In the eyes of the villagers, Zhao Ziyang is a host who doesn't know how to be polite. For example, if you say a few polite words to him and ask him to come and sit at home at noon and have some rice balls and vegetarian food, the young man nicknamed Zhao Ziyang is really there at the meal. He waddled over, ate a lot, and then left without saying thank you. But within a few days, there would be one or two more wild game such as pheasants and rabbits at the door, neatly packed and placed. In front of the door. Over time, everyone came to know something about Zhao Ziyang's temperament. He was rude with his words, but knew it in his heart like a mirror. In addition, he helped the village expel the gangsters time and time again. Zhao Ziyang's reputation increased, and the villagers no longer had to look at the muddy character of the past. The baby looked at him with more and more respect.
Zhao Ziyang has not gone to Nangong Mountain in the past few days, not because he does not want to catch game for copper coins, but because any seasoned hunter who relies on the mountains to eat will not go to the mountain to hunt too frequently. Birds and beasts are all spiritual. If they are pursued fiercely, the community may simply move away en masse, and there may not be much prey to be found in the future. It is really a trivial trick to catch fish from the swamp, and the best strategy is to keep the water flowing slowly. It can be seen from this that the skills taught by the old hunter were not hidden at all, and were taught to everyone. No matter how to relax, or how to rest the hunting period, or even how to find out the approximate number of wild animals on the mountain. Teach them together. Catching more than ten pheasants, tying grass knots on their feathers, releasing them all, waiting for a few days before catching more than ten pheasants, counting the pheasants with grass knots among them, and comparing them, you can roughly estimate the total number of pheasants in the mountain. This has been tried and true. . Perhaps the chickens were caught too frequently a while ago, and there were gang fights at the foot of the mountain, which frightened the pheasants, and the number dropped sharply. Pheasants can fly three or two feet on tree forks, so migration is not difficult, so Zhao Ziyang stopped going up the mountain recently, and it was the peak breeding season. , he was really worried that he would do everything right and cause the pheasants in Nangong Mountain to become extinct.
After a few days, Zhao Ziyang was bored and wandered from the east end of the village to the west end. Those who had escaped from the famine had already settled in the village, which was surrounded by thatched earth walls and lived in poverty. Compared with when he first came here, it was like heaven and earth.
Zhao Ziyang picked at the cracks in the wall with his hands, and pieces of soil fell down in scattered pieces, as if they were floating without roots.
The first time I saw this group of deserters was when the White Tiger Gang was first established. At best, they are a gang, but at worst, they are just a bunch of idle poor people. Not to mention they have done some bad things, but they have done very few good things. They are running rampant in the countryside, and they are all pigs with the virtue of not being afraid of being scalded by boiling water. It happened to be the leader of the gang. He got into trouble when he was young, sought revenge, lost two arms, and left his hometown. The White Tiger Gang was already weak. Once the old gang leader who knew the ways of the world left, the gang was leaderless, and it became more and more like crossing the street. The rats were all yelling to be beaten. At that time, Zhao Ziyang was a well-known ruthless man in the countryside. He was very thoughtful and good at carrying out dirty tricks. Bloody incidents under the bricks often happened, so he was the most suitable person to guide everyone. So the acting leader of the White Tiger Gang found this young gangster and temporarily became his gang leader. Not long after Zhao Ziyang took office, this group of deserters fled from the west to the vicinity of the village.
Although the village is poor, they can make ends meet by using the soil at the foot of the mountain and the products on the mountain. However, this group of people who fled from the famine were so naked that even their ribs were about to pierce through the flesh and skin. It’s hard to describe the horror.
Zhao Ziyang only talked to this group of victims later, for no other reason than because the looks in their eyes made him a little frightened. In the surrounding world, I have seen many ferocious and violent looks. This is the first time I can see a selective and devouring look on a person, as if I am not looking at a living person, but a meal of meat. After talking to an old man with relatively calm eyes, Zhao Ziyang knew what happened in the west. The local government dug a river weir in the hope of benefiting the people. However, unexpectedly, the plan failed. Days of heavy rains washed away all the prototypes of the river weir. The floods flooded the fields and destroyed the houses and communities where they had lived for generations. It coincided with the autumn harvest, and the fields There was enough to support nearly a year's good harvest, but it disappeared under the surge of the river.
"The government doesn't care?" Zhao Ziyang frowned. Whenever there is a major disaster, the government will open granaries to help the people. Yizhang State is still relatively wealthy, and at least it does not treat the people as trivial. If word spreads, it will also make other eight regions laugh. How can it sit idly by?
The old man sighed feebly, "How can it be such a simple thing? When the superiors investigate, they always report good things but not bad things. Those who are lucky receive relief food from the government, while those who are unlucky are homeless. What is reported to superiors is always the same. No matter how many people were saved, no one has ever investigated those who died of starvation and were used as animals." Zhao Ziyang was silent, then returned to the hut to get a chicken leg leftover from last night's meal.
On the way home, Zhao Ziyang accidentally saw a pretty refugee woman squatting in the corner, wolfing down a piece of steamed cake. The person squatting in front of her was Ma Liu, a gangster in the village. This Ma Liu had never been doing his job properly, and relying on his relationship with the former leader of the White Tiger Gang, he acted tyrannically. Many women were defiled by him, and they had to have their teeth knocked out and their blood swallowed. He dared to be angry but dare not speak out. Now Ma Liu's dirty palms were placed in the arms of the woman who was chewing the cake. There were tears in the corners of the woman's eyes, but she still chewed the tooth-hard steamed cake in silence.
Like a wild beast, it seemed that the woman's reserve and shyness had completely disappeared from her body, and all that was left was hunger.
The short Ma Liu was no match for Zhao Ziyang. He was beaten so hard that his mouth and nose bled, and he ran away deeper into the alley, cursing. The woman looked at Ma Liu's embarrassed appearance, held the cake and smiled, her smile was very beautiful.
The old man got a chicken leg and stuffed the whole drumstick into his throat while people around him watched. Zhao Ziyang patted his back for a long time, but he still choked to death.
