CHAPTER 54: CHAPTER 54: THE CRIME OF GENDER 54

As soon as the refugee spoke, the atmosphere instantly froze, and everyone fell silent, looking at each other in disbelief! They all thought their ears were deceiving them!

One of the people from Qin Family Village laughed dryly, "What nonsense are you talking about? Someone from our village called you here? Even if you’re afraid to die, don’t tell such childish lies to deceive us!"

"It’s true, it’s true! Everything I said is true. We are not lying, it really was someone from your village who called us here, it was Qin the Third. He said there’s water and meat in your village, and if we take over this place, the meat and water would be ours. As long as we share a bit of the meat with them, it would be fine. Everything I said is true, if you don’t believe it, you can ask!"

When Qin the Third was mentioned, everyone exchanged glances for a moment, and they surprisingly began to believe it. If this refugee had mentioned someone else from the village, they might not have believed it!

The ancestors of the Qin Clan had once held the position of Magistrate, and though they declined later, they never gave up on education. It was only in the last couple of years that several scholars emerged, giving the Qin Family Village a much stronger moral sense than other villages!

Yet in this village, there famously stood out one peculiar family, naturally, it was Mr. Qin’s family! If it was said that someone in the village with high morals wouldn’t do such a thing, but if it was Mr. Qin’s family, whoever it was, everyone would believe it!

Although they believed it in their hearts, they still asked the refugee to explain the matter in detail. This time, not only that refugee, but other refugees also chimed in, and soon the whole story was clear.

These refugees were originally hunters from Qin Family Village in the north of Daqing Mountain. With abundant resources and wildlife, these hunters lived better than farmers dependent on harvests, enjoying relatively affluent lives.

They lived well on weekdays, but during the drought, when wildlife migrated and vegetation withered, as they didn’t farm, they had no food reserves and almost immediately fell into a state of food shortage.

Originally, these hunters, though short on food, were not very worried because there was a deep spring in the mountain. According to the old hunters, even during a three-year drought a decade ago, the spring never dried up.

These hunters had planned that when the villages below the mountain ran out of water, they would come to the spring for water, and they would guard the spring, exchanging water for food, which would ensure they had enough to eat.

To their surprise, they waited and waited, but no villagers came for water. Even when someone occasionally came, upon hearing they needed to trade food for water, they left with their buckets empty.

Without the anticipated food, unable to find anything edible in the mountains, they plunged into despair. This desperation peaked when two people starved to death!

The fear of starvation shattered their psychological bottom line. To survive, everyone shared the two dead bodies. After consuming the remains, indeed, everyone survived, but soon, another person starved to death, and to stay alive, they again divided and consumed him.

Those who starved were the physically weak, such as elderly, children, and frail women, but gradually, the weaker people all died off, while the remaining ones, nourished by human flesh, ironically became stronger.

With stronger bodies, they naturally became hardier and less prone to die. As no one died for a long time, everyone, having grown accustomed to human flesh, found their hunger harder to bear, and they eyed each other restlessly.

One of the refugees had some sense and realized this couldn’t continue, that they couldn’t devour their own people. He proposed that they shouldn’t target their own; as hunters, their physical prowess was already better than the farming folk.

Now, as outsiders were too afraid to eat fully due to lack of food and were weaker, they, having consumed human flesh, were strong, making it not difficult to capture and eat a few stray individuals!

Eating outsiders was better than eyeing their own people. Having already broken their psychological bottom line due to cannibalism, they agreed to this idea almost without hesitation.

This marks the source of the rumors about refugees eating people. Qin Shuangshuang was also enlightened, no wonder this had not occurred in the past at this time.

In the previous life, Qin Family Village did not have the deep well dug by Qin Shuangshuang, so naturally, they suffered from water shortages earlier. Back then, people from miles around, just as these refugees had planned, brought food in exchange for water.

In this life, with the well pre-dug by Qin Shuangshuang, providing free water, no one was willing to waste food on fetching water. These refugees, with no grains in store and unable to trade water for food, starved people even earlier than before and thus, out of desperation, turned to cannibalism sooner.

Qin Shuangshuang felt discomfort in her heart, but she did not consider these people’s cannibalism to be caused by her. After all, in the previous life, they also resorted to cannibalism.

In the latter stages of the calamity, when even tree bark and roots were gone, and no household had food, venturing in groups into the mountains was futile. After two consecutive years of drought, the mountains too were depleted and barren!

At that time, what people considered edible in their eyes were only their kind, as there were no other foods, and those refugees who couldn’t acquire money, asked those fetching water to send people instead, and what happened to those sent didn’t need to be spelled out.

Some cowardly ones, not daring to kill others, went mad and killed their own family members to eat them; swapping children for food was common. Hesitant to kill their children, they exchanged them with others for consumption—hypocritical and disgusting!

Back then, Qin Family Village was the only village unwilling to engage in cannibalism or send their own to be eaten. Therefore, they had the most deaths from starvation, which is why when Qin Shuangshuang was swapped and eaten by Qin Laoer, the villagers unanimously decided to expel the Qin family!

When the court later sent General Wuwei to escort villagers to the border city, General Wuwei, upon hearing about Qin Family Village’s actions, greatly admired them and offered them special care. Without this, their weakened bodies due to starvation would not have survived the journey to the border city.

Qin Shuangshuang subconsciously believed Fang Yaoyao was safer at her home, precisely because of the villagers of Qin Family Village’s principled refusal to engage in cannibalism.

One must admit, the county magistrate was a good official. Seeing the villagers resorting to mutual consumption rather than heading to the border city, and unable to bear it in his heart, he directly wrote a memorial to the court, describing the people’s miserable conditions.

The magistrate’s intention was to prompt the Emperor to show mercy by decreeing the opening of granaries for relief, but who would have thought the people’s behavior would anger the Emperor! The Emperor ordered General Wuwei from nearby to escort the people to the border city, dragging them if necessary, determined they should die there if they must!

Qin the Third’s acquaintance with these cannibalistic refugees was actually an accident!