The entire city was practically steeped in blood and gore. Everywhere one went, rotting, stinking corpses lay scattered across the ground. Sometimes, when cleanup was too slow or incomplete, the bodies had already been baked dry in the sun like strips of preserved meat.
Of course, they had all died the same way: starvation. Some ordinary folk had once kept a little grain in reserve, and they knew to go into the mountains to dig up roots or hunt, bringing back wild rabbits so they could fill their stomachs.
Those without hunting skills could basically only starve to death outside. Of course, those who starved outdoors were inevitably the minority. Most people still barely managed to cling to life. Besides, Saint Lord Taichu had previously distributed a certain amount of relief grain to them. Though there was not much of it, and it was all coarse wheat or rice, it was enough for most people to fill their stomachs and temporarily ease that agonizing hunger.
And to put it bluntly, even if many of them went into the mountains to hunt, the wild rabbits, pheasants, and such that they caught would not be enough to eat. After all, the trees and all kinds of insects in the mountains were declining year by year. As a result, wild goats and boars could barely survive up there either. Even if they truly managed to catch a chicken, how much could a whole family get from it? At most, each person could gnaw on two or three bones, and that would be the end of it. If they wanted more, there simply was none.
So after most people set their sights on those pheasants, they would catch one, bring it home, pluck it clean, chop it into pieces, toss it into a pot