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

When Jiang Xing chased back along the dried-up riverbed, it was still pitch black.

She remembered clearly the location where Ma Dadan was besieged. The camp was near the side of the low hill, and several overturned carts formed a blind spot. When she arrived, there was no one there anymore.

Two corpses lay on the ground.

They were the two yamen runners under Ma Dadan, the brothers who had followed him all the way from the prefectural city to here.

One lay face up on the gravel ground, its chest pierced through, its eyes still open, dying with its eyes wide open; the other lay on its side a few steps away in the withered grass, the back of its head smashed open by a blunt object, blood flowing all over the ground, already congealed into black ice.

Large patches of blood were scattered on the ground, with drag marks extending from beside the cart towards the low hill.

Jiang Xing squatted down and pressed his finger on the bloodstain. It wasn't completely frozen yet, and the person hadn't gone far.

She stood up and followed the trail of blood. The low hills stood out starkly against the flat ground, several bare mounds connected together, their shady sides overgrown with withered grass and low shrubs.

The withered grass was torn apart, the pebbles were kicked and rolled all over the ground, and the bloodstains became more and more dense, with a small pool every few steps.

Jiang Xing found him behind a large rock on the back of the low hill.

Ma Dadan leaned against a rock, his legs outstretched, his left hand resting limply at his side, while his right hand still gripped the chipped broadsword.

He was covered in cuts and bruises. His left thigh had been slashed, the cut was not deep but long, running from the outside of his thigh all the way to above his knee, the flesh torn open, and blood soaking through his entire trouser leg. The worst blow was to his back, when a sharpened carrying pole swung from the side, the pointed end striking the back of his head between his cervical vertebrae, creating a bloody hole. Blood flowed down his neck, smearing his hair and collar together.

He was already in a semi-conscious state. Hearing footsteps approaching, he subconsciously gripped the hilt of his knife, mumbled a curse, and tried to open his eyes, but his eyeballs rolled back up after a couple of turns.

"Don't move." Jiang Xing squatted down, pried the knife hilt from his sweaty, slippery hand, and placed it beside him: "It's me."

Upon hearing this voice, Ma Dadan's tense muscles suddenly relaxed.

He strained his eyes, trying to make out the person's face, his pupils focusing several times before he could barely recognize them. He forced a smile that looked more like a grimace: "I knew... you wouldn't go that far..."

"Shut up." Jiang Xing tore open the left leg of his pants and first looked at the depth of the knife wound. Fortunately, it hadn't damaged the artery.

She tore off a strip of cloth from the hem of Ma Dadan's underwear, tied it tightly above the wound to stop the bleeding, grabbed a handful of clean snow from the ground, pressed it around the wound, and wrapped it tightly with the cloth strip, tying a knot.

The wound under her ribs was treated in the same way. The wound on her back was difficult to bandage, so she could only wrap the cloth strips from her shoulder to her armpit, cross them twice, and barely cover the wound.

Throughout the entire process, Ma Dadan didn't utter a sound. The pain was too intense for him to scream. He just kept his eyes closed, gritted his teeth, his forehead covered in cold sweat, and his body trembling in waves.

After bandaging him up, Jiang Xing cut two thick tree branches on the low slope, tied them together with vines to make a makeshift trailer, carried Ma Dadan onto the trailer, and pulled on the trailer with one hand, walking towards the cave.

The cave was behind a thicket of thorns at the end of the ditch, only three or four miles away from where she found Ma Dadan. The two directions were basically the same, so there was no need to take a detour back.

Ma Dadan, on the trailer, was in and out of consciousness, occasionally mumbling something incoherently before being pulled back into silence by the pain.

Inside the cave, about a hundred people were crammed into a narrow, dark space, afraid to light a fire.

Shen Dehou had instructed from the beginning that any firelight would reveal the location of the cave, and no one was allowed to light a fire. The only light was the oil lamp in Doctor Gu's hand, which was only enough to barely illuminate a few steps around.

Everyone huddled in the darkness, resigning themselves to fate.

Zhang held the calf tightly in her arms, resting her chin on the top of his head, her back against the cold stone wall.

She didn't say anything, but the arm holding the child was trembling slightly.

The little calf buried his face in his grandmother's arms, his little hands clutching her clothes tightly.

Third Uncle squatted to the side, silent as a stone. He would glance at the cave entrance from time to time, then look away. The others in the cave silently hugged their families, comforting and warming each other.

No one spoke in the entire cave; the atmosphere was as oppressive as a damp cloth that could be wrung out.