Chapter 156: The Other Courtyard is Destroyed and the Brothers Beg for Help

After the chaos, soldiers and runners cleaned up the streets and the battlefield. The city gates were naturally not sealed. Everyone was busy counting the losses, looking for lost relatives, and collecting the remains of their family members...

Led by Ji Mo, they hurried out of the city and arrived at the inn outside the city. The place was no longer the same as when they first came here. All they could see were ruins.

The shop owner was in a dishevel, with a gray and black face and bloodstained clothes. He was leading a young child with a limping leg. He was wiping his tears while cleaning up the losses in the shop and digging out the corpses lying around in the shop.

Seeing this, Xu Miaoniang became timid and pulled Yi Ge'er, unwilling to go forward. Li Yaoguang did not force her and asked her to wait. Then he and Ji Mo walked into the unrecognizable inn side by side.

Upon learning that Li Yaoguang and Ji Mo were there to pick up horses, the shopkeeper gave a sad smile that was uglier than crying, and pointed to the scorched earth barn in the backyard that was still smoking.

"The Japanese bandits came too quickly and too suddenly, killing everyone they saw. It was a chaotic scene at the time, and I don't know who set fire to the barn. All the animals in the barn were frightened, some ran away, some died. Your horse, your horse..." Thinking of the tragic death of his wife and children, and decades of hard work and savings that had all gone to waste, with only his child who was tightly protected by his wife left, the shopkeeper looked at the mess with numb despair in his eyes, "Sir, please decide how to accompany you. I will sell everything I have to make up for it..."

Li Yaoguang: "Forget it, no need to pay."

The horse came for free anyway, so just let it be lost. If she insisted on asking the store to compensate her, she was afraid that the father and son who had managed to survive would be forced into a dead end immediately.

He secretly made a note of the chicken in the basin, and when he passed by the ignorant and frightened child who could only timidly look at his desperate father, Li Yaoguang secretly took out two silver coins and threw them into the broken pottery basin that the child had just picked up, patted the child's tender shoulder, turned around and left.

Seeing this, Ji Mo touched his waist belt, took out a bag of medicine and put it into the basin. Without saying much, he followed Li Yaoguang's steps and walked out of the inn.

When everyone had left, the child suddenly came to his senses, turned around and shouted anxiously, "Dad, Dad, Dad..."

The shopkeeper was awakened by his son's shouting. He panicked and limped over. Before he even got to him, the child raised the basin in his hand and tried to get closer to his father, "Dad, Dad, look, look..."

When the shopkeeper saw what was in the basin in his son's hand, he was stunned. Then he reacted and turned his son around, only to see that the person had disappeared. The shopkeeper's eyes suddenly became hot. He held his son in one hand and the basin in the other, and cried loudly in the direction where Li Yaoguang and Ji Mo left.

The warmth given by the stranger completely broke the shop owner's defense. At this moment, the father and son seemed to want to cry out all their grievances and sorrows, but Li Yaoguang and the others who had walked far away could not hear them.

Everything we saw along the way was not good. It was not difficult to imagine that the Japanese bandits started looting from outside the city. Then we thought of the huge villa we passed by earlier. With its scale and grandeur, it was obvious that it was a wealthy family. I was afraid that it was exactly the kind of food that the Japanese bandits liked.

Li Yaoguang and Ji Mo walked hurriedly in front, praying in their hearts that nothing would happen in the villa, otherwise the siblings behind them would be in trouble again.

But when he saw the thick smoke rising from the direction of the villa in the distance, Li Yaoguang couldn't help but sigh.

She knew it! Ever since she boarded this one-way train and arrived in Dajing, she couldn't bear to look at her fate. The courtyard in front of her was filled with smoke and flames, with corpses everywhere. Xu Miaoniang was timid and didn't dare to go forward. Li Yaoguang wanted to go in to check, but Ji Mo didn't let her. He stopped her and went in to take a look. When he came out, he met three pairs of expectant eyes and shook his head regretfully.

“No one survived.”

Xu Miaoniang's legs went limp on the spot, and she fell to the ground. It wasn't because she felt sorry for the tragic death of the family that took her in, but...

The household registration fish tokens of her and her brother, the jewelry given by her mother, and the valuables and tokens given by General Shen when she left Pengcheng were all in it. Even the valuables that she had sewed into her clothes with her own hands. After changing into the good clothes prepared by the owner of the villa, she put all those things into the box without touching them.

It can be said that at this moment, except for the five taels of silver given by the lady of the villa owner's house for shopping, she has nothing else.

Thinking that she and her brother would no longer have anyone to rely on, and that the person she had tried every means to rely on was not around, Xu Miaoniang suddenly looked at Li Yaoguang who was talking to Ji Mo beside her, as if a drowning person had grabbed a life-saving straw.

She jumped up, pulled Yi Ge'er and rushed to Li Yaoguang. Xu Miaoniang grabbed Li Yaoguang's arm and shook it anxiously.

"Sister Guang, dear sister, please help me, take me and Brother Yi away. Our household registration fish tokens and valuables are all in this villa. I'm afraid, I'm afraid we can't find them again... Woo woo woo, dear girl, just for the sake of my parents, please take me and Brother Yi away, please."

She knew it would be like this!

Li Yaoguang's head hurt from Xu Miaoniang's crying, but Ji Mo, who was standing beside him, crossed his arms and was not moved by Xu Miaoniang's crying. Instead, he raised his eyebrows and glanced at Xu Miaoniang and her brother, then his eyes fell on Li Yaoguang, "Are you sure you want to take it?"

Before Li Yaoguang could speak, Xu Miaoniang, who had been staring at her, seemed to be afraid that she would shake her head and say it was unusual, so she secretly pinched her brother's arm. Yi Ge'er frowned in pain, but did not cry. Xu Miaoniang secretly cursed him as an idiot, and hurriedly pushed Yi Ge'er towards Li Yaoguang. She gritted her teeth, and fiercely pulled her brother to his knees.

"Sister Guang, I was wrong before. I shouldn't have rejected your kindness and not gone with you. I know I was wrong. I don't know how to appreciate good people. Please don't hold it against me! I know you are a good person, and Aunt Cheng Su and Yu are also good people! Please, for the sake of Yi Ge'er and Yang Ge'er getting along well, for the sake of him being young, and for the sake of my deceased parents, don't bother with me and take us with you. If we stay here, the Japanese pirate Hu Di will come again one day! Sister Guang, you can't bear to see our friends die like this, right? You still have good thoughts towards strangers. We are friends! Sister Guang, please don't abandon us, I'm scared!"

Wiping away tears and crying miserably, fearing that Li Yaoguang would be cruel and refuse, Xu Miaoniang was busy pressuring her stupid brother beside her, "Quick, brother Yi, kowtow to your sister Yaoguang and beg her to take us in. Come on!"

She didn't understand why a little yellow-haired girl always had powerful people around her to protect her;

She didn't understand why she was so good, but she could only drift with her brother, helpless and homeless;
Yes, she was not convinced and she was jealous, but the situation forced her to put aside all her dignity and backbone, kneel down and beg this little yellow-haired girl whom she looked down upon.

Hate? Hate, especially when the person you want to rely on doesn't even want to look at you, accepts you, but then pushes you into the fire pit;
Beg? Of course, because if she didn't beg, she knew very well that she would never be able to leave this cannibalistic place on her own, even without her brother's burden;
Regret? Yes, if she had known that she would be in such a helpless situation, she should not have listened to her mother and followed her tribe to survive. This would have been a hundred times better than the current path.
The more she thought about it, the sadder she became. Xu Miaoniang really cried. She was no longer pretty, but crying loudly with snot and tears all over her face.