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Chapter 167 Hungry

Zhu Yu, who was not far away, saw this scene and quickly pulled the reins to stop the horse.

The other workers seemed to be used to this kind of thing. They just silently took off the burdens on their shoulders. Several of them stepped forward and carried the man who had fallen in the mud to the side of the road. They found a place that was relatively not flooded and was covered with soft mud, and laid him face up there. Then they went back and picked up the heavy burdens again and continued to move forward, one step deep and one step shallow.

Except for a person lying unconscious on the roadside, unable to tell whether he was dead or alive, everything returned to its previous state, and the sound of the persuasive chants was even louder than before.

Zhu Yu dismounted and ran towards the man on the side of the road. He saw him lying there soaking wet, his eyes closed, and his chest could barely be seen breathing.

She placed two fingers on the side of the man's neck, and felt a steady but not strong beating at her fingertips, which made her feel slightly relieved.

The man's cheeks looked sunken and his eye sockets were almost collapsed. He looked like he hadn't had a full meal in a long time. He was probably overworked and fainted.

Several other people had also dismounted and followed.

Fu Wen stopped a young man carrying a load and passing by and asked, "Do you recognize this person?"

The young man had actually seen the unconscious man on the roadside from a distance. Now that he was stopped by a stranger, he didn't need to confirm it. He nodded and said, "I know him. He is from the same village as me. We came here together to carry stones to repair the canal. How could I not recognize him!"

"So we're just going to leave this man here?" Fu Wen didn't expect that this young man actually knew the unconscious man, yet acted so indifferent.

"What else?" The young man sighed with his eyebrows drooping, and looked at his fellow villager lying on the roadside, "It's not a life-threatening illness, it's just that he was hungry and tired and couldn't hold on any longer, so he collapsed.

If he can hold on, he will have to continue working after he recovers. If he can't recover, that's his fate.

He is not the first one to collapse from exhaustion, and there will surely be others like him in the future.

If we put down what we are doing and go to take care of him, who will do the work?

So the canal won't be dug or repaired?"

"Could it be that you were all captured by the government and forced to dig canals?" Fu Wen asked hurriedly when he saw that the young man was also pale and thin, with a blue face.

“Is there any need to arrest this matter?
"This rain keeps pouring down every day. If we don't hurry up and build the canal, the water won't drain out, and everyone in our family will starve to death! No one will survive!" The young man waved his hand impatiently at Fu Wen, glancing at the wet section of his Taoist robe that peeked out from beneath his oilskin coat. "If you monks and Taoists really had the ability to stop the clouds and rain, we wouldn't have to rush to build the canal!"

Fu Wen was retorted by him and was at a loss for words.

After all, their current identity is "Taoist priests". In addition, the other party is pale and thin, his clothes are covered in mud, and his shoulders carrying the load are so worn out that even the coarse cloth has been worn out. It is obvious that he is busy day and night.

There is no reason to be cruel to this young man in any case.

Zhu Yu had already used the talisman to lift the man's upper body, softened some Hu pancakes with water, and stuffed some into his mouth. The man must have fainted from exhaustion and hunger. He lay on the side of the road for a while, swallowed a few more Hu pancakes in a daze, and finally woke up.

Zhu Yu broke off another piece, soaked it with water from the water bag, and handed it to the man to eat. He then rewrapped the rest of the cake and put the talisman in his arms.

Under normal circumstances, if she saw someone fainting from hunger because they had no money to eat, she would not be stingy, let alone giving away a whole Hu Bing, or even buying a basket of steaming hot meat buns for them.

But the situation is different now. It is very difficult to buy some food in Huazhou. They need to hold on until they reach the border of Shuo Kingdom.

The five people only had limited clean water and Hu pancakes to begin with. From what the young man said, there were many people here who were exhausted and hungry because they were starving and working so hard.

People often lose their minds when they are extremely hungry.

If other people who are already on the edge of their endurance see them so generously taking out the dry food they carry with them to help others, and rush over to grab the food, it will be difficult to deal with.

Even if three of the five people have good kung fu skills, a good tiger cannot defeat a pack of wolves, and they cannot cope with such a large group of hungry villagers with red eyes.

At a time like this, it is better to have less trouble than more. Although the people of Huazhou are suffering from the heavy rain for several days, the traditional charge of treason by the two vassal states of Jie and Shuo still hangs over everyone's head like a sharp knife.

If the truth cannot be ascertained in time and the knife is allowed to fall, the world will inevitably fall into chaos. The Jin Kingdom and Jie Shuo will tear each other apart and send troops to fight. At that time, no one can say for sure whether the various forces in the Jin Kingdom, as well as the Fan Kingdom and the Lan Kingdom, will take advantage of the chaos and add fuel to the fire.

The fact before us now is that some people deliberately want to stir up trouble and make the world turbulent and chaotic. If this is true, then by then it is likely that the people suffering will not be limited to the few counties in Huazhou that are suffering from floods.

The man moved his throat a few times and swallowed the soft Hu pancake in his mouth. These things could temporarily relieve his hunger, but they were definitely not enough to fill him up.

He swallowed twice more, swatting the still-tasting bread in his mouth pathetically. He then climbed up from the ground and bowed to Zhu Yu and the others: "Thank you, Taoist priests, for saving my life!"

Having said that, he did not delay any longer. Even though he was still a little unsteady when walking, he went straight to the burden thrown on the roadside, picked it up with great effort, and continued walking with one foot deep and one foot shallow.

Lu Qing watched from the side and walked over to two people who were carrying a large basket of stones and said, "Gentlemen, may I ask where you are taking these stones?"

The two men glanced at him and didn't want to pay much attention to him, but when they thought about the fact that he was a Taoist priest and his particularly handsome appearance, he gave people an inexplicable feeling of being unfathomable, which made them feel puzzled.

I hope he is not an expert invited by the government. If he really has some magical power that can stop the rain, they won’t have to endure this hardship.

So the older of the two men patiently turned around and continued to carry the stone forward, saying to Lu Qing, "Let's carry the stone to the front. County Magistrate Cao and the high officials from the capital are supervising the work over there!
We have to repair this section of the canal quickly before the water level of the river in the west rises, otherwise if the water overflows, all the villages in this area will be destroyed!"

(End of this chapter)