Sold immediately after wearing it? I took my family and fled the famine.

We've been fleeing famine for half a month, and the weather is getting colder every day.

Jiang Xing walked beside the oxcart and looked up at the sky.

The sky was overcast, with low-hanging clouds like a soaked quilt covering our heads. The wind was no longer the cool breeze of the past few days, but carried a biting chill that seeped into our collars, cuffs, and under our clothes.

It's going to snow.

Jiang Xing's heart tightened. He had to find an opportunity to buy the ginger and mugwort from the mall, but he couldn't let anyone see it. He had to wait until they reached a place to rest, find a secluded hilltop, and pretend that he had dug them up.

She kept this in mind and turned off the panel.

"Xing'er, what are you looking at?" Third Uncle drove the cart and followed her gaze to the sky.

"The weather's about to change," Jiang Xing said. "Third Uncle, it looks like it's going to snow."

Third Uncle squinted at the sky, then at the distant mountains, his face darkening. "Hmm, judging by the wind direction, if we can find a sheltered valley ahead, we can hold out tonight. If not..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but Jiang Xing understood what he meant.

My third uncle has spent most of his life on the road. His ability to read terrain and judge wind direction is ingrained in his bones. If he says it's difficult, then it really is difficult.

Zhang sat in the carriage, wrapped in a new cotton-padded coat and covered with a cotton quilt. She was dressed more warmly than anyone else, wearing a cotton-padded coat, cotton-padded trousers, and cotton-padded shoes, and she also wore a cotton-padded hat on her head. Jiang Xing had bought it for her in the prefectural city. However, her old leg pain was uncooperative, and it would hurt when the weather got cold, causing her to walk with a limp.

Xiao Niu was also dressed warmly, in a cotton-padded jacket, trousers, and shoes, looking like a little ball. He was young and not afraid of the cold, but Jiang Xing was worried that he would get cold, so he dressed him up very warmly.

"Grandma, does your leg hurt?" Jiang Xing asked.

"It doesn't hurt," Zhang said, but she rubbed her knee very gently, thinking no one was watching.

Jiang Xing saw it, but didn't expose it.

Young people can handle it, but the two elderly people can't keep up with it.

My third uncle has been walking noticeably slower these past few days. He has to hold onto the edge of the car when getting in and out, and his movements are very slow, like a rusty machine.

The group stopped to rest at the foot of the hill.

The hillside is sheltered from the wind and the sun shines down, making it warm and cozy. Families stop to light fires and cook, while women go to the hillside in groups to dig for wild vegetables.

Liu was the most enthusiastic one to dig for wild vegetables. She took two baskets from the car, carrying one herself and handing the other to Jiang Laifu.

"Let's go dig for wild vegetables!"

"Mother, I don't want to go..." Jiang Laifu squatted on the ground, unwilling to move.

"Not going? What are we going to eat tonight? Starve?" Liu slapped him on the back of the head. "Come on! Your sister's coming too!"

Jiang Caiyun followed behind, carrying a basket in her hand, her head down, walking obediently.

The Liu family of three went up the hillside. Liu walked in front, with sharp eyes. Whenever she saw wild vegetables, she would squat down and dig them up, and she did so very quickly.

Jiang Laifu followed behind, dawdling and taking forever to dig up a single wild vegetable. Jiang Caiyun, on the other hand, was not dawdling, but she was too slow and was scolded by Liu Shi several times.

"Caiyun, where are your eyes? That's grass! Not shepherd's purse!"

"Mother, I didn't see it..." Jiang Caiyun said softly.

"If you can't see it, squat down and look closer! If you can't tell the difference between wild vegetables and grass, have you wasted over a decade of your life?"

Jiang Caiyun dared not utter a sound.

There were other women on the hillside, including Aunt Wang, Granny Zhao, Widow Sun, and several other women from other villages, all squatting on the ground digging. Wild vegetables were becoming increasingly scarce, and the more they dug, the harder it was to find them. Some people had walked a long way before they had dug up half a basketful.

Liu dug the most; she was quick and sharp-eyed, and filled a basket to the brim in half an hour. Jiang Laifu dug half a basket, and Jiang Caiyun dug a small half basket.

"That's enough, let's go back." Liu carried the basket down the hillside.

The two-week ordeal of fleeing famine had worn everyone down.

The people of Jiangjia Village have lost weight, and the people of other villages have lost even more. Some villages did not bring enough food when they set out, and after walking for half a month, they are almost out of food.

The people from Lijia Village walked at the front of the procession, led by a middle-aged man named Li Laosi. His face was as black as the bottom of a pot, his eye sockets were sunken, his cheekbones were prominent, and he could not straighten his back when he walked.

His family of six had only half a bag of brown rice left, which they ate mixed with three times the amount of wild vegetables. The porridge was so thin that you could see your face reflected in it.

The people from Zhoujiazhai walked in the middle of the procession, led by a man named Zhou Dazhuang. True to his name, he was originally very strong, but now he had lost weight. However, he was still strong and looked like he could hold on for a while.

There are also villages worse off than Jiangjia Village.

The people from Wangjiagou walked at the very back of the group. Wangjiagou is a small village with only about thirty people when they set off. After walking for half a month, five or six of them fell ill.

An old woman was unable to walk, so her son pulled her on a cart. A thin blanket was laid on the cart, and the old woman lay on it, her face ashen. It was unclear how much longer she could hold on.

Widow Sun was in an even worse situation. A young widow with two children, she had long since run out of food and survived by digging for wild vegetables every day.

The two children were as thin as monkeys. The older one was holding the younger one, while the younger one was gnawing on tree bark, his mouth full of bits of bark.

Jiang Xing walked in the middle of the group and saw all of this.

In the middle of the group, there were two families who were living a relatively comfortable life.

One of them was Liu the carpenter, who was in his forties and very skillful; he could do all kinds of carpentry work.

When he fled the famine, he brought all his tools with him: saw, plane, chisel, and axe, filling a whole cart.

Some people laughed at him for carrying all that stuff, but he didn't say a word. When he got to the road, his cart broke down, and he fixed it in no time. When someone wanted to build a shed, he helped by cutting some wood and collecting some grain as payment.

"Carpenter Liu, with your skills, you won't have to worry about food in the Southwest," someone told him.

Carpenter Liu smiled and said, "That's right. With a skill, you won't starve."

He brought enough food with him; there were two bags of brown rice, a bag of mixed grain flour, and a jar of pickled vegetables hidden under the cart.

His wife was a thrifty woman; she carefully calculated every meal, cooking just enough to eat, neither too much nor too little.

The other one is Zhang Gensheng, the nephew of Zhang the butcher. He didn't learn the complete pig-slaughtering skills, but he was strong and shrewd.

His cart was loaded with half a pig, which had been salted and wrapped in several layers of oilcloth so that no flavor could escape.

Zhang Gensheng and Liu the carpenter were close friends. The two often ate together and parked their carts together.

"Gensheng, how long can your pork last?" Liu the carpenter asked.

"They're pickled; they'll keep for two or three months without any problem," Zhang Gensheng said in a low voice. "Once we get to the Southwest, that's our capital."

"Aren't you afraid of being robbed?"

Zhang Gensheng patted the butcher knife at his waist: "Whoever isn't afraid of death, let them try."

Carpenter Liu smiled and said nothing more.

Jiang Xing noticed that several unfamiliar faces had recently appeared around Zhang Gensheng and Liu the carpenter's cart.

They weren't from Jiangjia Village, nor Liujiagou; they were migrants from other villages—Wangjiagou, Lijia Village, and a few others whose names she couldn't recall. Those people always loitered around their cart, their eyes fixed on the contents like wolves eyeing meat.

Zhang Gensheng noticed this too, so he moved the pig-slaughtering knife from his waist to his hand, and didn't let go of it even when he slept.