Heaven rewards diligence; he fought his way through chaos to become a saint.

If a person has no dreams, what's the difference between them and a steamed bun?

Ye Ci stood under the camphor tree at the entrance of the market, picked a leaf, put it in his mouth and chewed it a couple of times. The refreshing taste was mixed with bitterness.

"good!"

A thunderous cheer erupted from the crowd.

puff!

A severed head rolled off the neck, blood gushing three feet high, and countless people rushed forward...

Look, having a dream will make you dip your bread in it.

Traitors must be beheaded.

He touched the broadsword at his waist, left Caishikou, and planned to go home.

The broadsword was in half; the handle was broken, and it looked rather comical hanging from his waist.

Therefore, passersby gave him a strange look, but then looked away, not wanting to cause any trouble, only wondering where this soldier came from.

Ye Ci's ancestral home is in this area, specifically Longpan Township, Songjiang County.

It is a good place with mountains and water. If there were no mountain floods, floods, wild animals, forced labor, gangs, or bandits, it would be a quiet and peaceful village.

The county is located within the inner city, which is very prosperous.

A stone-paved avenue extends from the city gate, lined with shops on both sides, where vendors' calls rise and fall.

Ye Ci felt his stomach growling with hunger, and his stomach was gushing out sour water, so he spent three coins to buy a steamed bun.

On the way back, he couldn't afford meat buns, nor did he dare to eat them.

The warm dough slid into my stomach, making me feel warm and giving me some strength.

The whispers of two passersby reached my ears.

"A neighboring county was hit by floods, and people fled in droves. Some parents, unable to keep up, abandoned their children by the roadside, crying and begging passersby to take them in. But in these times, who can care for anyone else?"

"How can we not run? The war is over, but the exorbitant taxes have actually increased by 20%."

"That's right! Zhang the blacksmith from West Alley was conscripted to repair the city wall two years ago. He died on the construction site from exhaustion, and the government didn't even send his body back. His wife and children couldn't even get enough to eat, and in the end..."

This world...

Kill threshold...

Ye Ci followed the direction in his memory and headed towards the city gate.

Outside the gate is a dirt road, which branches into several smaller roads leading to various towns and villages.

Just then, a column of soldiers galloped from afar, followed by a series of carriages, raising clouds of dust.

It's impossible to tell whether they are border troops or troops suppressing rebellions.

As Ye Ci passed by, he saw a wooden cage behind the carriage, with pairs of terrified eyes—men and women, the elderly and children.

They were huddled in the cage, roughly tied inside with ropes, their hands and feet bleeding, their faces contorted in agony.

Look, the relatives of the traitors.

They are the servants of the victors.

Ye Ci was also a victor, but he did not receive any servants.

This made him very uncomfortable.

So he turned his head and looked again. The fence of the last prison van was broken, with a hole that allowed a dog to get in and out.

Ah!

The loot will run away.

In the thirteenth year of the Yuanjing era of the Great Qian Dynasty, the vassal state of the Southern Barbarian Kingdom rebelled. There were internal traitors colluding with external forces, and the court and the people were filled with fear and unease.

The southern barbarian cavalry broke through the border and captured seven cities in succession, burning, killing, and looting. Border people were displaced and their cries echoed across the wilderness.

The original owner was captured by the constables and enlisted in the army. In the military camp, he was responsible for building walls, digging ditches, feeding horses, etc. He was kicked to death by the enemy during a sneak attack. Fortunately, the enemy did not finish him off, so he was left with a complete body.

Therefore, time travel is often a matter of giving someone a name.

In his previous life, Ye Ci fell into a river while taking a piss, and when he opened his eyes again, he was crawling out of a pile of dead bodies.

He stopped thinking about it.

In this world, being able to return alive and cultivate a meager plot of land is already an immense blessing.

As the sun set in the west, a blood-red halo gradually appeared.

After walking for about half an incense stick's time, we passed through a mixed forest, the trees of which were not very dense.

Outside the woods, there was an old donkey, its hide dull and its eyes cloudy, grazing with its head down, pulling a cart behind it.

Animals only know how to suffer; eating grass is their rare moment of rest.

If it were a fierce tiger, who would dare to ask it to pull a cart?

Ye Ci sighed.

Just then, a girl's cry for help suddenly came to my ears.

"Help……"

The sound was intermittent, as if someone had covered his mouth.

Logically speaking, I shouldn't meddle in other people's business.

But Ye Ci felt that he had not yet fully integrated into this world, so he pushed aside the branches and went inside.

He thought it was some rebel who had escaped from the prison van causing trouble and abusing innocent women.

But what came into view was a farmer in his forties dressed in coarse linen clothes. He pulled down his belt and used it to tightly bind a little girl's hands.

She was said to be a little girl, about eleven or twelve years old, with a dark face, short and thin. The clothes she was wearing, which were obviously adult clothes, had been torn open and thrown aside, revealing a red undergarment underneath.

The farmer realized there was someone behind him, and immediately turned around to look at Ye Ci, his gaze falling on the broadsword at his waist.

"Sir."

Ye Ci ignored him, stood still and looked him over, then frowned and asked the girl:

"What are you doing?"

"Sir, I'm a refugee from a neighboring county. My family was flooded, and my parents got lost on the way. He lied to me, saying he would give me food, and ended up bringing me here..."

The girl spoke through sobs, and before she could finish, the farmer interrupted:

"I gave her food, so it's only natural that she would treat me as her wife. Besides, it doesn't matter where we flee, in this world, a woman's most important thing is to find someone to settle down with, and that's what I did too..."

Did you provide food?

Ye Ci interrupted him, walked up to him, and looked into his eyes.

The farmer was speechless.

The girl struggled and cried out, "Sir, he's lying to you... I won't submit to him, and he just said he's going to rape me, kill me... and then sell me to a vegetable shop."

"I was just trying to scare him! Sir, please let me explain..."

The farmer's words came to an abrupt halt as he felt a chill in his throat, as if a sharp blade was pressed against it.

He trembled with fear.

"Sir, I haven't even had a chance to do anything wrong yet. Killing me would be against the law. If we end up in court, even if you're in the right, you'll still have half your body ripped off. Even if you're a soldier, you still..."

puff--

Ye Ci remained unmoved, gripping the back of the knife with his left hand and slashing the broadsword sharply with his right, then dodging the splattering blood.

Turn around.

Clean and efficient.

The farmer clutched his throat and knelt down, trembling.

Watching Ye Ci leave.

The setting sun shone on Ye Ci's shoulders, making it difficult for the girl to see his figure clearly when she looked up.

Sunlight pierced her eyes, and tears inexplicably welled up in them.

Her silent turn stirred her emotions far more than those self-righteous words.

She knelt down and kowtowed as if she were seeing an emperor.

When she looked up, the figure had already left the woods and paused for a while by the donkey cart, seemingly lost in thought and hesitation.

Then they took the saddlebags off the old donkey.

Then he turned back, rummaged through the peasant's body for a while, and finally pulled out a dozen or so coins and put them in his satchel.

"Sir."

The girl hurriedly chased after him.

Ye Ci took out a piece of yellowish-brown coarse rice cake from his satchel, broke it open, stuffed it into his mouth, and continued on his way without looking back.

"My benefactor, could you give me something to eat?"

"cannot."

The girl dared not ask for more and just followed Ye Ci, stumbling along behind him.

"Stop following me."

"My savior, you saved me."

"I saved you, so you can't hurt me. Besides, I didn't want to save you... I just couldn't stand seeing the weak bullying the weaker."

As he spoke, Ye Ci quickened his pace, and the sound of people falling down could be heard from behind him from time to time, but the sound quickly caught up.

After walking for a quarter of an hour, Ye Ci suddenly spoke:

"Don't follow me. I'm not a soldier. I risked my life and used all my savings to earn the right to return home in order to avoid being treated as a deserter. I can't even support myself, let alone you."

The girl, tears streaming down her face, pleaded, "Please, please take me in! There are so few good people in this world. I'll do your laundry, cook for you, and serve you like a slave..."

Before she could finish speaking, Ye Ci slowly turned around, looked her over, and said, word by word:

"I came back from the South, and I can hear the accent of a southerner in your speech."

"I……"

The girl's face turned deathly pale, and she bit her lip tightly.

At that moment, Ye Ci thought that the girl had delicate features, a pretty nose, and fair skin, which showed that she was a beauty in the making. When she grew up, she should be a beautiful young lady.

"I...I'm from Wangjiazhuang in Jiaozhou Prefecture, which borders the area inhabited by the Southern Barbarians. But after the Southern Barbarians withdrew their troops, their soldiers arrested everyone in our village, claiming we were rebels..."

"What's your last name?"

"Wood……"

"Murong is a prominent surname in the Southern Barbarian lands."

"The 'wood' in 'wood'."

"Your village is called Wangjiazhuang."

"..."

As the sun gradually set, the last rays of the setting sun almost completely disappeared, leaving only a pale white glow.

Upon entering the village, the air was filled with the smell of livestock manure. The dirt road underfoot was full of potholes, and the mud-brick houses on both sides of the village road stood crookedly, most of them with thatched roofs, and many corners had collapsed, revealing the blackened rafters inside.

Several ragged children were squatting by the roadside, their clothes patched upon patched.

Ye Ci walked quickly towards home.

As I turned the corner, I heard a loud, clamoring noise ahead, the volume so high it sounded like a broken tile striking a bell.

"Which son was born without an anus, stealing my eggs!"

"That heartless idiot, his babies will be born without an anus, and he'll be reborn as a pig or a dog in his next life..."

The one who was cursing was a middle-aged woman, short and stocky, with a rather fierce-looking personality. The moment she saw Ye Ci, she swallowed the rest of her words.

"Ye... Ye..."

She shuddered. In her memory, Ye Ci was only sixteen years old when he left home. His appearance hadn't changed much, but his eyes were somewhat frightening.

Ye Ci gazed at her without any malice, simply searching for her location in his mind.

My neighbor, Wu, is a shrew.

They are all pitiful people.

Life is hard enough as it is, and anyone would feel bad if they lost an egg.

But she's the kind of person who can't stand to suffer even the slightest loss.

In my memory, when she was a child, if her family's vegetable garden was missing a loofah, she would stand at the door with her hands on her hips and curse for half an hour.

Fortunately, the neighbors have gotten used to it.

Ye Ci withdrew his gaze, returned home, pushed open the fence, and saw rammed earth walls.

As evening approached, the aroma of oil and salt wafted from the neighbor's house.

And this mud-brick house is still cold and deserted.

A thin, old woman, dressed in patched gray clothes, sat in the kitchen picking wild vegetables.

Ye Ci stepped forward and softly called out, "Grandma."

The sound traveled through the mud-brick house, then fell silent.

The old woman's hand, which was picking vegetables, suddenly froze. After a long while, her body trembled violently.

She started to tremble.

My whole body, from head to shoulders to hands, was trembling uncontrollably.

After a long while, she seemed to muster up tremendous courage to look up at Ye Ci.

He was stunned for a long time.

howling.