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

Guo Jia and his men were the most seriously injured. After they were cleaned, medicated, and bandaged, Zhang boiled a few doses of the medicine she brought with her and fed them while it was still hot. Only then did they slowly wake up, holding their chests and coughing lightly a few times.

After waking up, Da He was still a little dazed and murmured, "I'm still alive?"

Upon hearing the noise, Ma rushed forward, pushed her eldest daughter-in-law aside, and cried, "My son, you have suffered so much! These damned bandits deserve to be killed. They are so mean and cruel to me. If you have any other complaints, tell me!"

Fortunately, Ma didn't see her son's appearance when he just came out of the dungeon, otherwise he would have fainted from fright.

After the bandaging was almost done, Zhang Ping'an told everyone to eat some dry food quickly and then set off immediately. He wanted to take everyone away before Doctor Fu and his son returned.

The Fu family is now more ruthless than before, and they have a lot of poisons in their hands. He doesn't want to take the risk of continuing to be involved with this family. Besides, everyone has moved enough food, cloth and salt from the bandit camp today, so there is no need to travel with the Fu family.

Uncle Xu was stabbed on the shoulder, so deep that the bone was visible. Zhang used a sterilized embroidery needle based on her experience to sew it up, and also sprinkled a lot of hemostatic powder. After finally bandaging it, she didn't know whether the wound would heal in the end.

There was no anesthetic available, and Uncle Xu was in so much pain that he bit the stick in his mouth until it broke. After he was bandaged, his first words were, "Ping An, don't we want the gold?"

Except for Jinbao who was still immersed in sorrow, the other men who had gone with him to kill the bandits also looked over.

Zhang Pingan sighed. Money is tempting, and he is also tempted, but: "The fire hasn't completely gone out yet. It can melt the gold. Just imagine how hot it must be. It will take at least tomorrow daytime for it to cool down completely. What's more, it has melted with the bluestone slabs. It will be difficult to handle it after it cools down. It's not that I am not tempted, but I can't. So many of us are injured. Coming back and treating the wounds and saving lives is the first priority. Besides, the fire is so obvious. The county government will definitely send people to check it out tomorrow morning. There is no need for us to take risks. What's the point of having a life to take it if you can't spend it!"

After hearing this, the light in everyone's eyes instantly went out and they became much dispirited. None of them had ever seen so much gold in their life. It was like such enormous wealth was right before their eyes, but they missed it. It was so painful!

The women didn't know what was going on and were asking questions, but Zhang interrupted them, saying, "Alright, stop talking nonsense and eat quickly. We'll be traveling tonight!"

Speaking of food, the women were happy again. Today, there was so much more food, cloth, salt and oil. Even though they were still fleeing, they could still eat well!

Li was also thinking about making some white flour dumplings tomorrow to nourish the pregnant Mei Zi.

In fact, Zhang Ping'an had a little worry that he hadn't mentioned just now, that is, Doctor Fu's crazy look of determination to get the gold at all costs. In order to be safe, and considering the other points mentioned just now, after weighing the pros and cons, he didn't want to risk the lives of his own people, so he simply gave up!

Guo Jia sacrificed a lot this time and made great contributions. Zhang Ping'an already regarded him as half his own and even served him a bowl of rice during dinner. Guo Jia took it and thanked him weakly!

"You just follow us. We moved a lot of food from the bandit camp today, enough for us to eat," said Zhang Ping'an.

When everyone came out, the eldest of Doctor Fu's three grandsons finally asked, "Where are my grandfather and my father?"

Zhang Ping'an turned his head and saw that the three children all had cold eyes. The eldest grandson was only seven or eight years old, and the youngest was only five or six years old.

"They are still waiting in the bandit camp to get something, so they will be back later," Zhang Pingan replied indifferently.

After hearing this, the three children looked away and remained silent.

Zhang Ping'an saw that the dry food prepared by Doctor Fu was very sufficient, so he didn't care about it anymore. He buried the entrance of the cave with his family and left.

Grandma Jinbao didn't want to bury Grandpa Jinbao in a foreign land as a wandering ghost. She wanted to cremate his ashes and take them away so that they could be buried together after she passed away.

Jinbao's father and everyone else respected Jinbao's grandmother's ideas.

This happened to be a cemetery, and usually no one came here. There were a lot of dead straw and dry firewood in the woods, so everyone helped pick up a large pile and piled it into a small hill. Then they put Grandpa Jinbao on top, and Jinbao's father went to light the fire.

In the blazing fire, several members of Jinbao's family shed tears silently.

In the end, only charred bones were left.

Grandma Jinbao knelt on the ground and picked up the ashes handful by handful and placed them in a small wooden box. Then she used clothes to bury the body. Finally, she stood up, wiped her tears and said calmly, "Let's go!"

Taking advantage of the cover of night, the group continued their journey eastwards, hiding during the day and moving at night. As there was enough food, everyone ate well, so they didn't look too bad and were doing alright!

On the twelfth day of their escape, they finally reached Raozhou, which was not too far from Quzhou, so they had already walked almost half the distance.

Along the way, there were quite a lot of refugees fleeing famine. Unlike before in Yuezhou, most of the refugees here were women, children and thin men. The stronger ones took the opportunity to join the army to make a living, and the court did not need to conscript men.

When hunger reaches a certain level, people will lose their humanity. Zhang Pingan has seen many women collapse and go crazy when they woke up in the morning. It turned out that their children were stolen while they were sleeping in the middle of the night and they only found out when they woke up in the morning.

After seeing this, Da Ya and Er Ya watched the children even more closely, and the children became much quieter than before.

If there weren't more men in the team and they were traveling at night so they wouldn't be so conspicuous, and if they hadn't experienced what happened in the mountain village, the men had become different after all, with more bloodiness and ruthlessness. If they had severely dealt with several refugee leaders who took the lead in probing, they would probably have been robbed by the refugees long ago!

You can tell whether someone is starving or not by looking at their faces and eyes. Even though Zhang Ping'an has instructed everyone to smear wet mud on their faces, the refugees can still easily see through them. What's more, there is a mule, so this cover-up is only better than nothing.

The further east you go, the better the security in the city will become.