“Li Yucai, am I really that easy to fool? I trusted you so much, yet you lied to me like that. I’m really so sad.”
Jing Yin stepped forward and planted one foot on Li Yucai’s chest.
Although she spoke of being sad, the dagger in her hand stabbed swiftly and accurately into his palm.
“Ahhhhhh—!”
The intense pain in his hand made Li Yucai let out a shrill scream.
“Ahhh! You little bitch! How dare you hurt my son?!”
Mrs. Li came running over like a madwoman.
Jing Zhao was about to step forward and stop her, but he halted at a glance from Jing Yin.
When Mrs. Li rushed over, Jing Yin swung one leg sideways and sent her flying down the slope.
Immediately afterward, she kicked Li Yucai down the slope as well.
“Bitch! You dare hurt my son? I’ll kill you!”
Li Yucai’s father charged forward with bloodshot eyes, gripping a butcher’s knife in his hand, his face twisted into a vicious expression.
Jing Zhao raised the stick in his hand and smashed it hard into the man’s back.
The man turned around, intending to hack Jing Zhao to death, but Jing Yin had already stepped forward and snatched the butcher’s knife from his hand.
“Fuck your mother! I’ll kill you!”
At that moment, Jing Da, driven into a rage, dragged his hoe over and swung it down.
The hoe struck Li Yucai’s father directly in the head.
This scumbag had actually tried to hit his daughter and hurt his son?
No way!
Li Yucai’s father collapsed to the ground.
He twitched twice before becoming still.
Blood gushed from his wound, quickly staining a large patch of earth red.
Li Dahuā and Li Xiaohua were so frightened that they froze where they stood, their teeth chattering.
In the face of a human life, it no longer mattered whether one was sharp-tongued or skilled at playing the victim.
At that moment, Grandma Jing also ran up.
Looking at Li Yucai’s father’s gruesome state, she surprisingly didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.
Perhaps the corpses they had encountered along the road had already made her numb to it.
“Pah! A bunch of bandits! You tried to steal from my family, so you deserved to be beaten to death! I’ll beat you to death, you bandit!”
Grandma Jing loudly cursed him.
The people watching from nearby also felt a little more understanding.
Everyone was having a hard time now.
The thing people hated most was being robbed along the road.
Someone like this deserved to be beaten to death.
Besides, people were dying every day on the refugee road.
What law was there to speak of?
Everything depended on whose fists were stronger.
If you tried to steal someone else’s belongings and got beaten to death, you had brought it upon yourself!
“He’s dead.”
Grandpa Jing stepped forward and checked him.
Li Yucai’s father was already dead.
Jing Da’s hands trembled slightly.
Jing Yin, however, stepped forward and kicked his body down the slope, hiding it from most people’s view.
“Dad, we’ll talk about this after we go down. Big Brother, you and Grandpa keep watch up here.”
“Mm.”
Jing Zhao nodded.
Jing Yin glanced at Li Dahuā and Li Xiaohua.
The two of them had just opened their mouths when Jing Yin kicked each of them down the slope as well.
Grandma Jing immediately ran down and moved the clay pot farther away.
Zhao Xiao’e took Erdan and also moved farther away, though she kept looking at Jing Yin with some concern.
…
“Oh heavens! Husband! My husband!”
Mrs. Li threw herself onto her husband’s body and wailed repeatedly.
“You murderers! Even as a ghost, I’ll never let you off!”
Mrs. Li suddenly raised her head, her voice shrill and piercing.
Her bloodshot eyes glared hatefully at Jing Yin and Jing Da, as though they had been poisoned.
“Dad, don’t worry. I’ll make sure she doesn’t even get the chance to become a ghost.”
Jing Yin sneered and walked toward Mrs. Li with the dagger in her hand.
The fury in Mrs. Li’s eyes gradually turned into fear.
“Y-You… What are you trying to do?”
Sitting on the ground, Mrs. Li desperately shuffled backward.
Li Dahuā tightly pinched Li Xiaohua’s arm.
Li Xiaohua secretly clenched her fists, and tears immediately streamed down her face as she looked at Jing Zhao helplessly.
“Big Brother Jing, my family has wronged you. I should have tried harder to persuade them…”
“Smack!”
Before Li Xiaohua could finish speaking, Jing Yin took off one of her shoes and swung it hard across her face.
“Heh. Keep pretending. Go on, keep pretending! If you dare say another word, I’ll give you another smack with my shoe.”
“Jing Yin, you… Did you misunderstand something?”
Li Xiaohua tried to explain—or rather, pretend to explain—in the most pitiful way possible.
What greeted her instead was the filthy, stinking sole of Jing Yin’s shoe.
One smack.
Then another.
And another…
Only after Li Xiaohua’s face had swollen up like a pig’s head did Jing Yin finally stop.
“Silver, what should we do with them?”
Jing Da frowned and quietly asked Jing Yin.
Although their families were from the same village, that was precisely why they knew each other so well.
Li Yucai’s father had always been a shameless troublemaker.
He had accidentally killed him just now, so there was nothing that could be done about that.
Mrs. Li and Li Yucai were no good either, and they were extremely vengeful.
But if he had to kill another person, Jing Da found that he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it.
After all, these were living human beings.
“Dad, just cripple one of their hands and leave it at that.”
That way, they would be punished without losing their lives.
Jing Da thought it was a good idea.
But after accidentally killing someone just now, his hands were still trembling slightly.
Jing Yin called Jing Zhao over.
Without saying a word, Jing Zhao raised the hoe and broke one hand of each of them.
Their shrill screams echoed without end.
The people on the slope couldn’t see what was happening, but they were still terrified.
They became even more afraid to provoke Jing Yin’s family.
After throwing the four of them out, Grandma Jing continued cooking her porridge.
Jing Yin stood on the slope.
Watching the four members of the Li family stagger away while shooting them venomous looks, she raised an eyebrow.
Let them go?
Impossible.
She had survived for more than a decade in the apocalypse precisely because she never left hidden threats behind.
“Tangyuan, keep an eye on them…”
…
The chicken porridge made from pearl rice and dried wild chicken wasn’t particularly thick, but it was absolutely delicious.
Grandma Jing had even added the last thin layer of salt left in their supply.
The natural flavor of the ingredients was already wonderfully savory, and with just a tiny bit of salt, it became a rare delicacy.
After eating until they were about half full, the family once again followed the refugee group and slowly continued forward.
Although the four remaining members of the Li family were extremely afraid of them, they still secretly observed Jing Yin’s family from within the refugee group.
Clearly, they were plotting something.
They thought no one knew.
Little did they know that Tangyuan had seen everything.
…
The moonlight that night was as white as snow, pouring generously over the earth.
Because of this, the refugee group traveled for two extra hours before finally stopping.
The Old Jing family naturally wanted to reach Yanghua Prefecture as soon as possible as well, so they followed at the back of the refugee group and traveled for another two hours.
By the time they stopped, everyone was starving.
After all, chicken porridge wasn’t very filling.
“Grandma, let’s cook rice tonight.”
Jing Yin brought out the two pounds of pearl rice she had received from today’s check-in.
Grandma Jing’s eyes lit up.
The reverence in her eyes as she looked at Tangyuan grew even stronger.
“Grandma, cook all of it. We can keep the leftovers for tomorrow.”
The temperature was relatively low at night, so leaving it overnight wouldn’t be a problem.
“All right.”
Grandma Jing didn’t hesitate.
Zhao Xiao’e immediately came over to help.
While the two of them busied themselves cooking the rice, Jing Yin walked around the area.
When she returned, she was holding several pieces of wood.
“Dad, help me make something…”
Jing Yin handed the wood to Jing Da and gestured with her hands to show him what she wanted.
“Sure!”
With the light from the fire illuminating their surroundings, Jing Da worked quickly.
Before long, the thing Jing Yin wanted had already taken shape.