After resting, they walked back to the front, the people on the other side of the field were getting busier and busier, some of them were even carrying children, pushing a cart or a trolley. After Cen Shou’s investigation, he found out that pirates are currently Ninghai, these people were the residents of Ninghai, and they fled out of their town, heading towards Xinhe City.
“It’s hard to believe, the two Zhe Provinces are so chaotic.” Jinxia sat on the wooden beam of the carriage, her eyes looking as far as possible, in front of them were filled with people, they couldn’t see the end of the street at all.
It was difficult to walk through a busy street with their horse carriages, they could only wait until they reached the dock to ride the boat.
When they witnessed the situation at the dock, Jinxia couldn’t help but let out a sigh – there were waves of people, the river had turned into a dam, people were blocking the front of the river, pushing to get across.
Many people were sitting under the shade of a tree to wait for their turns.
Crickets were all over the trees, posters of missing people, tree’s wax was slowly dripping down from the tree. All of these joined together with the loud cricket noise, enough to make people’s heads hurt.
This kind of situation, let alone Jinxia and others, even the beggar uncle had never seen anything like this.
“Is there a boatman?” Jinxia stood on the side of the carriage, looking over the riverbank.
YangYue put his hands over his head, and looked far ahead: “So many people want to cross, even if there are ships, we will probably have to wait until tomorrow, we also have horse carriages, we would need a large ship.”
Jinxia continued to look at the riverbank, there were only one or two boats at the dock, and they’re small boats, their horse carriages would definitely not fit it.
Cen Shou rushed to seek for some information, after a while, he came back, tightened his eyebrows and said: “The military is in an emergency of transporting food supplies, they’ve taken over many ships, so there’s only two small boats left….I heard that all the other docks are the same.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do but to wait.” Jinxia thought about it, “Let’s find a place to rest first, then sell our horse carriage, after we cross, we can buy a new carriage.”
The only way to Xinhe city is to cross this river, he didn’t have to think much about Jinxia’s words, because there was no other way. He asked Chun Yumin and the maids to get out of the carriage, then find a nice shaded spot for them to rest. YangYue also took over Mrs. Shen and the beggar uncle’s carriage. A’Rui was fine to walk on his own, it’s just that the scar on his face is still an issue. Jinxia found a veil to help him cover it up.
After going back and forth a few times, all carriages had been unloaded. Cen Shou removed the carriage from the horses, then went to sell them, leaving everyone else waiting there.
“Miss, drink some water.” The maid poured water from the bag into the cup, dripping a few drops of rose dew, then passed it to Chun Yumin. At the same time, she anxiously glanced at A’Rui, who was tightly covered in a black robe.
Chun Yumin took a sip of water, then slowly scanned around the place. She has never seen this many refugees before.
During this chaotic moment, Mrs. Shen was still sewing the clothes. The beggar uncle found a banana leaf and fanned Mrs. Shen on the side, not too light, nor not too hard.
Jinxia couldn’t stay still, while resting, she examined the notice poster on the tree – ‘Second Brother, I will cross first, quickly catch up.’ ‘Fifth Brother, Big Brother has returned to the South, Fifth Brother, please take care of yourself.’ There was tree wax dripping from these posters, reading these was like reading a bulletin board.
“Jinxia.”
YangYue called out for her.
Jinxia turned, following the direction he was pointing – There were dozens of monks in grey robes, holding a bamboo stick walking towards the dock, behind them quickly appeared shadows of familiar figures.
“That’s Sister Shangguan! It must be the group of Southern Shaolin Monks.” Jinxia didn’t expect to meet them here, a little surprised as well as happy.
Upon hearing the two words ‘Shangguan’, A’Rui immediately froze on the spot, his eyes scanned around the place through the black veil in disbelief, right at this moment, his eyes fell on a familiar figure. Although he clearly remembers how she looks, yet if she was standing near him, she wouldn’t be able to recognize him. After thinking about it, A’Rui immediately finds a place to hide, not daring to look at her.
On the other hand, Jinxia had already run towards Shangguan Xi and Xie Xiao to greet them.
“Sister Shangguan!”
Shangguan Xi and Xie Xiao looked over, they obviously didn’t expect this surprise meet up either. Xie Xiao quickly walked past Shangguan Xi. As soon as he arrived in front of Jinxia, his eyebrows tightened: “Why are you here? Are you evacuating?”
“We’re escorting Ms. Chun to Xinhe City.” Jinxia signalled him to look at Chun Yumin standing behind him.
YangYue had just arrived and greeted them both.
Xie Xiao simply raised his hand, rubbing his forehead, his tone was displeased: “It’s dangerous here, you guys should leave.”
“We can’t, we’re waiting for the ship.” Jinxia also noticed the wrinkles on Shangguan Xi’s forehead, “You guys want to cross the river? Right now, there are only two small boats, so you will have to wait.”
Shangguan Xi shook her head, lowering her voice: “There are pirates here.”
Upon hearing this, Jinxia immediately froze, she turned to look at YangYue, who was seen nodding his head.
“We chase them all the way here, right now, most likely they have disguised themselves to blend in with everyone. It’s very dangerous here, you need to leave right away.” Shangguan Xi said in a low voice.
“If they have disguised themselves, are you able to find them?” Jinxia and YangYue looked at each other, also lowered their voices and asked.
Shangguan Xi shook her head: “On our way here, we saw them killing people and taking their clothes, so they have to be among these refugees, but they don’t look any different from us, therefore, it’s hard to recognize them. The Shaolin Monks are becoming worried and upset.”
At this time, the group of Monks has begun to spread out, slowly walking along the path with sharp eyes, carefully examining each refugee, just judging from their clothes and faces, it’s very difficult to find the difference.
“Who are you?” Xie Xiao noticed a figure wearing a black robe and veil on the side, he grabbed A’rui and asked, “Why are you covering your face?”
A’Rui tried to break free, unfortunately, he can’t use a lot of his strength, because he’s not fully recovered. Xie Xiao’s fingers were like iron pins, tightly grabbing him. Shangguan Xi was feeling worried on the side.
Jinxia rushed in to help him: “Brother, don’t make things difficult for him, he’s with us, a Jin Yi Wei. His face is hurt, so he doesn’t dare to look at people.”
Xie Xiao slowly released his hands, he fell silent for a moment: “Jin Yi Wei?”
“He was also injured by pirates, his body and face were slashed numerous times, but thank god he survived it.” Jinxia added.
Upon hearing this, Shangguan Xi tried to look at him several times, saw him tightly grabbing his body, this person must be embarrassed to look at other people. Feeling sorry for him, Shangguan Xi let out a light sigh: “Pirates are indeed very cruel.”
Covered by a black veil, but it didn’t stop A’Rui from looking at her. Coincidentally, their gaze met, but he quickly lowered his head.
“I can help you,” Jinxia said.
Xie Xiao replied: “We’ve already tried everything. Don’t make things more complicated.”
“Brother, I am a Constable, who has received training, just because you can’t recognize them, doesn’t mean I can’t either.” Jinxia turned to look at YangYue, “You can go take care of Ms. Chun. Mrs. Shen already has the beggar uncle taking care of her.”
YangYue said anxiously, “You should be careful. After finding them, don’t do anything reckless and notify us right away.”
Xie Xiao stepped up and said: “Don’t worry, I won’t be too far from her.”
There were a lot of people gathering by the dock. Jinxia followed the procedure and eliminated the elders and children first. Although pirates certainly have families, big or small, they would never bring their kids and parents to rob other lands. Most Japanese pirates would carry a longsword, she carefully looked for anything abnormal among the clothes.
Thus, she quickly noticed something strange, but there were too many carpenters scattered among the group, they would always carry twigs and wood for survival purposes, as of now, they are lining up wanting to cross the river and all of them looked normal. At first glance, there was nothing strange, but then if you carefully think about it, there are numerous things that don’t match up – First, if they are refugees, even if they carried twigs and woods for survival purposes, it should only be temporary, no need to carry a large amount. Second, it costs money to rent a boat, why would a carpenter want to carry wood from this side to the other side? Third, they’re not selling their woods, but instead, they’re tightly holding it.
Jinxia lowered her head, her eyes slowly examined the shoes worn by these carpenters, this was something not many people thought of. As expected, their shows have a separate thump shape that’s only worn by Japanese people. At this point, she was sure these carpenters were pirates.
This means they’re hiding their swords under their clothes!
Xie Xiao is quite impulsive, Jinxia was afraid he might cause a scene if she told him. Jinxia kept quiet, then shook her head as she walked towards Shangguan Xi.
Not waiting for Jinxia to open her mouth, Xie Xiao spoke first: “I told you, pirates are slippery. It’s not that easy.”
Jinxia pretended to be annoyed, pushed him far away. Xie Xiao did not argue, he laughed and walked along the path, his eyes fixed on the crowds.
Shangguan Xi was just about to say something, Jinxia suddenly lowered her voice and head, whispering to Shangguan Xi: “Sister Shangguan, whatever I say, you have to look down and sigh, don’t let the grass startle the snakes.”
Although she was stunned, Shangguan Xi immediately understood the situation and took a deep breath.
“The carpenter carrying the stick is abnormal. The shoes he’s wearing are only worn by Japanese people. Most likely, the sticks under his clothes are the Japanese swords.” Jinxia said carefully.
Shangguan Xi remained still, her eyes instinctively about to look in the direction, but when she remembered Jinxia’s words, her head remained low.
“I counted, there are eighteen people within that group. Three people are guarding, they’re protecting each other.” Jinxia continued to say, “Beside them are commoners, if we attack right, you have to take the opportunity when they’re defenceless and do it fast, or else we will hurt innocent people.”
Shangguan Xi frowned and took a deep breath, this time, the sigh was not pretended but it’s because the current situation was too difficult to deal with: “I will discuss my teacher. Miss Yuan, do you want to come with me?”
“Well….”
As soon as Jinxia agreed, she felt someone tapping her on the shoulder, when she turned around, it was A’Rui.
A’Rui has very good hearing, he was constantly watching them this whole time. All of Jinxia’s words, he heard them all but kept quiet. Jinxia fell silent for a moment, then hesitantly said: “You….Would you like to come too?”
He nodded his head.
“He….” Shangguan Xi noticed his movements were unbalanced.
A’Rui lowered his voice and said: “I’ve fought pirates before. My techniques can be useful.”
His voice was very low, but his attitude was not at all like a Jin Yi Wei. Shangguan Xi couldn’t help but look at him, but he quickly lowered his head.
“Alright, come.” Shangguan Xi said.
After resting, they walked back to the front, the people on the other side of the field were getting busier and busier, some of them were even carrying children, pushing a cart or a trolley. After Cen Shou’s investigation, he found out that pirates are currently Ninghai, these people were the residents of Ninghai, and they fled out of their town, heading towards Xinhe City.
“It’s hard to believe, the two Zhe Provinces are so chaotic.” Jinxia sat on the wooden beam of the carriage, her eyes looking as far as possible, in front of them were filled with people, they couldn’t see the end of the street at all.
It was difficult to walk through a busy street with their horse carriages, they could only wait until they reached the dock to ride the boat.
When they witnessed the situation at the dock, Jinxia couldn’t help but let out a sigh – there were waves of people, the river had turned into a dam, people were blocking the front of the river, pushing to get across.
Many people were sitting under the shade of a tree to wait for their turns.
Crickets were all over the trees, posters of missing people, tree’s wax was slowly dripping down from the tree. All of these joined together with the loud cricket noise, enough to make people’s heads hurt.
This kind of situation, let alone Jinxia and others, even the beggar uncle had never seen anything like this.
“Is there a boatman?” Jinxia stood on the side of the carriage, looking over the riverbank.
YangYue put his hands over his head, and looked far ahead: “So many people want to cross, even if there are ships, we will probably have to wait until tomorrow, we also have horse carriages, we would need a large ship.”
Jinxia continued to look at the riverbank, there were only one or two boats at the dock, and they’re small boats, their horse carriages would definitely not fit it.
Cen Shou rushed to seek for some information, after a while, he came back, tightened his eyebrows and said: “The military is in an emergency of transporting food supplies, they’ve taken over many ships, so there’s only two small boats left….I heard that all the other docks are the same.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do but to wait.” Jinxia thought about it, “Let’s find a place to rest first, then sell our horse carriage, after we cross, we can buy a new carriage.”
The only way to Xinhe city is to cross this river, he didn’t have to think much about Jinxia’s words, because there was no other way. He asked Chun Yumin and the maids to get out of the carriage, then find a nice shaded spot for them to rest. YangYue also took over Mrs. Shen and the beggar uncle’s carriage. A’Rui was fine to walk on his own, it’s just that the scar on his face is still an issue. Jinxia found a veil to help him cover it up.
After going back and forth a few times, all carriages had been unloaded. Cen Shou removed the carriage from the horses, then went to sell them, leaving everyone else waiting there.
“Miss, drink some water.” The maid poured water from the bag into the cup, dripping a few drops of rose dew, then passed it to Chun Yumin. At the same time, she anxiously glanced at A’Rui, who was tightly covered in a black robe.
Chun Yumin took a sip of water, then slowly scanned around the place. She has never seen this many refugees before.
During this chaotic moment, Mrs. Shen was still sewing the clothes. The beggar uncle found a banana leaf and fanned Mrs. Shen on the side, not too light, nor not too hard.
Jinxia couldn’t stay still, while resting, she examined the notice poster on the tree – ‘Second Brother, I will cross first, quickly catch up.’ ‘Fifth Brother, Big Brother has returned to the South, Fifth Brother, please take care of yourself.’ There was tree wax dripping from these posters, reading these was like reading a bulletin board.
“Jinxia.”
YangYue called out for her.
Jinxia turned, following the direction he was pointing – There were dozens of monks in grey robes, holding a bamboo stick walking towards the dock, behind them quickly appeared shadows of familiar figures.
“That’s Sister Shangguan! It must be the group of Southern Shaolin Monks.” Jinxia didn’t expect to meet them here, a little surprised as well as happy.
Upon hearing the two words ‘Shangguan’, A’Rui immediately froze on the spot, his eyes scanned around the place through the black veil in disbelief, right at this moment, his eyes fell on a familiar figure. Although he clearly remembers how she looks, yet if she was standing near him, she wouldn’t be able to recognize him. After thinking about it, A’Rui immediately finds a place to hide, not daring to look at her.
On the other hand, Jinxia had already run towards Shangguan Xi and Xie Xiao to greet them.
“Sister Shangguan!”
Shangguan Xi and Xie Xiao looked over, they obviously didn’t expect this surprise meet up either. Xie Xiao quickly walked past Shangguan Xi. As soon as he arrived in front of Jinxia, his eyebrows tightened: “Why are you here? Are you evacuating?”
“We’re escorting Ms. Chun to Xinhe City.” Jinxia signalled him to look at Chun Yumin standing behind him.
YangYue had just arrived and greeted them both.
Xie Xiao simply raised his hand, rubbing his forehead, his tone was displeased: “It’s dangerous here, you guys should leave.”
“We can’t, we’re waiting for the ship.” Jinxia also noticed the wrinkles on Shangguan Xi’s forehead, “You guys want to cross the river? Right now, there are only two small boats, so you will have to wait.”
Shangguan Xi shook her head, lowering her voice: “There are pirates here.”
Upon hearing this, Jinxia immediately froze, she turned to look at YangYue, who was seen nodding his head.
“We chase them all the way here, right now, most likely they have disguised themselves to blend in with everyone. It’s very dangerous here, you need to leave right away.” Shangguan Xi said in a low voice.
“If they have disguised themselves, are you able to find them?” Jinxia and YangYue looked at each other, also lowered their voices and asked.
Shangguan Xi shook her head: “On our way here, we saw them killing people and taking their clothes, so they have to be among these refugees, but they don’t look any different from us, therefore, it’s hard to recognize them. The Shaolin Monks are becoming worried and upset.”
At this time, the group of Monks has begun to spread out, slowly walking along the path with sharp eyes, carefully examining each refugee, just judging from their clothes and faces, it’s very difficult to find the difference.
“Who are you?” Xie Xiao noticed a figure wearing a black robe and veil on the side, he grabbed A’rui and asked, “Why are you covering your face?”
A’Rui tried to break free, unfortunately, he can’t use a lot of his strength, because he’s not fully recovered. Xie Xiao’s fingers were like iron pins, tightly grabbing him. Shangguan Xi was feeling worried on the side.
Jinxia rushed in to help him: “Brother, don’t make things difficult for him, he’s with us, a Jin Yi Wei. His face is hurt, so he doesn’t dare to look at people.”
Xie Xiao slowly released his hands, he fell silent for a moment: “Jin Yi Wei?”
“He was also injured by pirates, his body and face were slashed numerous times, but thank god he survived it.” Jinxia added.
Upon hearing this, Shangguan Xi tried to look at him several times, saw him tightly grabbing his body, this person must be embarrassed to look at other people. Feeling sorry for him, Shangguan Xi let out a light sigh: “Pirates are indeed very cruel.”
Covered by a black veil, but it didn’t stop A’Rui from looking at her. Coincidentally, their gaze met, but he quickly lowered his head.
“I can help you,” Jinxia said.
Xie Xiao replied: “We’ve already tried everything. Don’t make things more complicated.”
“Brother, I am a Constable, who has received training, just because you can’t recognize them, doesn’t mean I can’t either.” Jinxia turned to look at YangYue, “You can go take care of Ms. Chun. Mrs. Shen already has the beggar uncle taking care of her.”
YangYue said anxiously, “You should be careful. After finding them, don’t do anything reckless and notify us right away.”
Xie Xiao stepped up and said: “Don’t worry, I won’t be too far from her.”
There were a lot of people gathering by the dock. Jinxia followed the procedure and eliminated the elders and children first. Although pirates certainly have families, big or small, they would never bring their kids and parents to rob other lands. Most Japanese pirates would carry a longsword, she carefully looked for anything abnormal among the clothes.
Thus, she quickly noticed something strange, but there were too many carpenters scattered among the group, they would always carry twigs and wood for survival purposes, as of now, they are lining up wanting to cross the river and all of them looked normal. At first glance, there was nothing strange, but then if you carefully think about it, there are numerous things that don’t match up – First, if they are refugees, even if they carried twigs and woods for survival purposes, it should only be temporary, no need to carry a large amount. Second, it costs money to rent a boat, why would a carpenter want to carry wood from this side to the other side? Third, they’re not selling their woods, but instead, they’re tightly holding it.
Jinxia lowered her head, her eyes slowly examined the shoes worn by these carpenters, this was something not many people thought of. As expected, their shows have a separate thump shape that’s only worn by Japanese people. At this point, she was sure these carpenters were pirates.
This means they’re hiding their swords under their clothes!
Xie Xiao is quite impulsive, Jinxia was afraid he might cause a scene if she told him. Jinxia kept quiet, then shook her head as she walked towards Shangguan Xi.
Not waiting for Jinxia to open her mouth, Xie Xiao spoke first: “I told you, pirates are slippery. It’s not that easy.”
Jinxia pretended to be annoyed, pushed him far away. Xie Xiao did not argue, he laughed and walked along the path, his eyes fixed on the crowds.
Shangguan Xi was just about to say something, Jinxia suddenly lowered her voice and head, whispering to Shangguan Xi: “Sister Shangguan, whatever I say, you have to look down and sigh, don’t let the grass startle the snakes.”
Although she was stunned, Shangguan Xi immediately understood the situation and took a deep breath.
“The carpenter carrying the stick is abnormal. The shoes he’s wearing are only worn by Japanese people. Most likely, the sticks under his clothes are the Japanese swords.” Jinxia said carefully.
Shangguan Xi remained still, her eyes instinctively about to look in the direction, but when she remembered Jinxia’s words, her head remained low.
“I counted, there are eighteen people within that group. Three people are guarding, they’re protecting each other.” Jinxia continued to say, “Beside them are commoners, if we attack right, you have to take the opportunity when they’re defenceless and do it fast, or else we will hurt innocent people.”
Shangguan Xi frowned and took a deep breath, this time, the sigh was not pretended but it’s because the current situation was too difficult to deal with: “I will discuss my teacher. Miss Yuan, do you want to come with me?”
“Well….”
As soon as Jinxia agreed, she felt someone tapping her on the shoulder, when she turned around, it was A’Rui.
A’Rui has very good hearing, he was constantly watching them this whole time. All of Jinxia’s words, he heard them all but kept quiet. Jinxia fell silent for a moment, then hesitantly said: “You….Would you like to come too?”
He nodded his head.
“He….” Shangguan Xi noticed his movements were unbalanced.
A’Rui lowered his voice and said: “I’ve fought pirates before. My techniques can be useful.”
His voice was very low, but his attitude was not at all like a Jin Yi Wei. Shangguan Xi couldn’t help but look at him, but he quickly lowered his head.
“Alright, come.” Shangguan Xi said.
