I had been active near the waterhole before and didn't go far away. After I started, I discovered that the thorns and weeds in the forest had grown very high. There were many obstacles and scratches when walking under the forest. I couldn't walk more than a few miles in an hour.

, at this rate, I’m afraid I won’t be able to move to Yuzhou by the end of the year.

In desperation, I could only leave the woods, come to the road, look forward and backward, and move forward cautiously.

I carry a baggage with me, and there is a change of clothes in the baggage. Carrying a baggage, I look like a stranger on the road. I want to throw the baggage away but I am reluctant to do so. The fastest trip to Gezao Mountain is three days.

Month, you have to have a change of clothes.

While he was hesitating, he noticed someone on the road ahead. He looked closely and saw that he was a young man carrying firewood. The man was about the same age as him, about thirteen or fourteen years old. He was dressed in ragged clothes, wearing a pair of straw sandals, and was carrying a bundle of firewood behind his back.

.

When I saw the young man chopping firewood, I thought about it, walked three steps at a time, and then caught up with him and talked to him. The young man lived in a nearby village and had gotten up early to go up the mountain to chop firewood.

After a short conversation, I learned that it was early May and that I had been away from the mountains for more than three months.

After the discussion, the young man handed over the hatchet and the firewood on his back, and gave the baggage and the change of clothes inside to the young man. At this time, the clothes were very expensive, and a set of 70% new clothes was exchanged for a piece of old firewood.

The young man took advantage of the knife and a bundle of firewood.

Even though the young man had never suffered a loss, he still took out two pennies from his waist and handed it to him. He still had more than sixty pennies on him. If he lived frugally, he should be able to survive till the end of the world.

The young man who cut firewood happily took the copper coins, thanked him profusely, and helped him carry the firewood for several miles. He only handed over the firewood when he reached the fork in the village. The young man still had half a piece of leftover cornstarch with him.

If he had dry food, he also gave him half of the steamed bun.

With this outfit, he felt much more at ease. He could finally walk on the road openly. A farmer carrying firewood home would not arouse anyone's suspicion.

This bundle of firewood is very heavy, and it is a bit difficult to carry it. I wanted to unload some of it, but after thinking about it, I gave up the idea. If I carry too little firewood, someone who is interested will still become suspicious when they see it.

It's better to carry it on your back. You can carry it for a long distance and feel at ease.

After walking for more than ten miles, I still unloaded the bundle of firewood. This bundle of firewood was mostly branches cut from living trees. It was too heavy, so I replaced it with dead tree trunks. The bundle of firewood was larger than before, but the weight was only the same as before.

half.

After walking a few more miles, he stopped again. He found a sycamore tree in the woods beside the road. The sycamore tree bloomed in May. At this time, the sycamore tree was full of pink flowers.

The flowers of the sycamore tree are edible. There is nectar in them, which is quite delicious. However, it is a diuretic and laxative. Eating too much can cause diarrhea.

Eating the flowers of the sycamore tree is secondary. The main reason is to cut down a branch. The branches of the sycamore tree are hollow and can hide things.

At first, he cut off a section of sycamore branch. After looking at it, he felt it was inappropriate. There were breaks at both ends, which could be easily detected by others. So he threw away the section of branch, picked another one, cut it from the bottom, and cut the top end.

Keep it as it is, so that there is only one break, and it can be used as a crutch so that no one can easily detect the abnormality.

He stuffed the four elixirs and the bit of gold into the hollow branch, and then sealed it tightly with a wooden stick. This way, he felt at ease. Apart from the copper coins, there was nothing suspicious about him.

I was reassured but also a little worried, that is, the hole in the middle of the branch was oblate. When I went to fill it with elixirs, the wax seals of several elixirs were worn away a little, and they were no longer perfectly round, but

Slightly oval in shape, it may be affected by moisture-proofing.

Compared with the previous galloping, moving forward step by step at this time seemed extremely slow, but it did not feel boring, because while rushing on the road, he kept recalling the first volume of Qianjin Yifang in his mind, and recorded the diseases included in it.

I sorted it out again with the corresponding prescriptions.

You can see villages from time to time on the way, but most of them are ruins and a dilapidated scene. If it was just a famine, this situation should not happen. In recent years, wars have been rife, and you are fighting for it, and the cities and villages are going back and forth.

The change of ownership and the ruin of the village were probably caused by the war.

After walking for a day, I didn't see a single trafficker or footman, only a few soldiers on horseback galloping past, and I encountered several groups of fleeing victims, ranging from more than ten people to three or two people.

In the evening, I met several more victims. They should be a family, an old couple, a boy of fourteen or fifteen years old, and a child of seven or eight years old.

The old couple were not very old, probably less than forty, and their appearance of age was undoubtedly caused by overwork and lack of food. The four of them, old and young, looked sallow and skinny, and looked haggard. They were struggling to move around while supporting each other.

After living alone for several months, I didn't talk to anyone for a long time. Seeing that it was getting late and the few people hadn't found their dormitory yet, I walked with them and talked.

These four people are indeed a family, and they have indeed escaped. Being deprived of income and food is not enough to make them leave their hometowns. The government's exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes are the most terrible. If they cannot pay taxes and land rents, they will have to pay in kind.

If you want to be imprisoned, you will be released when you pay taxes. If you can't pay, you will die in prison. There may not be a way to survive if you escape, but there will only be a dead end. If you escape, you will actually escape from prison.

.

While feeling sympathy, I also had many doubts, asking them why they didn't go to the mountains, where they could still find food, but where could they get food if they walked on aimlessly like this.

The old man sighed helplessly and said that they had also thought about escaping into the mountains, but there were many snakes, insects and beasts in the mountains, which was very dangerous. Moreover, there were no grains or rice in the mountains, so it was difficult to survive on only wild vegetables.

The old man said without saying anything else. Just because he could find something edible in the mountains does not mean that others can too. Most people only know a few kinds of wild vegetables and only eat wild vegetables to satisfy their hunger. People will look sallow and thin, and their limbs will be swollen.

.

While he was talking, he noticed that there was a ruined wall on the roadside in front of him. He and Baturu and others had robbed the inn many times before and were familiar with the layout of the inn. Judging from the structure of the courtyard, it should be an abandoned inn.

As we got closer, it turned out to be an abandoned inn. It must have been on fire before, and most of it was

All the buildings collapsed, and only the east and west wings still had roofs.

The east wing was better preserved and had been occupied by other victims. So he walked into the west wing, and the family of four also followed in after hesitation.

"You guys take a rest here, I'll go out to find some food." He put down the firewood and turned around to leave.

While it's still dark, I search around in the mountains. Where there are large trees, I often can't find anything edible. Edible things like white grass, platycodon, and adenophora mostly grow in sunny and rocky areas.

Where weeds are low.

Before nightfall completely fell, I returned home with a full load, carrying a bunch of white grass in my left hand, a handful of platycodon in my right hand, and a thick tree root more than four feet long under my arm.

The old man's family only recognized Platycodon grandiflorum and the strange tree root they brought back.

After lighting a bonfire, they began to clean up the things they had brought back. The family brought a pottery urn with them, and boiled the roots of alpinia and platycodon, and cut off a section of the weird tree root and buried it in the soil under the fire.

Half an hour later, the campfire weakened, and the charcoal was used to dig out the root. In fact, the object was not a root, but a medicine called kudzu. Although the outer skin was black, the inside was thick white flesh.

Cut the roasted kudzu root into five pieces, take one of them for yourself, and distribute the rest to the family of four, with each person having more than half a catty.

It was the first time for the disaster-stricken family to eat this kind of food. At first, they thought the smell was quite attractive. After peeling off the outer skin and carefully trying it, they found that it tasted sweet and very glutinous, better than dried corn rice.

Seeing several people devouring their food, he was in a good mood, especially when everyone thanked him profusely, he was even more pleased. Before meeting Daoist Lin, he often helped others in the village, but he never gained the kindness and kindness of the villagers.

Thank you, the second girl in the whole village was the only one who was kind to him.

In addition to being relieved, there was also a hint of embarrassment and a little nervousness. He had long discovered that the fourteen-year-old boy was not a real man, but a young woman wearing men's clothes, and the woman was looking at him with strange eyes.
Chapter completed!