The night wind chilled people's bones. Gu Qi and Zhao Dexun took advantage of the moonlight and walked toward the village at the foot of the mountain.
In the shed to the east, three night watchmen were drinking, fisting, and talking nonsense.
The two quietly walked towards the direction of the carriage. In the dark night, the horse was a little frightened when it saw people and snorted.
"who?"
Gu Qi and Zhao Dexun quickly hid behind the carriage, not daring to express their anger.
One of the thin men came over holding a torch. Zhao Dexun clenched his fists and prepared for an attack.
The man suddenly stood still and reached forward with the torch in his hand.
The person in the distance asked: "What's wrong?"
The man stroked the horse's head with his hand and said, "It's okay."
Gu Qi and Zhao Dexun breathed a sigh of relief.
After the man left, Gu Qi climbed into the car and saw that most of the luggage was there, and several large bags of dry food had been taken away.
He turned around and said to Zhao Dexun: "The food was taken away, but the rest is still there."
Zhao Dexun hid behind the carriage and looked forward, and said softly: "Looking at them, they are almost drunk. You go first, and I will stop and see if I can steal the other car."
Gu Qi nodded: "Protect yourself."
Zhao Dexun raised his eyebrows confidently and walked inward.
Gu Qi quietly moved to the horse, stroked it twice, carefully untied the rope, and pulled the horse away little by little.
Just as they arrived at the entrance of the village, the horse suddenly roared, waking up the night watchman again.
The man rubbed his eyes and suddenly woke up and said: "Who are they? Someone is coming! They are here to steal things!"
With this shout, the other two people also woke up, and then the whole village became lively.
"Brother Pei! Let's go!" Zhao Dexun came quickly and blocked the entrance of the village. His sword was unsheathed and held tightly in his hand.
Without any time to think about it, Gu Qi jumped into the car and whipped the horse twice, causing the horse to lead the car and run towards the official road.
When they got to the official road, Xue Peilin and others were already standing by the road waiting.
"Master Xue! Get in the car quickly!"
"Master Pei, what should you and Zhao Dexun do?" Xue Peilin got on the carriage and raised the curtain with an anxious look on his face.
Gu Qi held the dagger in his sleeve: "Don't worry, Mr. Xue, Brother Zhao is highly skilled in martial arts and will be able to turn danger into danger. You go first, and we will meet up later!"
The driver shouted "drive", and the boy followed Xue Peilin into the carriage and drove forward.
Zhao Dexun still didn't come out until the carriage completely disappeared from sight.
Gu Qi took a breath and ran towards the village again.
"With your little ability, why do you want to imitate others and become robbers?"
"Master, please spare your life, the little ones will never dare to do it again!"
As soon as we arrived at the entrance of the village, we heard the sounds of several men crying.
"You steal my things and you dare to tie me up? Steal me again! Bind me again!"
This seems to be Zhao Dexun's voice.
Gu Qi took a few steps forward, hid behind a pile of dry branches, and looked inside.
"Uncle, I am too young to see the mountains, but you, sir, please spare us!"
The thin man he had seen during the day was kneeling on the ground begging for mercy, with tears and runny eyes flying from his nose.
Gu Qi couldn't help laughing and put the dagger in his sleeve: "Okay, Young General, I didn't expect Brother Zhao to be so powerful!"
Several rough guys were tied together. When they saw Gu Qi approaching, their bodies instinctively shrank back and their calves began to tremble.
Zhao Dexun shook his hair and said proudly: "I have told you before that I can deal with these guys."
"Yes, yes, you are awesome." Gu Qi gave a thumbs up and patted Zhao Dexun on the back.
"What should we do with these people?" Zhao Dexun asked, pointing at them.
Gu Qi walked a few steps in, thinking that this village was very elegant, but upon closer inspection, it was just a thatched house built on wooden piles.
Crossing his arms, he walked up to the leading man and asked, "Where is our dry food?"
The man looked embarrassed and spoke hesitantly: "He was eaten by us."
"have eaten?"
Gu Qi was so angry that he almost vomited blood! That’s rations for the next few days!
"It's better to deal with the bandits' trouble as soon as possible to prevent them from doing anything harmful to nature again!"
Hearing Gu Qi's words, the leading rough man kowtowed: "Two gentlemen, please spare your lives! Apart from robbing some dry food and clothes, we have done nothing else!"
"When you say this, do you believe it?" Gu Qi kicked him.
After the man fell to the ground, he immediately knelt down and raised his arms to wipe the blood on his face: "We are villagers from several villages in Qishui County. There have been severe droughts for many years, and the wells at the entrance of the village are almost dry! This is true. I really had no choice, so I had to go out and try my best. Who knew that Tuzhou was so big, and I didn’t know where to go after leaving Tuzhou. I had no choice but to stay here, rob passing vehicles, grab some food and clothing, and support my family."
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the sound of crying.
The rest of the people also sobbed. This sad scene made Gu Qi at a loss for a moment.
"Brother Pei, this..." Zhao Dexun stood there, not knowing what to do.
Gu Qi took a deep breath and took Zhao Dexun's arm: "Brother Zhao, please take a step to speak."
"What's wrong?"
"When you fight them, are there any who know martial arts?"
Zhao Dexun recalled, shook his head and said: "It seems that there is no one who knows martial arts."
"you sure?"
Zhao Dexun was silent for a while, and then nodded affirmatively: "I thought there would be a fierce battle, but I didn't expect that they could only chop randomly with knives and had no martial arts skills, so I easily defeated them."
"It seems that what they said may be true. Maybe they are just ordinary people who escaped."
Zhao Dexun turned his head and looked at the group of people and said "Hmm": "What should we do now? Take our own things and leave?"
"Of course not. If we leave, they will continue to do this kind of thing of robbing people's money and food." Gu Qi thought for a while and whispered in Zhao Dexun's ear: "It's better to do this..."
After Zhao Dexun heard this, he gave Gu Qi a thumbs up.
Then he strode back and picked up the man who was the leader. The man was so frightened that his whole body was paralyzed and his soul was about to fly away. He kept shouting: "Hero, spare your life, hero, spare your life..."
"There are two ways now. Either go to Tuzhou with me, or stay here and continue to be a bandit. You can choose for yourself." After Zhao Dexun finished speaking, he let go of his hand, and the man collapsed on the ground with a "pop".
Gu Qi slowly stepped forward and said: "We were ordered by His Majesty to go to Tuzhou to control the floods. If you want to rebuild your hometown, why not unite and help us. If you don't want to, we won't force it and take our own things. Then leave."
After finishing speaking, Gu Qi walked to the shed to get the horse.
The people kneeling on the ground were whispering to each other and discussing carefully, while Zhao Dexun secretly held his sword tightly.
Gu Qichong winked at Zhao Dexun and led the horse slowly towards the entrance of the village.
The horse had already walked to its side, and the leading man shouted: "Sir, wait a minute! We are ordinary people. If we can survive, who is willing to abandon his wife and children to live in this mountain valley! We are willing to follow your lord. , go back and rebuild your hometown!”
"Sir, we are willing to go back!"
"We are willing to follow your lord!"
There were shouts all of a sudden, Gu Qi raised his head and breathed a long sigh of relief.
Zhao Dexun grinned and stepped forward to untie the rope: "In that case, take your things and let's go together."
A dozen rough guys happily entered the thatched house to pack their things, and soon stood at the entrance of the village carrying their tattered luggage.
The team going to Tuzhou has grown a bit.
Gu Qi sat in the car and looked at the rough guy in the lead.
He has a dark face, thick stubble, not too small eyes, and thick and black eyebrows.
I thought it was a gangster before, but now I looked like a wronged little wife, nestled in a corner of the car, shrinking my neck and saying nothing.
"May I have your name?"
"Ah?" He raised his head, looked at Gu Qi in panic, and whispered: "My, my name is Yang Yi."
"Which righteousness?"
"The spirit of loyalty, ah no, it is the righteousness of loyalty."
His face turned dark red, showing a sense of embarrassment.
Gu Qi burst into laughter, and the thin man next to him came over with a smile and said, "The villain's name is Yang Sheng, lush Sheng."
Yang Yi raised his hand as if to hit Yang Sheng, but Yang Sheng trembled, stepped back and stopped talking.
Yang Yi smiled awkwardly: "Master Pei is laughing, this is my younger brother."
"It doesn't matter." Gu Qi asked: "Yang Yi, are you all from the same village?"
Yang Yi rubbed his hands and said, "No, we are all in Yong'an County, Qishui County, but not in the same village."
"Then how did you get acquainted?"
"Our entire county, in the northernmost part of Tuzhou, is prone to droughts. We rely on the little rain from God to barely have a bite of food. Later, even the well water in the village dried up, and the county dug a deep well, and several Everyone in the village went there to fetch water, and there were many fights over grabbing water, so we got to know each other.”
"Yes," Yang Sheng agreed: "The third one who was riding a horse outside knocked out one of my front teeth with one punch. It's still hard for me to eat now."
Gu Qi laughed twice and couldn't help but sigh: "I didn't expect there to be a place like this."
"Your Majesty is here to control the water this time. I will give my full support. I just hope that the water from the Yingjiang River can flow through so that our relatives at home can survive."
Yang Yi wiped away his tears and couldn't stop sobbing.
Gu Qi didn't know how to comfort him, so she had no choice but to pat him on the shoulder: "I will do my best to solve your water problem."
"Uu——"
The carriage stopped, and Zhao Dexun said outside: "Brother Pei, come down."
Gu Qi heard the sound and got out of the car. It was pitch dark outside. Fortunately, the night sky was clear and he could barely see the way forward. She squinted her eyes and saw Xue Peilin's carriage right in front of her. He took two steps and said with a smile: "Master Xue!"
Seeing that Gu Qi and Zhao Dexun were fine, Xue Peilin was no longer anxious.
He glanced around and saw the huge team, so he took two steps forward. After recognizing it, he hurriedly stepped back and almost fell down. Pointing at the rough guys on horseback, he said, "Them, why are they following you!"
"Master Xue, don't worry..." Gu Qi told the whole story.
Xue Peilin was shocked, with helplessness and worry on his face: "I didn't expect the situation to be so serious. We need to find a way as soon as possible to let the people have water."
"Yes, they are also poor people. If they stay in that ravine, it is inevitable that they will not continue to rob families and homes. We might as well take them all with us so that we can have someone to look after us along the way. When we get to Tuzhou, they may be able to come in handy. "
After listening to Gu Qi's words, Xue Peilin nodded: "What you said makes sense. In that case, let's go together."
Zhao Dexun held a riding whip, put his hands on his hips and shouted: "You guys! Come and pay homage to Mr. Xue!"
Yang Yi and Yang Sheng also got out of the car, walked up to them and shouted: "Meet Mr. Xue!"
Xue Peilin raised his hands and said: "There is no need to be so polite. Since you have corrected your evil ways, come with us to control the floods, so that the people of Tuzhou can live a good life without worrying about food and clothing!"
"My lord is mighty!"
"My lord is mighty!"
"My lord is mighty!"
Gu Qi looked up and waved her hand: "Okay, it's almost midnight now and it's almost dawn. Let's rest here for a while and leave after dawn."
Xue Peilin, Zhao Dexun and Gu Qi were resting in one carriage, while the boy and the coachman were in another carriage.
A few rough guys opened their bags, took out a roll of rags, spread them on the ground, covered themselves with quilts, and soon began to snore.
Although the space in the car is large, it cannot accommodate three people comfortably, so they can only sit and chat.
I don't know who snored first. Gu Qi's eyelids felt heavy and she fell asleep without realizing it.
It wasn't until dawn that everyone continued to set off.
