Heading northwest, the leisurely mood of traveling and enjoying the scenery gradually became heavy.
The cold wind of winter blew up the dust on the ground. In the field of vision of Lu Liangsheng and others, there was a dense crowd of people. Figures with pale faces and ragged clothes staggered past him and the Taoist.
“… When I left, there weren’t so many people coming here yet.”
Sun Yingxian, who was always smiling, now looked solemn. All he saw around him were refugees fleeing from the northwest.
After squeezing through a distance of several feet, Lu Liangsheng stopped leading the old donkey. In his sight, a skinny old man fell down, and no one paid any attention to him. A woman holding a child was sobbing behind her husband, and the child in her arms was crying loudly. A hungry man saw a wild grass on the ground, so he rushed over, dug it up in the ground with all his strength, stuffed it into his mouth with the soil and stem, and cried while chewing.
This kind of scene is a feeling that the scholar has never experienced before.
"What are the government doing..."
Lu Liangsheng had read some books about political affairs. There was no rainfall in spring, summer and autumn, and most of the edible things in Heliangzhou had been eaten up. It was winter and the northwest was cold. If the victims persisted, even if some wealthy families gave them porridge, it would be just a drop in the bucket. More people would die of hunger and cold... That was why they had to move now.
The crowd seemed to have no end, pressing forward, some of them bumping into Lu Liangsheng. Countless hands tried to touch any pockets on his body, but were bounced away invisibly, but people still flocked to him.
Some people even set their eyes on the old donkey and came over in groups to try to snatch it away. However, Sun Yingxian kicked them in the knee, breaking them. They lay on the ground wailing, and were soon dragged away by their companions.
"Old Lu, this is not the right time to preach. They are starving."
The Taoist also knew that he had kicked too hard just now, but if he didn't do that, more people would come up and maybe even their clothes would be stripped off.
How could Lu Liangsheng not know what Sun Yingxian said? Otherwise, he would have taken out the only few cakes he had at the beginning. But once he took them out, more hands would reach out to him. So what would happen next
"Let's go and take a look ahead. Didn't you say there are some ascetics here? Let's go over there and help out and do something."
Protecting the old donkey as he walked through the crowd, Lu Liangsheng, dressed in a scholar's robe, was like a small boat going upstream in the vast crowd. What he saw were basically hunger, fear and death. An old woman died while walking and fell to the ground, with no one paying any attention to her. A child who had lost his parents stood there, looking at the people around him who had become numb, with a look of despair. After a moment, he was carried away.
Lu Liangsheng buried the old woman's body on the side of the road, and found the child in the crowd. However, the child had lost one leg and was lying on a big rock, dying. He had lost too much blood and could not be saved.
For several days, he was busy burying the bodies or rescuing a few children and returning them to their parents.
Even with magic, facing such a disaster, a person's power is ultimately limited. Even the Taoist who had been standing by and watching couldn't help but help when he saw his appearance.
When they were about to reach the first city of Heliangzhou, Lu Liangsheng repeated what he had said when he first arrived at the border that day.
"What on earth is the government doing..."
The temperature dropped sharply and it became increasingly cold.
One night, Lu Liangsheng used his wall-walking skills and, like a ghost, passed through the city wall and houses and rushed directly to the backyard of Zhangtai County Government.
The county magistrate, who was sleeping with his wife in his arms, heard footsteps. He opened his eyes but was yet to sit up when, in the dim light, a figure rushed out from the wall where the calligraphy and paintings were hung.
"Who are you?"
As soon as he uttered the scolding, the curtains were blown up and the whole person flew forward and hit the large round table. The exquisite tea set fell to the ground with a crash. The woman on the bed hugged the quilt and screamed.
The next second, he was knocked unconscious by the wide sleeves that swept over him. Lu Liangsheng turned his head and looked at the county magistrate who was pressed on the table. The words seemed to be squeezed out of his throat.
“Why don’t you open the warehouse and release the grain?!”
"This... this master."
The county magistrate had cold hands and feet. Looking at the haggard face with red eyes in front of him, waves of tingling chills ran through his body.
How could the person who came out of the wall be an ordinary person
"… I have no choice. The government warehouse has already released the grain, but there has been no rain this year, and the grain and fodder collected is not much, and it has to be handed over to the capital… Now even rats don't come to the granary… Sir, if you don't believe me, I will take you to see it."
Lu Liangsheng nodded, used magic, and took the county magistrate to several government warehouses, where only a few piles of moldy stale grain were left.
"The Northwest is already poor, and there is never enough food... We really can't do anything about this once-in-a-century drought."
"What about the imperial court? No relief food?"
"It only came once, but how much is left after it is distributed to each county? From spring to winter, there are hundreds of thousands of mouths, it's like a bottomless pit, how can there be enough food..."
…
Back outside the city, Lu Liangsheng was still hearing the county magistrate's words. When he sat down, the Taoist handed him a water bag and sat down next to him.
"How about it?"
The Toad Taoist priest lying on a rock basking in the moonlight beside him tilted his head and snorted: "Do you still need to ask? You'll know at a glance."
"Master... I don't quite understand."
Lu Liangsheng held the water bag, staring at the refugees gathering at the foot of the mountain. On the nearby city wall, soldiers holding torches patrolled back and forth, strictly preventing the victims from entering the city.
"… I don't quite understand why the imperial court only sent one batch of food. Is it because the land in the northwest is poor and the people are cheap… that they deserve to starve to death?"
He pursed his lips, suddenly stood up, took a scroll from the bookshelf, and headed down the mountain. Sun Yingxian followed behind him and called out to him, "Old Lu, what are you going to do now?!"
The scholar who rushed to the city did not respond, but walked quickly to the porridge stall. Of course, there were no pots or pans there, only an empty old long table.
The light of the torches on the city wall illuminated the outside of the wall, where numb victims gathered together for warmth, stretching endlessly into the darkness.
A girl curled up in her mother's arms looked over, blinking her hungry eyes, curiously looking at a figure standing in the porridge shed.
I couldn't help but call out: "Mom, there's someone over there..."
At the other end of the sight, Lu Liangsheng closed his eyes slightly, loosened his fingers, and waved his robe sleeves. The blank scroll unfolded and spread flat on the long table.
Nie Honglian floated in from the darkness, as if she understood what the scholar was going to do, and put the inkstone she brought aside.
"Hong Lian is grinding ink for you, young master."
The slender jade fingers gently rubbed the ink block, and when it turned into a pool of ink, Lu Liangsheng extended the tip of his pen to dip it, and then drew a big circle on the white paper. After a few strokes, it gradually became the shape of a plate in Hong Lian's eyes.
The blue ink flowed down the tip of the brush onto the scroll, forming pieces of steamed buns and piling up.
Lu Liangsheng's forehead and cheeks were covered in sweat. He had poured all his magic power into it. The moment he stopped writing, he unscrewed the water bag and took a sip, and the water mist sprayed out and sprinkled on it.
"As long as your cultivation is intact, your mana will recover in a few days. Right now, if you put it to good use, it should be able to save some lives..."
As the sound came, dancing mist slowly descended from the painting scroll. The steamed buns outlined in green ink filled the air with fragrance. A large plate filled with a tall pile of steamed buns floated from the painting to the table, steaming and drifting away into the distance.
The child curled up in his mother's arms watched all this with wide eyes, broke free from his mother's hands, stood weakly on the ground, and slowly approached step by step.
Lu Liangsheng wiped the sweat off his face and smiled. A small figure with bare feet and messy hair came over carefully.
Opposite, a little girl who was not even as tall as the table, raised her dirty little face timidly, looked at the steamed buns on the table, and opened her little mouth hesitantly.
"... Big brother... my mother is sick... can you give me a steamed bun?"
Perhaps he was afraid that he had said too much, so he quickly changed his words.
"…half…half piece is fine too…"
Lu Liangsheng took two pieces and stuffed them into the little girl's hand, then patted her head: "Give it to your mother quickly. If it's not enough, come back for more."
"Um...thank you, big brother."
A smile broke out on the dirty little face. The little girl ran back with two steamed buns and handed them to the blue-faced woman. Perhaps she smelled the fragrance, the woman opened her eyes and couldn't help but open her mouth and take a bite, chewing quickly and swallowing it into her stomach.
The hungry people around who smelled the fragrance of the steamed buns stood up from the ground one after another, but they did not try to grab them. Instead, they stared at the only steamed bun left in the little girl's hand and swallowed their saliva.
"Xiao Chai, where did you get your steamed buns?"
"Over there, a handsome older brother gave it to me, and there are many more."
Following the direction pointed by the dirty little finger, the long table in the porridge stall was piled with large white steamed buns. The scholar stood there, looked at them, smiled, then turned and walked towards the mountain.
People were surging, and the little girl squeezed in the middle, grabbing some steamed buns on the long table. The plates were soon empty, but people were still squeezing in from behind, shouting, "Those who have taken steamed buns, please give up your seats so that others who haven't eaten can also take some."
Some people took more, some in their mouths, and some in their hands. Soon, the whole plate was empty. The little girl squeezed in front of her and there was nothing left, so she burst into tears at the table.
"What's going on?" "It's gone... You bastards, can't you take less?" "Someone in my family is starving to death, who can give me a piece!!"
**In the blink of an eye, someone beside the long table suddenly shouted.
"Hey, look, there are steamed buns again!"
I saw that the originally empty plate was instantly piled up with dozens of steamed buns.
"This is a magic trick..." "I saw that scholar just now." "I saw him too, it was a scholar."
Someone still had a steamed bun in his mouth, but he knelt down and cried. When these words spread, a large group of people on this side suddenly knelt down on the mountain where Lu Liangsheng was walking.
"The gods have shown their power..." "Don't take anything without permission, or the gods may get upset."
"Yes, everyone has a share, come one by one."
The previous chaos gradually subsided, and several long queues formed spontaneously and people took the steamed buns from the long table in an orderly manner.
The wind was howling in the mountains.
The Taoist and the Toad Taoist still looked at the weak scholar in confusion. The mountain breeze blew his hair. Lu Liangsheng sat on the stone, feeling the kindness coming from below. He spoke weakly with a smile.
"Although it's not real food, it's much better than eating dirt. It can help them survive for a while longer."