"Ah!"
Someone in the crowd cried out.
Everyone took a few steps back again.
"Is this the same as what you saw by the river dam village last time?" Meng Shaode's hand holding the feather arrow trembled slightly.
"It's exactly the same," Cai Lihua covered her mouth in fright.
"Mm, but this meat doesn't seem as fresh as what we found before," A Jiu noticed many dead insects.
If it were fresh, after the surface dried, the insects, relying on blood for sustenance, would be trapped within the meat.
However, this piece of meat clearly had a dried surface, yet many of the insects inside seemed to have starved to death.
Perhaps it was related to the deep autumn, the surface looked fresh but had actually dried out a layer, while the meat didn't rot as quickly.
"Ugh!"
Someone in the crowd couldn't help but vomit.
This was something they had eaten before.
Then three or five people followed suit, retching, "Who the hell is so wicked? If I catch them, I'll rip their dog's life out."
Guang Wenqiang cursed indignantly.
After Meng Shaode buried the poisonous meat, everyone fell silent. To A Jiu's surprise, as soon as they started on the path down the mountain, they found more and more of it in the woods.
"Miss Meng, there's another piece..."
A Jiu pushed through the crowd and looked back. This piece of meat was clearly fresher than the previous ones.
"Shaode, this is obviously someone deliberately trying to harm people. If any more refugees pass this way, many more will die," Cai Lihua said, trembling with fear.
Meng Shaode stood frozen in the crowd, staring at the piece of meat, a suppressed rage slowly appearing in his eyes:
"It's getting late, everyone rest for now. I'll go look around. If I can catch that person, I'll stuff the meat into his mouth."
With that, he suddenly stood up, grabbed his bow and arrows, and walked into the woods.
"Father, you must be careful." A Jiu felt her mother's words were reasonable and didn't stop him.
Guang Wenqiang and the others naturally hated the scoundrel who was causing harm more than anyone. "Let's split up and search. We'll take them alive."
In an instant, eighty to ninety people divided into four groups and dispersed, leaving only A Jiu and her grandparents.
"So many troubles," Madam Wang grumbled, finding a rugged, strange rock to sit on and ignoring these bothersome matters.
"Daughter, you could say we're lucky to be alive. We knew this meat was problematic early on."
Cai Lihua was still shaken. She thought that if her daughter hadn't had a spiritual spring space and wasn't lacking food along the way, they might also have been tempted by that poisonous meat.
"Mother, don't worry. If they catch them, they catch them. If not, then so be it." A Jiu knew from the start that the poisoned meat incident wasn't aimed at any single individual, but involved political affairs.
"That won't do. Such a wicked person who harms others and benefits no one must be cut into a thousand pieces." Cai Lihua hadn't been so passionate in a long time since the incident in Nanming City.
For her, the yearning for a stable life and a fatter daughter, a beautiful life, had been shattered time and again, and she was no longer as vibrant as before.
Just then, a commotion erupted from deep within the woods.
"You brat, you can't get away this time."
"Where did you guys come from? Are you bullying us because you have more people?"
"What do you care where we came from? You did wicked things and you want to deny it? So what if we bully you?" This was Meng Shaode's voice.
A Jiu immediately recognized it.
"Jiu'er, it looks like they've caught someone," Cai Lihua craned her neck nervously towards the woods, but in the dark, she could see nothing.
"Mother, don't worry. I can tell we have more people," A Jiu wasn't worried at all. That bow possessed almost divine power, and in her father's hands, it was like adding wings to a tiger.
"What do you want? Are you going to fight? I'm telling you, I'm not someone to be trifled with. All my brothers are at the foot of the mountain. As soon as I give the signal, you will all die."
Upon hearing this, A Jiu thought, brothers? Could it be a criminal gang?
"Mother, wait here. I'll go down the mountain to take a look first." Saying this, A Jiu slid down the steep slope into the darkness.
"Jiu'er, don't! Wait for your father to come back..." But as Cai Lihua stood up, she realized there was no sign of A Jiu on the narrow mountain path where visibility was zero.
"I'll go. Dawdling." Madam Wang got up and left, traversing the steep mountain cliff as if walking on flat ground.