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

In the middle of the night, all the lights in the village went out.

They weren't destroyed one by one, but all at once, as if someone had blown a whistle. All the fires disappeared in the same instant. Jiang Xing stood up, his hand on the hilt of his knife, his eyes fixed on the darkness.

It's too quiet.

In a normal village, it's impossible to be completely silent in the middle of the night.

There were no barking dogs, no crowing roosters, no crying babies; even the wind had stopped, as if it had been suppressed by something.

Everyone was awake, but no one spoke; they were all listening intently.

After Uncle San tucked his pipe back into his waistband, he stood up, and Shen Dehou, holding a wooden stick, walked over to Jiang Xing's side.

"Little girl..."

"Shhh."

Jiang Xing held up one finger, staring in the direction of the village.

About the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

A scream.

It wasn't a scream, but a bloodcurdling scream squeezed from deep in the throat, as if someone had strangled it, and then it stopped.

Immediately afterwards, screams of agony rang out one after another. They rose and fell, coming from every corner of the village, muffled, like something tearing apart, mixed with the smell of blood, drifting in on the night wind.

The area outside the village was also in an uproar. Cries, screams, footsteps, and shouts of "Run! Run!" could be heard from the camps set up around the village.

Jiang Xing had already stood up.

"Let's go!" she shouted. Everyone who was focused on the event immediately got ready to get up and run away.

Shen Dehou and his third uncle were the quickest to react. Shen Dehou grabbed the bundle that was on the ground, while his third uncle had already started walking forward with the ox.

Zhang ran alongside the oxcart, leading the calf, while Widow Sun, carrying Niu Niu and holding her son, ran behind the cart.

Dozens of households, without hesitation or lagging behind, had already packed their belongings. Ox carts, handcarts, and wheelbarrows, like a long dragon with its ropes loosened, surged onto the main road.

On the official road, the carriages of the Qian and Chen families were parked by the roadside.

The Qian family's carriage was surrounded by curtains, with lights on inside. Hearing the cries coming from afar, Qian the merchant leaned out of the carriage, his face changing drastically.

Without hesitation, he immediately ordered his servants, "Quickly! Pack everything up, hitch up the cart! Hurry!"

The servants hurriedly threw the scattered bundles onto the carriage, untied the ropes, and harnessed the horses. Although their movements were hasty, they didn't forget anything.

The blue-curtained carriage belonging to Scholar Chen also started moving. The driver cracked his whip, and the carriage followed.

As Shen Dehou ran past, he casually shouted, "Run! It's dangerous!" He didn't stop to explain; he just ran after shouting.

Two horse-drawn carriages followed behind the procession, running faster than the oxcarts, but they didn't overtake them. Not knowing what was ahead, they figured following was the safest option.

After running for about two miles, the cries behind me grew fainter and fainter, but they never stopped.

Jiang Xing slowed his pace.

She glanced back. Behind her was the pitch-black night; she couldn't see anything.

"Third Uncle, keep going, keep running along the main road until dawn, then find a safe place to hide and wait for me."

The third uncle reined in the ox and turned to look at her: "Are you going back?"

"Among those people were yamen runners. They carried the documents for fleeing famine. Without them, we would have been refugees even if we had gone to the southwest."

"I'll go with you." The third uncle handed the reins to Zhang Shi: "Your grandmother knows how to drive."

"No." Jiang Xing's tone was firm: "Third Uncle, if you go, I'll have to divide my attention to take care of you. I can only rest assured if you go with me."

Zhang got out of the car and grabbed Jiang Xing's hand: "Xing'er, you can't go! Those people..."

"Grandma," Jiang Xing grasped Zhang's hand, "I'll be back soon."

Her eyes were calm, calmer than a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl.

Zhang's lips trembled. "Let's go," Jiang Xing said.

Uncle San said no more and drove the oxcart toward the official road. Zhang Shi led the calf, looking back every few steps.

Jiang Xing stood still, and after the oxcart had gone far away, he turned around and ran back.

When she ran back to the village, the smell of blood was so strong it was pungent.

The ground was littered with dead people—women, children, and the elderly.

His head had been chopped off, and his body lay face down in the snow, blood flowing from his neck, staining the snow dark red.

He had been disemboweled, his intestines dragging on the ground. He wasn't quite dead yet; his hands were clawing at the snow, his fingernails broken, leaving white marks on the ice.

He had his arm chopped off, and he rolled on the ground clutching his severed arm, but stopped moving after a few rolls.

The number of cannibals in this group is far greater than the twenty or so we saw during the day.

There were at least a dozen more people, holding knives, kitchen knives, and machetes, blood still dripping from them. Their eyes were red, not the red of crying, but the red of bloodlust from killing.

The old man was kneeling on the ground, his shoulders were being held down, a knife was pressed against his neck, his mouth was moving, he was saying something, maybe he was begging for mercy, but it was no use, these people had long lost their humanity. With a slash of the knife, the old man's head tilted to the side, blood spurted out and splattered on the man's face.

The man stood in front of his wife and children with a wooden stick, but the stick was chopped in half by a knife, and then he was slashed on the shoulder by another knife.

Someone ran a few steps, was caught up and slashed in the back, fell to the ground in the snow, and tried to crawl forward, but the knife fell again.

As Jiang Xing rushed into the village, she ran into two villagers carrying knives. She dodged the blades as they came slashing at her, but the machete slashed into the arm closest to her. The blade went into the flesh, breaking half of the bone. The man screamed and fell backward, the knife flying out of his hand and sticking into the snow.

Jiang Xing didn't stop. Using the force of the woodcutter's knife pulling back, she turned around, pulled the short knife from behind her waist, and stabbed it into the second person's ribs. The tip of the knife pierced through the gap between the cotton-padded jacket, skin, and ribs. With a twist and a pull, warm blood gushed out from the blade, smearing her hands.

She stepped on the still convulsing body and rushed forward.

A person was squatting on the ground and looked up when they heard footsteps.

Jiang Xing's short knife had already pierced through the man's chin, the tip of the knife going from the root of his tongue into his palate. The man's mouth was wide open, his eyes were wide open, his hands twitched in the air twice, and he fell forward. Jiang Xing pulled out the knife and stepped over his shoulder.

There were three people in front of her, two carrying machetes and one carrying a kitchen knife. When they saw her, they were stunned for a moment, probably not expecting that the person who rushed in was not a man, but a girl whose face was covered in blood.

Jiang Xing didn't give them time to react. He flicked his wrist and the short knife flew out, embedding itself in the chest of the man on the far left. The man looked down at the hilt of the knife stuck in his chest, made a "ho ho" sound, and his knees buckled as he knelt on the ground.

Jiang Xing rushed in front of him, stepped on his drooping hand, pulled out her short knife and turned around to slash with her wood-chopping knife. The blade struck the neck of the man in the middle, while the cleaver of the man on the right was already in front of her. She didn't have time to pull her knife out, and she squatted down. The cleaver missed her scalp.

With her left hand, she grabbed the man's wrist holding the knife and twisted it outwards. The sound of the joints dislocating was as crisp as a tree branch breaking. The kitchen knife fell to the ground, and with her right hand, she plunged the short knife into his abdomen from bottom to top. The tip of the knife circled inside the flesh and pulled out a section of intestine.

Her movements became faster and faster, the glint of the blade almost never stopping in the night.

She kicked the corpse aside, pulled out her dagger, and continued hacking. Blood dripped from her hands, soaking her sleeves, and her face was covered in blood, obscuring half of her eyes.

When she stopped, there were more than a dozen corpses lying on the ground around her. The blades of the machetes were bent, blood was dripping from the short knives, and the tips of the knives were still dripping.

Those who were still alive stood at a distance, looking at her as if they had seen a ghost.

"Run," Jiang Xing said. "Those who are alive and don't want to die, run."

The crowd scattered and fled as if they had been untied from their ropes.

Some people ran a few steps and then came back to pick up their children; some people tumbled and crawled while pushing a cart; some people's legs were too weak to walk and were supported by the people next to them as they ran.

Jiang Xing wiped the blood from his face and was about to walk towards the village when Yang Cuihua emerged from behind a low wall, followed by Granny Li and her family.

The group of people were covered in dirt and mud, and it was unclear how long they had been hiding.

"Jiang Daya! You...you take us away!" Yang Cuihua's voice was shrill and trembling.

Jiang Xing turned around and looked at her. Blood was dripping from her sleeves, and her face was covered in blood. Only her eyes were clean and frighteningly bright.

"Get out of my way," Jiang Xing said. "If you block my path again, I'll kill you too."

Yang Cuihua's legs went weak, and she sat down on the ground with a thud.

Granny Li's face was as white as paper. She grabbed Yang Cuihua and shouted, "Let's go! Let's go!"

He Daliang's two sons carried Yang Cuihua and ran away in a panic.

Jiang Xing stopped looking at them and turned to run back to the village.