Chapter 58: Helping each other

In the evening, the group walked through the woods, successfully bypassing Yongqing County, and returned to the official road.

Nowadays, no one was excited to see the official road again. These few experiences had taught them one thing: sometimes the official road is more dangerous than the mountains and forests.

“It’s getting late; we need to find a place to sleep before sunset,” Yang Li said, looking at the long and narrow official road.

There was no open space around it, making it unsuitable for the thirty or so families to gather.

If each family took turns to go down, the distance from beginning to end would be too long. If something happened at night, there would be no time for rescue.

Wan Sanye’s cheeks were red, his forehead covered in sweat, and his legs were trembling. He looked at Su Yin, asking for help. “Miss Su, when can I rest?”

Since they started walking at noon, this group had not taken much of a break. The occasional pause was only long enough for a cup of tea. This little time was of no use to him.

It was impossible for the group to slow down for him, so he gritted his teeth and persisted all the way.

The sun was almost setting now, and the team showed no sign of stopping, which made him feel utterly exhausted.

“Fat Master, do you know if there’s a suitable place for us to camp in this area?”

“Let me think about it,” Wan Sanye replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

After a moment of thought, he said, “Walk forward for a quarter of an hour, and you’ll see a trail. There’s a mountain temple there.

You can camp at the mountain temple tonight. The temple isn’t big, but there’s an open space outside that would be suitable for camping.”

After relaying this information to Yang Li, the team immediately headed towards the mountain temple.

After about half a stick of incense, the group arrived at the mountain temple.

Due to the recent bad weather, the mountain temple had been abandoned; half of the mud wall had collapsed, and the courtyard door was missing.

The temple itself was small, and the stone statue of the mountain god inside had long fallen into disrepair, with many holes in the roof.

With more than 200 people from Xinghua Village, the temple could not accommodate that many people.

The old, weak, women, and children settled in the temple, while the other young men stayed outside.

Wan Sanye sat down on the ground, breathing heavily.

Second Uncle Yang Dachuan found Su Yin.

“Yinyin, come here.”

Yang Dachuan pulled Su Yin into the woods not far away, where his uncle and another relative were also present.

“What’s wrong?”

The four uncles and nephews stood under a big tree. The branches and leaves were sparse, and many of the leaves had already turned yellow.

Yang Dashan spoke first, “You’ve seen it now; among our group, we are the only ten families who have preserved all our belongings.

Madam Xu’s family doesn’t have much, but our other families have relatively more.”

“We all have a lot of things,” he continued. “When people in a village are fleeing, they need to help each other along the way.

Without food and water, if we stand by and watch, when danger arises, others will stand by and watch us too.

I don’t know what else might happen. One more person, one more helping hand, means one more chance to survive.”

“It’s like encountering gangsters outside the city gate. If you are alone, the gangsters can easily harm your family.

If your child is killed, no matter how powerful you are, you cannot protect yourself, let alone your family.”

“And remember the time when we hunted the tiger; we had to rely on everyone’s cooperation to capture it.”

“Sometimes, you can’t just focus on immediate gains and losses. You have to take a long-term view in order to go further.”

After saying this, Su Yin understood her uncle’s intentions.

“I came here to ask for your thoughts,” he added.

He shared all this for the sake of his niece.

“Uncle, I understand everything you said. When the time comes, I won’t sit back and do nothing. But not now.”

“This is…” Yang Dachuan said, suspicious.

Su Yin explained unhurriedly, “I noticed what everyone was carrying, and the losses were mostly large items like pots and pans. Although some food was lost, each household still managed to bring some out. So we don’t need to rush to provide food.”

“On the other hand, many people don’t have water, so we have to help. We only have so much water for ten families, and we can’t give it to everyone. Each household should at least have one meal.”

The biggest shortage for the people in Xinghua Village right now is not food, but drinking water.

The three uncles nodded in agreement.

“Then it will be as you said. If we are short now, we should give some water first. As for food, we can wait until they have nothing to eat before giving it to them.”

“What do the Third Grandma and her family say?”

Yang Dahe replied, “This matter is what Grandpa Sanwa told us; he should have informed the other families as well.”

Su Yin thought about it and realized that managing this situation was difficult, as someone had to worry about everything and run various errands for the villagers.

Back at the camp, Su Yin saw her second cousin Yang Hua and third cousin Yang Lin being ordered around by Master Wan San.

He himself was quite relaxed, leaning against a tree, fanning himself and barking orders.

“Oh, you guys are wrong. Using a triangle is more stable. The height of the boiler should not be too high; it won’t heat well. About an inch is just right. Yes, that’s it.”

Wan Sanye immediately fell silent when he saw Su Yin returning.

Su Yin walked up to him, glanced at him coolly, and turned to Yang Hua. “Second cousin, stop working. Fatty is good at this; just let him handle it.”

Yang Hua, being an honest man, hurriedly waved his hands. “No, no! Aunt said, Fatty Master is a guest, so how can we let the guest do it?

I’ve already done it here, so don’t dirty Fatty Master’s hands.”

Wan Sanye nodded in agreement.

Su Yin chuckled.

She took half a bucket of water and placed it next to Yang Lizheng.

Several other households also took some of the water so that Li Zheng could distribute it evenly.

Mrs. Zhang felt extremely distressed when she saw half a bucket of water being taken away.

“No, this is too much. We bought all this water with our money,” Mrs. Zhang protested, grabbing Zhang Liangtian’s hand and using a ladle to take a spoonful back.

Seeing that his mother was about to reach out again, Zhang Liangtian held her hand firmly. “Mom, if you scoop more, we’ll reach the bottom.”

Mrs. Zhang, lacking a broader perspective, retorted angrily, “Why should my family be the ones to bring water out?”

“They all took some,” he pointed out.

“Well, if they took it, that’s their business. We won’t take any,” she insisted, trying to reclaim the water.

“Mom, stop making trouble,” Zhang Liangtian urged, lowering his voice.

Yang Shuixian chose not to get involved in the argument. If she did, her mother-in-law’s anger might turn towards her.

So, she pretended not to see anything and focused on having dinner with her two sisters-in-law.

No matter what Zhang Liangtian said, Old Mrs. Zhang refused to relent. In the end, it was Old Man Zhang who intervened, holding her down gently.

Frustrated, Mrs. Zhang sat down on the mound, sulking in anger.