The journey of the only child of a peasant family to take the imperial examination

So everyone walked together towards the house in the valley.

The closer I got, the colder it felt. I couldn't even hear the chirping of insects, but I could clearly hear breathing, which was very creepy!

Everyone involuntarily slowed down their steps, and San Ya stopped screaming.

Zhang Pingan now deeply regretted not insisting on going to the cave. This was obviously a problem, so he stopped and whispered, "Why don't we go back? This place is too weird!"

The most alert among the crowd were Zhang, Grandpa Jinbao and Brother Liu, and they all agreed to go back.

Zhang also lowered her voice and said, "It's not too late to go back now. We all brought straw raincoats and oilcloth. At worst, we can just gather some straw to cover the top to block the wind."

Brother Liu rubbed the goose bumps on his arms and nodded, "Let's go back!"

Grandpa Jinbao also agreed.

But most people are optimistic. Seeing that they are only three or four hundred meters away from the house, and they have to walk more than a mile to go back, and sleep in a cave or wasteland, it is better to try to stay overnight with the owner.

Except for four people, everyone else suggested to go and ask first, and if it doesn't work, they can go back.

Zhang Pingan sighed in his heart, but then he thought that there were a lot of people on his side, so he decided to ask first!

When they reached the front of the house, Donkey Egg looked up and said softly, "Dad and Mom, look, there are words on it: 'Inn'. This is an inn!"

Liu Sanlang and Daya both knew a few words. They looked up and saw that there was indeed a wooden sign hanging at the gate of the courtyard. The first two words were no longer clear, but the last two words were indeed "Inn". There were cobwebs on it. They couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and said with a smile, "Little brother, look, this is an inn. It must be abandoned."

When we heard that it was an abandoned inn, everyone was no longer afraid and felt much more relaxed.

Daya reached out and pushed the door, which creaked open. Everyone pushed the car into the yard together.

"Hey, this inn is so strange. Why doesn't the room even have a door?" Ma wondered.

Daya looked around first, trying to find some firewood to quickly boil medicine for Sanya. She didn't pay much attention to these things and replied casually: "Maybe someone moved it away. After all, the door panel has many uses!"

Ma nodded: "That's right!"

Fortunately, there was a lot of firewood on the west side of the house, and it was coarse firewood, enough for San Ya to boil medicine, and everyone could also make a fire to keep warm.

Everyone found a place to sit down and rest. Qian Yongde said proudly, "See, I told you it was nothing. If it weren't for my insistence and Sanya's cleverness, we would still be hiding in the cave!"

"San Ya is pretending?" Xu sensitively caught the key point and said angrily, "Oh, she's pretending quite well. I told you how I understand my own daughter. As soon as she sticks her butt out, I know what she's going to do. She's full of tricks but she doesn't use them in the right way. She's so selfish. She deserves to be in pain!"

"No, no," Qian Yongde said quickly, "Mom, that's not true. I was wrong!"

After saying that, he quickly helped San Ya to move away from Xu. When Zhang saw this, she shook her head and said nothing.

The others didn't see anything happening, so they didn't care and pretended not to hear it.

Daya was busy boiling the medicine and had no idea that after it was done, she passed the medicine to Sanya to drink.

After the fire started, it became much warmer. The women simply took out the pot and cooked porridge for the children. The porridge was ground before leaving. In addition to rice and millet, it also contained chopped walnuts and hazelnuts. After adding water and boiling, it was fragrant and tasted good. It was considered a fine grain and was specially left for the children.

After eating, everyone prepared to rest. It was already late at night, the moon was dark and the wind was strong. The moonlight was at its dimmest in the entire month, and there were only a few stars.

I don’t know how long I slept, but suddenly there was a loud sound of the door being pushed open. Liu Sanlang hurriedly called everyone to get up. Everyone opened their eyes in a daze and saw about thirty men holding torches coming into the yard.

Their clothes were tattered, and most of them were very thin. It was obvious that they didn't eat well.

The sky was dark and foggy at this time.

The leading man stepped forward and said, "Hand over all your food, and we won't hurt anyone!"

Zhang Pingan was now fully awake and said, "Giving you all the food is no different from taking our lives!

He carefully observed everyone's clothing and appearance, and finally deduced, "You must be from the village ahead. We wanted to stay there for the night yesterday evening."

"What nonsense! We are bandits who specialize in robbing food. Just tell us whether you want to give it to us or not," the leading man said in a rough voice.

After saying that, he asked the people following him to show the weapons in their hands, which were basically axes, hoes and the like.

Zhang Ping'an signaled his eldest brother-in-law with his eyes to come forward. The man was not surprised to see a strong man among the crowd. He said harshly, "I know you have many men, but we must have food. Otherwise, we can't survive. The worst case scenario is death. Besides, you have many elderly people, women and children. I'm sure more of you will die."

Desperadoes are nothing more than this!

Zhang Ping'an suggested, "How about this? We'll give you the mules in the yard, but nothing else. As I said, giving you all the food is no different from asking for our lives!"

All the men on Liu the Butcher's side reacted, even the most cowardly Qian Yongde picked up a long knife. In this chaotic world, ordinary people understood too well how precious food was!

The two sides confronted each other for a while, and both sides tensed up!

Just when the other side was about to take action, suddenly a sound of copper bells came from the distance, and the sound was getting closer and closer, and the ringing was very regular.

When the thirty or so men heard the sound, their faces changed drastically. Without caring about anything else, they turned around, opened the door, and ran away quickly. The torches were also extinguished!

Liu Sanlang thought he would be the first to take action, and was about to take action, but suddenly all the opponents ran away. He was a little confused. What was going on?