Encounter Again

Only then did Qin Fang realize that the sky was already bright.

Besides the three or five burly men beside him, there were also some refugees looking at him in astonishment.

Qin Fang immediately judged from the clothing of these sturdy men that they were part of the group responsible for patrolling the refugees in True Martial County.

"What are you doing?"

Although Qin Fang stopped his attack, he quickly sat upright, his gaze steady and guarded as he looked at the men surrounding him, asking in a deep voice.

"I was kind enough to come over and check on your condition! You damn near poked a hole in my neck?! Are you possessed or something?!!"

The man who was cursing loudly touched his own neck while he swore, repeatedly confirming whether he had been injured...

The strike just now was too sudden. If the other party hadn't suddenly opened his eyes, which gave him a huge fright and made him instinctively step back... that strike might have really hit home!

If it had landed, even the gods couldn't have saved him!

Qin Fang frowned. Before he could speak, someone nearby had already explained in a low voice: "A lot of people died last night. The County Magistrate gave the order to move the corpses out to prevent a plague. We saw you sleeping the whole time and thought..."

Once the other party said this, Qin Fang finally realized. He instinctively looked into the distance and, sure enough, saw that many people had arrived in this huge square. Some of them were refugees, and they were currently loading corpses onto carts...

Qin Fang's heart tightened, but he then fell silent.

...Many refugees had died, clearly because their bodies had already reached their limits.

Before entering True Martial, the will to survive had sustained them.

But after entering True Martial and eating a full meal, their tightly wound emotions finally relaxed... but once the will loosened, their exhausted bodies could no longer hold up and quickly collapsed.

It was just like in a disaster, where some people persist for days, holding on until rescuers arrive.

Yet, in the days following their rescue, they die anyway...

It is the same principle.

"Apologies."

Qin Fang realized he had misunderstood the man and apologized to the fellow who had almost had his neck pierced.

The man was still cursing, but those around him pulled him away and whispered some advice. Eventually, with an ugly expression, he finally stopped saying anything.

"If you have a travel permit, you can go over there and register... There are too many disaster victims this time, and our True Martial County is short-handed. Good citizens with permits can be temporarily assigned to help settle the refugees... Naturally, there are benefits... basic food and clothing will be provided, and your injuries will be treated."

The man who had explained things to him looked at the disheveled Qin Fang, glanced at the wound on his foot, and spoke.

After finishing, he ignored Qin Fang, called out to his companions, and walked not far away.

A refugee was lying there. Someone called out a few times and gave him a few shoves, but there was no response, so they knew he was already dead.

They called out, and the refugees following these men stepped forward, laboriously lifting the corpse onto a nearby cart to be hauled away...

Watching them walk away, Qin Fang finally let out a long breath.

His frantic heartbeat slowly calmed down.

...He couldn't be blamed for his intense reaction.

Along this journey, he didn't know how many times he had seen or heard of people being killed in their sleep.

Some refugees, unable to bear the hunger in the middle of the night and unwilling to wait for others to die naturally, would take the risk, slitting the throats of sleeping refugees in the dead of night to drink their blood directly...

...People driven mad by hunger are no longer human.

Qin Fang sat for a short while and looked up at the sky. It was already broad daylight, though the temperature hadn't risen too high yet.

It hadn't rained for four consecutive months; he wondered how long this hellish weather would last...

He looked at the sky in silence, a flicker of contemplation in his eyes.

Everything else was manageable, but his top priority now... was to settle down.

It was clearly not an option to keep drifting among the refugees.

Not to mention the uncertainty of his next meal, he was also living in constant fear...

It was too dangerous.

The danger didn't just come from the refugees.

Qin Fang hadn't forgotten the group from last night that tried to incite the refugees to revolt...

If he kept mixing with the refugees, heaven knows what else he might encounter.

Qin Fang had no interest in what they were trying to do.

As long as they didn't drag him into it.

"In ancient times, when settling disaster victims, they are usually sent back to their original place of registration... but Jingping County is a full thousand miles away from here... With such a large-scale resettlement of refugees, it's naturally impossible to arrange carriages or horses; they can only rely on the refugees to walk back themselves..."

Qin Fang's eyelids twitched.

A thousand miles!

Walking back!

He didn't want to make that trip again!

The journey here was a brush with death; to walk it again... he lacked the confidence to endure it.

Setting aside everything else, even finding a meal was a problem.

The authorities would provide rations for a few days at most... for the rest, one had to fend for themselves.

After all, you couldn't expect them to cover your travel expenses all the way home... the True Martial County treasury likely wouldn't support that either.

If that happened, everything that occurred during the exile would inevitably play out all over again.

Moreover, his golden finger required a relatively stable environment to function.

Otherwise, if he were on the road every day... where would he find the time and energy to study martial arts techniques?

...Throughout the exile, Qin Fang had deeply realized just how important individual martial prowess was in this world.

He was now desperate to improve his own strength.

Yet, wanting to stay would likely not be an easy task.

The productivity of this world limited the maximum population each city could support; it was impossible for massive cities with tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people like in his past life to exist.

With so many refugees this time, only a minority would likely be willing to return to their original homes. After all, those who managed to flee were mostly common folk with no grain left in their homes.

Those who truly held some influence locally would rarely flee, even in a year of disaster like this... their accumulated wealth was enough to withstand such natural calamities.

Only the common folk with no grain reserves, lacking the ability to bear risk, were forced into exile.

Since they were penniless anyway... one place to live was as good as another.

Therefore, he estimated that most people would want to stay in True Martial.

But True Martial County couldn't possibly keep all the refugees... it would be a massive shock to local public order, the economy, and social stability.

The滞留 of tens of thousands of refugees would surely cause a tremendous impact on the area, as one could easily imagine.

It was still chaotic now, with refugees arriving in a steady stream, so they couldn't attend to such matters yet.

But once the situation eased slightly and the disaster passed, they would certainly arrange for repatriation.

Otherwise, not only would True Martial County be unable to support them...

The imperial court wouldn't allow the disaster victims to linger either.

If they did, what about places like Jingping County that had been struck by the disaster?

If the people from those places fled and left their homes empty, wouldn't those areas become ghost towns if no one returned?

That was clearly unacceptable to the imperial court.

Thinking of this, Qin Fang exhaled softly, his eyes flickering.

He began to seriously ponder how he could manage to stay in True Martial County.

This naturally brought to mind the promises made by those people from the True Martial Fist Hall yesterday...

Join the martial hall.

Arrange for naturalization...

But...

One hundred taels of silver...

His eyes flickered as he gently rubbed the rough wooden staff in his hand.

After a long while, he let out a breath and climbed up from the ground.

He wasn't wearing shoes, and as his wounded feet pressed directly against the ground, he couldn't help but hiss in pain.

He felt a sharp agony in his legs, nearly collapsing.

...His body had reached its limit; he had to find a way to treat it as soon as possible.

Otherwise...

He looked at the corpses of refugees being hauled away not far off...

Many people had died last night.

A large number of people would likely die over the next two days as well.

It was because all sorts of conditions were erupting at once.

He didn't want to become one of them.

He hoped his body would hold up and endure...

While thinking, he slowly shuffled in the direction the man had pointed earlier.

Since he wanted to stay, he naturally had to make contact with the local powers first.

Then, he would see if he could find a way to remain...

"Identification."

Beside the plaza, someone was in charge of registering "upstanding citizens" willing to help settle the refugees.

Qin Fang waited in line for a short while before it was his turn, and he handed over his identification tag.

After another round of verification to confirm the tag belonged to him, the man nodded, stamped the tag, and handed it back to Qin Fang: "During this period, follow all instructions and keep your tag safe; you will need it later."

"Understood." Qin Fang hurriedly bowed to accept the tag, nodding in acknowledgment.

The man nodded: "Go wait over there. Next..."

Qin Fang tucked away his tag and stood in the line of refugees indicated by the man.

Just as he let out a soft breath and began to consider his next move, he suddenly froze... because he had spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

The person was disheveled, wrapped in coarse, tattered hemp clothing, and looked no different from the surrounding disaster victims.

Yet, Qin Fang's pupils constricted.

For no other reason than that he had recognized this man... he was the very person from outside the city last night who had blurted out the question, "Where did the grain come from?"

Qin Fang's expression darkened.

How could he be this unlucky?

Without a moment's hesitation, Qin Fang turned and walked away.