Rebirth of an Old Farmer: Escape from Famine with Children and Grandchildren

Su Shunde continued to explain, "Lan Zhen helped us a lot along the way. She saved the son of the young master Jin Fulai, and they gave her a batch of food to thank her. Since then, she has been helping everyone along the way. Without her, we don't know what would have happened."

Old Man Zhou and Mrs. Zhou stood there in a daze, their mouths wide open for a long time, thinking to themselves: If I had known this would happen, I should have treated her better. Maybe I could have gotten more food now. Alas, I regret it so much!

Sun Wan looked at the old village chief and said, "Old village chief, are they going to follow us? We can't give them free food anymore, or we won't be able to hold out for long."

The people of Dongjia Village immediately nodded vigorously, chanting, "We'll follow you. We must follow you. We'll do our best and won't let you down! Please give us this chance!"

Sun Wan glanced at them with a look of helplessness in her eyes, and then continued, "Village Chief, for your sake, I can give them food, but they must write an IOU. When they get to a safe place, they must return the food to me. And they have to add interest."

She said it in a firm tone, leaving no room for negotiation.

After hearing this, the people in Zhoujia Village felt a little angry, but they had to accept it temporarily.

After all, the current situation is too difficult, so we can only get through this first and then make plans.

You will have to rely on yourself to live the days ahead.

So Su Shunde wrote an IOU, which stated that each family borrowed three kilograms of grain, but needed to return five kilograms of grain within one year.

In addition to the food they lent, the people of Sujia Village also took out some dried wild vegetables and gave them to the villagers of Zhoujia Village.

Everyone in Zhoujia Village solemnly pressed their fingerprints on the paper as proof.

When the daylight was just beginning to rise, the surrounding scenery became clearly visible. Zhang Lao Hu took Su Zhaoxiong out to check the situation outside to determine whether it was safe to travel.

He didn't bring Zhang Kun and Su Yousheng with him, and asked them to stay where they were and observe the situation.

As soon as you see soldiers approaching, you must immediately lead everyone to continue running into the stone forest.

Sun Wan got up early in the morning because she couldn't sleep well last night.

In the first half of the night, the stones underneath were scorching hot, and tossing and turning on them felt like frying a pancake on a hot iron plate; in the second half of the night, the stones became freezing cold, making people shiver constantly.

After she got up, she walked around nearby and finally climbed up a small hill about ten meters high.

Looking around, the surrounding environment is all bare stones.

After countless baptisms of wind, frost, rain and snow, many places have weathered into various strange shapes, which look extremely weird.

The strange thing is that there is not even a blade of grass in this place.

It was quiet all around, nothing but stones and rocks, no sign of life.

Sun Wan frowned, thinking about how to solve the current dilemma.

If they continued to move forward, there would be no water or grass, and they would not even be able to find any wild vegetables to fill their stomachs. The precious water they brought from the mountains would not be able to last for long.

Coupled with the fact that there are now twenty or thirty people in Zhoujia Village who have nothing, this situation really makes her feel very difficult.

Gradually, she began to have a headache.

Obviously, the soldiers sent by King Jin came prepared, with the purpose of intercepting the people from Sujia Village.

She did not want to encourage the people of Sujia Village to fight against these fully armed and large-scale soldiers.

Besides, there were only a few firecrackers left, and those soldiers must have made corresponding preparations. Any rash action would only result in wasted sacrifices.

After thinking it over again and again, Sun Wan finally felt that leaving this place as soon as possible and avoiding these pursuers was the best option.

Breakfast was just some dry food and cold water.

Although the food was simple, it was enough to fill my stomach.

In order to avoid the scorching sun, everyone found some tall, shady rocks to hide under, temporarily avoiding the scorching sun.

Goudan, Su Yinan, as well as the children Da Niu and Er Niu were running around in the stone forest, laughing and playing.

Suddenly, they discovered a low, narrow passage between a pile of haphazard stones, which looked like a small cave entrance.

But the hole was too low, and even Su Yinan, who was tall, had to bend down to enter.

After learning about this, Sun Wan decided to go and check it out in person.

She walked into the place and looked at the ground carefully, and found that it was not hard stone, but covered with a layer of soft soil.

This discovery made Sun Wan a little confused. After all, she had never seen such a situation here.

However, she did not delve into the reasons, but just called Lao Dafa and several other villagers, and asked them to bring shovels and spades and start digging the land.

This way at least an adult can enter while half-bending over.

After seeing this, other families in the village also began to search similar areas.

Sure enough, with the concerted efforts of the villagers, they really found a few similarities, but they were much smaller than the one in Sun Wan's house.

The men had already started digging the place that Goudan, Su Yinan and others had found, and they had already dug more than halfway down.

The soil here is neither particularly soft nor particularly hard, so you can continue digging down with some effort.

Fortunately, Sun Wan thought of a way to use the excavated soil.

She had the soil piled on one side of the mountain and compacted with stones to make a temporary bed.

Such a simple residence was built.

In addition to accommodating Sun Wan herself, her family and her in-laws, there was also enough space for Goudan and his grandson to live in as well. This made Goudan very happy and he couldn't stop smiling.

It was breakfast time, but no one saw Zhang Lao Hu come back.

On the other side, the guards led by Zhang Kun were patrolling outside constantly, always keeping vigilant to prevent any accidents.

At this time, Su Shunde came to Zhoujia Village to talk to the old village chief.

He proposed to the old village chief that each household in the village send one man to join the guard team.

Upon hearing this, Village Chief Zhou looked troubled. He said, "Can we wait a few days before starting this work? We are all so tired now. I'm afraid we don't have the energy to join the escort team."

Noticing that the old village chief of Zhoujia Village was indeed in poor health and had more wrinkles on his face, Su Shunde finally agreed to postpone the implementation of the plan for a few days and decided to discuss the matter again two days later.

When the sun was at its hottest, it was already noon when Zhang Lao Hu and Su Zhaoxiong finally returned.

Both of them had tired looks on their faces, but their eyes remained firm.

There were beads of sweat on Zhang Laohu's face, and Su Zhaoxiong was also panting.

They quickly ate the cake in their hands, grabbed another piece and went to the old village chief to discuss what to do next.