Yin Guangbo didn't need to look to know how difficult the lives of the people must be.
However, since Xiao Zimu had spoken, he could only say yes, get up and walk towards the residential area.
Most of the people's homes have their doors open, and the walls inside are bare.
Most of the people left in the house were old, weak, women and children, all of them were skinny and skinny.
Xiao Zimu and Yin Guangbo went up to talk to them, but few people answered them.
It wasn't until Xin Ya took out a piece of silver and gave it to a child that he took it out of his mouth. The young and strong people went to dig wild vegetables a little further away.
When Yin Guangbo saw the child speaking, he went over to continue to trick him.
But the child refused to say anything.
Upon seeing this, Xiao Zimu ordered Xin Ya to buy some sets of clothes for ordinary people.
Xin Ya responded "Yes" and turned around and disappeared into a farmer's house.
After a while, he came back holding three sets of short brown quail clothes with hundreds of knots.
Xiao Zimu called out to Yin Guangbo, who was still chatting tirelessly. The three of them found a place, changed into short brown robes, and walked towards the outskirts of the city a little further away.
Slowly I saw groups of people digging for wild vegetables in the suburbs.
Yin Guangbo looked at Xin Ya who was wearing short brown clothes but still had a sword on his waist and said, "Just don't go there. It doesn't look like him at all."
When Xiao Zimu heard this, he touched some mud on the ground. Xin Ya and Yin Guangbo didn't know what he was going to do, so they saw him wiping it on his face and clothes.
The whole person looked dirty instantly, and it was too late for them to stop it.
"You wait here." Xiao Zimu also told Xin Ya.
Xin Ya could only say yes.
Yin Guangbo didn't expect that Xiao Zimu would wipe off the mud without being pretentious at all, and he couldn't help but feel an unspeakable emotion in his heart.
He picked two sharp-edged stones from the ground and handed one to Xiao Zimu.
Xiao Zimu didn't know why, and looked at him with a frown.
"It's used to dig wild vegetables." Yin Guangbo said with a smile.
Xiao Zimu nodded, and the two of them walked towards the slightly denser crowd.
"This eldest brother has to live like this every year. When will he grow up?" Xiao Zimu frowned and made a bitter face, and followed a skinny man next to him to talk.
At first he saw that Yin Guangbo was digging skillfully, so he dug for a long time and imitated his example.
As a result, Yin Guangbo dug out three or four roots, but he still didn't dig out any.
The reason why Yin Guangbo is so skilled at digging is thanks to the time he spent living in the Yin Temple outside the city in the northern suburbs.
Xiao Zimu couldn't dig it out, so he simply threw the stone and followed him, lifting up his short skirt to carry the wild vegetables dug by Yin Guangbo.
Right now, he had six or seven wild vegetables in his pocket.
The clothes are ragged and stained with mud, giving it the air of a down-and-out farmhouse.
"Hey, there is no end. I hope the summer will pass soon and the autumn harvest will be better."
"Brother, we just settled in this ancient Anhui Province this year. How could we have imagined that we would be in such a situation, relying on these wild vegetables to survive until the autumn harvest?" Yin Guangbo's mind became more active.
While digging with his hands and feet, he also chatted.
"People in our city can't get out even if they want to. It's better for you to come here and suffer by yourself." The eldest brother sighed with emotion.
"We came here to look for a relative, but we didn't find him. We ran out of money, so we stayed." Yin Guangbo lied.
"Can't the people in ancient Anhui City leave the city now?" Xiao Zimu added at the right time.
"If young people haven't settled down, they should leave quickly. It's better to go anywhere than here. We locals are not allowed to leave the city, otherwise the strong men would have run away long ago."
"How come the government has such a rule?" Xiao Zimu picked a larger wild vegetable and threw it into his eldest brother's basket.
"Young man, don't take this stuff lightly. After a while, you won't even be able to dig this anymore, and you will have to eat bark and Guanyin soil." The eldest brother kindly reminded me.
Xiao Zimu was stunned when he heard this. He could still imagine eating tree bark. What is Guanyin soil
He turned to look at Yin Guangbo.
Yin Guangbo's face turned serious, and he frowned and asked, "If you eat Guanyin soil, even if you don't starve to death, you will eventually be starved to death. This is simply drinking a dove to quench your thirst."
"You guys didn't know it at first, but later you found out and there was nothing you could do about it. When people are hungry to a certain extent, they can change their bodies to eat, let alone Guanyin soil." The eldest brother's eyes were red, and his face was full of sadness.
Eat by exchanging children...
This time even Yin Guangbo was dumbfounded.
His hometown is in the prosperous Jiangnan, and there has never been a famine.
Guanyintu just listened to others and accidentally learned about it as a conversation piece after dinner. He couldn't even think about changing his son and eating it.
"The people are so hungry, and the government has set the price of rice so high. Are your consciences eaten by dogs?" Yin Guangbo looked bitter and indignant.
"Because the harvest is small, they stockpile the grain after handing over it every year. In the summer, they sell it at a high price. They don't care how many people will starve to death before the autumn harvest." The eldest brother has long been accustomed to it, and the expression on his face is calm.
"Are the officials not letting you leave the city because they are afraid that you will file a lawsuit?" Xiao Zimu looked at the sad expressions of the two people, and as the name suggests, he probably understood the meaning of changing his son and eating.
"In the first year, many people went to the capital, but none of them came back. They had nothing to fear. We had long since given up on complaining. The government did not let us go out because we would not be able to return in the coming year. We just have to farm." The eldest brother sneered and smiled to himself.
That smile was uglier than crying.
Xiao Zimu put all the wild vegetables in his arms into his eldest brother's basket, and then pulled Yin Guangbo to his feet. He said to his eldest brother: "How can we live in such a life? Let's go to the government."
"Little brother, don't go. If you are lucky, you will be beaten out. If you are not lucky, your fate will be decided there." Seeing their high spirits, the elder brother turned around and left, shouting to their background.
The two looked at each other with extremely ugly expressions.
In this ancient Anhui city, it seems that not only the government and businessmen colluded to restrict freedom, but even human lives were dared to be taken lightly.
When Xin Ya saw them coming back, he followed them, and the three of them walked towards the government office.
"What is Guanyin soil? Did you just say that you will be strangled to death if you eat it?" Xiao Zi and Mu Ruyu's face was also dark at this time.
"I only occasionally heard my classmates mention that there was a famine in their hometown. People there would eat a kind of white kaolin clay when they were hungry. The soil is fine and does not have so many sand and gravel impurities. It is not a big deal to eat less. So most of the villagers call it Guanyin soil."
"Is there really edible soil?" Xiao Zimu thought it was just ordinary soil at first.
Yin Guangbo saw that Xiao Zimu had misunderstood the meaning, and then explained: "Although it is okay to eat a small amount of Guanyin soil, eating too much will make your mouth dry, and once you drink water, it will expand a lot. After the Guanyin soil swells, , it cannot be digested or excreted at all, and in the end those who eat the dirt will be starved to death."
(End of chapter)