Flood

Chapter 20 Flood

But the rain didn't stop the next day, but it got even heavier. However, in the pouring rain, Li Wuxiang saw a group of soldiers wearing straw raincoats and bamboo hats, passing by the Xue family's gate like drowned rats and heading up Bishan. Before, the Wang family said that Zhao Qi wanted fresh tiger bones, and he thought it was for wine and nourishment, so the town master was eager to urge him. Now it seems that there is really an urgent need. He doesn't know whether it is for refining pills or treating someone.

At noon on the third day, the rain stopped for a while, from heavy rain to drizzle, and then Xue Baoping went out. The water of the Jinshui River has grown very large, and the turbid river water rolled down with dead branches, fallen leaves and broken wood, only four or five feet away from the shore. The road by the river was full of puddles and mud, and it was almost impossible to step on.

Xue Baoping walked carefully along the slightly higher ground at the foot of the wall, but was still splashed with mud, and almost sank his shoes. She slowly crossed the bridge and finally saw other people in the town going out. Most of them looked hurried. They must be going to the grocery store opened by the town owner to buy some things in case of flooding in a few days and being trapped at home.

Li Wuxiang asked her to find a way to be noticed by others, but she didn't need to think about this method - she was originally a well-off family with only one daughter, but her parents died of illness many years ago, and the family belongings were taken away by Wang the Hunter. This kind of thing is naturally a great topic of conversation in the town, and it can be talked about for many years after dinner. Not to mention that the two families lived alone in the east end of the town, and one of them was a famous villain with two young and strong sons who were avoided by everyone, it was even more inevitable that there would be many more unbearable speculations.

So she just lowered her head and turned around, and received many looks and vague words, then acted shy and flustered, turned around and slowly returned home. On the third and fourth days, Xue Baoping went out three more times in the rain, and the farthest he went was to Chen's shop in the west of the town, where he exchanged a pair of celadon bowls for a bag of wormy millet.

On the fifth day, the opportunity Li Wuxiang wanted came, and it was far more tragic than he expected, but also more reasonable-

As soon as the rain in the morning became lighter, floating corpses floated down the river along with building debris. The townspeople of Jinshui were not panicked by this, and many families went out in the rain, all carrying long bamboo poles with hooks on the end. At first, Li Wuxiang thought they had prepared rescue tools because of the years of floods, but later found that he was wrong.

Quite a lot of people ran to the east end of the town, because it was closer to the upper reaches of the river, and then began to use bamboo poles to hook the floating corpses in the river. After hooking them to the shore, they searched for any valuables on the bodies. Even if there was no gold or silver, they would strip off the better clothes, and then push the bodies into the river and let them float downstream.

No one seemed to have any burden during the whole process, and they even quarreled over one or two floating corpses that looked good, as if they were fishing.

Li Wuxiang had already been lying in the muddy water by the river before these floating corpses just drifted down. He only tied a piece of tattered cloth around his waist, smeared his hair and face with mud, and pretended to be stranded in the river, lying on the bottom of the bridge.

Many people came and went, and some people found him, but most of them took a quick look and looked for another target, because his almost naked body was really not profitable.

At this time, Xue Baoping also went out. People saw her, but they were not surprised. It had rained for several days in a row, and the little girl who had always lived in seclusion was so hungry that she wandered around the town and exchanged broken bowls for food. Now everyone thought it was natural for her to come out and make money from the dead.

Xue Baoping walked slowly along the river. In the eyes of others, she looked like she wanted to try her luck but had neither tools nor courage, which inevitably caused some ridicule. Then she walked to the bridge and saw Li Wuxiang stranded. She squatted on the shore, stared at Li Wuxiang carefully for a while, and immediately stood up and waved to people not far away. After waving for a while, someone noticed her. They only took a look at the bottom of the bridge and understood. They shouted from a distance: "I see, I see, he is still breathing, you want to save him? You can't even eat enough, what can you do to save him? Walk down, maybe you can pick up some rotten fish and shrimp!"

This caused a burst of laughter, and no one paid attention to her anymore. So Xue Baoping slowly slid down the river bank, and after several attempts, she found a slightly firmer place and grabbed Li Wuxiang's hand. She pretended to drag Li Wuxiang to the shore with great effort, but in fact, Li Wuxiang was so light at this time that he didn't need to exert much effort. After struggling in the muddy water for a long time, someone nearby saw it, but they didn't help.

After about a quarter of an hour, Li Wuxiang pretended to be alive and could still exert a little effort, and cooperated with Xue Baoping to be dragged ashore. Xue Baoping grabbed one of his hands and slowly dragged him home, causing people on the roadside to look at her sideways, some cursed her bad luck, and some said she was crazy. When she dragged him to the door of her house and pushed the door open to go in, Li Wuxiang slightly loosened his clenched hand, and two small pieces of silver slipped out from his fingers.

Xue Baoping pretended not to notice and brought him in. A person outside had sharp eyes and immediately saw a bright color in the mud and rushed over to grab it. Xue Baoping quickly closed the door and bolted it. Almost at the same time, there was a knock on the door, which made the bolt rattle. Then he heard people shouting in unison: "How is the person? Is he okay? Open the door, we are all from the same village, ask everyone to come in and help!"

Xue Baoping immediately used his back to block the door, biting his lips and saying nothing. After his thin body was shaken by the door for a while, he heard the people outside yelling and cursing in a low voice, and then a cheer broke out from farther away: "Pigs! There are several pigs and sheep there!"

The people outside the door immediately walked away.

Xue Baoping slid to the ground against the door, breathing heavily. Li Wuxiang also sat up from her side and wiped the mud off his face: "So in the eyes of these people, the three people from the Wang family can still be regarded as evil people that no one dares to offend?"

Xue Baoping hummed.

Li Wuxiang smiled: "Very interesting."

The corpses floated from morning to afternoon, and there were nearly a hundred of them, as well as some pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, etc., as well as some driftwood, dilapidated door panels and window frames, and some people's weak screams. Li Wuxiang didn't need to think about who they were. This made the townspeople outside forget about Li Wuxiang who was dragged into Xue Baoping's house. They thought that maybe he had some silver in his hand, but it was not much.

The two washed their bodies with well water, and Li Wuxiang took black ash from the stove and dyed his hair. The effect of this thing was indeed not as good as the hair dye he had over there. It only made his hair turn gray, but who could say that it was unreasonable for a young man who had suffered a flood, lost his home, and escaped death to turn gray overnight?

On the sixth day, the rain stopped. There were still thin clouds in the sky, and the sun was obscured, only occasionally casting a light that could barely reflect a shadow.

Most of the people who went out when it rained yesterday were diligent people. Today, the weather was better, and the lazy people and the old and weak in the town also went out. They walked along the river, picking up some usable things from the piles of garbage that were washed to the riverside, such as old clothes, broken wood strips, broken wooden bowls and plates, and if they were lucky, they could pick up one or two nails. Xuejia is the end of the river bank. Further upstream is a large area of ​​muddy beach. The water level has risen now, so people can't go down. These people are tired of picking up trash, so they rest under the big willow tree by the river.

When he saw the first person coming here from a distance, Li Wuxiang asked Xue Baoping to remove the two door panels in front of the wing room. Xue Baoping boiled water on the stove, and Li Wuxiang moved a bench to sit against the door frame, pretending to be sick, looking at the group of people under the tree.

He is looking for a target.

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