Chapter 230

Xu Ran Xu Ran gave the two children a lecture on the shuttlecock thing, and the two children were more close to Xu Ran.

Of course, Xu Ran did not forget to let them take good care of Baozi. After all, Baozi was favored by their family. Apart from eating, he had no advantages, nor disadvantages.

He would learn whatever you told him to, but he wouldn’t be good at it, and wouldn’t know much. But you couldn’t blame him either. After all, he knew a little bit about everything. Xu Ran deeply felt that that if you introduce Baozi to others, the only quality you could say about him would be no leftovers when he ate.

Helpless as he was, he would still have to spoil him because he was still young after all. More importantly, both of his brothers were very capable, so he wouldn’t have to worry about food or clothing in the future.

The village had been quite calm for the past few days, mainly because it was raining heavily. People barely went out and no one knew what was going on outside.

Xu Ran wanted to let Gao Quan go to the town to take a look, but the rain was too heavy and it was not convenient for him to go out.

However, the quite days would not last long. The rain had just become lighter and Xu Ran was ready to go out to take a breath.

As soon as he was out, he stretched himself a little at the door and noticed something was going on at the back of the mountain. Someone was talking, and more importantly, Xu Ran saw vaguely what those people were carrying.

Xu Ran felt something was wrong. What was it so important that they had to carry it up a mountain on such a rainy day?

He called Gao Quan over again and said to him, “Let us follow behind them quietly to see what happened, Could it be that someone has been infected by the plague?”

Now, this was the only thing Xu Ran could suspect.

Gao Quan had no objections. Each of them took a stick and quietly walked up the mountain.

When they got close enough to them, they found that there were seven or eight people there, and all of them were from the village. Young and old, and six of them were carried three people while the other two were each carrying one, and it looked like a family.

People who were carried seemed to be dead. Xu Ran and Gao Quan couldn’t be sure because they were far away. Xu Ran just said to Gao Quan, “Remember these people’s faces. I’ll go find the village chief. There must be something wrong with these people. It’s better to be on guard early.”

Gao Quan nodded, indicating that he would keep an eye on these people. Xu Ran quietly slipped down the mountain after he said that. He didn’t go home but went straight to find the village chief.

Xu Ran met someone on patrol on the way and Xu An happened to be there. He pulled Xu An over and told him what had just happened. Xu An didn’t believe it at first. Then, he patted his hand and said, “Oh, no!”

Xu Ran quickly asked him, “Brother Xu An, what’s wrong?” What’s the problem?”

Xu An said to Xu Ran, “We saw footprints at the entrance of the village the day before yesterday when we were on patrol. They went from the outside to the inside. We found it strange but we didn’t see anyone coming in so we didn’t take it seriously. However, we have been thinking about this for the past few days, so we would pay more attention to them when we were patrolling.”

“Isn’t it normal to have footprints at the entrance of the village?” Why is it strange?” asked Xu Ran.

“But the village chief had already asked us to wipe out the footprints before the village was under lockdown. Apart from the patrolling team, no one else  was allowed to go to the entrance of the village. Even if there were footprints, they could only be from the inside to the outside. That’s why we felt strange, but we didn’t find anything unusual in the past few days. Just as we were about to feel relieved,  you came. ” Xu An answered.

Xu An and Xu Ran muttered to each other while the others were waiting by the side. They finally called Xu An because the two of them had talked for a long time.

So Xu An told them what Xu Ran had just seen and they all got anxious. It seemed that someone from the outside had came in, and they were probably still infected with the plague.

Xu An said, “Guys, I’ll go to the mountain to see whose relatives they are. If they were really infected with the plague, these people who have come into contact with them  can’t live in the village anymore. People are dead, and these people might be infected with the plague.”

Everyone agreed with Xu An and they all ran up the mountain one after another.

Xu An walked at the back of the line and he asked Xu Ran what he was going to do. Xu Ran said, “I was about to go out to take a breath, but as soon as I went out the door, I saw someone on the mountain and I felt something was wrong. So I followed them with Gao Quan and saw someone walking up the mountain. I was afraid that something might happen, so I decided to go find the village chief, then I saw you on the way.”

Xu An said, “Since that’s the case, let us go there and take a look first. And you should  continue to go to the village chief and ask him to come together. It would be much easier to deal with if something really happens.”

Xu Ran nodded. “All right,  you go ahead first! And I’ll go find the village chief.”

So the two of them ran away separately. Xu Ran was thinking as he ran, what if the village was really infected with the plague? There were so many people in his family, young and old, it would be quite difficult to deal with. Fortunately, they had enough precautions, and they barely had contact with people in the village except him. They should be fine.

Xu Ran could only comfort himself now.

Xu Ranran to the village chief’s home quickly and called the village chief aloud. The village chief soon came out. Seeing that it was Xu Ran again, he had a bad feeling instantly.

The village chief asked, “Xu Ran! What happened again? Don’t tell me that someone in the village had been infected with plague. That would be a big trouble. ”

Xu Ran waved his hand and said, “It isn’t the case, but not much of a difference. I just noticed that some people from the village were carrying others to the mountain, and the people who were carried didn’t look like the villagers. I came to you because I was worried that something might happen. I ran into a patrol team on the way and I told them. They were probably rushing up the mountain now.”

The village chief felt a sudden dart of panic when he heard this. He hurriedly said to Xu Ran, “Let’s go to the mountain and take a look. If someone from another village really came in and got infected with the plague, it would be a big problem.”

The village chief said very urgently, but Xu Ran could understand him. He hurriedly rushed to the mountain with the village chief. He also went home and told them not to go in any case.

Hearing to Xu Ran’s words, everyone knew that something had happened in the village, so they all promised that they would not go out.

The patrol party had already arrested all of them when Xu Ran and the Village Chief arrived. There were five people lying on the ground, four adults and a child. Some of them had already died and the others were almost dying, too.

These people looked pale and there are a lot of red spots on their faces.What else could it be but the plague?”

The village chief asked the patrol party, “What’s going on? These people lying on the ground are not from the village!”

Everyone of the patrol party looked at each other and no one said anything. They probably didn’t know what was going on themselves.

Xu Ran looked around and found that Gao Quan was not there. He guessed that he might be hiding somewhere.

But it would be okay. If there was something wrong, he would handle it all by himself.

Since no one was speaking,  Xu Ran asked Xu An, “What’s going on? Have you seen these people when you checked?”

Xu An shook his head and said. “We’ve never seen them before. There were no outsiders in Xu Dafang’s home when we were checking, so I guessed that these people had probably sneaked in the day before yesterday.”

Being caught, Xu Dafang’s family was also frightened. They told the truth before the village chief ask.

These people were distant relatives of Xu Dafang in the town, and they had secretly come to the village the night before yesterday. It was raining heavily and the sky was very dark, so the patrol team did not notice them.

Initially, the Xu family was unwilling to take them in because they were afraid of the plague, but these distant relatives gave them fifty taels of silver and asked Xu Dafang to allow them to stay here for a few days. They promised they were not infected and they would leave immediately as soon as it was over.

Xu Dafang agreed for the sake of the silver. They thought that since they were not infected,  it would be fine if they stayed for a while. After all, this was 50 taels of silver! They hadn’t earned so much for so many years.

However, things did not turn out as he had expected.  Xu Dafang’s family had suddenly suffered a fever and their faces gotten red the morning before yesterday. They didn’t even speak very flueThe Xu Dawang family was frightened and wanted to chase these distant relative away.

But his distant relatives were not easy to deal with. He clearly told Xu Dafang that their family had long been infected with the plague but it was not that serious. However, it got worse and worse after the rain. He also threatened that if he chased them out, he would tell the villagers that the Xu family was infected with the plague.

His words frightened Xu Dafang and he did not dare to drive them away.

Therefore, Xu Dawang did nothing about it. He even thought that there might be a chance that they would get well soon .

However, Xu Dawang noticed there was something wrong with his relatives this morning. A few of the children were dead, and two young men also stopped breathing. Only this distant relative and his eldest son was alive, but they also looked like they were dying soon.

Xu Dafang was frightened again. He discussed with his family and decided to bury the corpse to destroy the evidence.

He decided to carry them up the hill and throw them down the cliff, so no one would know that they were there.

However, they were not that lucky. They got caught by Xu Ran when he came out of his home.