Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 485 Escaped

He was furious with Hua Mancheng and, regardless of the lives of the people, ordered Hua Mancheng to immediately stop disaster relief and hand over the tax silver to the state government.

However, once they lost their rice and medicine, the already homeless people would have even less means to survive. So the upright Hua Mancheng pretended to obey but actually disobeyed, delaying for a month and using all the money in the county on the people.

A month later, after being scolded by Zhu Zhizhou again, he directly submitted his resignation and prepared to return to Tongde Town with Yun Siwan.

Although Changyun County was still devastated, it had survived the most difficult period. However, many people infected with the disease had died.

He and his wife were infected with the disease one after another. When he was dying, he entrusted the eleven-year-old Cheng Linsheng to Hua Mancheng, asking him to take care of him.

To some extent, the couple are both natives of Changyun County. However, their family is relatively small. Cheng Linsheng's maternal grandparents' home is next to the river in Changfeng Town, upstream of Changyun County. When the river burst its banks, the entire family of seven disappeared without a trace.

To a certain extent, he was the only son. Although Cheng Linsheng had been hiding at home with his elderly parents and wife, he could not escape the epidemic and died one after another.

To some extent, it was because he had been following Hua Mancheng to help with disaster relief and had not taken care of his family, and he felt guilty. He ignored Hua Mancheng's order to burn the bodies of those who died of the epidemic.

Without telling Hua Mancheng, he went alone to bury the bodies of his parents and wife. Four or five days after returning, he began to have a fever and vomit. After dragging on for more than half a month, he closed his eyes unwillingly.

Before his death, he entrusted Cheng Linsheng, who was only eleven years old, to Hua Mancheng. So, Hua Mancheng and Yun Siwan, who resigned in anger, took Cheng Linsheng and left Changyun Town. Originally, they thought that since they had resigned from their posts, there would be nothing to worry about.

Little did they know that Zhu Zhizhou of Chengde Prefecture initially accepted Hua Mancheng's resignation, took over the affairs of Changyun County, and allowed Hua Mancheng and his wife to leave.

However, a few days later, he heard rumors that the higher-ups were going to collect taxes and silver, so he was unwilling to let Hua Mancheng go and insisted on putting him in jail to absolve himself of his guilt.

As a result, Hua Mancheng was arrested by the yamen runners who followed him in an inn in Changwen County, which is located on the edge of Chengde Prefecture, and was temporarily detained in the Changwen County prison.

Yun, who was more than four months pregnant, was frightened by the sudden disaster and had a miscarriage. While lying in the inn, dying, she had to think of a way to help Hua Mancheng.

The money she had with her was not much to begin with, and it was soon used up. However, her health did not improve, and there was no news from her husband who was still in prison.

Just when they were at their wit's end, in the middle of the night, the half-dead Hua Mancheng was suddenly dragged back to the inn by the yamen runners, and Hua Mancheng and the other two were forced to leave Changwen County overnight.

When the yamen runner left, he stuffed a note and some small change into Hua Mancheng's hand. After reading the note, Hua Mancheng did not dare to delay, and took Yun and Cheng Linsheng, dragging his injuries, into the forest and continued on his way.

It turned out that Hua Mancheng learned from the note that the court had issued a notice regarding disaster relief, and that the counties and cities severely affected by the disaster could directly use the tax silver they received for disaster relief.

No matter how much is spent, just report it according to the actual situation when the time comes. If the disaster relief is effective, there will be rewards, so Hua Mancheng is not only not guilty, but also very likely to have made contributions.

Therefore, Zhu Zhizhou of Chengde Prefecture took all the credit for a series of disaster relief work in Changyun County on himself and reported a huge figure.

Worried that Hua Mancheng would ruin his good deeds, he ordered the magistrate of Changwen County to kill Hua Mancheng, who was still in prison, to silence him once and for all.

However, the magistrate of Changwen County was still sober. On the one hand, he could not stand the governor's misbehavior, and on the other hand, he did not want his hands to be stained with the blood of court officials, lest if something went wrong, he would have to take the blame for others.

In addition, he and Hua Mancheng had met several times and had some understanding of Hua Mancheng's character, so he used a person with a similar body shape who had died of the disease to report to his superiors.

Hua Mancheng and others were driven out of Changwen County and Chengde Prefecture overnight, and Hua Mancheng escaped the disaster.

Hua Mancheng, his wife, and Cheng Linsheng traveled for another seven or eight days before Yun Siwan finally fainted from exhaustion. The eleven-year-old Cheng Linsheng also caught a cold and developed a high fever. Hua Mancheng's wounds also began to become inflamed.

At this time, Hua Mancheng and the other two were in a remote valley. They had no choice but to find a mountain villager at the deepest part of the mountain foot, gave him all the small coins given by the yamen runners, and temporarily hid in the mountain villager's house to rest and recuperate.

Fortunately, the mountain villager family they settled in only had a grandfather in his sixties, Ni Tiechui, and a ten-year-old granddaughter, Ni Daya.

However, Ni Tiechui knew a little about medicine. Seeing that Hua Mancheng and the other two were sick or injured, he used herbs picked from the mountains to treat them.

Because of the reminder on the note, Hua Mancheng and his wife did not dare to use their real names when they settled down, so they concealed their given names and used the same surname as Cheng Linsheng.

The treatment lasted for more than half a year before the couple was almost fully recovered. However, apart from the few coins they gave to Grandfather Ni when they stayed at the hotel, Hua Mancheng and his wife were left with nothing.

Apart from a few half-new clothes he had on, he could not afford the food, lodging and medical expenses for the next six months. Although Ni Tiechui was simple, he did not ask Hua Mancheng and his wife for any food, lodging and medical expenses.

However, even if they didn't have to pay for food, lodging and medical expenses, Hua Mancheng and his wife were indeed penniless and had no money to return home. So, while helping Grandfather Ni with things within their ability, they still shamelessly stayed in the valley.

In this way, Hua Mancheng and his wife stayed in the Ni family. On the one hand, Yun continued to recuperate, while Hua Mancheng followed Ni's grandfather to the mountain, picking some food to fill his stomach and barely getting by.

There are fifteen or sixteen families living in the valley where the Ni family lives. They all fled here in the past, so every household is basically very poor and usually live a self-sufficient life in the mountains.

People would only go to the town when they really needed to buy some salt and rice. They seldom went out at other times. Besides, the valley was far away from the town, and one had to pay two cents to enter the town, so even fewer people went there.

Hua Mancheng went to the town even less frequently. On the one hand, he was worried that Zhu Zhizhou might find out something and would not give up and would continue to kill people to silence them. Therefore, he tried not to go to crowded places.