24: Chapter 24 Is this showing off?

Just as the villagers were gathered around the Old Locust Tree, trying to figure out how to get this giant grouper down.

A group of six people were supporting each other, staggering along the path toward the village.

They were in tattered clothes, stained with mud and sea salt, and the straw sandals on their feet had long since worn through, revealing bleeding feet.

Even more shocking were their faces.

It was a ghastly pallor of extreme starvation, with their cheekbones protruding high and their eye sockets deeply sunken.

The leader of this group was a man in his forties with knife-like cheekbones.

He was holding a four- or five-year-old girl in his arms. The girl's head hung limply, her complexion was waxy white, and her lips were slightly trembling.

The four people behind him all looked more or less the same.

There was a middle-aged couple; the man used a withered branch as a cane, while the woman leaned half her body on his shoulder, her eyes half-closed and her breathing as light as if it could stop at any moment.

There was also a teenager of fourteen or fifteen, as thin as a bamboo pole, carrying his dying grandmother on his back. Though he was shaking all over, he never put the old woman down.

They stopped at the entrance of the village and were not in a hurry to go inside.

It wasn't that they didn't want to, but that they had no strength left; if they didn't rest a while, they truly couldn't walk anymore.

"There is cooking smoke. It looks like this village should still have food, unlike the few villages we passed before."

The teenager looked up at the cooking smoke drifting from within Qin Family Village and swallowed his saliva.

"Even if this village still has food, I'm afraid they won't be willing to give it to us. In this world, which village doesn't lack food?"

The middle-aged man's lips trembled.

They knew all too well what their appearance would bring.

Walking all this way, they had passed quite a few villages; some closed their doors tightly as soon as they saw them from afar.

Some threw out half of a hard wild fruit through the crack of a door.

Others simply wouldn't open their doors at all, letting them kneel at the village entrance until their voices became hoarse from shouting.

In this day and age, whose family has surplus grain?

Therefore, when they entered Qin Family Village, they didn't hold out much hope.

It was just that they truly couldn't walk anymore.

They wanted to make one last attempt before dying.

The man lowered his head to look at his dying daughter in his arms, his eye rims turning red once more.

The middle-aged man lowered his head to kiss his wife's cheek, pressing his face against her forehead.

After catching his breath, the group got up again and walked toward Qin Family Village.

Soon, they walked to the Old Locust Tree at the entrance of Qin Family Village.

Seeing many Qin Family Village villagers surrounding the Old Locust Tree, they were a bit confused at first.

"Such a big fish!"

The leading man suddenly raised his head and saw the giant grouper hanging on the big locust tree.

"Am I dreaming? Is there really a fish this big?"

The teenager also saw the giant grouper, his eyes full of disbelief.

"This is... Is this showing off?"

The middle-aged couple exchanged glances, not expecting the villagers of Qin Family Village to be so extravagant.

With such a big fish, instead of putting it away properly, they were hanging it at the village entrance to show it off?

This was simply too ostentatious!

The first to spot that group of people was Qin Mo, who was loosening his arms in preparation to climb the tree and take down this giant grouper.

As a result, he saw those few staggering figures on the dirt road.

"Sister!"

Upon seeing the situation, Qin Mo's first reaction was to call out to his elder sister.

Hearing this, Qin Yin raised her head and looked along Qin Mo's gaze, her eyes narrowing slightly.

On the dirt road, five or six tattered figures were walking toward the village entrance.

Walking slowly and swaying, as if they would fall over at any moment.

"Everyone, do not walk any further into the village."

Qin Yin's tone was calm, but the warning in her words could not be more obvious.

The Qin Family Village villagers, who had just been lively discussing around the big locust tree, now put away the smiles on their faces.

They turned around and looked toward the village entrance.

Then, the villagers reached for anything around them that could serve as a weapon.

Harpoons, firewood choppers, wooden sticks.

Having experienced the incident with the wandering merchant last time, Qin Family Village was now extremely vigilant against people of unknown origin.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang walked out from the crowd and stood at the very front.

Leaning on his cane, his cloudy eyes stared fixedly at that group of people.

The leading man was so thin that his cheekbones protruded, and on his back he carried a five- or six-year-old girl who rested on his shoulder, her little face sallow and her eyes half-open.

Seeing the villagers holding harpoons and firewood choppers at the village entrance, he stopped in his tracks.

"Old sir, I am Zhou Ping, the village chief of Zhou Family Village. We are refugees fleeing a disaster."

The man's voice was hoarse, and his tone was full of pleading.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang did not move; he just stared at that face for a long time.

A flash of light suddenly crossed his cloudy eyes.

"Zhou Ping, it really is you! You're Old Zhou's son. Back then, your father even went out to sea with this old man! You were only this big back then!"

The wrinkles on Village Chief Qin Zongliang's face smoothed out.

"Uncle Qin, I haven't seen you in several years."

Seeing an acquaintance, Zhou Ping breathed a sigh of relief.

Behind him, those few refugees stared blankly at this scene.

The man quietly asked his wife beside him,

"Do they know each other?"

"Fortunately they do."

The woman licked her parched lips.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang stepped forward, patted Zhou Ping's shoulder, and turned to say to the villagers behind him,

"Put them down, put them all down! These are our own people! From Zhou Family Village! Back in the day, they dealt with our village plenty of times!"

Hearing the village chief say this, the Qin Family Village villagers successively loosened their grip on the harpoons and firewood choppers they were holding.

Qin Mo curled his lip and tossed the firewood chopper in his hand onto the ground.

"I thought there would be a chance to fight."

Having become a martial artist with the help of Lord Qinling's qi and blood talisman, Qin Mo really wanted to find a chance to flex his muscles.

Qin Yin glared at him.

Qin Mo sheepishly shut his mouth.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang took Zhou Ping by the hand and walked into the village.

"Let's go inside and talk. How did you guys end up in this state?"

"It's a long story."

Zhou Ping let out a long sigh.

"Uncle Qin, look at them..."

Zhou Ping turned his head to look at the group following behind him.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang looked in the direction of his gaze.

Those few refugees were sallow-faced, thin, and tottering.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang was silent for a breath, and then he waved his hand.

"Come in, everyone. No matter what, drink a bowl of hot soup first."

Those few refugees froze.

Then, their eye rims instantly turned red.

Village Chief Qin Zongliang led this group of refugees to his home, heated up last night's pot of fish soup, and served it to them shortly after.

When the steaming hot fish soup was served, these refugees practically pounced on it.

In rough pottery bowls, the soup was milky white, floating with a few pieces of broken fish meat and unknown wild vegetables.

They held the bowls with both hands, the scalding temperature burning their palms, but not a single one of them was willing to put it down.

The adults still barely maintained a shred of sanity, sipping it in small sips.

The four- or five-year-old girl was held in Zhou Ping's arms. After being fed a bowl of warm fish soup, her waxy white face finally showed a trace of a living person's color.

"Slow down, don't rush. There's still more in the pot."

Village Chief Qin Zongliang waved his hand.

After the few of them had finished drinking most of it, he finally opened his mouth to ask,

"Zhou Ping, why didn't you stay in the village, but instead fled as refugees all the way here to us?"

"Did something happen?"

Hearing Village Chief Qin Zongliang's words, Zhou Family Village Village Chief Zhou Ping's expression was very ugly, as if he recalled some terrifying matter.