"Chen Jingqiu"

The flagpole, leaning precariously at the top, had long since faded and was drooping listlessly in the fishy wind, like a dying sign.

Below the pole, a dense, dark mass of "long strips" stretched to the horizon, wriggling silently. Occasionally, a few suppressed coughs would escape, but they were swallowed up by the open field.

There were only a dozen or so large earthen urns, placed on makeshift stoves. Firewood crackled and licked the bottoms of the urns, and steam rose in distorted patterns, causing the figures of the people queuing to sway and become indistinct, making them difficult to see clearly.

This is not the capital, not a grand mansion, not a bustling city; it is merely a poor, remote rural area.

These people queuing up were certainly not high-ranking officials, noble families, young masters and beauties, or generals and kings.

They were just a bunch of homeless people with nowhere else to go.

Most of them were emaciated, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes, yet their eyes were all fixed on the bubbling porridge in front of them, burning dimly with a kind of—perhaps a mixture of despair and hope?

Most of the people were dressed in tattered clothes, barely covering their bodies. Their exposed skin was dark from years of wind and sun exposure, covered with mud and dust from their escape. Among them was a gaunt woman holding an infant. The child was so hungry that it didn't even have the strength to cry. Its head slumped on her shoulder, and only the slight rise and fall of its chest proved that it was probably still alive.

She patted the pot gently and tirelessly, her eyes, like everyone else's, fixed on the nearest porridge pot.

A group of people, including those maintaining order, were pacing back and forth beside the procession, carrying sticks and broken whips used for herding cattle, their faces showing undisguised exhaustion and impatience.

"Stop pushing! What are you all doing?! Anyone who pushes again will miss this meal!"

A man with a voice like a crow finally couldn't help but shout, his voice sounding particularly jarring in the silence.

At the very front of the line, an old man shakily held out his broken ceramic bowl, letting the turbaned man serving the porridge scoop up a spoonful of the still-thick, hot porridge and pour it into the bowl.

The old man's hands were trembling so badly that only his cloudy eyes suddenly shone with a glimmer of light. Before he could even take a step, he had already lowered his head and rushed to the edge of the bowl, licking it with his almost black tongue, completely disregarding the heat.

The crowd behind him stirred slightly, but quickly subsided under the fierce glares of the men around him who were carrying weapons.

Just then, a cloud of dust began to rise from the end of the official road.

Several riders galloped in, their hooves pounding the cracked earth with a dull thud, breaking the stagnant, oppressive atmosphere.

The riders on horseback were almost all dressed in bright clothes, which made the contrast with the gray and drab figures around them particularly striking.

The one leading the group was an official with fair skin, dressed in a bright robe.

Fang Yi reined in his horse, his gaze sweeping over the long procession and the dozen or so steaming porridge jars. The corner of his mouth turned down almost imperceptibly, carrying a condescending indifference.

He didn't actually dismount, but lazily gave a few instructions to the clerk-like man beside him, "The higher-ups are pressing us hard, the taxes here can't be delayed any longer. I don't care which family is in charge of collecting them, make it clear to the people here that they must collect them within ten days."

"Otherwise—you'll be in for a beating."

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly in the excessively quiet air, making it impossible to ignore.

In the queue, some people who were close by looked up, their blank faces expressionless. Only in their eyes, which were fixed on the porridge pot, did the faint flame seem to flicker slightly before fading into a stagnant pool.

After the official finished speaking, he pulled on the reins and turned his horse around, probably because he was too kind-hearted to bear seeing such a tragic scene again.

And so, the few riders who had come in haste quickly disappeared into the distance.

Only one or two people dismounted and came, their dust rising up in a thicker swirl, mingling with the faint aroma of rice porridge.

The porridge distribution is still ongoing.

The men's feeble shouts, the numb movements of the refugees, the slight clinking of bowls and spoons, and the continuous crackling of the stove fire under the urn all intertwined together.

Those who received the porridge silently stepped aside, some squatting, some sitting, eagerly, even recklessly, gulping down the scalding liquid that could save their lives.

And many more are still waiting, like a slowly flowing, cracked riverbed filled with the color of despair, under the increasingly dim light.

In the distance, the outlines of the layered mountains began to blur in the faint twilight, like indistinct shadows, or perhaps because people were so hungry that their eyes were starting to glaze over.

Besides the sour smell of people, dust, and the most authentic aroma of porridge, the wind also seemed to carry a faint, almost imperceptible, stench of decay from the barren fields further away.

The grass is gone, the tree bark is stripped away, the rats in the field have all been caught and disappeared, even the Guanyin is scarce. So, in the end, what is left to eat?

No one can explain it clearly, and no one wants to explain it clearly.

A young man who had just finished half a bowl of porridge, licking the rim of the bowl clean, slowly sat down against a flagpole.

He raised his head and looked at the porridge distribution flag that was still fluttering limply in the wind. His eyes still held a great deal of light, yet they also seemed somewhat empty.

The long shadow of the flagpole stretched across the ground, across the huddled bodies, like unhealable wounds.

Yes, it's just like that streak in the sky.

For some reason, at this moment, while listening to the clerk-like man not far away asking around to find out who the person distributing porridge here was, and while gazing at the blood-red sky in the distance, the young man suddenly felt like laughing.

He wanted to laugh, he really wanted to laugh; that irrepressible urge to laugh had even begun to genuinely surface on his lips.

"Young man, watch it. Your smile isn't very attractive."

Only a sudden disturbance interrupted this inconspicuous process.

Before anyone knew it, a dim figure had already silently walked over in the wind.

He casually blew a breath onto the ground, then bent down and sat under the flagpole, gazing at the bloodstain in the sky that obscured the starlight.

Strangely, no one around stopped him. No, it was more like no one even noticed this strange fellow who had suddenly appeared.

His body trembled slightly, but he didn't react much. The young man, who had just finished drinking porridge, simply turned his head to carefully examine the "guest" in front of him, whose hair was completely white, yet whose face looked remarkably young.

"An assassin, or some kind of demon or monster? Or perhaps, judging from your white hair and youthful face, you're not some kind of deity, are you?"

"Hmm, what if I said I was a god?"

"Come on, go look around the world. There are no gods out there. Don't try to play this kind of joke on me."

With a disdainful shrug, the young man made a joke while his hand quietly reached for the purse at his waist.

Aside from some miscellaneous items, there was a short leather knife inside.

"Yes," Chen Jingqiu, "You know, in this world, even gods can't save them."

The white-haired figure pointed to the displaced people who were already swaying and about to squat down, yet still persevering and waiting for the porridge to be distributed.

"Otherwise, you shouldn't have become the Heavenly General."