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

Shen Dehou walked over from behind, cleared his throat, and drew everyone's attention away from the corpses: "Stop looking, come with me to register. Captain Ma is seriously injured, I'll take you to the city gate to find the person in charge."

Supported by two villagers, Ma Dadan nodded: "The document is in my bosom. It's on the household registration form for those assigned to the southwest..." He stopped mid-sentence, pulling at the wound under his ribs, wincing in pain, and choked back the rest of his words.

A dilapidated long table stood at the city gate, and behind it sat a scholar in a gray-blue robe, writing something with his head down.

A long line of refugees waited in front of him to register; some were homeless, and others had gotten separated from the group.

The scholar was Shao Yuanyin, the registrar of Chuancheng County. After finishing one registration, he would look up and call for the next person. His voice was calm and unhurried, and his face was expressionless. However, he would carefully read the household registration form of each person who came to register, and only put pen to paper after confirming that everything was correct.

When it was Ma Dadan's turn, Shao Yuanyin looked up at him. He was so badly injured, his body was wrapped in strips of cloth, and blood was still seeping out from some places. He was carried to the table by two people.

He paused for a moment, then quickly finished writing the document, glanced at the household registration certificate and the document, and gave a few instructions to a soldier with a knife next to him. The soldier nodded, signaling the team to follow him into the city.

As the procession passed through the city gate passageway, the light dimmed for a moment, then brightened again.

Ma Dadan was helped along behind. He looked up at the mottled bricks and stones on the top of the city gate. The people who ran out from here last night were bustling about like ants running for their lives. Now they came back to this scene. He swallowed, but said nothing.

All the shops on the streets of the city were closed.

Several houses along the street were burned down, some even with their doors smashed, leaving the inside dark and filled with overturned shelves and scattered debris.

Several shops that appeared to be in good condition were also tightly closed. There were people moving around behind the window panels, but the doors remained closed.

People were bent over cleaning up the ruins, picking out anything still usable, and piling up charred wood by the roadside. The air was thick with the pungent smell of something burnt and then soaked in water.

As I passed by a half-collapsed shop, a woman suddenly rushed out from the side.

He was in his forties, with disheveled hair, his face covered in soot, and his eyes red and swollen. He was carrying a basin of dirty water and splashing it at the feet of the group.

"It's all your fault! It's all your fault, you filthy refugees! If it weren't for you, our perfectly good home wouldn't be like this! Why don't you all just die out there!"

Water splashed on the ground, raising mud spots that hit the shoes of several people in the front row. The woman, still not satisfied after cursing, threw the basin on the ground, stood on the side of the street trembling, tears streaming down her face, leaving two streaks of black ash.

Immediately, someone in the group protested. A young man stood up and retorted, "If you're so capable, go find the real culprits! Those bandits have been hanging around the city gates for half a month, why didn't you go and yell at them? You didn't dare mess with them even though they had knives in their hands, but you have the nerve to take your anger out on us refugees!"

The woman was speechless for a moment, her lips trembling as she tried to retort, when the soldier leading the way suddenly shouted, "What's all the noise about! If you make another sound, the refugees are out of the city gates!"

The soldier was a local from Nanping County, and his accent was exactly the same as the woman who had just been cursing.

After he stopped them, his gaze swept across the faces of the refugees, finally settling on the young man who had talked back, his hand still gripping the hilt of his knife.

The woman immediately fell silent. She bent down to pick up the basin from the ground, turned around and went back into the house, even closing the door behind her.

Jiang Xing walked in the middle of the group, his cold gaze sweeping across the faces of the soldiers before turning his head to look at the charred ruins beside him.

She looked away and continued walking forward with the group.