coobybook Chapter 226 Su Yunhai gives Mu Hongqi some pointers
Chapter 226 Su Yunhai gives Mu Hongqi some pointers
Su Chang'an did heed Su Yunhai's words.
"Don't worry, Father, I will study hard when I go to the capital and find a job to support myself. You must take good care of yourselves and remember to write to your son." Su Chang'an's eyes were red with tears of excitement.
Su Yunhai completely ignored Li Jiao'e's ugly and twisted face, gave the couple a carriage and enough dry food, and drove them away.
"Eldest brother, third brother, our family will return to Yunzhou Prefecture and sell these horses and carts. You two lead the team and set off first," Su Yunhai instructed.
Su Yunshan and Su Yunlin nodded in agreement and immediately led their team up the mountain.
Shen Shuli and her family of three did not return to Yunzhou Prefecture with their carriage.
Instead, they walked a short distance in the direction of leaving the city, and when they reached a deserted spot, they directly stored the item in their spatial storage.
After resting for half an hour, the three went to catch up with the group.
The extreme heat also had a significant impact on Yunzhou.
Although the area is not yet experiencing a water shortage, the plants on the mountain are clearly showing signs of wilting due to the drought.
You won't encounter a single wild animal on the outskirts of the mountain.
Shen Shuli and her two companions quickly caught up with the group.
Everyone carried a lot of supplies on their way.
It wasn't until noon that the Su family caught up with the exile caravan.
The exiled group has found a place to rest.
The Su and Shen families also stopped nearby and quickly prepared lunch.
They hadn't considered taking mountain roads before leaving the city, and they hadn't prepared much food, so they had to cook all their lunch on the spot.
The yamen runners of Yunzhou Prefecture only brought enough food for themselves, and did not prepare any for the prisoners.
After all, this involves climbing mountains. The yamen runners are human too; they can't carry carriages and horses. They even have trouble carrying their own rations, so how could they possibly carry food for prisoners?
If prisoners want to solve their food problem, they have to find a way to do it themselves.
Mu Wanjun realized something was wrong when she saw that the yamen runners had only prepared enough food for fifty people.
"Father, what are we going to eat these days?" Mu Wanjun asked Mu Hongqi.
Upon hearing this, Mu Hongqi looked in the direction of the yamen runners. Seeing that they had not prepared food for the prisoners, he did not think too much about it.
"Perhaps they will cook for us after they have finished eating, since they only have a limited number of cooking utensils."
Mu Wanjun could only say that her father was adorably silly. She ignored him and turned to find her older brother, younger brother, and her second aunt's three cousins.
"Let's go see if we can find any wild vegetables or other edible things nearby, otherwise we'll definitely go hungry," Mu Wanjun said to the group.
The five listened to Mu Wanjun and immediately responded.
“Okay, but Big Brother doesn’t know what wild vegetables are.” Mu Yansheng said with some difficulty.
"I know it, I'll lead you to find it." Mu Wanjun led everyone to search the surrounding area.
Their actions attracted the attention of the other prisoners.
Some prisoners were quick-witted and knew that they would have to rely on themselves to fill their stomachs in the future, so they immediately took their families to look for food.
When Shen Shuli didn't see her best friend in the exile group, she immediately called her secretly using a walkie-talkie.
Mu Wanjun: "I'm digging for wild vegetables around here, otherwise I won't have anything to eat for lunch."
"What's going on?" Shen Shuli asked, puzzled.
Mu Wanjun told Shen Shuli her guess.
Shen Shuli then noticed that the yamen runners didn't carry much food, which spoke volumes.
That prefect of Yunzhou is definitely problematic.
"Then you can take a look around first, and come back for dinner in half an hour," Shen Shuli said.
"okay, got it."
The Su and Shen families brought a considerable amount of grain and various supplies, including pots, pans, and utensils.
Seeing that the younger boys in her family were all idle, Shen Shuli took them for a walk around the neighborhood to see if they could dig up some wild game.
To avoid being targeted by the yamen runners and having their grain forcibly requisitioned.
This area is located on the outer edge of the mountains, and due to the drought, it is very barren.
And with hundreds of prisoners needing to eat, the once green grass was completely stripped bare.
Shen Shuli could only lead her brothers and sisters to search in more distant locations.
A group of about ten people searched for more than half an hour and only found two bunches of wild vegetables that were barely edible.
Several people returned empty-handed.
Just then, Mu Wanjun and the others returned.
Their harvest was meager; the few wild vegetables they gathered weren't even enough for them to eat a couple of bites.
Shen Shuli simply combined the wild vegetables together and handed them to her aunt, asking her to add them to her meal.
"Should you call them over for dinner, or bring it over?" Shen Shuli asked.
Mu Wanjun said, "Don't bother bringing them back and forth, it's too much trouble. I'll just call them over to eat."
The meal prepared by the Su family was simple.
We cooked rice porridge, made scallion pancakes, boiled two large pots of eggs (two for each person), and stewed two large pots of wolf meat.
The eggs were secretly taken out of Shen Shuli's space before she left the city. Since the eggs couldn't be properly preserved while traveling on mountain roads, and she was worried that they would get damaged, she took them out and cooked them to eat, so as not to waste them.
The food was simple, but everyone ate their fill.
Even with the contrast, the aroma of their food still tempted the exiled prisoners and the yamen runners.
Since the prisoners had no pot to cook the wild vegetables they picked, they could only borrow a pot from the yamen runners for a fee, blanch them briefly, and eat them as is. Some of the wild vegetables were so bitter that they were hard to swallow, but they couldn't bear to spit them out.
Su Yunhai used a spoon to give two boiled eggs each to Mu Wanjun's parents, brothers, and grandmother, and then asked, "Brother Mu, have you noticed anything amiss?"
Mu Hongqi asked in confusion, "What do you mean, Brother Su?"
"You have such a good relationship with the prefect of Yunzhou, why doesn't he let the yamen runners take care of your meals? He couldn't possibly not have thought of this, could he?"
Mu Hongqi paused slightly in his chopsticks, but he thought it shouldn't be that bad.
From the first moment he met Zhou Hao, his behavior and speech were exactly the same as before.
He didn't realize there was anything wrong.
They even went so far as to take them to the best inn and arrange the best banquet for them.
They didn't care at all whether his actions would cause him trouble.
"Perhaps they forgot."
"How could I forget?"
Su Yunhai felt that Mu Hongqi was unwilling to believe it and was forcibly making excuses for him, so he continued to analyze the situation for him.
"He personally led those yamen runners to escort you. The runners were all carrying provisions, how could he not see them?"
"Moreover, it's obvious that those yamen runners didn't prepare enough prisoners, which is unreasonable."
Even if the government didn't provide food for prisoners, the yamen runners would still prepare enough food for the prisoners to buy at high prices in order to earn extra money.
Otherwise, which yamen runner would be willing to endure the hardships of traveling so far to escort prisoners?
Furthermore.
Even if prisoners couldn't afford food, the guards had to ensure they had some thin porridge to keep them alive every day.
If the yamen runners don't prepare food, most of the prisoners will definitely starve to death, and the yamen runners will also be severely punished. This is not the result the imperial court wants.
Upon hearing this, Mu Hongqi's expression gradually turned serious.
He had to face this cruel truth.
"Then what was his purpose in doing this?" Mu Hongqi asked, puzzled.
"Don't rush, just wait and see," Su Yunhai reassured him.
Su Yunhai reminded him only to make him more aware and have some sense of responsibility.
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