Cheng Yao smiled. “Yunpeng, are you silly? Raw Chinese yam makes your throat itch. You’ll be suffering for it later!”
Zhan Yunpeng scratched his head, smearing the mud on his hands into his hair. His grin was simple and guileless. “Sister-in-law, I’m happy. A little itch is worth it.”
Seeing Cheng Yao smile at Zhan Yunpeng, Zhan Haochen was not pleased. He quickened his digging, and moments later, he held up a Chinese yam no bigger than a firewood stick. “Sister-in-law, I found one too.”
Such a child.
Cheng Yao grumbled inwardly, but her smile was as kindly indulgent as a mother’s. “Very good.”
Zhan Qingrou glanced at the several blisters rubbed raw on her palms and muttered resentfully, “What’s so impressive about that? I can do it too.”
With that, she copied the rough men, spitting twice into her palms before continuing to dig.
Suddenly, a cry of surprise rang out.
“Wow!”
Zhan Qingrou looked up to see Zhan Liqing laboriously lifting a cluster of kudzu roots. There were four or five thick tubers, each larger than her face!
“Liqing, how did you dig up so many?”
“They’re enormous—and not a single one is damaged!”
Praise rose all around her. Zhan Liqing had always been little more than an unnoticed figure in the clan. When had she ever drawn such attention?
Her face flushed scarlet. The joy of being acknowledged, together with the excitement of such a harvest, filled her heart. Her small frame trembled uncontrollably.
“I-I just dug at random...”
“If you can find this much just digging at random, imagine what you could do if you really put your mind to it.”
Hearing the compliments, Zhan Qingrou pursed her lips in displeasure. What was there to be so proud of? She could do it too!
But she had barely finished encouraging herself when Zhan Yunpeng shouted from nearby, “There are two Chinese yams growing here!”
She looked over to see him carefully pulling two yams from the muddy pit, joined together like conjoined twins.
“What a strange thing!”
“We could call them husband-and-wife yams.”
The group chatted excitedly, smiles appearing on faces that had not smiled in many days.
“Wild Chinese yams are floury and soft. If we boil up a pot tonight, it’ll warm us right to the heart.”
“Keep digging!”
The entire group was fired up. Days of heavy rain had left the soil loose and muddy, making it easy to dig. Every time they dug, they found something. The more they unearthed, the greater their sense of accomplishment grew.
The endless road of exile no longer seemed quite so hopeless.
Piles of wild roots and vegetables rose like little hills, glowing in the sunset and looking almost like treasure.
Cheng Yao moved among the crowd, her own hands smeared with mud.
Not only did she show them how to dig out the tubers intact, she also taught them to use tough vines to tie the yams and kudzu roots into bundles for easier carrying.
“Look—this one has serrated leaves and small yellow flowers. It’s dandelion. The whole plant can be used medicinally. It clears heat and toxins, and if you mash it up, it can be applied to wounds too.”
She pointed to a clump of wild greens stubbornly growing through the cracks of the ruins.
“And this is purslane. Its leaves are thick, and it tastes a little sour. It can reduce inflammation as well. You can eat it after blanching it, or dry it for later.”
As much as she could, Cheng Yao pointed out the medicinal herbs and edible plants she knew—ones that would likely be recognized in this era and could be found in their current surroundings.
With every new kind they learned to recognize, everyone’s eyes shone a little brighter. They followed her lead—whatever she pointed out, they gathered.
The sun was setting, and weary birds were returning to their nests.
Fearing that trouble might arise once darkness fell, the guards called for everyone to head back.
Only then did the group reluctantly sort through the food they had dug up.
They had barely returned to the clearing when a noisy clamor and a jumble of hurried footsteps suddenly rose in the distance. The sounds drew closer and louder, carrying an aggressive, menacing momentum.
The crowd looked up in uncertainty. A large group of villagers was surging up from below the hillside, a dark mass of nearly a hundred people.
They carried hoes, wooden clubs, and woodcutting blades. Every face was fierce with anger, and in an instant they had half-surrounded the small clearing.
At their head stood a gaunt man with a sinister gaze. Pointing at the exiles, he shouted, “It was them! They were the ones who robbed our village yesterday! They injured our village chief! Hand over the chief—and give back our food!”
Everyone was utterly confused. When had they ever robbed these people?
Fifth Grandfather said, “Good people, you have the wrong idea. We are convicted prisoners being exiled under official escort. With the guards watching over us, how could we possibly commit such wicked deeds again?”
All he received in response was a barrage of curses.
Cheng Yao, however, recalled the deserted village where they had spent the night the day before yesterday, and how its village chief and villagers had pretended to be ghosts and spirits in order to harm others.
These must be villagers from that very place.
They had come after them for two reasons: to seek revenge, and to rescue their village chief.
The thought made Cheng Yao’s heart tighten.
The group had only just endured the wild boar attack, suffering countless deaths and injuries. With the other side advancing so aggressively, how could their own party—made up of the old, the weak, the sick, and the injured—possibly stand against them?
Song Ze and the others, hidden nearby, immediately tensed. One man and Hongxiu guarded Zhan Haoting, while the other two silently moved to shield Cheng Yao between them.
“Good people, this truly is a misunderstanding!” Fifth Grandfather remained fairly composed as he tried to explain. “We are indeed criminals exiled by the imperial court. We have official documents to prove it. We remained here all day yesterday and never left. We have never even seen your village chief. How could we have injured him or stolen anything?”
Perhaps he had guessed where these villagers came from as well, but all he could do was pretend ignorance.
“Bullshit!” roared a broad-shouldered villager, waving his hoe. “Our food was stolen, and our village chief has disappeared. If it wasn’t you people, then who was it? Out here in these barren mountains, you’re the only large group around! Enough nonsense! Hand over the man! Hand over the food! Otherwise, don’t blame us for showing no mercy!”
In an instant, the tension became razor-sharp.
The villagers were furious, pressing forward step by step. Their overbearing, intimidating manner left the exiles without the slightest thought of resistance. Some had already closed their eyes in despair.
Just as the conflict was about to erupt, the urgent, orderly thunder of hoofbeats and marching footsteps came from another direction, pounding like war drums.
“Official officers here to make arrests! All bystanders, stand aside!”
Constable Wang appeared in his official uniform, riding in at the head of twenty or thirty armed constables. Their sabers gleamed as they radiated murderous intent, and within moments they had surrounded the villagers instead.
This sudden turn of events left both sides stunned.
Constable Wang sat upright on his horse, his cold gaze sweeping over the villagers before finally settling on the old man at their head. His voice rang out like a great bell:
“How dare you! You actually have the nerve to surround and attack exiled prisoners under imperial sentence! Are you planning to rebel?!”
Several villagers went pale. Relying on the strength of their numbers, the leading man forced himself to remain calm and said, “Officer, you arrived just in time! These exiled convicts robbed our village of the grain we stored for winter yesterday, and they even took our village chief away. Hurry and arrest them!”
“Hmph!” Constable Wang thundered. “Your village chief, Sun Dahe, led the villagers in poisoning travelers and convicts. He has killed countless people over the years. I apprehended him on the spot the day before yesterday, and he is now locked up in the county yamen! And yet you people have the gall to turn around and attack the exile party here. This is nothing but thieves crying ‘thief’—you’re trying to take advantage of the situation to extort money!”
The villagers erupted in an uproar.
They had not known that their village chief had been arrested, and most of them were unaware of what he and those other villagers had done. Now that Constable Wang had exposed the truth, some panicked, some grew furious, and others looked uncertain. Their momentum instantly faltered.
The leading man’s eyes darted about, but he still stubbornly argued, “You’re talking nonsense! Our village chief has always been kindhearted. Why would he harm anyone without reason?”
“Without reason?” Constable Wang sneered. “You worship the River God. Every time you pray for rain, you slaughter innocent people as sacrifices to him. Don’t tell me none of you knew!”
A constable beside him pointed at the villagers and shouted sternly, “The evidence is conclusive, and the stolen goods are right here. There’s nothing more to discuss! Every one of you is an accomplice. Go to the yamen and confess yourselves. The magistrate may take into account that you were deceived and deal with you leniently. But if you persist in your stubbornness, you will be treated as equally guilty and shown no mercy!”
The man’s face changed drastically. “Officer, we truly knew nothing! We’ve been wronged—”
Constable Wang could not even be bothered to look at that hypocritical face. He had spent the entire day at the local county yamen, and only after Wei Qing’s persuasion had he managed to convince the county magistrate to send troops to arrest these accomplices. He was already exhausted, and when they had gone to the village to arrest them, they had found the place deserted. That had infuriated him beyond measure.
Since the villagers had chased after them to extort them, what was he waiting for?
“Brothers! Grab your weapons!”
