It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

Chapter 354

From morning till night that day, the three of them ran across half of Rongcheng County, inquiring about thirteen Zhao Niu in nine villages, but they didn't find a single one that matched their situation.

There are still nine Zhao Niu left in half of the county... When Jiang Yan returned to his residence, he collapsed on the bed in extreme pain.

After riding a donkey cart for a whole day, I felt like my tailbone was about to crack. The road was so bumpy with yellow mud and gravel and had potholes.

She raised her voice to Chunying, who was busy in the next room, and said, "Come by our village tomorrow. I want to bring the reed mat with me."

Last year, Jiang Yan cut up a discarded coat that was no longer wearable and stuffed it with excess reed fluff to make an extremely ugly reed fluff cushion.

Although the fabric is at risk of aging and cracking at any time, it doesn't matter if it explodes when placed under your body.

Chunying was reviewing today's operation to see if there were any omissions. She didn't say anything when she heard this, but replied perfunctorily, "Let's see. I'll go over when I have time."

……

Jiang Yan had anticipated that gathering information wasn't always easy and could even involve personal risks. But when things really happened, she still felt immensely angry and disgusted.

There are actually many unnamed villages in Rongcheng County. After they made inquiries several times and used half a bag of dry biscuits to ask someone to lead the way to the unnamed village where the last Zhao Niu lived, the person who came forward to communicate was neither Zhao Niu or her family, nor any villager the guide had met before.

"Are the two brothers Dashan and Dashu not here either?" The guide asked this question nervously. He took a few steps into the village and was unwilling to go any further because of inexplicable anxiety.

Jiang Yan and the other two, who had also noticed something was wrong, stopped immediately. It was too quiet, the whole village was too quiet.

Before we came here, the guide told me that this village is located in a remote area. Due to natural disasters and man-made disasters over the years, the remaining population is only 30.

But even if there were less than thirty people, it would be impossible for the village to be so quiet that it was almost dead. Especially now that it was busy farming season, Dongshan Village, with a population of about the same size, could still occasionally make a noise that could be heard at the village entrance.

"They've gone into the mountains to collect firewood and won't be back for a while. You must be tired from coming here. Let's go into the village first and have some water and rest."

They were greeted by a sturdy man, half a head taller than Tian Jiu. He introduced himself as the son-in-law of a family in the village. Since they had just gotten married and didn't like to go out, it was normal that they didn't know each other.

When he realized that none of the four of them had any intention of entering the village, the man from the nameless village suddenly became excited. His hands trembled uncontrollably, and his eyeballs began to bulge and turn red. "I'm letting you into the village!!!"

Now there is no need to guess to know that there is something different in this village.

Tian Jiu, who was skilled and courageous, suggested that he would follow in to investigate, while Chunying and the other two stayed at the village entrance to guard against the attack.

I don't know if it was because the man from the nameless village was mentally ill and couldn't take care of them, or because he felt that the remaining three people posed no threat, but he no longer insisted and excitedly took Tian Jiu to the village.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the three people at the village entrance saw Tian Jiu running out desperately, followed by five or six strong men who were unstable and extremely excited.

"Run!" Tian Jiu shouted loudly.

Chunying immediately whipped the donkey to turn around, and with another whip, the donkey cart galloped away on the path.

The guide was hurriedly pushed onto the cart by Chunying and Jiang Yan. He didn't grab anything and fell onto the cart with a dull bang because the donkey cart suddenly moved.

After finally getting up, the guide looked at Tian Jiu who was chasing him from behind and said awkwardly, "Hey, your man hasn't come up yet!"

Instead of talking to her, Jiang Yan focused on looking behind him. Seeing that Tian Jiu had put some distance between himself and the people chasing him, he said, "You can slow down a bit."

A moment later, Tian Jiu grabbed the back edge of the cart and jumped in. Chunying whipped the whip again and accelerated for a while, completely shaking off the chasing figure, before letting the donkey slow down and take a breath.

Without waiting for any further questions, Tian Jiu grabbed the guide's arm and said sternly, "When you return to the village, immediately have the villagers guard it. Do not let anyone from that village or anyone you don't know in."

"If anyone you know comes looking for you, no matter how pathetic they are, tie them up and lock them up until I bring someone over to deal with them."

"What happened?" The guide looked at Tian Jiu, Chun Ying and Jiang Yan, and shrank back silently, feeling that what these three people did was also scary.

Tian Jiu had a blank expression on his face: "The man who claimed to be the son-in-law of Wuming Village and his accomplices rounded up the villagers of the entire village and ate their meat."

"Uh, what--" the guide suddenly screamed and almost fell off the cart because he was too excited.

"How do you know? He gave it to you to eat, to eat that meat?" The guide didn't really believe it. It might be possible to eat something else during the famine two years ago, but now even if he wasn't full, he wouldn't starve to death. What's more, the man he saw didn't look like he had been hungry for a long time.

Tian Jiu was also explaining things to Chunying and Jiang Yan: "While the man was out fetching water, the woman in his room quickly gestured and told them everything. They were planning to drug us, kill the men one by one, and eat them. The woman would be captured and made mute, and then she would slowly eat them while serving them."

"Beast! Scum!" Jiang Yan was so angry that she slammed the floorboards beneath her. After spending a few days together, she learned that Tian Jiu also had the ability to read lips, so there was no possibility of misunderstanding.

Jiang Yan pointed at the guide and asked, "Can't we borrow some people from the nearby villages? We have more people and can rescue them as soon as possible."

Tian Jiu glanced at the skinny and withdrawn guide and shook his head, saying, "Those people are crazy and extremely powerful. Ordinary people can't control them and they can easily hurt themselves."

"But we have already alerted the enemy and we can't delay any longer." Jiang Yan was anxious. What if those people knew that they were exposed and simply killed all the remaining survivors?

Chunying said, "Don't worry, Tian Jiu knows what's going on."

After sending the anxious guide back to the entrance of their village, Tian Jiu replaced Chunying and rushed all the way to the county town.

"I was afraid they might notice something was wrong, so I pretended to be a robber scouting the area."

A robber with two women... Jiang Yan felt that he would definitely not believe it, but now they have gone so far away, and there are only three of them. There is no chance of winning if they turn back... He hoped that he would still have time to go back to the county to report to the police and rush back.

The donkey cart bumped along the way and finally returned to the county town in the evening.

Jiang Yan leaned on the reed mat, his lips pale and his spirit listless.

Chunying worriedly asked her about her physical condition and whether she could hold on. Jiang Yan gritted her teeth and said, "Okay, she won't die for a while. Let's go report to the police. Those people will be trouble if they stay any longer."

In fact, they had already reported the matter to the guards at the gate when they entered the city gate.

But he was worried that the guards would not report in time and that someone would be needed to lead the way during the operation, so he decided to go together to avoid delay.