Chapter 192: Incident

The advantage of having over a hundred people from the Zhou family living nearby was that Shen Lie and Chen Dashan no longer needed to go fetch the Zhou and Zheng families for hunting trips. With Feng's young man and Gannier, their group was large enough, and they could already handle farming, land clearance, and trapping mountain chickens without any issues.

Shen Lie and Chen Dashan led the villagers to explore another direction outside the village.

When the harvest of mountain yams began, the delayed autumn harvest in the valley, due to less sunlight throughout the year, also started.

While the villagers outside were busy digging up mountain yams, the harvest within the valley was handled by those who stayed behind, gathering crops from each household regardless of ownership.

Apart from the elderly and women, the child soldiers were also quite helpful during this time. Even youngsters like Shen Jin and Shen Yin contributed to doing whatever tasks they could manage.

It was a lively and bustling scene of harvest, but no one expected that an incident would arise when Shen Jin helped the old man Lu fill a bamboo tube with water.

At that moment, everyone was harvesting rice in the Lu family's field. The villagers in the valley were closest to the Lus, and with old age, it was inevitable that after working for hours, they would become thirsty and tired. Shen Jin, who had been assigned lighter tasks, noticed the struggle of Old Man Lu trying to pour water from his bamboo tube, so he offered to help and fetched more water. As the Lu family was nearest, he naturally went there.

Shen Yin, seeing this, asked the nearby Elderly Chen, Old Lady Chen, and Grandma Xu if they needed water too. Everyone was exhausted and parched, so the two brothers took two bamboo tubes each and set off.

Actually, because of Wang Chunniang, the Lu family had left someone behind for such an important task as harvesting rice – Lu Daniu.

Jin Shen went in to fetch water, and naturally, Lady Lu offered her assistance. It was only a matter of filling the containers with water, but after being trapped in the cave for several days, Wang Chunniang fixated on Jin Shen and suddenly sneered, spitting out a barb: "The two of you have milk and consider whoever gives it your mother."

Jin Shen glanced at her, remembering Shen An's instructions and deciding not to engage.

However, his silence only fueled Wang Chunniang's pent-up anger from the past few days. Seeing that even Shen San and Li Shi's son ignored her, the madness that had been brewing within her erupted.

"You follow your wonderful elder brother and sister-in-law, enjoying all the luxuries, do you forget how your parents and sister died?"

Jin Shen's face visibly darkened, while Yin Shen turned pale.

Seeing the change in her brothers' expressions, Wang Chunniang felt a sense of satisfaction. "This valley is so bountiful, yet your family suffered such a tragic fate. Why help now? If they had taken you along when they left, would the three of you be orphans?"

Not just Jin Shen and Yin Shen, but even Lady Lu's face paled. She exclaimed sharply, "Mother, what are you saying!"

Behind the wooden fence, Lady Lu could only voice her protest. Without the key, she couldn't even cover her mother's mouth if she wanted to.

"What am I saying? I'm speaking the truth. If I were Shen San or Li Shi, and had such sons, I'd climb up as a ghost at night just to strangle them."

With a loud 'slap,' one sound was Yin Shen's water-filled bamboo tube dropping to the ground, while the other was Jin Shen throwing his own bamboo tube with a thud against the wooden fence confining Wang Chunniang.

Lu Daniu was startled and, with trembling hands, pleaded with Shen Jin, "Little Jin, don't listen to my mother's nonsense."

Shen Jin's face was twisted, his breaths rapid as he fixed his gaze on Wang Chunniang without turning away. He spoke to Shen Yin, who was standing beside him, "Little Yin, go out first."

Tears had already welled up in Shen Yin's eyes, rendering him unable to move. Shen Jin then spoke to Lu Daniu, "Take my brother outside."

How could Lu Daniu dare to leave?

Shen Jin barked, "Get out!"

Despite being two years younger than her, Lu Daniu was genuinely frightened. She realized that after all, her mother was the one confined here. Seeing Shen Yin weeping in fear, she quickly went to pull him away.

Wang Chunniang was also startled by Shen Jin's sharp command. Turning her head, she saw a nine-year-old boy swallowing hard, suppressing the fright from earlier.

Watching Lu Daniu lead Shen Yin out, Wang Chunniang sneered, "So, was I wrong?"

Step by step, Shen Jin approached the fence, his eyes never leaving Wang Chunniang. The darkness in his gaze gave Wang Chunniang an eerie feeling, causing her to instinctively want to retreat.

However, there was barely any space for her to move in the small cave carved out. She sat by the bed, only a couple of steps away from the fence.

Shen Jin fixated on Wang Chunniang, "You know our suffering, but do you truly understand its depth?"

"Do you know that my parents and sister perished? Do you know how they died?"

Despite his orderly speech and calm tone, there was an unsettling madness beneath the surface that Wang Chunniang couldn't ignore.

Sure enough, he wept and laughed in turns, silent yet with his chest quivering. Tears streaming down his face, it was neither a smile nor a sob, a sight more chilling than a simple expression of joy or sorrow on a child's face.

Through his laughter and tears, he placed a hand on his heart and, after a long while, gasped as he stared at Wang Chunniang, "Let me tell you, the grain is gone, the crops in the fields are ruined. Everyone was herded into the city like ducks, with no food to eat."

"Do you know what happens when people are hungry for too long?"

"Have you seen them resort to eating human flesh?"

At this point, his own breathing grew labored, his chest feeling constricted. With one hand pressed against it, his red-rimmed eyes locked onto Wang Chunniang, "Do you know how my sister died? Huh? You dare say such things?"

With that, his emotions spilled over, "In the city, cannibals are everywhere. If they can't prey on others, they feed their own children to others. If they can't bring themselves to do that, they smother their kids to give them to others for a piece of flesh in return."

"Have you experienced this? Yet you dare to say those words?"

"My sister was killed by my father, and my mother, in retaliation, killed him, only to be stabbed to death by him. Do you know that? If it weren't for Master Xu saving us, my two brothers and I would have all been butchered and boiled."

"How is that? Are we not worthy of living? Huh? Not worthy?"

"Did my eldest brother and his wife save us just to create enmity? Huh?"

With the last bamboo tube in his hand, he hurled it at the fence gap, hitting Wang Chunniang on her head and face.

Shen Jin clutched his chest, overwhelmed by pain. If not for holding onto the fence, he would have slid to the ground.

"Why, why do you get to expose our wounds? Why can someone like you live peacefully here, still thriving?

As he spoke, he collapsed, sitting outside the fence with his mouth wide open, gasping for air, tears and snot streaming down his face. The nightmares that had haunted him through countless sleepless nights seemed to return, crushing him once more.

Lu Daniu had already rushed to call her grandparents as soon as they exited the cave. Their farmland was just a short distance from home. When Lu Laoshan and his group arrived, they witnessed this scene.

What Shen San, Li Shi, and Tianya's deaths entailed was something that Shopkeeper Xu and Shen Lie had never elaborated on before.

Lu Shuzhuang, the one most afraid of his mother causing trouble, was the closest to home. He had heard Shen Jin's words as he ran towards them, the latter part making him halt mid-stride.

The words his grandmother had once spoken echoed in his mind, intertwining with Shen Yin's tearful outburst—how could someone like you still live peacefully here, still thrive so well? Each accusation struck him like a hammer to the face.

Old Madam Chen arrived a step too late, only to find Shen Yin huddled against the cave entrance, trembling uncontrollably.

In those final days in Qiyang County, Shen Yin had been starved to the point of numbness. He vaguely sensed that something was amiss with his parents' deaths, but he never knew the true horror of how Tianya had died.

He had always assumed that Tianya had been secretly taken away by someone.