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

Ignoring Ma Dadan, she walked up the hillside, searching for medicinal herbs to reduce the swelling.

The spot where Ma Dadan was kicked in the chest was still throbbing with pain. His ribs protested with every breath he took, and his calves felt weak.

But more important than his injuries was getting the two pigs back to the cave quickly. If he couldn't get back before dark, the smell of blood would attract other animals.

He gritted his teeth, stood up, and walked to the nearby bushes to cut vines.

Several thick tree branches were tied together with vines to make two simple drag frames. The two wild boars were flipped onto the wooden sticks one by one and placed on them. The hooves of the boars were tied with vines to prevent them from slipping off halfway.

He was covered in sweat after finishing all that, and he leaned against a pine tree to catch his breath.

Just as he relaxed his guard and was about to wait for Jiang to wake up so they could drag the pig down the mountain together, he felt a chill on his neck.

The knife was held above his Adam's apple, close to his skin; the blade was dull, and the pressure on his Adam's apple made it ache.

He froze, his back straightening instantly. The person behind him was very close, and he could smell a sour stench mixed with sweat and dirt.

"Don't move." A very low voice sounded in my ear, "Captain Ma, don't blame us for being ruthless, we're taking these two prey."

Ma Dadan glanced to the side and saw several dark figures surrounding him out of the corner of his eye. Some of them stepped over him and walked directly toward the wild boar.

The seven men were all refugees from Yongzhou. They were some of the strong laborers from the group that went up the mountain to dig for yams yesterday. He had seen the man with the gap-toothed man leading the group before. Yesterday, he had walked silently on the mountain path with a hoe on the far side, so he thought the man was an honest person.

The man with the gap-toothed tooth stepped over the porcupine's carcass, placed his foot on its tusks, bent down to look at it, clicked his tongue, and revealed extreme greed in his eyes with almost no attempt to hide it: "About three hundred catties, enough for us to eat for a month."

He turned to look at Ma Dadan, who was slumped under a tree with a knife to his neck, and then glanced around. The forest was quiet, except for a few bird calls. The woman who had always been with Captain Ma was gone. Sure enough, she was small; she had been knocked down by a wild boar and fallen into some ditch, barely alive even if she wasn't dead.

"Stop looking." The man with the gap-toothed grinned. "Your little girl is probably stuck in the ditch by now. If she's lucky, she'll still be alive; if she's unlucky, the wild boar will catch up and kick her again, and even a god couldn't save her. Don't worry, we brothers want the boar, not human lives. Just stay put, pretend you didn't see anything, and we'll spare your life."

Ma Dadan gritted his teeth. He felt the skin on his neck being scraped by the blunt blade, and blood beads seeped out, causing an itchy and burning sensation.

Damn it, these guys timed it perfectly. They had two wild boars right there, and the woman was conveniently away. He was held at knifepoint and couldn't move. He couldn't do anything on his own.

Three or four people rushed up but couldn't get through, so they held down the trailer and started moving the wild boar.

Two people could lift one end, and another two could lift the other end. With the weight of the trailer itself, it weighed several hundred kilograms in total. The people were struggling to lift it, but they were moving very quickly. They didn't want to stay there for even a moment longer.

Just then, a sharp, short gust of wind rang out.

The man who had taken Ma Dadan hostage still had the arrogant expression from a second ago, but now a short knife was stuck to his neck.

The knife tip pierced through the left carotid artery, crossed the throat, and emerged from the back of the right neck. Blood gushed out from the scalpel groove, splattering onto Ma Dadan's face—warm and foul-smelling.

The man's fingers remained in the grip of the knife, but the knife slipped from his loose fingers and fell to the ground.

Its eyes widened, its lips opened and closed twice, squeezing out a few dying hoarse sounds from its throat, then it fell backward, crashing onto the withered leaves, twitching once before becoming still.

The others stopped moving the wild boar and turned around in unison, seeing Jiang Xing emerge from behind the bushes.

Her left sleeve was now just a tattered rag, and her cotton-padded coat was covered in blood, some from wild boars and some from her own.

From his left shoulder to his left wrist, his entire arm was soaked in blood, which was still flowing down.

Her face was ashen from blood loss, her lips were chapped, but her eyes were frighteningly bright, carrying a chilling calmness as if she had crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

Ma Dadan reacted faster than anyone else. As soon as the knife was off his neck, he sprang up from the ground and pounced on the nearest Yongzhou refugee. The two wrestled and rolled on the ground.

Although Ma Dadan's chest was still aching, the pent-up frustration from being held at knifepoint for half a day finally exploded. He punched the man in the face, causing blood to spurt from his nose. The man screamed and covered his face as he staggered backward. Ma Dadan drew his spare dagger from his waist, chased after him, and delivered another blow. The man collapsed into the dead leaves and lay motionless.

The remaining four men exchanged glances, and in a panic, they raised their machetes and hoes and surrounded Jiang Xing.

Jiang Xing had no knife in his hand at the moment, and his left arm was so swollen that he could barely lift it.

The moment the first man rushed forward and raised his machete to chop down, she sidestepped and cut inside his stance, grabbing his wrist with her right hand and twisting it outwards. The sound of the joints dislocating was as crisp as breaking a dry twig... Accompanied by a short scream, then silence.

Seven refugees from Yongzhou lay on the ground, the air thick with the stench of blood mixed with wild boar blood, making it impossible to tell whose it was.

Ma Dadan was panting heavily, blood still streaming down his face, it was hard to tell whether it was the robber's or his own.

"You... saved my life again." His voice was hoarse, and his lips moved slightly as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he didn't say a word.

Jiang Xing didn't reply. She walked to the spot where she had been attacked and bent down to pick up her dagger.

The knife was still stuck in the man's neck. When she gripped the handle and pulled it out, she used a bit of force, and the groove and barbs scraped against the bone, making a small clicking sound.

He wiped the knife clean and put it back in his waistband, then looked up at Ma Dadan, glancing at the ground as if to say, "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and move the pig downstairs."

Ma Dadan immediately fell silent and decisively turned around to drag the wild boar's vine rope.