Chapter 1161: Chapter 729 New City

The gloom churned within the clouds in the sky, the Sky Dome along with the earth was shrouded in gray. The extreme cold of the Extreme North pierced through the uninhabited endless snow desert, beyond the devastated Northern Three Provinces, reaching the inconspicuous border at the northern edge of Jingji, with scattered white flakes falling to the human world.

It was snowing again.

A middle-aged man with stubble lifted his eyes to glance at this cursed heaven, and slowly walked out of the mountain forest, heading toward the plain ahead, dragging a few mountain beasts behind him.

There stood a not-so-large city.

Huizhou,

a county town once famed throughout Dayan, known for being the place where the Prime Minister’s third son was assassinated.

Of course, the death of the entire town’s commoners during the assassination process once incited fury in the court, but after the anger subsided, it was brushed aside.

Ridiculous and lamentable, the entire town’s populace was worth less than a noble individual.

Recalling these suddenly emerging memories in his mind, Luo Yuanqi wrapped the beast fur around him tighter, subconsciously letting out a gentle sigh.

He was once a court official with the Ministry of War, not a high-ranking one, and took the blame for his superior regarding the war in the Northern Frontier, leading to his resignation. He did not stay in the Capital City awaiting reinstatement but volunteered to transfer to the Northern Frontier, wishing to fight for his country as a Martial Apprentice.

But the real battlefield was ultimately different from the memorials of the Capital City; from the accumulated hot-bloodedness since youth to the moment of stepping onto the battlefield, it cooled instantly.

Not to mention killing the enemy, just seeing the scene of blood and flesh flying, the mountain of corpses overwhelming the sky, he was scared out of his wits.

He ran, becoming a deserter.

Such behavior was not an isolated case; inside the Northern Frontier, except for those several elite military towns, there were countless deserters, sneaking away during chaotic charges when the surveillance camps couldn’t keep track, then gathering into dozens and disappearing into the mountains, directly becoming bandits.

Though Luo Yuanqi was afraid of the battlefield, to forsake the Capital City post and transfer to the Northern Frontier showed some backbone; unwilling to associate with bandits, he gathered few soldiers like himself, picked up many refugees displaced by the blizzard disaster and military turmoil, and headed south. Using his stipend from the Capital City for sustenance, rice, flour, and cloth, he arrived at this mountainous forest on the Jingji border a few months ago to live in seclusion.

The bitter cold from the Extreme North had receded quite a bit; in previous years, by this time, the ground would already have a depth of snow. After a few more years, this blizzard disaster should be over, but the military turmoil seemed to be more severe.

Over the past few months, their small village had gradually taken in hundreds of refugees heading south. According to these pitiful people, the Barbarian Tribes in the Northern Three Provinces had been subjugated, and the reason for their southward flight was actually due to an epidemic.

Spread by saliva and blood, the infected became insane and frenzied as if possessed by spirits, no longer recognizing their kin, bloodthirsty and murderous.

Though the storytellers were all haunted, Luo Yuanqi was not particularly concerned upon hearing them. As a former official in the Ministry of War, he was very aware of the battle prowess of those large military towns, not to mention the scattered Immortal Sects spread across the provinces.

With the end of the Barbarian Tribes’ military turmoil, it would only be a matter of time before the Northern Three Provinces returned to normalcy. So, compared to the epidemic, he was more concerned with how his village would survive the winter.

Most of those in the village were stateless criminals, naturally not daring to slash and burn new farmland, plus they had just taken in so many people, and the rice and flour bought on the way south were nearly exhausted. If they relied solely on the village’s Martial Apprentices for hunting, the hundreds of people in the village would likely all perish this winter.

He discussed this matter with a few close men, and though most were of a similar refugee or military background, offering little useful advice, a villager from the furthest north provided an answer that knew him well.

“Eat people.”

“Start with the elderly over fifty, then the girls, the boys, the sick ones…”

“…First, lure a batch of old men out of the village, kill them, and see if they can initially survive. You can deceive others by saying they voluntarily left, claiming they hunted deer…”

“…In deep snow and cold weather, meat wouldn’t spoil, and the wild animals outside wouldn’t chew it, but it must be marked, or it will be buried and lost…”

At that time, Luo Yuanqi and the others looked at him as if he were a monster, but the man spoke with numbness:

“…Don’t look at me like that, I was once like you, but when winter starvation became unbearable, I did it…”

Upon hearing this, he forcibly steered the conversation away, knowing the man was telling the truth. He had read memorials about cannibalism and had prepared for it, but he could not bring himself to do such a thing.

The snow disaster was nearly over, and the military turmoil had passed too.

According to his understanding of that Prime Minister in the court, new policies of pacification should have passed by now, and relief efforts likely commenced. As long as they survived this winter, these stateless refugees would settle under the new policies, and by then, everything would improve, so the bottom line must not be broken.

Biting his chapped dry lips, Luo Yuanqi dragged the few frozen mountain beasts, stopping a hundred zhang from New City.

Almost simultaneously,

“Whoosh—”

A black-feathered arrow shot from the city wall, precisely landing one zhang before him as a warning.

Just as expected…..

Watching the lightly trembling tail feather, Luo Yuanqi instinctively clenched the hemp rope on his shoulder, unable to suppress the sadness in his heart.

All the way southward, except for Zhou Prefecture, he didn’t approach any Dayan City, and was reluctant to seek protection from this city, just because of this.

Under a natural disaster, how can there be an intact egg?

It’s not that the court hadn’t issued relief decrees to the Northern Border Counties, nor was it that these Commanders dared defy the court, but damn it, the court only issued decrees, not silver and grain!