After that, Li Ping'an ran into Sister-in-law Cai twice in the village.
Neither of them said a word.
Sister-in-law Cai looked as though she had lost her soul.
Not long afterward, Sister-in-law Cai and her family left the little mountain village.
After all, after something like that had happened,
the villagers could no longer tolerate their family.
In the blink of an eye, summer arrived.
Taking advantage of the clear weather, Li Ping'an cut the greens he had planted in his vegetable garden.
Then he went to the pond and washed them one by one.
By the pond, a group of aunties chatted as they washed vegetables.
Worry was written all over their faces, and they kept sighing.
The roving bandits were growing increasingly powerful. According to people returning from outside, they had actually begun laying siege to the county town.
These bandits committed every evil imaginable, stealing grain, seizing women, and burning houses.
Fortunately, the county town was not something they could breach just because they wanted to.
There had been rumors of bandits attacking the town before, but government troops had driven them off every time.
These bandits could only bully unarmed commoners. Once government troops arrived, they scattered across the wilderness.
After all, mobilizing government troops even once cost a considerable amount in provisions.
Though these bandits were not particularly formidable fighters, they were as irritating as flies.
The authorities were therefore in no hurry to encircle and attack them, instead waiting for the roaming fighters to grow in number before catching them all in one net.
But the townspeople knew nothing of this, and everyone was on edge.
Ultimately, though, these so-called bandits were merely ordinary people who could no longer scrape by.
With a little incitement, they had risen in rebellion.
When someone was