Seeing that Lin Siniang remained silent, the one-eyed man grew bolder. Supporting himself on the ground with one hand, he shifted two steps forward and continued cursing with his raspy, broken voice:
"Is the imperial court completely out of men?! Sending a woman to lead us to our deaths!"
"Not even a blade of grass can grow in that place, it's all stark white saline-alkali soil. Once the hooves of the Helian horses trample over, we won't even have anyone to collect our corpses!"
As soon as these words came out, the previously lifeless crowd of refugees instantly exploded into an uproar.
The dark-faced woman who had just been rolling and fighting on the ground scrambled up. With her hands on her barrel-thick waist, she hurled abuse in Lin Siniang's direction:
"That's exactly right! Going to Yanmen Wasteland is just becoming rations for the barbarians! I would rather beg here in the south of the city, at least I can keep my life! If you want to die, go by yourself, don't drag us down with you!"
The young woman holding the feverish toddler also started wiping her tears. She tightly embraced the child in her arms, who was breathing out more than breathing in, her voice laced with despair:
"I won't go. Going means starving or dying of sickness. In the city, we can at least beg for a mouthful of slop. If we go to that desolate wilderness, Xiaobao won't even survive tonight!"
Voices of agreement rose from the crowd. Some clamored to smash the sign of the Farming Bureau, while others shouted to rob and divide the grain on the mule carts.
Hundreds of people chaotically surged forward, looking as if they were about to swallow Lin Siniang and the three mule carts alive.
Lin Siniang did not even twitch an eyebrow. She walked to the first mule cart, reached out to grab the thick hemp rope tied around the mouth of a sack, and gave it a hard yank.
The rope fell away, and the mouth of the sack fell open.
Lin Siniang thrust both hands into the sack and scooped up a handful of bright yellow millet. A few golden grains slipped through her fingers and fell onto the muddy ground.
The surrounding crowd instantly fell into chaos, hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at the grain on the ground.
The one-eyed man swallowed a large gulp of saliva. With bloodshot eyes, he roared to grab the grain and took the lead, lunging toward the bottom of the mule cart.
The dark-faced woman no longer cared about cursing. She scrambled on her hands and knees, reaching out to grab the grains on the ground.
Lin Siniang reached back and pulled a broad-backed woodchopping knife from under the cart board. Gripping the handle tightly with both hands, she swung her arm in a full arc and brought the blade down with all her might into the thick wooden plank of the cart shaft.
With a loud clang, wood chips flew in all directions. The broad-backed knife embedded deeply into the wood, its blade still humming from the impact.
Startled by the sudden commotion, the crowd shuddered and abruptly stopped in their tracks.
"Are you trying to rebel?!"
"Defying orders so blatantly, do you all want to die right here in Zhenbei City?"
Lin Siniang yanked the broad-backed knife out and pointed the tip at the one-eyed man at the front. She shouted sternly, "Who dares to rob! This grain was prepared by the Imperial Envoy for those going to reclaim the wasteland in Hetao! Whoever dares to reach out their claws, I will chop off their hands first!"
The one-eyed man looked at the rust-stained broad-backed knife, then at Lin Siniang's completely fearless face. Gritting his teeth, he took a half-step back, not daring to move any closer.
Lin Siniang slapped the knife onto the cart board and pointed at the millet on the ground. She didn't spout any grand principles about defending the country; she only calculated the harsh realities of survival with them.
"You say staying in the south of the city will keep you alive? Open your eyes and look at this ruined temple, how many corpses are carried out every day! Look at how high the grain prices in the city have soared, can you even beg for a mouthful of sour slop!"
"The flesh on your bodies is nearly rotting away, yet you still have pipe dreams of surviving this winter in the city!"
Lin Siniang's words struck the sore spots of these people with every single syllable.
"Going to Yanmen Wasteland is dangerous, but the Imperial Envoy has given settlement silver and this fine millet without a single grain of sand mixed in!"
"There is even dried meat on this cart! If you stay here, you won't survive the first snow of winter. You will all freeze and starve to death in these muddy ditches!"
"As long as you are willing to put in the effort to dig ditches and drain the salt, we can eat our fill! Even if we truly get chopped down by the Helians, we will die with full stomachs as well-fed ghosts!"
At this moment, blind Old Zhao was actually lying on the ground. It was unknown when he had crawled over.
His hands grabbed wildly in the dirt. After feeling a few grains of millet, he hurriedly brought them under his nose to smell, then stuffed them into his mouth, crushing them forcefully with his few remaining teeth.
Old Zhao trembled all over. Tears mixed with eye rheum flowed down his deeply wrinkled cheeks as he cried out with a quivering voice:
"Good grain! Truly no sand mixed in! It's new grain! Heavens, this old man hasn't eaten such clean grain in three years!"
Hearing Old Zhao's words, the commotion in the crowd grew louder. The refugee women stared at the sacks, swallowing hard.
Even the young woman holding her child stopped crying, gazing at the grain on the carts.
Lin Siniang merely let these people marvel. If she didn't show them a taste of the sweetness, how could she convince the masses?
She turned and picked up the willow wood box, walking to the very front of the crowd and holding the box level.
"You say Hetao is saline-alkaline land where crops cannot grow, then look at what this is!"
She pointed to the five vibrant green broomcorn millet seedlings in the box, her voice rising an octave.
"These are broomcorn millet seedlings I raised in the dead soil outside the city! I endured for three years, watering them with my own blood and sweat!"
"They can take root in alkaline soil! And even when my in-laws broke my bones, I didn't die! I forcibly kept these seedlings alive!"
Lin Siniang swept her gaze over the group of broken soldiers and defeated souls before her.
"You men who have been soldiers, who have been to the battlefield and killed enemies, you don't even have the guts left to dig out a path to survival in the fields!"
Sun Qi leaned against a broken stone stele. Listening to Lin Siniang's words, he looked at the green seedlings in the box, then lowered his head to look at his own empty pant leg.
He smashed the chipped, broken clay bowl in his hand onto the ground, shattering it into pieces.
Gripping a smoothly polished wooden crutch with both hands, Sun Qi gritted his back teeth and slowly pushed himself up from the ground.
Dragging his crippled leg, he walked step by step toward the mule carts. His wooden crutch poked into the yellow earth, leaving deep holes one after another.
"Back in the day in the Bing Battalion, I chopped off the heads of three Helians. I lost this leg on the battlefield."
Sun Qi stared into Lin Siniang's eyes.
"Commissioner Lin, does this grain of yours guarantee a full belly?"
Lin Siniang pulled the broad-backed knife from the cart board and struck the back of the blade heavily against the grain sack, producing a dull thud.
"As long as you are willing to work the fields, there's enough to go around."
Sun Qi parted his cracked lips and smiled, revealing a mouth full of yellow teeth. He roared loudly:
"Done! I'll go to Hetao with you! Even if I die, I'll die in a pile of grain!"
With Sun Qi taking the lead, blind Old Zhao also fumbled to his feet. He stumbled toward the mule carts, muttering about going to Hetao to eat a full meal.
Seeing this, the young woman and the dark-faced woman, terrified of being left behind, shoved aside the one-eyed man blocking their way and squeezed to the very front.
