Chapter 5.1

Not long after Xiao Youning’s party left the refugee concentration, the sky darkened. The multicolored lights of the sunset took hold of the entire horizon, dyeing it completely red. The soft warm light entered the carriage like ripples in the water, halo after halo.

Yuan Guo raised the curtain to look outside. In the distance, she saw smoke rising in spirals from kitchen chimneys. From the concentrated levels she saw, it ought to be a village. Besides, excluding one tired bird flying over the sky as it returned to its nest, she could not see many signs of human habitation.

Pulling back in, Yuan Guo pulled inclined her head toward Xiao Youning and spoke. “Miss, there doesn’t seem to be a relay station around here.”

Xiao Youning, having been lost in thought all along, heard what her maid said and responded rather slowly, opening her mouth and letting out just an “Ah”. Unhurriedly lifting the curtain to take a look, she felt her heart sink.

Coming across refugees while on the road was normal and she had long prepared herself mentally for it. But what that bodyguard surnamed Xie had said just now made a person ponder.

Well-off people, seeing a beggar in the city, would in passing give a copper coin to assist them. But these refugees were not beggars and weren’t one or two people, but a group. Even if she could give these people some temporary relief, the places they passed by before had no villages or inns, so if she provided them with money they also wouldn’t have a place to spend it. Besides, those people were moved by their emotions. Seeing the carriage, they immediately dashed towards it, and it was very likely that something dangerous would happen in the middle of the chaos.

Previously, in the capital, there was a rumor about a rich noble family that, because of their good intentions, stopped their carriage to give relief to refugees. In the end, even their horses were all killed and robbed by the refugees.

She didn’t know if this rumor was genuine or fake, but one thing her father told her in her childhood still echoed in her ear.

That was a period after the chaos of war, with refugees overflowing. The food reserves inside the city originally already weren’t very abundant. Her father, being young and kind-hearted, believed all human lives mattered and offered shelter to a hundred or more people.

When he offered them shelter he had already explained the situation of the food provisions. Before supplies arrived, soldiers would be given priority with the food, and thereafter the food would be distributed to these people. The outcome of that was the refugees, on the second day, began to grow resentful in their hearts, going so far as to take the opportunity of attending to the injured soldiers to directly murdered the more seriously injured ones. Just to get an extra bite to eat.

Her father told her that was the most regrettable thing he had done. Seriously wounded soldiers weren’t all untreatable, they were all people who protected the common people, but in the end, they died at the hands of the people they were protecting.

She at that time was only ten years old and, after listening to it, her whole body was covered in cold sweat. It was instinctive fear at the time, thinking that these people were cruel, and recalling this matter after she grew older was enough to make her blood run cold. Her father had warned her of how horrible human nature could be, especially during extreme moments.

Even she knew that she shouldn’t stop for relief at a time like this, but that Xie bodyguard nevertheless came at her with a sentence like that, and in an unclear tone. But she was certain it was not that he was praising her for being sensible, but rather his tone of voice carried a bit of resentfulness and impatience.

It was as if she ought to have them stop the carriage and have them go give some material assistance to those refugees.

Stopping to give relief to these people had an enormous probability of attracting some inconvenience to them, perhaps getting robbed of everything because the receiving party’s numbers were too great. They were in a hurry, and nobody wanted an accident to happen.

Xiao Youning’s gaze followed the carriage’s speedy movements. She didn’t know if she was being paranoid or what, but that Xie bodyguard’s unusual stance gave her an uneasy feeling. Besides, in the past few days, as she journeyed together with these few people, their attitude was becoming increasingly neglectful.

“Yuan Guo—” Xiao Youning withdrew her gaze, wanting to say they had to be on their guard.

“Young Master, tonight we can only try to find a village to stay for the night. This road has no inn or relay station and we cannot make it to the nearest county town.” The loud voice of the bodyguard came from the outside, and Yuan Guo pushed aside the curtain to ask, “Is that the village up ahead? How much further until the nearest county town?”

“At the minimum, another half a day’s worth of road.” The bodyguard lazily answered.

Yuan Guo scowled and turned her head to console Xiao Youning. “Miss, a peasant family’s people are all simple. As long as we spend some money, it should be possible to have them ready a place for us to stay. It’s unlikely that they’d go so far as to demand that we sleep outdoors in the wilderness—”

Xiao Youning suddenly stretched out her hand and tightly grasped her arm, pulling Yuan Guo forward and whispering something to her.

Very quickly, the party arrived at the entrance to the village and the bodyguard said a few words to the middle-aged man standing guard at the village gate.

XIao Youning watched through a small gap in the curtain as the middle-aged man peeked a few times in the carriage’s direction and, slowly, a smile appeared on his face. After that, he nodded and allowed them to go in, mumbling, “Recently there have been lots of refugees outside of the village, so we all take turns in keeping watch.”