I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

want to!

But their pockets were completely empty, as clean as their faces; they had no money to buy horses.

Many people left with regret.

Granny Qian, standing behind, was extremely envious.

Their carriage frames are made of the finest wood! A fine carriage deserves a fine horse! If only we had the money!

If we had silver, we could have horse-drawn carriages for walking! That way, the third brother and the others could finally rest.

She circled the horse several times, looking at it with reluctance, and muttered to herself regretfully, "If only that person would buy our mushrooms, we could exchange two pounds of mushrooms for the horse..."

Thinking of this, Granny Qian happily told Old Zhao to go back and bring over two catties of mushrooms, saying, "Village head! Didn't those people want to exchange ten taels of silver for one catty of food? If I give you two catties of dried mushrooms, isn't that equivalent to giving you twenty taels of silver?!"

The village headman's face darkened: "Everyone has dried mushrooms! I have plenty too, I don't want them."

After her initial excitement was in vain, Granny Qian returned home disappointed, carrying the dried mushrooms with her hands.

Zhao Laosan glanced regretfully at the horse that the village head had brought out.

The large tent only needed four catties of mushrooms. He exchanged the mushrooms he had secretly hidden for them, and gave the remaining catty to the old man so that the old man could continue to hide them.

He took the remaining three catties of mushrooms back and told Granny Qian that the other party didn't want the dried mushrooms, which made Granny Qian so angry that she cursed him quietly for a while.

As Zhao Laosan thought about it, he felt regretful: If only the silver could be exchanged through legitimate channels, then he could take out twenty taels of silver to exchange for a horse and he wouldn't have to go through the trouble of pulling and pushing the cart.

Unfortunately, he couldn't take the money out; once they reached the foot of the mountain, he would use it to settle down with Gui Niang.

With a dim look in his eyes, Zhao Laosan followed Granny Qian back to his own territory.

With the Zhao family cleared of suspicion, the village head anxiously awaited the next person to come and ask questions.

Wang Dali was tempted, but he needed to save his money for his wedding. He had little stuff and was a bachelor, so he figured he could just pack everything up and carry it on his back without needing a horse.

Old Xi rubbed his hands together, his heart pounding with excitement.

They have Xi Ershun, so they don't lack people to pull the cart, but... if they had a horse, everyone in the village would envy them!

In the past, his family had never even bought a sheep, let alone a horse!

I have some money on hand right now. I can use this horse to pull a cart, and when I don't need the horse in the city, I can exchange it for more money and use it for other purposes.

The only troublesome thing is that you have to prepare food for the horse on the road after you buy it.

Zhao Ningning, who was hiding to the side, saw Old Man Xi's hesitant expression.

Zhao Ningning whispered to her mother, "I reckon it's him. Everyone else is just envious and regretful, but he's the only one hesitating here."

Ning's mother also thought it looked similar.

After a while, when Old Man Xi still hadn't made up his mind, several more people came over to look at the horse.

It was Old Man Li and his family who wanted to take over the courtyard from them before they went up the mountain.

Old Li is much younger than Old Xi; of their two sons, only the eldest son has been married for a few years.

The family is full of able-bodied men, and they received a lot of reward money when the village caught thieves before. Old Man Li and his family even paid money to protect their car when they passed through Huangshi Town.

It's understandable that their family has some wealth.

There are horses in Huangshi Town, and each one is almost fetching an astronomical price. Opportunities to snag a bargain are rare.

When Old Man Li arrived, even the village headman wasn't worried, but Old Man Xi got anxious first.

He didn't even bother to look at the horse, hurriedly pulled his son Da Shun aside, and whispered, "Da Shun, go get the silver to exchange for the horse!"

Xi Dashun was startled: "Father! Wasn't our money saved for settling down in Qingzhou?!"

They received some reward money when they fought the thieves, but only Xi Ershun put in the most effort.

When passing through Huangshi Town, Old Man Xi was reluctant to spend money to insure his cart. It was only after Xi Ershun persuaded him that he could save up the money, but losing his cart on the road to escape famine would be difficult. Only then did he reluctantly take out the money to insure his own cart.

After leaving Huangshi Town, his family spent some more money to buy grain. Now they only had about twenty cartloads of silver left, which Old Man Xi cherished more than his own eyes.

Hearing his eldest son's surprised tone, Old Man Xi lowered his voice and said, "Just go and get it. I got some silver, enough for our family to settle down down the mountain. Don't tell anyone else about this."

Knowing that his eldest son listened to his wife, Old Man Xi instructed, "You're not even allowed to tell your wife."

Xi Dashun really wanted to ask his father how much silver he had received, but the old man wouldn't tell him, only urging him to hurry up and get the silver.

Over there, Old Man Li had finished looking around and was just about to call his wife back to get the money when Old Man Xi pushed his way through the crowd, shouting, "Village head! We want this horse!"

The village head was startled: Just as he thought!

The reward money from Old Master Xi's family was personally given to Xi Ershun by him. After traveling so many miles, it's impossible for his family to still have all the money left.

"Are you sure?" the village head asked. "Your family still has so much silver?"

"Hmph!" Old Man Xi grumbled, "Who do you think you are! We still have all the reward money we got from killing thieves!"

Old Li, who was standing to the side, said unhappily, "You old man Xi, I just picked out my horse, why are you coming up to snatch it from me!"

"You didn't say you wanted it!" Old Man Xi said, gripping the saddle with one hand. "Village head, I'll take this horse! Do you include the saddle with the purchase of the horse?"

Old Li was so angry that he gritted his teeth. If his two sons hadn't hesitated just now, this horse would be his now!

Over there, Xi Dashun brought over their family's silver. As soon as Old Man Xi got the money bag, he rummaged through it and pulled out a pile of silver coins, which he then handed to the village head.

The village head glanced at the silver, and Wang Xiufeng, who was standing next to him, took a small scale and weighed it, saying, "It's still three coins short."

Old Man Xi cursed under his breath, telling Xi Dashun to stand there and not let anyone else buy the horse, while he went back to get the silver ingots.

Seeing his second son sitting next to the cart, Old Man Xi waved him away to catch the rain. Once the son was out of sight, his two daughters-in-law didn't dare to look in his direction. Reassured, Old Man Xi reached under the cart.

There were two pieces of wood stuck under the cart, which were wedging the package containing the silver tightly.

After much effort, Old Man Xi finally pulled out a bag from under the cart. It contained silver ingots of ten taels each, and he took out two.

After repacking the package, Old Man Xi hurriedly went to find the village head, completely unaware that Xi Ershun, who had gone to collect rainwater, was standing at a distance staring at him.

"The silver is here!" Old Man Xi put the silver ingots on the scale, confirming that he had gone out to exchange them for silver.

When the reward money was distributed before, only Zhao Lao Er's family had such a large silver ingot!

The village head was furious.

Wang Xiufeng weighed the silver, then his expression changed: "This silver doesn't weigh right!"

Old Man Xi, who was about to lead the horse, jumped up. "Something's not right! Look at this pure white silver ingot, it even has the official seal on it!"

Wang Xiufeng told his second brother to go back and bring out a ten-tael silver ingot.

To make them distinguishable, he made a mark on his own silver ingots.

The village head's silver was placed on it, filling it to the brim, exactly ten taels.

The silver that Old Man Xi brought was put up, but it was still two taels short!

"Impossible!" Old Man Xi stared wide-eyed at the scale, took another silver coin from his pocket and weighed it, and even took the small scale from Wang Xiufeng's hand and weighed it himself.

However, the scale clearly showed that it was still two ounces short.

Old Man Xi felt a moment of panic. Could it be that the person was passing off eight taels of silver as ten taels?! Then he would have lost money! He originally had one hundred and twenty taels, but this way he would be twenty-four taels short!

"Your money is fake!" Wang Xiufeng dropped another bombshell.

"My silver weighs a little less, but you can't say it's...fake!" Old Xi hurriedly stuffed the silver into his pocket, handed the scale back to Wang Xiufeng, and said, "I won't buy it! I won't buy it!"

With that, Old Man Xi was about to take Xi Dashun back.

Old Man Li, standing to the side, exclaimed excitedly, "I want it! I want it!"

While the ranks were in disarray, Xi Ershun squeezed his way from the outside to the village head's side and quietly told him what he had discovered.

Seeing that Old Man Xi was trying to run away, the village head shouted, "Stop him!"

The villagers were confused. Ning's father, who was standing outside, was the first to block the way. Old Man Xi, whose exit was blocked, angrily shoved him, saying, "What are you doing! Let me out!"

The village headman came over and said, "Old Xi, there's something wrong with the silver in your hand. Did you get it by trading it for food with those people?"

When the village head pointed it out, Old Man Xi jumped up as if he'd been stepped on, shouting, "You're talking nonsense! You're slandering me!"

"I'm not slandering you." The village head had an idea and said falsely, "Someone saw you go to exchange silver, and they even know that you brought back a lot of silver."

"Who! Who's talking nonsense!" Old Man Xi looked around and saw that everyone around him was watching the show!

Old Man Xi did not refute, which suggests that he had taken a lot of money from the person opposite him!

He didn't take much with him when he went out, otherwise the villagers would have noticed.

Then there's something very wrong with the money in his hand!

"Never mind who it was, someone saw it!" The village head said sternly, "You betrayed our team!"

With this label attached to him, Old Man Xi was immediately anxious and angry, his face turning red with rage.

"You! You! Even if you're the village head, you can't talk to me like that!"

The village head had guessed correctly.

Just after Old Man Xi left, Xi Ershun secretly looked under his carriage and found a package tucked underneath. He touched it and found quite a bit of silver inside! Roughly estimating, there were at least seventy or eighty taels!

Xi Ershun came over and told the village head immediately.

Selling mushrooms alone couldn't have brought in so much money. The only possibility is that Old Man Xi sold their village and got a bunch of counterfeit money in return!

"What?"

"Did I hear that right? Old Man Xi sold our village?"

"What we're selling is information!"

"You can sell information?"

"Why would they buy information from that big tent? What's there to ask about in our village?"

"Are you stupid? They definitely want to know if our village is easy to conquer. If it is, they'll rescue it and steal our food!"

"Old man Xi! You've done something awful! Our village had only had a few days of peace! And now you've sold us out!"

The onlookers were filled with indignation.

If he were to secretly sell mushrooms, that would be an even greater crime, but he dared to sell information about the team!

What if they attack from the other side of the big tent?

This concerns the safety of the team!

The villagers who witnessed the whole thing condemned Old Man Xi.

Someone brought a stone and threw it, and the others followed suit, throwing small stones at each other.

Suddenly, someone threw a large rock and smashed it into Old Man Xi's forehead, drawing blood. The onlookers applauded and cheered.

Fearing that others might hurt Old Man Xi, the village head took him outside and interrogated him about how much he had told outsiders about village affairs.

At first, Old Man Xi refused to say.

Under duress and coercion from both the village head and the village chief, Old Man Xi finally revealed his deal with the people in the big tent.

Upon hearing this, the village head nearly fainted from anger.

They were being very careful, but Old Man Xi, on the other hand, dug up all the village's secrets!

After letting Old Man Xi go, Wang Xiufeng and the village headman watched the entrance to the cave.

"Father, are we just going to let him go back like this?" Wang Xiufeng was so angry that his liver hurt. Their team had finally been able to have some peace and quiet... It was all his fault. He trusted the villagers too much and never thought that someone would take the opportunity to betray them!

"It's too late to say anything now. Let them leave on their own when the weather clears up." The village head sighed. "In the days to come, have the guards keep a close eye on their movements."

The village chief nodded. "Since they're asking around, they're definitely after our team. Why don't we strike first?"

The village head shook his head. "If we go out on our own initiative, we'll be too passive. We don't even know how strong their team is."

"If we stay in the cave, at least we can set some traps like before."

It was unclear how long the heavy rain would last, and they couldn't leave prematurely to avoid disaster, so the matter was settled.

On the other side, over by the large tent.

After Old Man Xi left, Huang Biao immediately told Lord Jia, who was inside the tent, the information he had gathered.

Inside the large tent, Lord Jia, sitting on the bed, frowned: "They're actually that good at fighting?"

"Yes..." Huang Biao looked over cautiously, "But sir, our team really doesn't have much food left."

Otherwise, he wouldn't have come up with this idea of ​​exchanging silver for mushrooms. Since the silver was fake anyway, and there was nowhere to spend it on the mountain, he figured it could fool them for a while.

I don't know if the people who came to exchange food yesterday were being targeted or what, but although several people came yesterday, not a single one came today.

"Then investigate carefully before you act!" Lord Jia said unhappily. "Don't ask me about such a trivial matter!"

Huang Biao lowered his head, apologized, and left the large tent.

Thinking of all the brothers under his command who were waiting to be fed, Huang Biao had no choice but to carefully lead his men on a detour to investigate the other party's movements.

This discovery was significant; they found that two people would come out each day, and then two others would return a while later.

The third time this happened, they followed and discovered that someone had been sent to keep watch over them from the cave!

To raid the cave, we first need to deal with the people watching us!

Upon hearing that there were people watching them, Huang Biao finally understood why the old man had said, "You're being watched."

It turns out that they had already sent people to keep watch from the cave!

Huang Biao estimated the enemy's combat strength and, after much thought, concluded that he could only take advantage of them through cunning, not through brute force!

This side of the cave.

Old Xi had completely betrayed the group's plans, yet there was no further news from the other side. Something was amiss.

Some speculate that perhaps they felt they couldn't win, so they didn't make a move?

More and more people made this guess. Two more days passed, and while there was still no movement from the large tent, the number of teams passing by outside the cave was increasing.