An eight-year-old kid emptied his scumbag father's warehouse and followed his grandparents into

Xu Zize saw Jing Chunxi's eyes wide open in confusion, and saw her unconsciously clenching the back of the chair. The young man suddenly reached out and grasped her cold fingers, pressing the letter into her palm. "Father said that the war is about to start, so we should seize our food and weapons."

As the letter was thrust into her hand, she practically leaped forward to snatch it, her movements so hasty that she nearly knocked over the teacup on the table.

But at this moment she no longer cared about these things. Her eyes devoured every word hungrily until she was sure that what Xu Zize said was true. Then she let out a long breath and slumped on the embroidered cushion as if all her bones had been pulled out.

The sparrows that had flown in from outside the window were pecking at the puff pastry crumbs that she had just scattered. Their chirping sounds seemed to be a preview of the sound of triumph.

At this time, Qingfeng and Kuaijiao also came into the house.

"Green Shadow, what's the current situation in Qiantang County? Tell me."

Xu Zize's voice was a little deeper than usual, and the ending tone trembled slightly. His gesture for the three people to sit down seemed a little slow, as if a heavy burden was hanging on his arms.

Everyone turned to Green Shadow. His sunken eye sockets cast deep shadows, making him look much more haggard. The new stubble on his chin glowed bluish-gray in the firelight. It seemed that he had not had an easy time during this period.

Lu Ying's Adam's apple rolled with difficulty, his lips trembling slightly, and his voice seemed to come from far away: "Prince, Miss, we followed your previous instructions and split into two teams when we arrived in Qiantang County."

His fingers unconsciously traced circles on the tabletop, dirt from his exploration still lingering between his nails. "I'll lead one team into the city, and the other will follow Old Ma into the village. We'll split up and investigate..."

His voice suddenly choked. Xu Zize pushed a cup of tea to him. The tea left a wet mark on the edge of the cup and slowly flowed down his wrist. He did not pick it up.

"The four granaries of the county government are all concentrated in the southeast corner of the city," Green Shadow finally continued, dipping his fingers in the cold tea and drawing a simple diagram on the mottled table. The water marks were quickly absorbed by the rough wood grain.

"Each granary had three teams of yamen soldiers on duty. Crossbows were mounted on the arrow towers, their arrows gleaming coldly in the moonlight. All the nearby houses were vacated and moved in by yamen soldiers."

"Each of the four counties has a granary, all located deep within the county government office. The surrounding walls have recently been raised three feet, and broken porcelain shards are scattered in the corners. Our men scratched their boot soles while climbing over the wall."

"As for those rich families and landlords..." Green Shadow sneered, a cold light flashed in his eyes, and his right hand unconsciously touched the hidden weapon at his waist.

"We searched their house at night. These people store their food like their lives are their own. The cellar is full to the brim, with sacks piled up almost to the ceiling. It's enough for their whole family to eat for three to five years without worry."

His nails suddenly scraped against the table, leaving a faint white mark. "But that's not all the food. Some of it looks like ordinary farms, but in reality..."

His voice suddenly rose, and the veins on his temples bulged. "They dressed the guards as farmers, but they had daggers hidden at their waists. The trenches were deeper than trenches, with sharpened bamboo spikes stuck at the bottom. The traps were set so that not even a rabbit could escape!"

Finally, he looked at Xu Zize and said, "The guards and I have figured out which farm is used as the granary." Then he presented several pieces of paper with maps drawn on them. There were maps inside and outside the city, and the locations of the granaries were marked on them.

"What about the people of Qiantang County?" A voice suddenly interrupted him, the voice was filled with anger and the ending tone had a slight tremor.

"Why haven't we seen so many people along the way?" Quickfoot slammed his fist on the table, causing the teacup to bounce, leaving a wet, round mark on the surface. "There wasn't a soul along the way, and the city looks like a cemetery! Not even a dog barking!"

Green Shadow's hand shook violently, and the tea bowl fell onto the table with a clang. The brown tea spread on the table like a pool of dried blood, slowly seeping into the texture of the wood.

The room suddenly became eerily quiet, the only sound remaining was the dripping sound of tea, which was particularly piercing in the silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on Green Shadow. The candlelight flickered in his eyes, casting a blood-red hue and staining his pupils an eerie orange-red.

"The common people..." Green Shadow suddenly closed his eyes, his Adam's apple rolling with difficulty, and the muscles in his neck tightened into hard lines. "Some died, some fled, and the people you see in the city are either rich or noble..."

His voice was as light as a sigh, yet so heavy that every word seemed to carry a thousand pounds of force. "We also felt something was strange when we first arrived... There wasn't even a beggar on the street..."

Memories flooded back like a tide. That day, he pushed open a mottled wooden door, and the rotten door hinges groaned miserably, like the last gasps of a dying man.

Spider webs covered his face, glowing an eerie silver in the morning light, and sticky silk clung to his eyelashes.

The room was filled with a foul stench. A rotting corpse was curled up on the bed. Fingers like dead branches were still scratching the bed boards, leaving deep scratches on the wooden boards and nail fragments embedded in the cracks in the wood.

In the main hall of another family, three people hugged each other tightly. The knife wounds on their chests had turned black, and the congealed blood bloomed like strange flowers on their gray skin...

"Until we found that family..." Green Shadow's voice suddenly became as soft as a whisper, his lips barely moving, and the voice seemed to be squeezed directly from his chest.

The memory of that night is as vivid as yesterday: the pale moonlight shines through the dilapidated window frames, drawing mottled grids on the ground, like a cage painted for this human tragedy.

He squatted on the beam in the kitchen, holding his breath. The dust on the beam made his throat itchy, but he didn't dare make a sound.

In the darkness, the dusty empty water tank in the corner of the kitchen suddenly made a slight "creaking" sound, and the sound of the bottom of the tank rubbing against the ground was particularly harsh in the silence.

The water tank moved inch by inch at an extremely slow pace, each movement accompanied by a teeth-grinding grinding sound. Suddenly, a faint flame emerged from the cracks in the ground like a ghost, swaying in the darkness and casting an eerie orange-red light on the surroundings.

Then, an arm shaped like a dead branch slowly emerged from the gap, its skin tightly attached to its bones, its purple blood vessels clearly visible in the firelight, its five fingers bent like eagle claws, climbing up inch by inch, as if a demon from hell was struggling to climb out of the abyss.

The battered oil lamp was carefully placed on the ground, the flame of the wick dancing restlessly. Two bony little hands, one on each side, supported themselves on the ground, their knuckles white from exertion.