I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

Zhao Laosan silently moved the shovel behind him.

Unfortunately—it's too late!

Three men arrived and, without saying a word, punched each of them once. The speed was so fast that Zhao Laosan didn't even have time to react or fight back.

After beating him, the three men snatched the shovel from Zhao Laosan's hand. This shovel, though inedible, was still a weapon!

With a little grinding, it can be used to dig things!

Old Zhao was furious at being beaten for no reason, but he dared not speak out. He was helped up by Zhao Laosan, covered his slapped face, and stared at the group of people with fear and hatred.

The group of people walked away laughing and joking.

Jiang Song breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, only the shovel was taken away, and no further complications arose. He was just about to get up to pull Old Zhao and the others to hide when, unexpectedly, two people from that group turned back.

Jiang Song was so frightened that he quickly shrank back.

The two men walked to the courtyard gate and called inside:

"Hello!"

"Are you two from the southwest?"

Old Zhao trembled and dared not speak.

The man stared at Zhao Laosan with a sinister look. Zhao Laosan shook his head. "We came from the southeast."

No matter where they come from, they just can't come from the southwest!

"snort!"

After asking the question, the person left.

Only after they had gone far away did Jiang Song dare to come out, pull Old Man Zhao and Old Man Zhao back to the village where they were hiding, and hand them over to the village head before he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The village headman supported his arm and asked, "Brother Jiang, why are you breathing so heavily? Did something happen?"

"Don't tell me," Jiang Song took two more breaths before answering the village head, "Those two went out digging around town today and unexpectedly ran into a group of thieves who were not to be trifled with!"

"The thieves knocked them to the ground, stole their shovels, and then left."

The village head's face turned green. He hadn't expected that even at this point, someone would still be running around!

Village head: "Didn't we say that when we go out to dig for wild vegetables or gather firewood, we should avoid main roads and travel in groups?"

Old Zhao lowered his head guiltily, offering no explanation.

They weren't going to dig for wild vegetables. What if... what if they found gold? What if they found grain?

We can't just follow Zhao Lao Er's example and let everyone who sees it get a share, can we?!

The village head scolded them for a while before letting them go.

After they left, Jiang Song told them about the thief's return and his questioning of the two men.

"Did you make any enemies on your way here from the famine?" Jiang Song asked worriedly.

The man must have recognized Old Zhao's accent, which is why he asked.

"Enmity?" The village head shook his head: "On the way here from the famine, we were ambushed many times, and we fought back many times... If we're talking about enmity, it's only because we drove others away."

Aside from being a little hesitant at the beginning, the people of Wangli Village, fearing that those who launched the sneak attack might not be completely dead and would stab them in the back, all adhered to the principle of "cutting the weeds and eliminating the roots" and checked each one one by one.

After encountering the Wen family's group, the people of Wangli Village realized that some thieves were cunning and would feign death if they couldn't win a fight, thus taking the opportunity to launch a sneak attack or escape for revenge.

The people of Wangli Village learned from the Wen family that after killing someone, they would finish them off with a fatal blow and carefully check whether the victim was truly dead.

"Since it happened so long ago, it must be a coincidence." Jiang Song shook his head and put the matter out of his mind.

In the bandit group.

As soon as the man who had gone to question him returned, his childhood friend asked him, "Sun Ergen, what happened?"

Sun Ergen scratched his head and said, "Doggy, do you remember the team we followed with Da Mao and his crew before?"

"Da Mao?" Zhou Gou'er nodded. "I remember. What's wrong? Are they related to Da Mao?"

That was shortly after the start of the famine relief efforts. At first, all three families fled with the village, but later, people in the village died one after another from heat, thirst, and hunger.

Of them, only Da Mao's mother was still alive. Da Mao's mother treated them no differently than her own sons. Before she died, Da Mao's mother told the three of them to be good brothers for life.

Later, when Da Mao left the group and returned, he brought each of them a small bag of grain and asked them if they wanted to eat and drink without worry!

Of course they want to!

In this awful weather and this awful world, nothing is more terrifying than not having enough to eat.

Zhou Gou'er and Sun Ergen followed Niu Damao to steal other people's grain and rob them of their silver.

Until I encountered that team.

"That's the accent of that team!" Dog remembered. "Their accent, they just like to raise their pitch!"

Sun Ergen and Zhou Gou'er exchanged a glance, and both looked at the leader of the group.

"Boss!" Zhou Gou'er puffed out his chest and said, "We just ran into those two guys. We've run into them before!"

"Oh?" Zhou Fugui stopped and looked at Zhou Gou'er. "What's wrong?"

Zhou Gou'er swallowed hard and said, "The team we followed before tried to steal their grain, but it didn't turn out well."

Then, he concealed the fact that his brother Da Mao had been killed and told everything he could.

The focus was on how wealthy that group was. They had been fleeing famine for so long, and while many other groups were running out of food, their group had the most!

The fact that they've come this far is something those two people couldn't have done. They still have the energy to dig tunnels haphazardly, so that team must still have food!

Hearing that there might still be grain, Zhou Fugui became interested.

They stopped walking and returned to the town they had just left, searching for the two men in the vicinity.

As they searched, they found the village where Wang Li Village's team and Jiang Song's team had settled.

There were people guarding the entrances and exits of the village, so they dared not approach and only dared to observe from a distance, for fear of alerting the enemy.

A dozen or so people lay in wait, secretly observing. Finally, Zhou Fugui spat and said regretfully, "There are too many of them!"

Everyone was hiding inside the house, and there was no firewood to cook with, so we don't know if there was any food left.

After staking out the group for a while, Zhou Gou'er realized that their accents were those of the people who killed Da Mao and the others that night!

However, they outnumbered him, while his side only had about ten people! Their group had just robbed two families of grain a couple of days ago, and they still had enough to eat for the time being, so Zhou Fugui ordered his men to leave immediately.

Although unwilling, Zhou Gou'er dared not say anything more.

The group of about ten people continued forward, and as soon as they stepped into the pass, twenty or thirty people immediately sprang out from the mountains on both sides!

Zhou Fugui immediately became alert, and the people in his group also stopped in their tracks, not daring to move.

Among the twenty or thirty men, the leader was a scarred-faced man who charged at the front, brandishing a large knife, and shouted at Zhou Fugui and his group, "Stop! Leave your things behind!"

"Leave everything on the bus and in your hands!"

Zhou Fugui had encountered robberies along his journey; in a world where the strong prey on the weak, they were always the stronger ones.

What goes around comes around; today it's their turn to be robbed.

The enemy outnumbered them by a factor of two, and the situation was against them. Zhou Fugui raised his hands, threw his weapon on the ground, and said, "Sir, we'll obey you!"

Zhou Fugui's henchmen exclaimed in surprise, "Boss?! Aren't we going to fight?"

—So you're just giving up like this? Giving up the fight?

Zhou Fugui kicked him, then smiled ingratiatingly at the scarred man: "Sir, this kid doesn't watch his mouth, don't listen to him!"

Scarface grunted in acknowledgment and watched as his men took the items handed over by the group.

There were two bags of grain, a small bag of miscellaneous gold and silver, and some jewelry tucked inside.

This group of people also obtained their wealth by robbing others.

Looking at the physique of this group of people, although they were somewhat thin, they were not the kind of people who were starving and skin and bones.

Scarface pondered: Why not recruit them into the team?

But recently there have been too many people in the team, and their leader even said he's going to get rid of some of them.

Scarface's thoughts settled down, but unexpectedly, the leader of the group asked, "Sir, does your group need more men?"

Seeing that Scarface didn't refuse immediately, Zhou Fugui quickly said, "There are about ten of us who can handle this! Also, we have some inside information."

Scarface's desire to rest was rekindled by Zhou Fugui, who asked, "What news?"

"It's about a team," Zhou Fugui said, keeping everyone in suspense.

Scarface impatiently said, "Speak!"

"There's a team; they have food, and they have a lot of people," Zhou Fugui said, half-jokingly.

Upon hearing about food, Scarface immediately became interested. "Tell me the details!"

Zhou Fugui rubbed his hands together. "Look, about ten of us joining the team..."

Scarface: "..."

"I'll go ask the boss!" Scarface, carrying his knife, instructed his accomplices to keep a close eye on the group before disappearing into the woods.

After he left, the guy who had just asked Zhou Fugui why he didn't fight their henchmen went over and said, "Boss, why don't we run away? They only outnumber us by a few anyway, so if we run fast, we'll be fine."

"Are you stupid? Don't lead your brothers to their deaths!" Zhou Fugui slapped the man on the head, sighed, and explained, "There were twenty or thirty people who came out to loot, but what about the grain they stole before?! It's definitely still being guarded!"

"I estimate their team has about fifty people!"

"As long as we're alive, we can still steal food from others to survive; if we lose our lives, we lose everything!"

This was said to this younger brother, but also to everyone else.

Zhou Gou'er seized the opportunity to flatter Zhou Fugui, "Boss, you're so farsighted! We're just bowing to them for now. If we have the chance in the future, we dozen or so brothers will still roam the world together!"

"Roaming the martial world?" Zhou Fugui smiled speechlessly, not correcting Zhou Gou'er's words.

Before long, Scarface came down from the mountain, followed by a one-eyed man.

The one-eyed man also had a scar on his face, running from his forehead through his blind eye and down behind his ear.

One-Eyed walked up to Zhou Fugui and asked, "Is this the kind of team you mentioned that has food?"

Zhou Fugui nodded hurriedly, "Yes, I said it."

"How many of them are there?" the one-eyed man continued to ask, and Zhou Fugui told him what he had seen.

There are at least thirty or forty people walking around in the village, not to mention there are definitely others inside the houses.

This group of people went to the vicinity to collect firewood and dig up grass roots and tree bark. Zhou Fugui and his men almost got discovered several times when they hid.

One-Eyed did the math in his head. Even if there were twice as many people inside, the total would only be 120 people, which they could handle!

A team of 120 people, including the elderly and children, has the lowest combat effectiveness.

"Alright, come with me!" One-Eyed waved his hand, and Scarface led the others to bring the newcomers into their ranks.

Zhou Gou'er followed behind Scarface, walking up the mountain path. After a few steps, they passed through the woods and saw several oilcloth tents haphazardly pitched on the ground.

There was a cave on the mountainside, guarded by two men with knives outside, and it seemed that someone was imprisoned inside.

Zhou Gou'er looked around and silently counted in his mind that there were more than a hundred people in this group!

—Thank goodness the boss didn't act impulsively just now!

Whether they fight back or try to escape, as long as they make a move, the people in the woods can easily surround them!

After leading the group to their lodgings, Scarface said, "My name is Chen Tusheng, our boss is Zhu Dalong, and our gang is called the Thunder Dragon Gang! Alright, you can choose a place to pitch your tents."

As they spoke, they threw the stolen goods back to Zhou Fugui and his group.

Zhou Fugui opened the package; the silver jewelry inside had been taken away, leaving only clothes and oilcloth.

Seeing his stunned expression, Chen Tusheng kindly explained, "Our team cooks in communal pots and doesn't allow anyone to hoard food."

"Okay! Okay, thank you, Brother Chen!" Zhou Fugui gathered his things and led a few brothers to find an open space.

Those closest to the cave were all occupied, so they had to move to the side of the line.

Zhou Gou'er, with his sharp eyes, spotted an empty spot to the south and called out, "Brother Fugui! Over here! There's an empty space over here!"

As he shouted, Zhou Gou'er rushed over and was about to claim the spot when a stench of urine mixed with blood hit him, causing him to vomit.

At the same time, he also saw that there was a ditch next to the land, and inside the ditch were human heads, hands and feet!

Zhou Gou'er instinctively covered his nose, but the stench of the rotting corpse continued to seep into his soul through his nose.

Others who came over also smelled the odor.

Zhou Fugui also saw the scene in the ditch. At this moment, the Lei Long gang members swaggered over, stood by the ditch, unbuckled their belts, and urinated into it.

Seeing the group of newcomers standing there in a daze, the man kindly offered a suggestion: "This is the outhouse. Go north and find somewhere else to sit!"

After thanking him, Zhou Fugui grabbed Zhou Gou'er by the collar and headed north.

The others followed suit.

"Head, head..." Zhou Gou'er felt a little nauseous.

"Is it really necessary?" Upon reaching their destination, Zhou Fugui released his grip, letting Zhou Gou'er stand on his own. "It's not like we haven't killed people before."

Not only have they killed them, they've also eaten them!

Zhou Gou'er shook his head, "Old...Brother Fugui, we don't torture people when we kill them, look at that ditch over there..."

He really didn't want to describe it again. Zhou Fugui, thinking of what he had seen, spat and slapped Zhou Gou'er on the head, "Stop talking! Get to work!"

According to Zhou Gou'er, that group of people is only half a day away from here, and they will arrive at the latest the day after tomorrow.

Hearing that a fat sheep was coming, the Thunder Dragon Gang members were overjoyed. In the past few days, they had only robbed small teams, and only got a few scattered bags of tree bark and grass roots, with hardly any food!

Without being told, they went to find a place to sharpen their knives themselves.