Chapter 50: The Horse Bandits Attack (3rd update)
"Mother, do people in the city put this up during the New Year?" Si Niang asked curiously.
Today the children all wore new red coats and looked very happy.
Si Niang was also rosy, and her chubby little face looked like two red apples against the red background, making people want to take a bite.
Qin Yao explained: "This is the word 'Fu'. It should be pasted upside down, which means that good fortune has arrived."
"I don't know if people in the city celebrate the New Year this way, but from now on, this is how we will celebrate the New Year at home."
The clan leader's son went to the county academy to study for three years. This morning, he set up a long table in his yard and wrote couplets for the villagers.
The villagers would bring two eggs or a bowl of rice, along with red paper they had prepared, and ask the clan leader's son to help write a couplet for good luck.
Early in the morning, Qin Yao asked Dalang and Erlang to exchange half a bowl of fine rice for a pair of couplets. Now she pasted them together with the word "Fu" and hung a pair of red lanterns she had bought before under the eaves of the main room. The atmosphere was just right.
Liu Ji stood at the door, looking over the couplets posted on both sides of the door again and again, and snorted: "This calligraphy is not much better than what I write."
As expected, He made tofu. In the morning, when Qin Yao asked Dalang and Erlang to write couplets, she also sent two kilograms of flour to the old house as a New Year's greeting to the two elders.
At noon, Jinbao and Jinhua brought over a bowl of freshly baked tofu.
Qin Yao wanted to give them soybeans, but they refused. So Qin Yao had no choice but to give each of them two copper coins as a ward off evil spirits and watched the brother and sister run home happily.
There was still snow on the road, and the two fell several times along the way. It seemed that they were not hurt, and their cheerful laughter could be heard from far away.
"Dinner is ready!" Liu Ji shouted in the main room.
Qin Yao closed the courtyard gate, pushed open the tightly closed door of the main room and walked in. A charcoal fire was burning brightly, with an iron pot on top. In the pot, there was stewing meat, tofu, bean sprouts that Qin Yao had grown herself, and the last cabbage in the house.
Such a full pot of stew, cooking steaming hot, makes the room feel warm just by looking at it.
The four children couldn't wait any longer. When they saw Qin Yao sitting down, Liu Ji asked expectantly, "Have you eaten?"
Qin Yao nodded: "Eat it."
The children happily picked up the bowls and chopsticks, and those who could pick up the food did so themselves. Those who couldn't pick up the food, Sanlang and Si Niang, asked their father for help respectively.
It is said that you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. Dalang and Erlang were panting because of the heat.
Qin Yao asked them to vomit. The two of them shook their heads with tears in their eyes, reluctant to waste food.
Moreover, the tofu was cooked for a long time, and the flavor of the gravy was absorbed into it, making it delicious.
Qin Yao had no choice but to get up and go to the kitchen to fetch a kettle of cold boiled water so that she could take a sip to soothe the burnt mouth.
She was talking about the children, and when it was her turn, she was panting from the heat, and the room was filled with the sound of giggles.
When the atmosphere was just right, a cry of "There are horse thieves!" was suddenly heard.
Qin Yao's eyes darkened and she put down her chopsticks.
She knew that this New Year's Eve dinner would not be enjoyable!
"what happens?"
Liu Ji didn't even have time to put down the bowl and chopsticks in his hand. He stood up nervously and asked, "Why are there horse hoof sounds?"
He rushed out to check, but came back in a panic within half a minute, put down his bowl and chopsticks, moved a stool and went to pick down the two red lanterns hanging high.
While picking the fruits, he controlled his voice and said, "The bandits are coming into the village to steal our things! Hide quickly!"
When the four children heard this, they were so frightened that they froze.
Liu Ji threw the lantern on the table in the main room and was about to find a place to hide someone, only to find that Qin Yao was not in the room. He hurried to her bedroom and, sure enough, Qin Yao was there.
"The horse thieves are coming!" Afraid that she didn't know, he shouted loudly.
Qin Yao stuffed the purse into her arms, quickly put on convenient leather boots, stuffed the dagger and slingshot into her waist, slung the quiver over her shoulder, pulled out the long knife on the table with one hand, picked up the bow and arrow hanging on the wall with the other, and strode out.
When she saw Liu Ji, she glanced at him first. What were you yelling about? She had heard it a long time ago.
But now was not the time to get angry, so she calmly told him, "We don't have a cellar to hide in. We can only rely on this newly built wall to defend ourselves and keep them out."
"Send the four children back to the house first. I'll find something to block the door. Our house is remote, so they may not come over."
As he said this, he slung the bow and arrow over his shoulder, put the long sword on the sink, and went to the firewood pile to find a large piece of firewood to block the front and back doors.
Liu Ji was stunned for just a moment, then he reacted immediately. Seeing that she was not anxious or panicked, he felt a lot more calm. He drove the four frightened children back into the house, and told them to close the doors and windows and hide well and not come out.
No one expected that the horse thieves would come at this time, and thought that the heavy snow would be able to stop their movements.
But thinking of the frozen corpse that the village chief and others carried away to bury this morning, it is not difficult to guess that the horse thieves' current situation must have reached the end of their rope.
That's why they can't wait for the snow to melt, and as soon as the sky clears up, they are eager to go down the mountain to plunder.
If you encounter such evil ghosts, there is no guarantee that they will not kill people.
"Ha~" Qin Yao suddenly laughed at herself. What's the guarantee? She would definitely kill people! For
those starving people in the apocalypse, everything they saw was food.
Qin Yao saw Liu Ji locked the door and settled the children and walking towards her, so she asked him to bring the ladder and use it to check the situation below the mountain.
The terrain on her side was high and there was no obstruction in front of the door. She could see at a glance a large group of people rushing into the village with strange cries, and then split into four waves at the village well and rushed in different directions.
The villagers' screams of fear echoed throughout the village. The wall was low, and the horse thieves jumped in on their horses and searched the yard for anything valuable.
Unable to find it, two or three of them broke down the door and went straight into the house. With one hand they stuffed the villagers' New Year's Eve dinner into their mouths, and with the other hand they threatened the owner with a knife, forcing him to hand over the valuables.
It was inevitable that some people would want to resist, but the result was that the horse thieves stabbed them with a knife!
The woman screamed and the child cried helplessly in fear.
Qin Yao frowned as she watched the two horse thieves riding their horses excitedly towards her house. She took out her bow and arrow, pulled out the arrow on her back and put the nock on it.
"Is it coming for us?" Liu Ji asked in horror, standing under the ladder.
The door was blocked tightly by Qin Yao, leaving not even a crack. He could not see anything and could only hear the chaotic sounds coming from the village. He imagined all kinds of terrible scenes and scared himself.
Qin Yao hummed, "Two people are riding horses towards our house, with bows and arrows and knives in their hands."
Liu Ji's scalp tingled, and he hurriedly asked, "Can you, can you do it?"
Qin Yao nodded.
At this moment, Liu Ji thought she was extremely beautiful as she stood on the wall and calmly drew the bow.
"Then, what can I do?" he asked, swallowing.
Run?
He never thought about it!
With Qin Yao, this fierce woman, at home, there is no place in the village safer than with her.
Qin Yao said softly, "I'll call you if I need you. If you're scared, you can take the knife from the sink."
Liu Ji responded with an "oh" and hurried to look for Qin Yao's knife. When he found it, he immediately grabbed it.
His hand felt heavy, and he had to hold the heavy sword specially made for Qin Yao with both hands before he could swing it.
However, this heaviness also gives people a sense of security.
Liu Ji took a deep breath and stood by the door.
The sound of horse hooves was getting closer and closer, and the sound of clattering became clearer and clearer. Finally, because of the slippery snow, they stopped.
Liu Ji was so nervous that he forgot to breathe, his face flushed red, and as Qin Yao murmured "It's within range", his heart instantly rose to his throat.
(End of this chapter)