Wear it quickly, it's better to live a miserable life than to die

Now is the fifth day of fleeing famine. They have just left Wangyi County. The situation in the neighboring county is not much better, with more and more people fleeing famine.

Chen Laosan died of starvation.

In order not to burden the child, and even more despairing about the world, he started to refuse food and water two days ago, making the same choice as most of the older people in the team in the village.

In the village, most of the dead were over 60 years old and had only been out of the village for four or five days. The scene was desolate and they had no choice but to flee the famine. Along the way, Chen Laosan had seen dozens of corpses abandoned on the road, naked and half-buried on both sides of the road with a thin layer of soil, which were dug out and eaten by wild dogs.

Whose father is that, whose mother is that, whose grandparents are those elders and relatives.

This is just the beginning.

The further back they got, the fewer people were alive, and there was almost no food. Not only would wild dogs eat the dead, but the living would also join in the scramble for food.

Exchanging one's own children for food, these four simple words are the result of countless hardships in the early days.

Eating one's own children was not the result, and starvation was not the result either. They were just an inconspicuous ripple in history, unable to even create waves. The suffering of countless people was nothing more than a word from those in power, a short line in the history book.

It’s hard to say why, but Ding Yi suddenly felt like crying, for this era, this world, and the people here.

Famine was not their choice, but they had to endure it, and even used their lives as a banner to make people shout slogans, overthrow the supreme ruler, and then continue the game of cannibalism.

After Chen Laosan died, Chenjia Village continued to move forward, with fewer and fewer people, and people died every day, from the elderly, to young women, to children, and finally to young men. In the end, Chenjia Village was destroyed, and no one reached the place they had planned and dreamed of.

On the road to escape famine, those with connections began to go their separate ways, each pursuing their own career, hoping to meet again in the future. However, many people went to war against each other, vying for supremacy over the world and vying for hegemony over the Central Plains. It became a game of shuffling cards for the upper rulers, but it was a helpless road for the lower class people, whose lives were turned into piles of bones.

The emperor of Jiang Suan State was named Jiang. His ancestors were sorcerers. They rose up in rebellion at the end of the previous dynasty and established Jiang Suan State. Now, at the end of Jiang Suan State, the whole country has risen up and is busy fighting for territory. Who would care about the lives of a group of insignificant people?

Smoke of war was rising everywhere. Wangyi County was a poor place and had never been in the sight of the princes. Taking over the poor county would not only not provide any help, but would also hinder them. There was no need to fight for such a place. After the outcome was decided, it would naturally belong to the princes.

The fighting outside is fierce. Today you are the host among the princes. Tomorrow I will treat you to a grand show of war. The day after tomorrow we will fight to the death to decide the winner.

Wangyi County was rarely affected by the war because it was not worth it.

Chen Laosan's wife was an orphan in distress whom he picked up when he was away from home. All her family members had died and there was war raging outside. Wangyi County had become a paradise on earth. Apart from being a little poor, crops could not grow on the land and people had to eat only one porridge a day all year round. They could neither live nor die.

Chen Laosan didn't know what happened next. He only knew that his family was dead, his village was gone, and there was still no winner outside. They had originally planned to go to Lin Hou's territory, but they didn't make it.

Hundreds of kilometers became an insurmountable gap for them, a huge natural chasm that they could not fly over. Thousands of miles of barren land. Natural disasters, man-made disasters, wars, banditry, left them no room for maneuver.

The way to survive is not to wait, but to strive for it.

Ding Yi opened his eyes and looked at the refugees with numb expressions and emaciated bodies, sitting listlessly under the shade of trees by the roadside. This group of people included not only people from Chenjia Village, but also people from other villages in Wangyi County. They would all die, and no one would survive.

Later, Wangyi County became an empty county. After the outside princes decided the outcome, people began to migrate from other places to form the new Wangyi County.

Wangyi County has not experienced war, but there are wars everywhere outside. Everyone is a victim of the dynasty, without exception.

Ding Yi was supposed to have arrived at the time when the officials came to Chenjia Village to collect grain and Magistrate Wang Yi County had not yet escaped, but he was kicked back for several days by Yaoyao.

……

The eldest son Chen Wang was dozing off nearby. Thanks to the knowledge of Chen Laosan's wife, the children in the family were not named Goudan, Erhua or Sanda like the other children.

It was just after noon, the hottest time of the day, and the time to make a fire and cook. However, as they were fleeing from famine, there was no food to eat. Half a meal a day was considered good, and the rest of the time they could just pull up some weeds, some leaves, and dig up some soil for a meal.

God didn't even give them this simple request. There were only a few leaves left on the road, and the ground was clean. You might be able to find some roots and rhizomes by digging the soil, but it is more likely that you won't find any.

There was a severe drought in Wangyi County and there was no harvest. There was really nothing to eat.

Except for a handful of food left in every household that was stored deep, the rest had basically been taken away. The county magistrate originally wanted to surround them in the village and let them fend for themselves, but later he saw that the situation was not right and fled first, so that they could find a way out in desperation, but this way of life eventually turned into a dead end.

After walking for five days, they were almost out of Wangyi County. Wangyi County was so poor that the bandits had to go to other places to rob.

Ding Yi looked at the village which originally had seven or eight hundred people, and now had about five hundred people gathered together. Chen Laosan had suddenly become the oldest one in the group.

On the road to escape famine, at first, the distance between villages was clear, about a hundred meters apart. Villages were related, dependent on each other, and fighting each other, so a distance of a hundred meters was just right.

Ding Yi looked at his eldest son who was dozing off, then turned to look at his second son who was sitting on the ground holding a weed in his mouth and looked stupid. He didn't know why, but in his impression, a man holding a weed in his mouth should be a bad guy, but when it came to his second son Chen Xiang, he only saw stupidity.

"Chen Xiang, help me up." As we all know, when parents call your full name, it means something big is going to happen.

Chen Xiang was stunned for a moment, staring at Ding Yi, and did not go to help him immediately.

In a flash, Chen Xiang recalled everything he had done recently. "Father usually calls me Xiang'er, and only calls me Chen Xiang when he is angry. Could it be that he dislikes me for not carrying him on his back the first time?"

After thinking it over thousands of times in his mind, he still had to move over and carefully help Ding Yi up.

"Dad, be careful. Your son is here to support you. Don't try to commit suicide again."

Ding Yi sat up with Chen Xiang's help and asked, "How much food do we have left?"

Chen Laosan didn’t know, he only knew that it was very little, so he chose not to eat it.

Chen Xiang's face suddenly fell. He glanced at his father secretly but said nothing.

"To be honest, your father can handle it."