects all over the mountains to roast and eat. But these were locusts...

"Let's put it away first. We don't know how long we'll be gone, what if..." Wang Yan didn't finish her sentence, "...find a bag to put it in."

If there's really nothing else to eat later, we can always have roasted locusts.

Wang Xiaohua licked her lips and used a twig to pick out the locusts that had fallen into the fire.

Those that weren't burnt were carefully placed in the cloth bag that their mother had found, while the burnt ones were left aside.

Not only did she wait patiently, but she also actively searched the area, catching many locusts crawling on the ground, stringing them together with twigs, and roasting them in the fire.

Only a few families who had no food would consider using locusts.

Old Zhao's family.

The locusts ate the last half bag of grain, leaving Old Zhao's family completely without food.

Zhao Huilan sat in the car, groaning in pain.

This afternoon, she deliberately twisted her ankle while traveling, and finally got on the carriage as she wished. In addition, she was bitten by locusts several times, so she pretended to be in pain, but was actually in a lot of pain.

With no food to eat, Granny Qian was already quite upset. Seeing her eldest granddaughter's state, she said unhappily, "Sun Shi, discipline your Er Ya."

Zhao Huilan paused in her act of crying out in pain.

Grandma had never called herself that before, and she never let anyone call her "Er Ya"! They always called her by her name, which was given to her by her third uncle's husband...

"Yes," Mrs. Sun responded, turning her head to glance at her daughter. "Can't you see your grandmother is annoyed? Stop whining here."

Zhao Huilan lowered her head, rubbing her ankle, and stopped talking.

Without food, the Zhao family could only endure the hardship. Watching others around them eat heartily, Liu Ya put her fingers in her mouth, her drool dripping down her cheeks and onto her clothes.

The third son felt sorry for his daughter, so he used the excuse of going to the toilet to pull her aside, took out half a pancake from his pocket, broke off a small piece and stuffed it into her hand.

Tell her to take it and eat it quickly, and Zhao Laosan instructs her: Don't let anyone else know.

After a while, he pretended to be nonchalant, took his daughter back, secretly divided the remaining cakes into two portions, gave one portion to Wu, and told her to eat it on the side.

The cake had been sitting for who knows how many days; it was as hard as a rock. When Wu took a bite, she almost broke her teeth. She could only slowly grind it as she ate. After only a few bites, she couldn't bear to eat the rest, so she wrapped it up and stuffed it back into her bosom.

The Zhao family, hungry, rested.

At Zhao Ningning's house, Ningning's father asked Ningning for the remaining wood lacquer. Without even eating, he lay on the carriage to repaint it. After finishing, he didn't forget to take the lacquer to the Zhou family's place and ask Zhou Jian to paint his own carriage as well.

Although it's been years since I've seen rain, if it really rains, it will be too late to reapply the ointment.

Zhou Jian thanked him and, after finishing his meal, also swiped the paint on his own car.

After a quick dinner, as night deepened, the procession from Wangli Village gradually quieted down.

Today, the patrol is being conducted by two men from the west end of the village.

At first, they were wandering around. From a distance, the surroundings were quiet, with only the occasional locust that flew into the fire making a crackling sound.

The two men yawned and took another round around 3 AM.

Back in the group, one of them said, "Fifth brother, you keep an eye on things first. I'm going to take a nap. Otherwise, we'll have to walk all day tomorrow, and I can't stay awake without some sleep."

The man who was called "Fifth Brother" nodded and began patrolling the area.

When he returned after making his rounds, he saw his brother sleeping soundly on the ground, so he couldn't help but yawn and then sat down on the ground.

One more patrol round and it will be dawn.

After daybreak, the next batch of people will come to take over the shift, so I'll take a nap during this break.

Thinking this, the fifth brother leaned down next to his brother and fell into a deep sleep.

It was the hour of Yin (3-5 AM), just before dawn.

In the pitch-black night sky, only a sliver of moonlight shone faintly.

The refugees, who had been lying in wait all night, saw that the patrol team had finally fallen asleep. After waiting for another quarter of an hour, they quietly began to move, carrying their farm tools, and crept into the patrol team.

Without Xi Ershun to pull the cart, Old Man Xi's family could only walk at the very back of the procession during the day.

When the refugees came over, they reached into the cart for bags of grain and accidentally touched Xi Ershun's foot.

Xi Ershun, who was already having trouble sleeping at night due to the pain, woke up as soon as someone touched his foot.

No one in my family would do that!

He squinted and, by the faint moonlight, saw that it was a man holding a hoe!

Are they from the village? Or...?

Xi Ershun dared not utter a sound. His family's cart was currently occupied by him, and the grain sacks could only be tied to the bottom of the cart frame.

Old Mr. Xi and Old Mrs. Xi were sleeping under the bicycle frame.

After searching around and finding nothing, the thief abandoned the cart on this side and instead went to touch the one next to it.

Xi Ershun quietly turned his head and saw a group of people standing indistinctly at the edge of the line. So many people, they weren't villagers stealing things, they were thieves from outside!

Ignoring the pain, Xi Ershun thought for a moment, then reached for his wife next to the cart frame. After shaking her awake, Xi Ershun whispered, "There's a thief. Quick, quick, go tell the village head."

Er Shun's wife was startled. She leaned over the car and carefully looked around. Sure enough, she saw someone groping around in the dark not far away.

—Go and inform the village head?

Such a dangerous task shouldn't have been done by his wife, but Xi Ershun was seriously injured, so he had no choice but to let her go.

A not-too-loud exclamation came from afar, and the next second, accompanied by a muffled thud, the sound stopped abruptly.

Er Shun's wife felt a chill in her heart. She had heard this noise from her own husband before. It was the sound of a thief knocking someone unconscious with something!

Xi Ershun gave his wife a push.

Er Shun's wife clenched her fists, lowered her head, and slowly crawled forward through the gaps in the line, feeling scared as she crawled, wondering what would happen if she encountered thieves along the way.

Xi Ershun had anticipated this situation. After his wife had climbed far away, he got up from the cart, found a tattered cloth bag, and threw it into the fire, which immediately burst into flames.

Fearing it wasn't enough, he pulled out two more bundles of firewood from the back of the cart and threw them into the fire, making it burn even brighter.

"Fire! Fire!" Xi Ershun shouted.

The commotion caused the thieves to pause. Seeing that most of the people around them hadn't reacted yet, several thieves who were originally going to walk forward turned back, grabbed their farm tools, and were about to smash the person who had ruined their plans.

With his head heavy, Xi Ershun rolled off the car and crawled under the car next to him.

It was too dark at night, so while the group of people were looking down to search for someone, Xi Ershun grabbed a handful of sand from the ground and threw it in their faces before moving on to another location.

Hearing the commotion behind her, Er Shun's wife scrambled to her feet without turning around and ran forward. After a few steps, she shouted, "The thief is here! The thief is here! The thief is here!"

He called her a few times to catch her breath, then shouted again, "Wake up! A thief is here!"

Her voice, like an alarm bell, roused those deep in their dreams.

Hearing this, Ning's father rolled over and woke up from the car frame. He knocked on the car door and called out, "Lanxiang, something's wrong."

The car door opened, and Zhou Lanxiang came out carrying a machete. "You stay here, I'll go see what's going on."

"I'll go with you..." Ning's father began, but Ning's mother interrupted him, "Xiao Qi is still here."

Zhao Qi clung to the carriage door, saying, "You all go ahead. I'll lock the carriage door. Besides, Ningning is still here."

Ning's mother nodded, and after Zhao Qi locked the door, the couple each took a machete and walked quickly to the other side of the group.

Zhao Qi hid in the carriage and secretly opened a crack in the window to look out.

Zhao Ningning came out of the space, took out the dagger that her father had fished out earlier, and placed it on the table.

Zhao Qi shook his head. "Sister, you take this and just get me a wood-chopping knife."

Zhao Qi was several years older than Zhao Ningning and stronger; he could wield a woodcutter's knife.

The two siblings were extremely anxious in the train carriage. Zhao Ningning prayed that the omnipotent system would protect their parents and keep them safe.

On the other side, before Er Shun's wife could even reach the village head's lodging, her hair was grabbed.

"You bitch! It's all your fault for causing this commotion and ruining our mission!"

The refugees grabbed her and pulled her to the ground.

Er Shun's wife's eyes were filled with fear, "No, no..."

"Hmph, prepare to die!"

The thief raised his rake and swung it down. Ershun's wife closed her eyes in despair.

With a clang, the rake didn't land on his head as expected. Er Shun's wife opened her eyes and saw a woodcutter's knife smash the entire rake away, followed by a kick that sent the thief sprawling to the ground.

Seeing that the person on the ground was alright, Ning's mother rushed to help them up, while Ning's father went over to finish them off.

"Did you inform the team?" Ning's mother asked.

Er Shun's wife nodded, swallowed, and said, "Mrs. Zhou, thank you."

"Don't thank me, be careful, we're leaving." After saying that, Ning's mother picked up the knife and walked with Ning's father to the edge of the line.

Er Shun's wife gritted her teeth, then ran towards the front of the line while shouting.

Many villagers were awakened, and the village headman hurriedly arranged for his family members to go and help.

In the group, the women who couldn't help much lit the fire so that everyone could see what was going on, while the bolder ones stood guard with farm tools to keep the thieves away.

Any man with a fighting spirit would grab his farm tools and charge forward.

After traveling for about ten days, Ning's parents had already recognized most of the people in the group. Moreover, the thieves were dressed in rags with only two pieces of cloth hanging on their bodies. Even the poorest family in Wangli Village didn't dress like that, making them easy to identify.

Ning's parents worked together, one guarding their back while the other attacked the thief, and for a time, no one could get close.

Seeing that this place was not to be trifled with, the other side picked up their weapons and headed elsewhere.