So what if I traveled through time? I'll continue to roll in another place

"You stinky dog!" Xiao Yueshan couldn't help but want to yell at the man in front of her, but she was afraid that the wall could hear her, so she could only lower her voice. She called out the nickname they used to call each other when they were playing around, which made her look three parts angry and seven parts coquettish, more like scolding than anger.

"I've suffered so much. I kept asking if it was you. Why didn't you tell me?" After traveling through time for half a year, it was the first time she had such a relaxing moment. Zhou Yao reached out and hugged her. She buried her head tightly in his arms, like a lost child who found her mother again, as if someone was listening to all her grievances and felt sorry for her.

"It's not that I don't agree with you, it's just that I've been through too many dangers since I came here." He pressed his nose against the top of her head, feeling the fragrance and real warmth of the woman in his arms.

"By the way, I haven't asked yet, how did you travel through time?" She raised her face in his arms, her misty eyes sparkling with tears.

"I don't know either," the man paused, "I was already in the river when I crossed over. Luckily I held onto a piece of driftwood so I had a chance to catch my breath."

"I'm a good swimmer and I even saved someone in the water. Later I found out it was Zhou Yao's servant. I brought him downstream and finally got to the shore after the water level eased a bit." He spoke slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully.

"How should I describe it?"

“It’s the first time I’ve seen so many dead bodies.”

"It was a tragedy that people like us who live in peacetime cannot imagine," he still feels scared when recalling the situation at that time.

"The flood destroyed the houses in the village, and piles of corpses stagnated on the beach where the water flow was slow. There were corpses of humans, cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs and other poultry and livestock. Fierce wild dogs were roaming among them to eat them. The broken limbs were even more horrifying."

"There were countless clothes, furniture, cattle, sheep and corpses floating on the river. The weather was hot, the waterside was smelly, and swarms of flies were flying around, the buzzing sound was terrifying."

He was lost in memories and couldn't help choking up.

"We walked through such a pile of corpses to reach the shore. The number of villages flooded in Jiangzhou counties ranged from a few to more than a hundred, and countless houses collapsed. The displaced refugees could only build simple huts on high ground to live in. In the refugees' huts, the cries of children, the screams of women, the fights of men, and the barking of vicious dogs could be heard one after another. It was really hard to look at or listen to them."

Xiao Yueshan's horrified expression made Zhou Yao stop describing, "Anyway, it's a nightmare scene." He closed his eyes, calmed himself, suppressed the memories of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and then concluded.

"Jiashu, the servant, and I were both hungry and exhausted, and we couldn't vomit anymore, but we couldn't help but dry heave. At the time, I was still wearing Zhou Yao's official uniform, and it was soaked and smelly and heavy, so I took it off and wore only my inner clothes. The uniform was torn by branches in the water, and I wanted to throw it away because it was in the way, but Jiashu said that was not necessary, so I took off his outer clothes and wrapped them in it, and asked him to keep it."

"I didn't expect that this piece of clothing would bring him a fatal disaster."

When Xiao Yueshan heard this, she guessed that Jiashu had become Zhou Yao's scapegoat because of his official uniform. She had a bad association in her mind and just held Zhou Yao's hands tighter.

"We are both strong men, and Jiashu knows how to fight, so he is not easy to bully among the refugees. We found a dilapidated shack on the edge of the city. Most of the people inside are elderly, and they can barely tolerate us staying there."

"Jiashu asked the old man in the shed and learned that we were in Xianshan Village, Daoning County, Jiangzhou. He wanted to go to the county government to identify himself and ask the government to send us back to Jiangzhou. I just arrived and I really didn't understand the situation. In addition, the lack of food and clothing in the refugee camp was unbearable, so he arranged it."

"I hurried with him to the county government office. On the way, I asked a lot of questions about Zhou Yao. I didn't expect that Jiashu, who knew that Zhou Yao had investigated many cases of Jiangzhou magistrate embezzling money and grain, naively believed that Daoning County Magistrate would escort us back to the prefecture. I felt that the situation was not good, so I stopped the plan to seek help from the county government office. I don't know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, Daoning County Magistrate had already taken refuge with his family, and the county government office was empty, so no one found our trace."

"Jiashu suggested that we go directly to Shunzhou in Pingyi Prefecture. The Xijiang Dao Supervisory Censor's station is located in Shunzhou. It can ensure safety and make it convenient to report the investigation to the Seal Censor. So we followed the refugees to Shunzhou."

Xiao Yueshan had already learned about this when he was in the Imperial Household Department. The administrative divisions here were divided into nine prefectures and forty-eight states, and the local censors divided the forty-eight states into eight circuits based on the principle of proximity, rather than directly dividing them according to the jurisdiction of the nine prefectures.

This staggered design reduced the interference of the local administrative system in the censors, and focused more on facilitating the supervision of specific matters such as inspections, salt inspections, grain inspections, water transport inspections, customs inspections, and warehouse inspections.

Jiangzhou, Suizhou, Danzhou under the jurisdiction of Huainan Prefecture and Qingzhou, Shunzhou and Jianzhou under the jurisdiction of Pingyi Prefecture were supervised by the Xijiang Dao Supervisory Censor, whose headquarters was located in Shunzhou, the center of these six prefectures. These prefectures were large grain-producing prefectures with dense water networks and were considered the granaries of the imperial court.

"The days of fleeing famine were really hard." Zhou Yao sighed, those bloody days lingering in his mind like a nightmare.

"I couldn't bear to steal other people's food, so we mostly ate tree bark and grass leaves, or sharpened bamboo and wood to kill vicious dogs."

"When a dog is very hungry, it turns into a wolf; when a man is very hungry, he turns into a wild beast."

He thought about it and swallowed the words on his lips. Along the way, he saw many cruel scenes of cannibalism and family killing. He and Jiashu took turns to stand guard even when they rested. They were born in official families, so they were more delicate than others. They had no relatives and were really afraid that they would become someone else's meal if they didn't wake up.

Even if he was lucky enough to hunt a vicious dog, the dog's stomach would contain unspeakable but well-known meat. He would feel sick when he saw it, and could only force himself to avoid the internal organs and eat some dog legs to fill his hunger. Fortunately, Jiashu was very skilled and could protect him all the way.

The two men wandered to Shunzhou. There was no disaster in Pingyi Prefecture, and the place was rich. Kind-hearted officials opened many charity shops to give out porridge and money. Their life was much better than when they fled all the way from Jiangzhou. The two men finally settled down in Shunzhou.

Zhou Yao learned a lot about the original owner from Jiashu. He guessed that the original owner was probably murdered when the ship sank, so he became more cautious. The two of them made arrangements and went to the Xijiang Dao Censorate to talk.

He used half of his dog leg to ask a little beggar he was familiar with to deliver a cloth bag containing his private seal to the Censorate. There was a note in the bag, agreeing to meet at the land temple on the outskirts of the city at 3:15 p.m. the next day.

Seeing the gateman taking the cloth bag, Zhou Yao and the other man returned to the refugee camp and prepared to wait outside the land temple tomorrow to see who the Censorate would send to pick them up before making a decision.

Zhou Yao had no idea who he could trust. Jiashu didn't know much about officialdom. He only knew that the original owner had a few close friends. As for whether other adults could be relied on, he was not too sure. He could only use this stupid method of testing the waters to test the water.

The two men thought they had left a way out, but they never expected that that night, soldiers came and searched the refugee camps everywhere, saying that there were thieves mixed in among them. The soldiers came and offered a reward of 100 taels to capture the thieves.

When Zhou Yao heard the news, he secretly thought it was not good. He didn't know what secrets of corruption and bribery the original owner had discovered were that made people so anxious to silence them without even caring about alerting the enemy.

He quickly woke up Jiashu and prepared to escape in the chaos.

One hundred taels of silver may not be worth mentioning to the rich and powerful, but it is indeed a huge sum of money for these homeless refugees.

Unexpectedly, the bag containing the official uniform that Jiashu protected day and night had already attracted the attention of other refugees. Before they left, Wang Laosi, a refugee living with them, led the officers and soldiers over here.

As they walked, he said, "Sir, Liu San who lives with us doesn't look like a good guy. He's a foreigner who knows Kung Fu, and he's carrying a big bag. I wonder if it contains stolen goods!"

Liu San was Jiashu's pseudonym. He glanced at Zhou Yao, mouthed "Master, please go quickly", and immediately picked up a pointed bamboo pole for catching wild dogs and rushed out.

The scene became chaotic for a moment. The officers and soldiers were busy rounding up and capturing people, and the refugees were busy fleeing. Zhou Yao was swept away by the crowd.

Although he couldn't save Jiashu, he subconsciously couldn't bear to leave. He had never faced such a scene before and just stood there in a daze, blending in with the crowd of onlookers.

Jiashu was extremely brave. He stabbed Wang Laosi in the heart with a bamboo pole and fought with dozens of soldiers for a long time until he was exhausted and was captured.

The soldier opened the package, and the leading officer asked him where the official uniform came from. He said without hesitation that he had killed someone and robbed him.

The soldiers checked everywhere, but found that there were too many refugees, and they were smelly and messy. They had already captured one person who could be used as a task force, and no one wanted to risk their life for a few hundred dollars.

Zhou Yao could only watch as the soldiers took the seriously injured Jiashu away, not knowing how to rescue this brother who was his life and death friend.

Before he could think of a countermeasure, the soldiers began to massacre the refugees. This sudden change caught him off guard and he quickly covered his mouth and nose and hid in the pile of dead bodies, which was the smelliest.

There were constant screams for a while. After killing all those who could run and jump, they set a fire and burned the entire refugee camp to ashes.