Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 299, The Chaos of the Struggle for Life

July 7th, Chinese Valentine's Day.

Fang Yong spent the festival with the women in the harem.

They recited poems, chanted lyrics, performed operas, played games, and even practiced martial arts!
It refers to Xiao Rong'er and Xiangyun.

Xiangyun has a carefree and unshy personality. She frequently obtains essence from Fang Yong, which makes her physique grow rapidly. She also often learns martial arts from Xiao Rong'er. Now her moves are quite impressive, and she has even given herself the title of "Xiangshui Heroine"!

Even though she had never seen the Xiang River...

Besides these, the women also made Qiaoguo (a type of pastry) together.

The so-called "Qiaoguo" is a kind of fruit made from flour, sugar, sesame seeds and other ingredients. It has a crispy texture and no specific shape requirements. It depends on who makes it skillfully.

In previous years, they would ask someone to do it for them, but this year, for some reason, they all got excited and insisted on doing it themselves.

The result was, naturally, a complete mess.

The little rabbit's body collapsed and turned into a rabbit pancake; the phoenix's wings and feathers stuck together and turned into a phoenix egg; the horse's limbs were broken apart in the pot, like a mud horse crossing a river.

Most of the women had no experience in doing this, which led to many hilarious and absurd situations.

Of course, traditional projects are also indispensable at the end.

Test your skill with the needle.

At noon, place a basin of water in the sun for a period of time until a thin film forms on the surface. Then, gently place a needle on the surface of the water; the needle will float on the film.

Then observe the shadow of the needle on the bottom of the water.

Because of the water film, the light refracts differently, resulting in different shapes of shadows.

If the shadow is shaped like a flower, bird, or cloud, it is considered "skillful," meaning the person throwing the needle is clever and skillful; if the shadow is shaped like a club or stone, it is considered "clumsy."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Qixi Festival.

The Holy Guard Army had just left Henan and entered the territory of Zhili.

The previously set goal of arriving in Handan in ten days has become a joke.

Looking at it now, it would be good if it arrived in twenty days.

Tiegen felt like a walking corpse.

In just over ten days, he lost a lot of weight.

He was already very thin, but now he's even thinner.

With sunken eye sockets and skin covering bones, it looked almost exactly like a skeleton.

The hunger and exhaustion in his stomach made every step he took feel like a thousand pounds.

The soles of those worn-out shoes had two holes worn through in the ball of his foot, so Tiegen could only walk on his heels to avoid damaging his feet.

The orderly procession before departure is now in complete chaos.

Tie Gen no longer recognizes his teammates or knows which team the opposing team is from.

He wasn't sure whether he or the other person had fallen behind.

In my memory, I fell behind six times because I couldn't keep up with the marching speed.

However, his other teammates fell behind seven or eight times as a whole?
If we calculate it this way, it seems he has actually advanced by two teams?

Tie Gen didn't know how to calculate this.

He no longer had the energy to think.

All he can think about now is getting to his destination as quickly as possible.

All the battles and fights I was worried about before setting off are now insignificant.

He felt he would starve to death if he didn't reach his destination.

Let alone think about fighting.

Suddenly, Tiegen felt like his eyes were playing tricks on him.

He saw wheat growing as tall as corn on the roadside.

Am I starving to death?

Tie Gen thought to himself.

He no longer cared about military discipline; in fact, military discipline has long since disappeared in the military.

Many soldiers deserted halfway through the journey, and Tiegen would have deserted as well if he hadn't been worried about his mother and sister at home.

Now, he's hallucinating from hunger.

He's probably going to die.

The old folks say that hungry ghosts can't be reincarnated and will starve forever. Tiegen didn't want to be a hungry ghost.

Hunger is so painful.

He reached out and grabbed at the ear of wheat, which was as tall as a corn cob, without any regard for the consequences.

Tie Gen was stunned.

He actually caught the wheat.

The aroma of ripe grains made him tremble.

This can't be true, can it?!
Tiegen trembled as he peeled open a grain of wheat, put it in his mouth, chewed it until it was crushed, mixed it with his saliva, and swallowed the food.

"This is real wheat!"

Tie Gen was shocked!
Wheat, wheat as tall as corn!
With the first one, there will naturally be the second and the third.

The army erupted in revelry.

However, there are too many monks and not enough porridge.

Ma Laohei left behind only a small portion of unharvested grain, which was a drop in the ocean for an army of hundreds of thousands.

Soldiers began fighting over some wheat, resulting in injuries and deaths.

This was something even Ma Laohei hadn't anticipated.

His original intention was simply to leave some wheat so that these people could witness a miracle and thus have a deterrent effect.

Little did he know that the enemy soldiers were almost starving to death.

The appearance of this wheat instantly shattered the army's morale, and everyone fought each other fiercely for the food.

"Stop! Stop right now! Don't steal anymore!"

The troops at the front turned back and stopped the soldiers from fighting over the loot.

The vanguard of the Holy Army was the force of Tian Yannian, the son of Tian Tianrui.

The enemy was the only one of the six generals who did not embezzle rations, so although his soldiers were also exhausted, they at least maintained basic combat capabilities.

Unfortunately, these people could not stop the already frenzied army.

When a person is about to starve to death, they will not fear anything.

The chaos in the army only gradually subsided after all the wheat had been looted.

Tie Gen gasped for breath, realizing he was covered in blood.

Looking up, I saw two people at my feet. One had been slashed in the chest by a long-handled knife made from a kitchen knife, and the other had a gruesome wound on his neck, his eyes wide open in death.

Tie Gen was startled and hurriedly backed away.

Suddenly, he tasted a metallic sweetness in his mouth.

"vomit!"

A piece of bloody flesh was spat out of his mouth.

The chaotic memories from just now surfaced in my mind.

In their scramble for food, everyone lost their minds.

There's no right or wrong; everyone just doesn't want to starve to death, they just want to live.

In the chaos, he killed one man, and another lunged at him. The two rolled and fought on the ground. In the struggle, he saw the other man's neck, and then...

So, it was him who bit me.

Tie Gen smoothed the eyes of his teammate, who was still staring blankly into the night, kowtowed three times to the two men, and then took off their shoes...

After the chaos broke out, the generals finally realized that the soldiers' endurance had reached its limit.

As a result, the soldiers received more food.

The amount of porridge I ate each day increased from one large bowl to two bowls, and there was also some oil in the vegetable soup.

Tie Gen and others were reassigned to a separate team because they killed their teammates.

Tie was very uneasy, thinking he would be punished.

But when he arrived, he found that the new team treated him much better than his previous one. He could eat rice or flatbread, and sometimes even meat.

Instead of being punished for killing his teammate, he was recognized as a "strongman" and became a member of the elite force.

After traveling for several more days, they finally arrived in Handan.

(End of this chapter)