Escape

The county seat's yamen rang without cease with hisses, furious roars, and screams. By now, the place had descended into utter chaos.

Everyone had forgotten why they had come. They surged inside, wildly excited as they did the things they had once wanted to do but had never dared.

"Grain! Grain! It's all white flour! No coarse grain!" Hearing the cries coming from the West Wing, the crowd surged toward it in a dark, seething mass.

The old man who had been the first to eat the county magistrate's flesh wanted to follow as well, but he stumbled and fell flat on the ground.

He struggled to get back up, but a foot stepped on his raised right hand. With a crack, he opened his blood-smeared mouth and let out a shrill scream.

Yet amid the clamor around him, that scream was as insignificant as a drop in the ocean. As one foot after another trampled down, the sound soon vanished.

The people passing by only felt that the ground was a little soft beneath their feet. They noticed nothing else.

Yang Xiaohai and his wife, Zhao Xiumei, were among that dense crowd as well. They had not wanted to enter, but the pushing masses kept shoving them forward.

By the time he wanted to leave, people filled every direction. There was no way out.

His face pale, he gripped Zhao Xiumei's hand tightly, trying to force their way out of the crowd. "Hold on tight to my hand! Don't let go! If you let go, we won't be able to find each other again!"

After charging left and right without finding a way out, Yang Xiaohai suddenly remembered something. He pulled from his clothes the Rotten Wood Ruyi Senior Brother Li had once given him, its tongue of a