Chapter 641 Daguo Village
Two days later, the five of them finally reached the foot of the mountain and stepped on the land without snow. Although they faced another large pine forest, it was much better than the snow-capped mountains.
Except for Chu Jingqi, the other four people stamped their feet, their eyes red with excitement.
For nearly two months, they lived in the cold snow at 40 to 50 degrees below zero, and almost died of cold and starvation. Fortunately, they finally made it through.
Ma Bao sighed, "It's still comfortable to live down to earth."
Chu Jingqi said calmly, "After such a long time on the snow-capped mountains, you are not without benefits. I see that your Qinggong and internal strength have improved a lot."
"In the future, I want to train the people below in Qinggong. I think it would be a good idea to let them go for a spin in the snowy mountains." In the end, he said seriously.
When Ma Bao and Shengdi heard this, the corners of their mouths twitched together, and at the same time, they secretly mourned for the group of secret guards being trained by Hua She.
After sighing for a while, the five of them continued on their way, heading straight to the west.
The pine forest seemed more dangerous than the snow-capped mountains. They saw many animals and poisonous animals, including pythons.
Fortunately, the five of them were very good at qinggong and didn't want to get entangled with them. When they saw them, they just accelerated their speed and flew by.
By the time the python reacted and became alert, the five people had long since disappeared. It was not until it was almost dark that the five finally walked out of the pine forest.
Standing on a trail outside the forest, the five people stopped to breathe.
Xia Zihan tugged Chu Jingqi's hand, pointed to the distance in surprise, and said, "Aqi, look over there, is there smoke and sparks..."
It was time to make dinner at this time. Where there was smoke, there must be someone there, and if there was someone there, they could borrow a place and have a good rest.
Xia Zihan grabbed Chu Jingqi's hand and smiled happily, "Aqi, let's go quickly. It will get late in a while. If we knock on the door, they will not be happy to take us in."
"Aren't you tired?" Chu Jingqi squeezed the palm of her hand and saw that her little face seemed to be a little brighter than two days ago, and he was in a good mood.
In those days, because there was not much food, he felt heartbroken when he saw that she was so hungry that she almost had no energy, and she insisted on rushing by herself without letting him carry her on her back.
Fortunately, they finally got out of that ghost place.
From now on, he will protect himself and her well, and will never let her suffer like this for him again.
Xia Zihan smiled sweetly, "I'm not tired."
"Then let's rush over." Chu Jingqi said.
He bent down and picked her up. When he saw that she was about to protest, he said with a straight face, "I will carry you away. This is your husband's order. You are not allowed to disobey me."
"I'm not your subordinate." Xia Zihan pouted and said unhappily.
However, nestling in his arms, my heart felt as sweet as eating honey.
The five of them rushed to the place where the smoke was coming from without much rest.
This is a very small village, with only a dozen households in the whole village. Moreover, you can tell by looking at the houses that this village is very poor.
"What should we do? Are we still going in?" Ma Bao looked at a dozen or so dilapidated houses that were about to collapse, his face darkened and hesitant.
"I'm not going in." Chu Jingqi said.
Even if they go in, a family with only two or three small houses can make room for so many of them to live?
He didn't want his baby to live in the same house as a man.
With a dark face, Chu Jingqi hugged Xia Zihan, turned around and found a plain place outside the village. Without letting go of Xia Zihan, she ordered Shengdi, "Bring out some white bear skins and set up a simple tent."
Four white bear skins are enough to build a small tent, which is enough for Chu Jingqi and Xia Zihan to rest. As for the rest of the people, it is enough for each of them to take a white bear skin and sleep outside for a night.
No matter how you sleep here, it is much better than sleeping on the snow-capped mountains.
However, Xia Zihan glanced at the small village with regret.
She originally wanted to go into the village to borrow a place to rest, but... when she saw a series of dilapidated small houses, she was afraid that no one had any place to borrow it.
That's all, if I fool around for a few more days, I can find a small town.
When the time comes, find an inn, have a good sleep, have a meal, and comfort them.
Chu Jingqi saw that Ma Bao had taken out the fresh pheasant meat that he had acquired during the day and wanted to make barbecue. He frowned and told Ma Bao, "Go to the village and see if you can borrow a pot and we can cook some meat." Let’s drink the soup and buy some salt on the way.”
He wanted to say buy some more condiments, but he swallowed the words again.
In such a poor village, salt is probably a luxury, let alone other seasonings.
Xia Zihan also glanced at the poor village and told Ma Bao, "Give them a few more coins and tell them that the pot will be returned to them tomorrow morning and they won't take it away."
Having lived in Caojia Village for five years in her previous life, she knew clearly that when the people in the village were so poor that they had no food to eat, they would feel distressed for several days if they lost even a pair of chopsticks, let alone an iron pot. Ma Bao said yes, took out a few taels of silver from his pocket, and then went to the village.
In less than a minute's time, Ma Bao came over with a pot.
Behind him, there was a middle-aged man. The man was carrying a large bundle of firewood on his shoulders, which Mabao must have bought.
There was also a child, who looked about ten years old, carrying a vegetable basket in his hand. When he got closer, Xia Zihan saw that there were five tender corns in the basket.
"Master, mistress, this village's surname is Guo, and this is the village chief of Guojia Village." Ma Bao put down the iron pot, pointed at the middle-aged man, and introduced him to Chu Jingqi and his wife.
In front of outsiders, Ma Bao cleverly changed his name.
Ma Bao then pointed at Chu Jingqi and Xia Zihan and introduced him to Village Chief Guo, "Our master's family name is Chu. We passed by here to visit relatives. It happened to be dark, so we rested here. I would also like to thank Village Chief Guo for lending us an iron pot. .”
"Steward Ma is very polite."
Village Chief Guo said politely.
When he heard Ma Bao calling him "Master and Mistress," he knew that these people had extraordinary status. Of course, in the eyes of Village Chief Guo, even a small village landlord's family had an unattainable status.
Only in that kind of family, the children would be called young masters and mistresses by the servants.
Village Chief Guo quickly put down the firewood and came over to salute Chu Jingqi and Xia Zihan, "Hello, Master Chu, hello, Mrs. Chu."
"You can use the pot as you like. You can return it at any time. If you are still missing something, just go and tell me. If I have it, I will definitely send it to you." He nodded and bowed, with a flattering look on his face.
And his son seemed to rarely see strangers. There was curiosity about them in his eyes, but also fear, and he was too embarrassed to get close. Especially since Chu Jingqi's whole body was habitually exuding bursts of air-conditioning, he took a step back in fear. Hiding behind his father.
Seeing this, Chu Cong took the initiative to take the basket from his hand and said, "I will return this basket to you tomorrow together with the iron pot."
"Okay, okay, then... let's go first."
When Village Chief Guo saw that Chu Jingqi ignored him, he couldn't stay any longer. He pulled his son and nodded and left.
Ma Bao went to his house again and brought a large bucket of water over.
In the evening, they cooked corn soup, grilled meat, and had a hearty dinner. After eating and drinking, Xia Zihan wanted to take a bath when she saw water. She had not taken a bath since entering the snow-capped mountains. , because it was too cold to bear, and even if there was a fire, there was no pot to make a fire, and there was no place to wash.
Chu Jingqi refused, "You have to be patient. It's close to the snow-capped mountains, the temperature is very low, and the environment is not convenient."
Xia Zihan looked inside the two-meter-square tent and finally gave up the idea.
In the evening, Chu Jingqi hugged Xia Zihan and rested in the tent. The three of them sat around the fire and meditated.
Early the next morning, Ma Bao went to the village and bought a few corns, two sweet potatoes, put them together, put some meat, and cooked a big pot.
After the five people had a meal, Ma Bao returned the iron pot and basket to Village Chief Guo. He also asked Village Chief Guo about the situation here.
When the five people left, Village Chief Guo and his family came out to see them off.
Ma Bao was grateful to Village Chief Guo for telling him everything he wanted to know, so he gave Village Chief Guo ten taels of silver. The happy Village Chief Guo knelt down and gave Chu Jingqi and Xia Zihan Kowtowed three times.
You know, these ten taels of silver are something that Village Chief Guo will never earn in his lifetime. Not only can he not earn it, but he has never seen so much silver in his decades of life.
Their Guojia village is poor, there is little land in the village, and animals from the nearby pine forest come to cause trouble. The harvest in the fields is often poor. Throughout the year, the people in their village do not have enough to eat for half the year.
Ma Bao had been following Chu Jingqi for many years and was not a soft-hearted person, but seeing how poor Guojiacun was, he still softened his heart.
When other families in the village who heard the news came out to see him off, Ma Bao was a good person for once and gave two taels of silver to each family.
The entire Guojia Village villagers were so excited that they said they had met living gods who were rescuing people in distress, and even knelt down and kowtowed to them.
Until they flew far away, the group of people were still kneeling on the ground and did not get up.
According to the information that Chief Guo told Ma Bao, they flew for more than an hour and saw another village. This village also had the surname Guo and was called Daguo Village. The previous village was Xiaoguo Village.
According to the village head Guo, hundreds of years ago, Daguo Village was not as big as Xiaoguo Village. Xiaoguo Village was surrounded by pine forests. During the off-season, the strong men in the village would go hunting in the pine forests in groups. Life was going pretty well.
It seems that one day, the strong men in the village went hunting, but none of them came back. Later, the people in the village sent people into the woods to look for them, and what they saw were corpses all over the ground.
They encountered a group of wild wolves, and they were all killed by the wild wolves.
Later, there were no strong men in the village, only old, weak, women and children, so they no longer dared to stay near the pine forest.
Many people moved to Daguo Village.
The people who moved took all the land next to Daguo Village with them. In the end, only a dozen poor families who could not afford to build houses or move remained in Xiaoguo Village.
3000 words
(End of chapter)