activa-t Chapter 5 Companionship
Chapter 5 Companionship
The wind swept in from the north, carrying with it the acrid smell of burning vegetation.
Li Qian lay prone beneath the collapsed earthen slope, his spine pressed firmly against the cold, hard yellow soil. The sack of raw millet in his arms was heavy, emitting the most ominous smell in this desolate wasteland.
He looked down at his hands; the scabs had cracked open, and dark red liquid mixed with black mud had formed a crust under his fingernails.
He was so hungry that his vision was starting to blur.
But within that illusory vision, several dark figures were precisely spotted moving in this direction.
There was no sound of horses' hooves. Li Qian pressed his ear to the soil, hearing only the soft rustling of tattered straw sandals and bare feet stepping into the dry, hard earth. Those were refugees.
In these times, refugees are more dangerous than soldiers. Soldiers rob you on official business, but refugees take your life just to fill their stomachs.
Li Qian didn't dare to move, his right hand gripping the bloodstained dagger tightly, his breathing extremely shallow.
"Old Zhao, this place smells strongly of blood. It's probably been through a war. Shall we...shall we go around to the north?" A hoarse voice rang out a few feet away, carrying a lingering fear.
"What nonsense! To the north is Beijing, right under the Emperor's nose!" The old man leading the group said in a low voice, his tone revealing a humble stubbornness. "It's the tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor's reign now. I've heard that foreigners are causing a ruckus in Tianjin, and the Emperor is in dire need of guards. If we're in Beijing, the officials will at least give us a handout. Staying in Zhili, we'll just starve to death!"
As the old man spoke, he tapped the ground with the wooden stick in his hand.
Li Qian lay hidden in the shadows, a cold smile playing on his lips. The tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor's reign. History flashed through his mind like a scorching flame—in the tenth year of Xianfeng's reign, the Anglo-French allied forces had already entered Beijing, and the Xianfeng Emperor was busy fleeing to Rehe for his life. The capital city was no longer a mountain of gold and silver, but a powder keg already smoking.
These poor wretches actually wanted to go to the capital to beg for a bowl of porridge.
He didn't dodge anymore, but stood up steadily, kicking up a fine dust cloud.
"Who?!"
The old man cried out in surprise, raising the wooden stick in his hand like a snake startled from its slumber. Several dark figures behind him also shrank into a ball, their eyes fixed on Li Qian.
The moon had just begun to peek through the clouds, casting a sliver of light.
Li Qian stopped five steps away. The sharp knife hung downwards, the blood on the blade, not yet dried, gleaming a thick, dark red in the moonlight. Half of his face was covered in blood, the other half in dust, but his eyes were cold and inhuman.
"Don't panic, I'm just trying to make a living too."
Li Qian's voice wasn't loud, but in the vast wilderness, it was as steady as a block of raw iron.
The men opposite him froze. They stared at Li Qian, or more precisely, at the bulging grain sack in his arms. Faced with the irresistible aroma of the grain, even the knife in Li Qian's hand seemed less frightening.
"You...you're all alone?" The old man leading the group squinted, his eyes darting back and forth between the grain sack and the knife.
"We just fought our way out," Li Qian said calmly.
The old man stared at the bloodstains on Li Qian's body and swallowed hard. Having lived most of his life, he could tell that it was freshly splattered blood. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes twitched violently twice as he began to reassess the seemingly frail young man before him, who was actually like a hungry wolf.
"Did you steal this grain?"
"Whoever wants to eat me, I'll eat them first," Li Qian replied coldly.
A man behind him muttered, "That's a serious crime; if the authorities investigate, they'll be beheaded..."
"Stop gossiping!" the old man immediately shouted, spitting a mouthful of dirt-covered saliva at the ground. "Young man, we poor folks don't ask for anything else but food. Since you've also stolen grain, why don't you come with us? My name is Old Man Zhao, and the rest of you we'll meet on the road. Let's head north; the capital is a big city, there'll always be a way to survive."
Li Qian stared at the old man Zhao, then suddenly smiled. The smile, set against the backdrop of blood, appeared extremely ferocious.
"Heading north? That's to make a splash with the foreigners' cannonballs."
Old Zhao was stunned: "What... a foreigner?"
"It's been ten years since the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, and you still haven't figured things out?" Li Qian took a half-step forward, his murderous aura crashing down. "Beijing is a death trap now. The foreigners' cannons are already at the city walls. Even the Emperor has fled to Rehe. Do you think you bunch of rotten bones will be able to drink porridge in Beijing, or will you be used to fill mass graves?"
These words struck him like a thunderbolt, causing the wooden stick in Old Zhao's hand to clatter to the ground. The men behind him exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes filled with despair.
"If we're not going to the capital... then where are we going?" a man who hadn't dared to speak until now asked in a trembling voice.
Li Qian stared into their eyes, raised his blood-stained hand, and pointed it firmly into the darkness to the south.
"Head south. To southern Yunnan."
"Southern Yunnan?" Old Zhao's voice changed. "That's Yunnan...that's the end of the world! I heard it's full of miasma and poisonous insects, a place the government can't touch..."
"The best place is one where the government can't interfere."
Li Qian's voice grew increasingly deep.
"The Qing Dynasty is rotten to the core. Foreigners are causing trouble in the capital, the Taiping Rebellion is causing trouble in the south, and Zhili is a living graveyard. If you want to live, come with me. Yunnan is mountainous and densely forested. People like us can eat meat if we have a knife, and survive if we have hands. It may be far and tough, but it's the way to be a 'human being'."
When Li Qian said this, his eyes were extremely sharp. He knew that these people were now like stray dogs with broken spines, and he had to give them a tough bone to gnaw on.
"Finding company is fine. But there are no laws of the Qing Dynasty here, only my rules."
Li Qian took another half step forward, used the tip of his knife to pick up the wooden stick that Old Zhao had dropped on the ground, and swung it hard to the side.
"I don't care who you were before, or how you are ranked. Here, I have food, and you give your lives."
Li Qian stared into Old Zhao's eyes, and in that instant, it was as if he had crushed and kneaded together the soul of the time traveler of the past few decades and the bloodshed of the late Qing Dynasty.
"This grain was earned with my life. If anyone dares to touch it without my consent, I'll chop off their hand. If anyone tries to sneak away, I'll cut their stomach open first. If you accept these rules, come with me. If not, get out now, and we'll be enemies in the next moment."
A gust of wind whipped up a cloud of yellow dust, which landed on the faces of several people.
The broad-shouldered man remained firmly behind, protecting the child in his arms whose cries were almost gone, then glanced at the bag of grain in Li Qian's hand. He knew that going to the capital was a dream, going to Yunnan was a gamble, but without grain, they were doomed.
"become."
Old Zhao was a seasoned veteran; he knew that in times like these, only the ruthless could pull it off. He stared into Li Qian's lifeless eyes, his legs still trembling, but he gritted his teeth and led the way in squatting down.
"From now on, boss... wherever you point, we'll go."
Seeing this, the other refugees also squatted down one after another. This was the oldest gesture of submission in the Zhili region, a pledge of allegiance where they surrendered their lives.
Li Qian looked at the huddled figures on the ground, feeling nothing. He knew this was just the beginning. These people were following him now because they were hungry; later, they would follow him out of fear, or something deeper.
He sheathed his knife and tightly tied the grain sack to his waist.